//------------------------------//
// Castle Day 
// Story: Flurry, Pumpkin, Pinkie, And Spike 
// by Silver Butcher 
//------------------------------//

Pinkie and Flurry watched in amazement as Spike cleaned the Hall, he had started with blanketing the floor in soapy water before grabbing a mop, had Pumpkin magically connect some special sponges to his feet and tail, then proceeded to fly across the long hall like an ice skater, his mop moving at top speed, his feet and tail catching whatever he missed, Pumpkin meanwhile used another two sponges and a bottle of cleaner and proceed to clean both the floorboards and the walls. Spike did a loop and ran his tail along the wall to give her some water to work with, the 2 watched in silence as the duo cleaned the entire hall in 8 minutes, Spike clicking a stopwatch as soon as they finished.
"Oh, 3.5 seconds away from our record." He said.
"Oh dangit." Pumpkin muttered as she removed the sponges from him and put them in a sanitization bucket "Don't worry, we've got another 78 halls to try."
"On the contrary my friend." Spike said, "Flurry will be helping with the next one so the day will end with a new record hold slot." Spike held up the page, a picture of himself, Pumpkin, and a Picture of both of them in it. 
"Can't believe it uses to take you 20 minutes to do the halls."
"Yeah, I use to call it Castel week." Spike replied as he snapped the mop back onto his cart "You really helped me with that, now I'm not up till morning cleaning the halls!" Spike clapped his hand's together. "So Flurry what do you wanna be in charge of doing?" Flurry stood open-mouthed in silence when Pinkie spoke up.
"You never told me I could skate on the Castel floors!" 
"Well only with those sponges, and they only come out on when the cart-"
"Why didn't you invite me over!" She demanded, "That sounds like so much fun!"
"Well it would only last so long before it just became chore work, this is just the hall stuff, after this I Dust Twilight's Room and the Library, then I clean up the kitchen, then I clean the windows, then I gather up all the books in the castle and return them to the Library...yeah even with Pumpkin it still takes three day's to Clean this castle, and even after all that I still have to do Reshelving day once it's over."
"Why don't you have servants doing this for you?" Flurry asked. 
"We did for a while, but Twilight didn't 'like' or 'trust' them." Spike replied with finger quotes "Anyway it's fine, I've been doing this for a long while, I started a few months before you were born actually." Spike got back into pushing position behind the cart. "And besides I don't have much going on in my day to day life, to be honest, I spend most of my time in my room using my Magic comics when I'm not working."
"What kind of Magic comics do you have?" Flurry asked as the walked down the cleaned hall.
"A lot," Spike responded as they reached the corner, Spike halted the cart and began unloading.
"Wait this is the next hall!" Flurry asked in shock.
"Well yeah, their all conected, some by stairs of course, but I'm not allowed to clean those, I slid on the water while mopping and ended up breaking my arm." Spike held up his right arm as he said this "And I'm right-handed, that's actually why she hired some help, but she caught them pickpocketing somethings and now this is my job forever." Spike smiled at the memory before shaking his head. "Anyway, you don't have to help if you don't want to."
"Don't worry Spike." Pumpkin said as she started spreading the water "Some ponies just aren't built for hard work."
"I'll help Pumpkin do the walls." Flurry replied, her gaze hardening on Pumpkin, then melting back to a nice one on Spike. 
"I"ll help Spike with the floors!" Pinkie said as Pumpkin started attaching the Sponges to Spike's feet and tail, once the water was spread and the sponges attached Spike began mopping and ended up being lapped by Pinkie.
"This is fun." She said as she flew past him and back towards the cart before turning back. "We should hang out more often."
"Pinkie last time you and I were alone in the room we ended up in...that awkward situation, Rainbow's never going to let us live that down."
"But we're not alone, we got tiny company!" Pinkie replied as she spun in place, Spike did a u-turn and began mopping behind her as she moved. Pumpkin and Flurry watched this while their magic scrubbed the floorboards.
"Another perfectly executed plan thanks to me." Flurry said proudly.
"What!?" Pumpkin demanded turning to her "first of this was my plan, and second, another? I haven't seen any proof of any of your plans working unless we count you pitiful attempt to mess up my plans."
"Oh please! Like you could plan anything more complicated than a cupcake recipe." Pumpkin gasp.
"You dare use my parent's business to insult me?"
"you used my parent's wealth against me, now we're even." Flurry snapped back, Pumpkin was about to respond but snapped back to her cleaning.
"-and then they walked out of the changing room and their outfits where the wrong color, of course, me and Spike laughed at that cause we knew that meant we had gotten their colors."
"Oh, you two talking about the outfit mishap before the Gala?" Spike asked, "Casue that was funny." Spike slid past with a wave.
"It sure was." Pumpkin replied sweetly, once Spike was a way's down the hall she snapped back to Flurry. "Listen, I don't care if you insult my parent's business, that's fine, you can throw empty words at me all day, and sure maybe we've just coincidently had idea's that are very similar in matching Pinkie and Spike together, But if you think I'm going to let you become greater than me in Spike's eye, oh have you got another thing coming."
"Funny" Flurry responded, "I was gonna say something similar to you." The locked eyes before turning back to their work.
"Alright, Don't let her get to you." Flurry thought as she cleaned "She may be able to predict your every move, but that means you can do the same-"
"-all you need to do is think of a way to make a situation where she is no longer a variable, think when is a period of time where you could get to Spike without her." The two thought for a while before, for the first time, Flurry realized her true advantage over Pumpkin.
"You might have time." Flurry suddenly said with a smile looking over at Pumpkin "But I have a different window of time, I don't just have all day with Spike, I have the night with him too!" FLurry smiled "Let's see how easily you block me when I go to Spike and have him interpret my words in his way, one sentence from Spike can change an idea entirely." Pumpkin almost dropped her cleaning supplies as Flurry walked past her. "Check, and mate." She added before putting her stuff away on the cart.
"Alright." Pumpkin said, taking a breath and picking up her cleaning. "You're going to play the Spike card...I'll play the Pinkie card." Pumpkin glared at the back of Flurries head "May the better manipulator win."