“Now, I know how our last encounter ended,” Twilight calmly said, ignoring the harsh and hateful glare her first ‘case’, as Spike and Starlight called it. “But I truly believe that if we just let bygones be bygones, take a deep breath, and act in a calm and rational manner, we can not only make this quick and painless, but reform you into a proper member of society.” She sighed, putting on (what she believed to be) an honest smile and extended her hoof forward. “So, shall we begin?” Her current guest, bound in an extreme number of magical chains and manacles, only gave the Princess of Friendship a half-lidded, bemused gaze with the two pools of unending darkness he called eyes.
“… Are you… absolutely serious?” Tirek incredulously asked. “You really think that you could reform me, Lord Tirek, consumer of Equestrian Magic and true lord of the world?!” The feeble and weakened red and black centaur struggled against his bindings, full intent to murder Twilight if he ever got free. “Your mind clearly has been warped by a field of stupidity just by being in the presence of Discord! No sane pony would do any of this! Not even an insane being!” Twilight sighed to herself, knowing full well that this was going to be a very long two-hour session… Even longer, counting the other lineup today.
“Look, Tirek,” Twilight said, leaning forward on her desk. “You have two choices here: Either go back to Tartarus, a realm of eternal torment where the screaming never stops and some obnoxious gremlin pokes you repeatedly in the butt with a pointed stick while whispering sweet nothings in your ear every thirty minutes, OR you can give the Reformation Program a chance.” She narrowed her eyes and waggled her eyebrows as a sinister smirk wormed its way onto the mare’s face. “Get the picture?” Tirek’s abhorred and terrified face spoke volumes.
“… This is about that thing with your tree-house, isn't it?” Tirek asked, trying his hardest to conceal the fear in his voice. Twilight beamed and once again took her seat.
“Perfect!” She cheered. She pulled out a formal parchment, gripped a quill in her magic, dipped it in ink, and prepped herself for work. “Now… We’ll undergo an evaluation to determine what you can do to benefit society with this brief questionnaire. Don’t worry, there are no wrong answers!” Tirek simply scoffed, but flinched slightly under Twilight’s harsh gaze. “Now… Let’s start off with skills! What talents do you have?”
“Stealing magic and crushing nations beneath my hooves.” Tirek bluntly said, folding his feeble arms.
“Right….” Twilight bit her lip slightly. “Let’s skip that part… What would you say your greatest skill is?”
“My undying strive to attain power.” Twilight hesitantly jotted down the answer.
“I see… Umm, a weakness you wish to overcome?” Tirek grumbled, narrowing his eyes and glancing off to the side.
“Choosing to take allies and having a low tolerance for fools.” Twilight scribbled the note down. “How is all this going to help with this so called ‘reformation’ you have planned for me?”
“You’ll find out at the end of the session, Tirek.” Twilight interjected, ignoring the muttered ‘Lord’ from the red centaur. She levitated the paper away and drew another stack, covered in various ink-splatters. “Now, I’m going to show you a series of Rorschach splatters, and you are going to tell me what you see.” She flipped the first card over.
“Equestrian Magic.” Tirek bluntly answered. Twilight flipped to the next card. “Alicorns in chains.” Next card, Tirek sinisterly laughed. “Slaves bowing to me!” Third card. “A destroyed nation, ha HA!”
“Okay, I think we’ll move on past the cards for now.” Twilight said, hastily floating the cards away. “I think we’ll have one last exercise for the remainder of this session, a simple thing to help tide your emotions over.” She hopped off her seat and produced something special that was hiding behind the potted fern: a white feathered pillow and a dry-erase marker. “Alright, I’m going to give you this marker, and you will write on this pillow what bothers you most.” Tirek snatched the pillow and marker from Twilight’s purple magic. After a brief moment of pause, Tirek hesitantly began marking the pillow, and after a solid minute, finished. “Alright, let’s see what you’ve done.” Tirek turned the pillow around and showed a crude drawing of both Twilight and Discord, with lines radiating off of them and a comic ‘duh’ speech bubble coming from both of them. The centaur seemed rather proud of himself. “Cute.”
“I do my best.” Tirek cheekily retorted. Giving her eyes a good roll, Twilight sat herself back down in the desk chair.
“Alright, what you are going to do is very simple, Tirek.” Twilight said. “What I want you to do is punch -”
*WHAM*
“The pillow.” Twilight’s voice was partially muffled, due to the sudden attack of the dreaded face-hugger pillow, now sporting a sizeable indentation in the midsection. Tirek, again, seemed extremely proud of himself.
“That felt WONDERFUL!” Tirek guffawed. Twilight furrowed her brow and tossed the pillowed back to the centaur, gesturing for him to continue. Wasting no time, Tirek immediately began viciously pummeling the pillow versions of the two people he hated most in the world… Then moved on to stamping it with his hooves, then thrashing it back and forth with his jaws like a wild beast, and lastly attempting to bisect it with his own bare hands. Meanwhile, Twilight had been silently compiling her gathered information into an end result. Finally, she had her idea.
“Tirek!” Twilight announced, tapping her hoof on the table. “I’ve figured out the best position for you to be reformed and contribute to society!” Tirek paused, his jaws firmly clamped on the top of pillow while his ink-smeared hands firmly gripped the lower half.
“Huh?”
“Welcome to Barnyard Bargains,” Tirek droned, slouching as his store uniform wrinkled slightly. “Where the prices are so low, you’d be striking oil.” The customer barely acknowledged the new employee, simply grabbing his back and walking on, leaving the disgruntled centaur to do nothing but sigh. Another customer entered, and Tirek was forced to repeat his mantra again for the twenty-first time today since arriving. “Welcome to Barnyard Bargains, where prices are so low….” The stallion entering the store took immediate notice of just who the new store greeter was and took off, leaving behind a vapor trail that didn’t want to stay any longer than it needed to. Tirek grumbled, hiding his face in the palms of his hands, unaware that his boss trotted up behind him.
“Listen, Tirek,” Filthy Rich calmly said, tapping his two front hooves together. “I know this is your first day on the job, but we have a bit of a policy here when it comes to customer service.” He leaned towards the towering minotaur, nudging his barrel and flashing him a diamond smile. “’Sincere service with a smile!’ So, come on, show me your sale winning smile!” Tirek slowly peeled his hands away from his face, the sullen look on his face gradually warping into something else.
“Sincere service with a smile, you say?” Tirek asked, his raspy voice reaching deep, sinister tones. “You want me to show you a smile, little Earth Pony?” Sparks of red magic began to flicker between Tirek’s two small horns as Filthy Rich realized that a medical insurance claim would be really helpful right about now. “Show you a smile?!” The centaur whirled around, his already red face burning with the rage of an erupting volcano on the surface of the sun amidst a solar flare, reeling back his tightly clenched fist behind his back. “I’LL SHOW YOU A SMILE, YOU SON OF A -”
“You’ve done good, Twilight.” Twilight congratulated herself as she put Tirek’s file into a ‘success’ pile. “You changed another life around today, all with the power of psychoanalysis and emotional release.” She reached into her desk with her magic and pulled out a box of cookies that were delivered to her by Pinkie Pie a couple of hours ago. Twilight carefully extracted a single chocolate chip cookie from the bunch and happily took a bite out of it, the sudden explosion of flavor and love only Pinkie could provide hitting her tongue with the force of a moving train and the tender embrace of a close friend. Twilight earned this for her work today, and was happy. “You’ve done very good.” She hardly even noticed the sudden column of smoke rising out of town, because Twilight was content with her victory. She earned it.