Twilight was sitting on her throne in the Cutie Map room, reading a book. Earlier, she, Spike and Flash visited the Hay Burger to check up on Ed now that he officially works there, as a volunteer of course. She was glad that Ed is happy and comfortable so far, despite being stranded on their world. Even though Ed was never angry at her, she still felt responsible for yanking him away from his home. That's why she's reading many books about spells, forgotten spells, dimension theories or anything that can help her send Ed back home.
So far, no luck.
She sighed in frustration. She knew it'll be difficult to re-duplicate the spell that brought Ed over, but from what she researched so far, it was much more complicated than she thought. While it involved the same spells she used on the mirror, she theorized that it was also a combination of raw magic from the vortex that nearly destoyed Ponyville. Raw magic is very dangerous and unpredictable. Trying to create the same level of raw magic is impossible. Even if somepony was crazy enough to do it, the unstable amount of raw magic could wipe out three different towns if done incorrectly. Raw magic was so dangerous, Princess Celestia banned anypony of using it many years ago. That time, Twilight combined some of its raw magic by accident, but how can she recreate something that is so dangerous and banned by the Princess? She hoped that she can find a different method of sending Ed back home, but if there are no other options...
Just then, her stomach's began to rumble, interrupting her thoughts. Her eyes briefly glanced at the doors. While they were at the Hay Burger, Twilight ordered herself a Hay Burger and then have Spike to take over the rest of the order and told him to bring the food back to the castle since she still have work to do. It's been fifteen minutes since then and was wondering what took the little dragon long. Suddenly, she heard the doors slammed open which caused her to flinched back violently. She turned and spotted Spike who was standing by the door.
Twilight smiled. "Oh hey Spike, just in time! I can't wait to eat that--"
Her words died in her throat when she noticed Spike's angry expression on his face and he stomped his way over to her. Spike reached for his own throne and sat down, while crossing his arms and his nostrils were flaring. Twilight was very concerned for her friend who rarely got this angry and decided to get to the bottom of this as gentle as possible.
"Spike what's wrong? And where's our food?" Twilight asked in her motherly voice.
"I left them there!" Spike answered bluntly.
Twilight did a double take. "You left them there!? Why!?"
"It's your new friend Ed! That's why!" Spike growled.
Twlight blinked in confusion. "Wait...Ed's the reason? I don't understand."
Spike sighed and turned to face Twilight. "Okay look, after you left the Hay Burger, I decided to place an order of one Good Burg--"
Spike froze up for a moment before he facepalm himself. "Aw geeze, now he had me saying that!"
"Spike focus!" Twilight urged him to continue.
"Right, sorry," Spike said a bit sheepishly before he continued. "Anyway, I ordered one hayburger with gems on it."
"And did he?"
"Yeah he did. Which was awesome! Normally, the other employers who work there never allowed that and I had to eat it plain. It looked so delicious."
"Well that's nice of him," said Twilight before she frowned. "But that doesn't explain why you were so angry."
Spike let out an angry snort. "Well after he made that burger, I asked him for a price of two burgers."
"And?"
"And he ended up giving me another two burgers!"
Twilight blinked. "Wait...what?"
"Yeah, I asked how much for the two burgers and he gave me two more burgers!" Spike said, raising his voice slightly.
"Um...did you tell him you don't want another two burgers?" Twilight asked
"I did!" Spike cried. "Only he gave me another two burgers! Then another one! THEN ANOTHER ONE! THEN ANOTHER ONE! No matter what I said to him, he just keeps on piling more burgers on my tray! I was so fed up with him, I decided to leave the restaurant!"
Twilight was stunned from what she was hearing. Did Ed really made a mistake with the amount of burgers they wanted to order or did Ed pulled some kind a prank to Spike's expense. She hoped it was the former. If it really was a mistake, then why?
"Um...maybe he misunderstood what you were asking?" Twilight suggested with hesitation.
"How the hay could he misunderstood from two to a hundred burgers!?" Spike retorted.
"Spike calm down!" Twilight pleaded. When Spike calmed down somewhat, Twilight spoke again. "Look, why don't we head back to the Hay Burger and let me explain to Ed what we really want. I'm sure it was all just a simple mista--"
SLAM
Both Twilight and Spike jumped at the sound of a slammed door. They turned towards the door and they were shocked at what they saw.
There, stood by the door was Applejack, steaming like a demon. What really caught their attention was that Applejack was completely covered in brown substance, dripping from her head to her hooves. She would've been unrecognizable if it weren't for her trademark stetson, which was also covered in brown substance.
"Whoa Applejack! What happened to you!?" Spike cried.
Applejack was stumping across the room towards them. "It's dat no-good varmint human friend of yours!"
"Wait, Ed did this!?" Twilight gasped in shock.
"Yeah! Who else do ya think I was talkin' about!" Applejack retorted.
"But...how? How did he do this to you?" asked Twilight as she used her magic to levitate a towel to Applejack.
Applejack gratefully accepted the towel and began to dry herself off. "Well Ah came in to Good Bur-- Hay Burger for a veggie-chilli hayburger and a berry soda. But he mistook me for a burger frozen in a big 'ol ice cube...don't ask. After Ah clarified what Ah really wanted, he took out that hose from outta nowhere and sprayed chili all over me! Ah was so mad, Ah yelled at him and then Ah left the place!"
Twilight had a bewildered look on her face. "B-but, why would he sprayed chili all over you?"
"Because your friend is nuttier than a bag of peanuts! That's why!" Applejack snapped before she let ou a sigh. "Well at least Ah got myself a free drink after all the trouble."
Applejack took a sip of her drink through her straw. Her face suddenly had a grimace look for a few seconds and then spit out all the drink out of her mouth.
"YUCK! This soda taste like pears!" Applejack exclaimed. Her eyes then narrowed at her cup and sniffed it a bit. "Wait a minute..."
She opened the lid of her cup and this time, she took a small sip of it. The same disgust taste in her mouth confirmed her suspicion, and threw her cup on the ground and stopped on it repeatedly.
"IT IS PEARS!" she roared. "HE GAVE ME A PEAR SODA! WAIT TIL AH GET MY HOOVES ON HIM!"
Both Twilight and Spike watched Applejack nervously at the sidelines. They knew that Applejack despised pears, but they never realized she hates them that much. Spike leaned in to Twilight's ear with his claw covered his mouth.
"Yeash, and I thought I had it rough."
Twilight consciously approached Applejack and placed her hoof on her friend's shoulder. "Okay, I don't know why he would do that to you but maybe if we all calmed down and than we go talk to--"
Suddenly, the doors slammed opened again and a rainbow blur zoomed in and stopped right in front of Twilight, revealing a very furious Rainbow Dash.
"TWILIGHT! YOUR NEW FRIEND DRIVES ME CRAZY!" Rainbow screamed.
"W-who drives you crazy Rainbiw Dash?" Twilight asked, already dreading on who that is.
"ED! THAT'S WHO!"
Twilight groaned. "I'm afraid to ask, but what did Ed do?" Before Rainbow Dash began to vent, Twilight quickly added, "And please try to explain to me calmly."
With a huff, Rainbow took a monent to calm down before she began her woes. "Well I was trying to order a whopper hayburger but he did weird things like showing me his 'yo-yo' or whatever that is. Then when I asked for a number five, he gave me a model shaped number five! And then, when he finally gave me the whopper, it was actually a giant version of the burger and he tried to overcharge me for twenty-five bits! TWENTY. FIVE. BITS! For something I didn't want!"
Twilight's eyes widened in disbelief. "Ed...really did all that?"
"Yeah, but that's not even the worst part!" Rainbow Dash anwsered with a growl. "Pinkie Pie then showed up out of nowhere and ordered the same as mine, including a large fry. By that, I mean a freakishly large french fry! And, get this...he charged her eight bits! EIGHT! FOR THAT LARGE FRY AND THAT SAME GIANT BURGER HE TRIED TO GIVE ME!"
"This...this is crazy!" Twilight exclaimed, can't believe what she was hearing.
"That's what we were trying to tell you Twi!" said Spike.
"Yeah, Ah reckon that you should fire him before he does any more damage!" Applejack interjected in, now with only some of the chili left on her fur.
Twilight was still processing this in shock. How could Ed managed to make a lot of mistakes in an extremely way and make all of her friends angry in such a short time? Worse, one of her friends demanded to fire Ed from his job that he likes. Money isn't a problem for Ed since she is contribute the costs for him for the time being. The problem is, she doesn't want to be the one to take away his happiness by removing him from Hay Burger. Judging from the looks of her friends, they all seemed to agree with Applejack.
Despite that she's in a losing battle, Twilight tried to diffuse the situation.
"Look everyone, what Ed did to you all was wrong...and bizarre, but I think we're being too hasty with this over a few mistakes."
Suddenly they heard the doors slammed open, causing everypony to turned towards the source. They saw Starlight Glimmer trotting in with an angry look on her face. She slowly trotted across the room until she was sitting on the throne next to Twilight. She opened her mouth to speak, but Twilight beat her to it.
"Let me guess...you went to Hay Burger and Ed gave you the wrong order in the most crazy and bizarre way and made you angry."
Statlight's anger disappeared as she blinked her eyes in surprise. "Uh...yeah. How did you know?"
"Lucky guess," Twilight said flatly before burying her face into her hooves with a sigh. "Just...tell me what happened."
Starlight stared at her friend in confusion for a moment before clearing her throat to begin her tale. "I went to Hay Burger to order my burger with extra pickles and light on the ketchup, only for Ed to give me a burger with way too much ketchup and shined a light over it because I said 'light on the ketchup'. So I asked him to give me another one with no ketchup and put extra pickles on it this time, only for him to took out a huge bowl full of pickles and dumped them on top of my burger!"
Spike facepalmed. "Geeze, this guy did a lousy job working at fast foods! Just how the hay did the employers who hired him deal with him!?"
Rainbow Dash flew up to Twilight and crossed her forehooves. "There's no way you can deny this further Egghead! Ed needs to stop! And we both know what needs to be done!"
Twilight glanced around the room and everypony gave her their firm looks. There's no way she can protect Ed any longer. If there are only two of her friends complained to her, she could gave Ed a firm lecture about it so he doesn't make the same mistakes again. But with almost all of her friends come in complaining and demanding to fire Ed, there's nothing she can do for him.
Twilight sighed sadly. "I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but in light of all this...I guess I have no choice."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "Let's all go back to the Hay Burger and give him a piece of our minds!"
Everyone nodded and turned to head out of the castle while Twilight lingered behind with a guilt look on her face.
'I'm so sorry Ed.'
- A Few Hours Later -
After they all have a big lunch/celebration of Ed's herotic actions at the Hay Burger, they dropped off the burglar at the police station and then came back to the Cutie Map room on their thrones (spare chair for Starlight). Ed was still at the Hay Burger to do mopping duty which gave them all perfect opportunity to discuss about Ed.
"Well I don't know about you girls, but today was a heck of a crazy day!" said Spike.
"Yeah tell me about it." said Starlight. "I can't believe the same guy who couldn't get any of our orders right, was able take down that robber!"
"Well, technically I took him down after Ed distracted him with his yo-yo tricks and his chilli hose. But I'll admit, it was...so awesome!" Rainbow squealed as she pressed her cheeks together.
Applejack, now completely clean, leaned back into her chair. "Welp, at least the chlli wasn't over me that time! Ah'm still a bit peeved at him though."
"Applejack, language!" Rarity cried out as she was powdering her face in front of her pocket mirror with her magic. "Honestly darling, just because his methods was a bit irritating and bizarre, that doesn't mean you should be so hard on him."
"Says a mare who was about to strangle him over a milkshake." Applejack stated flatly.
Ratity puts down her makeup kit and turned to Applejack with her indignant look. "That's different! You weren't there to see how he made that shake! It was barbaric!"
"How was that different from me getting sprayed with chili?" Applejack argued.
"Girls please, no fighting!" Fluttershy pleaded.
Applejack and Rarity stopped their argument and they both gave Fluttershy their apologetic looks.
Twilight cleared her throat to get her friends attention. "Look, what Ed did...I'll admit it, it was bad. It seems he took things too literal everytime we asked him for an order...except for Pinkie. Apparently, hers came out right."
Pinkie nodded her head vigorously with a smile on her face. "Of course he does! I asked him for a large fry and he gave it to me. Apparently it was made from from a world's largest potato. Wasn't that neat? I bet it took a long time for them to grow one, especially that was grown from the ground. Come to think of it, how did they managed to take the largest potato out of the ground? You need to have strength of one hundred earth ponies in order to-"
"Pinkie, focus!" Twilight snapped, interrupting Pinkie's rant.
"Whoops sorry about that Twilly." Pinkie said sheepishly. "Anyyyyyyyywho, he even gave me Dashie's burger since she doesn't want one."
"I never asked for it in the first place!" Rainbow grunted through her clenched teeth.
"Well you should've kept it. It was really good!" Pinkie chirped, oblivious to Rainbow Dash's glare.
Twilight rolled her eyes from Pinkie's antics and spoke up again. "Girls, I know he can be really frustrating to deal with and acted strangely at times, but you all have to remember that he's a really good guy and was willing to help us out whenever there's trouble. As proof, he risked his life to saved others twice. I honestly don't know what would I do if anything happens to my number one assistant."
To case in point, Twilight draped her hoof over Spike and nuzzled him.
Spike smiled from Twilight's affection. "Aw Twi, I'm alright now. And I'm grateful that Ed saved me despite my attitude towards him earlier. For that, I'm in his dept."
Twilight stopped nuzzling and raised her eyebrow at Spike. "His dept?"
"Dragon's code," Spike clarified.
"Oh, like that time when you served Applejack because she saved you?" Twilight asked which cause Applejack to cringe at that memory.
"Yep."
Twilight frowned. "Now Spike--"
"I know, I know. Don't go overboard like last time," Spike droned to reassure his surrogate sister/mother.
Twilight nodded in approval before facing Fluttershy. "Anyway, back to Ed. It was a good thing you did when you suggested that he gets additional help at the Hay Burger."
Fluttershy blushed from Twilight praise. "Oh...well...even though he made mistakes a lot, there's no reason to fire him on his first day. He was being nice depite how we acted towards him and...I felt bad for being so shy around him so...I figured he deserved another chance."
"I couldn't agree more Fluttershy," Twilight said with a smile. "So when will you start?"
Fluttershy blinked. "Um...excuse me?"
"When will you start working with Ed?" Twilight clarified.
Fluttershy eyes widened and then shook her head. "Oh goodness no! When I suggested that Ed needs help, I don't mean me. I'm too busy watching over the animals enough as it is. I'm sorry...I didn't mean to give you all the wrong impression."
Twilight gave Fluttershy her apologetic look. "No Fluttershy, I'm sorry. I shouldn't assume without clarification from you first."
"Yeah, don't be so sad." Pinkie chirped. "There's still six of us who can go and help Ed tomorrow."
Twilight faced Pinkie with her confused expression. "Uh Pinkie, don't you mean seven?"
Pinkie shook her head, still smiling. "Nope, just six. I'm not counting myself."
"Wait, you're not going to help him?" Twilight asked in shock.
"Actually, I want to help him, but I pinkie-promised to watch all over the twins all day tomorrow. So my hooves are tied." Pinkie said sadly as she literally got her hooves all tied up like a bow.
"I understand," Twilight said with a sigh.
"Might as well not countin' me either," Applejack spoke up. "Me and mah family will be busy with the upcomin' harvest so Ah couldn't help him either."
"That goes double for me," Rainbow Dash added. "I got a very busy schedule now that I'm the main member of the Wonderbolts. So my free time is less than usual."
"I'm afraid I couldn't help Ed either darlings," said Rarity with a bit of regret. "Coco needs my help with a big order in Manehattan for a few days that I must attend to. Besides...I don't think I want to get grease all over my coat from that place. No offense."
"And I promised Trixie that I help her perform her magic show at Canterlot tomorrow. So I'm not available either," said Starlight, shooting her teacher her apologetic glance.
Spike cleared his throat awkwardly to get Twilight's attention. "I hate to remind you Twi, but we'll be busy having a meeting with the other Princess tomorrow about the 'you-know-who'.
Twilight gave everyone her bewildered look."So let me get this straight. None of you girls are available to help Ed at the Hay Burger tomorrow!?"
When everyone in the room was avoiding Twilight's gaze, Twilight began to panic.
"Oh no this is bad! We nearly prevented a disaster last time but how are we going to help him if none of us will be there at all!?"
"Twilight, calm down!" Spike cried, while rubbing her back.
"Yeah Twi, maybe there's somepony else who could watch him in our place?" Applejack suggested.
Twilight turned to Applejack with her skeptical look. "Oh yeah? Well who do we know and trust could possibly be available to help and keep Ed out of trouble when we're not around?"
Just when anypony was about to answer, they heard the door opened. They turned to see none other than Flash Sentry, with two black eyes and a small bruise on his forehead from Ed's Good Punches from earlier. He made his way over to the Cutie Map where Twilight and her friends were sitting at.
"Princess Twilight, you must reconsider!" He begged, as he bowed down in front of them. "If it's about montering you consistently, I am so sorry! I was just doing my job! Well...I kinda overdue it, but please don't fire me and send me back to the Crystal Empire! If you give me another chance, I'll promise I'll...try...to...do...better?"
When Flash looked up, he noticed everyone was giving him their huge smirks, except for Fluttershy, who only smiled guilty. Twilight wore the biggest smile out of all of them like a cat who just swallowed a canary.
Flash gulped nervously. "Um...why is everypony looking at me like that?"