Pinkie Pie sequestered her satin self softly on a park bench, surrounded by emerald blades of grass that glinted glimmingly in the evanescial rays of a setting sun. A melancholic malaise dripped off her face, emboldened by the moist sapphires beaming from the epicenter of her cranium. She spoke in a porcelain voice as her quiet company of adoring companions listened under a silent spirit of silence.

“The priest was at his wit's end,” the fuchsia party girl mewled towards the tepiddic air of the park domain. “He was grasping at straws for meaning in this cruel, heartless world. 'I just feel as if all the walls are closing in,' he told his clergical friend in a sad tone. 'Ever since I realized that God is dead, the world has been collapsing all around me like a coffin. We are nothing but errant leaves floating on an ashen breeze, lost before the random bonfires lying in wait to consume us and sacrifice all knowledge of our existence in a holocaustal conflagration of emptiness. I find it hard to get out of bed in the morning, fully-knowing that the next day I live will be just as useless as the last, and not even holy water will lubricanify the abrasive harshness of this ontological uncertainty from my beleaguered mindscape.'”

Pinkie Pie wiped her eyes dry while Applejack patted her shoulder.

There was a pregnant pause, during which a great deal of nothing happened.

Until it did, in the form of Pinkie Pie's frown flipping upside down like a deep sea diver with felicitous bends. “And that's when the rabbi said, 'No, you have chicken mouth!'”

“Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!” the party planner and her six sororitarians collectively chortled into the setting sunrays.

“Whew!” Applejack swiped the sweat from her freckled complexion and winked into the joyous aura of Pinkie's uttered anecdote. “That's a real whizz-banger of a whizz-banger, Pinkie!” she drawled.

“It reminds me of that one story at that place with the thing!” Rarity vampire'd.

“Exclamation!” Rainbow Dash added.

Sunset Shimmer smiled at her friends, feeling delighted inside at their collective comraderasm. She squirmed slightly where she squatted in the grass, her ankles being nipped at by figurative aphids of introverted contemplation. She glanced over at Twilight Sparkle, noting the rosiness to her closest friend's dimples and wondering if she too could someday express such exquisite coquettish innocence in a single phlegmatic gaze—when her phone suddenly vibrated with great digital resonance.

“Wuh oh!” Sunset Shimmer stammered, brow furrowed, teeth gritting, as she fidgeted.

“What's that, Sunset?” Fluttershy existed. “The plot?”

“Uhmmm... … … … … … … ...” Sunset Shimmer blinked past a sea of ellipses, attempting to contemplate the text unraveling before her in an elegant sapphiric color scheme. “It's a message from Flash.”

“Yeah, and?” Rainbow Dash's voice cracked between yawns as she tossed her prismatic hair in the eastern wind. “Tell us what he's yammering about already!”

“I'm... not sure...” Sunset's eyes narrowed and narrowed. “He's... sending his message in a strange font.”

“Strange?” Twilight asked, blinking through her spectacled spectacles. “In what way?”

“It's just...” Sunset shook her eyes, still trying to make heads or tails of the meandering missive. “...super pretty.”

“Oooh, is it Edwardian Script?” Rarity chimed in a sing-songy tone. She waved a dainty hand. “That is the most exquisite form of text!”

“Mmmmm...” Fluttershy sat pigeon-thigh'd, blushing through a smile. “I'm partial to Monte Carlo myself.”

“Comic Sansssssss!” Pinkie Pie yodeled upside down.

“Shhhh!” Sunset Shimmer rubbed her temple as she struggled to decipher the near-cursive runes embulucating before her weary eyes. “Girls, please! I'm... really struggling to figure out what Flash Sentry is texting me!”

“Why the hay would be do somethin' so cryptic?” Applejack asked.

“I don't know,” Sunset siffered. “This isn't like him.”

“Here.” Twilight Sparkle slid over to her best friend and gingerly cradled the cell phone from her womany grasp. “Let me give it a try.”

“Yeah! Four eyes are better than three!” Rainbow Dash said. A beat. She went cross-eyed. “Wait...”

In the meanhappening, Twilight was holding the text up close to her lensed optics. “Hmmmm... you didn't tell me that the font was animated and glittering.”

Sunset blushed even harder, rubbing the back of her neck while sweating ever so tinily. “I guess I overlooked that particulate.”

“Well?” Fluttershy existed. “What does it say, Twilight?”

Despite her literary fervor, it took and toiled upon Twilight to occupy the greater dominion of her thoughts to generate a learned interpretationism of the text before her matronly mind. “Flash is... asking for your help...”

“My help?” Sunset blink.

“All of our help!” Twilight exclamatoried. “Specifically, he's saying: 'Sunset. Please. I need your help. Equestrian magic has cursed me and I am stuck at home. Come at once if you can. Bring all the girls. You will need your rainbow lasers or whatever. I am so sorry to bother you.'”

“Oh...” Rarity held a delicate girl wrist over her girl chest. “...oh my.”

Applejack's human muzzle scrunched. “Ya reckon he's pullin' our leg?”

“No, that's the real Flash, alright,” Sunset stated, taking the cellular mobile device back from Twilight's supple hand. “Leave it to him to apologize at the end of everything.”

“What the crud do you think is bothering him?” Rainbow Dash drammeled, brow furrowing and unfurrowing as she fidgeted. “He's never asked for all of our help with a magical problem before?”

“Well, one thing's for sure!” Pinkie Pie shot up with a joyous leap and warbled towards the livid lengths of the recreational acreage. “A friend in need is a friend in knee-deep friendship sauce!”

“Meaning...?” Rarity asked.

“We row our companionship boat over to his place and cast him a lifeline!” Pinkie Pie grinnered. “With friendship lasers!” She beamered. “And cupcakes!”

“Yaay!” Fluttershy existed. “One of those things!”

“Follow me, girls!” Sunset Shimmer jumped up as well and ran for the nearest bus stop. “I know the way to his house!”

“Oh, I bet you do, darling!” Rarity sing-songed.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” the rest of the girls chanted except for maybe Twilight Sparkle but Sunset Shimmer was too busy expediating herself to her destination to bother humoring their sassified girlhoodedry.