"You want me to what, again?" Spike asks, rather particularly unamused by Pinkie's insistence. They stand behind Sugarcube Corner, in Sugarcube Alley, an alley that Spike is completely, utterly, totally, fully, entirely, wholly sure wasn't there yesterday. Spike had earlier that day pondered the... instability... of the town's infrastructure, as far as the consistency of the layout is concerned, anyhow.

Pinkie gives an exasperated sigh, as though she's had to explain it a thousand times, quite literally, despite having only explained once. "I need you to help me clean and load my party cannon!" She whisper-yells in his ear. Spike stares blankly, his blackened scales blending nicely with the surrounding darkness, giving him and his crimson accents a truly menacing and diabolical appearance.

A diabolical appearance quite utterly ripped to pieces by his attitude. "I am afraid that your words and my ears are... uncooperative. I seem to be hearing you requesting my assistance in the maintenance of a cannon." Pinkie smiles widely and nods. Spike sighs resignedly, rubbing his temples with one of his hands, and jerks into smooth motion, grabbing his bottle of water, and nodding to Pinkie for her to lead the way.

Pinkie opens the door, and steps aside bowing deeply while gesturing for Spike to utilize the glorious and regal back entrance. Spike raises an eyebrow at the sheer oddity of his temporary companion, but shakes it off, knowing full well, that trying to understand the eccentric never ends well. After all, he was there when Twilight nearly went insane trying to decipher Starswirl the Bearded's personal journal. Spike gives a slight, wistful smile at the memory as he steps into the kitchen.

Pinkie nudges his thigh, grabbing his attention, and redirects him to the basement door. How does Spike know that this is the basement door? Well, the fact that it's open to show downward stairs is a pretty good clue. The fact that the door is labelled 'Basement' on the frame helps too. "Ms. Pie... How did you get the cannon down these stairs?" He asks quietly, genuinely curious.

"I don't know!" She cheerfully replies, and Spike raises an eyebrow. He shakes his head dismissively, before carefully walking, though, due to scale issues, it is more like lumbering, down the stairs.

The basement is an odd sight for such a cheerful town. Lit oddly by red gemstone lanterns, giving it a horrifyingly disturbing, crimson glow. The cannon itself looks to be coated in blood, while Pinkie's mane has been tied back in a bun... a bun that makes her usual grin look horrifyingly disturbing. In short, Spike was particularly unnerved by the environment.

"Ms. Pie... This... 'Party Cannon'... It is not an actual weapon... is it?" His teeth seem as bloody as the cannon appears to be, and though it would unnerve a pony of a normal disposition, Pinkie is completely oblivious, the pink mare more focused on how cool it looks. She shakes herself from ogling his teeth for long enough to explain, "No, no. It shoots artillery shells of FUN, not death."

"FUN could be interpreted as death, Ms. Pie." Spike looks around the room nervously, hoping for some sort of out in case of... emergency. Not that he doesn't trust Pinkie, mind, but, he doesn't trust Pinkie. Nopony is quite that happy all the time.

"Oh, don't be such a silly-billy, Spikey! Death isn't fun, it's sad, and boring," Her smile slowly fades, "...and traumatizing..." It returns full force. "Anyway, help me find the main light switch, will ya, Spikey? It's around here somewhere!" When Spike backs away to search without taking his eyes off Pinkie, she turns to do her own search, muttering, "I swear, the thing moves on its own, like a roach or something..."

'I'm glad Twilight was busy today,' Spike nervously thinks to himself, 'Dragons are tougher than ponies... This eeriness would have given Twilight a heart attack...' The main lights suddenly come on, bathing the grey concrete room in light, revealing the cannon to be blue... and completely covered in red frosting, rather than blood. "Yeah," Pinkie enunciates like a car repairman, "It ain't much, but she gets the job done. Needs a bit of a cleanin' fore she can go around blastin' tables fully loaded with sweets at the drop of a hat, but..."

Spike stares lightly at the unbalanced mare. "How are you an Element of Harmony?" He thinks aloud, but catches himself and finishes with a respectful, "Ms. Pie." Pinkie trots into the other room, a look of consideration on her face. 'How... AM I an Element?' she ponders, grabbing a bucket and brush. 'I give ponies fun, I guess,' she considers as she fills the bucket while picking up a wrench. 'Then again, I'm rather... unnerving... and random... or at least that's what ponies say...' She collects a few bottles of industrial soap, laughing a bit humorlessly at the thought of the cannon's latest, and only, misfire.

"OH CELESTIA!" "The HORROR, the HORROR!" "AW JEEZ! Now my suit is covered with cake. Mmm. Cake." "WHERE DID ALL THIS FROSTING COME FROM?!" "THIS IS GOING TO TAKE FOREVER TO CLEAN UP!" "Hey, Pinkie, could you help me scrape this frosting off? I wanna put it in a bowl and eat it." "HAZARD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" "YEAH, QUIT FRATERNIZING WITH THE ENEMY YOU TURNCOAT!" "I just wanna eat frosting..."

Health Hazard is such a nice stallion. Pinkie pauses to wonder when she left the other room. Then she notices Spike's slack-jawed expression, one that looks out of place now that, after a full two weeks of Mr. I'm Gonna Speak in Monotone and Never Use Contractions, she's rather used to a mostly blank look on his face. She shrugs, getting to work on scraping the icing into a bucket. She pauses with a groan that quickly turns to concern when Spike collapses.

She rushes over to check him for anything wrong, but upon finding nothing, she shrugs, figuring that he must have mentally exhausted himself. All that emotion after two weeks of nothing must be tiring to anypony... and any dragon. She gets herself back to work scraping off the frosting, making sure it all gets in the bucket, and when she finishes, she dumps the bucket in the sink in the corner, and washes it out. She returns, using the wrench to loosen the bolts in the chamber, opening the back for her to stuff the party stuff in.

She isn't the only pony who never really wondered why she can just jam stuff in the cannon and it all shoot out and arrange itself perfectly, making sure that everything is all evenly spaced so that nopony... and nobody... gets left out of the festivities. Most just assume it an enchantment, a persistent spell on an inanimate object, with some sort of variable compensator. In truth, it's just a regular old cannon, nothing special, short barrel and excessively blue paint job, but an ordinary cannon, and Pinkie is just really bloody amazing with cannons.

After loading all the stuff in the cannon, she closes it up, and tightens the bolts, before prepping to polish the exterior. She looks over at the till unconscious Spike, and says, "Thanks for the moral support, unconscious guy!" The weirdest bit? It's genuine thanks. Soon enough, after a bottle of polish is exhausted of it contents, though to be fair it was at, like, twenty percent capacity, and the application of a really nice rag, the cannon is polished. As soon as Pinkie nods to herself, and preps to congratulate herself on a job well done, Spike wakes up with a start, and panics loudly, but still in a rather unnerving monotone, "PINKIE IS USING MAGIC!"

Giving the pair of red dots that differentiate his eyes from his face a look, Pinkie tells Spike, "I'm an Earth Pony. I can't do magic." Spike just shakes his head, eyes wide in abject, yet unenthusiastic, terror, and points above Pinkie. "Then who is levitating the tools?" Pinkie glances upwards to find every tool she had used floating above her, ready to be grabbed unconsciously, and then used, most likely equally unconsciously. "'Huh,' she mutters, staring at the tools, 'so I am,' before passing out," she mutters, staring at the tools, before passing out.

Author's Note

I'd like to apologize for saying it'd be out Wednesday. That was clearly not the case, as it is now Saturday.
I'd also like to say that I will upload the next chapter later today, not much later, probably before noon, but later.
Still I'd like to apologize. I delayed and now I feel like a fckface, and that's not okay.
So, apology out of the way, Pinkie now has magic. We're doomed. Twilight and Spike will discuss this later today, IE next chapter.
Again, don't worry, all will be revealed soon. Ish. Maybe. I'll only answer questions that won't really be answered anytime soon. Then I'll delete my answers when they show up. I'm ~~not~~ cool like that.

Don't look at me like that, Marshmallow.

Not you too, Larger Marshmallow!

No I was not calling you fat.
What was I talking about?
Goddammit.

Gods be with you,
-Palladium