Interlude: One, little ol' mare...
Ponyville, in the aftermath of Discord's reappearance (and subsequent re-imprisonment), had settled into a strange sort of normality. The weather team kept the sky in check, the market bustled. Ponies went to work, foals went to school...and the whole place was just a quiet little town again.
That was the strange part, actually. Things being normal.
Well...mostly normal. There was the one incident with Twilight's temporary bout of stress-induced insanity. That had shaken things up, and offered an interesting topic of conversation. For about a week. But then everypony knew everything there was to know about it, which really took all the fun out of the gossip.
And while the quiet was nice, it did lead some ponies to try and...alleviate the boredom.
“Twilight! Hey, hey Twilight! Over here! Look! Hey!”
The ever-so-humble town librarian sighed wearily, debating for as long as she dared whether or not to pretend she'd imagined the voice and just continue casually on to her home for a relaxing cup of her new chamomile tea. And maybe one of those corn muffins. Oh, and she had just picked up a jar of rose hip jelly...
“Then again...” She rolled her eyes, putting on her most patient smile as she turned to see–
BOOM!
Pink, stars, ground, sky, ground, sky, ground, sk-wall!
“Owww...”
“OmigoshTwilightI'msooooooosorrythattotallywasn'tsupposedtohappenareyouokay!?”
Twilight pushed herself up with as much care as she could muster, shaking her head wildly in an attempt to counteract her inner-ear's best try to acquaint her even more thoroughly with the ground. “Ugh...Pinkie?” She squinted as a pair of smudgy pink ponies swam into view, swinging rather sickeningly back and forth before finally resolving into a single, familiar figure. “What're you doing?”
“Trying to make sure you're okay, silly!” There was honest concern in those blue eyes, though Pinkie's smile was set firmly back in place a heartbeat later. “Also, now that you're here, I totally need your help calibrating my brand new party cannon!”
Twilight blinked a few more times as she settled herself back on all fours, glancing past her friend to see the smoking barrel of a large, colorful cannon, more than a fair distance away. A brief moment later, she finally took notice of the soot that blackened her friend's coat and mane in places.
'How did I miss that, exactly?'
“I...I take it something's wrong with it?”
“Well duh.” Pinkie gave her one of those 'Omigosh Twilight, you're totally an egghead, how do you not know this?' looks, a particular variation that she'd finally translated into the more specific, 'Omigosh, Twilight, you're totally an egghead and so should be smart enough to realize that I'm Pinkie Pie and you just gotta deal with it'. “It just blasted me, like, forty feet! And, I mean, it was really awesome and all, and I should keep the recipe for the powder 'cause Dashie will be waaaay into it, but right now it's probably kinda overdoing it for the welcoming party tonight, and I really really really wanna make the best impression for Lily Blossom's cousin!”
Twilight took a long moment to process that, making sure she was properly addressing each point. “Ah...alright...I'm guessing you just need to reformulate your blasting powder...depending on what you're trying to do with it, of course...by tonight? Tonight...what am I doing tonight?” There were several projects in their varied stages, after all, and research to be done...
Then again, this was something new. And the thought of something new was just exhilarating, really. It put a smile on her face, as she levitated her saddlebags from where they'd fallen and settled them across her back.
“Right! Bring it by the library in a little while. Spike can give the powder a taste and tell you where you went wrong...I'll find a book or two on firework construction, and we'll see if we can't adapt it...”
“Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!” Pinkie's grin was a little frightening, as she took to bouncing in a tiny circle. “You're the absolute bestest best unicorn friend that lives in a library-tree-thing in Ponyville I know!”
“Yes, well...I do my best?” Twilight eyed her for a moment, then cleared her throat, smoothing out her mane with a spark of applied magic. “Sooo...I'll just go ahead and...go, now?”
“Uh-huh! I'm gonna go show Rainbow Dash, and then I'll bring it by for you to do your magicy-magic thing and magic it right on up with the magic and the sparkly colorful lights and the magic...”
Pinkie continued to ramble, and Twilight took a slight step back to make it a little more clear that she did intend to leave. “Oookay then...talk to you later...” When that got no response (besides some increasingly disjointed commentary on the particulars of magic from a solely earth pony perspective), she just turned and left.
'Not the most polite thing to do, but if she wants me to have the time to work on her cannon...thing...I'll need to take care of a few other things first...'
Yes, other things like the high grade hoof polish that she was in the process of improving (another half-hour at a steady boil would bring it to the ideal temperature and consistency for the process she had in mind, while leaving just enough time to prepare her tea), or the embroidering that still needed to be done on her cloak for Nightmare Night (Rarity had offered, of course, but Twilight knew for a fact that she was already swamped with requests for similar projects, and so had taken it on as a practical experience)...
Well, the long and short of it was that she was a busy mare, darn it! And the last thing she needed was to blow her lab up because she'd neglected to take the proper time for preparation! Which, now that she considered it, was probably a goal important enough to warrant a whole new schedule, which of course would involved taking more time to plan...it was all very complex, and required a certain amount of dedication. Really.
“Spike!” She tried, really tried, not to sound rushed as she kicked her door shut behind her. “Spike, where have you gone now?”
She'd squared her saddlebags away by the time her favorite assistant descended the stairs, rubbing at his eyes...had he been sleeping!? With a relatively unattended cauldron in the basement!? What if the wards had failed? What if the redundant wards had failed!?
'No!' Twilight shook her head sharply, the focused haste returning with its familiar intensity. 'Confidence, Twilight. Have a little confidence in your work...'
“Spike, there you are, wonderful!” She forced her very best smile on, the expression settling in after only a few moments and improving her mood greatly. “I need references and technical guides. Anything you can find for firework construction.”
He blinked a few times, and she felt a flash of something that was both exasperated and amused. “Uh...why the sudden interest in fireworks?” Was that worry in his voice? The exasperation faded entirely, as she remembered the last time he'd...interacted with fireworks.
“Pinkie Pie has a new cannon...thing. Something to do with parties.” A small box rose from her saddlebags, drifting at her side as she trotted towards the kitchen. “I'm not quite clear on all the details, but she needs help reformulating the blasting powder.”
“Awww...you're gonna make me test it, aren't you?” Spike groaned as he moved to follow, rubbing at fitfully at his stomach. “You know that stuff gives me indigestion.”
“I know that you were half as tall as you are now, and tried to eat your body weight in the stuff. Have you gotten your claws on any since then?”
He paused, shifting from foot to foot in obvious discomfort. Twilight just eyed him for a moment, in the way that she knew made him quite aware that yes, she did know him very well and no, he couldn't pretend otherwise.
“I won't know for sure until I've talked to her a bit more, but I think I've already got a few ideas that could help. I'll just need you to have a little taste to verify the formulas and make sure that her ingredients are...what she thinks they are.” After all, as surprisingly meticulous as Pinkie Pie could be, she was also very prone to...improvisation, when not under the strict guidance of, say, the Cakes. Or, in this case, a particular librarian unicorn with a bad habit of overworking herself.
“Oh, and could you start the kettle while I check downstairs? I want to check the cauldron. Thanks! You're the best!”
She left before he could respond, and vanished into the basement, never to return.
At least, not until snacks were ready.
Twilight had just picked up her needle and thread when Pinkie kicked her door open, tail thrashing into view a moment later as she backed her way inside...dragging the cannon with her, a pair of bulging saddlebags draped over the barrel.
“Phwew! This thing gets heeaaa-vy! I mean, it's not that bad when you're just aiming it, or, y'know, deploying it and junk, but running it all over ponyville is just exhausting.” She shook herself out, her mane bouncing comically for a moment, and when she saw Twilight sitting at her writing desk her expression lit up. “Heya Twilight! What'cha makin'? Oh! Is it a blanket!”
The librarian, ever quick on the uptake, stared first at her friend, then down at the cloak that she'd folded on the edge of the desk. “Wha...oh, this? No, no...it's a cloak, actually.”
“Neat!” Twilight jumped as Pinkie leaned in to examine the cloak, having apparently decided to sprint across the room in complete silence while she wasn't looking. “I like the wonky stars!”
“Thank y-” 'Wait...wonky?' “What do you mean, 'wonky'?” Twilight levitated the cloak to get a better look...and quickly set it aside, sweeping the rest of her sewing things into a pile beneath it, a noticeable blush warming her cheeks. “Nevermind...you brought the whole cannon?”
“Uh-huh! I wasn't sure what you'd need to do when you go all WoOooEEEooOo...” Pinkie rocked back on her haunches to wave her hooves in the air, apparently feeling the need to demonstrate the...whatever that had been. “So I just brought the whole kit! All my ingredients and stuff too!”
Which would explain the saddlebags. Twilight reflected on the fact that there was probably a relatively large amount of explosive material there. Something that...she really should have accounted for, but hadn't. Oh.
“That's...great!” Her smile was very close to sincere, though she was quick to position herself between Pinkie and her things. “Why don't you go find Spike while I...unpack! Yea!” She gave a chuckle that wasn't the least bit nervous, tossing her mane in a perfectly casual manner. “I think he's in the kitchen!”
“Ooooo...”
'Right, Pinkie distracted.' Twilight sighed, carefully levitating the saddlebags to the circular table that she'd cleared off specifically for...well, not exactly that purpose, but close enough that it would serve. 'Best to set up properly while it's quiet...'
First came jars of what looked like mixed blasting powder (which were quickly treated with a spell that would serve to keep them from spontaneously turning the interior of her library into a scorched mess), then jars of raw materials. Sulfur, charcoal, saltpeter, plenty of them all to work with.
'So, I'll have Pinkie Pie show me how she normally mixes her powder, and then we'll see if we can't make it a little more predictable, and then we can work on calibration.' She set down the last of the materials, turned her attention to the cannon itself...
“...who made this thing?” She was fairly certain, after all, that the Cakes did not have metalworking facilities beneath Sugarcube Corner. There wasn't an actual smithy in town, and the hardware shop couldn't possibly stock the sorts of things necessary to build a cannon. It was always possible that it had been bought from...somewhere. But that just opened up even more confusing questions.
“Hey, Twilight! Twilight! Twilight! Hey! Twi-”
Twilight cleared her throat, turning to the open door. “Yes, Pinkie?”
“Well, you know how your 'kitchen' is really, tiny? And, uh, how Spike can be super-duper clumsy, like, all the time?”
Oh, that just didn't bode well at all.
Twilight sighed, shook her head, and put on a smile. “Right...well, I suppose we'd better handle one thing at a time...”
“Um...so, you figured that out really fast. I mean, I know you're super smart, but still, wow, right? I mean, you were just like, 'Oh, you're adding too much charcoal, you silly filly', and then you were just all scribble-scribble on that chalkboard, and now I know to only use half of what I was using before, no matter how much more awesome it might be, right?”
“Pinkie...”
“And then you just built this cool little harness thingy! I mean, I said it was heavy and all, but you were just like 'Pinkie Pie! It's just a little applied mechanics and some-such', and then woosh, you put the whole thing together! You've totally done this before, right? Am I right? I'm right, aren't I?”
“Pinkie, do you mind...”
“I mean, I know that Applejack is all sorts of great with the building things, y'know, 'cause she does almost all the repairs at Sweet Apple Acres, did you know that? I didn't know that until just a little while ago! I bet she could'a done the same thing, except it's even more impressive because she can't magic it up like you can! No offense, I mean, but it's really cool...”
“Pinkie Pie!”
The bubbly earth pony paused in mid-step, the cannon forcing her to take another couple as it rolled to a stop as well. “What's up, buttercup?”
Twilight blinked, her irritation vanishing in a puff of confusion. 'Which seems to happen quite a lot when Pinkie Pie is involved', a small portion of her mind noted. “Um...we're here?”
And, in fact, they were. It was a fairly average little cottage, set apart from its neighbors by an open door and a trio of balloons tied to the mail-box. Music could already be heard, inside, and there were ponies visible through the windows. Certainly a welcoming party of the Pinkie Pie sort. Except...
“GASP! I'm late for my own party-setup!” Pinkie trotted in place for a moment, nibbled her lip, and finally bolted for the door. “Seeyainabitminglehavefun!”
Twilight shook her head, debating her own technically uninvited attendance...at least, until the flat bang echoed out the door and ponies started cheering. Then, professional curiosity drew her in.
And if she had some punch and a 'Welcome to Ponyville' cupcake while she was there, well, that was just part of being a party guest; proper socialization was important to a healthy lifestyle, after all.
It really wasn't so bad, as far as parties went. Not being the center of attention made it much easier to enjoy the atmosphere, and Lily Blossom was a friendly, if flighty, host. In fact, Twilight found herself rather enjoying the whole thing. Thought there was a question or two...
“Hey, Pinkie?”
“Oh hey Twilight!” Pinkie Pie grinned down at her friend, tapping a hoof on the tabletop before giving another gleeful shimmy. “Sooo~? Great party, right? Totally better than that birthday bash we threw for Mrs. Cake!”
“You set her curtains on fire when you brought the cake in.”
“Well, she wouldn't tell me how old she was, doy. So I had to, y'know...try my best!”
And by Pinkie Pie logic, that meant putting random quantities of different colored candles on the cake in the hopes that one of them would be right. The resulting inferno had been nopony's idea of a good time.
“Yes, sure, the party is...wonderful, Pinkie.” Twilight glanced around. “But, isn't it a welcome party?”
“Yuppers! A totally swinging Ponyville hello!”
A brief nod. “So...where is the guest of honor?”
Pinkie froze for several seconds, then hopped down to the floor. “Lily's cousin?”
“That's what you said, earlier.”
“...fiddlesticks! He pulled a Sparkle!”
Twilight blinked. “A what-now?”
“It may have been his party, but he darn well certainly couldn't leave just because he wanted to!”
“You're not answering my-”
“No time, my Profoundly Purple Party-Partner!” Twilight gagged as Pinkie wrapped a foreleg around her neck, found herself dragged toward the front door. “We must correct this soiree send-up!” And suddenly she was outside again, trying to figure out just which direction was up. “I'll stay here and hold the fort, and you go do your magic thing and track him down!”
The door shut with a dull thunk.
“But...” She sputtered, stared, took to her hooves with more than a little uncertainty. “But what if he's inside!?”
No answer, and the door didn't open.
“...I hadn't finished my second cupcake.”
Twilight gave a deep sigh, turned around. Wondered, for a few seconds, just how Pinkie expected her to track down a complete stranger, even with magic. Then she wondered why she was bothering to question it.
“Alright then...I suppose I've got a little bit of time before I need to go home. It's just a little sleuthing. Obviously a simple feat, given my keen sense of logic and analytical thinking...” She blinked, then snorted, slumping back on her haunches. “And now I'm talking to myself. Wonderful.”
She almost missed the soft snicker from above, looked up just in time to see a flick of gray on the rooftop.
'Of course...Lily's cousin would probably be a pegasus.' She smiled, despite herself. 'And where else would a pegasus go to get away...but up?'
She stood, slowly, swiped her tail back and forth to shake any dust loose.
“Welcome to Ponyville.”
A few seconds passed before a head poked into sight. Just a pair of wide eyes and a rumpled, gray mane.
“Thanks.”
Twilight smiled, and nodded, turning to trot off toward the library.
Maybe she'd finally get that tea she'd been looking forward to.
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Woooo! The story is still alive!
I don't get why your so upset about not updating faster, its not that serious of an issue. I'm sure your doing your best right?
I hope you do continue this at regular intervals. You capture the joker's personality PERFECTLY, it gives me chills. Like and fav, hope you update soon.
Why so suprisedabout a feature? This story is amazing! Just pleeeease don't go another year without updates, I just found and read all this in the last couple hours, screeching in excitement over various points. Please update more.
This isn't fanfiction. This is art, dude.
I'm sorry but I can't resist...
cdn.onestoptshirtshop.com/wp-content/uploads/WhySoSerious-Swatch-Black.jpg
finally a little..... anarchy in the pony world
I do hope that this story can progress. I have been searching for a good Joker Cross-over. Just the idea of my favorite insane criminal mastermind being in Equestria just seems funny and interesting to me.
2714461 try just joking by rainbow Bob its another good one
That scares me more than it should.
What was the point to this interlude?
3732333 To foreshadow Joker and Pinkie Pie's eventual meeting? Because seriously, that would be some hella chaotic party.