Spike was moving a few books in the study to make everything compliant with Twilight’s new order about Å when she came inside.

“You know what I need to do?” she said.

“Stop talking to yourself?”

“That’s why I came in here, so I could say all this to somepony. I need to make a death game show. Like make a game show and kill the ponies who don’t do well enough.”

“Am I supposed to help?”

“No. I just didn’t want to talk to myself.”

“Why did you have to say it in the first place?”

“Look, I can’t go straight from talking to myself to not talking at all, I have to take this one step at a time. It’s like alcohol, you can’t just instantly stop.”

“That doesn’t—”

“Keep sorting.”

The set was going to be fairly simple. In the centre of the design was a nine-by-six-metre rectangle for the games to be. Near one end was a two-metre-tall cylindrical tower with stairs twirling around the outside, meant for Twilight to stand on top of to host the show and feel important. Near the other end line of the arena were the contestant podiums, and along the sides were stands. At the moment, however, it was a plain white room with a few ponies routing wires and assembling things, plus Twilight and another pony who didn’t appear to be doing anything.

“Hi, Twilight!” said the “supervisor”, as the pony standing around was titled. She was a white pegasus with a slightly but not horribly messy pink mane and a cutie mark depicting three pink spheres representing blown-up bubble gum, all to make her angry detailed criticisms and general constantly irritated demeanor as jarring as possible. She conformed to her appearance a bit more when she was talking to Twilight. “You know, it’s only been a few hours since we got here. I’m glad you care, but... I mean, you hired me for a reason.”

“Hi, Twi—” one of the workers said.

“You have a job. So how have things been since we met? Last night?”

“I’ve just been really excited about this. It’s all I could think about this morning, and eventually it got to sort of a weird level where it was actually all I could think about, so I hope by coming here I can let it all out or something.”

“I’m glad you’re excited, but you did come up with this two days ago....”

“That’s why it’s not a weekly show or whatever, because I know this is a phase I’ll go through occasionally. But as of right now, I’m really excited. So are the slaves doing a good job?”

“Yeah, I’ve made sure they don’t try to sneak a little rest in. Well, one of them did try, once, but I’m pretty sure I put a stop to that.”

“Good to hear.” Sugarcane Xanthan didn’t answer, so there was a brief pause. “I could watch these ponies work for hours.”

“Oh, I don’t need it explained.”

Applejack had Rainbow Dash right where she wanted her, which that particular day was tied to an apple tree. Rainbow had a vibrator inside her, currently on the “2” setting from 1 to 5.

“Did you hear about Twilight’s game show thing?”

“Ah just turned it up, you’re not allowed to be relaxed.”

“Well, I can still barely feel it, so I decided to be smug about it.”

“Anyway, Ah heard. Ah wish Ah could just have anythin’ Ah wanted ‘cause some royal thought Ah was the most smartest.”

“And what do you want?”

“That ain’t the point.”

“You’d rather have your friend be sad?”

“Ah just don’t think a big vanity project will be good for her... vanity. There are better ponies this power could go to. Lahke, can’t that money save a few starvin’ foals or somethin’?”

“I don’t think you care about starving foals, you’re just bitter. You could totally take in Scootaloo if you wanted to.”

“That would destroy Sweetie Belle’s lahfe.”

“So you’d rather the money go to helping—”

“For the last tahme, Ah never said all ponies who have made entertainment are evil and want foals to starve.”

“That’s what it sounds like when you bring that argument up.”

A pegasus with mostly indigo fur, the exceptional parts being white legs and wings coloured a bluish cyan, woke up in a plain white room six metres to a side. The bed he was placed on was in a corner of the room, a bedstand the only other furniture. There were two doors, one each on the walls opposite the bed. He got out of the white-painted bed with white sheets and noticed an index card on the bedstand.

“Your most recent memory should be Twilight strangling you. That’s because you’ve been foalnapped to be a contestant on Perform or Die. If you haven’t heard of it, then really, where have you been for the past month? Chatty jokes aside, the drawer contains granola bars, bottles of water, and a popular science magazine. One of the doors leads to the bathroom, and the other leads outside, but it’s locked. Enjoy being aware whilst you still can.”

Blue Jay suddenly didn’t feel that great. He thought he was dead the instant he saw Twilight break into his home, then he was thrilled to be alive when he woke up, and now he was probably going to die after all. He opened the drawer, and as promised, there were a few cranberry Grayesla bars, a few water bottles, and the latest issue of Probably Slightly More Correct Now. He still wasn’t over the fact that he was probably going to die.

“Well, fuck,” said a blue mare with a light grey mane and tail after she read the phrase “Perform or Die”. Her cutie mark, a pair of dice mid-roll, seemingly explained her name “Midnight”, but she actually had the name from birth due to being born fifteen minutes to then. She got back in bed, deciding that she didn’t even want the last hours of her life if she was just going to be angry.

A pale orange earth mare with an off-white mane that went down to her legs was the next to read the explanation. Her cutie mark was a tall, slightly curved glass containing an ice cream float with a bendy straw sticking out, which like the previous pony went with the name she already had, Orange Cream.

“Oh... my... it’s actually happening! I can’t believe it! I thought she was just on one of her killing sprees.” She gasped. “Maybe she was, but she liked me. Either way, she likes me! Or she hates me because she wants me to probably die. But she thinks I’d be an entertaining game show contestant! That’s something!” She paused for a moment. “I’m gonna be on the show!”

A white unicorn mare came in. “Oh, you’re awake. It was time to turn you over, but that’s good too.” She left.

“Eeeeeeee!” Orange Cream said before reading the rest of the card.

Once he finished reading it, a black unicorn named Razor’s Edge with a black mane and inkwell cutie mark tore the card in two. Then, with nothing to do, he opened the drawer and threw a granola bar across the room. He was typically very calm when faced with surprises good or bad, but something about dying seemed to anger him.

A grey earth stallion with a long black mane—normal length, by mare standards—was made slightly nervous by what he was told. He didn’t even have a cutie mark, so how was he supposed to win at anything game show-like? He didn’t consider himself particularly talented at anything remotely physical or particularly knowledgeable in the kinds of subjects there were a lot of trivia questions about. It was going to be a long day, or more probably a short one.

As a pink pegasus finished reading the card, she realised that this was destiny. The previous day, her cookie fortune read “Take a chance; you might win”. She could have easily bought a lottery ticket or finally kissed him, but instead, she put up a sign in her lawn that read “PICK ME TWILIGHT”. This was because her previous fortune read “You will prevail in the face of danger”. So many ponies read them and declared them vague, but of course they were when they had to be that short. The key was to collect enough of them to actually get a detailed message when they were interpreted together. And this particular time, she only needed two to know what she was meant to do.

“Is being on top of the pedestal all that you dreamed of?” Sugarcane said.

“It sure is.” It was just big enough for her to stand on comfortably, and had a knee-high railing she sometimes put her front hooves on when talking to others. “I see most of the seats are already filled, that’s nice.”

“Yeah, it is. Hey, is your water empty?”

“Yeah. I’m not thir—”

“DAIKON LEAF!” A stallion teleported in front of Sugarcane. “Her Highness needs water.”

“I don’t—” Twilight said.

He teleported away and came back with a couple bottles of water he then placed on the pedestal.

“Good. Return to what you were doing.” He teleported away. “You have any thoughts about who’s going to win?”

“None whatsoever.”

“Unpredictable to Twilight, it doesn’t get better than that.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about them....”

“Hello to everypony out there,” Twilight said, “And we welcome you into the game show with the highest stakes of all, Perform or Die.”

“Okay, that one was really good,” said a purplish blue stallion. “Try to do that.”

“It isn’t live, so don’t I win already?”

“Sure, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the contestants, it’s live for them.”

“I guess. Hey, what’s Sweet Dreams’ job again? She, like, manages something?”

“Restaurant manager.”

“Right, okay.”

“Hello to everypony out there,” Twilight said, “And we welcome you into the game show with the highest stakes of all, Perform or Die. We’ll be testing various abstract skills tonight, and the rules are quite simple: if you’re the last to leave the challenge uncompleted, and if it’s early enough in the show, you’ll be killed. So who are our contestants?

“Blue Jay, 25, is an accountant from Vota.” The audience cheered, as they did for everyone.

“Midnight, 23, is a manedresser from Chypz.

“Orange Cream, 22, is a waiter from Sparkstown.

“Razor’s Edge, 30, is a funambulist from Vota.

“Placid Night, 23, is a sales consultant from Canterlot.

“And Sweet Dreams, 35, is a restaurant manager from Battleknife.

“Now, on to the first challenge. Please enter your strip of the arena.” The arena was already lit lengthwise into six differently-coloured zones. “You’ll each see a box in front of you. Each box contains a plain black 100-piece jigsaw puzzle. The last to leave it unsolved will be ponially fibrillated by me. Three... two... one... go.”

The audience cheered for the start of the challenge. The contestants quickly separated themselves into tiers, Midnight being very good, Orange Cream and Sweet Dreams being very bad, and the others being decent.

“She’s just about there, and Midnight is the first to complete the challenge!” The audience cheered, and Midnight got up and did a small hop for joy. She looked satisfiedly at the puzzle and went back behind her podium. Things then settled down as everyone waited for the next completor. “And there’s Placid Night, into the next round!” Twilight said as the audience’s volume increased once again. “And look at this, two more ponies almost done! Not that it matters at all, but it’s a tight race for third. Whoever wins this can go home knowing they came third instead of fourth at the jigsaw puzzle, assuming they do, of course. Both almost there... and it’s Razor’s Edge who takes third, and there’s Blue Jay right behind!”

As the end approached, it was close for the only position that made any difference. “Orange Cream slightly ahead, but she looks a bit stuck. Something seems to have clicked with Sweet Dreams... but now Orange Cream’s on it, too! They both seem to have had some jigsaw-related epiphany! Who’s going to do it? Both with only a few pieces to go! Orange Cream still slightly ahead, but can she... oh no, that’s the wrong one! But Sweet Dreams with a similar slip-up! And there it is, Orange Cream completes the square!”

The audience cheered and Orange Cream jumped with a fair bit more height than Midnight. Sweet Dreams put her head down into the puzzle. She had two pieces to go, but it clicked with her just a second too late.

“Sweet Dreams...” Twilight said. She looked up at her. “You know what this means.”

She nodded and began to cry. Twilight took her in her magic and brought them to the same eye level. “Three... two... one....” She spasmed wildly for a few seconds, then abruptly stopped moving at all. Twilight dropped her. “We’ll see you on the other side of the break for the next round.”

After an advertisement for new Xtreem K@ndi Skwairz Citrus Xplosion Flavours, the show returned. “Welcome back to Perform to Die. Five contestants remain for our next round, Bowling But Different. As you can see, you have this surface two metres long with a table tennis ball on one end and a hole four centimetres in diameter on the other. Doesn’t take too much imagination to work it out. Whoever takes the greatest number of tries will have some of their most important bones broken. You’ll take turns in reverse order of when you completed the jigsaw puzzle, so Orange Cream, you’re up first.”

The ball went off before one third distance. This applied to the first tries of everyone except Razor’s Edge.

“It’s so close, is it going to go in, it’s... amazing!” The audience cheered. “First try for Razor’s Edge, and he’s through to the next round!”

A few rounds later, the next half-decent roll came from Blue Jay.

“Ooh, this is a good one. It’s slowing down, but it’s going to make it, oh, it’s drifting....” It rolled briefly along the edge of the hole as a golf ball might do. “Oh, it doesn’t get any closer than that! Is that the moment that cost him his life, we’ll have to see.”

The next round saw some serious action.

“Roll #7 for Orange Cream. Oh, it’s a quick one. Looking good... it’s in!” The audience cheered, and Twilight waited for them to quiet down. “And with that, if at least somepony misses this round, she lives another day.”

“Blue Jay’s seventh roll. Oh, I have a feeling this’ll be close... just to the left, maybe... oh, just to the left.” The audience let out a long “oooh”. “Blue Jay so close again.”

“Here’s Placid Night. Oh dear, he’s put a bit... yeah, it was looking good at first, but he put just a bit of curvature on it.”

“Midnight last up as always. That’s a bit slow, but it’ll make it. It’s to the right just a touch, but here it comes... and it’s in!” The audience cheered. “Midnight through to the next round!”

“Round #8, and suddenly we have just Blue Jay and Placid Night. One of these ponies is going to die, folks. Or maybe both, who knows? But one, for sure.”

“Blue Jay’s roll is... absolutely tragic. He looked to be getting the hang of it, but that was awful.”

“Placid Night. It’s a quick one, and it might... just to the right.”

The audience watched with their figurative popcorn as Blue Jay took position once again. “What will he do this time? We know he can do it. They can both do it. He’s still preparing himself... and there it goes. It’s looking good, it’s looking really good... and he’s done it!” The audience cheered. “Well, he’s almost through, let’s see how Placid gets on....”

“Look at how hard he’s concentrating. This really is it for him. Blue Jay watching nervously and maybe a little expectantly... and there it goes, but that’s a bit diagonal... and it’s rolled off. Placid Night knew from the moment that left his hoof.” She took him in her telekinesis as with the previous pony. “Well, you know what this means....”

She snapped his right tibia, then quickly the corresponding femur, and he screamed as one would expect. The left hindleg followed, then the counterparts on the right then left forelegs. “You know, I was going to pull out all your teeth, but you’re kinda loud.” She snapped his neck and dropped him. “Well, that’s that round. See you after the break.”

During the break, the arena slid under the floor in two pieces, revealing a spiked pit underneath, and four pairs of metal posts with a rope connecting them at the top were put in. “Welcome back to Perform or Die. We have four ponies left, which means this is the last round where the last place pony dies. You’ll all hang on one of these ropes as it digs into the back of your front knees, and whoever succumbs to the pain or slips first loses. It’s that simple. It’s also what the team of unicorns behind you is for.” They were lifted up onto the ropes. “And we’re going.”

One minute in, two of them had eyes closed and teeth gritted, Orange Cream had her eyes open but still seemed fairly stressed, and Razor’s Edge was downright bored. It turned out to be an extremely boring event, with nothing ever changing. After over two hours, Midnight raised her left leg up, causing her to slip and fall into the spikes on her back. She screamed much more loudly than others had done, and Twilight gave her five seconds before lifting her out, flipping her over, and slamming her back into the spikes, which stopped the screaming. The other three were lifted back to the podium area.

“Well, congratulations,” Twilight said. “You’re the survivors of this episode.” The audience cheered. “Now all that’s left to see is who will win the possessions of those who died. I don’t know if any of them were homeowners or something, but if so, you could be in for a big prize. So that was round three, see you soon for the semifinal.”

“Welcome back to Perform or Die, we have three ponies left. Next up, we have the quiz round. I’ll ask a series of questions, and if you buzz in with the correct answer, you’re through to the next round. But if you give a wrong one, then you’re the round’s loser and you go home with nothing. So first question: What is the multiplicative counterpart of sigma notation?”

No one knew, including the audience.

“Who spoke the line ‘It doesn’t have to be art’ in the Grapevine play ‘One Building’s Straightforward Construction’?”

No one knew, including the audience.

“What is the capital of Kechistan?”

“Who played Vanadium Spanner in the film ‘Always Room For More’?”

“What number did race flyer Diving Peregrine use in his championship season?”

“In the show ‘Hardwired’, what was Breakout’s original name?”

Blue Jay buzzed in. “Petrifier.”

“That’s correct! Blue Jay is into the final!” The audience cheered. “Right, one spot left. Who wrote ‘Anypony But You’?”

“Most of the Tinsel River is in which country?”

“Who was the Equestrian commander in the Second Battle of Knisi?”

Three minutes later, Twilight was out of cards.

“Uh... do we have another pack?” One commercial later, Twilight had another hundred questions to ask. “Okay. Who won the thirty-fifth through thirty-eighth editions of Rally Equestria?”

Razor’s Edge buzzed in. “Waterwheel.”

“And we have the other finalist!” The audience cheered. “So, Orange Cream....”

“I feel dumb.”

“You won’t die, of course, but you’ll have to leave us.” The audience cheered as she left the stage. “We’ll be right back with the final round.”

“Welcome back for the final round of Perform or Die. Now I’m going to ask the contestants slightly weird and slightly awkward but not grossly unacceptable questions. So, Blue Jay, would your obelus cutie mark have to do with your job?”

“I got it after a maths competition when I was eleven. So not specifically.”

“And Razor’s Edge, do you... have a cutie mark?”

“I do, it just blends in with my fur. It’s easy to see up close.”

“Right. So the final round is a fight to the knockout. You’ll each start on one half of the arena, and when I say go, the fight begins. First to have all four hooves on the floor completely outside the arena or lose consciousness is the loser. So take your places.”

The arena lit up with a rectangle along the outside and a centre line. Blue Jay went to the other side, with Razor’s Edge saving energy by only turning around. “Three... go!” Twilight said, a cue for the audience to cheer. Razor charged towards Blue Jay and jumped at him, which he sidestepped to leave him face-down on the floor with his back hooves just in. He got up as Blue Jay turned around and ran to one of the corners, Blue Jay following him. As Blue Jay took a split second to consider his next move, Razor uppercut him, which was distracting for long enough to let him get away.

They both moved away from the touchline. They were on opposite sides from the start, but nothing had really been accomplished. After twenty seconds of both waiting for the other to move, Razor’s Edge made another charge, but ended it sliding on his side. He hooked one of Blue Jay’s legs, but this stopped him instead of bringing Blue Jay down. Blue Jay got a small kick in the muzzle in before he got back up. They were now directly in front of each other, and they tried to punch each other, but they used opposite hooves and high-oned instead. Razor’s Edge backed up a few steps.

Blue Jay was the next to move, trying the tackling leap for himself, but despite the lower reaction time needed, it was still enough for the same thing to happen with roles reversed, minus almost losing. Razor got down on top of him in what was a very suggestive position, and Blue Jay tried to get away, but barely moving one of his legs was all he accomplished. Razor went from lying to kneeling on his back, still keeping his forelegs locked down. Blue Jay could now freely flail his hindlegs around, which got more frantic as he realised it was getting hard to breathe, then less frantic as he lost oxygen, then stopped completely, after which Razor got back up to the cheers of the crowd.

“Well, it was a somewhat awkward fight,” Twilight said, “But we have our winner of Perform or Die, Razor’s Edge!”

For the first time in the entire programme, he smiled. There was an unconscious pony next to him and three corpses that couldn’t have been too far away, but he wasn’t any of them, and he got most of their stuff. And he won a game show, which he would’ve enjoyed even more if he ever watched them. And approximately all of Equestria was going to watch a death game show hosted by Twilight, so he was going to become a celebrity overnight. He actually didn’t like that one, but overall, he was happy.

“So how does that make you feel?” Twilight said.

“Still not as good as getting past the third round. Maybe if I had any idea what I’d won, I’d feel a little better.”

“Well, that’s understandable. That’s all we’ve got time for this series, so see you in six months for the next edition of Perform or Die.”

One hour later, things were already being disassembled for a different game show.

“So how was—” Sugarcane said. “What are you doing, Citrus Punch?”

“Eating this—”

“It’s 1:01. Get to work. So how was hosting your show?”

“It was all I imagined, I had a really good time.”

“Glad to hear it. I mean, really, what a huge waste of time this would’ve been. So do you have any plans tonight?”

“I’m going to... no. Nothing special.”

“What?”

“It’s a secret.”

“Okay....”

“I bet you have something secret to do tonight too.”

“No.”

“That is what you would say, isn’t it?”

“I’m going to go home to my girlfriend, she’s going to rant about how I don’t contribute enough, and she’s going to beat me until I cry so hard I choke. Happens every week or so, and it’s been quite a while.”

“Uh... do you—”

“It’s a sex thing.”

“Oh. You could’ve just said you were going to have sex.”

“Yeah, but that would’ve been an obvious thing to say to hide the secret.”

“Do you just not want to talk to me?”

“I just want you to drop the secret thing.”

The rest of their conversation was about obscure television dramas. Next Chapter: Chapter 48: I’d Skip This One Estimated time remaining: 14 Hours, 43 Minutes