Loose Bolt, Toaster Repairstallion Extrordanaire

by Halifax

Chapter the Second

Loose Bolt had had a harrowing day. His lovely relaxing sleep had been brutally murdered by a magically "enhanced" alarm clock (of his own making), he had traveled to the domicile of the resident dragon and his near-omnipotent alicorn master, he got chased out of the home repair store, and now here he was, in his workshop, staring at the little toaster that had given him so much pain.

It wasn't going to be a hard job. He only had to replace the dennou-coil heater and the outer casing. Of course, to replace a broken dennou-coil, one first had to remove the damaged one. And that was a risky proposition. In fact, that a powerful and knowledgeable mage like Twilight had left it in there was incredibly confusing. Damaged coils leaked not-insignificant quantities of fairly dangerous magical radiation into the surrounding area. On the other hoof, it only affected things that were not already imbued with magical properties. So it was only dangerous to standard animals, not ponies.

Regardless of the dangers, replacing a dennou-coil required involving the Ministry of Appliance Repair. To do that, Loose Bolt would need to head to the local headquaters, convieniently located right across the street. He put his hat back on, put the toaster in the bag, and lefthome.

[A SHORT TIME LATER]

"Hello, dear, and welcome to the Ministry of Appliance Repair. Please state your name, purpose, and destination."

The mare was perched in a desk that loomed over the Ministry's entrance hall. A grey unicorn, with a blond mane, she sported a look that made her scarier than most drill sargents.

"Oh. It's you, Mr. Bolt. What is your purpose this time?"

"Oh, nothing much, just a broken dennou-coil."

Of course, at the mere combination of the words "broken" and "dennou" in a sentence, the secratary pulled out a gas mask and put it on before continuing the conversation.

"Alright, so for some thing like that, Mr. Bolt, you're going to want to head to the second basement floor, take a right off the staircase, then walk until you see waste disposal."

The secratary then activated a hidden mechanism on her desk which slowly lowered her down into the floor.

Loose Bolt noticed this but gave no heed to what it might mean. He followed her intructions to the word, taking the stairs down two floors, then going down the rightmost hallway until he saw the Waste Disposal sub-unit.

There was a microphone on the wall. He tapped twice, than realyed his purpose here.

"Hello, I'm Loose Bolt, and I've been sent here to dispose of a broken dennou-coil."

Five seconds later, alarms went off and rubber-suited ponies burst in thorugh hidden doorways. Two of them took out radiation scanners and proceeded to give Loose Bolt the once-over.

"Um, I don't think that any of this is nessacary. Last time I visited, this was just a calm proceedure."

The gas-masked ponies surrounding him remained impassive, as two of their kind contiuned to scan him. Suddenly, the scanners started blurting red, and the circle pulled out stunn guns.

"Please, Gentlecolts, I don't see why any of this is nessa-GAAAAHHHH!!!!"

Loose Bolt fell to the ground as his captors all activated their weapons at once. One of them picked up the toaster as theywalked away, and split from the group.

[ONE DAY LATER]

Spike opened the door to the Library at exactly 7 am, as required by Equestrian law. As he began to push on the heavy oak barrier to the outside, it caught on something. The young drake pushed harder, and was rewarded with the sound of metal scraping on the wooden step. He stepped outside through the small gap, puzzled by what made the door so difficult to open.

Sitting on the step was a brand new toaster, in shiny purple, with a note on it. The words on the note said:

Apologies for any inconvieniences, Princess Sparkle
-M.A.R.

Author's Note:

The surprise ending is surprising.