“Oh, hello, Fluttershy. We did not expect you to be here.”
Fluttershy smiled at the pale blue earth pony behind the reception counter at the Ponyville Day Spa. “I’m sorry about missing my appointment yesterday, Lotus Blossom. Do you have time for a walk-in this afternoon?”
“We would make the time,” Lotus Blossom replied in her Stalliongrad accent as a sly grin formed on her face. “You are one of our best customers, after all. It’s just... well... you are busy at the moment, correct?”
“I guess it’s true that there are a lot of things on my plate at the moment,” Fluttershy admitted sheepishly, “but right now, there’s not much for me to do personally—at least, not until the town hall meeting this evening.”
“Ah, yes, the rumors have been spreading,” the spa pony said with a nod. “The fog might come through here at any minute. You have a plan to keep it out of Ponyville, yes?”
Fluttershy shifted her weight somewhat nervously. “Um, well, I definitely have a plan....”
“Excellent!” Lotus Blossom shouted happily. “Tell you what: Super Deluxe package, on the house, just for you.”
“Oh, I don’t really think that’s necessary—”
Lotus Blossom, however, wouldn’t even hear a refusal. “I insist! You do good work for Ponyville, so Ponyville should do good work for you.” She turn towards behind her and called out, “Aloe! Get the works ready!”
“You don’t have to do this for free,” Fluttershy protested feebly.
“Nonsense!” Lotus Blossom replied as she rushed over to Fluttershy and slipped the pegasus’ monogrammed bathrobe over her withers. “It will be our pleasure. By the time we are done, you will be the most relaxed pony in Equestria.”
September 1 – 2:31 PM
Scootaloo slowly massaged one of her temples as she attempted to will the frustration away from her. “Angel, I know you can understand Equestrian, and I also know that you aren’t a moron, so will you please stop playing dumb and tell us where the stupid rock is?!” The late summer sun, combined with the stress of attempting to hold two conversations with Fluttershy’s pet rabbit in a single day, was making the pegasus filly unusually irritable.
However, at least during the first conversation, Angel Bunny had at least tried to communicate with her, even if his gesticulations and inscrutable rabbit noises hadn’t been that effective. Now, he was just standing in front of her with his arms folded and his eyes shut tight, barely even acknowledging the presence of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. About the only lucky break they’d had was that Fluttershy appeared to be out for the afternoon dealing with the fog, which at least meant that they didn’t need to worry about answering any awkward questions about why they were looking for an allegedly nonexistent rock.
“Look,” Sweetie Belle said, finally jumping into the conversation. “What if we made some food for you? Anything you want, just name it.”
This, however, did not produce a particularly favorable response; instead of warming up to the fillies, Angel audibly gagged and shook his head violently.
“I’m guessin’ he still remembers that time we tried to get our cutie marks by makin’ pet food,” Apple Bloom remarked.
“Well, what about the rest of the animals?” Sweetie Belle asked as she looked hopefully around Fluttershy’s yard, but the other creatures seemed even more reluctant to make eye contact with them, although their demeanor was for the most part sheepishly guilt-ridden, in contrast to the rabbit’s brazenly defiant attitude.
Scootaloo groaned. “Angel Bunny’s their official negotiator, remember? They probably trust him to make sure they get a good deal—and after having to deal with him, I can’t really say I blame them.” As obnoxious as that rabbit could be, he seemed more than willing to stand up for his friends.
“I guess you got a point there,” Apple Bloom admitted. “But how are we gonna find Tom without any help?”
“Actually, we might not need any help,” Scootaloo said as a smile crept onto her face for the first time since the trio had arrived at Fluttershy’s.
“What do you mean?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“You can do it!” the pegasus answered excitedly.
Sweetie Belle didn’t quite know what to make of this. “Huh? What are you talking about?”
Scootaloo sighed. “Look, cutie marks tend to run in families, don’t they?”
“I guess...”
“Well, isn’t your sister’s special talent basically just finding rocks? Maybe it’s a family thing!”
“But I don’t even know how she performs that spell,” Sweetie Belle protested.
“Maybe not, but I don’t reckon Rarity knew how she did it when she got her cutie mark, either,” Apple Bloom said. “Maybe if you just think like Rarity for a bit, everything’ll fall into place, and your horn’ll just drag you to the biggest rock around—an’ that’s bound to be Tom!”
Sweetie Belle let out a sigh. “Okay, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try....” The unicorn filly shut her eyes and did her best to focus her mind on all things stylish and fabulous, but after a full minute of absolutely nothing happening, it was obvious to all that a somewhat different tactic was needed.
“Hmm...” Apple Bloom mused after a few moments of pondering. “Maybe it’s a little more complicated than just thinkin’ like Rarity. Maybe you need to be in the sorta state of mind she was in when she figured out how to find rocks in the first place.”
Sweetie Belle screwed up her muzzle in confusion. “But I don’t have anything that needs to be decorated with me.”
In response to this, Scootaloo glanced around the animal pen for a bit before breaking out in a wide grin. “I’ve got just the thing,” she said as she pushed a very reluctant Angel Bunny in front of the unicorn. “There you go. One boring, white, and totally lame bunny rabbit for you to pretty up.”
Unsurprisingly, Angel did not react well to being insulted to his face, and immediately commenced gesticulating and screeching in protest.
Scootaloo, however, wouldn’t have any of this. “Hey, if you’d agreed to help us out in the first place, you wouldn’t be in this situation, so unless you want to tell us where Tom is, keep quiet.”
Grudgingly, the rabbit ceased his protests, though he continued glowering at the three fillies with his ears lowered and his forelegs crossed over his chest.
Sweetie Belle, meanwhile, cleared her throat and spoke in a loud, somewhat clipped monotone: “Oh, no! I have nothing with which I can make this plain white rabbit look fabulous! Whatever shall I do?!”
Silence filled Fluttershy’s backyard as the three fillies waited for something to happen, interrupted once or twice by the sound of clucking chicken. “Well?” Apple Bloom finally asked. “Gettin’ anything yet?”
“Not really, but... hang on....” Sweetie Belle closed her eyes and started walking around, following a vague, instinctual urge that seemed to be forming within her. Her two friends stayed right behind her as she meandered further away from Fluttershy’s cottage. “I think... I think I might be feeling something.... I think it’s coming from somewhere around—” The unicorn’s musings were abruptly cut off as she tripped over her hooves and landed face-first in the dirt.
Her friends didn’t hesitate for a second before rushing back to their wagon to retrieve the shovels they’d brought along for Tom’s extraction and, once Sweetie Belle had gotten to her hooves again, the trio immediately began their excavation. The hard work combined with the afternoon sun soon had them covered in sweat as they removed layers of soil, but eventually, they reached their prize.
“Rubies?!” Scootaloo moaned in disappointment as she lifted a small cache of red gemstones out of the hole. “What the hay are we supposed to do with these?”
“Well, maybe we can use them to buy ourselves somethin’ else that’s heavy,” Apple Bloom suggested in a rather strained effort to be optimistic.
“Oh, yeah, that won’t raise any suspicions,” Sweetie Belle replied sarcastically. She sighed as she looked dejectedly at her still-blank hip. “All that, and I didn’t even get my cutie mark out of it.”
The three fillies sat down in the shade to try and regain their bearings. “This stinks,” Scootaloo said. “How on earth are we supposed to find Tom? We’ve got nothing.”
“Hey, it could be worse,” Apple Bloom said.
“Really?” Scootaloo asked. “How?”
“Well, for starters, this big ol’ boulder might not be here to keep the sun off of us,” she said, tapping the massive rock they were leaning against with her hoof.
“Apple Bloom, can you please stay focused on what we need to do?” Sweetie Belle asked. “We’re trying to find Tom, and you’re going on about a big... rock....”
Comprehension simultaneously dawned on all three fillies, who stared at the large grey stone in dumbstruck silence for several seconds. “I’ll get the wagon,” Scootaloo eventually volunteered.
September 1 – 2:35 PM
Pencil Pusher raised a forehoof to his head to wipe some sweat away from his eyes as he continued flying northwards. By now, he’d made the commute often enough that it was starting to seem less mentally overwhelming than it originally had when he first flew down to Ponyville, though it was still physically exhausting. Has it really only been two days? the bureaucrat idly thought to himself as he made his way through the hot, sun-beaten air over the fog bank. It was odd to think that less than forty-eight hours ago, he’d been sitting at his workstation with no idea that he was about to be press-ganged into acting as a messenger for the Department—not that he minded that much anymore. After all, he never would have met Fluttershy if he hadn’t been forced to deliver the news about the fog to her in the first place.
Of course, he still wasn’t exactly sure how to go about asking Fluttershy out. Granted, it seemed that some of her friends were willing to help him out in that regard, but whether their assistance would actually improve his odds of getting a “yes” seemed a bit doubtful. Rarity, in particular, seemed to be looking at the situation through the rather stylized lens of tacky romance novels.
All that, however, could wait until later, once the fog had cleared. In fact, it was probably a really bad idea not to wait until everything was over, as asking out one’s coworker in the middle of an emergency was generally not considered professional behavior. Not even Greg had ever tried something like that—at least as far as Pencil Pusher knew (notwithstanding some unverifiable rumors written on the walls of a bathroom stall near the department archives).
But that, of course, raised the question of how he could best help get rid of the fog so the two of them could be “off the clock,” as it were. If this plan worked as well as she thought it would, all that was left for him to do was to deliver the forms to the appropriate ponies, and then... well... he had no idea. His initial instinct was to return to Ponyville once the forms had been dropped off, but there really wasn’t much for him to do there, since the local residents were handling most of the preparations themselves. Twilight Sparkle had seemed keen on having him stick around in Cloudsdale in case any unexpected bureaucratic hiccups got in the way, but she wasn’t aware of his plan to ask Fluttershy out.
Besides, once Fluttershy’s orders were distributed to the appropriate personnel, there wouldn’t be any red tape left to clear. After all, he knew the Department of Weather’s bureaucracy like it was the back of his hoof, and he’d already accounted for all of the internal pitfalls that could have threatened her plan. Regardless of what happened in Ponyville, there wouldn’t be any surprises waiting for him in Cloudsdale.
You little sod.
That last sentence invokes around a hundred tropeic laws into existence.
In short, he's screwed.
Good try, Angel, but closing your eyes as tightly as you can does not make the CMC stop existing.
Well, if it helps your confidence, Pencil, Fluttershy's friends aren't the only ones rooting for you.
Great
Oh, nice. I mean, _horrible_ cliffhanger, but from a technical view - very nicely done.
Now, everyone, gather round, place your bets!
I have fifty on "scandal renders lynchpin unusable; beauraucracy freezes up". What else we got? Come on, folks, let's hear 'em!
Never change girls.
Nice comic timing on the CMC bit. Keep it up!
We are so totally boned.
So here's a stupid question.
What in the hell is the crusader wagon actually made of that allows it to move a rock big enough for castle sieges? Or is Tom just a giant lump of pumice or something?
Don't you Believe It!
~CaspianSK
hes prolly tempting fate in order to have a reason to return to ponyville.
Poor Pencil Angel is being a bastard, that's nothing new but this time it's for a good cause to help his friends out. Wonder what will happen to Shy is all the shit goes down faster then it's supposed to?
None at all!
In fact, the rest of this story is going to read like a Tuesday news article!
There's nothing at all about to go wrong!
Ha! Ha! Ha!
And by thinking such a thought Pencil Pusher has invoked the demons of DRAMATIC PLOT TWISTS AND FORESHADOWING.
Inb4 screwed bureaucrat.
I've never read this story, and I probably should, but I just want to mention the fact that this seems to be the most regularly occurring story in the feature box ever. This story was popping up in there a year and a half ago when I joined this site. It's in the box now, and I see it in there at least once every two to 3 months...
Dang it and everything was going so wellish.
3937146 - That's due to a combination of things, the most important of which is the fact that the last three slots in the feature box are specifically for popular stories that recently update. I decided early on that the chapters in this story should be relatively short, and an unintended side effect is that the story has a chance to end up in the box fairly often (30 times, to be specific). What I can't explain is why it lingers in the updates section of the feature box for so long. Popular stories get updated all the time, so most of them get crowded out by more recent updates after two or three hours, but there have been instances where Flash Fog has managed to stay in the box for more than 12 hours.
Prediction: There's a surprise waiting for him in Cloudsdale.
But even without that line, I kinda figured there would be. It'd been a couple chapters since the last major hiccup, so we were due for another, and I figure you weren't done with that snoopy news reporter, so I'm banking on this surprise having to deal with him in some manner too.
Anyway, looking forward to more.
3937146
Yes, yes you should. Kwakerjak has a knack for making comedies with an actual plot without sacrificing any of the humour.
I’ve noticed it too. More often than that, even. Between the inertia of popularity and fortuitous timing, Kwakerjak seems to have hit the jackpot visibility‐wise.
3937175 I know! He's jinxed it it now. And there isn't any wood for him to knock on.
Angel did not react well to be insulted to his face
"being", I believe.
I can't believe the CMC actually got that to work
That sentence is like the famous phrase in Top Gear "How Hard Can It Be?" that phrase is usually followed by plans unraveling violently, and then general doom and destruction. PP uttering that sentence will likely mean TRHs Celestia and Luna have gotten wind of the situation, and plan on scrutinizing fluttershy's plan with a microscope.
All I can think about now is how toilets are suppose to work in Cloudsdale.
And the lead hero has entered the fic. Welcome back Tom, your talents are needed.
I see no other possible outcome!
Waiting behind the first door he opens as soon as he gets to Cloudsdale:
derpicdn.net/img/download/2012/7/11/40641__grimdark_grotesque_surprise_nightmare+fuel_artist-colon-ponyhell.jpg
(Someone had to do it.)
Over half the comments pertaining to Pencil's potentially imminent doom...
Kwakerjak, well wrought!
3936532
3938047
There's a reason nopony lives under Cloudsdale.
3938026 Or that he's going to be relieved from duty or prevented from doing his duty because of the investigative journalist's questions.
I think at this point there shouldn't be a surprise for him back at the office simply to throw off everyone saying something has to go wrong now.
We all know the "tempting fate" trope and expect the worst, so now it's time to have fun:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PlayingWith/TemptingFate (WARNING TVTROPES LINK)
3936439
Want to find a giant rock? Give a surly bunny rabbit a makeover! CUTIE MARK CRUSADER LOGICIANS!
3938993 What do you think the rainbows are made out of? Little foals? Pshhh! Obviously its last nights dinner!
Wow. I haven't seen Fate this tempted since they declared the Titanic unsinkable.
Also, I'm quite impressed by Sweetie Belle's foray into fabulosimancy. And hey, free rubies!
Looking forward to seeing the house of cards collapse.
Seemingly unmentioned but...
Fluttershy, taking a spa break (whether she was brow-beat into it or not) in the middle of a crisis, and accepting (whether she wanted to or not) the top treatment without paying...
I hear the sound of an oncoming PR disaster rumbling down the line like a runaway train. If a reporter lets that get out and even the smallest thing goes wrong... The media will EAT. HER. ALIVE.
*On the front page of the Equestrian Times*
ABUSE OF POWER!
Local fog expert exchanges exclusive services for preferential treatment during weather crisis! Slacks off on the job during critical hours!
Nice chapter, not as much action but things are moving along.
Oh and, Pencil Pusher...
BAD!!!! You know not the terrors that you have wrought with that statement.
Looking forward to more.
"Regardless of what happened in Ponyville, there wouldn’t be any surprises waiting for him in Cloudsdale."
3953571
The "grimdark" "grotesque" and nightmare fuel" tags in the address weren't a warning? I specifically made sure to use the file name that included those, instead of the short link, and honestly, it seemed only mildly creepy at worst to me, so I figured that was good enough.
I almost posted this non-creepy one instead, but eventually I decided the other one worked better for the joke:
derpicdn.net/img/2013/5/19/328443/medium.png
Ah if only the inverse of tempting fate worked. Life would be a hell of a lot easier. For instance:
"At least there's absolutely NO CHANCE that I'll end up on a sweet, sweet Flutterdate!"
3982355 Indeed.
3997099 - The assonance is probably due to the fact that that sentence is a parody of a line from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening."
3996895
WHOA.
WHOA.
SPOILERS.
Not everyone's read the books, remember.
>>>Comprehension simultaneously dawned on all three fillies, who stared at the large grey stone in dumbstruck silence for several seconds.>>>
Tom is surprisingly very stealthy for a two-ton boulder.
3997924 Spoiler: Magic happens.
I really have to wonder about the Equestrian economy sometimes. "Rubies? But we wanted a boulder!"
4856798 Look at it this way: If you have rubies, you can buy things. Or get mugged. With Tom, you can rob stores. Or mug people.
Really? How hard can it be to find a big rock? This place is literally made out of them.
ya
______________
Pencil Pusher just had to use one of the three words that should never be spoken.