Techorse Short Stories

by Spirals95

#51 - Weathering Mix-Up: Part I

Weathering Mix-Up: Part 1

The design of police stations for pegasus controlled towns was usually considered a bit of an anomaly by the other types of ponies. It couldn't be based around concrete walls and reinforced steel cells like the others found throughout Equestria's cities, because it would be far too heavy for the cloud material foundation. That approach would be an architectural disaster, a common way pegasus design school professors explained it to their students was that building in stone or concrete was like placing a cinder block atop marshmallow cream and expecting it not to sink. So as always, the headquarters was built out of the fluffy self-repairing clouds and hollow marble columns that had gotten the job done for centuries.

This particular pegasus designed police station was special, being three floors tall, a good half a city block wide, and a pillar at every corner to keep the stormy-looking cloud walls together. It was the headquarters of none other than the Cloudsdale Police Department, or CDPD as it was known by the locals. Pegasi had a long history of being able to execute military strategy and planning with brutal efficiency against monsters and crooks alike, and this strength was gladly adopted by its peacekeepers as well. At the moment, a team of four of those peacekeepers were escorting a rather unfortunate captive through the front door, banging open the gray fluffy entrance which discharged a small amount of lightning into the air around it from the impact.

“You four had better stop slamming that door...” growled the mare at the front desk, her blue police cap nearly knocked off by the static concussion, “or the chief's going to have your hides!”

“Can it Hotfront,” answered the sergeant at the front, still holding the prisoner's front leg with his wing while his fellow officers kept him pinned, “we've got a booking for you to handle. This crazy son of a gluemaker was caught sabotaging public facilities.”

“Is that so?” Hotfront scoffed, sitting up from her slouched position in the chair, “Well, good work catching him sergeant.”

Two of the police officers stayed behind as the sergeant and his partner left the room, leaving them at the captive's sides. He walked reluctantly up to the cluttered front desk, intentionally made taller than whoever was forced through the station's front doors for the intimidation factor. Or at least, it would have been intimidating if it wasn't for the fact that Hotfront's laziness left her desk cluttered with unfinished paperwork, empty coffee mugs she never bothered to wash, and a ton of pencils in various states of sharpness.

She swiped away some of the junk with her uniform-covered left hoof, and dragged out a ledger with crisp white pages, probably the cleanest document on the desk at that point. Ignoring the pencils, the mare searched around for a quill, and after failing to find one, plucked one of her own loose feathers out and dipped it in a half-dried inkwell.

Then she began her normal routine, “Name....”

“Mix-Up...” answered her captive with a lack of confidence, “this is a terrible misunderstanding.”

“They all say that, Mix-Up,” she sighed, “let's keep going, okay? The sooner we're done, the sooner we can get your lawyer here.”

Mix-Up's “innocent” green eyes took a look around at the cluttered lobby, wooden chairs somehow staying up on the cloud floor, cork boards everywhere with papers pinned to them, and ads to reach lawyers or buy bail bonds of course. Most of the police pegasi around him were gray or purple coated, a stark contrast to his own cerulean coat with white pimento splotches on his hooves. He wanted nothing more than to get his splotchy self out of the room, but he knew better. These police ponies had caught him sticking his white-colored muzzle where it didn't belong, and it was best to just answer Hotfront's questions.

“Okay, what do you want from me?” he asked.

“Occupation?” Hotfront queried.

Mix-Up managed to give a perky answer, “I'm an artist!”

“Riiiight... 'Unemployed' it is then.”

“That's not very nice, you know,” complained the stallion, ears turning down towards the ground.

Hotfront couldn't care less and droned on while working her pen, “Moving on, let's see... green eyes, marine mane in a short cut with a long tail, blue coat with white pimento coloring and muzzle, aaand turn sideways please.”

Mix-Up obeyed, showing off his cutie mark, two paint buckets dumping out rainbow colored streams that twisted together. She took note of all his physical attributes, and then took a photograph for reference. Left in the photo was the red duster scarf tied around his neck, an item that could easily give away his identity.

“All right, I think we're done here,” Hotfront said, “I don't deal with whatever it is you did and what happens to you next.”

“I didn't do anything!” Mix-Up complained in a haughty manner, “Your friends here just don't understand what my art means and they got all grabby about it!”

“Your lawyer will be happy to know about that, since it means compensation,” she answered, leaning back in her chair again like the lazy mare she was and pulling her hat over her eyes for another between-booking nap, “wouldn't be the first time the boys got their flanks sued! Isn't that right, guys?”

“Hotfront, we'd have you fired if we could,” retorted one of the two police stallions, “as for you sir, you're going to have to come with us.”

“Please don't throw me in jail!” begged the artist, starting to choke up.

“If you cooperate, we won't be throwing you,” he warned.

“Quit torturing the guy,” said the other stallion, compassionate about Mix-Up's situation.

He made sure the quivering artist looked at him before giving him reassurance, “We're going to make sure this isn't horrible, okay? This is just a holding area until we can figure out what happened. You're going to get access to your legal resources, and we're going to talk it through.”

The kindness was enough to convince Mix-Up to stop worrying and allow himself to be placed in his cell, which was more or less a large birdcage hanging in the third floor of the police headquarters, a warm cot and bathroom provided. He was locked securely inside, and promptly threw himself onto the bed to try to sleep through this situation.

---

“Don't you think you're overreacting, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said, protesting Rainbow's anger, “we aren't in any danger of running out of water in Ponyville, you know.”

Rainbow Dash was flying ahead of her friends' hot air balloon, pulling it by a rope tied around her middle with such fury.

“You saw the rainclouds that came in this morning,” Rainbow Dash argued, “they were yellow. I don't know what kind of sick prank that is, but let's just say everypony went out of their way to avoid the rain shower I was trying to deliver!”

“Really?” Twilight asked sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Techorse and Pinkie Pie, sitting in the balloon's spacey basket next to Twilight, stifled their laughter. They remembered what had happened that morning when the lemonade and polka-dotted works of art rolled into Ponyville. The flower vendors immediately cried at the misfortune that their scrumptious blooms would be ruined by any precipitation from the ‘ruined’ clouds. Several accusations of mischief on behalf of the weather ponies in town soon turned into conspiracy theories that went all the way up to the concept of Discord wanting to ruin their day! It wasn’t long before the princesses caught on and dispatched Twilight to find out what went wrong.

“Hey, the neon yellow clouds weren't the only funny ones we got today,” Techorse commented, “one of them was glowing blue like it was radioactive!”

“Did you bottle it for evidence?” Rainbow Dash asked, “Princess Celestia sent us to help Cloudsdale deal with the perp!”

Tech gave Pinkie Pie a disappointed stare, “I did catch it, but...”

Pinkie Pie blushed, “Well... I thought it was raspberry cotton candy and ate it! Whoopsie!”

She stuck out her tongue and gave Twilight a great view of it, glowing the same light blue the unfortunate cloud had been earlier. The unicorn made her revulsion clear with a slight groan.

“Anyways,” continued Twilight, “we've been sent to figure out one: who created the crazy clouds, two: why they did it, and three...”

“Make sure he gets what's coming,” Rainbow Dash yelled, shaking her hoof menacingly, which only served to jerk the hot air balloon around on the rope.

The balloon lurched around, threatening to throw the occupants out of the basket, and the burner in the center's flame flickered in the change of air current.

“No! Make sure he's treated fairly,” responded Twilight, grabbing onto the reeved edge of the basket, “now could you stop yanking the balloon, Rainbow?!”

“Sorry,” the pegasus answered begrudgingly, bringing her pace with her towing efforts back to a safe level, “I'm just a bit upset that our weather got sabotaged by some crazy head, and we're going to go help him!”

“We know almost nothing other than the fact that some weird rainclouds started showing up all over Equestria,” Techorse assured her, “but if this guy really was pranking everypony, he's going to be in trouble for it.”

“Oh don't be silly, we know this was a just a big silly misunderstanding,” Pinkie Pie interjected, “right Twilight?”

“I hope so. We have a chance to settle some arguments and fix some friendships here. That's what we do best!”

“All right well, Cloudsdale's right up ahead. Let's get this over with,” Rainbow Dash grumbled, beginning her landing.

---

When the team landed, they were greeted right away by a crowd of concerned citizens, most of them standing out in the streets and pointing to the weather factory. Rainbow Dash nearly let her mouth fall open at the sight, the funnels on the modern facility were pouring out clouds of all kinds of weird colors and natures, some with polka dots, stripes, and glowing effects.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” one pegasus mare with a cockney accent commented, “Oh, it's just horrible! Clouds aren't supposed to look like this at all! Next you'll be telling me that the ocean should be pink, and the sky should be orange!”

“Well what about Discord's cotton candy clouds that rained chocolate milk!?” Pinkie Pie asked, “Those were awesome! You should give these silly clouds a chance!”

“Ok, but let's use a little reasoning here,” argued a stallion next to the pink mare, “you can actually drink chocolate milk and eat cotton candy. Who knows what's coming out of these clouds?!”

After applying the necessary anti-gravity charm to her friends’ hooves in order to avoid having them fall through the cloud layer, Twilight approached the stallion Pinkie was interacting with and cut their conversation short.

“Does anypony around here know who we can talk to about this incident?” she asked the stallion, cutting Pinkie's conversation short, “we've been sent by Princess Celestia to investigate the problems with the weather station.”

“Scuse me, coming through,” came a voice from inside the crowd.

The other ponies backed off a bit to let forward a petite police mare wearing her uniform, albeit rather disheveled. Her blue shirt's white tie had slipped out of the shirt, dangling beneath her a little dangerously close to her hooves where she might easily trip, granted the clouds would break her fall easily.

“Are you guys the ponies sent by the Princess?” she asked, “We've got a situation here down at the police station. The saboteur of the weather factory is giving our guys a hard time, won't talk at all except for how this is his 'magnum opus' or something.”

Techorse felt his muscles tense up, “That sounds like an act of...”

“Yeah yeah, we know,” the police mare said, raising a hoof to stop him, “don't use the T-Word around all these ponies!”

“YOU MEAN THE WEATHER FACTORY'S ACCIDENT WAS A...” Pinkie Pie tried to gasp, only for Twilight to grab her lips with her aura to keep her silent so that the policemare wouldn't instantly arrest her for causing a panic.

“We'd just like to see the suspect, if that's okay with you, officer,” Twilight chuckled nervously, “you know, I thought this was the work of a group of pranksters. I really hope it's not somepony with some kind of grudge against Cloudsdale.”

“Well, unfortunately it's just one stallion about our age... but we don't know yet if he was trying to scare ponies or what,” she answered, “Hopefully that's not the case.”

“Yeah, he'd better not be trying to scare ponies!” Rainbow Dash grumbled, stomping her hoof into the fluffy ground, “I want to know what he was thinking right now!”

“Don't worry, you'll all get your chance at him,” she said, “come with me.”

---

She led them to the police station, telling her life story along the way, “Daddy was an earth pony, rare metals miner... named me Little Malachite after my green coat. Got nicknamed pretty early on based on the last part of my name, 'Kite', like the flying things.”

“Kite's a great nickname!” Pinkie Pie agreed happily, “What made you want to be a policemare?”

“Well, mom was nice enough to give me the genes for her wings, and I've always wanted to help protect ponies. When I got older, I just put out applications hoping for a department that could take me, and Cloudsdale was looking for some reserve officers to file paperwork, escort folks around... you know, easy work for a smaller mare.”

Rainbow Dash resisted making a joke about the officer's height, a good four inches under her own, but she knew she'd just have to. She bit down on her own lip and snickered a bit, thinking up a good one she could use to mock the vertically challenged officer.

Somehow, Kite had picked up on her private mocking, “Something you want to say, Rainbow Dash? Don't forget we all know you here at home, and all the stuff you're 'famous' for.”

The only thing worse than getting arrested was a strong retaliatory joke, so Rainbow quit biting her lip very quickly, just in case Kite had a record of all the things she'd done in her hometown. She wisely kept her mouth shut until they reached the front door of the police building, offering to hold it open for her friends.

Soon after, they saw the alleged perpetrator, Mix-Up was being interrogated, more accurately being tortured, by the officer who was threatening him earlier. The sealed-off room, containing only a table and two chairs, was intentionally cramped and hot to make the occupant “fess up” as the rest of the investigative staff put it. Leaving the room was the other officer who had been more reassuring, disgusted with his colleague's treatment of Mix-Up.

“Hey Eager, how's our guest in there?” asked Kite of the gray-colored pegasus, “You and Sharptalk giving him the ol' good cop, bad cop routine?”

“Well, it would help if Sharptalk wasn't actually a bad cop,” grumbled Eager, “we found out that our suspect isn't trying to cause any terror in the Cloudsdale public, just make some hippie artistic statement. Didn't stop Sharptalk from threatening him with 12 years of hard labor scrubbing out the latrines in the yak embassy, though!”

“Yikes,” Techorse commented, “Sharptalk could get himself in trouble saying things like that.”

“I'm sure the yaks wouldn't find it funny, that's for sure,” Twilight agreed, “they’ve declared war over less…”

“The yaks declared war? Is it Tuesday already?” joked Rainbow Dash, finally getting a joke off.

“There's plenty of room for all of you in the sensitivity meeting Sharptalk's in for, you know,” Kite mumbled while rolling her silver eyes skyward.

The door to the interrogation room slammed open, and Sharptalk angrily stomped out, “I am NOT talking to this jerkwad for another second! He refuses to say anything except brag about how great his weather-ruining art is! Just pitch that guy back in the cell, Kite.”

“Come on Sharp,” Eager said to placate him, “let's go get you a coffee. I think Kite can take it from here.”

Kite nodded at Eager, but made faces at Sharptalk behind his back the moment he was halfway out the door. Then she went over to the cold, scary containment room and asked Mix-Up to follow her out. The artist agreed, entering the larger observation room containing Princess Celestia's confused friends. The detained cerulean pegasus felt his heart skip a beat when he saw Twilight Sparkle especially. For whatever reason, he was able to set aside the fact that he was in trouble with the law to take deep interest in the appearance of the mare.

“Oh my,” he teased, turning his head and smiling, “you're Twilight Sparkle, aren't you?”

“That's right,” she answered boastfully, “And in case you haven't heard of the rest of us, this is Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Techorse. So, now that we've got our names out of the way, who are you?”

“I'm Mix-Up,” he proclaimed as if important, “Cloudsdale's greatest cloud designer. Looks like we have two famous ponies in this room!

Twilight was amused by the flirtatious comment, “Heh… I'm just here on behalf of the princesses to investigate the sabotage of the weather factory in Canterlot. I thought it might be some young stallions pulling pranks, so I prepared a lesson plan on better ways to get attention and came here to help.”

Mix-Up approached Twilight with desire in his step, ignoring her personal space, “Oh, I'm sure there's lots I can learn from your lesson plan. You know, unicorns are so smart and pretty. I'm sure you can convince these nice police mares to let me go?”

He was almost touching her striped mane with his filthy paint stained hoof, at least from a very upset Techorse's perspective, who didn’t care for the pegasus stallion being all cutesy with his marefriend. The looks of horror on Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie's faces agreed with his thoughts that the last thing Mix-Up should be trying to do was flirt.

Luckily Twilight didn't care for it, and she pushed him back with a small disk of magic energy, “Heh, um... I don't think that's gonna work.”

“Funny, usually this does work,” the artist sighed 'romantically',”let me know if you feel differently later.”

“You'd better back off,” Kite joked when he saw the stallion's muscles tense, “or Techorse might just earn himself an assault charge right here!”

Techorse definitely had tensed muscles and a somewhat bothered expression that gave away how he felt about Mix-Up sweet-talking his significant other. Pinkie Pie made sure to grab Tech's attention and give him one of her trademark cheery smiles in hopes of getting him to relax. Her buddy stopped scowling and went back to focusing on the task at hand.

“Anyways,” Rainbow Dash continued, “you'd better tell me what the hay you were thinking causing a problem over at the weather factory, er… Mix-Up?”

“That’s right,” he nodded patiently.

“Well aaaanyhoof… Your stupid 'art' you did,” she continued, making air quotes with the tips of her wings, “made the weather delivery this morning crazy all over Equestria! Some of us thought it was literally going to rain cats and dogs with how insane the sky was!”

“Well, if you'd only give me a chance to really explain, I'm sure you'd realize I'm in the right,” Mix Up answered, proudly putting a hoof at his chest and dismissing his critics.

“Oooh this is gonna be goooooood!” sang Pinkie Pie, who tip tapped on her hooves in glee, partially because she wanted to hear the story, but partially because the overly angry expression on Rainbow's face made her giggle.

“All right, Mix-Up”, Techorse said in a no nonsense tone, willing to give him a chance despite his inappropriate behavior, “tell me why you think breaking into the weather factory and changing the clouds was necessary.”

The spotted pegasus happily agreed to explain, puffing out his chest, “I’m glad you asked! You see, I am a true artist who sees the beauty in design....“

Mix-Up then spread his wing out to dramatically illustrate, the others could feel the self importance hanging in the air, For months now, I've been trying to push the idea of designer clouds to the weather facilities all around Equestria, but I’ve always wanted to convince the one here in my hometown since it serves so much of the nation! With some rainbow water and the proper painting equipment invented by yours truly, I have created a way to make designer clouds of all hues and patterns! I can even make clouds that glow in the dark, or even clouds with polka dots!”

“Oh yeah, I saw some of those clouds that came from the factory!“ Pinkie said, waving her hoof up for attention, “and I gotta to say that they're the most funarific works of weather that I've ever seen! Most clouds are just boring old white colored, but I ate one of yours and it turned my tongue blue, which is normally only possible with blue raspberry candy, but that one did it right away which was really neat!” Pinkie Pie chipped in not stopping for a breath except to stick her tongue out to show its wacky hue, “Buuuuut it's super-duper illegal to break into sensitive weather factories and use the clouds batches without asking!”

“Oh, um, well I only broke in because everypony in town hated the idea and needed to see their mistake,” Mix-Up replied before wretching in disgust, “wait... did you say you ATE one of the clouds?!”

“Forget about Pinkie Pie eating everything and listen to the rest of what she said,” Twilight instructed while pointing at him, and making a point to avoid that possible path of conversation for sanity's sake “you shouldn't have broken in and painted the clouds, even if it was to prove a point!”

“A stupid point too,” Rainbow Dash laughed, “painting clouds and making them glow is pretty lame, Mix-Up.”

“Well then, you just don't know what true art looks like, Rainbow Dash,” Mix-Up scoffed, “I wouldn't expect a crabby mare like you to appreciate creativity at all.”

Rainbow Dash felt attacked by his words and stuttered back, “H... hey! Not true! There's plenty of stuff I like, just not your crazy idea!”

“My idea is not crazy, it is genius!”

Techorse, having finally caved in to the frustration brought on by the pegasus stallion’s aloof behaviour, made a fatal social blunder, “Mix-Up, that's enough! Your art isn't good enough to make it worth ruining the weather.”

That was the last straw for the artist who huffed indignantly, and marched over to the inventor, “Oh, so you don't think my art is good enough, Techorse? Watch this!”

Kite prepared to wrestle him to the ground, but burst into laughter when she saw what he was up to. The ticked off pegasus had concealed a sample of his weather paints in his red duster in the form of a small glass vial filled with a vaporous substance. Techorse couldn't exactly go anywhere standing in a room full of ponies, so he was unable to stop Mix-Up from smashing the vial on his battle saddle with the questionable mist, spreading it all over with his wings . Once the fog evaperated, the metal device had a fresh coat of hot pink paint that glowed as bright as a Hearth's Warming tree!

“How about now, Techorse!?!” sneered Mix-Up, continuing to smear the paint with his right wing, “Is it good enough for you now?”

“Stop!” Techorse yelled, trying to move away but being blocked by Pinkie Pie, who kept trying to squeeze out of the situation, “You're going to hit the release hatch!”

Seeing a small groove at the back of the saddle, Mix-Up swiped his wing across it, and with a loud click, Techorse's saddle popped open on the back, all the different gadgets inside popping out to full extension for maintenance like a swiss army knife. The robotic arms, laser weapons, turbofans, and missile tubes poked out in different directions like a bouquet of machinery. All of it glowing and embarrassing pink from the artist's furious painting.

Pinkie Pie giggled, “Oops! Didn't know your saddle could do that, Techie!”

This time, her silliness couldn't keep him calm and he yelled, “Mix-Up you idiot, you got your paint all over EVERYTHING! Most of the electronics are probably ruined with this stuff!” He yelled as at the cerulean pegasus for touching his personal equipment, which he was particularly protective of this gear.

Officer Kite interrupted, “Techorse, I know you're angry, but... um, well... we need to talk.”

“WHAT?!” he shouted, forgetting she was a policemare.

Kite waited with a blank expression for him to calm down and take a deep breath, “Are you okay now? This is about your saddle. I wasn't aware you had those weapons on you.”

“Oh... well I have my permit for that,” Techorse answered sheepishly, “let me get it out for you.”

“I'll take a look at it, but it doesn't matter,” Kite said, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh no, we're not starting today off with Techorse getting arrested are we?” Twilight panicked.

The officer shook her head and went to unlatch the device, “No, but I'm going to have to hold onto Techorse's saddle until he leaves Cloudsdale. Even with a license, those weapons are too dangerous within the city limits to carry them unless he's taking them straight out of the city. Next time you’ll need to declare those.”

Given that it was soaked in glowing paint and wasn't of much use now, Techorse willingly surrendered his saddle to Kite. but the damage had already been done. Mix-Up had embarrassed him in front of the Cloudsdale police. The pegasus seemed pleased with himself, having made a mockery of Techorse, but he felt a little worried based on the 'dagger eyes' he was getting from him.

“Mix-Up, I ought to add to your charges for that,” Kite continued after barely managing to shove the saddle in a locker and close it, “but it's up to Techorse since you damaged his property.”

He tried to defend himself, “He made fun of my work!”

“There are boundaries to think about,” Techorse grumbled, furious but still wanting to do his job, “I'm not that bad you damaged my saddle since it's not that hard to fix, but you did ruin the weather for a lot of cities. You really need to think about the impact of your work when you force it on others.”

Twilight had something to say to both of the stallions, but her thoughts got interrupted by Eager popping his head back in the door.

“Hey Kite, I know you're busy listening to Celestia's helpers talk to the suspect, but we've got somepony else here to see him,” the stallion said, “it's Mr. Featherfall.”

Rainbow Dash smiled, “Woah, Mr. Featherfall? The guy who owns the Cloudsdale weather factory!? No way!”

Eager found himself being shoved aside by the pegasus pony, a navy blue stallion with broad wings tucked gently over a white dress shirt and pants combination, black vest over it and a gold chain running from the vest's pocket to his shirt's seam. His mane hair slightly gray from his age was combed over to the right, clearly not balding with plenty of curls to it, and a short tail matched the curly combed look. On his face sat a very well kept imperial mustache that followed every movement of his lips when he spoke, and he took a good look at Mix-Up with his disapproving eyes with golden irises.

“Oh well, what a turnout we have here!” he teased with a pleasant smile, “If it isn't Rainbow Dash, Wonderbolt aspirant, and her good friends! I suppose you've beaten me here for a conversation with our guest of honor, and I must say I'm not surprised given your track records of diligence in the name of our Majesty’s wishes.”

“Hello Mr. really really patronizing!” Pinkie Pie giggled, jumping up to great him, “I'm Pinkie Pie, and we're just about done here helping Mix-Up learn what he did was uncool so he can fix his life and stop making weird art!”

“Ah,” Featherfall coughed, turning to Kite, “perhaps you'd like to fill me in a bit more, officer. I believe miss Pinkie Pie and her friends have had enough of me already. It must be difficult cooperating with others not directly tied to Celestia.”

Techorse made it clear he didn't like Featherfall either by narrowing his eyes at him, not that it was enough to get him to stop.

“Mr. Featherfall, Mix-Up here was caught painting the cloud batch intended for the weather this morning,” she said, “it's the result of some idea he had for designer clouds. Most of the residents of Cloudsdale rejected him for the idea, so he went into the factory at night and basically forced the artwork on everypony else in Equestria.”

“Oh, I see,” the aristocrat answered, “well that seems fairly rude. I don't suppose you know very much about me, do you Mr. Mix-Up?”

The pegasus turned a little pale, “You own the weather factory?”

Featherfall shrugged a bit, “Well not quite. I own stake in our fine city's utility to the tune of forty percent of all shares. That’s not enough to control the factory by majority, but I still have the largest piece held by a single stallion. This means I get to handle all the thrilling bits of running the factory, such as deciding on which clouds to output... and how to deal with troublemakers.”

Techorse, still hoping to save Mix-Up, and please Celestia in doing so, cut in before the artist could say anything mouthy to the CEO, “I think Mix-Up here just broke in out of frustration with others rejecting his art. He's not dangerous, Mr. Featherfall. Just a bit... impulsive.”

The green stallion tried to fake a strained smile, but ended up making a borderline scowl at the ‘artist’ in question. Taking off his vest and placing it on a nearby coat rack, the executive relaxed a little while talking to Techorse, “I agree, but... my fellow shareholders are a little more than upset that we may lose value from that bad batch of weather clouds.”

“Tech, please tell him why he's wrong,” Mix-Up sighed, “my ideas only add value to the clouds.”

The green stallion, still furious over his ruined saddle mouthed off at him, “That's not how any of this works, Mix-Up. Your 'art' is a subjective business idea that's up to others to place value on. If Mr. Featherfall thinks they're destructive, he has every right to come here and tell you that!”

“That's... horrible,” was all he could answer, scrunching his face up, “can't you do anything else but snub my creativity?”

Techorse finally lost it and shouted at him, “Mix-Up, I'm NOT trying to snub your creativity! I'm trying to keep you out of prison! In case you weren't aware, there's a dozen charges against you, including destroying my stuff, so stop this and at least PRETEND you care!”

“Go Tech!” Rainbow Dash whooped, getting grumbled at by Twilight for the teasing.

Kite reminded him sternly, “Nopony has actually pressed charges yet, but Mr. Featherfall owning so many shares in the factory means he's going to decide what happens next. This would be a really good time to apologize and hope he just goes with a vandalism charge instead of piling together the breaking in, tampering with dangerous machinery, and just about every other law you broke.”

Feeling cornered, but unable to give up on his ideas, Mix-Up put on an air of being miserable, dropping to the floor dramatically and twisting his expression to look as sad as he could.

“I didn't really want to ruin the weather for Equestria this morning. Just change things for the better.
Make them more fun and spontaneous!” he whimpered.

Techorse and Twilight, but especially Techorse, were less than thrilled that Mix-Up was effectively refusing to apologize or do any kind of negotiation with Mr. Featherfall, the stallion who was clearly going to decide whether or not he was going to wind up in jail that day.

“Well, I'm not sure the motley company in this room agrees, but I truly believe that,” Mr. Featherfall said, talking like a supportive family member to the artist but bashing everyone else, “which is why I have against the wishes of the other shareholders decided that an educational experience is going to be more productive to your life and our profits than throwing you in prison.”

“Please do not tell me that after all this we've had to go through that you are not going to press charges for something,” Kite complained loudly, “PLEASE!”

“Well officer, I did say there would be an educational experience,” Featherfall answered, holding up a hoof and batting his eyebrows, “Mix-Up will be required to learn about how much effort goes into the creation of weather in Cloudsdale first, or else you can CRUSH HIM with the book of law.”

“You mean 'throw the book at him',” Twilight corrected, raising an eyebrow at the sudden aggression.

The stallion cleared his throat, “Semantics, Twilight Sparkle.”

“All right, well, if you're going to give this loser a chance, what does he need to learn?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Simple,” Featherfall answered, “it's clear to me from our chat here that this young stallion simply values the work of an artist over the work of the industrious weather mares of our facility. He needs to learn why that viewpoint is wrong, so I want him to spend the day talking to official weather ponies and get them to sign a document once they're satisfied with his understanding of their careers and how much he's hurt them.”

“But, but, what if none of them will sign!?” Pinkie Pie gasped, “They're all probably really mad!”

“There's a ton of my employees who think their work is thankless,” the executive admitted, smacking his lips, “I'm sure if he's willing to make amends and take legitimate interest in their jobs, they'll sign.”

“Heh, that's for sure,” Rainbow Dash agreed, “thankless job.”

Trying to make up for Rainbow's insults, Twilight put on a smile and said, “Well Mr. Featherfall, that sounds like a good lesson for Mix-Up! Having him make a connection with the weather ponies will let him see how his art impacted them negatively and give him an appreciation for other lines of work besides his own.”

“That's exactly what I'm trying to accomplish here,” he agreed, before stiffing a cough, “Of course, I need to know he's not just going to skip town the moment we turn him loose either... which is why I need one of you to escort him around the city.”

Pinkie Pie bounced around the room, “OOH OOH, PICK ME, PICK ME!”

“Techorse... I choose Techorse,” he sighed, “he needs to do it.”

“NO!” yelled Techorse, stomping his hoof, “Absolutely not!”

“There is no way I'm working with him!” Mix-Up snapped, “He doesn't appreciate my talents either, and he's demanding I feel terrible for something I'm good at!”

“I never said... I... AHHH!” Techorse turned red and snapped before demanding of the factory owner, “F... Featherfall, why would you choose me? Twilight has been looking forward to this assignment all day, and she's Celestia's student of friendship!”

Making excuses, Featherfall looked around the room nervously, “Well, that's... just it. Twilight Sparkle's help would make this way too easy, I believe. We discussed that at our last stakeholder meeting, took up all morning.”

Techorse thought that seemed reasonable, but Twilight disagreed quite heavily. She knew that Featherfall couldn't have possibly known they were coming unless Princess Celestia sent him a message too, and it was unlikely that he would have had enough time to gather the hundreds of other shareholders for a meeting since Mix-Up had been arrested just one hour after the bad clouds were shipped out, so the meeting taking “all morning” was nonsense. Furthermore, why not ask Rainbow Dash to guide him around her hometown instead? Things just didn't add up.

“Right,” she answered after coming up with a plan, “well in that case, we'll just let Techorse escort him. No problem.”

The two stallions gave each other a death glare, each not wanting the other's company.

“Good, now, I'll just hand you the proper documentation, and you'll have until eight in the evening to finish collecting your signatures,” the pleased CEO chuckled, “after that, I can't guarantee anything.”

Techorse wanted to continue his angry gaze at Mix-Up, but Twilight gave him a subtle wink that let him know he was doing her a favor, “We'll be done before then. Rainbow Dash taught me where most of the Cloudsdale employees hang out, so I'll make sure Mix-Up learns his lesson.”

“Thank you for this,” said the artist, faking a smile, “I'm glad there aren't any hard feelings, sir.”

“It's not about feelings, it's just business,” he chuckled modestly, “now off with you! I have things to attend to myself you know!”

---

Techorse and Mix-Up left the police station together to start collecting signatures on a sheet of legal paper provided by Featherfall, giving each other a death stare the entire time. This left Twilight with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie standing outside of the station waiting for Featherfall to be well outside of hearing distance.

“So, are we going to hang out in town while we wait for them?” Rainbow Dash asked, “I know this really great place for milkshakes spun with tiny tornadoes!”

“That sounds so good!” Pinkie Pie drooled, licking her chops.

“Nope, we're going to follow them,” Twilight Sparkle answered, smirking, “loosely of course, so we don't get caught.”

“It's Featherfall, isn't it?” Rainbow Dash asked, “He was acting pretty suspicious picking Tech of all ponies to help out Mix-Up.”

“Maybe he noticed that Techie was getting really annoyed by him, and picked him so that he wouldn't be very helpful! That's gotta be it because that Mix-Up guy needs all the help he can get since it's pretty much impossible he's gonna change!” Pinkie suggested, hopping up and down, “Featherfall's setting him up like a bunch of sugar cookies to get munched on! What a meanie!”

“He's a jerk,” Rainbow Dash agreed, spreading her wings and jumping up so she could pace in the air, “it was really uncool the way he talked about us. Mix-Up's a jerk too, but he's really just an art snob trying to get attention, no biggie. Featherfall dissed us every chance he got.”

“Yeah, he called us motley! MOTLEY!” Pinkie Pie yelled, grabbing Twilight and shaking.

After pushing Pinkie Pie gently away, Twilight continued patiently, “Featherfall might be trying to please the other shareholders and prevent a loss in value by humiliating Mix-Up. I don't know what Tech has to do with it either, but that's why we have to follow them.”

“Plus we gotta make sure Techie and Mix-Up don't go all crazy and turn each other into glitter paste,” Pinkie Pie joked with a wink and a smile, “didja see how annoyed he was? His saddle looked like a glow stick!”

“He was so mad,” Rainbow Dash snorted, trying not to laugh, “that guy wasn't listening to a word of his advice, and Tech really hates it when nopony listens to him.”

“Plus he was really uncomfortable with how Mix-Up was talking to me,” Twilight added, “I have to admit, it was a bit tasteless, even though he was probably just trying to get out of his situation. Too bad for him though, he's going to have to learn his way out of this!”

Pinkie Pie jumped up and down in place, “Then let's find ourselves a comfy place to watch!”

“I know a place!” Rainbow Dash grinned.

---

Having secreted himself away to an office building he kept most of the factory's paperwork in for processing, Featherfall sat in an empty conference room that he had locked himself in just to be safe. Pegasus boardrooms were just like any other boring boardroom attempting to be interesting, a long wooden table with a carpeted floor and a glass case full of meaningless corporate awards from various Equestrian business magazines. The only thing that reminded anyone in the room it was a pegasus abode were the gray cloud-walls that were made just a little thicker and more sound resistant. Rather than his usual stakeholder or investment meetings, the wealthy stallion had set up a runic communication system consisting of an arcane disk etched with runes and gemstones that projected the bust of the other speaker in a purple color.

“You're absolutely certain it has to be this way?” Featherfall whispered, trying to keep the ponies working in the surrounding office building from hearing him.

The other caller was clearly a knight of some kind clad in an iron mask that covered his facial features entirely. His horns like those of a bull, pointed and facing forward, stuck out of the top of the dark steel, and his faceplate bore a mustache and beard etching like a samurai's ceremonial faceplate.

Surprisingly, his voice was not very deep or restricted by his impressive armor, “I am certain it has to 'be this way'. Techorse must be incapacitated... or worse.”

Featherfall had met the individual, a centaur that towered over him yet spoke softly enough, when down in Canterlot bemoaning loudly his ownership of a mere 40% of the factory shares. Despite the fact that weather was a utility highly regulated by Canterlot, owning more than half of the facility would grant him a place among the true elite of the world, controlling Cloudsdale and its wealth while being able to “brush away” any competition.

But his dream carried some risks if it involved offing Techorse, and his voice trembled during his response, “W..what?! That was never part of the deal we had! The deal was that we have that stupid artist screw up the clouds again, and then...”

“Quiet yourself. Let's review the plan one more time,” his customer interrupted calmly, “You told me Mix-Up had tried to alter the weather clouds in the past, and I instructed you to allow him into the factory by giving the guards the night off once.”

“Yes, of course. That loser's been trying to mess with us for months, and as you suggested I had a key to the factory gates slipped to him in a 'mailing error' via an envelope marked for one of my other employees intentionally delivered to the wrong address,” Featherfall grumbled, “it looks like he took full advantage and his sabotage indeed hurt the value of the factory shares.”

The knight nodded, “It did, but we are not finished yet. Currently, Equestria is unaware that pest is behind the weird cloud issue, and the cost of buying into the weather facility has only gone down by a little. However, one more incident will cause investor faith to falter to a point where your shares will become near worthless. That's when you'll be able to purchase all the other shareholders' stock, giving you total control of Cloudsdale's weather facilities in a single action.”

“Then all I have to do is show that Mix-Up caused the terrible weather, and the value will return to my holdings,” nodded Featherfall with greed on his mind, “and then you get a nice kickback like you wanted.”

“I don't want a kickback, I want Techorse down,” insisted his client harshly, “Twilight Sparkle and her friends must also not be harmed in the process.”

“I won't use violence,” the CEO retorted angrily, “especially not against somepony who works with Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia! They'll put me in Tartarus for it!”

The centaur on the other end of the call stood silent for a moment, the hologram flickering when he tried to groan and rub his face with a hand. He knew he was going to have to explain things again to the greedy pegasus... and he hated repeating himself.

“Our plan for you to take over Cloudsdale's primary economic powerhouse depends on falsified information being spread that the weather factory's machines have become worthless,” explained the masked individual, “if you do not stop Techorse, Mix-Up will be revealed to Cloudsdale as the culprit of the weather incidents very quickly, and you will not be able to complete your hostile takeover.”

One sick laugh came from the cenataur's throat when he saw the color rush from Featherfall's face. Everything had been set up perfectly by the steel-clad warrior so that the CEO was forced to comply with his request, or he'd never gain control of the factory.

“I can see you don't like being outsmarted by your superior,” cackled the centaur who crossed his arms over his chest mockingly, “you want all that money and power, you senile greedy idiot? Go earn it. Stop Techorse for me.”

The pegasus's muscles tightened up, and his face curled into an enraged mess, “You'll regret crossing me like this! If I end up in Tartarus, I'll make sure you go with me!”

After a few seconds of thought, the hologram answered, “I promise you... no Tartarus. Now get it done.”

Then the image turned into a flurry of purple sparks which cascaded down into the base of the transmitter. Featherfall, frustrated as ever, kicked it across the room and into the trophy case, smashing the glass and it to pieces.

“My apologies in advance, Mr. Techorse.”