• Published 27th Nov 2017
  • 400 Views, 6 Comments

Long Distance Friendship - Drag Orion



The Map calls Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack to solve a friendship problem in different locations.

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Chapter 8

“Back in good ole Canterlot once again,” cheered Pinkie as she got off the train. “Now to solve that friendship problem and work on putting up that new bakery for the Cakes.”

“Well, well, well, it’s been a long time, Pinkie,” a serious voice spoke to Pinkie.

“Huh? Who’s there?” wondered Pinkie turning around and seeing a pony dressed in a poncho and a western hat with a drawstring on it. The two glared at one another fiercely and then proceeded to approach one another one step at a time. Finally, they were face-to-face and their glares turn to big smiles as they got up and hugged one another.

“Pinkie!” the stranger said in a far more friendly tone.

“Cheese Sandwich!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie just as happily. “What are you doing here?”

“Same thing as always,” he answered removing his outfit to be in his casual collared yellow shirt. “Following my cheesy sense and it brought me right over here to you. How about yourself?”

“Well, first I’m here on an important friendship mission,” she told him. “But I’m also here to see about helping my friends, the Cakes, to open up a second bakery and thought I could look around for a place to set up.”

“Expanding a business to another store is a lot of work and requires a lot of time and money,” he told her. “Are you sure you can handle that?”

“Absoposolutely,” she answered. “But how do you know so much about this sort of thing?”

“I might not look it now, but I hail from a family of accountants,” he told her in a proud tone.

“My family are rock farmers,” replied Pinkie. “Except my sister, Maud, who studies rocks.”

“Well, my cheesy sense brought me to you so is there anything I can help you with?” he asked.

“I do have to find this friendship problem first so you can help me look,” she explained. “It could be anywhere in the whole city of Canterlot.”

“That narrows it down,” he replied. “Uh, anything else?”

“Usually while we look for the friendship problem, it usually finds us,” she admitted.

“If that’s how it’s done, then let’s start looking around,” suggested Cheese Sandwich. “Maybe you can find a location for the bakery in the meantime and eat two cupcakes with one bite.”

“Sounds good to me,” she agreed and the two made their way into the streets of Canterlot. It didn’t take them very long to find a building for rent and quickly proceeded over to it. They saw a clipboard on the door that Cheese Sandwich picked up to look at.

“Let’s see,” he said as he skimmed through the papers. “It says this place is two stories and already furnished with a couple ovens and a rather large kitchen. Sounds like this place might’ve been used as a bakery or something like that by the pony who owned it previously.”

“Then this is the perfect place for the new Sugarcube Corner!” declared Pinkie Pie. “Oh, this was even easier than I thought it’d be.”

“Uh, did the Cakes happen to tell you how much they were planning to spend?” he asked her.

“Well, they only just started talking about it earlier today,” she answered. “Why?”

“I probably shouldn’t show you the asking price then,” he replied trying to return the clipboard back onto the door.

“How bad could it be?” scoffed Pinkie as she grabbed the clipboard to take a look herself and her eyes almost popped out of her eyes and her jaw dropped. “That’s how much it cost to buy this place?!?”

“No, that’s only the asking price,” Cheese Sandwich corrected and hesitantly flipped to the next page. “Here is what ponies have offered to pay to buy this place.”

“WHAT!?!?” screamed Pinkie, her jaw dropping to the ground.


“Is something the matter?” asked Flash Magnus as he and Rainbow Dash looked around an amusement park resort in Los Pegasus.

“Strange, I thought I just heard Pinkie Pie screaming,” she replied looking around.

“Well, there are a lot of ponies screaming,” he commented as a bunch of roller coaster passengers zoomed by screaming at the top of their lungs.

“That was probably it,” she agreed.

“I have to say,” admitted Flash Magnus. “We’ve never had rides like this a thousand years ago. I know you’re still looking for your friendship problem, but do you think we could ride a few?”

“Well… maybe just one,” she said trying not to sound eager to ride some herself before she was dragging Flash Magnus towards one she had been eyeing since they arrived. “Come on, this one looks the fastest!”


“How could anypony afford to pay that many bits?” panted Pinkie Pie looking sweaty from how many zeroes were attached to that price. “How did Rarity afford to get not just one, but two more shops? I guess she does have some big clients and using gemstones probably makes her clothes even more pricey, but we can’t do that. The only one in Ponyville who even eats gemstones is Spike! What are we gonna do?!?”

“Take a deep breath, Pinkie,” Cheese Sandwich said trying to calm her. “Typically, when buying a house it is too much for anypony to afford. What they usually have to do is get a loan from the bank.”

“So the bank will loan somepony all these bits just like that?” she asked in shock.

“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than just that,” he told her trying to make this as simple as possible. “You just need to convince the bank that your business is worth investing money in. And after you get the loan you have to work hard to pay off the loan.”

“That certainly sounds stressful,” admitted Pinkie Pie. “And to get enough money to be able to outbid all the other ponies on here, I don’t know…”

“It isn’t like you were even planning on doing this today,” he reminded her. “We were just looking around while you were on your friendship mission, right?”

“Yeah,” she nodded feeling a bit dispirited.

“Maybe we should break for lunch,” he suggested. “Uh, I don’t suppose you know any good places to eat around here?”

“Oh, I know just the place,” Pinkie answered quickly bouncing back to her perky, positive self. “It’s called the ‘Tasty Treat.’ Rarity and I went there once before for a friendship mission, a very tasty one at that.”

“That’s good enough for me. Let’s get going!” encouraged Cheese Sandwich and Pinkie led them both into the food district of Canterlot. They passed several other restaurants along the way, the mix of delicious smells in the air only aggravating their hunger. “I must say, this certainly is a mouthwatering street.”

“Yeah, but when I first got here with Rarity it was anything but that,” Pinkie explained. “All the restaurants were identical down to the little crumbs of food that were considered a meal and they didn’t even have any flavor on top of that. But thanks to us, everyone is making the food they want now and it’s all deliciously flavorful.”

“That’s great,” smiled Cheese Sandwich. “I should really throw a banquet party here some day. With all these restaurants everyone in Canterlot will come. So, where’s the Tasty Treat?”

“Right over here,” Pinkie answered as she led him down an alleyway to what seemed like a hole in the wall at first glance, but upon opening the door they were able to see a quaint Indian Restaurant that was already busy with the lunch hour rush.

“Oh, this place is very interesting,” commented Cheese Sandwich breathing in the air. “And the food smells like it has an interesting kick to it.”

“If you think the smell is good, just wait till you taste it,” smiled Pinkie.

“Pinkie Pie? Is that you?” asked a pony with an Indian accent and clothes that matched the restaurant decor. “It is! Oh, it’s so good to see you.”

“It’s great to see you too,” smiled Pinkie. “Cheese Sandwich, this is the talented chef of the Tasty Treat, Saffron Masala. Saffron, this is my friend, Cheese Sandwich.”

“Any friend of Pinkie’s is one of mine,” she stated and led them over to an empty table. “I’ll be right with you to take your order. I just need to finish up with a couple more orders for customers first.”

“I guess you are very busy now,” commented Pinkie. “This place is packed. Are you and your dad able to handle doing this by yourselves?”

“It was getting to be a bit too much of a success,” she admitted very proudly of that fact. “And my father actually went on a trip back home for a bit so I’ve had to manage the place on my own. I’ve tried to hire some help, but finding somepony who could help out with not only working in the front of the restaurant, but in the kitchen as well hasn’t been an easy task. I tried to bring on another chef, but either they were too experienced and I could not afford to pay them what they wanted for a salary or they were too inexperienced and were only capable of busing tables. However, I did finally manage to find somepony I believe to be just the pony I was looking for.”

“Oh, who?” asked Pinkie.

“Uh, well, him, over there,” she answered, pointing at the Earth pony listlessly wiping a table clean with a towel. He had a brown coat with a messy mane of a darker brown and blue eyes. He had a slightly buff build making him a bit taller than the average stallion. His Cutie Mark was of a blue popsicle. Saffron smiled a bit embarrassed and approached him. “Uh, you’ve been wiping that table down for the last twenty minutes now. I think it’s clean.”

“Whatever,” he sighed not sounding at all interested. “I’m gonna go on my break now.” Without even getting an answer, he grabbed a long, black coat, walked out the door and shut it behind him.

“He, uh, seemed, not that good,” admitted Cheese Sandwich trying to be be tactful.

“Not that good?!?” cried Pinkie. “How can you have someone who acts like that working for you?”

“Technically, he doesn’t work for me officially,” she explained. “He needed a place to stay and at the time I offered him to simply help take orders and clean tables. Everything was fine at first and he was actually a lot friendlier than he was right now. Then I saw him making these popsicles and he offered me one to try. It had a salty taste at first, but then they tasted sweet. It was an unusual mix, but in a good way and I could tell he had talent to get the different tastes just right. So I gave him a chance to try cooking some of the food here and his cooking tasted just as great as mine. I was so happy to have another cook, but after that he lost all the motivation he had. He wouldn’t even step hoof into the kitchen and he won’t even tell me why. Papa will be coming home in a few days and if he seems him acting like this he’ll tell me to just kick him out, but I know there has to be a reason he changed.”

“You think this could be the friendship problem you’re here to fix?” asked Cheese Sandwich.

“This must be it,” agreed Pinkie. “We just got to figure out why he isn’t motivated and help him out. Easy as pie.”

“If you can do that then this’ll be the second time you’ve helped me,” Saffron told Pinkie. “But are you sure you can get through to him? He would barely tell me anything at all even before he got like this. All I know is that his name is Rocky Rhodes and he moved here recently from Manehatten.”

“Don’t worry,” grinned Pinkie. “If anyone can get him to talk, it’s me.” Her stomach gave a loud rumble reminding her why they were here in the first place. “Uh, but first, can we order our lunch?”

“Of course,” nodded Saffron.