-Jade-
“You took that bugbear down pretty fast, but you still got clawed up pretty badly.” What I was currently doing was bandaging Maries’ wounds with several ponies watching me. “Are the bandages too tight?”
“No we are, and will be, fine.” Mara let me wipe off her blood covered fangs… or what passed for blood in a bugbear, it was a really odd color. I wonder if Maries had dealt with bugbears before this.
Having finished patching up Maries with the first aid kit underneath the counter, I stood up with a smile.
“I suggest a checkup with Dr. Bones all the same. We’ve got a hospital and a medical expert now, so we will be making quite some use of them.” Reaching up, my fingers ran through Maria’s thick goat fur. Caressing one of them, made the rest of them hum while closing their eyes. They were an impressive being and somehow I had earned their attention, I should really give them more of mine. “So the wounds don’t sting too much from being doused with medical alcohol?”
“While my sisters won’t admit to it, it really stung a lot Jade. We know it’s to prevent us from getting infections, but it’s not like we have a right to complain about receiving help like this.” What Marie was avoiding was that she and her sisters wanted mine and Fizzle’s help exclusively before they’d go to anyone else.
“What do you think will hit us next?” Fizzle asked me as I took my position behind the counter once again. “A hydra?”
“No, too big and noticeable. Drawing a hydra’s attention to this place would definitely be a hard to cover up crime.” Like anyone would be that desperate and I certainly didn’t see that happening, smaller monsters were easy to lure into being trouble. Bigger ones like a hydra would be far more trouble than it is worth. “The one doing this wants to cause Hayburger trouble, not kill every pony in town for a one way trip to Tartarus. I don’t have any ideas on what they’ll do next.”
“Well then, why don’t you think of the most petty kitty thing you could do if you were them in this situation friend Jade!” We all looked to Flamberge who blasted another Hayburger that Blade gestured at with her left wing. “You are a being known for causing great traumas to those who cross you!”
“Do you have an idea like that Jade?” Maybe Fizzle, give me a second to think on this while taking another ponies order.
What would I do, that could be the pettiest least lethal thing I could. The fires were meant to scare us off and yet Flamberge was luckily in place to stop them, the bugbear wasn’t too big an issue and most ponies would have avoided and run from it as well. So if I were a petty kitty, one that didn’t currently like Hayburger at the moment, what would I be doing to get my revenge on this place for my personally being a jerk?
It didn’t take me long to think of it. If I were Sell Hard, and I’m not, I would probably do a long distance attack involving something that moves and fire. Oh… well there’s an idea, it wouldn’t work because I’m here at the counter.
“Don’t worry about it guys, I’ve got the next situation and I know exactly what is going to happen.” It seemed like I was using magical alchemy sustained fish scales in the foreseeable future.
-A few hours later into the evening-
A pony was walking in, through the doors, nothing was wrong with the pony. The pony wasn’t the important thing, what was important was the timing of a wagon load of fireworks barreling to and through the door.
As I had suspected previously, Sell Hard was willing to make this a detriment to himself by buying up fireworks to cause minor injuries. It rolled through the open doors and ponies dove out the way of the sizzling mass of minor explosives that would damage the restaurant if they went off.
Instead of letting them go off or hit the counter and send them spilling everywhere before they fired off, I inhaled and blasted the entire wagon with as much water as I could spare from my body in a wide spray.
Not only did the force of my spray slowed and then subsequently stop the momentum of the wagon, it also put all the lit fireworks out and it came to a slow stop at the counter.
“Exactly what you expected to happen huh?” Fizzle asked dryly from the frying station.
I nodded with a smug smile. If I could see this coming, then she or anyone else might have figured out how to deal with it just as quickly if I weren’t here.
“Pinkie, free partially damp fireworks!” A pink blur zipped past me, the wagon was now gone. I just shook my head as I read the card on the counter that simply said ‘thank you’. “Snickers, Cutie, once you’re both done eating those salads, I need a favor of you two!”
“Coo!” The turtle waved her left flipper at me in a cheerful excited manner before going back to her food at the nearby table, of which she was sharing with a blushing Fluttershy.
“Oh… okay Jade... if you think I can help you with something.” Followed Fluttershy meekly in agreeing to lend her assistance.
Maries came out with Mara carrying a mop in her jaw and Marie dragging a bucket behind them, Maria placed an exceedingly large glass of water on the counter for me. It wasn’t so much a glass as it was a hundred and thirty ounce popcorn bucket filled to the brim with cold, clean, refreshing water.
I drained the entire thing in almost an instant. much to the surprise of our customers. Using the fish scales always left me a bit dehydrated.
“You guys really are something else.” Once again, Fry Hard was making his presence known. “I’m sorry about my brother if this is his doing.”
“Don’t worry about it, after tomorrow we won’t be coming back as I’ll have what I want.” Enough money to fund some ventures that will lead to me getting my mother a wonderful present. “So why didn’t your brother attack at any other time throughout the week? Why is it only now that he is doing something?”
“Sell Hard works at the Barnyard Bargains in sales every day of the week like I do. He's only free on weekends, so he only gets about two days a week to cause problems like this. Though I don’t understand why he’s trying so hard this time to ruin my favorite place in the world.” Neither did I Fry Hard, but I was going to have someone investigate that to find out why he seemed so dead set on ruining Hayburger now. “My brother just seems so angry, I don’t think it’s because you thwarted him more than once. Something is really off with how he’s acting.”
“Don’t worry about it Fry, I have something brewing to solve this situation.” I had talked to a certain stallion during my break. I took five minutes to find the guy in town, ten minutes to talk to him and seven minutes to work out something about how his special talent works. If I’m right, then he can do this and once he does… maybe it’ll solve the attacks on Hayburger we’ve been experiencing today.
I was going to call in someone else to investigate Sell Hard, someone unusual. He seemed like a trustworthy stallion to me. In fact, it’d help him start up a new business I suggested he get into on the side and he should be coming in any time soon.
Fluttershy and Snickers would not be the ones investigating what Sell Hard, Fluttershy was going to help set up some little spies in the area watch out for any more trouble and Snickers would be our liaison to them. We only needed them to spot for us tomorrow, we’d handle any danger that came our way personally.
“Well that’s good news for you Fry. If Jade has a plan, then you better believe it’ll have results of some kind.” Receiving praise from Fizzle had me rubbing the back of my head in a sheepish manner. “It’s just that it’ll never turn out how you want it to.”
“Hey…” I whined from the register as I posted another order to Blade and the others.
The doors to the restaurant opened and in walked Health Inspector Forward Closure. While every one of my friends gave him guarded looks, I gave him a bright inviting smile.
“Hello Mr. Closure!” The others gave me an odd look for my suddenly chipper countenance. “Don’t worry, he’s here because of me.”
“Yes, I do believe we have much to discuss, but I’ll wait until you’ve finished and cleaned up for the evening. Aside from that I’ll have a Ponyville Pounder, lightly toasted, cheese, mustard, ketchup, extra onions and carrot slices. Yes, with fries and a drink as well.” Quickly taking Inspector Closure’s order, he nodded to me and went to sit down.
“Really?” Fizzle asked as if she wasn’t sure about Inspector Closure being here. “Can we actually trust him?”
“Yes, I’m going to hire him as a private detective, his special talent is kind of made for it given he’s really quite good at spotting things most other ponies don’t notice.” Given that he is an inspector, I figure out that his special talent was very useful for finding clues of anything amiss. “If this works out, then he’ll have a new avenue of pay and can earn some more money to get by better in life. I seriously think he can do it, I'm even quite optimistic this’ll help both Fry Hard and his brother Sell Hard at the same time.”
Forward Closure may have become a health inspector, which with his talent would allow him to find any number of infractions in a business by keen sight and intellect. I figured he’d make a pretty good private investigator and or police pony with those same health inspector skills, he can inspect any place for clues with relative ease and I was going to have Fry Hard take him by Sell Hard’s house for a bit.
We continued working for a while after that, there weren’t any other incidents… so far that is. I was expecting another attack of some kind. Sell Hard was likely done for the day and wouldn’t be attacking us again until tomorrow.
Eventually we started our late evening clean and close up. Maries handled the tables and floor in the eating area, I handled the kitchen, Fizzle started to clean out the grease trap and Flamberge cleaned the stove with a bit of fire breath to get rid of the extra particulate matter. Blade was checking around the building outside as she took the garbage out to make sure nothing was amiss.
As for Forward Closure, he inspected our work and concluded it to be completely passable by the health and regulations board. After that we had a pretty lengthy conversation and bade him farewell as he went off with Fry Hard to investigate what the real problem was.
None of us thought it was Sell Hard getting angry over being caught out for trying to scam a fast food restaurant. He would have moved past that by now, I know I would have.
-Interlude, Arizona-
Ugh, that annoying deer, why does she keep bothering me? In any case, making sure the inn is running smoothly with Grace and protecting the fruit plantation from being infested gave me something to do between working out.
I really liked working with the trees, bushes and other plants, getting my hooves dirty has never been an issue for me.
What was Velvet doing now anyway? Didn’t she have a home to return to? If so, why hadn’t she left already? What was so interesting about sticking around Airship Mauled? I knew what interested me, the good food, the incredible sparring matches and the exercise regiments from a war goddess. Also School, but that was the hard stuff.
Which brought me to another thing, why does Velvet even go to our school again? When did we sign her up for it or did Cheerilee not notice her sudden inclusion into our ranks? If that were true, then Ms. Cheerilee wouldn’t call on her every day. She practically just came out of nowhere because of Snickers saving her familiar bond partner's flank and moved right on in to my and Grace’s inn without as much as a howdy do!
She was insufferable, stuck up, prissy, violent, tall, graceful, fluffy, nice eyes, strong horns and… what the buck am I thinking? At best she was challenging in a fight and not a beautiful deer who always wiggled her tail in a cute manner…. GAH, what is wrong with me!
Grace was still an airhead, Jade was a weird cat, Fizzle was usually somewhat grumpy about nothing, Maries was awesome and Velvet was one of the most beautiful beings I’ve ever laid my… oh holy cow manure!
I know what my problem is.
I enjoyed fighting with Velvet way too much now, I should avoid her for the next few days.
-Elsewhere-
“Coo…” Snickers rubbed her flippers together, she felt something coming to fruition and it was only a matter of time.
-Interlude, Dr. Bones-
I have to admit, the lass was quite the cursed one. Never have I seen anybody get as plastered by fate quite as badly as this Jacky has. I did not think she was capable of going five minutes without an incident, until she did, then it was on the sixth minute that she ended up half crushed under a flipped hospital bed. Boggled my mind it did.
The lass really couldn’t catch a break, at least it wasn’t a head and beak unicycle related injury this time.
My ears twitched, there was that daft elephant sneaking about and trying to get away with stealing our stuff. The large bastard be trying to catch me in a kip and nip off with some medical supplies.
I be putting a stop to that, all while taking care of the poor bonnie pirate lass who was a living callus in all but name. I wasn’t going to catch a forty winks until the elephant outside our homes was well out of the area, we certainly didn’t want him in any rooms now.
“You’re a long time dead lass.” I stated to Jacky who didn’t seem to interpret my meaning, then again most couldn’t interpret my specific accent very well. All the same I was a good doctor in and out as it were. “I mean ye’ got a long time before you’re dead to be feeling as miserable as you look.”
“Oh…” The poor bird looks like she could take some painkillers for the bed she took to the midsection, but I’m sure she’d tough it out. “I didn’t get to fly or work on the ship today.”
“You be needing rest lass. Your luck might be a torch in a powder room, but mark my words you’re a tough one." Hearing a wailing trumpeting noise, I smiled. I knew that buying those elephant traps years ago would be worthwhile eventually. "Tougher than most toughies in my book.”