We walked in and expected a greeting, but not like this. Rarity and a stallion were running around in a panic trying to clean up a huge mess in her kitchen, sweetie bell was glued to the wall in what looked like some sort of batter. The room looked like a war zone; there were batter explosions, spoons sticking out of the furniture, dirty pots and pans in the sink and on the counter. The place was a mess.
“Rarity, what’s going on here?” this was an obvious question.
“Oh, hi twilight, we’re just teaching sweetie here to cook.”
“Looks more like a fire-fight.” Fixinit had the same thought as me.
“Or a food-fight!” The stallion yelled while trying to peel Sweetie bell from the wall.
“We should help them.” I said to Fixinit.
“Or sit and watch.” He put his flank on the ground.
“You have a cruel sense of humor.”
“I know.” Then he got up and we started helping, starting with getting sweetie off of the wall.
-----
About a half hour later we were done and panting. It wasn’t an easy job, even with our combined magic it took us a considerably longer time than expected.
“Well *pant* that was fun *pant*.” Rarity said.
“Why are you tired? You sat and watched us all work.” The new stallion wasn’t happy about that; she didn’t even use her magic.
“I got tired from watching you.” she popped up like she wasn’t tired at all.
“Well at least it’s done.” I wasn’t about to let an argument break out about this.
“Yeah, at least it’s done.” Fixinit had been sitting watching with an amused look, now he looked disappointed.
“Ok, now that we’re done, can we get to what we came here for?”
“Oh, right, what is it that you wanted, dear?” Rarity was more than willing to make a dress order, or a suit order, for her friend, after what she had been through.
“We actually came here to see you.” I looked at the new stallion “Fixinit here has told me that you and four others traveled through the Everfree forest to get here.”
“It’s very true.” He looked proud of his accomplishment.
“Fedorian here went hoof-to-hoof with a Manticore!” Fixinit was obviously excited to boast for his friend.
“Yes, I did, but it mostly ruined one of my best suits, I was fine afterwards.”
“Fine? Fed, when you got to my door you were limping and bleeding and in terrible condition, how could you say you were fine?” rarity stood up and pointed to her front door.
“Compared to the suit I had nothing more than a foal’s boo-boo.”
“Well, there’s no argument on that point.” She sat back down.
“We just wanted to stop by and say hello, maybe we could go to lunch someday or something.” I was almost eager to leave; they obviously had a ton of work to do, teaching sweetie and all, and their back and forth would be their own business.
“Ok, good bye, twilight.”
“Good bye.” And we were out.
-----
“So, twilight, who’s next?”
“One sec.” I hit him with the spell again “it still says you’re in several places at once.”
“Maybe it’s because we were together for so long.”
“It’s possible.” But not probable.
“Now, who’s next?”
“There are two more places, one is a mare named Ditzy Doo’s house, and the other is Fluttershy’s house.”
“Which is closer?”
“Fluttershy is closer, but Ditzy is still in town.”
He stopped and put on a face of deep thought, after a minute he said “we should go to Fluttershy’s house, its closer.”
“Ok then.” And we set off; no sooner had I said that then was I stopped by a familiar orange pony.
-----
I was just delivering some apples when I saw Twilight with a new stallion “hey, Twilight, ah didn know yall were out n’ about.”
“Hey, applejack. I'm just out looking for some friends. This is Fixinit; he arrived here a few days ago. Fixinit, this is applejack, she is the proud owner and main worker at the Sweet Apple Acres.”
“Well, technically, granny smith owns th’ place and big mac can buck twice as many apples as ah can.”
“Whatever. We were just heading over to Flutershy’s, what are you doing?”
“Oh, ahm jus deliverin a fairly large order o jazz apples to th’ bar, ‘ey ran ou’ o some kind o alcoholic drink tha calls fer ‘em.”
“Ok, well I’ll see you later, applejack.”
“Bah.” I started to walk away when an apple rolled out and almost fell; Fixinit caught it with his magic and placed it back on top.
“Maybe we should come with, just in case.”
“Mehbe, we culd talk on th’ wey.”
“Great.” They started to walk next to the cart, catching another five apples before we got to the next street.
“So, howd yall get ‘ere, mister Fixinit?”
“Just Fixinit is fine. I wandered here through the Everfree forest.”
“Wha- thas dangerous, how long were yall in there?”
“Two weeks. But I had five other ponies with me. So we were pretty set.”
“Thas still purty dangerous. Did yall run inta any trouble?”
“Oh, just a Manticore, but we defended ourselves pretty well, only two of us came out of that fight with any scratches or bruises.”
“Well thas good ah guess. But whu happen’ to th’ ponies tha got hurt?”
“I don’t know, we were going to check on one of them when we met you, and we just returned from the others place. He seemed all right.”
“Well thas good, too.” we arrived at the bar and I unloaded the apples “well, thank ya kindly fer yer help. See ya round.” And then I left with the cart.
-----
“Well it was defiantly great meeting another one of your friends, Twilight.” I looked at him, he seemed sincere enough.
“That’s good, should we get to Fluttershy’s now?”
“We should.” We started walking.
Just as we reach the last building on our way out of town towards Fluttershy's cottage we heard a loud roar followed by a scream.