"Bruce?"
"Yeah Rarity?"
"How ... what ..." She waved a hoof toward the smouldering ruin that was Willy Wonka's Palace of Earthy Delights. A group of pegasi doused the husk with another raincloud, making a cloud of steam and ash billow slowly into the air. The crowd of ponies were kept a decent distance back by their own fear but their murmuring almost drowned out the shouts as a guard tried to keep the mob away from the blackened store front. I shrugged, my face blank.
"I have no idea."
An hour earlier...
Row and rows of toys.
Toys everywhere.
Did I mention the toys?
Willy, Rarity and I - yes, Willy was his real name, I double checked - walked among the oddly shaped and spaced and yet eerily tidy aisles of toys for what felt like months. Each aisle was clearly marked in that unreadable unicorn nonsense but it didn't take a genius to tell what was on the shelves. Every so often, Willy would pull something from the shelves and explain exactly what it was and what it did. From unicorn hoverballs to lifelike plush Princess dolls - with wavy manes even. Felt like static when I passed my hoof through.
Poor guy was getting desperate. He even brought me down the 'foals toys' section.
"I don't understand," Willy's mane was getting frazzled, "I have never had a foal turn their nose up at so many toys."
"I'm just not big into toys." Another aisle of dolls. No, wait. It was the same one we had gone down ten minutes previously. "I mean, even your video games are all these massive arcade cabinets."
"Bruce," Rarity's voice had taken on a pleading tone as the minutes slipped away. I guessed she hadn't figured on me taking so long, "is there anything at all that you're interested in?"
"Why is this a big thing? I'm not into it, let's get out of here." I lifted one leg to turn back toward the entrance when Willy rounded on me with the most manic of smiles. My turn was changed into a startled scramble back from the wild-looking stallion. Even Rarity took a hesitant step back, her ears flat against her skull.
"I have NEVER had a foal leave my store without something to show for it!" Imagine Willy Wonka with a Joker smile - yeah. "And I refuse to have it happen now."
With that, Rarity and I were grabbed at the withers and yanked bodily into ... a back warehouse-esque area. And Willy was between us and the exit. not the best place to be as he had a mental break down. Despite our terror-filled faces, Willy started to run around the storeroom and thrusting things at me. Toys! Foal toys, stop it!
"Hoop? No, what about the hoverball- no horn. Okay, glider? Kitchen set? Canterlot Guard - no, colt. Think colt toys Willy. Dress-up dolls? The My Little Foal Exclusive? Princess dolls? A bear? Toy drum set? A fiddle? What about-" Each thing was thrust under my nose only to have it yank away and thrown into a growing pile of bits and bobs. I even saw one or two things that might have interested me as decor but by this point Willy had lost his mind. Everything was assumed to have failed in some way. The pile grew. Willy's octave grew as well.
"- alchemy set, My First Experiment limited edition boxed set, Princess Celestia's Official Enchanter's Kit, The World of Magic curiosity kit, the-"
And then the pile began smoking. Rarity's eyes shrunk to pinpricks as the flames became rather pronounced rather quickly, fed by not only stuffed toys but also the unidentifiable mixtures from the science sets now tossed haphazardly in the flames.
"Willy ..."
"-limited edition Crystal Empire Crystal Ewe doll-"
"Willy?" Both Rarity and I backed a bit away from the rambling and manic stallion though only Rarity found the voice to say anything. By this point, whatever was in the pile had become a lost cause and I think I heard a stallion scream in the background. I was rather warm in my vest. I'm trying to say the fire had pretty much gone passed the 'cheery' part of fire and right into the 'terrifying' part.
"-Discord plush, a half-sized house playset-"
"Willy!" Rarity shouted, her voice filled with unmitigated terror. I, on the other hoof, was a beacon of manly stabil-I peed myself.
"Miss Rarity, please do not interrupt a stallion while he is working." Willy gave Rarity the stink-eye for a half second before his nose twitched and he sniffed a few times. "Does anypony smell something burning?"
Rarity was detained for a few minutes as some official looking Guard asked her a ton of questions. And I was watched by a hawk-eyed Guard myself. After asking about Willy, the Guard shook her head just slightly.
Not every story in Ponyville ends in a good way I guess ...