//------------------------------// // Kill it with fire! // Story: The Potion Shop // by Ashfur //------------------------------// The sun slowly setting on the horizon signaled the end of the day, and unlike most would be led to believe, most days passed without incident as long as a certain wild-maned unicorn was checked in on every hour or so. In fact, Arca had spent a good three hours passed out at his table, having collapsed during lunch from another long night reading the latest issue of his favorite comic, Detective Surehoof.  Nopony ever complained about Arca sleeping on the job, as it usually led to less disasters. So, Juniper was in the process of counting the bits and wiping down the counter with a smile on her face, humming a tune, she heard the sounds of shattering glass.  Despite his eccentricities, Arca was a great mentor and and asset to the town, it was only when he was left to his own devices that things went wrong. Wait, the sound of shattering glass? “JUNIPER!  THERE'S A THING IN THE LAB!  HELP! ...But put on your lab coat first!  You know the rules!” Juniper sighed, grabbed her lab coat from its place under the counter, and headed into the lab.  When she entered, she saw Arca tossing various potions at seemingly nothing. Some of the potions were also on fire.  As was the corner of the lab all the potions were landing in. “Boss, there's nothing there. You must have a smudge on your goggles again.” Arca, meanwhile, was hiding behind his cauldron.  “It's there! Hurry up and kill it!” Juniper cautiously stepped forward, looking for any foe, and finally saw it.  “It's horrifying! Kill it with fire, and ice, and lasers, and fire again!” “Boss, it's just a spider.  You've used bigger spiders as potion ingredients.” “It has too many legs and eyes!  And it TOUCHED ME! It won't leave me alone!  And those spiders were dead already! This is different!” “Sure it is.  Hey there, little guy.  Let's get you to somewhere less dangerous, huh?”  She reached out with a hoof, but the spider decided to take that moment to drop from its web to the floor. “Aha!  Die spider, die!”  Arca kicked the cauldron over, sending a wave of blue potion cascading over the arachnid.  Juniper barely had the time to react properly, leaping out of the way and hovering in the air with her wings. “What the buck, Boss?  You could have hit me with that!  And you probably killed the little guy!” “Oh, relax, Juniper.  The spider's gone. I swear, you worry too much.  Panicking over a little spider… how silly! And besides, what's the worst that could happen to you if you got splashed with a highly potent, untested growth potion?” “Wait, you doused a spider in untested-” CRUNCH [Juniper, put a page break in here.  -Arca] Today was finally the day.  She had the proper permits forged, she had abused loophole after loophole, and finally she had found a team willing to do as she asked (nopony in town dared to try). Today, Emerald Essence was going to demolish Alchemiracles. “Ma'am?  If I may speak freely?”  her recently hired assistant asked. “Go ahead.  I'm in a good mood.  Soon, my storefront will have the most picturesque view in all of Rainbow Falls!  Just as soon as that stupid eyesore of a potion shop is out of the way. That fool unicorn won't know what hit him!” “If you wanted the shop demolished, you could have just waited.  It gets wrecked pretty often. Also, I'd recommend standing back from those lines painted on the street.” The assistant gestured to a series of lines drawn on the cobblestone path in enchanted chalk, each further away from the shop than the last and each bearing a date written next to it. “There is a difference between a minor repair and having the entire building demolished by controlled explosives, dear.”  Emerald turned to address her shady wrecking crew. “Now then, once that unicorn and his assistant are evicted thanks to these papers, I want that place gone.  Are we clear?” “YES, MA'AM!”  They all replied in unison. “Good, then let's get started on-” CRUNCH "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOF!" A giant, hairy leg demolished the storefront of Alchemiracles, tossing two ponies skyward.  One crashed into Emerald, clearly enjoying himself. The other landed a bit further off, groaning in pain. “That was so much fun!  Juniper, did you enjoy that too?  OH SWEET CELESTIA, JUNIPER!” Arca hopped off of Emerald and rushed over to his injured apprentice.  “Don't move! Don't move, I got this!” He reached into his lab coat and pulled out some chalk, drawing a line in front of Juniper and writing the date.  “It's a new record! Okay, you can move now.” “Great bedside manner, Boss…” Juniper weakly replied. By this point, the shady demolition crew had fled in terror, but Emerald's assistant just munched on an apple, having lived in Rainbow Falls for years now.  Emerald herself, however, was more focused on the three-story spider climbing out of the ruined store. “Somepony save us all! We're doomed!” Emerald cried out in terror. What happened next would be impossible to perceive without serious training.  In an instant, Arca sprang into an offensive stance, and loosed a dozen massive laser blasts from his horn at the monstrous arachnid.  Each one would require enough mana to exhaust an average caster, but all twelve connected with the spider and bored massive holes through it.  To the untrained eye, though, all everypony saw was a blinding flash of orange light, and when sight returned the giant spider looked like swiss cheese and was toppling over into the backyard.  Another flash and Arca had warped his shop away, replacing it with the spare that he had built by the construction yard for when his store gets destroyed. He made a mental note to have a new spare constructed.  Horn smoking from the immense magical energy that had been forced through it, Arca wasn't even fazed. He only had one thing to say. “NOTHING messes with my store.” Emerald Essence decided to put her plans of relocating the potion shop on hold, and decided that then was as good a time as any to faint.