Vital Mender

     "Good morning applicants!" Grunted one of the largest stallions I had ever seen. He towered over us as he trotted up to the row of six ponies waiting for his instruction. “My name is Joe Pumper. This is your physical agility test to see if you can cut it on our department. The test consists of five parts. We will be starting you out easy with a one mile run, followed by climbing and descending the stairs eight times, then carrying a fifty pound hose section up and down said stairs twice. You will have a short water break after the stairs. For the rest of the test you will be working in pairs. Part two consists of a ladder carry and setup for that part you will have one teammate ascend the ladder while the other properly supports the ladder. After a short lunch break you will fully dress yourselves in the proper personal protective equipment or PPE, and correctly Don a self contained breathing apparatus or SCBA in under two minutes. Then you will be required to successfully navigate our blackout room in full gear and on air. Finally we will test your air conservation by having all of your bottles drained to 1000 pounds of pressure down from the 4500 where they start at, and you will run laps and be timed to see how long you can make that air last. Any questions?” He looked at us for for a few seconds. “I hope y’all had a good breakfast this morning, now let's get started!" He then turned and began galloping away, we all followed him quickly.

     We started our run right then, he wasn’t messing around. Once I got into my pace the run was cake, we finished that and moved on the the stairs. When I was done with my first eight I levitated the hose section up and placed it on my back. I knocked out my last two stair runs, put the hose back, and walked over to find big Joe. As I walked towards him I noticed he was staring at me with a surprised look on his face. “I’m all done, which way is the water?” I said to him.

     “It’s just around that corner.” He said waving a hoof towards the side of the fire station’s training building. “You may have a bit of a wait though, it seems your a might bit fast.”

     Then I realized that two of the ponies were still on the mile, the other three had stacked up at the stair run, they appeared to be having trouble passing each other. “Oh, I guess I am. We did drills similar to this at the academy so it isn’t really anything new.” I explained.

     “Well, go get a drink and wait for the next part of the test. Since you finished first you get first pick of partners for the rest of the test.” he explained.

     After a quick drink I decided to go watch the group to see how everypony else was fairing. The first thing I noticed was that of the three ponies on the stairs only one was on the hose carry portion, a burly orange pegasus. As I watched him heading up he shoved past the other two ponies on the stairs very rudely one of which was a very familiar copper stallion.

     I watched the rest of the ponies as they ran, after a good ten minutes everypony was done. Joe lined us all back up then stepped over to where I was standing. He looked down at me and said “Alright you finished the course first, go ahead and pick out your partner.”

     I stepped forward and pointed a hoof at Copper. “My partner will be Coppercore.” I said. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to pick the pony that finished first, instead of fourth?” The orange pegasus that was standing next to me snorted, I think he was the one that finished first after me. “Well since I’m the one the finished first and you finished second I believe that I get to make that decision, but thanks for the input.” I answered with a smile.

     After the rest of the ponies paired up Joe led us over to the ladder area. “Alright, now that we have our teams let’s move over the that ladder carry area. Make sure that you know which of you will be climbing the ladder and which of you will be holding it.”

     We knocked out the ladder section easily, and the rest of the test went by pretty quick, Copper and I blew through each task. It was just like the practice course at the academy, and Copper followed my lead well enough, even if he did stumble a couple times.

     Once everypony had finished we all sat down to have a drink of water. “Well everypony, you all did a great job today. We’ll be letting you know the results tomorrow. Unfortunately we cannot hire all of you, but we appreciate y’all showing up and working so hard for this. Remember tomorrow at the station, seven in the morning.” Joe told us.

     As everypony got up to leave, I started wondering if I’d be one of those chosen. I figured I had a good shot at it at least, considering I am the only one who's had formal training. Plus I pretty much rocked the test course, and Copper didn't do to bad either.

     “Hey Mender, wait up.” Copper called out to me, bringing me out of a daze. He trotted up to me and matched my pace “That went great, I’m sure they will hire us.”

     “Whatever happens we did our best so I’m happy.” I answered with a grin. “Right now though I’m so hungry I could eat a tree. I’m going to go find some dinner, wanna come?”

     “Sure I was just thinking the same thing. Any idea where we should eat tonight?” He started to ask.

     “Waffles!” I exclaimed “I need some waffles, with syrup and jelly.”

     “Waffles?” He asked, cocking his head.

     “Yes waffles, they're like pancakes only with like little syrup cups.” I explained.

     He gave me this almost hilarious look of confusion. ”Syrup Cups? Did you really just….” then he burst out laughing.

     “Wait have you never eaten a waffle before!?” I gasped, my face covered in horror. “You poor poor thing, hurry come on there has to be a waffle iron in this town somewhere.”

     “Pfft, of course I’ve had waffles before!” He let out another snort of laughter. ”I just never thought of the little squares on them as cups. They’re square, not round! I mean think about it, a perfectly square cup sure would look strange, wouldn’t it?”

     “Phew!” I exclaimed wiping a hoof across my face. “Well that's one crisis averted. I still want to find some waffles for dinner though. Also, I have definitely used square cups before, and they are more volumetrically efficient than round cups.”

     We went on about square vs round cups, and about just how cool it was to drink from beaker shaped glasses among other things. Somehow we managed to make it into sugarcube corner, and sat down at a table.

     “Hi! What can…” Pinkie started to ask before she realized that we couldn't hear her.

     “With two cups of equal thickness, equal height and equal radius a square cup will have a greater volume.” I stated. “Do I need to draw a trigonometric proof or something?”

     “Umm… would either of you like to order?” Pinkie tried to interject.

     “No, I already know that, but what I'm saying is that the amount of material used to make the cup is proportionally greater vs the volume held and therefore it's more efficient to produce round cups.” He rebutted.

    “Well duh, but everypony knows that cupcakes are round.” Pinkie interjected.

     We both slowly turned and looked at our surroundings and then at Pinkie. “What? Wait I don’t remember coming inside and sitting down.” I  said, feeling very confused.

     “You came in a couple minutes ago talking about cupcakes.” Pinkie told us with a grin.

     “Buh?” Copper shook his head wildly. “What just happened? Cupcakes? Who was talking about cupcakes?. Now I want a cupcake...”

     “Oooh, well you came to the right place! Sugarcube Corner almost has every cupcake imaginable! We’ve got chocolate, vanilla, apple, blueberry, strawberry, carrot cake, angel food, red velvet, green velvet… wait, maybe not green velvet, but we’ve also got-”

     “Whoa, wait a sec! Did you say red velvet cupcake?” Copper almost looked like he was drooling.

     “Yeppers, sure did!”

     “I’ll take three then!”

     “Sure thing, coming right up! What about you?” Pinkie asked, turning to look at me.

     “Can I have two waffles and some coco moo?”

     “Okie Dokie Lokie!” She said, and started bouncing away.

    “You and your syrup cups.” Copper said with a snicker. “And coco moo? What the hay, are you five?”

    “It’s just something I picked up years ago, don’t make fun of me.” I told him while faking a frown.

     “Well food jokes and cups aside, did you hear about this year’s summer sun celebration?” He asked me.

     “No, what about it?”

     “It’s going to be here in Ponyville this year. The princess will be flying in and everything.”

     “Well I’ve been to it a bunch of times, growing up in Canterlot and all. You’ve surely seen it at least once, considering all your traveling. But it’s weird that they would have it here in this tiny little town.”

     “Yeah, I agree. It seems kind of strange to me too. Normally the princess has the celebration in Canterlot, or in other large cities like Manehattan or Fillydelphia.”Copper answered.

     “Alrighty here are three red velvet cupcakes two waffles and two glasses of chocolate milk.” Pinkie announced as she set the meal down on the table.

     “Thanks Pinkie, we can talk more about that later. Right now we have more important things to do.” I giggled and started on my waffles.

     The next morning I got up early and headed out to learn our fates. Of course I could try being less dramatic, but that wouldn't be any fun.

     "Alright, thank you all for coming this morning. I'm sad to say that we can only hire two of you at this time." Chief Pumper began. “I will have each you enter my office one at a time and inform you of our decision."

     So we stood there waiting our turns. At this point I must have been visibly bouncing up and down a little, because Copper was giving me a strange look then asked me if I was alright. But I mean come on who wouldn't be crazy excited at a time like this. "I'm fine, just a little excited." I told him.

     "I'd say more than just a little." He snickered.

     “Miss Mender” Called the chief from his office.

     “Yes sir!” I said walking as fast as I could while pretending I wasn’t as giddy as a school filly.

     I went into the office and closed the door. Chief Pumper looked up at me from the papers on his desk. “You will be assigned to B shift, that means you will have three days on four days off every week. your shift will start in four days. You also need to be sized for a uniform today, so head over to the training building and Joe will help you do that. All shifts switch at seven in the morning, make sure you aren’t late. See you at your first shift.”

     “Yes sir, thank you sir.” I said, hopefully not looking as stunned as I felt. I slowly turned and walked out of the room still unsure if that had really just happened. I saw Copper on my way out, and we decided to meet back at Sugarcube Corner later that evening to tell each other the results. Next I went to the training building like I was told and met up with Joe who help size me for a uniform. I was so excited I couldn’t stop shaking, which of course he noticed.

     “I hope you aren’t this shaky when you're on the clock proby.” He said, laughing at me.

     “I’m just a little excited, I will be one-hundred percent ready to go when I get back!” I told him with a grin.