Tinker, Tanner, Hunter, Spy

by Shamus_Aran


Thursday Morning

After waking up the previous night, Inkwell had emptied several mugs of Whinness dry stout. She even managed to drink some of it. But she still remembered everything the morning after.

She looked at her hooves again. Nope, still no fingers. That was probably for the best.

Yep, still had that horn. Tail was a check. Oh, thank heavens, she was still an Equestrian.

What a relief.

...

And at the same time, what a shame.

She pried herself out of bed and trotted downstairs.

There was a mare sitting at the kitchen table.

“Now really, dearie,” she said, in a sickeningly familiar voice. “Hard alcohol? I thought I raised you better than that.”

“My mother was not a pony, Arrowhead.”

“Well, of course she wasn’t. That’s not the point.”

“Can you only do ponies or something?”

“Granted that the one who created me is a pony...”

“Yeah, you’ve got me there.”

“Maybe if I hadn't been born before we met you people, I could sprout hands like you seem to want me to. But until then...

“Quit that.”

“What?”

“Being sarcastic with my mom’s voice. It’s creepy.”

“Fine. Watch me wave my magic wand and - LOOK AT THAT!”

“What!?”

Inkwell turned around, expecting... well, a robber or something. It was the mailmare opening her door to send her a letter instead. She smiled sheepishly and shut the door.

“Why’d you have me look at Ditzy delivering the mail?”

“Because,” said her voice. “I can’t do this with ponies watching.”

Inkwell faced Arrowhead, now seeing a perfect replica of herself sporting a snarky grin.

“Do what?”

“Transformation sequence. I’m not powerful enough for the necessary special effects, so I have to hide it or it breaks people’s brains.”

“Really.”

“You should see the last guy it happened to.” The Inkwell-duplicate laughed to herself. “He thought he’d turned into Starswirl the Bearded. Then he tried to jump off a roof and fly. I don’t know where he got the idea to do that, actually.”

“Please tell me you at least got in trouble for this,” the real Inkwell muttered, now debating whether to brave the untold depths of her icebox.

“Oh, loads. I was even demoted for a few months.”

“Demoted? To what?”

“‘Bad dream’. It was an embarrassing six weeks.”

“But... demoted compared to who?”

“You don’t really think I’m the only dream pony around, do you?”

“I was kind of hoping,” Inkwell answered, now neck-deep in the icebox.

“No, there’s a bunch. Maybe I’ll introduce you to a few some time...”

“NO! No, that’s alright. You’re more than enough.”

Arrowhead only giggled at that.

“Anyway,” she said, clutching a package of frozen waffles in her mouth, “what are you still doing here?”

“Oh, I’m just killing time until Archer comes around. Then I’ll go back to him and stop being a girl, which is really starting to freak me out.”

Inkwell merely raised an eyebrow as she plugged in the toaster.

“‘Freaks you out,’ eh?”

“Yes. I prefer to be male.”

There wasn’t a word that adequately described the stare she gave him. Well, the stare she gave her. The stare Inkwell gave to Arrowhead-Inkwell. You know what I mean.

“You prefer...”

“...To be male.”

“That sounds really weird.”

“Look, I’ve mostly worked with stallions. It turned into a preference.”

“So you don’t prefer to be male, you just prefer males in general?”

She-Arrowhead opened her mouth to respond. Then she closed it when she realized what was being insinuated. Then she opened it and shut it again when she came up with a witty retort, but realized that no, it wasn’t all that good.

“If there was a Cutie Mark for wit,” the dreampony said, finally, “You would have it.”

“Thanks. Now can I please eat my waffles?”

“Sure.”

She disappeared.

***

“...The dickens are you trying to feed me?”

“It’s hay soup, sir. The hospital menu clearly says-”

Archer bent forward, trying to figure out what exactly the nurse was trying to trick him into eating. “I don’t really care what the menu says, I can’t eat...” He picked at the dry grass sticking out of the broth. “...this.”

“Well, it’s this or nothing, sir.”

“There has to be something in this hospital that-” tong tong tong “What was that?”

Tong tong tong, again. It was coming from the window.

Hey, open up! My legs are getting tired!

The nurse, now confused beyond reason - for this was a second-story room - slowly approached the window.

“Hello?”

Hi! Let me in, please!

She opened the window, and who should come flying in at roughly sixty miles an hour but Pinkamena Diane Pie.

“Hello, Miss Pie,” the nurse deadpanned. “Once again, Ponyville General Hospital wishes to remind you that our front doors remain fully functional, as always.”

“Are you ever going to quit saying that to me every time I come in?”

“We would, if you ever used the door, like a normal pony.”

“You see?” said Archer from the bed. “‘Normal pony’. It’s a lost cause.”

The nurse’s reply came in the form of a glare, followed shortly by a long-suffering sigh as she exited the room.

“So how’d you get up here?”

“Gyrocopter.”

“Ah.”

A short silence.

“...Where is it now?”

“Oh, Toola-Roola said she’d catch it for me.”

There was a loud crashing noise outside, followed by a very loud groan and at least one Equestrian screaming “PINKIIIIIIE”.

“I think that might have been her.”

Pinkie poked her head out of the window and yelled, “Thanks, Toola!”

“You owe me five bits! And liability insurance!”

“Oh, you know I’ve got that covered! Don’t drop it!”

“MY BACK!”

Pinkie slammed the window shut.

“So, how’s the leg?”

“Sort of like the last Orc I met.”

“How’s that?”

“Nasty, swollen, in pain, and filled with metal.”

“Eww.”

“Good news is, I can get out today if I promise to use a crutch. Apparently medical magic is a lot more advanced here?”

“Yeah! Have I told you about that time Twilight got hit with a falling piano? She survived. Crazy, right?”

“Perhaps. What I want to know is what the piano was doing falling in the first place.”

***

It was usually quite sunny in Ponyville. The abundance of plant life in and around the town, coupled with the vast acres of apple trees that were its prime export, meant that lots and lots of sunshine was needed.

Of course, that also meant that when it was scheduled to rain, it tended to come down hard.

So Inkwell could be forgiven for being in a bit of a rush.

Of course Twilight had only dropped by to tell her where Archer was five minutes before the bottom was due to fall out. Of course she had to run like a scared little filly if she didn’t want to end up drenched. Of course the storm started earlier than scheduled.

Of course it couldn’t be easy.

***

“Ma’am, you’re soaking wet!”

“Gee, thanks. I might never have figured that out.”

Inkwell slowly trotted inside, sopping wet from head to hoof.

“Because I was wondering why I was so cold, but the fact that I could get wet in the rain never entered my mind. I’m so glad you cleared that up.”

The clerk sighed and returned to her newspaper.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Can you tell me where Archer is?”

“Room 216. You can’t miss it.”

Inkwell shook herself off and picked a hallway at random, not wanting to ruminate on what exactly she “couldn’t miss” about a hospital room.

***

“Pass me the tweezers.”

Archer had apparently abandoned the idea of using the hospital bed for its intended purpose long ago. He was now storing an inordinately large amount of metal parts on top of it, out of which he was inexplicably constructing something that looked like a leg with no flesh and all its bones on the outside.

The doctors had been avoiding Room 216 for a good hour by now.

“What in the name of Celestia’s shiny left flank is going on in here?”

Archer looked up. The source of that incredibly creative epithet was a very soggy Inkwell. Or perhaps the very dry, unperturbed Inkwell that was standing right beside the first.

“Hello there, Inkwell, Arrowhead. I’d appreciate it if you knocked next time.”

“Hi, Inkie!” called Pinkie around a mouthful of cupcake. “Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, this is...” she did a double-take. “Wait, you can see her?”

“Unfortunately,” Arrowhead groused.

“How?”

“She’s Pinkie Pie,” Arrowhead and Archer said simultaneously.

She sighed. “Of course she is. Now what’s all this?” she asked, gesturing to the bed overflowing with scrap metal.

“Leg brace. It’s a work-in-progress.”

“You couldn’t use a crutch like a normal pony?”

Archer gave her a look that suggested she had said something rather unintelligent.

“I’m barely taller than eye-level with most of you. The crutch your doctors gave me would have left me crippled within a few days.”

“So you’re making a whole new leg?”

“I’m making a brace so I don’t have to mess with this crutch business at all. You’re free to help, if you want.”

She cautiously made her way over, half-expecting something to jump out of the pile of components and bite her.

“I think Pinkie’s logic is starting to rub off on you, Archer.”

“How’s that.”

“‘Oh, I don’t want to use a crutch. Let’s build a robot leg!’”

“Interesting argument,” he said, not looking up from his work. “Pinkie, your rebuttal?”

“That’s silly and you should feel silly for thinking that.”

Inkwell’s response was a hoof to her now aching head.

“Surprisingly sound logic.”

Wait, she didn’t say that.

Standing on the ceiling like she owned the place was Inkwell-Arrowhead, smiling down (up?) at the scene below her.

“So, I take it you survived, Archer?”

“Sure did. Shame, isn’t it.” He looked up. “You know, Arrowhead, you look different. Did you get a dye job while I was out, or...”

“Har har.”

Suddenly another pony appeared, hanging from the ceiling-dweller’s hair. Hopefully he, too, was a dreampony, because “normal” Equestrians were not supposed to be able to shrink to hair-hanging size.

“Hi mom!” he said.

“We’ve been over this before, me. I’m not your mom.”

“Well, you sort of gave birth to me.”

“It’s not the same thing.”

Inkwell, Pinkie, and Archer looked away from the “familial” argument and back down at one another.

“Ladies,” he began, “I believe our lives have become entirely too weird.”

Inkwell nodded solemnly. Pinkie just giggled.

***

“Well, it’s done.”

“Does it work?”

“I have no idea.”

Archer had unceremoniously dumped the collection of parts from the bed, leaving only the ostensibly-completed leg brace for his audience to ogle at.

“How does it work?”

“Well, I just slip it on my leg and it should keep my weight from injuring the muscle too much.”

“Have you ever done this before?”

“Well, not on myself, obviously.” He looked at it more closely. “Huh. You know, I might have to put this on under my trousers if I want this to fit.”

Inkwell-Arrowhead and Arrowhead Classic immediately ran screaming from the room.

“What’s wrong with them?” asked Pinkie, genuinely confused.

Inkwell whispered something in her ear. Her pupils shrank to comically small points.

Within a few seconds, she joined the two Arrowheads in fleeing for her sanity. Inkwell followed her at a more leisurely pace, making sure to put up the “Do Not Disturb” sign on her way out.

“...Entirely too weird.”

***

With a hiss of compressed air and a wince, Archer stepped out of the room. Thankfully, his trousers were back on.

Arrowhead was by his side in moments.

“So, ‘professor,’ how’s it feel?”

This would be a wonderful time to make a witty one-liner, he realized. Surely he could think of something.

“...Itchy.”

I suppose they can’t all be winners.

“It works, I take it?”

“Well, yeah. Otherwise I’d be doing this.”

Archer proceeded to affect a limp, emitting a very awful noise that sounded like a cube of gelatin being put through a garbage disposal. A passable impression of a zombie, in other words..

While hilarious, this unfortunately made it look and sound to every doctor within earshot that he was walking without assistance and was in intense pain.

The next few minutes were a blur of very fast movement, panicked voices, and a whirlwind of every anaesthetic known to Ponykind.

***

Archer woke up three hours later on a cot in a bedroom that was entirely too pink.

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this one.”

“Well, it’s really quite simple.”

He turned. “Arrowhead?”

“Hi.”

“Why are you plaid pink?”

The defaced hallucination looked down at himself glumly, and sighed.

“Painkillers, man. They mess you up.”

That would have to suffice as an explanation. It made about as much sense as anything else today had, tinkering notwithstanding. That, and his head hurt too much to even consider pressing the issue.

“I’m starving,” he realized.

“Yeah, well, that’s what you get for refusing to eat your hay soup like a spoiled little colt. That stuff’s good for you!”

“It’s grass.”

“So’s hemp, but that didn’t stop you from-”

“You will leave my University years out of this, thank you very much.”

“I’m just saying. All those years, and you still can’t escape The Munchies.”

“Don’t you have a female counterpart that you could be harassing?”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. But remember,” Arrowhead said, gesturing dramatically. “The Munchies cannot be denied. You will-”

“Shut up and go away.”

“Fine.”

He vanished.

***

“Missus Cake, I hope I’m not going to have to threaten murder again today, because I am really not feeling up to-”

“Inkwell already paid for everything, Mister Archer. Just... in the corner. Over there. And please try not to break the roof any more.”

“I’ll do my best.”

That entirely-too-pink room had turned out to be Pinkie’s, which had then turned out to be positioned directly above Sugarcube Corner, which itself had turned out to be very good at recovering from hovercart-based roof demolition.

Archer had a feeling that his tab had skyrocketed in the past 24 hours.

There was Inkwell, in the corner. Sitting right next to her was Inkwell, who may or may not have been Arrowhead’s clone/other self. Across from that Inkwell was Arrowhead version 1.0, the Pink Plaid Pontificatory Pony.

“Well, I see the gang’s all here. Where’s the food?”

“It’s coming,” said one of the Inkwells. “What’s your hurry?”

Arrowhead leaned over conspiratorially. “It’s the Munchiiiiiies,” he hissed.

“...What?”

“He’s being an idiot,” Archer muttered. “Ignore him.”

“I’m doing my best.”

“You are the real Inkwell, right?”

“I should hope so.”

“Hard to keep track of, isn’t it?” joked the unicorn’s duplicate. “I don’t know how you fleshy types do it.”

“Speaking of fleshy types, Inkwell...”

“Hmm?”

“You never got around to revealing the myriad secrets behind your arrival to Ponyville.”

“Oh, you mean the secrets that necessitated that...” she gestured to Hallucination Inkwell, “thing’s creation?”

“I resent that.”

“Yes, those,” Archer said, trying to prevent a migraine from spontaneously appearing behind his eyes.

“Well, where do I start? Until about thirty years ago, I-”

“Hi!”

From nowhere as usual appeared Pinkie Pie, this time with a tray full of embarrassingly sugary things on one hoof and an odd gray bottle in the other.

“Hello, Pinkie. Inkwell was just about to spill her secrets to the world. Care to join us?”

“Sure thing. But you have to drink this.”

She immediately plopped herself into another chair, shoving the bottle into Archer’s hands.

“What is it?”

“Tonic from the doctor’s. He says it’ll help you meta-something the metal in your leg faster.”

“‘Metabolize.’”

“Gesundheit.”

“Right.”

A danish and a swig of foul-tasting “get well soon” potion constituted breakfast. He’d eaten worse.

“So, Inkwell. You were saying?”

“Well, I was about to say, thirty years ago I lived in a town called-”

“Hey, Monkeyman!”

Rainbow Dash exploded through the front doors, with as little regard for property values as she could be expected to keep. She shook the rainwater off of herself in a quite messy fashion as she trotted over to the corner table.

“Nopony told me you were out of the hospital! I was worried for a minute.”

“Oh, only a minute? I must be losing my edge. Last time I recall you people worrying over me, it lasted for far longer than that.”

“Yeah, but you had to choke down a hundred baked pastries to do it. I’d say we’re all better off.”

“She has you there,” pointed out Arrowhead.

“Shut up, you.”

“What!?”

“Not you, Dash, him. The pink plaid one.”

She stared at him blankly.

“...The one who, now that I think about it, only you cannot see. Odd.”

Dash was less than convinced. “Is he...?”

“Oh, yes,” agreed Inkwell. “Totally sane. It’s just the circumstances that make him seem like a nut.”

“Pinkie, they’re not really-?”

“I see ‘em, too. But I see a lot of things, so I don’t really know what to tell you.”

“Alright, now I’m totally lost.”

“We were just about to sit and listen to Inkwell expound upon her past life as a human. Care to join?”

“Oh, I didn’t know she was one of those!”

“One of what?”

“A transmogrification case. I mean, I know a pegasus who used to be an ogre. She’s really mellowed out since then, but you can still sort of tell.”

This was just all kinds of worrying. Archer decided, for the sake of choking his migraine to death, not to dwell on it.

“So, Inkwell, we’ve got two ambulatory figments of our imagination, a psychotic sugar addict, and an adrenaline junkie who puts innocent people in the hospital. Would you like to start your story now, or wait for more weirdoes to show up?”

“Now, please. I’d really rather not risk it.”

“Then, by all means.”

The four ponies and one human all leaned in, as if listening to a ghost story told by a campfire. Inkwell sighed, checking to make sure no one else was coming in.

“Alright. Until about thirty years ago, I lived in a small town called Baileyton. I was not a unicorn. In fact, I knew no magic at all. I was a human, named Innis, and my life was very, very weird...”