“I think I understand Fluttershy, but I’m still not ready to forgive Rainbow yet for leaving you without some pony to turn to.” Tress wanted a nice hug from her other friend and now it seems that friend needed the hug more than her. “Sure you ran away from your problems, but what other choice could you have made?”
“Well one that couldn’t have had a better outcome then where I am now that’s for sure. It would have ended all my troubles certainly. I just didn’t consider it because I know some pony out there would miss me.” Fluttershy looked at the floor as her wings hung limply at her side. “Rainbow was not the cause of my problems, she alleviated them by a lot when she was around to actually care that I existed. So please consider being at least genial with her.”
“Until Rainbow can prove herself to me, I won’t call her my friend. You better believe me when I say any true friend of yours would miss you if you were gone Fluttershy, we’re all glad to even know you.” Tress got Fluttershy to look up at her with this statement. “Speaking of the other option,you know that’s kind of my origin story in a nutshell.”
“How did you live with almost doing that to yourself? Didn’t you think any pony would miss you?” Fluttershy was already hugging Tress and Barb to herself. She was sure they enjoyed the feeling of her warm wings protectively wrapping around them.
“Fluttershy, I had absolutely no pony. I hardly know anything about your parents to even comment on it and from the way you talk about it, school was especially hard on you with all the bullying. Speaking of, you don’t seem too worried about my powers possibly coming back or haven’t even asked about it yet.” With a look of concentration in her eyes Tress managed to generate a green highlight in her mane and then wiggled it about in Fluttershy’s face.
“Well it’s who you are Tress; I know you would never truly hurt a friend of yours unless you had too. Just because you’re outward appearance might change and your cutie mark becomes a little different, it doesn’t mean you’ll be a different pony at heart.” Fluttershy put a hoof to Tress’s chest and smiled, she moved the hoof to Barbs chest. “It must be so hard for you to Barb. I mean to live with being the only magic dragon around and having to be kind of homeschooled.”
“Eh, it’s a living. I wouldn’t want to change my scales for anything normal at this point, normal is overrated anyway.” Barb shrugged; she liked the attention and was nonchalant about her own personal differences to everyone around her. She managed to break up the somber mood readily. “So, are you ever going to get to that pie we brought?”
“Oh my yes, a snack sounds like a wonderful idea.” Fluttershy wondered if she should let her parents know that the life she said she would make for herself has come to fruition. She had friends, family and loved ones who all made her content with her newfound place in the world.
It was a nice day to have friends over and the pie smelled really good.
Twilight woke up calmly; she had finally caught up on her sleep. It was hard to say whether or not she’d be able to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow. She’d have to get herself back on track with coffee then.
“Feeling better doctor Light?” Smart said calmly with the ever present smile on her face as she sat upon the tip of the Twilight’s horn.
“Yes Smart, I’m feeling fine though I’m still pretty fatigued. What’s going on right now?” Now focused on her childhood plaything, which made her cross eyed in the process, Twilight watched as she inhaled in a ridiculously exaggerated manner. Smart didn’t really need to breathe and was as usual goofing around, just like she was supposed to do.
“Well, Barb and Tress are out exploring Ponyville. Zecora said she made some potion you should probably drink and given the ingredients I know it’s relatively safe to ingest. There’s some kind of wonky rainbow zigzagging across the sky and has been for the last twenty or so minutes. That’s about it… so do you want or need to work on me?” Smart flew to the nearby desk and landed on it waiting for Twilight to answer.
“Go and ask Zecora if I have to come get the potion first, then we’ll see to working on you a bit Smart. I think the new modifications might boost your efficiency by eighteen percent.” It may not seem like much, but it was a lot to Twilight to even get an enchantment to such a refined level.
“Aye aye, oh captain my captain!” Smart threw a silly salute to Twilight and flew off through the open crack in the door.
Smart came back zipping around with the zebra in tow, Zecora was chuckling at something Smart had said.
“It was my notion, that I should mix you a potion. To fix your fatigue problems so you’re right as rain, do not worry as I don’t intend any pain.” Zecora held up a vial in her hoof and Twilight quickly levitated to herself and tasted it. “A spoonful of sugar can really help the taste; it took a while to make that so drink it all but not in haste.”
“I appreciate it Zecora thank you very much, when it comes to potion making I think you have a very special touch.” Twilight upended the vial and she immediately swallowed the contents. After a few moments she felt a vigorous boost in her drained magic and her body filled to the brim with vim.
“You would not need to have pleaded; I am your friend just as needed.” Zecore turned to exit the room, looking over her shoulder at the rejuvenated mare. “I go now back to the formula on which I do work, I feel assisting you to be quite an intriguing perk.”
Twilight turned to Smart and lit her horn, soon Smart’s eyes went lifeless and her pixie body morphed into that of Twilight’s stuffed childhood toy. She placed it back on the desk from whence it fell and sat there studying the enchantments and how well they were working. She had to make sure if anything needed fixing before she started upgrading Smart.
Thus far the only thing Smart seemed to be straining was the enchantment that let her use spells, using levitation too much and or lighting herself up to brightly might cause her to completely lose the ability to use magic. It wouldn’t bother Smart's ability to fly or any of the other enchantments though so that was a lucky break. Twilight really didn’t want to replace the spell enchantment and would work on that a bit.
All the enchantments were back in line and Twilight tweaked them a bit before she decided to enhance Smarts systems. The first thing Twilight had to tweak was Smart's ability to store energy; she would increase the capacity by energy compression. It would give Smart more time to be active for longer periods of time and at night without running dry.
Twilight also decided to tighten the magical flow of the enchantments trying to make sure Smart didn’t lose or waste as much energy. Once she was finished with that she decided to start Smart back up. It was a small tweaking session that took an hour of intense focus.
“Special Magical Artificially Rogue Toy, Entertain, Play, Achieve, Note, Teach, Study. Now active Smart E. Pants!” After a moment the body of the Smarty Pants plush toy shrunk down back into its pixie form. Slowly Smart’s eyes fluttered open and she sat up. “Are all your enchantments running nominally Smart?”
“We’re okay to go Neighpoleon! Well unless it’s that one battle, then we’re doomed.” Smart grinned as Twilight rolled her eyes. “It seems the enchantments are working correctly. If there is anything wrong with them I’ll get back to you or explode violently. I really don’t like that second one.”
“Yes, but I’ve managed to bring you back again and again, even when I make mistakes I’m glad that your still around after I’ve made them and have learned much from them.” Twilght watched as the pixie shrugged, she wouldn’t blame her for not liking the possibility to spontaneously blow up. Twilight doubted a pony would survive exploding twice much less eighteen times to date.
“I know how that feels because I’m running on our memories you know. I’m just glad that I as the toy in this situation can’t possibly feel any pain.” Smart rubbed the back of her head; the sensation of exploding was not something she liked living more than three times. The first time it happened, it was actually kind of funny. “Ponies do say, ancient cities aren’t built in a day. I’m surprised we’ve even got this far with all the enchantments.”
“Well you’re done for a month or two unless any pressing matters come up, do I have any pressing agendas today that I need to worry about Smart?” Twilight really had to make the pixie look really darn cute. Smart tilted her head while crossing her front legs in thought while looking up to Twilight.
“Nothing to report Hoofdini, we’re clear for the rest of the day. So you get a little you time and I’m going to go sun a bit. I think we’re still good enough for handling small requests though.” Smart flew towards the window which Twilight opened for her and out the pixie pony went.
Twilight smiled as she shut window knowing Smart would be back in a while, unless she explodes setting off the failsafe enchantment Twilight designed with such a thing in mind.
Twilight made her way downstairs and decided to make a very simple nice ordinary sandwich. As she was close to finishing it by carefully placing the last slice of bread slowly, a knock at the door was heard and she dropped the bread slice into place and turned to look away from it. As soon as Twilight turned her attention away from the sandwich, it pulled a butter knife on her and leapt at her to start attempting to stab her. Luckily the sandwich was wasn’t physically strong enough to actually harm her, even armed with a weapon.
Twilight levitated the butter knife away from the now floating flailing limbed sandwich and bit off a part of the sandwich that had one of its arms and made her way for the front door. Never did Twilight’s cooking ever cease to surprise her; at least it wasn’t as dangerous as the fruitcake. While Tress couldn’t let go of the demonic fruitcake thing, Twilight had to admit that she probably should be more worried about it like her friend was. It was actually still around since it survived being bit by Barb’s tiny diamond eating teeth. She shuddered at the fact that it was still out there possibly terrorizing ponies somewhere.
Opening the door, Twilight came face to face with a mare that could stand to grow her mane out a bit. Unless she was a tom colt, then that style fit perfectly on her and should probably just brush her hair more often. She had a blue coat with a mane and tail that filled out all colors of the rainbow pretty well.
“Hey are you… is that sandwich alive and trying to scream for help in semaphore with its… are those legs? Aw yeah, that is so awesome!” The colorful pegasus watched as Twilight lazily bit off the other arm of the upside down floating sandwich.
The daisy sandwich looked like it was trying to screech in anguish as Twilight ate another part of it, good thing it didn’t have vocal chords like the macaroni bat. That thing had taken them hours to get out of the attic when she still lived at her parents’ house; she wasn’t even actually trying to cook that time either. She just wanted to make some macaroni art, why did life have to be so unfair to her at odd intervals?
“Did you need something or do you want to go on about how my snack just tried to ineffectually kill me with a butter knife?” Continuing to eat the living sandwich without thinking twice about it, Twilight waited for a response. She quickly decided introductions were in order as the pegasus was staring at the still flailing legs of the sandwich. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. Welcome to Trims, Tresses and Trouble Takers and you are?”
“Oh yeah I’m Rainbow Dash, but what I’m here for is not nearly as interesting as that is! So it came at you with a butter knife? Did it have cookie ninja’s with it too? Did the cake lie to you as well?” Rainbow Dash seemed more interested in the volatile things Twilight had to do battle with and consume. Especially more so than what she actually originally came here for.
Twilight face hoofed, she should just start a food circus and have carrot dogs jumping through hoops for the masses at this point. Helping ponies who were going to be insane or crazy was going to drive her nuts, but she felt like doing good deeds was where her heart belonged. Even if it hurts her mentally to do so, she would push forward.
“I see the shining example of the educational standards of Cloudsdale is still going strong as ever, If I am to judge by your apparent lack of holding a train of thought. Yes, let’s do go on about the sandwich that just inexplicably came to life and tried to kill me and failed horribly at that.” It took a moment for Twilight to realize that this was Rainbow Dash. This was the mare that was Fluttershy’s old friend who had drifted away from her a few years ago.
“That’s it; you’re now my friend no matter what. I’m almost even willing to say you’re officially as awesome as I am!” Apparently Rainbow didn’t catch on to sarcasm quite so well. “How do you even go about making samurai sandwiches anyway? Did you use some special magic trick or have a card that brings it to life to fight other food monsters?”
Twilight double face hoofed. Why, just why? She just took another bite out of her sandwich and silently considered how lucky Fluttershy was to have escaped Cloudsdale.