It was an ordinary morning at Rarity’s house. Except it wasn’t, as due to the contest she was nervously trying to make herself look as pulchritudinous as possible. Okay, so maybe it was an ordinary morning at Rarity’s house. But the point is that this time, someone would actually be judging—literally judging—her appearance instead of it just being all in her head.

Meanwhile at Residence Octavia, Octavia was doing absolutely nothing to prepare.

“Aren’t you going to do something?” Lyra said.

“It’s not as if there’s a prize for winning.”

“Honour? Pride? Lack of lack of dignity?”

“I like honour as much as any other pony, but none of those things actually do anything to my life if I don’t have them.”

“Ugh. Octavia, you can be so... um... hardheaded? That sounds like an insult, but it’s a good thing. I hate that word. It’s so misleading, you know?”

“I’m afraid it’s just you.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready,” Rarity said in her celebrity-style makeup room place about a minute before she was scheduled to go out.

“Come on, Rarity!” Twilight said. “You’re the most confident pony I know!” It was actually Rainbow Dash. “You know you’re way fancier than Octavia.”

“I feel the same way, but I feel like I’m going to choke at the last second.”

“You’ll be fine, Rarity. I know it.”

“You sure you don’t need any encouragement?” Lyra said in a similar makeup room. “Nothing?”

“There’s no use panicking over it,” Octavia said. “One doesn’t gain things by panicking.”

“I know, but I thought maybe you would like some kind of encouragement or something....”

“I appreciate your concern, but I’d rather be calm than excited for something like this. And even if I lose, it still won’t really mean anything.”

Many flash pictures were taken as Rarity and Octavia stepped into the arena of the Tripling-Off Arena. They walked slowly to the centre and shook each other’s hooves.

“Who wishes to call?” Commentatory commentated.

“I will,” Rarity quickly said before Octavia could get anything in, but she wasn’t planning on getting anything in anyway. “It will be heads.”

Commentatory flipped the coin, and everyone followed it in offputting unison as it went through the air. “The result is tails. Octavia, do you wish to go first or second?”

“I’ll go first.”

“The match between last year’s champion Rarity Belle and pony who plays fancy music at galas for a living Octavia will now begin,” Commentatory commentated. The crowd cheered in a very controlled fashion.

“Octavia, the category is the heart.”

Octavia put a hoof under her chin, which she normally didn’t, but just for the effect. “cor.”

“Oh, Latin! It’s gonna be hard to beat that! Rarity?”

“cœur.”

“French! Amazing! And the judges say...”

A scoreboard indicated “OCT: 9.3, RAR: 9.7”.

“Rarity wins the point!”

The crowd cheered wildly.

“Only two more...” Rarity nervously whispered to herself.

“The next category is BMX. Rarity?”

“Wait, does BMX stand for something? I never knew that....”

“Octavia?”

“Bicycle motocross.”

“Judges?”

A scoreboard indicated “OCT: 9.7, RAR: 0.0”.

“The point goes to Octavia!”

The crowd cheered since they felt obligated to. The third and fourth points were split, going to Octavia then Rarity, before the final one. Yeah, I couldn’t think of anything.

“The score is 2–2,” Commentatory said for the convenience of ponies watching on a radio, even though the match was not being broadcast by radio. “Next point will win the round of vocabulary. The category is crack. Like the drug, not the mini-ravine.”

“Cocaine,” Rarity said, smugly overconfidently arrogant and whatever other similar adjectives you can think of.

Octavia smirked in an inadvertently quite teenage girl-looking manner. “Benzoylmethylecgonine.”

“Judges?”

The screen displayed “OCT: 9.6, RAR: 8.0.”

“Octavia wins the round of vocabulary!”

The crowd cheered and waved their white distraction things around.

“The daintiness of consumption round will begin in ten minutes,” Commentatory commentated.

The athletes walked off the field and back to their respective dugout/locker room-type places.

“I’m sorry, Twilight.”

“It’s okay, there are still two rounds left. You’ll be fine.”

“But how am I meant to beat Octavia in the daintiness round? That’s what she does!”

“I’m about to tell you a plan, so the focus better sw—”

“You did it, Octavia!” Lyra said. The sexual assault was tempting, but she didn’t do it.

“I don’t want to get overconfident, but the next round is the one I was quite sure I could win, so hopefully I’ll never have to deal with the drawing round.”

“Yeah, and you’ll initiate a kiss all by yourself someday.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the pony who wins the first round in a best-of-three contest never wins the second one.”

“It’s happened.”

“When?”

“...I’ll be the first.”

“You can’t be the first to make a perpetual motion machine.”

“Well, I know, but this can be done.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m confident you can do it.”

“Really?”

“No.”

Octavia and Rarity walked back onto the field to Commentatory, who had been standing there the whole time. Laid out adjacent to each other were two very plain wooden tables, each with a bowl of “Italian” wedding soup.

“Octavia, are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Rarity, are you ready?”

“Quite.”

“Begin.”

Octavia and Rarity both began eating their soup very slowly. There were two hours to eat it, so there was really no rush. There was the opposite of a rush since you were expected to do it slowly. It was dull unless you like watching someone eat soup. They both picked up their final spoon... scoop... whatever scoops are called for soup at eerily close times. Rarity blinked for effect and ate her final spoon perfectly. Octavia, quite nervous and shaky, jitterily started to bring the final spoon to her mouth. About halfway there, she nervous jittered just slightly too much and spilt a tiny drop of broth on the table.

“Rarity wins!” commentated Commentatory. The crowd went wild and Octavia looked downwards in shame. Rarity extended a leg to her and they shook hooves.

“The drawing of pentagrams round will begin in ten minutes,” Commentatory commentated.

“You did it, Rarity!”

“I know I can do this now. The last round will be easy as e.”

“But the drawing round is supposed to be the hardest one.”

“I know, Twilight, but I can do this. I’ve trained so much, this’ll be easy.”

“Just don’t not take it seriously.”

“I’ll be fine, Twilight, just put a little faith in me.”

“Octaaaaavia! How did you blow the daintiness round?”

“I’m sorry, I was just so nervous....”

“Well, you better not screw this one up or I might have to break up with you.”

“You’d honestly do that just because I lost a contest?”

“No. I just don’t want you to fail.”

“Honestly, I don’t think I will. I feel like I can do this.”

“That’s the spirit. Now get out there and strangle Rarity to death.”

And so Rarity and Octavia both walked out to the centre for the final round. Two canvases were there side-by-side. Rarity and Octavia picked up their pencils.

“This will be a five-pentagram round,” Commentatory commentated. “Ready?”

“Yes,” they both said.

“Draw your first pentagrams.”

Rarity and Octavia both carefully drew one without incident. They turned to the next page and drew a second one without incident. This continued much like the soup round until they got to their fifth pages. Unlike the soup, you have to wait for everyone to be done until you can start your next pentagram, but you’d never know from their eerily similar paces. They slowly, carefully drew the first four segments.

“And it’s come down to the final line!” Commentatory commentated, even though they aren’t lines since lines don’t end. “Will either choke or will we have to go into extra time?”

Despite extreme nervousness, Rarity and Octavia both completed their pentagrams just fine.

“We will go into one-pentagram extra time,” Commentatory commentated. “If the score is still tied after both pentagrams are completed, we will go into pentagram line sudden death.”

Rarity and Octavia both carefully completed the patterns they had trained themselves to draw so many times, in creepy unison, up to the third segment. Rarity continued on immediately at this point, Octavia pausing for a moment before completing her fourth leg.

“And they’ve both done four lines perfectly! Will somepony screw up now?”

Octavia dramatically inhaled and drew a nearly perfectly straight segment to link up to her first point, not making the segment too short and not making the line go out past the point.

“And Octavia’s done it! Now, can Rarity?”

Rarity started to draw her last segment. Hers was a little shakier, but it didn’t matter as long as it wasn’t too ridiculous of a zigzag and it linked with the first point. She paused midway for a moment, continued on, and brought it back perfectly to her first point before drawing about one millimetre beyond it. Refereey carefully perused both pentagrams and whispered a sentence to Commentatory.

“The referee has found a flaw in one of the competitors’ pentagrams. Rarity has drawn her final line slightly past the first point. Octavia wins the round and the match!”

The crowd cheered in a wild manner. Rarity and Octavia shook hooves.

“Congratulations,” Rarity said.

“It was a good game,” Octavia said.

“It’s okay,” Twilight said. She hooved a tissue to the tearful Rarity. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“Yes, it is, Twilight! Nothing defines me anymore!”

“Don’t be like that, Rarity. You’re not suddenly boring just because you lost some contest.”

“Well, I suppose you’re right.... Maybe I’m taking this too seriously.”

“Exactly. You have to lose sometimes, and besides, it’s just a game nopony cares about.”

“Don’t denigrate it as ‘just a game’. Fanciness contestry is the finest sport on this planet.”

“Actually, it’s hoofball, but you’re entitled to your opinion.”

“For what’s apparently a fact?”

“Yes.”

A knocking occurred on the door of the room of Octavia. Lyra went up to the door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Octavia.”

“How do I know it’s you?”

“Because of my voice.”

Lyra opened the door just enough so she could see.

“Oh, it is you. Come in.” She came in only to get sexually assaulted. “I can’t believe you won!”

“You didn’t think I would win?”

“To be honest, I thought Rarity was going to steamroll you.”

“It’s good to be informed of all the confidence you have in me.”

“Well, sorry, but that’s how I thought it was going to end up.”

“I’d rather have that than a lie, I suppose.”

“I should’ve expected you to do well in the first place anyway.”

“It’s all right, I wasn’t sure how I would do either. Um, did that kiss count for the requirement?”

“Yes.” She brought her down and forced her tongue in her mouth anyway.

Next Chapter: Chapter 99: A Rainbow-Twilight Chapter in Space Estimated time remaining: 11 Hours, 6 Minutes