It didn’t take Spike very long to find Pencil Pusher—the bounce house was easily the most prominent feature at the party, and Spike had spotted the bureaucrat from the stairs. Actually getting to the stallion was a bit more arduous, as the dragon had to wade through a dance floor packed with energetic foals to reach him, all while shielding his mind from the potential distractions of party games, party favors, and party snacks which probably didn’t contain a single gem, no matter how delectable they looked.
But finally, after many pushes, shoves, pardon-mes, and coming-throughs, Spike arrived at the front of the line for the bounce house, where Pencil Pusher looked at him wearily. “Uh, I’m sorry, buddy,” the stallion said, looking a bit lost for words, as though he hadn’t expected to deal with anyone who didn’t have hooves, “but I don’t think I can let you in the bounce house with those claws of yours. You might puncture the fabric.”
As it turned, out, though, Spike was having even more difficulty trying to express himself. “Oh, um, that’s alright. I, uh, didn’t actually come here to use it. I, well, was kind of hoping we could... talk, maybe?”
“Huh? Why? Do I know... oh!” Pencil Pusher suddenly exclaimed as his face lit up in recognition. “You’re that dragon who hangs out at the library, aren’t you? Spyro, right?”
“Uh, Spike, actually.”
“I beg your pardon?” Pencil Pusher said as he raised his voice to speak over the throbbing beat that pulsed from the loudspeakers.
“Spike!”
“Oh, right. Sorry. So, did Fluttershy send you here to tell me something?”
“Not really—uh, is there somewhere quieter we can talk?”
“What? Oh, sure! Let me flag somepony down who can cover for me while I take a break.”
This didn’t take particularly long, as Pinkie Pie chose that moment to notice that Spike was in attendance at her party and rushed over to greet him with a massive hug. Once the dragon managed to prise himself from the earth pony’s clutches, Pinkie was more than happy to take over bounce house duties while Spike and Pencil had their conversation. The two of them found an unused side room containing nothing out of the ordinary (except for an open first aid kit lying in the middle of the floor) and shut the door behind them to muffle the noise.
“Okay,” Pencil Pusher said, “what did you want to talk about?”
Spike stared at the ground as he awkwardly shifted his weight around. “Um, well, I guess there really isn’t a good way to bring this up without it sounding, you know, odd, so I might as well just ask. What’s going on between you and, um, Rarity?” The little dragon’s nervous gulp seemed much louder now than the blaring party music had been only a few minutes earlier.
To Spike’s surprise, Pencil Pusher seemed befuddled by the question. “Rarity? Uh, nothing, really. She’s just... helping me out a bit, I guess.”
“So, you aren’t, like, interested in her, then?”
“Nah,” Pencil Pusher replied with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s a very nice mare, but she’s really not my type. Just a bit too detail-oriented for my tastes, if that makes any sense.”
“Oh,” Spike said blankly as he processed this news. “Alright.” So, it seemed that Rarity was doomed to disappointment in her pursuit of Pencil Pusher. This was a most excellent development—well, maybe not in the short term. Spike never liked it when Rarity was sad. But she’d need a shoulder to cry on in order to get over this, and he planned on making sure that both of his were available to her at a moment’s notice.
These musings, however, were cut short, as Pencil Pusher had a question of his own to ask: “Why do you want to know?”
Spike’s face briefly froze in an expression of panic. “Er, well... you see...”
Oddly, one of the corners of the bureaucrat’s mouth turned up into a wry, though not unkindly, grin. “Never mind,” he said in a reassuring tone of voice. “Spike, sometimes, when you really like somepony else, it can be difficult building up the courage to say so. Rarity... well, she’s helping me out, like I said.”
Spike seemed a little stunned. “You’re allowed to get help with that?”
“Sure,” Pencil Pusher said. “You should really give it a try—you know, if you ever fall for somepony down the road.”
“Yeah....” Spike said as he thought this over, though somehow he didn’t hit on the implications of Pencil Pusher’s use of the word “somepony” instead of a more species-neutral term. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”
“So, is there anything else, or can I get back to the bounce house?”
“Huh? Oh, sure,” Spike said as he opened the door. “Oh, and thank you, Mr. Pusher.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Spike slowly exhaled as he watched the stallion return to his post. Now that his initial panic was gone, there was only one logical course of action to take for the remainder of the day: Party.
September 2 – 11:31 AM
Getting the full story out of Rainbow Dash had been like solving a jigsaw puzzle: even when all the relevant information was in full view, Applejack still needed to assemble it into something coherent, because the idea that Rainbow Dash would actively try her hoof at matchmaking ran counter to all of her previous assumptions about the weatherpony’s demeanor. It just sounded way too lovey-dovey and dewey-eyed for a pegasus as aggressive as her, which is why the first step Applejack had taken to fix this mess was to have Rainbow Dash fetch Rarity from the library so she could get the real story.
When, against all odds, the tale of Rainbow Dash’s painfully clunky attempt to ease Fluttershy into taking Pencil Pusher seriously turned out to be completely accurate, Applejack knew that there was only one way to remove all the confusion so everypony could refocus their attention on the fog, and she marched over to the library with Rainbow Dash and Rarity in tow to set things right.
However, despite the farmpony’s unmistakable aura of confidence, her two friends seemed oddly unnerved by her actions. “Er, Applejack, darling, wouldn’t it be wise to at least let us know what your plan is?”
Applejack ignored Rarity’s question as she walked up to the library door, mostly because she was quite certain that her friends’ response to her plan would be an attempt to stop it. Thus, without further ado she opened the door and marched right into the middle of a discussion Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy were having about barometric pressure.
“Um, is something wrong, Applejack?” Fluttershy asked, confusion evident in her face as her eyes briefly flicked over Rarity and Rainbow Dash, who had entered the library behind the farmpony.
Applejack nodded. “Yeah, there is. Basically, there’s a little misunderstandin’ that’s causin’ some real annoyin’ distractions, and I aim to nip it in the bud right here and now, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh... um, okay.”
“Alright, here we go, then. Fluttershy, Pencil Pusher’s taken a fancy to you, and he’s probably gonna ask you to dinner sometime after this fog mess is cleared up.”
“What?!” Rarity shouted indignantly. “You can’t just tell her that!”
“Pretty sure I just did,” Applejack said as she steadfastly ignored the shocked look on her friends’ faces. She turned her attention back to Fluttershy and continued, “Rarity an’ Rainbow Dash reckon the two of you might make a good match, so they’ve been tryin’ ta help him out. But since Rainbow don’t have much experience with matchmakin’, she made it sound like she was interested in him when she really just wanted you ta start thinkin’ about him now, so you’d take him seriously when he got around to askin’ you out himself.”
Rainbow Dash didn’t bother objecting to Applejack’s description, preferring instead to scurry to a corner of the room, where she apparently hoped to silently melt into the wall by pressing against it as hard as she could.
Fluttershy seemed taken aback, and she was having difficulty putting her thoughts into words. “Oh... but... but that can’t possibly... I mean...”
“Hang on,” Twilight interjected. “I can see how Rainbow Dash might make a mistake like that, but if Rarity’s been in on this, why was she so concerned about Pencil Pusher spending time with Rainbow?”
Rarity sighed. “It wasn’t that I thought he’d become enamored of Rainbow, darling. I was just concerned that Fluttershy would convince herself that Rainbow would be a better match for Pencil than her.”
Twilight still seemed confused. “So... you aren’t interested in him yourself, then?”
Rarity partially lowered her eyelids and stared at her friend. “Please, Pencil Pusher doesn’t even come close to the level of panache I’m looking for in special somepony.” Then, perhaps remembering that she was in Fluttershy’s presence, turned to the pegasus and clarified: “Er, not that it makes him any less worthy for you, darling. I’m just very finicky—that’s all.”
“In any case, the only pony Pencil’s interested in at the moment is Fluttershy here,” Applejack said in an effort to rein in the conversation before it got too far off track. “And now that she knows what’s goin’ on, maybe things’ll settle down a bit.”
“But... but this isn’t how romance is supposed to work!” Rarity protested.
“No, that ain’t how romance novels are s’posed ta work,” Applejack corrected. “In case ya didn’t notice, the writers of those books always put in tons of problems because it would be boring if two ponies fell in love and it all went off without a hitch. Seriously, have any of y’all ever heard Granny Smith talk about how my great uncle Jonagold met my great aunt Honeycrisp? The answer is ‘no,’ because the story’s so dull that even Granny Smith doesn’t want to hear it.”
“But... what am I supposed to do?” Fluttershy asked, looking a bit more flummoxed as a slight blush appeared on her cheeks.
Applejack sighed. “Look, Sugarcube, all you gotta do is just remember that you don’t owe him anything, no matter how nice he’s been. That said, if he ever does get around to askin’ if you’re interested, it’d be mighty considerate of you to give him an answer one way or the other.”
Fluttershy still looked rather nervous. “But... but what if he doesn’t like what I tell him?”
Applejack considered this for a few seconds and answered: “Well, Pencil strikes me as the level-headed type who can take ‘no’ for an answer, so he’ll probably just get on with his life.”
“I don’t know...” Fluttershy said as her face reddened further. “This is a lot to think about.”
“Yeah, I know,” Applejack said, “but you can do all the thinkin’ ya need later. Right now, we got a real problem to take care of, and it’ll be comin’ over those mountains any minute now.”
September 2 – 11:47 AM
“Okay,” Scootaloo said as the Crusaders arrived at their clubhouse and shut the door behind them. “Are we sure that nopony spotted us?”
Apple Bloom gazed out of the window, straining her eyes for any sign of adults. Sneaking their way across town hadn’t been easy; they’d tried keeping to back alleys and less-used streets, but they only ended up getting confused and nearly walking right into a group of safety patrol volunteers. Still, aside from the odd instance of hiding in shadows, their brief journey had encountered few obstacles, and they’d managed to reach Sweet Apple Acres reasonably quickly. “Ain’t nopony out there I can see, and I’m pretty sure somepony would be comin’ after us if we’d been seen. I think we might be in the clear.”
“Until Ms. Hooves figures out what we did,” Sweetie Belle added morosely. It seemed that her enthusiasm for the human trap project had waned considerably since the trio had left the bunker.
Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Sweetie Belle, you’re overreacting.” Over the course of the journey back to the orchard, she had settled on this as her standard response to her friend’s increasingly frequent objections. “I mean, from what I’ve heard, Derpy Hooves isn’t the kind of pony who automatically assumes the worst about others. She might think that we were too nervous to help her out and went back to the party, so she might not even know we left, especially if she doesn’t remember leaving the door open.”
Sweetie Belle, however, was having none of this. She shook her head and retorted, “How is that supposed to make me feel better? We basically poisoned her so we could escape. She should be assuming the worst about us.”
Apple Bloom did her best to diffuse the rapidly building tension. “Look, there ain’t much point in bickerin’ over that right now. We made it out here, so I say we check the trap, make sure Mr. Shnookums is comfortable, and then we can figure out what to do next.”
Although Sweetie Belle’s furrowed eyebrows made it obvious that she wasn’t wholly satisfied with this suggestion, she didn’t raise any objections to the idea—as least, not verbally. Scootaloo seemed quite willing to interpret this as acceptance. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s make a quick check on the trap, and once that’s done, Sweetie Belle can have her say.”
The unicorn filly remained silent, refusing to respond with even a nod. After several of the longest seconds any of them could remember, though, she finally spoke again. “Alright,” she said as she stood up and walked towards the door. “Let’s go.”