Blank Flanks

Blank

Flanks

Two

Apple Bloom sat there staring at the empty basket, trying as hard as she could to make apples appear in it. She strained her mind for several minutes, trying to picture apples in her head as clearly as possible. “Uh? Why are ya’ just starin at an empty basket?” her older sister asked. Apple Bloom couldn’t think of an answer, and she merely shrugged. “Well, hurry up, it’s almost time for school, and ya need to get goin’,” Applejack said. Apple Bloom set off for school, but before she left she looked back at the basket one last time, and sighed at the fact it was still empty.

Later at the community center, Apple Bloom had just arrived since school ended, and was puzzled to find several mattresses set up on a spot next to the entrance. She was then surprised when Evergreen landed on them after jumping off the roof.

“Ow, that really fuckin’ hurt.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to find out what my power is. I’m on flying right now, but I don’t think that’s it.”

“Well you shouldn’t being testing it like that; you could have gotten yerself killed; besides flying isn’t that special.”

“It is when you’re an earth pony.”

“Maybe you don’t have a power.”

“No, I know I have a power, I can feel it in my balls, and it’s like a soft vibrating feeling. Do you get that?”

Apple Bloom couldn’t believe what an idiot he was. As it turns out, all six of the ponies were experimenting with their own powers, and all have been about as successful as Apple Bloom and Evergreen. Nopony could control their powers, and nopony could use them whenever they wanted. Unfortunately, these were the least of their worries. The investigation into the disappearance of their now late probation worker and also Brightening Lightning was now being spear-headed by the smartest pony in Ponyville.

“Hello everypony, some of you already know my friends and I, but for those who don’t, I’m Twilight Sparkle, and these are Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie. Oh, and this little dragon here is Spike.”

“Hey everypony, I’ve never met some of you, so we should throw a big party for you, it’ll be like a ‘Happy First Day on the Job’ party. Ooh, I’m looking already looking forward to it. I better start planning right now.” Pinkie said with bubbly excitement as she ran out of the room. Evergreen raised his hoof to ask a question.

“How comes there’s seven of you now when at first we only had one probation worker?”

“That’s a really good point.” Rainbow Dash said very annoyed, as it was obvious she didn’t want to be here.

“Well, we all will be rotating days in which we act as your probation workers, while the rest of us work on other things. Also, your old probation worker is a topic I’d like to talk about with all of you,” Twilight said. The ponies all focused their attention on her as a feeling of nervousness settled in among them.

“Neither Onyx Stallion or Brightening Lightning have been seen by anypony for the last three days. If any of you know anything about this, or have seen anything, you have to tell us.” The young ponies just looked at each other. “If you know anything, just tell us the truth,” Applejack added. She looked at Apple Bloom, giving her the kind of look like she was waiting for her to say something, and hoping that because they were sisters she’d be comfortable sharing anything with her. Rarity also gave Sweetie Belle the same look, but the ponies just stood in silence for a few moments. The young offenders then just shook their heads and said no.

Twilight wasn’t happy that her investigation started off so poorly. She was hoping to get some critically important information from the ponies and nicely wrap it all up fairly quickly, but now she wasn’t sure what to do. She had sent them on their assignment, to pick up some litter around town, and all her friends left as well to go do things that they saw as being more important. Twilight stood in the community center with spike as she pondered to herself.

“Well, it looks like we’re still at square one with the investigation,” Spike said. Twilight was still deep in thought, “They’re hiding something, and I just know it.”

“They seem alright to me.”

“Still, it’s a gut feeling I have. Also, that storm that Celestia also wanted me to look into, I can’t help but think that had something to do with it too.”

“Huh, the last time anypony saw them was the day that the storm happened.”

“Yes, right now I have Rainbow Dash looking into the storm for me. Hey Spike, when they get back, I want you to try to hang out with them, see what you can learn.”

“Cool, like a secret agent?”

“No, just talk to them and keep a close eye on them.”

“Like a secret agent?”

Twilight giggled a bit. “Fine, call it whatever you want, but right now I need your help. Some puppeteer is using the community center for his show tomorrow, and he’s coming by later today so we have to help him set up.”

“Why do we have to help?”

“Because we’re not only probation workers, but we are also officially volunteering to help out in the community center. Come on; let’s get started before he gets here.”

It was a blisteringly hot that day in Ponyville, and the six ponies were walking all over town picking up litter. “So how is everybody doing with their powers?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Well, turns out Dual is a completely annoying prick. He just pops out at random times, and he’s either telling me I shouldn’t do something, or bringing me down by reminding me about everything that makes me sad. I’m telling you, that storm gave me a problem, not a power.” Daring said. The others all had similar issues. Thunder is too nervous when people are watching him for him to turn invisible, Scootaloo can’t stop running into things when she uses her power, and Sweetie Belle has yet to create another sonic scream. The situation couldn’t get worse.

And then a way for it to get worse just landed in front of them. Some poor pony jumped off the roof of his house and landed right in front of the other ponies, subsequently freaking them out. Other ponies around them also screamed, fainted, and panicked around them. The police were quickly on the scene. “What is Equestria coming to?” one of them said. All the ponies eventually went back to their own business, and the six ponies were no different. Although, as they walked away, Sweetie Belle looked up to the roof the unfortunate pony leapt from, and thought she saw the form of another pony standing there just for a brief moment, but she shook it off and didn’t think much of it.

The suicide became the talk of the town in no time, considering an act such as that happened very rarely. By the time the six came back to the community center an hour later, Rarity was already there telling Twilight and spike all about it.

“Did you hear about what happened,” Rarity asked.

“Of course, he landed right in front of us,” Evergreen replied.

“He did, did he?” Twilight said, staring at them while she thought to herself. “It’s strange, Big Bell always seemed so happy and full of life whenever I saw him around town.”

“Yes it is very strange,” said the middle-aged unicorn that walked out of the main area of the community center. “Oh, this is String Puller, he’s a puppeteer who’s using the community center for his show tomorrow, he just came by today to help set up,” Twilight told them. Evergreen let out a bit of a chuckle.

“A pony who makes his living playing with dolls in front of little foals?” String Puller suddenly got very angry, and very intense. “They’re not dolls,” he said.

This is what Evergreen lived for. In his so far short life he found no greater joy in anything besides sarcastically chastising those he thought he was better than. “Of course they’re not, I mean, calling puppets dolls is just absurd, like saying grass is green or water is wet.” String was only getting angrier and angrier. “Excuse me for a moment, Miss Sparkle.” He walked back into the center’s main area. “At least you’re not a pedophile; you only get a bunch of foals alone in a room with you so you can show them your dolls!” Evergreen yelled out as he walked away, and Twilight used her magic to grab him by the ear and pull him to the side.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m just having a bit of fun.”

“You could have hurt his feelings.”

“It’s not my fault he can’t take a few jokes.”

“You’re going to go in there and you’re going to apologize to String Puller, right now.”

“You can’t make me do tha- ow, ow, ow,” Twilight lifted him in the air by his ear. “Ow ow ow ow ow ow, ok, ok, I’ll go apologize to him!”

“That’s better.” Twilight said very pleased with herself. All the other ponies tried to hold in their laughter as Twilight let go of Evergreen. “Alright everypony, I need to go run some last minute errands and seeing as you all have already finished cleaning up the litter, you might as well get changed and head out, come on Spike, I’ll need your help with these.” “Oh…I thought I’d hang out with these guys for a bit,” he gave a sly wink to her. Twilight rolled her eyes, smiled, and then calmly said, “Don’t worry; there’ll be plenty of time for that later.”

They left with Rarity, and four of the young ponies walked into the locker room to change, but Evergreen and Apple Bloom stood by themselves for a few minutes. “Can you believe her, what a bitch,” Evergreen said. Apple Bloom looked at him in a bit of confused amazement. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“Nothin’ anypony could ever say to you would ever really hurt you, but ya’ just don’t get it that not everypony’s like that. Other ponies can get hurt in those ways.” Apple Bloom went into the locker room, and Evergreen went into the main area of the community center. It was set up with several chairs on one side, and a central area where String Puller was sitting and messing around with some puppets in a large case.

“Look, I came here to talk to you,” Evergreen said. String got up. “I was hoping you’d come here.” He looked behind Evergreen and out into the hallway. There was nopony there.

“Well, I wanted to say,” he sighed, “I’m sorry about what I said to you earlier.”

“Oh, you’re…apologizing. Huh…now I may actually feel a bit bad about what I’m going to do.”

“Why, what are you going to do?”

“Well, you know about the pony who killed himself earlier today?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Do you know what he did right before he died?”

Evergreen thought to himself for a moment. “He jumped?”

“No, he made fun of my puppets.”

“You must be really obsessed with those fucking dolls-,” String lifted his right hoof, and Evergreen’s body began to stiffen up and contort, as he lost all control over it. Ok, I definitely prefer Twilight over this colt. Evergreen started walking as his limbs, torso, and neck all tightened and twisted a different way each step, all to make the walk as painful as possible.

“All my life, ponies have all made fun of me for one reason or another. I’m always either I’m weird looking, I smell funny, I’m a pedophile, or I play with dolls,” String tightened his grip, and Evergreen tried to let out both a scream of pain and a cry for help, but his vocal cords clinched, and he couldn’t manage anything above a whisper.

“That’s a very- aagghh- interesting life story. Let’s sit down and you can- ugghhh- tell me some more.”

“You’re not going to talk your way out of this one,” String Puller walked Evergreen over to the case, and had him grasp a rusty pair scissors with his hoof, and press the point against his neck. Despite all the stress on his body, Evergreen looked at String Puller, his eyes narrowed and his face stone cold, and calmly said, “I am sorry for everything I’ve ever done to you.”

“I know you are,” String said, as he was about to make the final flick of his wrist. Then he was struck on the back of the head, and fell to the ground. Evergreen’s body was released, and as he breathed heavily, he looked at the scissors and threw them across the room. He then saw that it was Apple Bloom who hit String Puller with a baseball bat. Just moments ago, Apple Bloom had come to check on how the apology was going. She then saw what was going on, and a baseball bat appeared next to her out of thin air. She knew exactly what to do with it.

“Ok, for the record, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fucking close.”

“Sorry, but that doesn’t sound like a ‘thank you for just saving my life Apple Bloom, I really appreciate it’ to me.”

“Hey, being nice to somepony just almost got me killed, so I’m never going to be nice to anypony ever again, that includes you.”

“Fine then, have it your wa-,” Their bodies suddenly tightened and contorted. They hadn’t noticed that String Puller had gotten up and was now balancing himself on his hind legs, now controlling their bodies with his two front hooves. “Did you really think a bump on the head would stop me?”

“Well it was worth a shot,” Apple Bloom choked out. Evergreen smiled at that, despite what was about to happen. “You know what, I’m just going to snap your necks and be done with all this bullshit.” He once again tightened his hooves, when Daring popped his head through the doorway.

“Ok, does anypony here have change for the vending machine?” String Puller looked at him in confusion. “Alright, soooo, what’s going here?”

String Puller used his left hoof to grab Daring to prevent him from getting help, and Apple Bloom was free. In the brief instant before String could react and stop her, Apple Bloom took the bat and swung with all her might. It hit String square on the head, and she knew he wouldn’t be getting back up. Daring walked over to where the other two were standing, and looked down at String. “So, another one we have to take care of?”

“Yeah.”

He sighed. “I’ll get the shovels.”

After Twilight finished her errands, she realized there was nopony to lock up the community center, so she sent Spike to do it. Since it was already night, she assumed nopony would be there. Spike arrived at the community center, but was surprised to see a light was still on in the locker room. What? He thought. Must be the fillies, but why would they still be here. Whatever, I’ll just tell them I’m locking up. The six ponies were all changing out of their now muddy orange jumpsuits.

“Hey Evergreen, what do you think you learned today?” Apple Bloom asked.

“What did I learn?”

“Yeah, whenever something big happens to my sister and her friends, they always learn a lesson at the end that they report to Princess Celestia.”

“Ok, I’ll have a go at this. I learned that you shouldn’t make fun of ponies you don’t know, because they just might be psychotic…or have superpowers…or both. You should only make fun of ponies you know either don’t care or won’t do jack shit about it, like Thunder.”

Thunder said, “Well I learned that-,”

“Shut up twat, you didn’t do anything today.”

“Guys, this is all nice, but we still have a major problem with Twilight that we can’t just keep avoiding,” Scootaloo interrupted.

“Twilight? She has no leads what-so-ever, as long as we act like nothing happened, she’ll never be able to prove that we killed the probation worker. Case closed,” Evergreen said very smugly. Although he was confused when their only reaction was that of complete shock. He then realized they weren’t even looking at him, and he turned around to see Spike standing in the doorway. “Oh shit.”

Spike bolted towards the community center entrance, but Scootaloo used her power to knock him down in a second, before slamming into a nearby wall. She didn’t break right through it, so she was getting better at using her power.

“Well, he’s not dead. Just knocked out,” Apple Bloom said with much relief.

“What do we do with him?” Sweetie Belle said.

“We can’t kill him, he hasn’t done anything wrong,” Thunder stated.

“Well, if we let him go, he’ll tell everyone what we did,” Scootaloo pointed out.

There was a long pause of thought. “My house is pretty close to here, and my parents keep rope in the basement,” Daring said. The ponies looked at each other and agreed. They’ll tie Spike up in Daring’s basement until they can figure out what to do with him.

To Be Continued…