//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6: A Spoonful of Sugar Is Better Than Cinnamon 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks: Our House Now 
// by TheColtTrio 
//------------------------------//

Wits rubbed his forehooves together. “So, what’re we gonna do today, Brain? Bring calculus to the masses? Wax a statue of Celestia to a mirror shine? Maybe take advantage of some princesshood to get free food?”
    Twilight sighed. “No, no, and no.” The two of them were standing in an open field, a few minutes out of Ponyville. “I signed off on you helping around town, but first, I want to make sure you understand the basics of magic. There’s not much more dangerous than a unicorn with no control over their magic.”
    “I could use my magic just fine in the game,” Wits pouted. “And in the High School Never Ends universe too.”
    “Yeah, and the game let you use magic just by saying the name of the spell. It’s a bit more complicated than that here in the real world.” Twilight narrowed her eyes at the unicorn’s derisive snort. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. But as long as you’re here in Equestria, this is the real world. Got it?”
    “Fine, fine. We’ll work from Isekai rules. But how am I supposed to use magic with this thing on my head?” Wits tapped the band around his horn.
    “The band only keeps you from accidentally using magic. If you put your focus into it, you’ll be able to use spells just fine.”
    “Oh yeah?” Wits turned away from Twilight and cleared his throat. “Lightning Bolt!”
    Somewhere, something sufficiently dramatic happened. However, in that field, all that happened was that a nearby mouse stared at Wits before going back to looking for food. Wits waited a beat, then turned back to Twilight. “Lightning machine broke, fam.”
    Twilight sighed. “Real spells don’t have verbal components. You have to-”
    “Hey, Twilight!” The two ponies turned to see a trio of young fillies coming their way. Sweetie Belle looked Wits End over. “Who’s this? Another Friendship Student?”
    “No,” Wits said immediately.
    “Technically,” Twilight mused, a grin growing on her lips, “you are my student right now, and I am the princess of Friendship. So, by the transitive property, you are my Friendship Student!”
    “He looks a bit older than most of your students, Twilight,” Apple Bloom said.
    “Not a whole lot taller though,” Scootaloo whispered, earning a nudge in the side from the other two Cutie Mark Crusaders, which knocked her off her scooter.
    Wits placed his forehoof on the bridge of his nose. “Dear Celestia, grant me the strength to not punt these children into the upper atmosphere.”
    “What are you three doing here?” Twilight asked, ignoring Wits’ mumbled prayers.
    Applebloom grinned. “AJ said you were out here teaching somepony, and we thought we could help! Ah mean, that’s what our Cutie Marks’re for, after all!”
    Wits blinked. “The CMC have Cutie Marks?” he muttered in shock. He was promptly ignored.
    Twilight thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose if you three could help him with the basics of magic, that would give me more time to check on the other two.”
    “Magic basics?” Sweetie Belle squeaked. “We can totally handle that!”
    Scootaloo tilted her head to look at Wits’ cutie mark. “Who makes hoofwarmers with extra bits like that?” she asked. She was promptly ignored.
    “Leave it to us, Twilight!” Applebloom wrapped one foreleg around her unicorn friend. “After all the trouble she had, Ah’m sure Sweetie Belle’s got Magic 101 memorized back to front!”
    Sweetie Belle seemed like she was trying to decide if she should be insulted or not, but smiled just to be safe. “Sure!”
    Twilight nodded. “Well then, I’ll leave Wits to you three. Wits, you play nice.”
    “I want my hesitancy on the record,” the unicorn colt deadpanned.
    Twilight chuckled, then teleported away. As soon as she was gone, the three fillies clasped their forehooves together. “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER REMEDIAL MAGIC INSTRUCTORS!”
    Wits’ lower eyelid twitched. “I miss the unknowable nothingness between dimensions.”
    “Alright!” Sweetie Belle stood in front of him, a pair of fake glasses balanced on her nose. “Let’s start with a brief history of magic and unicorns-”
    “Hold up.” Wits held his hoof out. “Can we skip the theory and go straight to the practical application? I’ll come back to the history section in my own time, thanks.”
    “Yeah, Sweetie,” Scootaloo said. “No offence, but history ain’t nearly as interesting as watching the sparks fly.”
    Sweetie Belle pouted. “Fine. We’ll skip the first three chapters of Magic 101, then.”
    “Told y’all,” Apple Bloom said smugly.
    “Essentially,” Sweetie Belle continued, “using magic is the act of manipulating the elements around you to achieve the outcome you’re going for. You can’t just imagine a fireball; you have to have an understanding of the steps it would take to create a ball of fire. Once you have that, you can use magic to replicate those steps.”
    Wits thought for a moment. “So all I need to do is magically superheat the air in a given area by causing the oxygen molecules to vibrate faster and faster until it turns into plasma?”
    “Let’s try something a little less dangerous,” Apple Bloom said quickly. “How about pickin’ stuff up?”
    “That’s a good idea,” Sweetie Belle replied. “Scootaloo, put your helmet over there.”
    Scootaloo set her headgear on the grass. “What if it explodes?” she asked nervously.
    “It won’t explode,” Sweetie Belle said. “Probably. Might wanna stand back, actually.” Once everypony was a dozen steps away from the helmet, she turned to Wits. “Alright, so first, imagine that you’re standing next to the helmet. Close your eyes if you want.”
    Wits closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay. Now what?”
    “Imagine leaning down, and picking it up with one hoof.”
    “...Alright.”
    “Imagine lifting it up, and carrying it a few steps forward.”
    “Uh huh.”
    “And imagine putting it back down.”
    “Hang on… Okay, that was a tough one.”
    “You’ve got it?”
    “Yep.”
    “Suuuuper clear in your head?”
    “It’s like I’m really in a field with a helmet in it,” Wits deadpanned.
    Sweetie Belle grinned. “Good! Now open your eyes and do that exact thing again, but this time think of it as imagining with your horn.”
    “How’s that work?” Apple Bloom asked, raising an eyebrow.
    “Trust me,” Sweetie Belle responded, “it’s a unicorn thing. He gets it.”
    Wits looked back at Apple Bloom, mouthing something that might have been ‘he doesn’t’ before turning back to the helmet. He knitted his eyebrows and focused on the headwear, imagining that he was next to it and picking it up. Motes of pale teal energy sparked from its tip and around the band of his horn, but no tell-tale aura of magic appeared around the helmet. “Doesn’t feel like it’s working,” he grumbled.
    “You’re thinking too hard about it,” Sweetie Belle offered. “Don’t think about the physical actions. Focus on the intent and the feeling of picking it up.”
    “Intent, huh?” Wits thought for a moment. He imagined standing next to the helmet as a human, rather than a pony. His imagined self reached down and picked up the helmet with both hands. He imagined the feeling of the metal and cloth under his fingertips, and the weight resting on his palms.
    A magic aura formed around his horn, and a pair of large, semi-transparent, blue-green hands formed in the air next to the helmet. They swooped down, scooping the headpiece off the ground and lifting it up.
    “Woah,” Sweetie Belle said. “I… didn’t think that’d work.”
    Wits glanced back at the filly. “Huh?”
“Nothing! Now try putting it back down.”
“Oh, okay.” Wits turned back to the helmet, and imagined how it would be to bend over and set it back on the grass.
The hands started to move, then seemed to hesitate. The left hand let go and turned palm-up, as if shrugging. A beat later, the right hand viciously tossed the helmet into the ground, sending a cloud of dirt into the air.
“Hey!” Scootaloo dashed over, ignoring the hands that were doing finger-guns at her in favor of staring at the helmet-sized hole in the field. “Not that that wasn’t impressive, but what the hay, dude!”
“Sorry!” Wits stared at the hole from where he stood. “Hang on, I think I can get it!” A moment later, both hands flew into the hole, sending small sprays of dirt and rubble up behind them. “It’s gotta be in here somewhere…”
“Maybe we should call Twilight,” Apple Bloom said slowly.
“I’ve got it!” Wits called. He focused hard, his horn surrounded in a purple haze of magic. “I think it stuck. Maybe if I pull a little harder, and get the right angle…”
The ground trembled underneath their hooves. Cracks began to form, spreading out from the hole. The three fillies moved back to behind Wits End as the cracks widened. Suddenly, the ground exploded in a shower of dirt and pebbles. The four ponies stared with wide eyes as a boulder—with Scootaloo’s helmet embedded in it—launch from where the hole had been, and sailed through the air in the direction of Ponyville.
Apple Bloom was the first to react. “Uh oh.”
Wits looked back at the now gaping crater in the middle of the field. The hands were dusting themselves off, then they gave a pair of v-signs and disappeared. He turned back just in time to hear an echoing crash coming from the town marketplace. “I just don’t know what went wrong.”


* * *


    Purple Heart blinked once at Spike, digesting the small dragon’s statement. “You want me to do what now?”
    “Somepony put in a request for assistance finding a file amongst all these,” Spike reiterated impatiently, gesturing at the rows and rows of filing cabinets.
    The large purple earth pony stared at the diminutive dragon with a blank look on his face.
    “You’re telling me,” he started stoically, “that my first ‘Friendly Antisocial Rehabilitation Course Essay’ is to be a fetch quest?”
    Spike blinked, confusion maring his young face. “Friendly antisocial...” He shook his head resolutely. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, but this is the first task on your list!” He waved the clipboard at Purple Heart, the paper fluttering enough to barely reach the purple earth pony’s nose. “If you knew Twi, you’d know she really likes lists,” he continued.
    “I do know Twilight,” Purple Heart responded. “I just never thought my syllabus would be bullet points to check off.” He gave a hefty sigh and held out a hoof. “Okay. Who am I helping hunt for the One File to Rule Them All?”
    Spike tucked the clipboard under an arm and puffed out his chest. “Me.”
    Purple Heart lifted his brow at the response. “Ho~?” he drawled.
The little purple dragon nodded firmly. “Owlowiscious isn’t much help filing things and Twilight’s busy at the moment so I need help looking,” he said.
With a chuckle, Purple Heart lowered his head to bring his eyes level with Spike’s. “This file wouldn’t happen to be about a particular marshmallow fashionista, would it, Smeagol?”
Eyes widening in surprise, Spike choked on spit as he fought to respond. His coughs sounded remarkably like ‘gollum’ as he fought to clear his airway. Purple Heart restrained his mirth over the little dragon’s dilemma of rage over breathing. Gasping for breath, Spike glared irritably up at Purple Heart.
“That was uncalled for,” Spike rasped, massaging his throat. “No, it’s not about Rarity. It’s my ‘Treatise on the Subject of Mining in the Crystal Caves of Yakyakistan’.”
“...‘Treatise on the Subject of Mining in the Crystal Caves of Yakyakistan’,” Purple Heart echoed.
“Yes.”
“...What’s it about?”
“Whether or not Equestria should do such a thing to keep the Dragons happy,” Spike explained.
Purple Heart rubbed at his eyes with a hoof. “Equestria pays tribute to the Dragons?” he asked.
Spike grimaced. “Well… no. But I like to bring gifts to my monthly tea party with Ember,” he admitted.
Purple Heart’s eyebrows raised as he considered the little dragon. He hummed thoughtfully and turned to look at the wall of cabinets. “So, where do we start?”
“Anywhere from ‘C’ for crystal to ‘M’ for mining to ‘T’ for ‘treatise’,” Spike said, walking over to a filing cabinet. “Or it could be somewhere else. It’s been a week since I organized this so it’ll probably take a while.” With that said, Spike opened a drawer, and started pulling out folders. He then carried the stack over to a table close to the entrance, plopped the folders down, clambered into a chair, and started to read.
“How long will this take?” Purple Heart called.
“Until we find what I need,” Spike replied, setting aside the first folder and grabbing a second.
Purple Heart resisted the urge to groan and started down an aisle of cabinets and randomly stopped in front of one. He pulled open a random drawer and blindly flipped through until he felt the urge to pull a folder out. Keeping a hoof in place, he pulled a folder and flipped it open. He barely managed to read the title when it fell off his foreleg and onto the floor.
“Oh yeh,” he grumbled, eying the sprawl of papers, “no fingers.” He leaned over, trying to shuffle the papers into one spot whilst keeping his place in the drawer when he was struck by an idea. He looked around, peaking over his shoulder and over the other cabinets to see if there was anyone watching. Feeling confident he was unobserved, he willed a thread to emerge from his chest.
A green string slowly coalesced before him and slipped into the filing cabinet where his hoof had been holding open. With a wide grin, Purple Heart pulled his hoof out of the cabinet and set about gathering the fallen papers. Once they were all neatly compiled back within their folder, he eyed the sticker on the front.


	‘Diplomatic Arrangements as Penned by 


	Princess Celestia of Equestria


	And


	Smog, the Chieftest and Greatest of Calamities, Esq.’


A snort escaped Purple Heart and he placed the folder back into the cabinet and shut the drawer, noting the ‘D’ on the drawer itself. He moved back the way he’d come down the row and stopped at a drawer marked with a ‘C’. He pulled it open and peered inside. A few strings emerged from his shoulder and went to work poking through the files. All the folders started with a ‘see-oh’s. Stepping several cabinets down, he opened another drawer while his strings shut the other drawer and paged through the current one. He’d found the ‘see-are’s. As he searched, he noted several files starting with the word ‘Crystal’, but he found none in regard to crystal caves in Yakyakistan or anywhere else in Equestria.
“Maybe ‘mining’ will yield better results,” he muttered, replacing the folder and trotting deeper into the room. It took a minute of steady walking for him to reach the first ‘em’ and another for him to reach the ‘em-eye’s.
“Mining, mining, mining, mining...” Purple Heart mumbled to himself as he flipped through drawer after drawer. “Aha! Mining… Next one… Next one… nothing… Well, meh.” He had nearly closed the drawer when he saw a file hidden behind all the others.
“Mining?” he asked hopefully, pulling it out. He blinked. “Mission File… for Operation ARGUS...” He shoved the folder back into the drawer and moved on, not even bothering to close it as he opened several drawers at once with his threads and rifled through the folders within. He scanned each header as quickly as he could before returning them and bringing up the next.
Finally, he found what he was looking for.


	‘Mission File of Operation WOMP [Wrangling Of Miscreant Pests]’


Purple Heart blinked and pulled the file out of the drawer, not even bothering to keep his place. He flicked the folder open with a thread and found a solitary page.


Commanding Officer: Colonel Hathi


Secondary Officers: Major Hannibal, Captain Horton


Task Force: 5th Pachyderm Brigade


Mission Objective: Remove womprat infestation from Southern Badlands


Mission Operator: [Redacted]


Mission Issue Date: [Redacted]


Mission Status: Aborted


Task Force Status: MIA


    “Huh,” he hummed. “Explains why they’re still out there… They’re thought lost...”
    “Hey! I found it!” Spike called from in front of him. Purple Heart blinked, shaking his head as he looked up to see Spike jumping between the cabinets, brandishing a folder.
    “Where?” Purple Heart asked, closing his own folder.
    “In the ‘why’ section,” Spike replied. “Along with a bunch of other stuff about Yakyakistan. Dunno why I didn’t think to look there first.”
    “Maybe you should talk to Twilight about revamping the filing system,” the purple earth pony mused.
    “Yeah,” Spike agreed. “Anyways, you’re free to go. Pinkie is expecting you at Sugar Cube Corner within the next hour.”
    Purple Heart nodded mechanically. “Right.” He held out the folder in his strings to Spike. “Give that to Twilight. She’ll understand.” He turned and walked away, not seeing Spike’s look of surprise at the floating folder. He didn’t hear the small dragon’s cry of shock when the threads closed the drawers he’d left open. And he didn’t see Spike staring after him as he closed the door without touching it.


* * *


    “Thanks again for offering to help me with this.” Spike said, taking the book that Light Patch was holding out to the dragon.
    “Not a problem. I’m just happy Twilight’s outta the castle for a bit. I was starting to get cabin fever, what with being stuck in that room,” Light Patch said, looking through the books to find the next sequential serial number to go up.
    “Yeah, I hear you. I love Twilight, but Celestia help you if you get sick in her care. She hovers like a pegasus around you all of the time. And that was before she became an alicorn,” Spike said with a laugh as he straightened up the books higher up on the shelves. He turned to look back to the pegasus on the ground. “Is that all for the six hundreds?” he asked, receiving a nod in response.
    “Guess we’re off to the seven hundreds,” Light commented.
    “Nine hundreds actually.” Spike slid down the ladder and started to shift it over. Light Patch followed, lookingat the various book stacks.
    “How often do you end up doing this alone?”
    “Enough to have my own method for doing it,” Spike replied, locking the ladder in place and climbing up. “Okay, ready for the nine hundreds.” He turned and held out a hand for the first book.
    “So, what do you generally end up doing while Twilight and Co. are off saving the world?” Light Patch asked, getting the next couple of books ready to hoof up to Spike.
    “Chores, duh,” they both said at the same time. The two of them chuckled, then Spike continued. “Most of my spare time ends up with my comic collection or hanging out with some of the others around my age here in Ponyville. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, Button Mash, Rumble. Or just going out and walking around town. Kinda just whatever strikes my fancy, really.” Spike shrugged as he put the next few books into place. “What about you? how do you generally fill your spare time?” He looked down, claws extended to take the new series of books. “You know, when you're not busy being tormented by whatever strange magic decides to mess with you.”
    “Games mostly,” Light Patch replies with a shrug. “Sometimes writing, maybe a smidge of art.” He paused to look through the stack for the next book. “Wow, you have a lot of nine hundred books.”
    “Yeah. Most of the Daring Do books are in the nine hundreds. A lot of fiction books tend to fall in this category too.” Spike half shrugs, shifting books to make room for more on the shelf.
    “Huh... You know, I’ve always wondered about the Dewey Decimal system used in my home world, but never really got around to it. You mind explaining the system used here?”
    “Yeah, sure. So, the big thing to know is that fiction tends to fall around nine hundred to one thousand two hundred with most of them really slotting in around nine hundred. Because historical fiction is clearly never going to replace frivolous full fiction,” Spike said mockingly. “And then you hav-”
    “Frack, there was a six hundred book hiding in the nine hundreds,” Light Patch said, pulling a book out of the stack and flipping it around to show Spike.
    “Figures. I thought I’d finally managed to avoid that too. I always presort my stacks because unlike Twilight, I have to climb up the ladder and then back down it,” The young dragon muttered as he angrily climbed down the ladder.
    “Yeah, work smarter, not harder,” Light Patch replied.
    “Exactly,” Spike declared, looking at the pegasus and the book and then the top of the six hundred shelf. “Hey, did you ever learn to use those wings of yours?” Spike cautiously asked.
    “Well... I was able to do short hops with them and a little bit of flying, but I never had a lot of time to ‘get gud’ as Wits’d say.”
    “Hah! Twilight took a couple of months before she could even hover off the ground for any decent length of time. You can certainly manage a short trip up and down. It’ll save us time from having to move the ladder and stuff.”
    Light Patch tentatively picked up the book and opened up his wings. With a couple of test flaps, he found nothing wrong and then started to flap again, this time faster with the intent of lifting himself off the ground.
    “Anyday you wanna get started,” Spike said, looking at the pegasus stallion barely off the ground enough at that point to get a claw under him.
    “Hey, either sprout your own wings and learn to fly or let me do this at my own pace. This’ll be the first time I’ve ever flown.” With that, Light Patch thought back to the smidge of flight training Rainbow had tried to give him during the game when they’d found a few spare moments. He ascended higher and higher until found himself drawing level with the shelf.
    “Finally,” Spike snarked. “That only took all day.”
    “Hey! This is my first flight, okay? And I’m still healing from being injured! So excuse me for being kind of cautious with heerrk~” Light’s words were cut off by a pained scream as one of his wings suddenly cramped up. He dipped sideways and smacked into the bookshelf with enough force to cause several books to fall, one of them knocking Light Patch out of the air. When he hit the ground at the base of the book shelf, more books rained down from it, burying the pegasus.
    Spike rushed up and started to dig through the books. “Oh, please don’t be dead! Twilight’s gonna get mad if she hears about me killing somepony with snark! Especially seeing as how snarky she’s gotten lately! Oh man, that’d lead to a full on meltdown!” Spike paused as the theater of his mind acted out just how things might go down. Moments later, the play was finished and Spike went back to dig through the pile, this time with renewed fanaticism.
    One of Light Patch’s hoofs shot up, dislodging itself from the pile of books. Spike grasped it and pulled, helping the pegasus extract himself from the book pile.
“So much for taking it easy today,” Light muttered, rubbing a sore spot on his side.
    Spike’s gaze fell on the pile of books then drifted up along the shelf devoid of all but one book.
“Well at least we got that book up right?” He turned to Light Patch and squinted at the weak grin on the pegasus’ face. Then gravity once again proved it’s cruelty and the last book teetered off the shelf to join the pile. Spike eyed Light Patch.
“Okay, at least the disaster was localized to just this shelf,” the pegasus pointed out.
    “It’s probably good that Rainbow wasn’t here or this would have somehow resulted in every book falling off,” Spike sighed. With a grunt, the young dragon started shoving the pile of books so that he could move the ladder back.
    “Guess I wasn’t ready to fly yet,” Light Patch said, trying to sort the books by shelf again. “Sorry.” Spike finished locking the ladder in place before turning to look at the grey pegasus.
“Don’t apologise. I pushed you into it.” With that, the dragon was about to tell him to start dealing with the lower shelves while he worked on the upper shelves but noticed the way that he was holding one of his wings fairly rigid as well as the more prominent limp in one of his rear legs. A shakiness was also present that wasn’t there at the start of the day. “You know... I think I can finish up here. After all, it’s not like the whole library was de-shelved.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah. Besides, you are supposed to still be taking it easy. If Nurse Redheart or Twilight saw that happen, you’d be forced back into bed and left there until better,” Spike continued as he started sorting the pile and re-shelving the books on the bottom shelves.
    Light Patch limped over to a small pile of pillows and sprawled across them. “I think I’ll lay here and keep you company. It’s only fair after having caused the extra work.”
    “I won’t argue against the company, but don’t stick around because you feel guilty, alright?” Spike said, shifting more books around.
    “Course not,” Light Patch said with a smile to hide his guilt.


* * *


“What possessed that little candlestick lighter to give me a task involving customer service?” Purple Heart growled under his breath. He looked down at the pink apron hanging down his chest and grimaced.
    “I have no problems wearing pink,” he grumbled. “But did it have to be neon?!”
    “Of course not, silly!” Pinkie chirped, pronking over to the purple earth pony. “That’s just the only one we could find that fit you!”
    “Ahuh. How long do I have to do this?”
    “For the day!” Pinkie grinned up at him. “A full sixteen hours!”
    “Great. Sponge Hours.” Purple Heart crossed his forelegs on the counter and sunk onto them, eyes drifting lazily around the empty shoppe. Occasionally, a pony would walk by the window, peer at the confections on display, lock eyes with Purple Heart’s slothful gaze, then immediately move along. An uncharacteristic frown settled onto Pinkie Pie’s face after the fifth potential customer walked past without even looking inside.
    “Couldn’t you at least smile?” the pink earth pony groused. “Ponies won’t feel welcome when they see you if you don’t smile!”
    “That’s the point.”
    Pinkie’s frown deepened. “At this rate, I’ll have to get a mask for you to cover that sour look,” she muttered.
    “By all means, go ahead.”
Pinkie’s frown became a rare scowl. “You’re being really cynical today.”
“I’m always cynical,” Purple Heart replied. “I’m also an introvert. Trying to get me out of my house to socialize is like pulling a tooth; only one person is in pain and the other is a sadist. I don’t ‘go out’ as the young ponies would put it. I’m quite happy staying home and minding my own business.”
“Hmm… You aren’t making this Friendship Lesson easy.”
Purple Heart shrugged. “I’m lazy.”
“Too lazy to have fun?”
The purple stallion cocked his head to one side, considering the question. “Fun?”
“Yeah. Fun. You know, doing something you find joyful or amusing?”
“I know what fun is and what it means,” Purple Heart retorted. “I just find it hard to believe this job can be ‘fun’.” He lifted his hooves and made air quotes.
“Of course it can be fun!” Pinkie cried, waving her hooves over her head. “Baking is fun-”
“We’re not baking.”
“-decorating is fun-”
“Not doing that either.”
“-and tasting is the most fun of all!”
“Yet here we are: sitting behind a counter, waiting for a customer to come in so that we can serve them.” Purple Heart glanced at the incredulous pink earth pony. “Customer service isn’t my idea of fun. Especially if they’re a Maren.”
Pinkie blinked. “A wat?”
“You’ll know one when you see one.” Purple Heart settled onto his forelegs again and went back to nudging ponies away from the door with his strings.
Another five ponies passed.
Then it became ten.
Then fifteen.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Pinkie’s eye started twitching at thirty-three and was marching out the door at thirty-four.
Purple Heart blinked in surprise when the thirty-fifth pony became customer one. The poor unicorn was shivering under Pinkie’s glare as she dragged the hapless colt through the door and placed them firmly in front of Purple Heart.
“HELP. HIM.”
“...Do I have to?”
Pinkie’s glare intensified and both colts shivered.
Purple inhaled deeply and exhaled a gust of breath. Then he fixed a half smile on his face and addressed the customer.
    “Good afternoon,” he greeted cordially. “Is there something I can help you all with?”
    “Y-yes please,” the colt stammered. “I’d l-l-like th-three cupcakes, p-p-p-p-p-lease.”
    Pinkie Pie watched on, intrigued, as Purple Heart’s countenance shifted almost imperceptibly.
    “Sure,” the purple earth pony replied. “Any particular kind or would you like Chef’s Choice?”
    “O-one chocolate ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-”
    “Chocolate chip?”
    “Yes, p-p-please.”
    “And the other two?”
    “M-mint, please, and da-da-da-da-da-”
    “Darjeeling?
    “That’s the o-one.”
    “Excellent.” Purple Heart moved to where the cupcakes were held behind the counter and boxed up the requisite product. “Anything else for you today?” He placed the box before the unicorn.
    “N-no, th-th-thank you.”
    “What about ringing him up?” Pinkie asked leadingly. Purple Heart and the unicorn looked at her. Then at each other. Purple Heart broke eye contact to blink once at Pinkie.
    “I don’t know how to work the till.”
    Pinkie Pie squinted at the innocent looking purple colt and ground out, “Fair enough.” With the deftness of having done the same motions repeatedly for years, the colt was checked out in record time, returning the shoppe back to a silent environment.
Until Purple Heart spoke.
    “Why did Twilight see fit to have Spike saddle me with a task such as this? I’ve yet to understand how this is a friendship lesson.”
    “Being nice to ponies of course! Having fun with ponies!” Pinkie pressed her forehead against Purple Heart’s. “Making friends with ponies!”
Purple Heart laughed. “Friends?” he echoed. “As if I could make friends in such a short amount of time.”
“It doesn’t take long at all,” Pinkie urged. “All it starts with is a simple, ‘Hiya!’”
“Really?” the purple pony drawled. “That simple?”
“Yup!”
“Bullcarp.”
Pinkie sighed. “Well, lucky for you, everypony else is busy keeping track of your two friends, so you’re stuck here with me for the rest of the day!”
A loud groan reverberated from within the purple colt’s chest. “The rest of the day? All fifteen and a half hours?”
“Until we’ve sold at least half the stock,” Pinkie amended. “At the rate ponies are walking by, I’d say we’ll be here for a while.” A devilish grin flashed across the cheery pony’s face and Purple Heart blanched.
“R-right,” he stammered. Maybe the strings were a bit too much.
Wait. The Strings.
Purple Heart willed a string up from his foreleg and peered speculatively at it.
Maybe… it may be possible, he thought to himself. With a silent shrug, he grinned into his forelegs. Why not? If anything, it’ll be good practice of control.
Resolved, Purple Heart cleared his throat, making Pinkie turn to him. “I don’t think we’ll see a rush anytime soon,” he said, lifting his forelegs up to stretch. “You can go on a break or something. I’ll be fine.”
Pinkie Pie squinted skeptically at the purple earth pony for several long seconds. A bead of sweat slid down the back of Purple Heart’s neck, hoping against all hope that the energetic mare would take the bait.
Having scrutinized Purple Heart for far longer than was necessary, Pinkie grinned widely.
“Okay then!” She pulled off her apron and pronked around the counter. “I’m gonna go have lunch with Twi! If you need me, just scream really loud! Okay?”
Purple Heart grinned, crossing two strings behind his back. “Okay,” he returned. “Have a good lunch.” The words had barely left his mouth and Pinkie was already out the door and down the street.
After a few minutes of waiting in case the pink menace returned, Purple Heart stepped around the counter and peered out the window. A smattering of ponies were scattered along the street and none of them were looking at Sugarcube Corner. Two tugs of his strings later and the blinds shielded him from the outside world. Purple Heart then turned and stood in the center of the shoppe’s service floor.
“Now,” he muttered, “let’s begin.” Dozens of strings burst from his back and quickly filled Sugarcube Corner with a dull green light as they collected every single piece of product in the tiny store. Pushing his desires into the strings, Purple Heart grinned as the back entrance opened, letting the strings and their cargo burst into the sky to hunt their respective quarries. Ten minutes later, the strings all returned to a heavily breathing Purple Heart, now laden with denominations of bits coin.
Wiping sweat from his brow, Purple Heart grinned widely.
“Mission accomplished,” he said, taking a hesitant step towards the counter. His legs didn’t like the sudden shift in weight and collapsed, leaving the purple colt swearing up a storm on the floor. Again, strings appeared from his body, this time to support his limbs as he struggled to his hooves. The exertion required to control so many strings had surprised him.
“Definitely gonna have to work on that,” he gasped, walking around the counter. Strings stretched from his shoulder and grabbed an unfolded box while another grabbed a thick marker. After several sluggish attempts, Purple Heart managed to make a legible message that he then set in the display window. On it read:


	No admittance except on party business.


	We are out of product today.


	We apologize for the inconvenience.


His attempts at a second message were far less sluggish and took only two tries before something legible was penned:


	Sold out. Going out.


	PH


Communiques completed, Purple Heart’s strings dragged him out of Sugarcube Corner and back to his room in Twilight’s castle where a bed and sleep awaited.


* * *


    “Alright, so.” Rainbow Dash paced in front of Wits End, talking not exactly at him but more in his direction. “Your little magic trick kicked off some shenanigans here in our sleepy little burg. As such, it only seems fitting that your new mission be-”
    “Hang on,” Wits cut in. “Are you imitating Spitfire right now?”
    The cyan pegasus stopped in her tracks. “N-no.” One long beat passed. “Alright, fine, yes! But only because no-pony else is giving you as much grief for lobbing a boulder at the town as they should be! I buzz the Mayor’s house one time, and I get chewed out for an hour! But you? A slap on the hooves and a warning.” Her rambling devolved into grumbling.
    Wits held his hooves up in a placating motion. “Hey, you heard Twilight. I’m basically a toddler with incredible cosmic powers, remember?” He tapped the band around his horn for emphasis, which shot off a few sparks in response. “Blimey!”
    “That probably ain’t good.”
    “Maybe we can stop by Twilight’s for a quick check-up?”
    “Nah, I got a better idea.”
    “And what’s that?”
    Rainbow Dash grinned. “Until I say so, you don’t get to use magic.”
    “What? Come on! That’s…” Wits thought for a moment. “...exactly how I am 99.999% of the time. Okay, outrage retracted.”
    “Awesome. Now, as I was saying. Our job, or rather YOUR job, is to survey the damage caused to the marketplace and help out however we, or rather YOU, can.”
    “Aye aye, captain.” Wits started walking towards where the boulder had landed, with the pegasus hovering at his shoulder. “So, how come you’re the one supervising me on this? I figured Applejack would be more of the clean-up and containment type. Did you draw the short straw or something?”
    “Hah. Hah hah.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes dramatically. “No, smartalec. I volunteered because the rest of us were busy recovering after dealing with the other two morons.”
    Wits’ mouth formed a thin line. “They did that badly, huh?”
    “I think Twilight was considering writing official apology letters.” The cyan pegasus paused. “But, uh, don’t tell her I told you that. I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to tell you guys how each other’s doing.”
    “Controlled experiments, huh? Fair enough.” The two ponies entered the marketplace, taking in the large stone standing in its center, as well as the sizable crater around it. “Woah, who added the post-modern art exhibit?”
    “You did,” Rainbow Dash deadpanned.
    “...Oh, yeah. Yep, that is Scootaloo’s helmet up there. Hang on, I’ll go grab it.” Wits trotted up to the boulder and attempted to scale it, only to fall off immediately. “On second thought, she can get it herself. It’s pretty easy to see.”
    Rainbow Dash jabbed her forehoof up at the helmet. “Nope. You go climb that, and you get the helmet. It’s your fault, so either you return it, or you get her a new one.”
    “Yeah, but I don’t have any bits for a new one.” Wits chuckled. “Good times.”
    “Then you’d better get climbing. No magic, by the way.”
    “What am I, a crossdressing Han soldier? Couldn’t you weigh me down with some discipline and strength instead?” Wits sighed, and turned back to the boulder. After taking a moment to size up his task and identify some hoofholds, he cracked his neck and started climbing again. It was slow going, what with hooves not being built for climbing, but after a few minutes Wits felt like he was starting to make some good progress. “How’m I doing? Almost at the top?”
    Rainbow Dash stared at the unicorn, utterly unimpressed by the 2 feet off the ground he was currently at. “Oh yeah,” she said flatly. “You’re a regular Edmund Haylary.”
    “Look, you’re not gonna get a Ten-zinger like that past me.” Wits hopped up onto an outcropping, leaning against the face of the boulder next to the embedded helmet. “Anypony else crave… mineral?” He tugged on the headgear a couple of times. “Hey, Dashie?”
    “Don’t call me that. What is it?”
    “Can I use magic if the helmet is stuck?”
    “Is it stuck?”
    He tugged at it again to no avail. “Well it sure ain’t unstuck.”
    Rainbow Dash sighed. “Fine. But just to get the helmet out, okay? I don’t want you breaking that magic whatever that keeps you from brainwashing everypony.”
    “You got it, boss.” Wits focused, summoning the pair of magical hands again. “Now, just very carefully pry the helmet out…” One hand held onto the exposed part of the headpiece, while the other jabbed at the rock around it with one finger. Each jab knocked loose a piece of stone, exposing more of the helmet. “You know, these magic hands are pretty useful. Seems like the force they exert isn’t limited by the objects they’re interacting with.”
    “Yeah, sure. Just don’t get cocky with them.”
    “I won’t, horse-mom. Geez.” Wits was silent for a moment. “But I bet I could clear this whole boulder away with them. One good jab, and I think I could bring the whole thing-” The hand doing the jabbing suddenly curled into a fist, smashing through stone. Wits had a moment to yelp before tumbling back to the ground, and he was soon buried under the remains of the boulder.
    “Wits!” Rainbow dashed over to the pile of debris, looking for any sign of the unicorn. “Wits? Give me a sign, dude! Aww geez, Twilight’s gonna kill me!”
    Wits’ hoof shot through the rubble; Scootaloo’s helmet perched on top. “Got it!” he called, his voice muffled by the layer of rocks covering him.
    Rainbow Dash sighed in relief. “Thank Celestia. You gotta be more careful with those things, man! I thought you were a goner.”
    “So did I for a bit, but only while my life was flashing before my eyes.” Wits chuckled. “Well, at least nothing else can go wrong.”
    Out of a shadowy alleyway, a small dark figure darted into the open. In a flash, it had crossed the marketplace grounds and, in one swift movement, snatched the helmet out of Wits’ hoof as it ran by.
    There was silence for a moment. “I can’t see anything under here,” Wits’ muffled voice said, empty hoof waving slowly. “Did you just take the helmet?”
    “Get out here!” Rainbow Dash grabbed his outstretched hoof, dragging him out from under the rocks and pointing at the retreating figure. “Alright, buddy. Time to be a hero and stop that thief. I’ll chase after him and force him towards Town Hall. You head straight there and set up an ambush so we can-”
    Wits held up a hoof. “Hold that thought for just one moment.” One of his magic hands hefted a melon-sized piece of the boulder, reeled back, and hurled it down the street. The stone hurtled through the air, punching through a large mirror two stallions were moving. The thief had just enough time to turn and wonder what the shattering sound was when they were bowled over by the projectile, knocking the helmet out of their grasp and sending them sailing through a wooden wall. And the wall on the other side. And the wall on the other side of that one.
    With a wave of his still raised hoof, Wits sent the other hand down the road, weaving around the two stallions and the remains of their shattered mirror to gently pluck the helmet from the ground and bring it back to him. He turned back to Rainbow Dash, a grin on his face. “Well, we did it,” he said proudly, ignoring the distant crashing sounds of the thief’s continued flight.
    Rainbow Dash did her best to pick her jaw up off the ground. “Did what?” she eventually managed.
    Wits held up the helmet triumphantly. “We saved the day!” In the distance, a small explosion lit the horizon. Wits and Dash, along with most of the other ponies in the marketplace, stared at the mushroom-shaped cloud of dust forming. After a moment, Wits lowered the helmet. “I failed this friendship lesson, didn’t I.”
    “Oh yeah.” Rainbow Dash squinted as the blastwave of the explosion kicked up hot air and dust around them. A wagon wheel bounced between them, careening into an abandoned market stall. “Big time.”


* * *

    
Light Patch slowly became aware of a swaying sensation as he slowly left the state of sleeping he’d occupied. “Huh, whymI onna boat?” he mumbled, his eyes closed as he tried to block out the sun trying to find his closed eyes with the weird fibrous apple smelling pillow.
“Yer not on a boat,” Applejack said.
“Oh... kay, I’mma go back to sleep then,” Light Patch said, trying to roll over deeper into the sheets. Instead, he fell off the bed and onto what felt like dirt, grass, and mud instead of hard, unyielding stone. It was then that a few questions sparked into his mind. “Applejack?”
“Yes?”
    “I have a few questions but I’ll start with ‘why are you in my bedroom’?” The stallion asked, eyes still closed.
    “I ain’t in your bedroom.”
    “Ah... That actually answers a few of them… and raises a few more. Such as, ‘why am I not in my bedroom’?”
    “Y’know how Twilight wants us to keep you colts busy for a bit til you settle in here a little more?” She waited for him to nod before continuing. “Well, a perfect opportunity came up. Ah and somepony else need help settling something, and you’re supposed to take it easy and thinkin comes real easy to you. So, I got you and was bringing you on over to where the help is needed.”
    “While I was still asleep.” Light Patch stated.
    “Ah tried to wake ya, but ya were deep asleep. So I just brought you over and figured you’d wake up eventually,” She said happily, ignoring the glare he gave her. Light Patch stood up and looked right at Applejack.
    “Here’s my advice: you and whoever you are arguing with can take a long walk off a short pier. That’ll fix everything. I’m going back to bed.” He turned, intent on collapsing on a feather mattress when Applejack caught him by the chest and forced him to start walking with her towards some point on the farm past the Apple Family house.
    “And here I thought you were the nice one.”
    “No, ma’am. Nice stops at midnight. What time is it anyway? Beyond Ungodly Early O’clock?”
    “About an hour til sunrise. When does ‘nice’ start again?”
    “Eight or breakfast, whichever comes first. So what am I helping you with?”
    “Carrot Top and I just found out that the lines between her vegetable fields and my family’s orchard were off some land she just bought. Apparently, it's actually partly my family’s,” Applejack replied.
    “So split the land down the middle and call it a day. Bam, problem solved. I’m going back to bed, which you took me out of far earlier than is polite.”
    “Yer not really letting that go, are ya?”
    “No.”
    “Well, too bad, because yer not goin’ back yet. It wouldn’t make economic sense to just split the land down the middle. Trees take a while to grow and-”
    “Vegetables profit in bulk,” a new voice said as a new pony join the pair. Light Patch turned and found himself looking at a yellow coated mare with a carrot orange mane and tail. “You two were taking a while so I figured I’d meet you halfway.”
    “Sorry about that, Carrot Top. It took me longer than I thought to get my friend out here to help.”
    “It’s fine.” Carrot Top turned to look at Light Patch. “You got any ideas as a third party?”
    “Pay the bits and buy the land from Applejack?”
    “No way. I already spent a bunch of bits buying all of the land and I can’t get a hold of the pony who sold it to me. I’m not throwing any more bits into this,” she denied, grinding a hoof in the ground. Light Patch turned to look at Applejack.
    “I don’t suppose being the bigger mare and giving her the land is an option?”
    “Ah ain’t Rarity. Ah’m not giving away any of my orchard’s land without compensation. And it also sets a dangerous precedent should we get any more surprises with property borders,” Applejack explained.
    “Well, what were you both going to do with the land?”
    “Plant more trees,” Applejack answered.
    “I was going to build up some shade structures and try to plant some crops that need more shade than my regular fields need.” Carrot Top frowned as she looked at the field now that they were near it. “You know, there isn’t any reason you can’t embody more than one element.” She gave a sidelong glance towards Applejack.
    “And you can just eat the loss of most of the bits and just plant what you can and try to recoup your losses,” Applejack shot back.
    “You wouldn’t just sit down and deal with this if it happened to you, so why should I?” Carrot Top retorted, her tone verging on shouting.
    “And you wouldn’t just give up land without some kind of compensation, so why should ah?!” Applejack matched Carrot’s volume and then some.
    “You're being unreasonable! You’re her friend! Tell her… Where’d he go?” Carrot Top blinked, looking around for Light Patch. Applejack too noticed he wasn’t next to them and started looking around as well.
    “I’m over here in the shade of the trees,” Light Patch called from where he sat in the shade. He was fighting to think in the heat and the shade was helping. It also worked to put him back to sleep. “The sun is bright and it’s not even up, but it’s already starting to feel like the middle of the day in summer.” 
    Carrot Top noticed the sun was shining directly on where she and Applejack had started to argue. She decided to follow Light Patch’s example and join him in the shade when a thought crawled into her head. “Applejack, how long would it take for saplings to start providing shade?”
    “From seed, it’d be about three years for them to start casting enough shade to be worth it. Saplings or smaller trees? Maybe a year or less. We could also try to encourage them to grow out a bit more than normal,” Applejack rattled off. A curious look settled on her face as she peered at the other mare..
    “What if we both use this field? Your apple trees making shade for my vegetables,” Carrot Top suggested.
    “It’d take some effort but… I reckon we could make it work,” Applejack agreed, rubbing her chin in thought. Light Patch just sat in the shade and watched, settling for listening to the two mares hammer out the details of their plan. Without him.
    “Cool,” he sighed. “Failed to help again.” He grunted, heaving himself to his hooves and started to trudge back towards Ponyville. “Whatever. I’m going back to bed. And maybe try to find my glasses.”
    “I’ll get my brother out here after lunch and we’ll hammer out a tree pattern then. In the meantime, I figure I owe Light Patch some grub for helping us out with being the seed to your inspiration there… And maybe kidnapping him from his bed.” Applejack rubbed the back of her head sheepishly at the look that Carrot Top gave her. Promising to be back in time for lunch, Carrot Top set off back to her house. Applejack turned towards the shade Light Patch had been in and found a noticeable lack of Light Patch.
“Huh... Where’d he go off to??”


* * *


    Twilight trotted into the map room, bags under her eyes from long hours writing apology letters. “Well,” she sighed, taking a place near the rest of the mares, “I’m sure there’s ways that could have gone worse.”
    “Name one,” Rainbow Dash deadpanned.
    “Look, it ain’t as bad as y’all’re makin’ it out to be,” Applejack said. “It ain’t like they blew up the town or nothin.”
    “Maybe Light Patch didn’t,” the cyan pegasus shot back, “but you didn’t have to spend the day apologizing to every pony in sight for a freakin’ boulder!”
    Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t Wits End also apologize?”
    “Yeah, after destroying a ton of property! Including Trixie’s wagon! Do you know how hard it was to apologize to Trixie the Freaking Magnificent? He blew up her wagon, Rarity! I was two inches away from giving her a free pass on conquering Ponyville to make up for it!” Rainbow Dash slumped into a chair, visibly deflating as exhaustion won out over anger.
    Twilight frowned. “I wish I’d stuck around while the CMC were working with him. Maybe I could’ve found a way to keep his magic from going haywire like that.”
    Rainbow Dash growled. “It wasn’t ‘haywire’, Twilight. He just… I don’t know. Went too far? It’s like… his magic was working on its own, or something. There was what he wanted and then what his magic wanted. Is that a unicorn thing?”
    “Not exactly…” Twilight thought for a moment. “I’ll have to look into it. Maybe it has something to do with his human brain interacting with his pony magic instincts. What about the other two? I didn’t have to write nearly as much for them, so I assume it went… better?”
    “Well, Light Patch and I reshelved a bunch of the returned books from the last week or so, and we redid all of the six hundred shelves,” Spike chimed in.
    “But the six hundred shelves only had a Rainbow rating of point three,” Twilight commented. Rainbow sat a little prouder, assuming that the system was named for her.
    “Rainbow rating?” Rarity questioned.
    “Twilight made a measurement system to tell how out of place books end up from when ponies pull a book, read a page, put it back, but in the wrong place.” Spike looked out of the side of his eyes towards the Rainbow maned mare. “I’m still not sure where the name came from. In any case, the shelf had a rating of zero point zero after I… uh, ‘talked’ Light Patch into trying to fly up and put a book up there. His wing cramped and knocked all of the books off the shelf.” Spike cringed, looking more and more sheepish as Twilight glared harder.
    “I never did get much of a chance to teach him to fly,” Rainbow said, trying to not think about her own experiences with wing cramps.
    “Did he also help you reshelve despite the fact he’s supposed to take it easy?” Twilight asked, ignoring Rainbow’s statement and trying to not grind her teeth.
    “No!” Spike quickly replied. “I convinced him to take it easy. He did stick around, but I think he blamed himself for what happened.”
    “Huh, maybe that's why he went an’ disappeared,” Applejack mused.
    “Who disappeared?” Fluttershy asked quietly.
    “Light Patch. Ah know ya wanted to keep them from just lazin’ around and ah had something early yesterday mornin’ for him to, uh, help with,” Applejack explained.
    “Your early, darling, or non-farmer early?” Rarity asked.
    “Farmer early.”
    “I’m surprised he was up that early,” Rarity hummed. “He strikes me as a late morning kind of pony.” She tapped her chin contemplatively.
    “He, uh, wasn’t.” Applejack admitted just barely loud enough for the others to hear.
    “You mean you ponynapped him?!” Twilight shouted.
    “Well, ah was gonna give him some breakfast,” the orange mare defended herself quickly before clearing her throat and continuing, “but after he inspired Carrot Top with how to fix our issue, when ah went to drag him to breakfast, he was just gone. Ah wonder if he thought he’d failed to help.” A groan of frustration dragged everyone’s attention to Twilight who’d facedesked.
    “Great so we have one losing control of his magic and another who’s starting to feel like a failure. Can we go three for three for them acting weird?” She said, her voice muffled by the table.
    “I don’t know about acting ‘weird’, but Purple Heart did something that wasn’t ‘normal’,” Spike piped up. “He helped me hunt for a folder you asked me to bring you. Y’know, the treatise on Yakyakistan Mining whatever the hay?”
Twilight nodded. “You put it on my desk during my lunch hour along with a folder regarding something he asked me to look into as a favor.”
“Yeah, those,” Spike said. “He didn’t help me much with the Yakyakistan Mining, but on the way out, he somehow shut all the filing drawers and the door.”
    “I don’t know a lot about Purple Heart as an individual, but that doesn’t seem like something out of the ordinary,” Rarity interrupted. “With an impressive presence or strong enough wings, any pegasus can do that.” She blinked. “Only he’s not a pegasus.”
    “He closed with telekinesis,” Spike deadpanned.
    Twilight fell out of her chair. “HE DID WHAT?!” she squawked from the floor. The princess of Friendship clambered back into her seat and stared dumbstruck at Spike. “TELEKINESIS?!”
    Rainbow raised a hoof. “What’s telekinesis for the non-nerds here?”
    “Telekinesis is an alleged mental ability that allows a being to move physical objects without touching them,” Fluttershy recited. She smiled weakly. “Sometimes I get tired of reading stories to my animals.” The mares accepted her explanation and reacted promptly.
    “I thought Purple Heart wasn’t a unicorn,” Rarity said. “Nor was he a mage in Discord’s game. Did something happen while they were in Limbo?”
    “Probably,” Applejack agreed. “Though, if anypony was gonna have the power to move things with his mind, ah’d’ve thought of Wits first.”
    “Spike, did anything else happen while Purple Heart was helping find those folders?” Fluttershy inquired. The little dragon shrugged.
    “He was pretty quiet. Mutter a few bad words a few times, dropped a file folder, and kept to himself until I hollered I’d found the right file. When I walked up to him, he didn’t say much beyond giving me the second folder and told me to give it to you and that you’d understand. Then he left. Closed everything.” He squinted as he tried to think back to the event in question. “Now that I think about it, there was a soft, green glow as he walked out.”
“Hmm… I’ll have to talk to him about that...” Twilight looked around at her friends. She prompted, “who’s ne-?”
    “Purple Heart sucks at customer service!” Pinkie cried out.
    Her outburst was met with silence.
“Ehm, Pinkie dear, that's not all that surprising. He isn’t the most polite pony there is,” Rarity pointed out.
“Yeah,” Rainbow agreed. “It’s kinda in his nature.”
    Pinkie shook her head, her mane bouncing wildly. “He was really gruff with the customer. Granted, I pulled the sorry pony off the street, but he didn’t even offer any coupons or deals or anything!”
The other five mares looked at each other, not fully understanding the situation.
“I sent him to help Pinkie at Sugarcube corner,” Spike explained.
“Aah. Carry on then, Pinkie,” Twilight urged.
“Like I was saying, he being all gruff and stingy!” the pink mare continued. “He kept complaining about having to help ponies and got all up in hooves about how hard it is to make friends!”
“To be fair, he is not the easiest pony to get along with,” Rarity commented.
“Ah’ll say. He doesn’t go outta his way to make the experience easy.”
“Then,” Pinkie said, “and here’s the really weird part: he tells me to go on break and leave him ALONE.”
“Huh. Didn’t know he was that arrogant,” Rainbow muttered.
“And you left him alone?” Twilight asked flatly. Pinkie blinked.
“I mean… maybe?” the pink mare said.
Twilight groaned. “PINKIE. What did I tell everypony about leaving the colts unattended?!”
“‘Don’t’, but nothing happened!”
The other mares blinked. “What do you mean ‘nothing happened’?” Spike asked.
“I mean nothing bad happened,” Pinkie explained. “I went on break, came back a little while afterward, and the shoppe was EMPTY!”
Twilight glared. “HE WASN’T THERE?!”
“That too, but the shoppe was completely EMPTY!” Pinkie cried. “No bread in the front, no pastries in the back!”
“Ya mean… no product?” Applejack clarified.
“YES!” Pinkie danced happily. “Everything had been sold!”
“How do you know it wasn’t stolen?!” Rainbow demanded.
“There was a big pile of bits coins on the counter.”
“...”
“He doesn’t know how to use the till.”
“Y’know, that’s fair,” Applejack allowed. “But does anypony know where he went afterwards?”
“Maybe he came back to the castle?” Fluttershy offered.
“Why though?” Rarity asked. “He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to be here. Why would he come back?”
“To sleep maybe?”
Twilight swore under her breath and wove a quick spell. Her eyes glowed bright for a second and she looked over at the map table. Hovering over it was a shimmering image of Purple Heart fast asleep in his room within the castle.
    “Well, that answers that question,” Twilight muttered, writing several new lines in her notes.
    Rarity leaned back in her seat. “So, let me see if I fully understand this situation. We have one colt with uncontrollable magic powers, one with what should be physically impossible magical abilities, and one who is… depressed? Am I the only one who feels that there’s a slight disconnect here?”
    “Would ya rather Light Patch had some kinda uncontrollable, physically impossible magic?” Applejack asked.
    “...Eugh.”
    “That’s what Ah thought.”
    “Maybe we should put them back under observation,” Twilight muttered. “There must be something I missed during my initial tests…”
    “Hey, woah!” Rainbow Dash rocked forward, putting both hooves on the edge of the map. “If something is going on, wouldn’t locking them up just encourage them to go full bad guy? I mean, those guys didn’t have the strongest grasp on being the heroes in the first place, right?”
    “Dashie’s right!” Pinkie piped up, ignoring the pegasus’ grumblings. “We just need to get them more comfortable with being ponies! At least, until Twilight can find a way to make them not ponies anymore!”
    Applejack raised an eyebrow. “And how exactly do we do that?”
    “Umm.” Fluttershy raised her hoof timidly. “What if we just… help them do pony things?”
    “They ain’t doin’ pony things now?”
    “Well… you did kind of ponynap Light Patch. That’s not very, um, pony-like.” Fluttershy turned to Pinkie. “And, um, well, interacting with many new ponies in a short amount of time isn’t really something I think Purple Heart would appreciate doing.”
    “He did sell my whole stock, but I get your point.”
    Rainbow Dash started hovering around the room, obviously anxious after keeping still for a whole minute. “And what about Wits? You wanna just let him drop the moon on Ponyville on accident?”
    “Well, uh,” Fluttershy looked down at the ground, “if he did throw a moon on us, I would probably be very cross at him.”
    Rainbow Dash scoffed. “And that’s supposed to stop him?” The rest of the mares stared at her, each one with one eyebrow cocked. “What?”
    “Can you think of anypony better suited to keep Wits End in line than Fluttershy?” Rarity asked.
    The cyan pegasus thought for a moment. “Okay, yeah, good point. But what about Twilight’s tests?”
    “Why not test’m in the field?” Applejack asked. 
    Pinkie nodded energetically. “Yeah! I mean, don’t literally ponynap them and drag them out to a field, but I agree with the general idea!”
    “Y’all really ain’t lettin’ up on that, are ya?”
    “I guess that could work,” Twilight said. “Alright. Let’s take tomorrow and get them acclimated to being normal ponies. Out and about, carefully interacting with the rest of Ponyville, and all that. I’ll work on rigging up something to keep them from…”
    “Dropping the moon on us?” Rainbow Dash asked.
    “Psychically puppeteering the entire town?” Spike said with a hint of excitement.
    Applejack opened her mouth to add in, then slowly shut it. “Ah don’t know what ya’ll can rig up to keep Light Patch from being a mopey foal.”
    “I’ll take care of that!” Pinkie proclaimed proudly.
    “Oh, sweet Celestia, help him…”