In baking, some things could not be hurried and Twilight saw the lull as an excellent time to check up on the Bundt Buttercream situation. Even Applejack agreed that something wasn’t quite right and that somepony (that somepony being Twilight in this instance) needed to get to the bottom of what was going on. The lemon zinger cake had just been put into the oven and near as Twilight could tell, Pinkie Pie seemed just fine.
Which meant that Twilight had at least an hour to get down to the bottom of things.
Her rising levels of annoyance concerned her; Twilight could feel the pressure building and she could sense that events were starting to take on a life of their own. There was chaos here, both within and without. Mistakes were about to be made, she could sense them lurking. Bourgogne Blintz might have just made one. Twilight Sparkle knew she might have made a mistake or two already and was fearful of making more. Each mistake made would only further cause the developing situation to spiral out of control. Before departing, Twilight reminded herself that Bourgogne Blintz was not her enemy—she was just very, very difficult to make friends with at the moment. Challenging, even.
Fearing treachery, Twilight winked away in a magenta flash.
The command center, abuzz with activity, came to an abrupt halt when Twilight appeared in their midst. Many stared, wide-eyed, fearful, because the sudden appearance of an alicorn tended to be cause for alarm. As the aetherfire flickered and faded around Twilight, she put on her best ‘concerned princess’ face.
“Where is Miss Blintz?” she demanded in a firm, calm voice.
Not one pony said anything—nopony dared—but many of them pointed at a heavy soundproof door. A few began to recover and they hurried away about their business, heads down, tails between their legs, ears pinned back, and moving about in the most submissive manner possible. Seeing them, their mannerisms, Twilight remembered a time when she was like them. That time was so long ago—longer than Twilight would ever be able to say—but she kept that memory alive, fearing that she might become cold and dispassionate without it.
“I’m sorry if I startled you. Please, go about your business. The show must go on, ponies!”
She waited, calm, and reassurance rippled through the crowd. A few smiled. Ears rose. Tails untucked. Heads lifted. She stood, unmoving, unwilling to leave until she was assured that everypony was okay. Twilight made it a point to smile back at them and she even waved at a few holdouts that were slow to recover.
When at last things seemed mostly normal, Twilight strode to the soundproof door.
“—we apologise for the interruption, but our announcer’s water just broke and she—”
These words faded into nothingness while Twilight stood in the doorway. Miss Blintz turned off the microphone, flipped several more switches with her hoof, and then glared at Twilight in a fearful, angry way. This did not last long though, as Miss Blintz recovered and went on the offensive before Twilight said anything.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” Miss Blintz’s eyes narrowed as her nostrils grew wide. “How dare you disrupt me while I am working!”
“Miss Buttercream’s water broke?” Twilight’s lips pressed tight together as her jaw muscles clenched.
“Leave, at once!” Miss Blintz demanded.
“Leave, you say? Shall I go check on Miss Buttercream, perhaps? I could leave right now. Which hospital did she go to?” When Miss Blintz started to say something, Twilight offered up a friendly warning: “Choose your next words carefully, Miss Blintz.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” the furious earth pony mare replied. “Get out!”
“You have made a grave mistake, lying like this—”
“Is this how you rule Equestria, Princess? With threats?”
“I thought I’d try your approach at management,” Twilight replied, her natural snark bubbling out unbidden. “Before I was interrupted, I was making a statement. Here’s a threat: I’m about to go check up on Miss Buttercream. And if I find so much as a patch of hair ruffled on her, if she is hurt in any way, shape, or form… or if your actions cause any sort of distress that endangers her foals… I will end you. I have ended far worse than you. You pose no significant threat to me whatsoever, but I will not allow you to do any harm to my subjects. Are we understood?”
Miss Blintz grumbled something unintelligible.
“Yes or no. Are we understood?” Twilight, readying her magic, prepared to flip on all of the right switches on the microphone and the soundboard.
“Understood,” Miss Blintz growled. “Now get out!”
“Gladly,” Twilight replied, bowing her head. “Have a pleasant day!”
Then, without further ado, Twilight vanished.
Berating herself beneath her breath, Twilight Sparkle needed to work on her aim. She had concentrated upon Bundt Buttercream just before winking, but had missed her mark by a considerable distance. Some of the ponies on the platform spooked and scattered, startled by her sudden appearance. She wanted to comfort them—she did, really—but the sight of Bundt Buttercream sitting atop her suitcase thoroughly unnerved poor Twilight.
She marched through the panicked crowd, her tunnel vision only allowing her to see one thing. A scorching wind blew dust and sunlight felt like arrows upon her skin. It had to be more than one-hundred and ten degrees outside and Twilight immediately began to worry for Miss Buttercream’s well-being in this heat.
“I got fired,” Miss Buttercream said to Twilight. “It’s fine though. I kinda wanted it to happen. After I met you and your friends… well, it was more about what I said, that part about whoring myself out. But you and your friends and the good you do. I’m really upset right now and my feelings are all over the place. I left the porn biz so I could raise my foals right, but then I said it myself, I was still whoring myself out. And so I tried to do the right thing, even though it was hard. Now look at me.”
Twilight came to a halt beside the forlorn mare sitting on her suitcase, lowered her head, and looked her in the eye. “Doing the right thing is never easy and I admire you for what you’ve done.”
“Really?”
“I wouldn’t say it, otherwise.”
“You and your friends were so decent,” Miss Buttercream said. “I wasn’t groped, treated as the entertainment, or shamed for what I’ve done. Nopony put me down. Seville, that reporter, he treated me with decency and respect. I looked back on all of it, and my own words about whoring myself out got to me. I woke up this morning and decided that I’d do better… but now, I am ashamed to admit, I’m having some second thoughts. I don’t want to get desperate again. I don’t want to go back to porn work to pay the bills. I’m already feeling the pinch.”
This only told Twilight what she already knew: she had amazing friends.
“How would you like a job?” Twilight asked, without once thinking of the ramifications of having a porn starlet in her employ. She thought about what Miss Blintz had said, about Miss Buttercream’s water breaking, which left her in an irked state. “You did right, even though you knew it might cost you. That’s the kind of pony I want working for me.”
“Would I need to move to Ponyville?”
Chewing on her bottom lip, Twilight gave this some thought. “No,” she said at last, “I am in need of agents in other cities. Princess Celestia has been pressuring me to step up my outreach efforts. I don’t have a job description for you, not just yet. Those in my employ are paid a fair wage, but much is demanded of them. I’ll confess, the workload is exceptional. It’s not easy making the world a better place, Miss Buttercream.”
“I’m about to pop and you’re offering me a job right when I might not be able to work.”
Twilight raised a wing to shield her face from the sun, which was doing its best to sap the life force from her bones. She blinked a few times, squinted, and gave thought to everything that had just happened. “Job security is one of the many causes I champion. Prince Gosling and I, we work hard on labour reforms. Hiring you in your condition allows me to put what I propose into practice. It is beneficial for me and my goals to take advantage of the situation and what it has to offer.”
“You’re a lot more honest than Bourgogne,” Miss Buttercream remarked as she shifted her bulk atop her suitcase in a vain attempt to get comfortable. “That’s a level of exploitation I can live with. If I said yes, when would I start?”
“Right now,” Twilight replied without a second’s hesitation. “I would need you to return with me. Miss Blintz told everypony your water broke. Now, let me make this clear. We’re not going to confront her or antagonise her. Not directly, anyhow. But I want ponies to see that what she said wasn’t true. I don’t want to ruin the bake-off for everypony, but Miss Blintz cannot be allowed to get away with her actions.”
“You’ll protect me?” Miss Buttercream, also assaulted by sunlight, squinted at Twilight. “I’m barred from the premises. She told me that if I stuck around, she’d have me escorted away by security and that if I caused her problems, she’d have me roughed up.”
Twilight’s ears swiveled forwards and after a second of divination, she knew that Miss Buttercream wasn’t lying. There was no indication in the slightest of dishonesty or of even stretching the truth. Either this mare was an accomplished liar with magical means to defeat Twilight’s divinations, or she had told the truth. As was so often the case, Twilight sided with simplicity.
The truth was awful.
Bourgogne Blintz needed to be dealt with, but not in a way that disrupted what might just be the earth ponies’ final glory. They needed this and Twilight knew it. Seville’s article would be hitting the papers, probably in the morning edition tomorrow. With the front page assault and the visible presence of Bundt Buttercream, Bourgogne Blintz’s credibility would be shredded, which is just what Twilight needed to happen.
“You’ll be safe.” Twilight smiled a forced smile and she stuffed her simmering anger into a mental crevice. Now was the time to be a princess, not a mare. It was time to put on a good show for her subjects—while somehow managing to ensure that her subjects continued to have a good time. “So, what do you say, Miss Buttercream?”
“I’m in,” Bundt replied with a half-shrug. “If only to see Miss Blintz get her comeuppance. I lost my hotel room. Also… I need to pee. It’s why I can’t sit still. It’s practically a potty emergency.”
“Say no more!” Grinning from ear to ear, with her depression now on the ropes and pleading for mercy, Twilight yanked a startled, squeaking Bundt Buttercream into the aether with her while focusing her thoughts upon a restroom.
Applejack wasn’t phased in the slightest when the two mares appeared beside her, with one of them grumbling about no rooms being available. She did however, cast a sidelong glance at the pale mossy green earth pony mare while making a face that was distinctly Applejackian in nature, an expression with exquisite eyebrow placement and fine mouth-muscle control.
“Howdy,” she said to the pregnant mare who immediately sat down upon the clear floor of the catwalk.
“No room?” Twilight stomped one hoof and caused the catwalk to wobble alarmingly. “That room was just checked out of not even a half-an-hour ago! No room! Argh!” Then, after a deep, calming breath, “How’s Pinkie doing?”
“I think she’s bored,” Applejack replied.
“Applejack… this is my new assistant. If security happens to come along and hassle her while I’m not around, you have my permission to do… well… you can do whatever needs to be done but try not to hurt the security too badly, okay? They’re just doing their jobs and we don’t need an incident.”
“Broken knees and hobbled fetlocks, gotcha.”
Twilight almost said something, but decided to believe that Applejack was being funny.
Down below, Pinkie Pie squinted into the oven, peering at the cake within with one weathered eye. Twilight took a few deep breaths to calm herself, while thinking about depression. With her blood singing like this and the adrenaline making her ears buzz, she was feeling a whole lot better about things in general. It troubled her, how conflict made everything better, how she needed a struggle in her life.
“I’m proud of you, Twi.”
Confused, Twilight’s head tilted off to one side and she gave Applejack a quizzical expression in response. “You are?”
“Why, yes I am.” The apple farmer took a moment to adjust her hat and then she flashed Twilight a grin.
When Applejack made no attempt to explain, Twilight’s lips puckered into something that was almost a pout. She was stuck trying to figure it out on her own, it seemed. She watched as Applejack slipped a foreleg around Bundt’s withers and then sat down beside her. Hot, itchy, still sweaty from her brief exposure to the out-of-doors, Twilight allowed herself a moment to feel good about what she had done. When she did so, her contorted, tense muzzle and irked expression softened into a smile.
It was time to enjoy the show, if such a thing were still possible.