From Repair to Despair

by A Man Undercover


Chapter 4: Impressions & Meetings (Edited)

One Hour Later...

After the last call with Quick-Fix, Sunset and her friends decide to wait out on the porch for the three repair guys that are coming to help with their computer problem. It isn’t as easy as they first thought, especially since they have to stay in one spot to keep an eye out for them. But, at least they are each finding ways to kill the time.

Twilight is reading a book about a medieval knight on a heroic quest; Spike is merely scratching his ear at the moment; Rarity is putting some eyeliner on her eyelashes; Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash are playing a board game of some kind; Pinkie is making balloon animals, like just now, she makes a puppy with no problem; and Sunset, well, at the moment she is writing to her friend, Princess Twilight Sparkle, via her magic journal, telling her about her day so far.

Dear Princess Twilight,

Today has been a really strange and stressful day so far, really. An old version of a computer that I own is not working for some reason, and it won’t let me do my homework for school. Currently, my friends and I are waiting for the repair men from Quick’s Fix’s House and Electricity Fixer Uppers Inc. to come fix it. All we can hope for at the moment is that they come and that the computer problem we’re having will be solved, even though we don’t even know the names of the men who are coming as of now. For some reason, we got cut off by background noise that was going on in his shop.

I hope your day in Equestria hasn’t been hard for you, and I hope to see you again someday.

Your Friend,

Sunset Shimmer

After Sunset finishes her writing, it is Rainbow’s turn to roll the dice. She shakes the can of dice with determination written on her face, and she rolls it. The dice roll until they stop right in front of Fluttershy, one dice landing on five, and the other landing on two.

“7.” Rainbow reveals, before she moves her piece up the number of squares.

She lands her piece on the final spot with ease. But when she puts it down, she gasps, eyes wide in shock. Fluttershy cocks her head, while Applejack raises her hat in curiosity.

“What’s up, Rainbow?” she asks.

“I landed on a black spot!” Rainbow exclaims.

“So?”

“So?! Now I have to grab one of the cards in the center of the board! When you land on a black or red spot, you have to grab a card that tells you to do something really ridiculous.”

“Like what?” Fluttershy asks.

“Things like, hanging upside down while asking questions about France! Or bending your back backwards while reading a comic!” Rainbow tells them.

When they hear about the things Rainbow just told them, they look at one another because of how strange this seems.

“Is doing what the card tells you to do really necessary?” Applejack asked.

“Are you kidding, it’s part of the game! If you don’t do what the card says, you have to go back a few spaces!” Rainbow says.

“Oh,” Fluttershy and Applejack say in understanding.

With that, Rainbow delicately picks up a card from the stack in the middle of the board, not even disturbing the pile. She brings it up to face level, and reads it to herself.

“Oh boy.” she says with a lack of enthusiasm.

“What does it say?” Fluttershy asks.

“It says that I have to stand on top of my head, and say fifteen plant words while speaking pig latin.”

“Pig latin!” Pinkie says, popping out suddenly next to Rainbow Dash, “I love pig latin! I also love pigs, and the latin language! Can I watch?!”

As if to show she doesn’t care if Pinkie does or doesn’t watch, Rainbow shrugs her shoulders.

So, to do what the card says, she walks right over to the nearest column on Sunset’s porch, and does a dolphin head stand. Her eyes half-close as she stands on her head. Then she starts speaking pig latin, “LowerFay. OseRay. AisyDay. ReeTay...”

While Rainbow does all that, Sunset can’t help but wonder where the repair guys are, particularly because of all the waiting she and her friends are doing.

“I wonder what’s taking Quick-Fix’s three employees so long to get here?” she says.

“Well...” Twilight says, before looking at a map she had, “according to this map, it should only take forty-five minutes for them to come to your house.”

“Yeah. But it’s been fifteen minutes past that time, already.”

“It’s probably just a minor inconvenience,” Rarity theorizes while looking in a small mirror. “They’re probably either just stuck in traffic or just got a flat tire.”

“Those sort of things are possible,” Twilight agrees.

“The only other thing that concerns me is that Quick-Fix never told us the names of his employees or when they’ll arrive before we got cut-off,” Sunset says.

Pinkie hops in front of Sunset to assure her.

“Don’t worry, Sunset,” she says. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s that the trucks from the repair company always come with a logo on both sides of them. So...”

Taking a moment to pause, Pinkie grabs a few balloons, blows them up, and starts to tie them all together, the balloons squeaking noisily. When she is finished, she holds her balloon object up to reveal that she has made a pair of binoculars out of them.

“...I’ll keep a look out for the truck,” she finishes.

She runs right over to a column on the right side of Sunset’s porch, and she positions herself like a sailor keeping a lookout on top of a ship, one hand holding the pole, the other holding the balloon binoculars to her eyes to look out on the horizon.

As Pinkie keeps a lookout, Rainbow is down to her last word while upside down.

“...AndelionDay.” she finishes, before getting off of her head and back on her feet, “Phew. Okay, Applejack, you’re up.”

And Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Applejack are back on the game, with Applejack being handed the can, and the dice being put inside of it.

“SHIP AHOY!” Pinkie suddenly exclaims, disturbing Applejack to where she drops the can of dice.

Her exclamation catches the attention of her friends right away, and Sunset Shimmer comes up next to her.

“What is it, Pinkie?” Sunset asks.

“They’re coming! I see their truck up ahead,” Pinkie responds.

“Let me see.”

With that, Pinkie hands Sunset the balloon binoculars and lets her take a look.

Coming their way is a truck that had “Quick Fix’s House and Electricity Fixer Uppers Inc.” as the logo.

“It’s them, alright” Sunset confirms.

She can’t see who’s inside the truck because, for reasons she doesn’t know, there are leaves and twigs all over the window. She doesn’t know how anyone can drive with all that stuff in the way, but she’s glad that Quick-Fix has been able to send someone down. Now, her computer is finally going to be given a look.


Inside the front of the car, Moe and Larry are looking around at the surroundings outside like they have been through a lot as they have been driving, just to get away from their angry boss.

“Hey, Porcupine. Where do ya suppose we are?” Moe asks Larry.

“I don’t know,” Larry responds. “Some kind of neighborhood, I guess. We’re plenty far from the boss, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah. Especially since we made that U-Turn after narrowly avoiding an eight-wheeler.”

Suddenly, the car for some reason starts making a noise like it’s breaking down. It confuses Moe and Larry very much.

Then, without any warning....

*BOOM*

....it abruptly stops!

It causes Moe and Larry to jolt forward, but luckily it isn’t to the point of where they’d bump their heads against something.

“What happened?” Larry asks Moe.

“We must be outta gas,” Moe responds.

“Outta gas?”

“What do ya think this thing is, a camel? With the way we were driving it had to happen at some point.”

“Ohhhh.” Larry realizes.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

The two men open the truck doors and exit the vehicle, dusting themselves off after coming out. They don’t notice the girls that are watching them with questioning looks from the porch of the house the truck is in front of.

“I wonder what time it is?” Moe says.

To answer Moe’s question, Larry looks at the watch he has on his wrist to see what it says. Unfortunately...

“The short hand points upwards and the long hand points downwards, I can’t tell if it’s 6:00 or 12:30.” Larry tells Moe.

The fact Larry doesn’t understand his own watch annoys Moe, and causes him to frown.

“What’s that?” he says, pointing to the east.

“What’s what?” Larry responds with confusion, looking in the direction of his finger.

While Larry isn’t looking, Moe slowly grabs his head, and twists it to his direction.

“OW!” Larry exclaims.

The twist causes Larry’s neck to make cracking sounds before Moe let him go. Nothing critical has happened. Although the pain does cause him to put his hands to his head.

“Hey fellas!” comes a shout.

When the boys hear that shout, they realize that the guy who is calling them is Curly, and he is in the back of the truck.

“It’s Curly,” Larry says to prove their point.

They run to the back of the truck and stop right in front of the doors. Both Moe and Larry each take a door and open the truck up. When the doors are fully opened, they find something very shocking involving Curly...

There is a large cogwheel on his head, the center of it jammed down around his ears!

“Hey fellas! I’m stuck!” Curly tells them, “Get this thing off me!”

“Come out of there, what are ya doin’?!” Moe says, before he and Larry grab Curly by the arms.

They pull their bald and cogwheel-headed friend right out of the car, and onto his feet.

Moe and Larry manage to have a good look at the wheel in which Curly’s head is stuck.

“What’s the idea of the new hat, chucklehead?” Moe asks him.

“It fell on me while we were driving so fast! Get it off of me, will ya?!” Curly responds.

“Alright, alright, just sit down and we’ll get it off of ya,” Moe tells him.

Curly sits down on the floor of the truck’s trunk.

Right away, Moe and Larry each grab a side of the wheel and try to pull upwards from his head.

“Heave-ho!” Moe yells, before he and Larry pull on the wheel and Curly’s head.

The process keeps repeating itself after that.


The girls are watching the whole thing with very quizzical looks.

“Ummm...I may not know too much about repairman professionalism, but, is anyone besides me starting to wonder if those three are really the guys we’ve been waiting for?” Spike asks.

“I’m not sure,” Sunset says, a little unsure herself, “I hope they are though.”

“Maybe they’re just beginners,” Pinkie guessed, before taking a sip of soda, “because they certainly seem like the beginning-type.”

“Pinkie, darling. Mr. Quick-Fix told us he would send some of the finest workers he has. Not mere amateurs,” Rarity says to Pinkie, “What gave you that guess to begin with?”

“It was just a guess,” Pinkie replies, “Besides, it’s all I can do anyway. The author doesn’t want me to be page skimming and wants to keep it a surprise to all of us. Including me.”

When she says that, Rarity looks at her the way she has done in our last chapter.

“What?” Pinkie asks.


The process that Moe and Larry chose to try to get the cogwheel off of Curly still keeps going, until finally...the two men find what they are trying to do to be fruitless, and stop to catch their breath.

“It’s no use, Kid. We ain’t gettin’ no place fast,” Moe admits.

“Well, please, just do something else to get it off of me,” Curly responds with anxiety.

“Shut up.” And, using two fingers, he pokes Curly in the eyes, which causes Curly to yell with pain.

Just when everything seems hopeless, Larry suddenly gets an idea of how to solve their problem.

“I got it!” he exclaims, “Maybe we could put some oil on his head and make the wheel slip off of him.”

“When I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,” Moe says, causing Larry to frown, “Is there oil in that truck, Puddin’ Head?”

“Soitenly!” Curly says.

“Alright, Porcupine, get the oil.” Moe orders Larry.

As ordered, Larry gets inside the back of the truck, and digs through it to look for a can of oil.

“Hey Moe, you think this’ll work?” Curly asks Moe

“Of course it’ll work, who do ya think has all the brains around here?” Moe responds.

To answer that question, Curly decides to respond. But before he can...

“That’s enough,” Moe interrupts, “I already know the answer.”

“Hey fellas!” Larry calls out, before coming out with a bottle of oil, “I found the oil.”

“Nice work, Kid,” Moe says while patting Larry’s forehead. “Give that head and wheel some elbow grease.”

“Aye Aye, Captain.”

Using the can, Larry squirts oil all over Curly’s head, and at the center of the wheel. There’s so much oil, that some of it begins to leak from the cracks of the wheel. The droppings cause Curly to close his eyes and he shakes his head a little because of the oil dripping on him.

Larry and Moe find that they’ve put enough oil on Curly to get the wheel to slip off, and so with a hand held up, Moe signals for Larry to stop. His hand halts from doing anymore squirting with the can.

“Alright, that should be enough,” Moe concludes, “Let’s get this thing off.”

So, to give it another go, Moe and Larry each go back to grabbing one side of the cogwheel with both of their hands, and get ready to try pulling it off of Curly again.

“Heave-ho!” Moe says, before he and Larry pull on it.

A couple more times, the same process from before repeats itself, until finally...

*SMACK*

The cogwheel slips off and hits Larry and Moe on their chins. “Ooof!”  They rub them because of the pain.

Meanwhile, Curly stands up from where he is sitting, and sticks his arms and fingers out to feel his way around because of the oil in his eyes. As he walks a little, his hands come in contact with Moe’s face, the latter noticing right away by feeling fingers touching him, much to his annoyance.

Without warning, when one of Curly’s hands comes in contact with Moe’s nose, he squeezes it, making Moe yell. Infuriated from his nose getting squeezed, he slaps Curly’s hands away from him very hard.

“What’s the matter with you now?” Moe asks with his hands to his hips.

“I’m blind,” Curly responds, “I’m lost in the dark and I can’t see a thing.”

“I’ll fix that.”

Without another word, Moe uses two of his fingers to poke Curly in the eyes. It’s painful to Curly and it does cause him to yelp, but the poking helps Curly see again. He blinks a couple times to adjust his vision.

“There you are,” Curly says after seeing everything again.

Still annoyed by Curly’s “antics”, Moe slaps Curly on the forehead, causing Curly to get peeved and straighten his back. He ignores that though, because he reaches into the pocket of his pants, and brings out a rag.

“Here,” Moe shoves it at his chest, with Curly grabbing it in return, “Clean yourself up and make it snappy.”

Doing as Moe said, Curly uses the rag to clean the oil off of his face.


While Curly is cleaning his face, and Moe and Larry are watching him do so, the Equestria Girls are still watching from the porch. This time, they not only look on with quizzical looks, but also looks of interest. Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Spike in particular are trying to stifle themselves from laughing because of what they have just seen in front of them.

“Wow. For professional repair men, they sure are funny,” Pinkie says.

“I know, right.” Rainbow Dash agrees.

Applejack scratches her own hair as she looks at the three men in front of them.

“Somethin’ tells me that those guys haven’t noticed us the whole time.” she says.

“I think you’re right, Applejack,” Sunset agrees, before motioning with a wave of her hand, “Come on, let’s go greet them.”

The girls walk off of Sunset’s porch, and head straight for the strange repair men.


Curly continues to clean himself up with the rag he has in his hand. With one last rub downwards, he finally gets all of the oil off of his face. He faces Moe, who looks at him with a frown.

“Next time you go shopping for a hat, look for one that fits ya and can let ya take it off yourself.” Moe tells him.

Curly gives Moe a rather cross look because of what he says. Especially since he hasn’t even been looking for a hat to wear in the first place.

“HIIIII!” a high-pitched, bubbly voice suddenly says from behind them.

The abruptness of the voice scares the Stooges out of their wits, causing them to scramble and cling onto one another with looks of fright, screaming as they do. They look around for whoever has scared them, until they spot seven teenaged girls and a dog behind them. Among the group is a pink-skin and haired girl who waves at them.

They calm down and let go of one another.

“Hello there,” Sunset greets.

“Oh, hello,” Moe responds.

“Hello,” Larry responds.

“Hello,” Curly responds.

“We’re sorry if we startled you, Sirs,” Sunset apologizes.

“Oh that’s alright, Kid. There’s no harm done,” Moe assures.

“That’s good,” Sunset says, “Are you guys the repair men we’ve been waiting on for the past hour?”

Confused on who Sunset is talking about, the Stooges look behind them to see if there is anyone else with them. All they can see is the truck. They turn their heads forward when they find that she is talking about them.

“Well, our truck definitely has a repairman’s logo on it,” Moe confirms.

“We definitely come from a repair shop,” Larry also confirms.

“And what’s more, we definitely have ourselves a side of prepair,” Curly jokes.

Curly ‘nyuck’ laughs at the joke he just made. Because of the joke, Rainbow, Pinkie, and Spike aren’t able to hold back the concealed laughter inside of them. Rainbow and Pinkie clutch their arms to their bellies, and Spike rolls on his back with laughter.

While laughing, Pinkie straightens herself up and wipes a tear from her eye.

“Prepair! That’s a good one!” she exclaims, before laughing again.

“Yes, isn’t he a scream?” Moe says sarcastically, before slapping Curly in the face.

The slap makes Curly give Moe a look of annoyance.

“Well...anyway, we’re glad you’re here,” Sunset says, “Would you like for me to tell you why you’re here inside the house instead of in the middle of the street?”

“Do ya have any chocolate ice cream?” Larry asks, before Moe stomps his foot onto Larry’s foot.

Because of the stomp, Larry hops on one foot while holding the other.

“Now that’s very hospitable of ya, Miss, but, I don’t think we’d want to-“

But Moe can barely finish his sentence, because the horn of a giant truck suddenly makes its way. The girls, dog, and men turn their heads to find a giant eight-wheeler heading their way. Right away, the people and dog run out of the street and out of the way of the truck.

Unfortunately, for the Stooges, the truck hits the back of their van, damaging one of the rear lights, and even causing it to move onto the sidewalk and turn to the opposite direction.

As the truck passes Sunset’s house, the Stooges yell after the driver.

“Hey, why don’t you watch what you’re doing?!” Moe shouts.

“Street bull!” Larry calls after the driver.

Curly also expresses his anger by barking like a dog at him. Of course, the driver doesn’t hear them because of how far he has driven, and because of how big and loud his truck is.

When the truck disappears, Moe, Larry, and Curly turn their attention to the girls and dog.

“I think we’ll take you up on the offer, Miss,” Moe says to Sunset.

“Alright. Come right inside,” Sunset says, motioning with her hand for them to follow.

The Main 7 & Spike walk ahead of Moe, Larry, and Curly, while the latter stay behind for a few moments to talk to one another amongst themselves.

“I wonder what they need repairmen for?” Curly asks

“I don’t know,” Moe answers, “We’ll find out soon enough though, they must have a job for us to do.”

“Yeah, Mr. Quick-Fix must have decided that we were ready for repairing from all the practice we did at the shop.” Larry guesses.

“Right, and we can earn our pay for our first day at work,” Moe says in agreement. “Come on, let’s go.”

And with that, the three men follow the group of eight. But, while they are out of hearing distance, and while the others are heading inside, Applejack decides to stop and whisper a question to Rarity, who is behind her.

“You sure these are the fellas we’ve been waitin’ for, Rarity?” she asks.

“Well, considering their displays from earlier, I’m not quite sure,” Rarity answers, “but, perhaps if we let them prove themselves, we’ll find out.”

“Okay,” Applejack responds.

She and Rarity follow the others inside.

After they go in, the Stooges approach the porch and climb the steps. But Curly, who is behind Moe and Larry, suddenly trips on the very top step. His trip causes him to fall and cling onto Larry, and Larry to bump his forehead into the back of Moe’s head.

After yelping in pain from the knock on the back of his head, Moe turns around to find the cause, and figures it out after seeing Curly clinging to Larry. He walks right over to him and grabs him by the shirt collar.

“What’s the matter with you?” Moe asks with annoyance.

“I couldn’t help it, I just tripped,” Curly explains.

“I’ll trip you,” Moe says, before he slaps Curly on the face.

Before Curly can do anything, Moe grabs him by the shirt collar again, and drags him inside.

“C’mon.” he says.

He also grabs Larry by the hair so that he doesn’t fall behind.

And so, the Three Stooges disappear into Sunset’s house, not yet knowing exactly what the girls want from them, but hoping it can be something to impress Quick-Fix and earn some moola.