"I hope you will be nicer to other ponies from now on," said Ms. Cheerlee as she shoed Diamond Tiara out of the school room and tried ever so carefully not to slam the door.
"Yes Ms. Cheerlee," Diamond Tiara said, giving the usual response. The door clicked with the slightest sound of resentment. Tiara just rolled her eyes at it.
"Done with detention, Ms. Tiara?" Silver Spoon, her faithful, hardworking, and trusty secretary asked. She had been waiting outside scheduling out the week. Ever since they opened A New Twist Candy Confections, life had gotten delightfully busy again.
"Yes. I can't believe Cheerlee wants me to be nice to those blank flanks. For an adult, she's pretty stupid," Diamond Tiara said.
"She's a teacher. You know what you're dad says. She has, like, no 'business sense,' whatever that means."
"Whatever it is, my daddy says I've got a lot of it," Tiara said, pounding her hoof, "especially after driving that namby-pamby Bon-Bon Treats out of business."
Silver Spoon snickered. "I can't believe you, like, got her to cry like that!"
"I did offer her a merger, but she was just too dumb to see the benefits." Tiara shrugged her shoulders. "Poor, stupid adults with no business sense. So what next on our brand-new, glitter-full calendar." Immediately, Silver Spoon pulled out a brand new, brand-name, Pretty Pretty Princess school docket and flipped to the appropriate page.
"'Meet Twist by the swings to discuss business expansion and advertising opportunities.' That's business talk for, like, talk to Twist and print some fliers," Silver Spoon said with that confident, strong voice that Tiara liked in a good secretary.
"Lay off the lingo, Silver. Now lets get going. By the way, great job on choosing the most prettiest calendar on the shelf."
"It's also, like, the most practical calendar on the market. With a daily planner, phone book, and stickers, it leaves all other calendars in the dust," she said proudly displaying several of the stickers, ranging from the boring "Time to Go to School!" to the more fun "Tea Time" stickers.
"They should have a 'Business Meeting' sticker," Tiara said. "That would be useful."
"You said it, girl," Silver said.
The pair then went off to find Twist swinging on the swing by herself. It was good to see Twist become completely independent from her old, blank-flank friends. They were just holding her back anyway.
"Twist!" Tiara ordered. Immediately Twist screeched to a halt.
"Yes Diamond Tiara?" Twist said with her usual lisp. She had a wide smile on her face. After her store won two awards for "Best Sweets" and "Fastest Service," at least according to The Foal Free Press, that came as no surprise.
"We are planning to buy Bon-Bon's shop. Do you think you can get enough confectioners to fill it?" Diamond asked.
"Oh yeah! Especially after going to that Candy Confection Convention with my mom. After showing them that paper you gave her, we had to beat them back with a candy cane!"
"Good. We need those contacts to expand our business. Had you had a chance to talk with Featherweight and Shady Daze about those fliers?"
Twist turned her eyes away and dug her hoof around the well-worn dirt. "Yes."
"Well, what did he, like, say?" Silver Spoon asked. Tiara already knew what was next.
"Shady Daze quit after he didn't get his cutie mark."
"Darn blank flank!" Tiara pounded the ground. "They always quit on ya. Did Featherweight mention anything about a replacement?"
"He said that he would need to look for one."
"Hopefully not another black flank." Silver rolled her eyes.
"I wish Featherweight could get one of those automatic printer. Then he wouldn't have to deal this problem," Tiara said.
"But those printers are, like, super expensive," Silver said, "and Cheerilee won't let him charge for the papers."
"Why does she always have to be messing with other ponies' business?"
"Hey you guys," Twist said, "can I ask Apple Bloom and the rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders to help with the store?"
"Absolutely not!" Tiara stated.
"They will, like, ruin everything," Silver added. "Remember what Strike told us?"
"I still can't believed they almost managed to completely demolish the only bowling ally in Ponyville! If I were the manager, I'd make sure they never got within a hundred feet of my business."
"Besides, they like, quit being our top reporter just because they felt bad," Silver said.
"I bet if they got their cutie marks in reporting, they wouldn't have cared about what everypony else felt," Diamond added, through her teeth.
"But they can help out with the new machines and stuff," Twist said. "And Apple Bloom might be a candy maker just like me!"
"Let me make this clear." Diamond marched to within an inch of Twist's rather bulbous
nose. "All blank flanks care about is their dumb cutie mark. They always quit after five seconds of work if they don't get it."
"Plus, they like, destroy everything they touch," Silver added.
Diamond continued, "If even one of those blank flanks dares to 'help,' then you can kiss your business and all your hard-earned success goodbye!"
"So no Cutie Mark Crusaders?" Twist asked.
"Absolutely not!" Both Tiara and Silver shouted, hopefully loud enough to get the message through Twist's thick skull.
"Ok, ok," Twist said, backing away. "No Cutie Mark Crusaders."
"Good," Tiara said. "Now lets go see how your business is doing."
"Alright!" Twist was the first to bounce her way toward her newly renovated shop. Diamond Tiara had used the extra profits from Nightmare Night to change that abandoned shack into a glittering candy store, complete with peppermint stripped awning, bloated-lettered sign, and even a viewing window for customers to see Twist at work. She never understood why, but ponies got a kick out of seeing others work. It's probably because work was an exotic topic for most of those lay-abouts.
As they entered past the new cinnamon-red door, Diamond took a second to marvel at the brand-new tile counters, the black and white linoleum floors, and the shelves fully stocked with numerous candy confections, from old-fashioned candy ribbons to crazy bug-candy Twist invented. They all were neatly organized into boxes with colorful signs advertising each confection.
On top of that, Diamond had the confectionary moved from the back of the store to behind the counter, which jutted out from the half-way point on the front wall.
"There's my favorite business foal!" Ms. Sweet Spot, Twist's mom, said as she swung her foreleg around Diamond and gave her a kiss.
"Ick, get off me!" Diamond demanded. Ms. Sweet Spot let go, and she brushed off her imaginary lapel. "Ms. Sweet Spot, that behavior will not be tolerated. Do that again and you're fired!"
Ms. Sweet Spot giggled. "Yes ma'am!" she said. Diamond could already tell that she didn't take her threat seriously. She probably didn't realize that A New Twist was now big enough to attract more professional confectioners, and replacing her would be a snap. Diamond would have to make sure she got that list of confectioners from Twist, though.
"Did you get the corn syrup, Ms. Sweet?" Silver asked.
"Oh dear, I completely forgot. Do you three dears mind watching the store while I'm gone?"
"Not at all, mom," Twist replied. Like Diamond, Twist always liked taking care of the store without any adults to treat them like babies.
"I'll be back in a jiffy!" Ms. Sweet said, and with a ring of the new door bell she was off.
"You guys want to see the new candy I made?" Twist asked.
"We would love to, but Diamond has to go to a meeting," Silver said.
"We can take five minutes to see what new creation Twist has worked so hard on," Diamond said. Silver hadn't quite as much business sense as she did.
"Great! So you know how in the summer our sales go down? Well, I think we can talk to Applejack about selling these!" Twist swiped an array of apple-shaped caramels, chocolates, butterscotches, and hard candies. "Plus, we can sell candy and caramel apples, and have a whole apple-harvest festival to go along with it! So what do you think?"
Before Diamond could talk, Silver said, "We would have to, like, convince the Apples to sell—"
"That's a great idea!" Diamond interrupted her sometime overly practical friend. "Imagine, whole hoards of ponies out on Sweet Apple Acres enjoying Apple Family Cider and Twist Candy Apples! It's perfect! And my daddy can sell them all his pre-made picnic basks and—"
"Maybe some of Bon-Bon's truffles?" The three foals turned toward the door. Standing in front of it was none other than that namby-pamby, Bon-Bon, who wasn't looking so namby-pamby. Twist back behind the counter while Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon held their ground.
"Come to take my job offer?" Diamond asked. The creme-colored mare touched tapped her chin and pursed her lips, then stared at Diamond with a wide, toothy grin.
"Well, since I have no job since you drove me out of business, I guess I have no choice." Bon-Bon walked past the two foals toward the store proper.
"Get the cops," Diamond whispered to Silver. She nodded and quickly snuck out the door.
The ex-confectioner stood on her hind legs and put two hooves on the top shelf. "And I'll start by reorganizing the candy!"
With one powerful twist, she threw over the shelf, causing the candy to scatter, the jars to break, and Twist to yelp with fear. Diamond grit her teeth, charged, and with a swift turn, bucked the mad mare right off her hind legs.
And right on top of her.
Bon-Bon grabbed her in one fore-leg, resisting her struggling. "You wouldn't hurt a foal would you?" Diamond asked, a scowl across her eyes.
"You're no foal. You're a monster." Bon-Bon spat and overturned another shelf.
"Hey! I worked hard to make those!" Twist said. Bon-Bon shot a glance at her that sent her back behind the counter.
"Because of you, I have no business and no home. I just thought I'd return the favor." Using her hind legs, she bucked the leg of chocolate arrangements table, causing all of Twist's hard work to shatter across the floor.
"Twist, run!" Diamond shouted, and then bit the mare's fore-leg as hard as she could. With a yelp, Bon-Bon let go, and the pair of foals bolted for the door.
Only to find a sea-green unicorn mare with a struggling Silver Spoon in hoof blocking.
"Look what I found Bon-Bon, a tattle tale," Lyra said, pickling her free-hoof next to Silver's cheek. Silver snapped at it. "And a feisty one at that."
"Isn't that suppose to be un-cool?" Bon-Bon mocked.
"What are you doing here, Lyra?" Diamond demanded.
"Well, ever since you closed down Bon-Bon's business, you also closed down Bon-Bon's home, and her roommate's home as well," Lyra said.
"It's not my fault that neither one of you don't know how to run a business," Diamond replied.
"It's not our fault that that you made those article lying about on how we used corn-syrup instead of real sugar," Bon-Bon said, and tossed another shelf. "And how we had bribed our health inspectors." She overturned a copper kettle. "And how we used untested ingredients." She buck in one of the tub sinks.
"D-d-did you really say all that?" Twist asked, voice shaky.
Diamond looked away. "It was all just business."
"Just business? Just business!" Bon-Bon shouted, then kicked a hole in the wall.
"You call throwing us out into the street just business?," Lyra said. "You call lying and cheating just business?! You call destroying honest and hard working mare's reputations JUST BUSINESS?!" Silver started coughing, and kicking, and turning blue.
"Let her go, you're choking her!" Diamond said. Lyra let her go. Silver gasped as she hit the floor. Diamond tried running to her friend, but she waved a hoof and pointed toward Twist. She was in a red ball, shivering, scared out of her mind. She had no experience with mad ponies.
Diamond Tiara ran and covered her.
Bon-Bon kept on destroying Twist's store, as Diamond and Silver protected twist from the flying debris. Lyra tried to get Bon-Bon to stop, but that mad mare struck her own friend down. The cops came and took them both away.
"Oh, my poor little baby." Ms. Sweet Spot swaddled Twist in her fore-legs. Twist couldn't stop crying and gasping.
"And they came in, and they tore down the shelves, and..."
Silver Spoon handled the police report. Diamond Tiara, however, sat outside the wrecked establishment.
You call destroying an honest and hard working mare's reputation JUST BUSINESS?! Those words ran over and over in her head. Was this what business was? Putting your friends in danger at the hooves of your enemies? She felt her stomach lurch. The smell of crushed candy did not help at all. Peppermints, caramels, chocolates, hopes and dreams. It was just too much, so she did something she wasn't suppose to.
She left the crime scene.
