Welcome to the Show

"Hey Twi, do we really have to search through the entire castle for your diary?" Spike asked in confusion as he sat on the back of his friend/older sister/boss.

"It's a journal, Spike, and yes, I need your help to find it. There are just too many rooms here for me to search alone," Twilight explained while looking into one of said rooms.

"Seriously though, why are there so many of them? It's like bucking a maze in here," Rainbow Dash said, hovering above her friends and lazily looking around. "It's even bigger from the inside than it looks from outside. And it already looks friggin' huge!"

"But this is just like an adventure! We're looking for a secret book containing dark and eldritch truths, before any meanie-no-pants finds it and uses it to take over the world!" Pinkie cheered while bouncing happily from one room to the next.

"How would that even work? Ah doubt anypony could take over Equestria just by knowing Twilight's secret fetishes," Applejack deadpanned.

"You never know," Pinkie sang cheerfully.

"Let's just check a few more rooms and move on," Starlight sighed, walking past a blushing and sputtering Twilight.

"Don't know about you, but I would prefer to take a nap or something. Anything is better than this," Dash groaned after finding yet another broom closet.

"Starlight's right, darling. We should continue before we lose track of time. Celestia knows how long it'll take to check all of them," Rarity suggested, while peeking into one of the rooms. "I never thought that you would need so many rooms, Twilight."

"It still amazes me, and I haven't mapped them all out yet. What about you, Fluttershy? Did you and Discord find anything?" Twilight asked, looking into yet (you guessed it) another room. Hearing no answer, Twilight looked down the hallway and saw that two of her friends were nowhere to be seen. "Fluttershy? Discord? Where are you?" Twilight yelled, trotting down the hallway, the others following her.

"Sugarcube, Ah'm sure they're fine," Applejack reassured her.

"I just need to be sure. Fluttershy? Discord? Can you hear me?" Twilight called out.

"In here," a male voice called out from one of the rooms. The group of friends looked around and saw that one of the doors was slightly open. Walking inside, the group saw their two missing friends standing next to a huge box. The room itself was on the big side, the seats and couches giving it the homely feeling of an old theatre.

Discord seemed to be juggling a few smaller boxes, as Fluttershy tried to lift a black, rectangular object out of the larger box. Everypony, minus Twilight, was curious and got closer to see what the two were doing while the purple pony just looked confused.

"Hey, what's that room for again?" asked Starlight while joining Discord.

"No idea. We never had the time to check every single room in the castle," Spike answered, jumping on one of the many comfy-looking couches in the room. "But this one is awesome! Think of all the sleepovers we could make in here!"

"Yay, sleepover party!" Pinkie shouted, jumping from one couch to another.

"Hey, check out that large screen! Wonder what it is good for?" Rainbow added as Applejack experimentally tapped against it in curiosity.

Twilight finally got out of her stupor and walked up to her friends. This was her castle after all, and she was just as curious as everpony else what this mysterious room was hiding.

As she investigated the contents of the box everypony could almost hear the gears in her head stop grinding.

"Twi? Ya okay sugarcube?" Applejack asked worriedly. "Ya look like BigMac after mah sister asked him where the little ponies came from."

"These... are devices I saw in the alternative Equestria!" Twilight exclaimed as she pulled them out. "Those boxes contain DVD's. This is a DVD Player. Fluttershy is holding the remote. And that big screen is most likely a television screen!" She took a deep breath.

"Spike, Starlight, take all of these things out, I need to check on something!"

Without waiting for a response she teleported away with a flash, leaving the rest to wonder what just happened. Spike jumped of the couch and took one of the boxes from Discord's claws. They all had the same title written on them:

"Death Battle: Equestria Edition," Spike read aloud.

Noticing a short description on the back, he continued:

"Since the beginning of time, there has been one ultimate question: Which hero would claim victory over the other? Which villain reigns supreme? Who... would win in a fight? Can the residents of Equestria hold their ground against foes from all around the multiverse? New commentators! Battles you have never seen before! It's time, for a DEATH BATTLE!"

"That's... a strange synopsis," Starlight muttered.

Discord, on the other hoof, smiled widely. "Oh, this sounds fun!"

"It's about fighting? Awesome!" Rainbow cheered.

"But what is this all about? Spiky, darling, what are those... things?" asked Rarity as she picked the case with her magic, reading the description.

"Oh, the humans in that other dimension have those boxes they can use to watch plays they have recorded with some kind of super-camera. The pictures those things make can move and make sounds. They are stored on the shiny rings in the cases and then can be watched over and over again. It's pretty neat," Spike explained.

"Right, I remember seeing them in that mall back when I visited Sunset," Starlight mused.

"That sounds interesting, but why would they use this for fighting?" Fluttershy asked meekly.

"Because fights are awesome, aren't you excited?" answered Dash. "Oh right, you would probably prefer something with animals, would you?"

Fluttershy just hid behind her mane, her checks blushing slightly.

Twilight used that particularly moment to teleport back in, a confused (and wet?) Sunset Shimmer in her telekinetic grab.

"Where'd you go Twilight? And why's Sunset here?" asked a befuddled Starlight. "Nice to see you again, by the way."

"The technology and the other things in the box reminded me of the other Equestria, so I visited it and took Sunset Shimmer with me. She'll be able to answer any question we might have," Twilight exclaimed proudly.

"... I was just enjoying a nice, warm bubble-bath after a long day of work, when Twilight SMASHED the door in, GRAPPED and DRAGGED me through the town to the portal... while I was STARK NAKED! If this is not important, I swear to Celestia, SOMEPONY is going to die tonight!"

- After the others explained everything to her (and prevented her from incinerating Twilight alive) -

"So, what do you think?" asked Twilight, rubbing some lotion on her burn marks.

"Yeah, no idea why this stuff appeared in your castle, or Equestria for that matter. I also never heard of anything like this before. Discord?"

"Nope, wasn't me. Do you really think I would have the patience to wait for you to stumble upon this room? Or not take credit for this chaos?" Discord grinned, while laying on a cotton candy cloud, painting his nails with... mustard?

"Point taken. So, what do we do?" asked Twilight.

"Well, since you dragged me here, I don't want to leave with empty hands... hooves. I say we should at least check it out."

"Fine, just let me get some paper and quills first. I need them to make notes."

"Of course," sighed Spike. "So, do you know how this thing actually works?"

"Ehh..."

"Oh, don't worry, I got it covered," Sunset assured her.

"Finally!" Discord shouted, turning his cloud into a flying toast (with extra cheese). "But first...," a snap of his paw and five other figures appeared in the room, all of them falling. Discord caught a certain sun princess before she hit the floor, while a startled Luna somehow managed to land gracefully. Everpony else crashed into the ground.

Yes, Trixie, Shining Armour and Cadance suddenly got very intimate with the floor.

"Ugh, what the hay happened?" Candance asked, rubbing her head.

"Only the best thing ever!" Discord replied, smirking. "Nice view, by the way."

Cadance blushed and jumped back on her hooves. Shining growled.

"Stop starring on the flank of my wife! What is this about anyway? I swear, if this one of your so-called jokes again..."

"Shining Armour, please calm down. But he has a point Discord, what is the meaning of this?" Celestia asked firmly walking up to Sunset and Twilight, greeting them both.

"The Great and Hurt Trixie wants to know as well," Trixie exclaimed. "Also, Starlight, please stop staring at Trixie's flank and help Trixie up."

Discord simply pointed to Twilight. With all heads turned to her she chuckled nervously for a moment before beginning to explain.

- Another short explanation later -

"Interesting," Luna mused. "Artefacts from a different realm, which mysteriously appeared in your castle? This entire room? Could it be yet another present from the Tree of Harmony?"

"Why would the tree give us something that contains fighting, and possibly violence? That doesn't seem to be very... well, harmonic," Cadance argued.

"Maybe, but sometimes you have to fight for peace and harmony," Shining responded. "Maybe it wants us to learn something useful for future conflicts?"

"Wisely said. But whatever the case, we will never find out by just standing around arguing. There is only one thing we can do to get some answers," Celestia summarized.

The rest of the group agreed, except for Discord who was starting to get bored with the lack of havoc. "Are you done philosophing yet? Good, now let's get started!"

"What about you, princesses? Don't you have more important things to get done?" Rarity asked.

"Nothing pressing, and after dealing with the court all day, I personally could use a break," Celestia replied.

"Agreed," both Luna and Cadance added.

"Trixie was travelling to Manehattan for her next show, but if anypony promise to bring her there in time, Trixie will gladly enlighten everpony with her presence."

"I'll get the snacks!" Pinkie declared, ignoring Trixie, before zipping away, leaving a slowly disappearing afterimage of her.

"And I've already set up the rest," Sunset said with a smirk, the DVD player plugged into an outlet on the wall.

"Well, I guess there's just one thing left to do but sit and watch," Spike grinned.

Pinkie arrived a moment later, balancing a platter with some cupcakes, popcorn and potato chips on her head.

"And I have everything right here," Pinkie yelled, placing it on the table before taking a seat and grabbing a few cupcakes with her tail.

"Good. Now, let's start this thing. I wanna see what this thing is all about," Rainbow cheered as she got comfortable on her personal cloud couch.

"Might as well," Twilight sighed as she used the remote to start the first episode.