//------------------------------// // Back in the Saddle // Story: Baking Bad // by XMark //------------------------------// Gilda paced back and forth in her cell in the Canterlot dungeon. It was bad enough that her operation had been shut down by Celestia's anti-drug task force. Somehow the boredom of the dungeon and not being able to fly were far worse. Light unexpectedly streamed into the room as the door to the dungeon opened. Gilda closed her dark-adjusted eyes until the door closed again. Rainbow Dash walked in. "Are you here to gloat?" asked Gilda, not making eye contact. "Because if you're here to interrogate me, I ain't telling you shit until you officially charge me of something. I got rights." "Nothing like that" said Rainbow Dash on the other side of the bars. "I'm not here as a cop, I'm just Rainbow Dash now. Can we talk?" Gilda scowled. "What in Equestria can we talk about? There's been nothing between us for years. We're done." "We were friends! Best friends!" said Rainbow Dash, her voice shaking. "We knew everything about each other! Maybe we went different ways, but I still care about you." "Well, that's your problem." Gilda sat down on her bed, facing away from Rainbow. "Fine! Look away from me, but I'm still gonna say what's on my mind. I don't know why you turned to the Crystal Spark business. I don't know what you've been up to the past few years. I just want you to know, I can help you get back on the right path once you get out. There are programs for ex-cons to reintegrate into society and I know..." Gilda suddenly got off the bed and charged at her. Rainbow barely jumped back in time to avoid Gilda's claw swipe. Gilda roared in Rainbow's Face, leaning as far forward as she could through the bars. Rainbow Dash fixed her with a stare, filled with equal parts rage and hurt. "I don't need your damn help!" screamed Gilda. "I don't give a flying feather what you think of me. We are nothing! Understand?" The door opened and a couple of guards rushed in. Rainbow Dash raised her hoof to signal that everything was okay. She walked out the door without a word. The moment Rainbow was out of sight, Gilda allowed herself to start crying. - In the Ponyville office of the EADTF (Equestrian Anti-Drug Task Force) Applejack sat at her typewriter, finishing her report for Gilda's arrest. It was a proud day for the Ponyville unit, weeks of hard work tracking down the distributor. The atmosphere of the office was far more positive and happy than usual, and everypony who passed by her desk congratulated her on the work that she and Rainbow Dash had put into shutting down Mr. Oatmeal's operation. But the more she looked at the data, the less it made sense. Gilda's criminal record was full of petty crimes, but nothing drug-related. In fact, it was quite rare for griffons to get involved with Crystal Spark in any way. In her experience, it was usually unicorns who produced the stuff, because their magic made the process much easier. But if it was an Earth pony, they would need the assistance of a unicorn, or at least someone with a hand instead of a hoof. The kind of reactive chemicals you were working with, you'd be an idiot to pick them up in your mouth (though she had seen a few such idiots and the damage they caused to their faces). Applejack looked to the report of the items they had seized from the lab. About half of the equipment had specialized mouth handle attachments for Earth pony accessibility. Applejack sighed. "Might owe you that 20 after all, Rainbow." - Twilight walked to the center of town. She wore an eyepatch over her recently cupcaked eye, and still wondered what in the hay she was thinking last night. She saw Pinkie Pie sitting on a bench, wearing a fake beard and a monocle. Twilight groaned and walked up to her. "Everypony recognizes you." said Twilight. "Might as well drop the disguise." "Pardonnez moi?" said Pinkie Pie in a French accent. "I am not le Pinkie de Pie, madame! You are le mistaken! But if I was zis Pinkie zat you are speaking of, I would say - ze pony on ze hill is purple. It snows on ze rock farm in August." "We didn't make up any secret code language. Do you even know what you're saying?" "I am saying - ze pony on ze hill is purple. It rains on ze plains in Manehattan." Twilight's horn glowed as she ripped the beard and monocle off. Pinkie grinned. "Aw, you got me!" "This is serious business, Pinkie!" Twilight lowered her voice so nopony in town could hear what they were discussing. "Now listen, I have access to some supplies from the school in Canterlot. Burners, test tubes, beakers, flasks. Over the next week I can smuggle them out one or two pieces at a time. I also have some scientific equipment of my own that I can repurpose for our needs. Then we can get our lab set up properly. I wrote you a list of ingredients." Twilight levitated a scroll with the materials written out neatly, with empty check boxes to the left of each. Pinkie Pie looked the list up and down. "I can get some Rainbow Juice from sugar cube corner." said Pinkie. "Mr. and Mrs. Cake don't use it very much but they have a lot in stock. They probably won't even notice it missing. I have some ponies who get me the jade and sapphire dust regularly." "Can we trust these ponies?" "Yeah, totally! Definitely! Sort of! Maybe?" Twilight's eyes narrowed. "Who are these ponies? Have I met them before?" Pinkie Pie smiled brightly. "Yep!" Twilight waited for a few moments, while Pinkie Pie looked around and rocked slightly back and forth. "Uh... are you gonna tell me who they are?" "Snips and Snails." said Pinkie Pie sheepishly. "No." "Well wait a minute there, silly. Do you know anypony else who can get that stuff? 'Cause I sure don't. And I'm the pony with the pony skills here. The pony pony!" "Fine. But only you deal with them. In fact, nopony should ever see me. And nopony should ever know my name." "Ooh! Oooh! You're gonna have a secret code name! What's your code name gonna be? Wait, let me guess... Spylight Twarkle? Druggy McCookerson? Purply Pie? The Sparkler? Heisenberg?" "I'll figure something out. That's not important for now. We need a plan. We need to be efficient. We need to be organized. Now, is there anything else we need to discuss before we can start?" "Just one itty bitty issue." said Pinkie. "We need a place to cook." "What? You've been the sole owner of Sugar Cube corner ever since the Cakes opened a new one in Manehattan. Why can't we cook there?" "Ever tried to cook cupcakes in the same oven after cooking Crystal Spark? Let me tell ya, those are some kooky cupcakes!" Twilight paused to think. "On second thought, I don't think anywhere within the borders of Ponyville is safe to cook. Celestia has her eyes set on Ponyville. We need to find somewhere that we won't be bothered. Somewhere that even law enforcement doesn't set foot." Twilight grinned at a sudden revelation. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" "Yeah, Sapphire Shores' new album definitely goes back to her old style." "No, I mean about... uh... I'm thinking that we should cook in the Everfree Forest." "How are we going to get there?" asked Pinkie Pie. - The door to Twilight's small backyard shed cracked open, revealing some boxes full of books, scientific equipment, and assorted pieces of furniture and other junk she had no other place for. "You still have the balloon?" said Pinkie. "I thought you sold it or gave it away or something? Which is weird, because if I had a balloon I'd use it all the time! I've got kind of a thing for balloons, though usually just the little ones. Did you know that if you breathe in a bunch of helium your voice gets all high and squeaky? Well, mine is high and squeaky already but it gets even higher and I think only dogs can hear it..." As Pinkie Pie rambled on, Twilight levitated some pieces of junk out of the way and pulled the large deflated hot-air balloon, which had been stuffed into its basket. "The basket of this balloon should have enough space for us and all the equpiment and materials we need, with a little space to move around. We can fly by balloon out over the everfree forest, park it somewhere out sight, surrounded by trees, and then do our cooking... Pinkie?" Twilight saw Pinkie poking around in her shed looking around at anything she could see. "Hey, Twi! What does this thing do? Ooh, and this thing?" Twilight shuddered at a sudden crashing and breaking sound. "Stay out of my shed!" - "Come on, AJ!" said Rainbow Dash, floating above Applejack's desk. "We got our griffon. Case is closed. You're reading too much into this." "Ah'm tellin ya, it don't add up. That Spark lab was set up all pony-like, wasn't a single thing griffon 'bout it." "So what, you're saying Gilda was just a pair of hands... I mean claws, for some other mystery pony?" Applejack nodded. "It don't make sense otherwise." Rainbow floated down next to her. "I just don't understand. What could have happened to Gilda that would reduce her to some low-level Spark lab assistant? She had big plans for her life. She had dreams..." "Ah reckon that if you stay on ponies' bad sides too much and too often, you ain't gonna get very far." "Hey! You don't know her!" snapped Rainbow. Applejack stepped back, and opened her mouth for an apology, but Rainbow beat her to it. "I'm sorry, AJ. I think I'm letting my personal feelings get the better of me. You know me and Gilda were, well, very close once." Applejack smiled kindly. "Believe me, ah know what it's like for personal feelings to get in the way on this job. Sometimes ah just have to lose myself in work or ah'll go crazy." Rainbow Dash nodded. Applejack looked down, bad memories coming back to her. "Applejack," said Rainbow, her voice now much softer. "Have you heard anything about Big Macintosh?" "Nothin' good. Comin' up on seven years since he left home. Ain't heard nothin' from him, but there've been police reports from Fillydelphia a couple times when he was arrested for petty theft or drug posession." Applejack's voice wavered. "Ah still blame myself for not noticin' the signs earlier." Eight years ago, Big Macintosh had begun to experiment with Crystal Spark. Applejack never found why he suddenly started, or why his habit got worse over time. Nobody knew about it for months, and Big Macintosh kept it quiet. Eventually it began to affect him physically and mentally. His work on the farm got noticeably worse, and he became irritable and prone to sudden bursts of anger. One night, Big Macintosh left the Apple family home without any kind of explanation. Nobody saw him leave, but he had taken everything he could carry from his room. The Apples were devastated, being such a close-knit family. A month later Granny Smith died of heart failure. If Applejack blamed Big Macintosh for it, she never openly admitted it. A year later, Princess Celestia had sent word around Equestria about the formation of the EADTF to take on the growing Crystal Spark problem. Applejack left the farm to Apple Bloom and signed up. At the time, Rainbow Dash was performing with the Wonderbolts. It was a couple of years later that Rainbow decided to follow in Applejack's footsteps. She loved living her life dream with the Wonderbolts, but at the same time she had come to realize that it was nothing but empty spectacle, and she felt the need to do something that had some real meaning to it, other than just impressing audiences. Over the next few years they had risen through the ranks remarkably quickly, and the two of them were now in charge of all operations within Ponyville and the surrounding area, reporting only to the top brass in Canterlot. - Through the next week, Twilight and Pinkie executed their plans to collect materials and tools. Everything went smoothly and according to plan due to Twilight's diligence in making up detailed checklists (and checklists of those checklists). At the end of the week, when Pinkie Pie arrived at Twilight's backyard, Twilight was already inflating the hot air balloon. "Hey, you're not wearing your eyepatch anymore. I thought it looked cool on you." "As cool as it was, I think depth perception is about twenty percent cooler." said Twilight. "Are you ready to go?" "Ready as I'll ever be." Twilight's horn was glowing as she generated a constant flow of wind past the burner into the inflating balloon. It was a fairly significant amount of magic power needed, but it should have been easy at her skill level. Nonetheless, she was feeling an unusually severe headache from the effort. She wondered if it was her recent sleep deprivation or an effect of the Horn Rot. When the balloon was fully inflated, Twilight and Pinkie piled all their supplies into the basket and jumped in. They floated over the everfree forest until Ponyville was completely out of sight, and landed in a small clearing surrounded by trees, at the base of a large mountain. Pinkie Pie looked at the forest around them nervously. "Gee, I kinda forgot how creepy the Everfree Forest is. Is it safe for us here?" Twilight smiled. "It will be in a second." Twilight focused her power, and a magic bubble of shimmering, glowing pink emerged from her horn, which grew to envelop the both of them and their balloon in the clearing. Then the bubble ceased its shimmering and turned into what looked like a pink glass dome around them. "I'll keep this force field around us to keep any of the local wildlife from interrupting us. Nothing gets in or out until I drop the force field." "Gotcha." Twilight rummaged through a sack of miscellaneous supplies and pulled out a dress. A plain, minimal dress that she had only worn once at a birthday party a long time ago. "Hey!" said Pinkie. "You didn't tell me there was a dress code." Twilight raised an eyebrow. "You really should wear something when you cook, unless you want your body hair to smell like a Spark lab for the rest of the day." "You're a smart cookie! I never thought of that one before." Twilight changed into the dress. "All right, Pinkie. Let's get cooking."