Arcane Catalyst sat grumbling at his table, eating his blueberry waffles. The second floor house above his shop was always well-furnished due to his wealth, albeit with funcion taking precedence over form and an ever-present bit of clutter. Still, today even a million-bit mansion wouldn't have made him happy and it was summed up in the letter on the table in front of him.
Dear Arca,
By near-unanimous vote of the city council (you being the only outlier), you are hereby banned from winter wrap-up after last year's hyper hurricane hairdryer incident. You are allowed to clear snow from within the Arca limit, and only with no equestrian magic AND no potions.
-Mayor Silver Scroll
Arcane grumbled as he glanced out the window. The Winter Wrap-up song was in full swing, dozens of ponies milling and flying about on their assigned tasks. And despite it being one of his favorite activities every year, he could only do his own yard, and no help either! “Ugh, taking all the fun out of things. Fun ruiner!” He shouted at the closed window. “Might as well get this over with.”
Trotting to his closet, Arca grabbed one of his fur-lined, insulated winter lab coats and a shovel, heading outside. As much as he hated it, he didn't bring any potions with him, not even an energy potion. He started humming the song to himself, and planted his shovel into the snow with a chuff noise, ready to start work.
“Ok, I'm bored. Time to make a shortcut! Since Mayor Silver said no equestrian magic, I'll just have to resort to more… esoteric options.”
Trotting back inside, Arca glanced left and right to see if anypony was around before kicking the counter, opening a secret compartment containing a button. He pressed the button three times and one of the store shelves slid away to reveal a switch, which he flipped to open a trapdoor holding the only object to have survived every single destruction of the house: a small steel safe covered in almost every protective rune known to ponykind. With the utmost care, he opened it, took a piece of candy from his secret lollipop stash stored inside, and put the safe back, undoing his steps to hide it once again. Then he grabbed the book of forbidden dark lore from the free magazine rack where he usually kept it. “This oughta do the job!”
Trotting out into the backyard, Arca moved over to the biggest pile of snow he could find on the mountainside beyond the town. A blast of magic and all the snow was turned into one massive ice crystal. “Ha HA! Outside of town, Mayor Silver has no power over me! I'll use magic if I wanna! In fact…” throwing whatever shred of caution he had left to the wind, he whipped up another nine crystals, each the size of a house, for a total of ten. “Alright, now let's see here…” He began flipping through the book, a maddening aura diffusing into the surrounding area. Any mortal would have been driven mad within minutes, but as Arca always said, ‘you have to be crazy to stay sane’.
“Let's see… summon Rah-laquimlaq… basic necromancy, might need that for when Boss Meadowbrook gets old… transcendence formula #11… fourth dimensional addresses of world-devouring hiveminds… aha! Golems. Seems simple enough! Era uyo lraeyl ornbigeth ot arlesantt tsih, veah na ertnenit ontip!”
The ice crystals began to shake violently, shards shearing and splintering off until ten massive bipedal ice golems stood awaiting Arca's command. “Go, my creations! Let's get rid of all the snow and ice! It's time for Winter Wrap up, Arca style! Oh, but don't touch anypony! I don't want you hurting folks.”
“WINTER WRAP UP. WINTER WRAP UP. WINTER. WINTER. WRAP UP WRAP UP WRAP UP WRAP UP.” The ice monsters stomped away, and Arca leaned back against a nearby rock in glee.
“There! Now I can sit back and watch everything go perfectly! I am so smart.”
Mayor Silver sat at his podium in town square, casually observing the festivities. Winter Wrap-up was an annual tradition that nopony exactly could recall the origin of, but everypony enjoyed it regardless. Silver was too old to partake, though: most of the older ponies in town preferred to save their strength for the next time the ‘days since Arca did a thing’ board had to be reset to zero, so they could run away. Of course, he always had a few reliable friends to come in and report. The animal team was working hard, the plant team had mostly cleared the fields, and the weather team was busy with resetting the clouds without disturbing the rainbow waterfalls. Of course, for all that was worth, there was one super important role that was dreaded despite total authority: The Arca watcher. Thankfully for Juniper, Razzle had volunteered to watch her crush. “Legal stalking”, she referred to it as. She even promised not to bring a camera. So, the ponies in town kept the show going.
“Winter wrap-up, winter wrap-up!”
“Tomorrow spring is here!”
“Winter wrap-up, winter wrap-up!”
“It bring us so much cheer!”
“Winter wrap-up-”
“WINTER WRAP UP.”
Giant ice golems crashed through a house and entered town square, revealing a path admittedly devoid of snow all the way to Alchemiracles. Most buildings were also missing their roofs, as the creatures followed orders and ripped the snow-covered roofs off to eliminate the snow. And by eliminate, they just assimilated it into themselves and grew bigger before tossing the roofs aside.
“WINTER WRAP UP.”
“ARCANE!” Silver hollered into his microphone. “I KNOW THIS IS YOUR FAULT, GET YOUR SORRY FLANK OUT HERE!!”
“Geez, you don't have to yell…” Silver turned back around to find Arca lounging in a folding chair that wasn't there a few minutes ago. “Relax, I programmed ‘em to not hurt ponies, and it's not me doing the work.”
“Fix it now, Arca.”
“Well I'd love to, Mayor Silver, but I'd need magic to do that.”
Silver grimaced. He knew he just got caught in a loophole, and regardless of whether Arca had intended it or not there was only one option. “Ugh, buck it. Use your crazy over-the-top magic to fix this mess, I'm going to the salt bar again.”
“That got destroyed already.”
“Damnit, Arca....”
Arca rolled his eyes and lit his horn, the bony spear shining far brighter than normal. There was a palpable wave of magic as every drop of snow was picked up, packed into a giant snowball, and shot off into the the sky. “Tadaaa! I did it!”
“Frankly, I'm shocked you didn't try to play bowling with those ten things. But… shooting it into the sky wasn't a good idea.”
“Oh, don't panic! I aimed it so it'll land in that empty lot on market street, the one one you can see from my front door!”
“Isn't that where Emerald Essence built her jewelry store?”
“Who's Emerald Essence?”
Silver groaned. “Somepony who's going to be very upset when the local force of neighture drops a giant snowball on her store.”
Arca gasped in shock. “Whoa, that sounds dangerous! She needs to move, pronto. I bet she'd love it here in town! It's so picturesque and peaceful!”
“WINTER WRAP UP. NO SNOW DETECTED. ERROR. ERROR. ICE DETECTED. WINTER WRAP UP.”
Detecting no further snow, the golems began punching each other as they identified their companions as ice and beat the floof out of each other to assimilate the ice first.
“Boss?! What they hay is going on?! Why aren't you back at the shop?!” Juniper swooped down in her weather team vest, looking irate. She had the same kind of ‘I am not mad, just disappointed’ look a mother or teacher can pull off, hoping to put some sense of humility into the ancient alchemist. As usual, it failed.
“Juniper! Look! It's like that issue of Mecha Mares with the giant monster fight! Pow, pow, bam! Hit ‘em with that corkscrew left hook!”
“Boss!”
“Come on, please can we keep watching? Pleeeease?” He only got glared at by all ponies present. “Alright, alright! Fine…” A flash of light left nine of the ten golems as nothing but ice crystals, which the final one quickly absorbed. “See? Now I win. Winter is officially wrapped up!”
“WINTER WRAP UP. ERROR: NO SNOW. ERROR: NO ICE. WINTER WRAP UP. ERROR. I AM ICE. MUST EXTRACT ICE WINTER WRAP UP ERROR. ERROR. ERRORERRORERROR… ACTIVATING SELF-DESTRUCT FAILSAFE. WINTER WRAP UP.”
The now massive, five story ice golem detonated at the molecular level, blowing everypony back, knocking several buildings including city hall over, and blanketing the entire town with snow once more, ruining all the day's work. It even made snow start falling from the sky again. Arca popped his head out of a snowdrift, only slightly dazed.
“Hey look, snow! Ooo, let's make snow cones! I call dibs on blue raspberry flavor! Wait… weren't we doing winter wrap up?”
The gray hoof of Mayor Silver emerged from the snow, shoving the handle of a shovel into Arca's mouth. From within the snowdrift, Silver's muffled voice spoke up. “No, Arca. You are doing winter wrap up. Alone. Now get cleaning.”
“Aww…” Arca stuck his shovel into the snow to start digging his friends out. “This way is so boring, though!” And for a moment, he stopped, the twinkle of an idea shining in his eye. He smirked. “Unless…”