Button Mash is Dead

Chapters

Prologue: Game Over
Cutie Mark Crusading
Breaking Into Hell
Panic Time
Digging up Dirt
Diary of the Damned
Dining With the Dead
Frothing Failures
Departing Ways
Deadly Accusation

Prologue: Game Over

Button Mash squinted his baggy, bloodshot eyes before his personal ponycade machine. The large green device flickered with brilliant flashes as he deftly jiggled the control stick and racked up wicked combo moves. He didn't look so hot himself, though. His eyes were lined with a crust of dried tears and his muzzle was stained with synthetic orange powder from half-stale bags of Cheese Oats. Baggy black half-circles hung under his crusted, bloodshot eyes, completing an unholy trinity of messiness, matched only by the horrifying state of his room.

Empty wrappers and discarded bottles of Rabid Pony laid scattered about, drifting up to waist height like dunes of garbage. Rabid Pony, specifically, was an energy drink consisting of concentrated caffeine extract, minotaur sweat, filtered rainbow, red dye number forty-seven, and enough sugar so as to be nigh-indistinguishable from rocket fuel.

A bead of red dye number forty-seven-tinted saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. An ear twitched.

“Okay, Button Mash, you got this,” he muttered to himself as the final boss stage six cutscene neared completion. “You've stayed up fifty-two hours straight in this redeye, hardcore, no save, Phony Filly Fantasy Forever marathon challenge. All you have left is the final part of the final boss, and with three whole heart containers left, it'll be a piece of cake.”

On the flashing ponycade screen, the camera stopped panning and zoomed in on the action. The furious and tense battle music faded away to silence, leaving only the bleeping urgency of his blinking heart meter. It all came down to that very moment. The next three minutes would determine if the previous fifty-two hours were worth it. He could either unlock the rarest, hardest, most prestigious achievement in the history of pony gaming, or die trying.

“Well, if I don't do it, I'd rather die.”

Deftly, he guided his ponytar towards the flailing final final final final final final boss's wing-tentacles and whacked at the glowing, red, weak spot. The boss's heart meter flickered as satisfying chunks of its health were chipped away.

Suddenly, a flash behind him crackled like lightning, nearly causing him to jerk the controls. Wind howled through his room, stirring up Cheese Oat wrappers and partially peeling down posters, leaving them flapping in the breeze. Were these more hallucinations? The crawling spots on the walls had appeared after the thirtieth hour, and the flying, orange, cyclopean roos had appeared after his thirtieth can of Rabid Pony. Random lightning and indoor weather seemed about on par.

A sad bleeping noise jolted him back to reality. On screen, his last three heart containers bounced away. With his attention diverted, his ponytar had wandered away from the boss monster and cast Aqua Hoof on an electrical panel. Like a knife through his furiously beating heart, the “Game Over” splash screen cut through the scene before it too cut away to a mandatory, unskippable, ten minute death animation where the game mocked him for dying in the most ignominious manner possible.

“No. No! Noooooooo!” he screamed as singing, dancing skeletons paced back and forth, taking turns urinating on his corpse.

His eyes rolled up in his head and blackness closed in from all angles. He barely even registered a vague, three-headed abomination yelling, “Grab him!” and getting wrapped in thousands of hooves of many different colors.

It was game over; that was all that mattered.

Game Over.

Cutie Mark Crusading

Early the next morning, Ponyville's resident walking disaster zones crouched together in an emergency huddle. Using lipstick and stubby pencils, the Cutie Mark Crusaders hastily scribbled out a plan on a broken board that was previously part of the 'Sofa and Quills' sign. Well, before they'd pried it off and jacked it of course. But it was okay, because it was part of a plan for a cutie mark.

Sticking her head up, Scootaloo yelled, “Okay, Dinky, if all goes well, we'll get you a sign-swindling cutie mark in no time!”

“Yep! And you can put little hearts on it. You'll be the lipstick hoofsie sign swindler,” Sweetie Belle said as she used Rarity's expensive designer lipstick to draw blobby red hearts on the splintered board.

“Uh, speakin' of bees...” Apple Bloom tapped on the others' shoulders and pointed down the road.

With a high-pitched shriek, a little gray unicorn galloped down the road, kicking up a cloud of dirt whilst being chased by a swarm of angry hornets.

“Dinky, what are you doing!?” Scootaloo yelled. “You can't get a balancing-a-hornet's-nest-on-a-broomstick cutie mark if you drop it!”

“Don't worry, I'll save ya!” Apple Bloom ran over to the nearest fire hydrant and gave it a swift kick. Her powerful all-terrain apple-buckin' hind hooves knocked the cap off in one swift motion, causing a jet of super-pressurized water to blast out.

Dinky got hit square in the side, and was forcefully blasted straight through the wall of the nearest building. Horrendous crashing, tinkling, and muffled cries came from within.

“Um, Girls...” Apple Bloom pointed at the sign bolted to the side of the otherwise unassuming building.

Throwing her hooves in the air, Sweetie Belle wailed, “Oh come on! Why does Ponyville even have a broken glass factory? Who in their right mind would buy broken glass?”

Acting quickly, Scootaloo pulled a small white tube from her mane and tossed it on the cobblestone street. She stomped on it, smashing it open. With a crackle of sparkling red magic, a bright light spilled out and soon a magical beacon panned through the sky depicting a simple red cross. “That was my last one. We're going to have to buy some more.”

“Already?” Sweetie Belle said. “It feels like just yesterday we bought a dozen of those emergency signal flare things.”

“It was yesterday.” Groaning, Apple Bloom tossed the broken sign board into a nearby bush. They sidestepped two burly pegasus stallions who used a giant wrench to grapple with the gushing water. They then pointed at the Dinky-shaped hole in the wall when paramedics arrived shortly after.

“Well, there goes our plans for the morning,” Sweetie Belle lamented as a battered Dinky was carried off on a stretcher. “And we had such high hopes too.”

“Get well soon!” Apple Bloom yelled and waved.

“Yeah! Then we can try for that pole-vaulting cutie mark!” Scootaloo yelled.

Also grinning and waving, Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. “Is it a good sign when Dinky tries to gnaw her own leg off like that?”

“Can ya get a cutie mark for that? For gnawing yer own leg off?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Dunno. Maybe?” Scootaloo shrugged. “Let's add it to the list.”

“Speaking of lists, who else other than Dinky still needs their cutie mark?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Uh, there's Rumble,” Scootaloo said.

“Hospital,” Apple Bloom replied.

“Pipsqueak?”

“Hospital.”

“Aura?”

“Hospital.”

“Snowdrop?”

“Hospital.”

“Why is everypony we know in the hospital?” Sweetie Belle asked.

Rolling her eyes, Apple Bloom let out a brief snort. “Well, first there was that thing with the jackhammer, and then the one with the open sewer grate, plus the poison oak mud mask, and after that we tried to something 'safe' like stargazing—”

“Forget I asked,” Sweetie Belle groaned.

“Er...” fumbling with her parchment, Scootaloo's eyes scanned the list of blank flanks for ponies they hadn't hospitalized yet. “What about Crimsonmane Ashenwing Razorhooves the Bloody Destroyer?”

“Restraining order,” Apple Bloom stated flatly.

“Oh, right. I knew that.” Scootaloo coughed and continued fidgeting with her list.

Bored, Sweetie Belle drew little circles in the dirt. “At this rate, we'd have better luck trying to get Humdrum a cutie mark.”

“Isn't he a superhero sidekick?” Apple Bloom asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, yeah, but...” Sighing, Sweetie Belle hung her head. “It's a shame they discontinued those enchanted comic books.”

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “Why'd we cross off Button Mash? He doesn't have a cutie mark yet.”

Jolting upright, Sweetie Belle shuddered. “Because his mom is like super scary. Button invited me over once to vigorously plow my virgin fields, and when she heard that she looked like she was going to murder us both.”

“Plow your virgin fields?” Scootaloo asked.

“Yeah. There's this game called Fieldcraft and—”

“Ya think she might'a mistaken it fer something else?” Apple Bloom asked.

“What else could it possibly mean?” Sweetie Belle asked with big, innocent eyes.

Apple Bloom pretended to cough and Scootaloo stared at the sky.

“In any case,” Scootaloo said as she rolled up the parchment, “he's the only one left. If we want to do any more Cutie Mark Crusading, that is.”

“Oh.” Hesitating at first, Sweetie Belle soon put on a huge grin. “Yeah! And I have the perfect idea: Cutie Mark Crusader Button's Joyboy Fondlers!”

Apple Bloom made a pfft noise and spat out air as her face turned beet red.

Also blushing furiously, Scootaloo placed a hoof on Sweetie's shoulder. “Let us do the talking, okay?”

Breaking Into Hell

A small chip of plaster bounced off Scootaloo's nose, prompting a sneeze. The three of them looked rather sheepish piled on a heap of debris under a splintered, gaping hole in the wall.

Looming over them was a tan mare with silky brown hair and a glare that could slice a pony clean through. “Why?”

“Uh, well, ya said we could come in,” Apple said with a wide grin.

“I opened the door! You didn't have to break through the wall.”

“Er, whoops?” Scootaloo said, also grinning.

“Why did you break through the wall?”

“It was a force of habit,” Sweetie Belle said. She opened her eyes big and wide and grinned as if her life depended on it.

Glaring, Button's mother, Love Tap, folded her ears back and narrowed her eyes. “Force of habit? Really?”

“Fer some reason, most ponies don't seem ta want us in their homes,” Apple Bloom said, shrugging.

Groaning, Love Tap relented and leaned back, taking the time to rub her temple. “I can't imagine why.”

“Yeah. Neither can we. It's really weird,” Scootaloo said. She got up and brushed plaster bits off herself. When she fanned her wings, she kicked up a cloud of dust that got all three of them coughing. While doing so, Apple Bloom bumped the wall, causing a dangling picture to finally pull free from its loose nail and fall.

Love Tap winced as glass shattered, scattering glittery sharpness onto the mahogany carpet. Reaching down, she picked up the picture and frowned at an image of her son trapped behind a veil of shattered glass. Gritting her teeth, she muttered, “Ergh. You'd better sit down before you break anything else.” She pointed towards the currently undemolished living room. The fillies nodded and scampered off. “Please tell me that you can do something as simple as sitting down without causing everything to catch on fire.”

“Uh, yeah, we can totally do that,” Scootaloo said as she hopped onto a lounge chair, buzzing her tiny wings for extra lift. Plopping down, she sank deep into the soft seat cushion that was far too big for her. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle both hopped onto the nearby needlepoint sofa.

“Stuff usually doesn't catch on fire 'till we start playin' with matches,” Apple Bloom said.

Sitting on the hoofrest, Sweetie Belle leaned over and opened a drawer on the adjacent lamp stand. Her eyes lit up and she pulled out a small, white box with a black sandpaper strip on one side. “Ooh! Matches!”

“Awesome!” Scootaloo yelled. The lounge chair shook as she struggled to escape from the seat cushion. “I want to play with them first.”

“Give me that!” There was a loud clack as Love Tap swatted the matches from Sweetie Belle. Tears welled up in the little unicorn's eyes and she sucked on her hoof.

Love Tap's chest heaved and wisps of hot steam curled from her nostrils. She took a few deep breaths, and her tense posture relaxed. “Why are you even here? Please tell me you didn't come to just wreck everything.”

“Oh, well...” Scootaloo began.

“We were wonderin' if ya'd let us play with Button Mash?” Apple Bloom asked. Sweetie Belle bit her tongue and nodded.

Love Tap scowled so hard that dark shadows filled the fissures on her scrunched-up face. “And just why would I let you do that?”

“ 'Cause we're the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and he doesn't have a cutie mark, and we think we can help and—” Apple Bloom tapped her hooves together as she went on, like she was counting.

“—and you've gotten every other pony you've tried to 'help' maimed and/or killed,” Love Tap added testily.

“We aren't that bad.” Scootaloo poked her head out of the seat cushion and narrowed her own eyes, only to be cowed when the angry mare loomed over her.

“What about that girl from Cloudsdale, hmm?” Love Tap asked, pressing her face down against Scootaloo's rapidly retreating position.

“Hey! How were we supposed to know that there's no such thing as a staring-directly-into-the-sun-with-binoculars cutie mark?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“I'm sure Snowdrop's eyesight will get better soon,” Apple Bloom added.

“And what about that Razorhooves fellow?” Love Tap shot back, zipping over and pressing down on Sweetie Belle's personal space.

“He got away from the rabid quartzalcobra without a scratch. Why are you so mad about that?” Scootaloo asked.

Love Tap lowered her head, growled, and snorted brimstone. A vein on her forehead popped out and she shook with barely-contained fury.

“If ya ask me, that whole 'havin' parents' thing is overrated.” Apple Bloom waved a hoof dismissively. “Nopony supervises us an' we turned out just fine.”

Pivoting, Love Tap turned to glare at Apple Bloom, who instantly froze. The little filly gulped and beads of sweat rolled down her hide. Both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo wondered if they'd be able to escape in the confusion while this pony-shaped demon murdered their friend.

Fortunately, Love Tap hadn't quite been pushed over the edge. Turning away, she rubbed her throbbing forehead and groaned. “Okay, on the one hoof, these three are pure destruction ponysonified. Even the horseponies of the apocalypse would flee before them. On the other hoof, my sweet little boy's locked himself in his room for three days straight now on another one of his gaming binges. He didn't even answer when I knocked on his door this morning and it'd probably take a force of nature just to get him out of his room.”

Getting back up, she turned back to look at the Crusaders and thoughtfully rubbed her chin. “I hope I don't regret this,” she muttered to herself. Clearing her throat, she raised a hoof high in the air. “Alright, sprouts, here's the deal: I'm going to give you permission to play with Button Mash but if you so much as hurt a single hair on his precious little head—” Love Tap jerked her head up and drew her hoof across her neck, mimicking a cutting motion “—k-k-k-k-k-k-k. Got it?”

The Crusaders gulped and nodded.

“Good.” Swinging her hoof to her left, she pointed up at the staircase. “Button's room is the first one on the right. There's also a bathroom at the end of the hall if you need one.”

Hopping off their seats, well, Scootaloo more swam than hopped, they started making their way to the staircase. Love Tap stepped in front of them, stretched out her neck again, and repeated the cutting motion. “K-k-k-k-k-k-k.”

The Crusaders halted, but when she said nothing further, they quickly scurried past. Halfway up the stairs, Love Tap slammed two frying pans together. Standing at the bottom, she reared up and crossed both front hooves in front of her neck in a double-chopping motion. “K-K-K-K-K-K-K!”

At this point, the little fillies ran for their lives.

Rounding the corner at the top of the stairs, they paused to catch their breaths. Scootaloo wiped sweat from her forehead. “Wow. You were right. Button's mom really is sca—”

Pinkie Pie popped of a nearby urn and waved a hoof across her own neck. “K-k-k-k-k-k-k.”

“Aaaaah!” They jumped.

Giggling, she sunk back into the urn. “Sorry. I couldn't resist.”

After a full minute of standing there frozen in fear, listening to their own hearts beat, they finally calmed down. On the right, the door to Button's room was easy to spot because it was covered in posters of ponytars from arcane games. Apple Bloom tried the handle, but it didn't budge. The door was locked.

Sweetie Belle yelled, “Button Mash! It's us: Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and, um...” she paused to tap on her chin, “...me. Can you let us in?”

There was no response.

Glancing at each other, they frowned. “Darn. I guess she wasn't kiddin' about his not answerin'. Now how are we gonna get in?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Actually, he gave me a key the last time I was here,” Sweetie Belle said. She rummaged in her mane and pulled it out.

Squinting, Scootaloo examined the small, copper item. “That's nice and all, but he's not in jail. How's that going to help us?”

“Oh. Good point.” Sweetie Belle stared at the key in her hooves, then looked up at the keyhole on the door. “...I have no idea.”

They came in through the window this time, which, oddly enough, was already open. All they had to do was zipline through it. Well, they would have ziplined if the rope hadn't caught fire and broken halfway. They never could figure out why that kept happening. Instead, they used a ladder that they borrowed from a nearby construction site. That guy screaming at them from up in the rafters probably didn't need it anyway.

Inside, Button's room looked as if a natural disaster stopped by for a tea party, a tea treaty, and tea industrial revolution. Posters were torn and scattered about, lying in crumpled heaps or loosely dangling in tattered strips. Jagged burn scars lined the walls in spiderwebs of blackened soot. Gagging, the Crusaders had to pinch their noses as a miasma of vile funk from the scattered empty containers of Rabid Pony and Cheese Oats hit them. No wonder the window was open.

“Where's Button?” Sweetie Belle asked, fanning a hoof in front of her scrunched-up face.

His bed, while messy with a lumpy mass of covers that dangled off the edge, was the cleanest spot in the room. Apple Bloom hopped up rummaged through the sheets. Button wasn't there.

Scootaloo checked his ponycade machine, which was hissing a faint static. She frowned, then started kicking through the empty cans, stirring up a swarm of flies. The whole room seemed to buzz, and the cans that weren't covered in flies were swarming with ants. “Eww. This place is so gross.”

“What the hay happened in here?” Apple Bloom wiped a hoof along the wall, smearing one of the thin lines of soot.

“Look—over there!” Still holding her nose, Sweetie Belle pointed her other hoof at a discarded beanie cap lying near the far back corner. Despite there being no wind, the little propeller was still spinning. Beyond that a brown hoof stuck out from under a large poster of a singing, dancing triangle.

Tearing off the paper, Scootaloo uncovered Button Mash, who laid slumped up against the wall. Some kind of glossy red paint was smeared all over him in strange, messy symbols and wobbly lines. There were broken strings tied around his body, legs and short, rusty red tail. White foam slowly oozed from his mouth and his wide open, dull orange eyes stared at the ceiling. They were shallow and lifeless.

“Button?” Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow and hopped off the bed. She shivered as she trudged through the windswept piles of filth. She was used to dirt, but actual garbage made her queasy. Plus, Button was ominously still and Scootaloo had paled. Waving a hoof in front of his face, Apple Bloom asked, “Button? Are ya okay?”

There was no response.

Sweetie Belle crept between them and pressed her hoof against his forehead. She shuddered. “He's cold.”

“Uh...” Wrinkling her nose, Scootaloo took a step back. “He's... uh...”

He was stone dead. They could all see it.

“He ran out of green mushrooms,” Apple Bloom said.

“He stepped on one too may spike traps,” Scootaloo said.

“He... He...” Sweetie Belle gulped. “...left to enter his high score in the sky.”

“Button, dear, remember to play nice with your guests, and girls, don't you dare even think about scratching his precious little hide or you're dead!” Love Tap yelled from downstairs.

The three of them jumped and huddled together. “He's dead.” Sweetie Belle sniffled.

“He's dead? We're dead,” Scootaloo whimpered. “His mom's so going to kill us.”

“What are we gonna do?” Apple Bloom moaned.

Panic Time

Sweetie Belle's flanks heaved as she stared in horror at the cute corpse. Apple Bloom tugged at her mane, and Scootaloo paced in tiny circles with a wild look in her eyes.

“Girls, wait. Before we panic, we should take a moment of silence to pay our respects for the dead,” Sweetie Belle said.

Stopping with her pacing, Scootaloo bit her lip. “How long is that going to take?”

Sweetie Belle frowned, gazing at Button's corpse. “Ten seconds should do it.”

“Well, okay.”

Huddling together, the three of them hung their heads in silence.

Three seconds later, Apple Bloom asked, “Has it been ten seconds yet?”

“No,” Sweetie Belle replied.

“How about now?”

“I don't think so.”

“Now?”

Shrugging, Sweetie Belle lifted her head. “Close enough.”

Respects dutifully paid, now was the time to panic. They screamed, pulled on their faces, and randomly darted about. Kicking up cans and trampling on discarded snack bags, they created a horrible ruckus.

“What's going on up there!?” The loud and firm voice of Button's mom carried through the floor.

Freezing, Apple Bloom yelled back, “Uh... We're playin' tag!”

“Well don't! You'll break something.”

“Aww.” Scootaloo ruffled her tiny wings. “I was having fun panicking.”

“Why doesn't panicking ever solve our problems?” Sweetie Belle mumbled. “It'd make life so much easier.”

“Any other ideas?” Apple Bloom asked.

Glancing at the open window, Scootaloo said, “Well, we could just run away.”

With solemn stares, they locked eyes and made a mad dash for freedom. They'd have to give up their hopes and dreams and spend the rest of their lives on the run, forever living in fear while trying to stay one step ahead of a mad pony out for murderous revenge. It'd be a difficult life, and one that might end horribly, but at least they'd have each other. Well, that is, if they could actually get out of the room.

Piling up against the windowsill, they stared in horror at a brown stallion with a blue jacket and orange hard hat walking off with their ladder slung over his shoulder.

“Hey! What are ya doin'? Ya can't just walk off with that!” Apple Bloom yelled.

“Yeah! Somepony could be using it, like us!” Sweetie Belle yelled.

“And besides—we jacked it first!” Scootaloo added unhelpfully.

The construction worker stuck his tongue out and blew them a raspberry before marching off. They frowned in response, but there wasn't anything else they could do.

“Wait. I heard about somepony escaping from a tall building once by dropping bedsheets out the window,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Ooh. That's a great idea.” Apple Bloom hopped on the bed and started tearing off sheets and blankets. She passed them to Scootaloo, who was only too happy to rush them over to Sweetie Belle at the window. A few minutes later, a pile of changelings-vs-petunias-themed bed covers were lying in a heap next to the house, smothering the tulip garden planted there.

“Okay, now what?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Next we need to tie them together,” Sweetie Belle said.

Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom glanced at each other, then poked their heads out the window to stare at the blankets lying far out of reach. “How are we supposed to do that?” Scootaloo asked.

“We, um...” Scratching her chin, Sweetie Belle frowned. “...maybe we should have done that first?”

“Ya think?” After rolling her eyes, Apple Bloom slumped against the wall. “This is terrible. Any minute now, she's gonna come up here to check on us an' we're all gonna die.”

“Aw, don't worry, Apple Bloom. I'm sure we'll think of something.” Sweetie Belle said before also slumping against the wall. “I hope.”

“Maybe he's not even dead?” Scootaloo asked. She walked over and poked Button Mash, but he failed to respond. In fact, he hadn't moved once and still had that same vacant, perfectly still, obviously dead look to him that he had when they'd first found him. “Darn. I guess that would have been too easy, huh?”

“How'd he even die in the first place? All that red paint and string doesn't make any sense,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Dunno. Does it matter? Ah mean, he's dead, and his mom's gonna to blame us no matter what.” Sighing, Apple Bloom slumped down even further. She looked like one of those melting clocks that were supposedly art.

“Maybe it does?” Scootaloo wiped away some of the foam from his mouth. “If we know how he died, then maybe we can do it reverse?”

“Do it in reverse?” Raising an eyebrow, Sweetie Belle cocked her head. “Can that actually work?”

“Sure, why not?” Sniffing at the foam on her hoof, Scootaloo blinked. “Hey. This is really minty. What do we know of that's foamy and minty?”

Apple Bloom shrugged and Sweetie Belle furrowed her brow. Neither of them said anything.

“Girls, it's been awfully quiet up there. Is everything okay?” Button's mom asked through the floor.

“Yeah, everything's fine!” Scootaloo yelled back.

“She's almost as bad as Applejack,” Apple Bloom muttered. “We are so dead.”

“Maybe being dead isn't so bad?” Pointing at Button's corpse, Sweetie Belle said, “He doesn't seem to mind.”

“It's not the bein' dead that bothers me. It's the becomin' dead that's gonna hurt.” Apple Bloom shuddered.

“We can't give up yet.” Gritting her teeth, Scootaloo flexed her wings while glaring at the dead body. “This is all your fault. If you hadn't gone and died on us, we wouldn't be in this mess.”

“It's not his fault he died.” Sweetie Belle's lips curled down and she poked the side of her mouth with her tongue. “I mean, I don't think so.”

“Yeah, well, it's not our fault either.” Scootaloo folded her forelegs and put on a huge frown. She then winced and rubbed her forehead. “Gah. We don't have time for this! We have to find some way to undo his death.”

“Undo his death? Ya wanna make him un-dead?” Apple Bloom scratched her mane. “As is a zombpony?”

“What? No—well... maybe...” Sighing, Scootaloo shook her head. “I don't know. I just don't want to be k-k-k-k-k'd, okay?”

Tapping on her chin, Sweetie Belle scrunched up her face, glaring at the ceiling as if it were in the way of uncovering the secrets of the universe, which it was. “Rarity once told me that she'd let me look through her deepest, most personal secrets over her dead body and when I asked her if that meant I could look through them when she died, she said oh no-no darling, she'd return from the dead just to stop me.”

“That sounds like her all right.” Apple Bloom peered at the still-spinning propeller on Button's beanie hat. Poking it with her hoof, the little, multicolored fan came to a stop.

“Maybe Button has something that he cares about so much that he'll return from the dead to protect,” Sweetie Belle added.

“Are ya sayin' that all we have to do is to rummage through his stuff and he'll come back ta life?”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds better than my idea.” Glancing back and forth, Scootaloo walked over and wiped her hoof off on the side of Button's bare mattress.

“It's settled then.” Sweetie Belle clapped her hooves together and grinned. “Cutie Mark Crusader Button's Private Parts Investigators, yay!”

The other two winced and blushed. Lowering her voice, Apple Bloom said, “Never say that in front of his mother, okay?” Scootaloo nodded fervently.

“Huh?” Sweetie Belle looked back at them both with the widest, clearest eyes.

Digging up Dirt

Three minutes later, they hadn't found any dirt on Button Mash, but they had found an awful, awful lot of garbage.

“Ew. Ew. Ew.” Shaking her hoof, Scootaloo failed to dislodge the crusty, old Cheese Oat powder clinging to it. Wiping her hoof on the bed, the once-clean mattress was now covered in a multitude of streaks of processed food coloring dyes. Aside from the orange Cheese Oat powder, and the red Rabid Pony drink, there were purple streaks from accidentally crushed grape juice boxes, yellow streaks from some kind of spoiled rice cake dip, and blue streaks from a bag of sludgy, ant-covered, gummy hearts. Completing the rainbow, Scootaloo added some green ones after stepping on something squishy that used to be white.

Apple Bloom winced after accidentally taking a whiff of a half-empty can of Rabid Pony. “Gah! It's a floatin' mound of fuzz. Not even the pigs would want that.”

“Gross. Gross. Gross.” After touching a slimy, moldy carrot, Sweetie Belle hadn't done any more searching and just huddled in place on the floor. She used her magic to catch flies and toss them out the window, but it didn't do any good as the annoying buzzing insects flew right back in.

“How can he live like this?” Scootaloo asked. That prompted the three of them to look at Button Mash, who clearly wasn't doing any kind of living whatsoever.

“Okay, that settles it. We gotta clean his room,” Apple Bloom said.

Despite what ponies said about the Crusaders, they never intended to create any of the disasters that typically followed in their wake, and often picked up after themselves. While they weren't exactly the best, they'd spent enough time cleaning to push them past that delicate threshold where they only learned just enough to be dangerous—something they had a real knack for.

Of course, actually knowing how to clean properly didn't stop them from cutting corners. Love Tap's tenderly sown and cultivated tulip garden soon became a dumping ground for all the refuse that Button Mash had accumulated in his brief lifespan, plus a few other things that happened to not be nailed down. Scattered atop the pile of blankets, empty cans, and food wrappers were several loose posters, a toy chest shaped like a treasure chest, a few textbooks, the soiled mattress, a section of wallpaper, and the room's vintage ceiling fan.

Wiping the sweat from her brow, Apple Bloom nodded in satisfaction. The other two panted next to her, but were also pleased with the results. In a few short minutes, Button's room had been transformed from a toxic dumping ground, into an empty toxic dumping ground. The floor was still squishy and sticky in a places, but as long as they avoided the stained splotches they'd be all right. To properly finish the job, they'd have to scrub the walls, wash the carpet, condemn the house, and seal it in a concrete bunker. They had neither the time nor inclination to do that, and besides, they still had the slight problem of a dead Button Mash to worry about.

After catching her breath, Sweetie Belle gave Button Mash's corpse a flat stare, then pointed at a bunch of loose papers stacked on his bookshelf. “Okay, let's see what kind of secrets he's hiding. The more embarrassing, the better!”

Scootaloo zipped over and climbed on top of the bookshelf. Once balanced, she started rummaging through the loose papers. “This looks like school work.” Picking up a stack of papers, she scanned several pages before letting them drop to the floor. “He sure gets a lot of C's and D's.”

“Wow. He's really smart,” Sweetie Belle said.

Snatching one of the fallen pages, Apple Bloom stared in awe at the piece of paper that wasn't completely covered in red ink. “I wish we could get grades this good.”

“Tell me about it,” Scootaloo moaned. “My magic kindergarten teacher's always giving me these mean stares because I keep failing everything. It's like she doesn't even want me in her class.”

“Hmm...” Sweetie Belle put down the graded test she was reading and turned her attention back to the dead body. While fascinating, snooping through Button's academic record wasn't enough to cause him to stir. “This isn't working. I don't think he cares. We're going to have to find something more personal than just grades.”

“I saw a tub under the bed when we carried the mattress off. Let's see what's in there.” Hopping down from atop the bookshelf, Scootaloo walked over and poked a hoof beneath the box springs. Rummaging around, she grabbed a white bin and pulled it out. They gathered around it. It was sealed with a tight-fitting plastic lid, but Apple Bloom was able to force it off on the third try. Something snapped, and the release mechanism would never be usable again.

“Wow. That's a lotta comic books,” Apple Bloom said as she stared at the tub's contents.

Picking one up, Scootaloo's eyes widened. “Amazing! This is a mint condition Funny Mouse comic, one of the first ones ever made.”

“It is?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Yeah.” Setting it back down, Scootaloo picked up a different one. “And here's a mint Hound Pony one! So awesome! And Batpony, and Spiderpony and Monkeypony and Catpony and, uh, Zoopony? Wow. I forgot just how lame Zoopony was. An animal-themed superhero? Yeesh. Who reads junk like that?”

Picking up the Funny Mouse comic, Sweetie Belle sniffed it.

“Applejack never buys these things. Are they any good?” Apple Bloom asked. She picked one up at random and sat down. Flipping open the cover, she giggled at the silly antics of two ponies trying to wash a cow with different brand name products. Sadly, that comic book only had advertisements on the first page, and the rest of the stuff wasn't very good.

Likewise, Scootaloo grabbed several of the early edition Daring Do ones and sat down with a huge grin on her face. Occasionally sneaking glances at each other's book, the two of them leaned together as they read. Both failed to notice smacking and slurping noises.

Sticking her tongue out, Sweetie Belle wiped it off on her fetlocks, staining them with the powdery black hue of newspaper ink. “Yuck. Scootaloo, you were wrong. I tried them all and not a single one tasted like mint. They were all dry and really, really bland.”

Eyes wide, Scootaloo gazed up at the horror in front of her. Scattered about the tub were the torn and crumpled remains of the once-pristine comics. Each and every one was marred by a huge bite mark. “You... You... You ate them?”

“Only a little.”

Scootaloo's left eye twitched. She grabbed Sweetie Belle by her shoulders and shook her. “They were priceless! Button's going to murder you when he sees this.”

Button, however, was still flat on his back, right where they left him. Some flies buzzed around.

“Wow. I guess he doesn't care about those either,” Apple Bloom said. Sighing, she rolled up the one she'd been reading and tossed back in the bin. “We'll have ta keep lookin'.”

After her eyes stopped rattling from being shaken, Sweetie Belle stepped over and shooed off the flies. “What else is left? His room's not that big.”

Scootaloo sighed and stuffed the ruined comics in the bin. The lid didn't fit right, for some reason, but she didn't care and just kicked it back under the bed. “Well, there's always that stuff,” she said, pointing across the room at his game collection. In addition to the ponycade machine, he had his portable Joyboy, a dusty blue Yaystone and its associated metal controller wands, and an experimental chrome Mane Event Max XF. This latter device was so new that it wasn't even publicly available. How he'd gotten one was anypony's guess. It likely involved quite a lot of bits.

Before the Crusaders had any time to dive into any of the games, there was a knock on the door. “Girls, I'll be fixing lunch soon. Do you want anything?” Button's mom asked.

They froze wide-eyed, as if they'd been caught red-hoofed plucking another one of Fluttershy's chickens. Apple Bloom jumped, yelping out, “Pancakes!”

“Pancakes? For lunch? Are you sure?”

“Yep!” Scootaloo said.

“Me too,” Sweetie Belle added.

“Well... okay.” She sounded somewhat irritated but otherwise resigned. “What about you, Button?”

It felt as if a knife twisted through their rapidly-thudding hearts. Button Mash was still lying flat on his back, gazing at nothing with his vacant, dead stare. He wasn't going to respond, and she was going to open the door, and kill them all until they were deceased, defunct, and dead, dead, dead...

“Pancakes,” Scootaloo said in the deepest voice she could muster.

For a moment, there was no response. The tension in the room was so thick that they had trouble breathing.

“Button, are you impersonating another one of those arcane game characters again?”

“Uh, yeah! I'm, um...” Scootaloo glanced at the nearest poster that was still intact. It featured a hooded, cloaked figure wearing a metal mask and bladed hoof plates. The whole costume was black except for a brightly-glowing red horn that seemed to be made from pure energy. In the background, a squadron of pegasai similarly dressed in white outfits were flying in close formation. Aside from vaguely recognizing the awful Hornsaber trilogy, Scootaloo drew a blank on that particular character, so she took a wild guess. “Lord, uh, Lazy-oaf-atron, yeah.”

“What? I've never heard of—wait, nevermind. I don't want to know. Button, are you really sure that you want pancakes? You can't live off of junk food forever.”

“Moom! Lazy-oaf-atron demands pancakes! Pancakes for everypony!” Scootaloo said, still doing her best to impersonate Button, sounding nothing like him.

There was a sigh from the other side of the door. “Fine. But I'm also fixing peas and you'd better eat them this time.” The harshness in her voice softened as she spoke again. “Girls, I'm going to have to prepare the batter because I don't keep store-bought mix. It'll be about an hour before they're ready. Remember to play nice, and wash up before you come down for lunch. I'll call you when it's ready, okay?” Her otherwise pleasant tone was derailed by that interjection of pure venom.

“Okay,” they all said, and gulped.

“Okay,” Scootaloo hastily added for Button Mash.

Behind the closed door, Button's mom grumbled to herself unintelligibly. She walked off, and as her hoofsteps faded down the stairs, the three little fillies let out huge sighs of relief.

“That was close,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Thanks, Scootaloo. That was quick thinking,” Apple Bloom added.

“Don't thank me yet. We only have an hour.”

“Pah. A whole hour? That's practically forever.” Walking over to Button Mash's ponycade machine, Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow. She smacked the side and the static on the monitor blipped out. She frowned. “How do ya work this thing?”

“Let me try.” Scootaloo grabbed a Yaystone control wand and used it to pry off a panel on the side of the ponycade machine. Inside was an assortment of wires crisscrossed and connected to a green board along with a full assortment of capacitors, diodes, resistors, and many other things that she didn't recognize. “You just have to, um...” Blinking, she poked at the electronics with her metal stick.

It sparked, causing her to yelp and jump back. The machine let out a puff of black, foul-smelling smoke. The faint hiss also ceased, although they hadn't noticed it until it went away.

“Well now ya did it,” Apple bloom said. She glanced over at Button's corpse, which still didn't move. “How much of his stuff are we gonna have to destroy before he notices?”

“I wasn't trying to break it.” Scootaloo winced and massaged her throbbing hoof before popping it in her mouth to suck on.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes.

Popping it back out, Scootaloo pointed her orange, saliva-soaked appendage at her yellow friend. “Hey! It's not my fault that somepony decided to put bottled lightning in a metal box. I mean—who does that? It's just not safe.”

“Ya mean aside from us?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Well, at least we know not to do that now.” Frowning at her hoof, Scootaloo gingerly set it back down on the carpet, then shifted her weight onto it. She didn't flinch—much. After all, getting shocked by lightning wasn't a big deal for most pegasai.

“Girls, we can't fix Button Mash just by breaking his stuff. We have to root through his deepest, most personal secrets.” Sweetie Belle held up one of the games made for the Yaystone. It was a wedge-shaped crystal whose surface was etched with magic runes. It was shaped to fit inside a slot on the larger device. Once inserted, magical energy would power it and create an interactive projection screen that could be poked and prodded by the properly-attuned Yaystone wands. The whole thing was shiny, but it didn't reveal any of Button's secrets.

Limping over, Scootaloo picked up a game tome for the Mane Event. While that device was also magical, it ran off a completely different principle, using enchanted tomes instead of crystals to store data. That made the games cheaper, but since everything was written in an open book, they were vulnerable to... tweaking. Anypony with a little know-how and a quill could give themselves infinite lives and loot, for example. Given the complete lack of any editing in the game tome Scootaloo was flipping through, Button Mash was not one such pony.

While the others were fidgeting with the arcane devices, Apple Bloom picked up Button's Joyboy. This was a simple gray box with a tiny screen and a few buttons, all of which were heavily worn. She poked them, repeatedly, but nothing happened. Frowning, she shook it, hard. Something snapped inside and it started to rattle. That made her eyes widen. Whistling nonchalantly, she drop-kicked it under the bed.

“This is hopeless! We're never going to find anything!” Rearing up quickly, Sweetie Belle threw her hooves out dramatically. Unfortunately, she was too close to the Yaystone and smacked it in the process. All three of them watched in horror as the expensive crystal tipped over and crashed on the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.

“Okay, now it's really hopeless,” Apple Bloom said as she picked up one of the glassy shards.

“Aw, I didn't mean to break it.” Sweetie's ears drooped and she sighed. “Why does this always happen?”

“Don't worry about it,” Scootaloo said as she swished one of the metal wands through the air. “Having a super-fragile game system rely heavily on wildly flailing around a metal rod? It's just a bad formula. It was bound to happen anyway.” She sounded quite bitter as she spoke, prompting the others to raise eyebrows, but they had more important things to worry about.

“So, uh...” Apple Bloom tossed the broken piece back onto the pile. “I can't help but notice that this stuff's all magical. Do ya think that has somethin' to do with how he died?”

“Wait—you mean like he got sucked into a game and was forced to play it for real?” Scootaloo asked.

“I thought that was just a rumor,” Sweetie Belle said.

“Well, if it happened...” Apple Bloom pointed at Button's corpse.

Scratching her mane, Scootaloo said, “I don't know. I've never heard of a game that paints its victims red, ties them up with string, and leaves them foaming at the mouth.”

“I wish we knew what he was playing when he died,” Sweetie Belle said.

Smacking herself in the forehead, Apple Bloom groaned. “Like that matters now. We've already broken everything.”

“Well, no. We haven't broken this thing yet.” Scootaloo said as pointed at the sole remaining arcane game machine. If it had a soul of its own, the Mane Event would have quaked in terror.

“What's this?” Swiping a small blue book lying next to the Mane Event, Sweetie's eyes widened. “It's his diary! This is exactly what we were looking for. Eeee!”

Diary of the Damned

Despite the danger looming over their heads, the Cutie Mark Crusaders eagerly huddled together to dig into Button's diary. Sweetie Belle had the widest grin with Apple Bloom smiling next to her. Even Scootaloo had a twinkle in her eyes.

Flipping open to a random page, they all got so close together that they were touching heads.

Sweetie Belle read, “February the twelveth, Top Pony Loader, I completed the special mission on level six, unlocking sniper mode for newgame plus, which I played for four levels.” She blinked. “What?”

Flipping to the next page, she read, “February the thirteenth, I beat my high score on Bale Stacker (35,612 points—sweet!) and constructed three new silos in Farmcraft.”

“Uh...” Sweetie Belle blinked again. Her smile faded. “February the fourteenth, I finally finished the Blackmailing of Wedding Castle-Playset on royalty mode without any help from mom! None! Nada! I mean it! I totally would have found that ponycake powerup on my own even if she hadn't pointed it out first, honest!”

“Are all of his entries about arcane games?” Scootaloo asked.

Sweetie Belle grunted as she flipped back and forth through the book. “Looks like it,” she said flatly.

“Does he play games every single day?” Apple Bloom asked.

Sighing deeply, Sweetie Belle flipped through the pages again. “Looks like it.”

“How sad,” Apple Bloom said.

Pointing at the diary with both forelegs, Scootaoo scowled. “Sad? It's totally lame.”

“Yeah. Where's all the good stuff?” Sweetie Belle held up the book and shook it, as if she were expecting hidden pages to fall out. “How are we supposed to know his deepest secrets if he never wrote them down?”

“Yeah! I really want to know which Wonderbolt he likes best,” Scootaloo said.

“Or the kinds of things he's been tryin' to get his cutie mark,” Apple Bloom added.

“Or which one of us he thinks is the cutest,” Sweetie Belle said.

That last comment got a chuckle out of Scootaloo, who waved her hoof dismissively. “Count me out on that. There's no way he thinks I'm cute.”

“I wouldn't be so sure of that...” Grinning mischievously, Apple Bloom fished a pencil out of her mane and took the diary from Sweetie's magic. She scratched out what Button had written on that page and spoke as she wrote beneath it. “Eh, who really cares about some lame arcane game and the score I got? Today, I couldn't stop thinkin' about just how dreamy Scootaloo was.”

“What!?” The orange pegasus' eyes widened and Sweetie Belle couldn't help but laugh.

“Yep,” Apple Bloom went on, “I wanna cuddle up to her, and brush her mane—”

“No he doesn't!” Scootaloo protested.

“It must be true,” Sweetie Belle said. “It's written in his diary.”

“—and give her lots of flowers and chocolates, and—”

“Give me that!” Scootaloo pounced, knocking Apple Bloom over. The two of them rolled on the squishy carpeted floor, like a pair of chess masters who'd forgotten what game they were paying. While Apple Bloom did try to keep the diary, she was laughing so hard she could only put up a token protest. Snatching it, Scootaloo broke off and hopped up on the remains of the bed, causing the box springs to bow down and squeak in protest.

Pulling out her own pencil, she wrote on the next page, “As awesome as Scootaloo is, the one I really have my eyes on is Apple Bloom.”

“Me?” Now it was Apple Bloom who's eyes widened.

“I just can't get over how that cool red bow she always wears makes her so adorable. She's as cute as a sunbeam in a rainbow,” Scootaloo said as she wrote.

“Ah'm not that cute,” Apple Bloom said, with tiny rosy spots appearing on her cheeks.

“You can't argue with a diary,” Sweetie Belle said. “It's a rule.”

“She's the apple of my eye,” Scootaloo went on.

Pressing her hooves together, Sweetie Belle grinned. “Aw, that's so sweet.”

“I-it's not.” Apple Bloom shook her head.

“She's the flower of my orchard.”

“I am not!”

“You are too. It says so in his diary.” Scootaloo held it up and chuckled. That prompted Apple Bloom to jump and take a swipe at it, but Scootaloo was too quick in pulling it aside. Holding up a hind leg to keep Apple Bloom at bay, she buzzed her wings to keep balance whilst writing as quickly as she could. “She's the most beautiful thing I've ever set my eyes on—”

“Stop sayin' stuff like that!” Struggling to get in range of the book, Apple Bloom's cheeks were squashed up against Scootaloo's hind hoof.

“—and I just can't get over how she sparkles in the sunlight—”

“What the hay!? I don't sparkle!” Rather than keep pushing, Apple Bloom grabbed Scootaloo's outstretched leg and yanked.

“Ack!” Loosing her balance, the orange pegasus collapsed on the box springs. This left her open for Apple Bloom to jump on, but she kept a tight grip on the diary. And that was as far as their fight got.

Sweetie Belle laughed so hard that she fell over and rolled on the floor.

The two combatants saw this, stopped, passed knowing grins and slight nods. They disentangled quickly, and Scootaloo whistled nonchalantly whilst passing the book to her friend. Apple Bloom wasted no time in flipping through the pages, and when she found the spot they'd been writing on her grin doubled.

“Ahem,” she said, right before carving into the surface with her pencil again. “While Apple Bloom might be pretty, the one who really makes my heart flutter is Sweetie Belle.”

That got Sweetie Belle's attention. She sat up quickly then tried to say something, but she'd been laughing so hard that she hiccuped instead.

“I-I love her so much that it hurts,” Apple Bloom narrated. “Ah want to tell to her, but I'm too scared.”

“Love me? He hardly even -hic- looks at me. That can't be right,” Sweetie Belle said.

“If it's in his diary, then it's true and you can't argue,” Scootaloo said.

“Eeyep.” Apple Bloom nodded then went back to writing. “She might not see me lookin', but I do. Ah'm always catching her reflection on the screen of my Joyboy. That's why I carry it around with me all the time.”

“Ap-hic- Apple Bloom, don't you think you've written enough in his diary?” Sweetie Belle took a deep breath and held it, causing her cheeks to puff out.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Apple Bloom said, before winking and passing it to Scootaloo.

Sweetie's eyes widened and she spat out the breath she was holding then promptly hiccuped.

Wasting no time, Scootaloo started writing where Apple Bloom had left off. “I lie awake at night thinking about the things I should say. Should I tell her that her eyes are as vibrant as newly grown spring leaves? That her mane is as fluffy as cotton candy? That she's as fun and exciting as a ball pit?”

Sweetie Belle spat out another breath of air. At this point, her cheeks had turned flush from the stress of trying to suppress her hiccups. “A ball pit? Scootaloo, are you -hic- Are you even trying?”

“What? I like ball pits.”

Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow. “The last time ya went to one, ya sunk out of sight and they spent three hours diggin' ya out. You were screamin' and flailin' the whole time.”

“T-that was part of the fun.” Scootaloo shuddered and then gulped. “A-anyway, I, Button Mash, spend my last few waking moments before drifting off to sleep dreaming about just how excited she'll be once I finally talk to her. She'll squeal and jump right into my waiting hooves.”

“I -hic- wouldn't do that.”

“We'll stare into each other's eyes, lean forward, and smooch!” Scootaloo grinned like a madpony as she wrote that down.

“Eww! Scootaloo, that's gross! Every filly knows that colts have cooties.” Sweetie Belle started to stick her tongue out, but her face contorted as she hiccuped again.

“Bah, that's just a rumor.” Apple Bloom waved her hoof dismissively. “And besides, yer blushin'.”

“I am -hic- am not!” Sweetie protested as the reddish hue of her cheeks deepened.

Chuckling to herself, Scootaloo drew a sketch of them kissing in Button's diary. “If you're blushing, you have to kiss. That's a rule too.”

“It's not!”

Apple Bloom hummed a few bars, prompting Scootaloo to join in. Together they sang,

“Button Mash and Sweetie Belle Shippin' on the sea.

K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

“I can't kiss him. He's -hic- a boy!”

“First comes a peck and then comes a smooch,

then comes a diamond wedding brooch!”

“I can't kiss him. That's gross!”

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

“I can't kiss him! He's dead!”

Sweetie's shout was so loud that it bellowed through the room, easily passing through the walls and reverberating throughout the entire house. Once she realized what she'd done, she shrunk down, ears wilting, and covered her mouth with both hooves. One tiny, final hiccup escaped from her lips, as if making a bid for freedom from her doomed lips.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo likewise froze, and they all listened intently to the noises coming from downstairs. A faucet was running and they heard the subtle smack of a closing fridge door, then a whack-whack-whacking of something that was probably an egg beater.

“Do ya think she heard that?” Apple Bloom whispered, pointing a hoof down at the floor.

“She'd have to be deaf not to,” Scootaloo hissed back.

“I'm sorry! It just came out,” Sweetie Belle squeaked.

They waited a while longer, but when the normal kitchen noises continued and no angry mare came bounding up the stairs to throttle them, they relaxed again. Well, they were all tense, and would likely jump at the faintest bump, but they weren't frozen in fear anymore. They were rapidly running out of time, and not only did defiling his diary not cause Button Mash to stir, but Sweetie Belle had also failed to scream loud enough to wake the dead.

“What's the last entry say?” Apple Bloom asked, pointing at the diary still clutched in Scootaloo's hooves.

Flipping through the pages, Scootaloo stopped about halfway through. “Uh, this is from yesterday.” She squinted and tilted her head. “His hoofwriting's really awful—like, way worse than usual.”

“What's it say?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“I'm now on the third day of my Phony Filly Fantasy Forever marathon challenge. I haven't slept in fourty-eight hours, and my supplies of Cheese Oats and Rabid Pony are running low, but the most legendary achievement...” Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “That's weird.”

“What's weird?” Apple Bloom asked.

“That's all he wrote.”

“He got sucked into the game!” Sweetie Belle said. “That has to be it! All we have to do is beat it and, uh...” Her enthusiasm died at the sight of the shattered Yaystone. “Please tell me it's a Mane Event game.”

“Ponycade, actually.” Scootaloo rubbed her mane and frowned.

“That's the first one ya broke!” Apple Bloom smacked Scootaloo on the side of the head.

“Ow!” Rubbing the spot, Scootaloo glared at her friend. “Hey! That hurt! And I didn't break the machine. It was already broken. I was trying to fix it.”

“Yeah, but ya made it worse.” Sighing deeply, Apple Bloom hung her head. “Sorry, Scootaloo. This whole thing is stressin' me out.”

Quietly, Sweetie Belle walked over and poked her head out the window. “Maybe we should jump? If we break our necks, that would save time.”

“Don't give up! There has to be something we can do.” Scootaloo looked up at the ceiling, staring at the hole where the ceiling fan used to be. “I just wish I knew what.”

“What about that?” Apple Bloom pointed at the poster from the Hornsaber trilogy. “I saw a costume in the closet. Ya think if we dress him up, we can sneak him out?”

“Ooh. That's a good idea. With a mask on, it'll be hard to tell that he's dead.” Sweetie Belle rubbed her chin. “But then what?”

“I... uh... I don't know.” Apple Broom frowned. “But it's better than stayin' here.”

Pulling open the closet door, Scootaloo rummaged through the heap of beanie hats looking for the costume. “Well, if we do manage to sneak him out, we'll be able to try all sorts of things.”

“Yeah! And if it takes a while, we could stash him in the clubhouse—call it a sleepover, or somethin'.” Apple Bloom pointed up at a shelf above the rack of coat hangers. Sure enough, the mask was up there, far out of reach.

Sweetie Belle nodded and pulled it down with her magic. “So it's a plan, then. The Cutie Mark Crusaders will run off with Button Mash and sleep with him!”

The other two nearly choked. Trying not to blush, Scootaloo whispered to Apple Bloom, “And that's coming from somepony who refused to kiss him.”

Dining With the Dead

While the costume did cover his face, it wasn't a full-body uniform and they still had to get him cleaned off. It wouldn't do if his mom spotted the red paint and mistook it for blood. Plus, all that trailing string could trip them up and even with the mask, leaving him foaming at the mouth wasn't a good idea either.

“So, uh...” Sweetie Belle rattled the door to Button's room. Unfortunately, it was still locked. “How are we going to get out?”

“What's that posted on the door?” Scootaloo asked.

Tacked to the wooden exit, one of the few posters that had survived the room's destruction depicted a gray-brown pony in a green shirt holding up an over-sized golden key. In big bold print were the words, 'Keys Open Doors'. Also shown were three simple diagrams picturing a key being inserted into a keyhole, turned, and the door opening.

“Ooh.” Sweetie Belle pulled out her small, bronze key and held it up in front of her. Unfortunately, this side of the door had a latch instead of a key hole. Her ears drooped. “Aw.”

“Uh, well...” Scootaloo scratched her mane. “What about the other thing?”

“Ya mean the thing above the door handle?” Apple Bloom asked, pointing at said latch.

Scootaloo nodded.

The use of simple devices was one of things that helped to distinguish ponykind above inanimate objects. The latch was a simple lever that either pointed towards the door frame when it was locked, or away when it wasn't. Operating this mechanism required a mental acuity roughly between that of putting a round peg in a round hole, and peeling banana. Apple Bloom reached up and pushed it, but she pushed it the wrong way and it didn't move. Frowning, she pushed harder and it rattled but still didn't budge.

“Augh! Why must everything be so complicated?” Twisting around, she gave the door a swift kick. With a nasty crunch, the entire lock mechanism broke free. The door swung wide, and slammed against the wall before creaking and falling off its hinges into the hallway.

“Hey! What do you think you're doing up there!?” Button's mom yelled from downstairs.

“Uh, sorry. The door was stuck,” Apple Bloom yelled back.

“At least it wasn't the wall this time.” There was some grumbling, and Love Tap smacked something downstairs. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had a brief moment to glance at each other before she started yelling again. “Your pancakes will be ready soon! Heh-heh. Don't forget to wash up!”

“We won't!” Sweetie Belle replied.

As they dragged Button's corpse to the restroom, Scootaloo said, “Huh. I thought she was going to be more upset.”

“Me too,” Apple Bloom said. “That laugh was kind of a creepy, though.”

“Whatever. Let's get this over with.” Sweetie Belle flinched as Button's head bounced against the threshold leading into the tiled bathroom, causing it to thud like a coconut. “And we should probably find some better way to carry him than dragging him by his tail.”

“Eww. I don't wanna touch him—he's dead,” Apple Bloom complained.

“And I don't want to get that red stuff on me,” Scootaloo said.

Button had left a fine red trail behind as they'd dragged his corpse across the carpeted floor through his room and the hallway. That did wonders to clean his back, and his left side after he'd slumped over, but there was still a lot of work to do if they were going to make him presentable.

The bathroom had a deep tub which also included a shower fixture. Aromatic bath salts, basaltic soap, and fancy foaming shampoo bottles lined the rim. There was even a sharp pair of scissors meant for trimming the mane and tail. With luxuries like that, they could easily get him clean in a jiffy.

Opening the toilet lid, Apple Bloom dipped in a scraggly scrub brush. She turned to Button's dead body, narrowed her eyes and grunted. “This can't be any harder than swabbin' the pigs, Ah guess.”

One horrible mess later, they'd managed to get him cleaned off by rubbing the red paint onto every towel, washcloth, and shower curtain in the room. Red hoofprints lined the walls, the floor, the cabinet under the sink, and even the mirror.

Using an expensive, vibrating shaver, they'd slowly ground through the strings tied around him. This gummed up the device horribly, leaving it a frayed, whimpering mess. It wasn't pretty, but it'd worked. After that, Apple Bloom just stuffed a sponge in his mouth to keep it from foaming.

By the time they'd carried him back out of the bathroom in his costume, he actually looked decent, despite the fact that the bathroom itself looked like the scene of several war crimes. Well, at least the bathtub was still clean.

Since lunch hadn't actually been called, Sweetie Belle stopped at the top of the stairs, and the other two joined her. They left Button Mash propped against the wall. She sniffed the air, and wrinkled her nose. “Does something smell burnt to you?”

“A little?” Scootaloo shrugged.

“I'm more worried about gettin' him past her. He's kinda limp. Even with the costume it's still obvious that somethin's wrong.” As if to emphasize Apple Bloom's point, Button started to slump over, forcing her to grab him and prop him back up.

“Well, we could—”

A musical triangle clanged from downstairs. “Lunch time! Come and get it!” Love tap shouted.

Scootaloo gulped. “—we could just wing it and hope that everything works out.”

“Coming!” Sweetie Belle yelled before helping the others pick Button back up. In order to keep him from looking completely like a rag doll, they draped his forelegs around Apple Bloom and Scootaloo's necks. That left his hind legs dragging, but there wasn't much they could do about that until they got down the stairs. Thankfully, his mom hadn't come out to greet them.

“Say, uh, are ya gonna be talkin' for him again?” Apple Bloom whispered as Button's legs went thump thump thump down the stairs.

“I don't think I can. She'll see me,” Scootaloo whispered back.

“Maybe we can sneak him past her. I'll tell her we're going to Sugarcube Corner or something.” Sweetie Belle said. Taking the lead, she bounded down the stairs.

The living room had been rearranged with the couch pushed up against the far wall and the short coffee table had been replaced with a circular folding card table. Broken up logs served as short stools, with frayed, jagged ends facing up. There was also a rocking chair, but Button's mom had her hoof on that. The odor of cinnamon mixed in with real smoke made Sweetie Belle's nostrils flare. Many of her own cooking misadventures had ended in an odor like that.

Love Tap stared at the little white unicorn with an overly-wide smile that curled up too sharply at the corners. She pointed at one of the stools, which was probably full of splinters waiting to happen. “Please, take a seat.”

“Uh...” Sweetie Belle blinked. She stood at the base of the steps and didn't approach the table. “We changed our minds. We now want ice cream, so we're going out to eat.”

Like a squall line rolling in, Love Tap's brow furrowed deeply, crushing her sunny expression. “Oh no you don't. I went through the trouble of making pancakes, so you're having pancakes.”

“But—”

“Sit.” Her fierce tone left no room for argument. When an adult talks like that to a foal, they'd better listen.

Sweetie Belle gulped and walked over to the leftmost seat. She hesitated to sit on it, as the broken, jagged edge looked less comfortable than a bed of old, rusty nails. What choice did she have? The living embodiment of authority itself was staring down on her. Taking a beep breath, she gingerly set her rump on it. The loose splinters crunched under her weight, and while the seat wasn't as bad as she'd expected, it still jabbed at her. Try as she might, she couldn't shift her weight to find a comfortable spot.

When Apple Bloom and Scootaloo poked their heads in, Sweetie Belle shrugged and shook her head. They both frowned and whispered to each other. Soon, they came shambling out with Button mashed between them. In his masked, caped costume, he was fully concealed from sight and it'd take a bit more than a keen eye to discern the fact that he was dead, they hoped.

Button's mom raised an eyebrow.

“Are you going to get the pancakes?” Sweetie Belle quickly asked. She pointed at the empty plates on the the table, then fidgeted in her seat when it poked her again.

With a laugh, the cream mare grinned from ear to ear. “Why of course. You're going to love them,” she said, emphasizing words as if she was running them over a cheese grater. With that, she released the rocking chair and walked out to the kitchen.

As soon as her back was turned, they stopped being careful and quickly dragged Button's corpse over to the table. Between the two of them, they managed to prop him up on a stool in a reasonable approximation of a sitting position, though they both had to keep a hoof on him to keep him from falling off.

Hoofsteps and humming from the kitchen heralded his mother's return, and both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom took seats on opposite sides of Button Mash. He slumped, and they quickly leaned in close to prop him back up. Sweat glistened on their hides and their faces were marred with worry lines. For her part, Sweetie Belle sat up straight with a smile on her face. It was about as hollow as the cup in front of her, but it was the thought that counted.

Pushing a cart with four covered platters, Button's mom rolled their food into the room. She picked one up and placed it in the center of the round table. Smiling with that angular grin of hers, she pulled the top off, revealing a platter of sweet, sticky, syrup-smothered acorn and whole wheat pancakes. Next to the pancakes was a rather bland-by-comparison bowl of plain, green snap peas.

“Don't they smell good?” Love Tap purred.

Despite themselves, the Crusaders couldn't help but agree. The tantalizing aroma alone was enough to make their mouths water. With her free hoof, Scootaloo reached for the plate.

“Oh, no! These aren't for you.” With a wink, she pushed the plate in front of Button Mash. “These are for you, sweetie.”

Humming again, Love Tap placed the remaining three platters in front of the Crusaders. “These are for you, girls.”

Scootaloo licked her lips, but when she pulled the top off, she gagged from the stench of burnt food. What was on her plate looked more like a hockey puck than a pancake, as it was small, black, and stiff. It was also lightly garnished with a sprig from some three-leaved creeping vine.

Apple Bloom's ears drooped when she discovered that her meal was the same and Sweetie Belle just blinked.

Laughing to herself, Love Tap poured milk in Button's glass, then filled the girls' cups with some bright, shimmering, yellowish-green fluid. “I made these pancakes specially for you. I can't wait to see you eat them.”

“Uh...” Apple Bloom prodded her 'pancake' with a fork. It went tink. “Is it even edible?”

“I think the table's more edible,” Scootaloo said.

Slumping down, Sweetie Belle moaned, “Mine has broken glass in it.”

Button's mom sat down in her creaking rocking chair. She leaned forward to put her elbows on the table and rest her head on her hooves. This mashed in her cheeks, squishing her grin. When the Crusaders looked at her with drooping ears and little frowns, she waved a hoof at them. “Meh. A little broken glass won't hurt. It'll give you intestinal fortitude or something.”

“More like internal bleeding,” Apple Bloom muttered. She set down her fork and sniffed at the vine on her plate. Eyes widening, she scrunched up her face and jerked back. This caused Button to tilt in her direction, quickly resulting in a scramble where both she and Scootaloo struggled to right him. Failing to work together, they each pushed and pulled and their combined efforts were twice as much force as they needed. Button swayed back and forth, with his head flopping like a rag doll.

His mother dropped her hooves on the table and sat up straight. Her smile faded. “Button, dear, are you okay?”

“He's fine!” Sweetie Belle shouted, throwing herself forward and banging on the table. The plates rattled and circular ripples sloshed through the cups on the table. “Heh-heh.”

That made Button's mom frown. She raised an eyebrow. “Which one were you again?”

“Me? I'm Sweetie Bellll—aaah!” She reared back, eyes fixated on the sprig of vine on her plate. “Isn't that the same plant which caused Aura to break out in a horrible rash?”

After Finally getting Button's corpse back under control, Scootaloo had wide eyes and cold sheen of sweat glistening on her hide. However, she was still curious enough to carefully, carefully lean in to take a closer look at the three-leaved plant on her plate. “You're right! It's poison oak. That's totally not cool.”

“Meh. One in thirty ponies are immune.” Button's mom shrugged. “If you've been around it before, it's probably fine. Now about Button—”

“Yeah, but not to eat!” Apple Bloom stuck out her tongue. “Yuck!”

“And what's this weird green stuff, anyway?” Scootaloo pulled her cup closer and sniffed at it. “Is it some kind of fruit juice?”

Turning her eyes to her own cup, Apple Bloom shrugged. “It's not apple juice. That's fer sure.”

Picking up her own glass, Sweetie Belle took a tiny sip and swished it around in her mouth. “It's sweet.”

“It's antifreeze,” Button's mom said, trying to keep a straight face.

Pfft! Promptly spitting it back out, Sweetie Belle stuck her tongue out and wiped it off her hoof, getting dirt on it. “Yuck!”

“Is that even safe?” Apple Bloom asked.

At this point, Love Tap was laughing so hard that her chair creaked as she rocked back and forth. “If it was, I wouldn't have given it to you.”

Scootaloo leaned over and whispered past Button to Apple Bloom, “I don't think she likes us very much.”

“Gee, ya think?”

“Eww.” Pushing away from the table, Sweetie Belle hopped off her seat and picked a sharp piece of wood out of her sore rump. Looking back up with big puppy-eyes, she asked, “Can I get a glass of water to rinse my mouth out?”

“The kitchen's that way,” Button's mom said, pointing over the table.

“Thanks,” Sweetie Belle said before dashing off.

Scootaloo's mouth hung open and Apple Bloom cringed. Both of them knew better than to let Sweetie Belle anywhere near a kitchen, but at the same time, neither of them wanted to say anything. With Button's mom turning her attention back to them, they were in hot water anyway.

“Button, I'm surprised that you've been quiet through all of this, and you haven't even touched your food.” She tilted her head as she looked him up and down. Scootaloo bit her lip while Apple Bloom ground her teeth. Button remained stationary. “And why are dressed up as Horn Saber anyway?”

“Who?” Scootaloo asked.

“Horn Saber, as the main character from the infamous Horn Saber series? How could you not know who Horn Saber is?”

“Uh, what she means is that he's Lord Lazy-oaf-atron, not Horn Saber,” Apple Bloom said. “That's like Horn Saber, but, uh, quieter. Yeah. Quieter.” She grinned, showing off her pearly whites.

“Quieter?” Button's mom raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, totally. He took a vow of silence. That's why he's not talking.” Scootaloo also grinned—wide enough to make her mouth hurt.

“A vow of—from somepony who looks exactly like Horn Saber? Really? The stallion best known for his overly dramatic monologues that make filibusters seem short? Who is this Oafatron and why haven't I heard of him?”

“He's... well...” Scootaloo looked away. She was sweating.

“It's a fan fiction,” Apple Bloom said.

“Button, is this true?”

“Hey! He can't get an actin' cutie mark if ya force him to break character!” Apple Bloom turned her nose up.

Button's mother sighed and rubbed her face with a hoof. “Of course it's a cutie mark thing. What else would I expect from you three? Button, just nod if it's true, okay?”

Scootaloo stiffened and slowly turned her head to lock eyes with Apple Bloom. Button, propped between them, was in no condition to do anything. Pressing her lips together, she slowly tilted Button back. Apple Bloom gave a slight nod and joined in. Working together, they rocked him back and forth, causing his head to bob kinda like he was nodding. Sorta. Maybe.

Kicking her chair back, Button's mom stood up and leaned on the table. She scowled and bared her teeth “What do you think you're doing to my son under the table?” she snarled.

Apple Bloom gulped.

“Nothing!” Scootaloo frantically shook her head.

“Help! It's frothing all over the counter and spilling on the floor!” Sweetie Belle screamed from the kitchen. “I can't make it stop!”

Still looming over them, Button's mother folded her ears back and winced. “Grr. Button, eat your lunch and don't forget the peas. I've got to deal with that mess first.” The plates rattled as she got back down from the table. “And girls, if I find out that you've been hurting him, K-k-k-k-k-k-k! You hear me? K-K-K-K-K-K-K!”

Despite the threat, both Apple Bloom and Scootaloo heaved sighs of relief when the cream mare walked out of the room.

“Saved by Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo said. “I could almost kiss her.”

“Yeah, me too,” Apple Bloom leaned over and stole one of Button's pancakes. “But we gotta get out of here first. C'mon, help me get rid of his food.”

Frothing Failures

In the kitchen, Sweetie Belle was frantically trying to stuff paper towels into a wildly frothing glass. It refused to stop. Slick, white foam boiled over like an out-of-control paper mache volcano.

Love Tap had to watch her step in the kitchen, as the tiled floor was slick with the sopping remains of balled-up wads of paper towels. Sweetie Belle had obviously been fighting against this rogue boiling mixture before she called in the calvary, so to speak.

“Wow. You weren't just kidding, were you?” Grumbling, Love Tap pulled open a cabinet and removed a stack of real towels.

“Sorry!” Sweetie Belle scrambled out of the way, nearly slipping in the process. “I was just pouring myself a glass of water, and it all went crazy!”

First, Love Tap tossed some towels on the floor and stomped on them to help sop up the spilled liquid and absorb what was still dribbling over. Then, she picked up the offending glass and poured it into the sink. As if in defiance of her, it frothed and foamed twice as vigorously as before.

“What happened? Water doesn't usually do that.” The foam filled up the sink and threatened to pour over. Love Tap promptly smothered it with a towel. That seemed to be its dying gasp, and while the foaming continued, it did so at a manageable rate.

“I don't know. It just happened,” Sweetie Belle said. “I can never seem to do anything right.”

“At least it wasn't on fire,” Love Tap grumbled. “You know, at first I thought you were being overly dramatic, like when you screamed about his dying—”

“Huh?” Sweetie Belle had started to help out on the floor, but she stopped and looked up with wide eyes.

Rolling her own eyes, Love Tap picked up a sponge and started sopping up the mess on the counter. “He dies, like, all the time.”

“He does!?”

“Yeah. I take it you don't play many arcane games?”

“I, um, oh right, games eh-heh.” Sweetie Belle chucked weakly. “N-no, I don't.”

Love Tap rung out her sponge over the sink, causing a stream of brownish, grimy liquid to pour out. “Don't tell Button I said this, but he's not as good as he thinks. I hardly touch his games, and I have over half the high scores.”

“Wait, so if you don't think he can get a cutie mark for playing games, then why—?”

“Mom! I've finished my lunch. Can I go out to play now!?” Scootaloo yelled from the living room. She was doing her impression of Button again.

“So much for that vow of silence,” Love Tap muttered. “Did you eat your peas!?” she yelled back.

“Uh...”

Back in the living room, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo stared at the untouched bowl of peas. They were bland—very, very bland. They remained untouched for a reason. Glancing around the room, Apple Bloom spotted a tall, broad-leafed potted plant in a dark corner. That was the perfect place to dispose of them.

She swiped the bowl and trotted over, but to her surprise, the plant's soil was already covered in several layers of discarded, old peas. She shrugged and just piled on more.

“Yes, mom. I ate my peas. Can I go out now?” Scootaloo yelled.

“Have you brushed your teeth?” Love Tap yelled from the kitchen.

There was a moment of silence as she waited for a reply. When she didn't get one, she yelled again. “Button, it's very important for a growing young colts to brush their teeth. You don't want them to fall out, do you?”

“But mom—” Scootaloo whined in her best imitation of Button yet.

“No buts! Now go brush your teeth!”

There was another lull and Sweetie Belle's ears perked up. She thought she heard Apple Bloom and Scootaloo whispering to each other.

“Okay,” was Scootaloo's reply.

Having finished her discussion, Love Tap went back to scrubbing the counter clean.

“Why do you let him play games so much?” Sweetie Belle asked again, as she unhelpfully tossed one of the soiled cloth towels into the garbage bin.

This prompted Button's mother to give Sweetie Belle a sour look as she fished it out. “Forget that. I have a question for you. When you said that you wanted him to plow your virgin fields—”

“It's a game!” Sweetie shouted.

“Yes. I know. Button explained it to me.”

“Oh. Heh-heh.” Tiny rosy splotches appeared on her little white cheeks.

“But what I don't understand is how you can have so much trouble. Farmcraft is literally the easiest game ever made. How can you possibly need help?”

“Oh. Well. It doesn't look hard, but...” Sweetie Belle frowned and waved a hoof in the air as if she were pointing at something. “First, I pick a plot of land.”

“Yes.” Love Tap nodded.

“Then, I plow the fields.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Then, I plant the seeds.”

“Yep.”

“Then, I water them.”

“Right.”

Snorting, Sweetie Belle sat down and crossed her hooves. “That's when everything catches on fire and burns and I have to start all over again.”

Love Tap blinked. She stopped her work on the counter to look Sweetie Belle up and down. “This... water—it wouldn't happen to be red and glowing, would it?”

“Uh, yeah. How did you know?”

“That's lava.”

“Oh. Um, whoops?” Sweetie grinned and shrugged.

Love Tap just groaned and buried her face in her hooves.

While Sweetie Belle and Button's mom were discussing the merits of watering plants with molten rock, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo dragged Button's corpse back upstairs towards the bathroom and were intent on brushing his teeth.

Scootaloo grunted and heaved as she pushed him up over the last step. Pausing to catch her breath, she wiped the sweat from her forehead. “This is so much harder going up than down. Why are we intent on brushing his teeth again?”

“Ya heard what she said. He's gotta brush his teeth after his meal,” Apple Bloom said. She tapped a hoof impatiently. Of course, Scootaloo had been doing most of the work.

“Yeah, but he didn't even eat anything.”

“Of course he didn't. He's dead. Now c'mon, we gotta hurry.” At this point, Apple Bloom grabbed one of Button's legs and started dragging him through the hall by herself.

“Stop that. You're going to tear his costume.”

“So help out.”

“Fine.” Running up, Scootaloo grabbed Button's other foreleg and yanked it up. Between the two of them, they were still dragged him, but it was only his hind legs that were dangling. “What I was saying is that there's no reason to brush his teeth. We did all the eating.”

“Ya think we should brush our own teeth?” Apple Bloom asked.

“No! I'm not saying that either. Let's just not do it and say we did.”

“But what if she checks?”

“If she checks, don't you think she'll notice that he's dead?”

“Oh. Good point.” Apple Bloom stopped to set the corpse down and rubbed her chin. Scootaloo flopped on the floor, panting. “But it don't feel right to just lie about that.”

Sitting up, Scootaloo waved a hoof in front of Apple Bloom's face. “Um, hello? Are you crazy? How can you be worried about lying? That's pretty much all we've been doing.”

“Hey. Maybe I don't like it? Maybe I wish we didn't have to? Maybe we've already dragged him up here and it wouldn't take very long to go ahead and do it?” Apple Bloom shrugged.

“Yeah, whatever, but you'd better not mess it up somehow.” Grunting, Scootaloo smacked open the bathroom door and shoved Button over the threshold.

The interior was still just as messy as they'd left it with red paint smeared all over the walls and soiled towels scattered on the floor. Dribbled toilet water still lingered in small, red-stained pools. Apple Bloom looked up and her eyes wandered around as she followed Scootaloo in. “It looks like somepony got murdered in here.”

“We're going to be murdered in here if she catches us. Quit gawking and go brush his teeth.” Scootaloo huffed, and hopped up on the toilet. She pointed at the sink.

“Me? Ya want me to do it? But...”

“Apple Bloom, this is your idea. I've already had enough of putting my hoof in his mouth.” While making a face and sticking her tongue out, Scootaloo shook her hoof in the air as if she were trying to dislodge imaginary filth.

“Well, Ah guess it can't be too hard,” Apple Bloom mumbled to herself. She frowned while staring at Button's cold, dead corpse and shook her head. Rearing up, she peered over the marble counter to get a better view of the items by the sink. Scattered about, there was a small brown ceramic cup, a little green toothbrush with blue-tipped bristles, a tube of toothpaste, the clogged and jammed automatic razor, a circular hair brush full of rust-colored hairs from Button's mane, a small white block of soap, one of Button's spare beanie caps, and a rusted Spiderpony action figure. After blinking a few times, Apple Bloom picked up the soap.

Turning around, she held it out. “Can ya lift his head up? That'll make this easier.”

“Apple Bloom, what are you doing? That's regular soap. Use the Brushie gel. That's what it's for.”

“It is? Oh. So it is. Heh-heh. I knew that.” With a sheepish grin, she tossed the soap in the waste basket. Scootaloo rolled her eyes in response.

Leaning over the counter again, Apple Bloom furrowed her brow and took another look at the items. “Now let's see...”

Squeak squeak went the toilet paper roll as Scootaloo started spinning it. Reams of perforated paper piled up on the floor.

Apple Bloom gave the little orange pegasus sitting on the potty a sidelong glance before picking up the tube of toothpaste. “This is...” She wiped off some caked white substance that partially obscured the lettering. “Dr. Colgate's Magical Foaming Extra-Strength Triple Mint Swirl Brushie™ Gel. This looks promising.”

Flipping it over, she squinted as she read the tiny print on the back. “Active ingredients, fluoride, magic foam, bla bla bla. Um... It whitens teeth, helps prevent gum disease, et cetera, warning, product may, er, what the?” Apple Bloom blinked, wiped the label, squinted harder and read it again. “It says it stops rigor mortis. That's an odd side effect. Scootaloo, do you have any idea what rigor mortis is?”

“No. I don't. And would you quit goofing off and actually do something productive for once?” Scootaloo said as she continued to spin the toilet paper roll, completely unaware of the irony.

“Okay, okay.” Grumbling, Apple Bloom muttered to herself, “I've got the gel; now I just need the brush, hmm...” There were two brushes on the counter, so she grabbed the bigger one. After all, it must be Button's because it had his hair on it. Following the instructions, she squeezed out half a drop of gel. It looked like a tiny speck on the large hair brush. “That can't be right.”

Pressing her lips together, Apple Bloom's mouth formed a thin line. She tapped on her chinny chin chin. Then, she went ahead and squeezed out the entire tube, forming a huge, extruded, white, green, and blue-striped blob so heavy that it bowed down the bristles. “Much better.”

Scootaloo was too busy amusing herself to help, so Apple Bloom pried Button's jaw open, yanked the sponge out, and rammed the huge mass of gelatin in.

It crackled and popped, with that distinct hiss and hint of ozone that she'd come to recognize from working with potions as a mass of unstable magic about to explode. She ducked for cover, and none to soon, as an entire geyser of magical foaming bubbles erupted from Button's mouth.

The force from the blast was so strong that the hairbrush shattered the mirror when it shot out.

Scootaloo jumped and stared at the scene. “Apple Bloom, what did you—aaah!”

The recoil was so strong that Button slid back against the wall, causing his head started to bobbing around, spewing oral hygiene all over the place. “Ackpth!” Scootaloo winced as the forceful stream of bubbles broadsided her. Spitting out a splattering of foam that'd gotten in her mouth, she shook a wing and fanned herself to get as much off as she could.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Apple Bloom pounced on the corpse and held the head down. That kept the frothing blast low, splattering against the sink cabinet.

“What did you do!?” Scootaloo raised a hoof as if she were going to jump down from the toilet, but hesitated. Instead, she remained perched on the potty and watched Apple Bloom struggle with the frothing corpse.

“I was just tryin' to brush his teeth!” Attempting to shove the sponge back in his mouth, Apple Bloom got splattered on the side of her face. She lost her grip and it slipped out, flopping against the wall in a dull squick.

Scootaloo winced when Apple Bloom slipped on the growing layer of minty foam and Button Mash's head thudded against the wall. A heavy bottle of expensive, ambrosia-scented shampoo tipped off a high shelf and bounced off his noggin with a loud crack. Good thing he was already dead, huh?

The whole room was thick with the sharp tang of mint—enough to make Scootaloo's eyes water. She blinked, then reached down to help her struggling friend get back on her feet. The layer of suds was up to their knees, and the walls weren't much better off, being splattered with a thin layer of white foam.

“Apple Bloom, how much of that gel did you use?”

Shaking herself like a dog, Apple Bloom flung even more foam in the air. “All of it.”

“All of it? But that's a lifetime supply!”

“How was I supposed to know it was gonna explode like that?” Grunting, Apple Bloom used a paint-stained towel in a vain attempt to dig him out of the growing mountain of foam.

Scootaloo still sat on the toilet, looking up and down at the huge mess now layered on top of their previous huge mess. It was messception. “Haven't you ever brushed your teeth before?”

“No!”

“No?” Scootaloo'd raised her leg, but set it back down. She blinked her eyes, squeezing them tight against the mint onslaught. “How do you keep your teeth so clean? They're always sparkling white.”

Giving up on Button Mash for the moment, Apple Bloom pushed open the door, allowing the foam to spill out into the hallway. She hadn't realized just how stuffy it'd gotten until a waft of fresh air hit her in the face. She paused to take a deep breath. “I eat like ten apples a day. I don't hafta brush 'em.”

“That doesn't—huh.” Scootaloo tapped on her chin. “I guess that does make sense.”

Apple Bloom suffed her head into the suds and reared back, lifting Button Mash by his tail. She had trouble keeping her footing, but managed to drag him into the hall. He wasn't spewing like a garden hose anymore, but foam was still pouring out of his mouth.

“Wumbth yapftd—” She spat out his tail and let him slump to the ground. “Would ya quit gawkin' an help me?”

Taking a short breath, Scootaloo hopped down and gingerly squished her way through the foamy mess. She paused at the threshold to wipe her hooves on the carpet and fan herself with her wings. “Eww. Now I'm going to smell like minty fresh breath all week.”

“Tell me about it.” Apple Bloom also wiped herself down and sighed at the soggy mess that was Button Mash's corpse. He was still oozing so much foam that it'd be pointless to try to clean him off.

Scootaloo's eyes widened as she took a better look at him. “Augh! His costume's soaked. It's completely ruined.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Now what are we going to do? That was the only one in his closet.”

“There isn't much we can do. We're gonna hafta carry him out and hope his mom doesn't catch us.” Apple Bloom leaned down to grab one of Button's forelegs.

Biting her lip, Scootaloo shook her head. “I really don't like this.”

“Neither do—huh.” Holding Button's leg, Apple Bloom gave it a tug and flopped him back and forth. “Is it just me or is he extra-limp right now?”

“That's what you care about? How limp the dead pony is?” Scootaloo bit her lip when she grabbed his other leg and picked it up. The soggy fabric of his costume clung to his hide and she couldn't avoid the growing puddle of foam by his head.

“No, it's just—nevermind.” Apple Bloom shook her head as they positioned his weight between them. “Sorry, Scootaloo. I had no idea it was gonna explode like that. I should never have insisted on brushin' his teeth.”

“If his mom murders us all because you screwed this up then I'm going to give you such a noogie.”

“Sorry. Sorry!”

Scootaloo sighed and grit her teeth. “Let's just get this over with.”

Departing Ways

Back downstairs, Sweetie Belle and Button's mom had finished cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. The small unicorn was sitting on the counter with a damp rag in her mouth while the cream mare pointed to a jug three-quarters full of clear liquid. Next to it was a box of white power.

“Okay, so I figured out what happened. What I want to know is why.” Looking at Sweetie Belle, Love Tap frowned. “Please spit that out.”

Glancing around, Sweetie Bell decided that the best spot to drop it was in the sink. “Mmpth. Pleh.” It landed in the middle, covering the drain.

“Okay, so when you got your glass of 'water,' you didn't get it from the sink. You poured it from that jug, didn't you?”

“Uh-huh.” Sweetie Belle nodded.

Reaching up, Love Tap swiveled the jar around to show the labeled side. It was clearly marked 'Vinegar.'

“Oh. I guess it's not water, heh-heh.” Forcing a quick laugh, Sweetie Grinned sheepishly with her ears drooped.

Love Tap took a deep breath, as adults often do when little kids try their patience. “What I don't understand is how you could possibly mistake vinegar for water. It has a very distinct and pungent odor.”

Rolling her eyes up, Sweetie Belle tapped on her chin. “Well... Rarity's always bringing home these tiny vials of scented water. I thought this was a big one.”

“Tiny vials of... Please tell me you haven't been drinking perfume.”

“Is that what those are? No wonder she's always taking them away from me.”

Love Tap groaned and shook her head. “So after you poured yourself a glass of vinegar, then what did you do?”

“Well, it tasted really bad—”

“I can imagine.”

“—so I decided to sweeten it. And I found this box bog of baking sugar—”

“Soda.”

“Huh?”

Love Tap pointed at the box. “It's baking soda. Not sugar. It's completely different.”

“Soda is sweet, right?”

“Not baking soda.” Love Tap shook her head. “In fact, it's actually a salt.”

“It is?” Sweetie Belle cocked her head and raised an eyebrow.

“Yep. Sodium bicarbonate, actually. It forms a base when dissolved in water, and reacts very strongly to vinegar which is an acid. I can't remember the specific reaction off the top of my head, but one of the products is carbon dioxide, which comes out as a gas. That's why it foams so much when you mix them.”

“Really?” Sweetie Belle's eyes widened and her ears perked up. She stared at the box of baking soda and the jar of vinegar with renewed interest. “Neat!”

Despite herself, Love Tap couldn't help but grin. It was hard not to be drawn in by the sweet and innocent gaze of a child who'd just learned something new. Of course, given that this was Sweetie Belle, it was also the look of somepony who'd learned just enough to be dangerous.

A faint thumping noise caught the mare's attention and she swiveled her ears around before turning her head. It sounded like somepony was trying to sneak down the stairs and not doing a good job of it. “Button, is that you?”

There was a brief silence before Scootaloo responded in that deep voice she used to impersonate Button, “Yeah. Mom, I've finished brushing my teeth. Can I go out to play now?”

“If he's not going to keep that vow of silence, then why is he still trying to stay in character?” Love Tap muttered under her breath. More loudly, she yelled, “Button, you don't have to keep making that horrible voice. Can't you talk normally for once?”

A tearing noise from back on the kitchen counter caught her attention, and she was about to see what that was when Scootaloo replied, “I'm Lord Lazy-oaf-atron, and I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Button! You know exactly what I'm talking about. Now st—”

“Mom, can I play outside or not?”

A soft poomf from behind her caused her ear to twitch, but Love Tap ignored it and poked her head out of the kitchen door. Oddly, nopony was in sight. She pressed her lips together in a tight frown. “Button, did you really brush your teeth like I asked?”

“Yes, mom. My teeth are so well brushed that I'll never have to brush them ever again.”

The voice was coming from inside the stairwell. For whatever reason, he'd stopped just out of sight. And where where the other two? She raised an eyebrow. “Okay, you can go out—”

“Yes!”

“—but only on one condition! Mommy wants to kiss you first.”

Behind her, Sweetie Belle gave a dainty little sneeze.

“Ack, mom, please don't,” Scootaloo replied.

“Oh? And why not?”

“It's really embarrassing.”

“You don't mind when I do it before school.”

“Not in front of my friends! They'll make fun of me.”

“You never cared about that either. Button, if you haven't brushed your teeth like I asked...” Love Tap let her voice trail off.

Unbeknownst to her, Button Mash was currently hanging limp between two hyperventilating fillies. The black mask covering his face had been shattered by the impact with that shampoo bottle. Half of it had fallen off completely, leaving one dead eye staring out. His mouth continued to pour out a continuous stream of frothing foam.

Scootaloo gulped and yelled in reply, “Mom, just trust me, okay? You really, really, really don't want to kiss me right now.”

Love Tap flattened her ears. The scent of mint caught in her nostrils, and she sniffed at the air. “Button Mash,” she said in an admonishing parental voice, “you get down here right this instant. I don't know why you're insisting on using that awful voice or hiding from me, but if something happened, you know you can always tell—”

The distinctive pop of a cork being pulled from a bottle gave her pause. She swiveled her head, and her jaw dropped. “Sweetie Belle, no!”

The little white unicorn was balanced on her hind legs, about ready to pour the jug of vinegar into the sink, on top of a mound of white powder. The box of baking soda had been torn open, and was lying on its side, completely empty. A thin trail of powder was strung along the counter and fell over the edge into the sink. The cork floated in the air, held up by a magical aura.

“Eek!” Jerking, Sweetie Belle slipped on the counter. She lost her grip, and time seemed to slow down as the fragile glass container went tumbling down towards the rigid sink counter.

Back on the stairs, “Ya can always tell Sweetie Belle no?” Apple Bloom whispered to Scootaloo.

Both of them winced when they heard a crash, punctuated by a loud, frustrated scream. “Sounds like good advice to me,” Scootaloo replied.

The scream gave way to angry shouting, and they covered their ears. “Should we help her?” Apple Bloom asked.

Shaking her head, Scootaloo frowned. “The best way we can help her is by sneaking him out while his mom's distracted.”

Back in the kitchen, Sweetie Belle had gotten back on her hooves and quickly scrambled into a dark corner on the counter. She wedged herself between a breadbox and a toaster while Love Tap screamed at her. That was one peeved mare. “I'm sorry! I didn't think it would make such a mess.”

“Didn't think? Of course you didn't think!” Love Tap waved a hoof at the sink, which was overflowing in sheets like some sort of unholy mix between a geyser and a waterfall. “How could you possibly think this was a good idea? We just spent half an hour cleaning up this mess and now you had to go and make an even bigger one!”

“I thought it would go down the drain,” Sweetie Belle said meekly.

Love Tap smacked herself in the face. Even if the drain hadn't been plugged with a dirty cloth, the mountain of baking soda would have done it. Plus, it's never a good idea to pour frothing liquid down the drain, as pressure build-up from the expanding gases can damage the pipes. In this brief silence, a scampering in the living room didn't escape her attention. “Button! Where do you think you're going?”

There was a quick scrambling before Scootaloo replied in her bad imitation of Button, “Mom, I really wanna play outside. Can I? Please?”

“I promise we won't get 'im in trouble,” Apple Bloom added.

“Yeah,” Scootaloo said, in her own voice this time.

Snorting, Love Tap started stomping towards the living room. “You can't just walk out on me, my little pony! When I tell you to come see me, that means—”

A loud splash and the feel of cold water sloshing against her hooves caused her words to die on her lips. Slowly, she turned around and her jaw dropped. An eye twitched. Sweetie Belle had gotten her hooves on the bucket of soapy, grimy water they'd been using to clean the counter and dumped the entire thing on the floor.

The little unicorn blinked. “What? We have to make the floor wet before we can mop it.”

“But... But... Not that much water.”

“But it's a big mess,” Sweetie Belle said. She carefully set the empty bucket back upright on the counter and hopped down, making an impact crater in the sea of foam that was slowly rising.

“Now it's an even bigger one,” Love Tap groaned. She winced and shook her head.

“So can I play outside or not?” Scootaloo asked, once again impersonating Button.

Throwing her hooves in the air, Love tap put on a dramatic display of pure frustration. “Fine! Go ahead! See if I care! But I want you back promptly for dinner, young pony, and don't you dare let those miscreants pressure you into doing anything stupid. Do you promise me that you'll behave?”

“I promise.”

“Good. Now go.” Sighing deeply, Love Tap rubbed her throbbing temple and turned her attention back to the overflowing ocean of foam that had once been her nice, clean kitchen.

Sweetie Belle had grabbed a mop, and after a half-swipe, it was completely soaked. She blinked and looked around. The bucket sitting up on the counter was too high for her to reach, so she opted to wring it out in the trash can, eliciting yet another groan from Button's mom.

“You too! Scram!” The vitriol in Love Tap's voice was practically spitting from her face.

Sweetie jumped, and dashed as fast as her little hooves could take her across the slippery, wet floor. Stumbling, she slid against the wall, but one look at the fiery glare on Love Tap's face was all the incentive she needed to scramble back up and gallop out of the house as quickly as possible. Her soaking wet tail dragged behind her, leaving a thin trail of foam.

Following a similar trail of minty foam headed in the same direction, she leapt through the hole in the wall. Scampering off down the dirt road, she left Button's house and scary mom far behind. The other two weren't far away. With Button's corpse slowing them down, they were easy to catch up to.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Sweetie Belle yelled as she galloped up to them.

Apple Bloom turned around and raised her head. “Ya made it!”

“We sure are glad to see you,” Scootaloo said. “You were right. His mom really is super scary. We were lucky to make it out of there alive.”

“Yeah, unlike him,” Apple said, pointing at the corpse.

“Um, excuse me—” A voice from behind them caused their hairs to stand on end. Slowly, they turned around. Several townsponies gathered around with raised eyebrows and cocked heads. Apparently, stopping to chat in the middle of a busy street wasn't such a great idea. A frowning butterscotch pony with a mane full of lively orange curls pointed at the corpse. “—but did you just say that he's dead?”

Apple Bloom fervently shook her head. “No! We didn't say that at all. He's just, uh...”

“Playing dead,” Scootaloo said. She nodded.

“Yeah. He's, um, really good at it,” Sweetie Belle added.

“He's gonna get his cutie mark for sure!” Apple Bloom hopped in place and put on a mad grin. The other two joined her as well.

At the mention of a cutie mark, many of the townsponies rolled their eyes. Several shook their heads and walked off, but a few, including the pony who asked, remained staring.

“Yeah! I bet he already has it!” Sweating, Scootaloo nodded even harder.

“Ooh. Ooh-ooh!” Sweetie Belle clapped her hooves together. “We should plan his cute-canera.”

“Yeah! Let's all go back to the clubhouse to celebrate!” Apple Bloom quickly darted to his side and the three of them joined together in a big group hug, with Button mashed between them. His half-masked face stared vacantly at nothing while foam continued to ooze from his mouth. Before the townsponies could get a good look, they scrambled back, dragging him into a bush. They would have gone further, but they all kinda tripped over each other and would up in a heap underneath the foliage.

Soon, hoofsteps walked away and they let out the breaths they'd been holding in.

“Great. Now the whole town's going to think we killed him,” Sweetie Belle moaned.

“Now what are we going to do?” Scootaloo asked, staring up the leaves.

Apple Bloom shifted Button's weight and started peeling the soggy, black costume off of his hide.

“What are you doing?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“I'm checkin' to see if he got his cutie mark.”

Scootaloo promptly facehoofed. “He's dead.”

“So? If he doesn't have one, he can still get one, right?”

“What would he even get his cutie mark for?” Sweetie Belle asked. She scrunched up her face and snorted. “Dying?”

“Uh, well...” Hesitating, Apple Bloom let the soggy fabric snap back into place.

“That has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.” Scootaloo slapped her hoof back on the ground. “We've come up with some pretty dumb ideas, but that really takes the cake.”

“Okay, okay. Y'all don't have to keep hasslin' me about it. I'll admit it was dumb. He didn't have one, anyway.”

Sweetie Belle took a deep sigh. “As stupid as it was, if he had a cutie mark like that it would kinda explain how he died, in a disturbing, morbid way.”

Clenching her jaw, Scootaloo winced. “I really wish we knew how he died. If we could find that out, then nopony could blame us for it.”

While they were chatting, traffic along the road had gradually picked up, but the squeaking of poorly-maintained wagon wheels caught their attention. Cautiously, they poked their noses out of the bush to see what was going on.

A large, wedge-shaped wagon was precariously teetering down the road. Other ponies gave it a wide berth. The top half was about twice as wide as the bottom, and it was being pulled by a lanky tan stallion with a jester cap and matching cutie mark. On its side were depictions of puppets being controlled by strings and the wagon looked as if it could unfold to triple its size.

“Puppets?” Sweetie Belle's eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Didn't Button have a bunch of string tied around his legs when we found him? Kind of like a puppet.”

“Ya think the puppeteer had somethin' to do with his death?” Apple Bloom asked.

Scootaloo narrowed her eyes. “There's only one way to find out.”

Deadly Accusation

Leaving Button's corpse stashed in the bush, the three of them ran out and matched their pace with the wagon—something which made them nervous given how wildly it was swaying around.

“Excuse us, mister, but would ya mind stoppin' fer a minute?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Hunh?” The wagon lurched to a halt and the jester pony sniffed at the air. He swung his head, and little bells on his jester hat chimed as he did so. Staring off towards the horizon, he asked, “You talking to me, invisible mint faeries?”

“Mint faeries?” Apple Bloom whispered.

Sweetie Belle sniffed her foreleg and wrinkled her nose. Having rubbed against the toothpaste-soaked corpse, all three of them smelt like a lethal injection of oral hygiene. “We really need to take a math,” she muttered.

The stallion continued looking in the air over their heads. He had a short, pink goatee, off-color from the rest of his hair. It was probably dyed that way, much to the horror of his stylist.

“We're down here,” Scootaloo said.

He looked down, then jerked back as if startled to see them. “Oh. So you are. What can I do for you, dudes?”

“Dudes?” Sweetie Belle frowned. “We're fillies.”

“Whaat? No way!” Leaning down, he sniffed them uncomfortably close. His eyes were somewhat foggy and didn't seem to focus properly. “You're pulling my leg, dude. There's no such thing as a filly mint faerie.”

“He's insane,” Scootaloo whispered. “That means he did it, right?”

“Scootaloo, I think we need more than that,” Sweetie Belle said.

“C'mon, it's obvious! What else do we need?”

“Actual evidence?” Furrowing her brow, Sweetie Belle pulled the others into a huddle. “And not so loud. He'll hear us.”

“Evidence?” Scootaloo frowned. She also lowered her voice. “This is getting complicated. What kind of evidence do we need?”

“Something like a confession,” Apple Bloom said.

“How are we going to get that?” Scootaloo asked.

Pulling out of the huddle, Apple Bloom looked up at him and asked, “Uh, excuse us, mister...?”

“The name's Foolhatty, dude.” He said, and bowed to the bush next to them.

“Okay... Mister Foolhatty, did ya sneak into our friend's home last night, tie him up, paint him red, make him foam at the mouth, and murder him?”

He glanced at Apple Bloom with wide eyes in what appeared to be a fleeting moment of clarity. Then he laughed. “Wow. You dudes sure have a crazy imagination. How about a puppet show, huh? Every dude likes a puppet show.” Yanking off his harness, Foolhatty grunted. He kicked a block under the wheels and went around the back. A loud snap caused the fillies to hop, and the entire unsteady contraption folded outwards like some kind of mechanical origami flower.

In the center was a miniature stage, complete with red, velvet curtains and tiny stage lights. The side panels, however, were filled with multiple stacks of various specialty hats. There were jester's caps of many different colors, beanie caps like the ones Button usually wore, orange construction cones, lampshades, pointy magic caps, and red ribbons tied up in floral patterns like rose blossoms.

“That didn't sound like a confession,” Apple Bloom whispered.

“Maybe he didn't do it?” Sweetie Belle suggested.

“Maybe he did but he forgot?” Scootaloo shrugged.

“How could ya forget somethin' like that?” Apple bloom asked. The others shrugged. “I think we're missin' somethin' here.”

Pieces of wood clacked from behind the mini stage and the curtains suddenly sprang open. Crude wooden dolls of Celestia and Luna hung suspended by threads while Foolhatty stood on some platform in the back. His head stood above the stage and it was easy to see the wooden dowels that the strings were attached to. Foolhatty tilted and tugged at them to make the dolls move. He squinted pretty heavily and the dolls more flailed than danced.

While shaking the Celestia doll, Foolhatty spoke in a mock voice, “I, Princess Cake-er-Celestia do hereby declare that cake is a sacred food and that weight gained from eating it shall henceforth and forevermore be impossible to lose!”

“No wonder Mrs. Cake is so fat,” Sweetie Belle whispered.

“Ssh.” Apple Bloom tapped a hoof over her own mouth.

Pulling the Luna doll, Foolhatty spoke in oddly nasil tone, “Oh noest! The moon hast eaten too much cake, and now it is impossible to raise into the sky! Whatever shall we do, dear sisterly scone-bottom?”

“You fool! Everypony knows that the moon is on a strict diet of cheese! It cannot tolerate any other food without becoming bloated. There is only one thing that you can do, dearest sisterly eggplant face: drag the moon on the ground until it is light enough to lift again.”

Now he removed the princess puppets and rolled a golf ball back and forth on the stage. “And thus for a hundred days and a hundred nights, the moon was dragged along the ground. And that is how the half-pipe canyons were created.”

He took a short bow and closed the curtains. “So dudes, what did you think?”

“Well, that was...” Apple Bloom squinted her eyes and tilted her head.

“Yeah! It was, er...” Scratching her mane, Scootaloo looked at the sky.

“Didn't something like that actually happen?” Sweetie Belle asked.

He shrugged. “Yeah. Sorry, dudes, but only educational skits are free. If you want real entertainment, you'll haf'ta pay. How's about 'Duck Duck Goose?' That's classic. It's only twenty bits, divided among however many friends you can bring. That's right; twenty bits for everyfaerie is a steal!”

“That was educational?” Apple Bloom drooped her ears. “But that didn't make any sense.”

“Uh, I'm pretty sure I remember something like that before.” Sweetie Belle rubbed her chin. “In the book I'm thinking about, it was right between a bunch of pressed leaves and the multiplication table.”

“You mean your school notebook?” Scootaloo asked.

“Oh, right.” Frowning, Sweetie Belle glared up at the stallion who was idly twirling the propeller on one of the beanie caps. “I'd accuse him of copying me, but why would he want to copy something that got an 'F?' ”

“Wait, that's bad?” Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. “Oh! No wonder I got an 'F' too.”

This prompted Sweetie Belle to direct her glare at Scootaloo.

Apple Bloom got between the two of them. “Wait. This ain't helpin'. We gotta get him to confess.”

“But he forgot, didn't he?” Scootaloo said.

“Just make him remember, then,” Apple Bloom huffed, “somehow.”

Rolling her eyes, Scootaloo asked, “How are we going to do that?”

“What if we show him something that links him to the crime?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Ya mean actual evidence? That could work.” Apple Bloom frowned. “But do we even have anythin' like that?”

“Sure—all that broken string that was tied around him. That looked a lot like the string on his puppets,” Sweetie Belle said.

“That's perfect!” Scootaloo hopped and buzzed her wings. “We'll just have to—” She pointed at the bush that Button's corpse was hidden in, then paused. “What happened to it, anyway?”

Apple Bloom facehoofed. “We flushed it down the toilet.”

Wincing, Sweetie Belle hung her head. “Wow. We're really bad at this detective stuff.”

“What are you dudes doing? Workin' on some new drama skit?” Foolhatty asked over their heads.

The Crusaders' eyes widened and they instinctively huddled together before inching a few steps back. “We're just working on a murder mystery, he-heh,” Sweetie Belle chuckled weakly.

“Oh yeah! That stuff's classic. I'd better write this down.” The stallion rummaged in his wagon. While he was doing that, another wagon rolled up and stopped just behind him. This one was hauling a live tree. While the tree was taught with ropes, most of the weight was high in the air and the whole wagon swayed unsteadily. The driver snorted and scowled at them, as there was no way for him to get past.

Speaking much more quietly, Apple Bloom whispered to the others, “Maybe we should go. These wobbly wagons are givin' me a bad feeling. Ah don't want to be blamed for another disaster today.”

“We can't leave without a confession. There has to be some other way to get him to remember,” Scootaloo said.

“How? We don't even know why he did it,” Sweetie Belle said. She blinked. Muttering to herself, she added, “If he even did it.”

“Ya mean a motive?” Apple Bloom tapped on her chin. “Yeah, ought'a work.”

“Hey, dudes, I'm back!” Foolhatty stepped next to them while holding an oversized pink with green polka-dots notebook. “I'm always a sucker for good mysteries. Tell me all about it.”

“Uh...” Apple Bloom edged backwards.

Scootaloo stared to do the same, but Sweetie Belle nudged the little pegasus forward. “Quick. Now's your chance. Explain to him why he did it.”

“Me?” Scootaloo rubbed at where she'd been poked. “But—”

“Yeah! And make it good. Our lives are depending on this,” Apple Bloom added.

“Well, okay.” She gulped and ruffled the back of her mane.

“Yes?” Foolhatty asked a tulip garden.

“So, uh, last night, apparently, somepony snuck into Button Mash's room, painted him up in crude arcane symbols with red ink—”

“Ooh, this is gettin' goood.” Foolhatty scribbled away.

“Uh, yeah. And, uh, he was also foaming at the mouth and tied up with a bunch of broken string, and, uh, dead.”

“Awesome! This'll made a great skit.” He grinned and held up the notebook with both hooves. “So who did it?”

“You did.” Scootaloo pointed at him.

He blinked his foggy gray eyes. “What? Uh, no, dude. The puppeteer isn't supposed to be part of the play. Hmm, what if we blame it all on Luna? Everypony loves to blame Luna.”

“No! This isn't a skit for some play. It actually happened. You climbed up in his room last night and killed him!” She furrowed her brow, flared out her wings and huffed. “And Luna is best princess,” she muttered under her breath.

“Say what?” Foolhatty raised an eyebrow. “Uh, sorry dude, but I was stuck on the road from Manehatten last night. It was a total bummer too. I swear, road crews keep digging ditches in the middle of the road. I mean, who does that? You're moving along, perfectly straight, and suddenly—” He swung a hoof in the air to make his point, but his angle was off and pointed into a field where the road curved to the left. “—bam! right into a ditch.”

“Er...” Scootaloo took a few steps back, then hastily whispered to the others, “Now what? He says he was somewhere else.”

“It makes sense, Ah guess. He does look half-blind,” Apple Bloom said. “Pullin' a wagon must be really hard.”

“Wait a minute. If he says he was somewhere else when the murder happened, then that's an alibi,” Sweetie Belle said.

“A what?” Scootaloo raised an eyebrow. None of the Crusaders payed any attention to the stallion looming over them.

“Is that evidence?” Apple Bloom asked.

While they were chatting, Foolhatty continued to scribble in his notebook. He pulled out a large, balloon-rimmed monocle and pressed it against his left eye, holding it in place by squinting. This odd eyepiece made it look as if his left eye was bugging out of his head.

“Um... yeah!” Grinning, Sweetie slapped her hooves together. “All the bad ponies in the mystery novels I read had alibis.”

“Really?” Scootaloo asked.

“Yep!”

Apple Bloom tapped on her chin. “So, what yer sayin' is that when he tells us he was somewhere else when the murder happened, that means he was actually there?”

“Um... I guess?” Sweetie Belle shrugged.

“Wow. This detective stuff is really weird,” Apple Bloom said.

“You sure got that right.” Scootaloo nodded.

“Uh, dudes, I like your style and all, but you're not making any sense. Alibis are for eliminating suspects, not convicting them.”

They quickly scrambled backwards at the sight of Foolhatty's enormous eyeball bearing down on them. “But how else are we supposed to prove that you did it?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Sorry, dudes, but you're sapping up the wrong outhouse. You can't prove what never happened—and besides, I have no reason to kill anypony in the first place. It'd be bad for business if I started doing that.”

“Now he's sayin' that he doesn't have a motive either.” Apple Bloom pouted. “This just keeps gettin' worse and worse.”

“But what about the one I made up?” Scootaloo asked.

Foolhatty shrugged. “Whatever, little faerie dude. This skit's all kinds of messed up anyways, so if you have something else to add it's not like it can get any weirder.”

“Yeah! Tell him why he killed Button Mash!” Sweetie Belle stomped on the ground.

Scribbling in his notebook, Foolhatty muttered to himself, “Oh, so that's his name...”

Hesitantly, Scootaloo took a step forward. “W-well, we did find him tied with string, kinda like one of your puppets. So, obviously, that means, well, um, it means...” She took a deep breath and fanned out her wings. “It means that you were performing a dark ritual to turn him into a puppet!”

He raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything as he wrote that down.

“Yeah! You were going to turn him into a puppet because, um, because ponies like playing with puppets!” Having found her groove, Scootaloo hopped and smacked her hooves together, buzzing her wings too. “That's right. With Button turned into a doll, you'd have the perfect template to make cheap, plastic knock-offs of, and sell them to every household in Equestria! What do you have to say about that!”

With a half deadpan, he slowly pointed a hoof at his wagon. “I sell hats, bro.”

“Oh. Oh, right. Heh-heh.” Scootaloo quickly backpedaled.

“Hey! Are you kids going to buy anything or not? We can't sit here all day!” One of the ponies in the gradually expanding line yelled. That one was a midnight blue unicorn who appeared to be hauling the results of a hay-bale-stacking contest. It too wobbled precariously, even when the wagon was standing still.

Apple Bloom bit her lip. “How much fer one of them fancy bows?” she asked.

“Ah, yes. The prized flowers of the element sisters.” Foolhatty caressed one like a cat. “They're absolutely priceless, but for you wacky faerie dudes, I could part with one for, say, forty bits.”

“Okay.” Rummaging in her mane, Apple Bloom pulled out some pocket lint and a moth, which flexed its wings a few times before fluttering off. She looked over her shoulder back at her friends. “Can I borrow some bits?”

“No! You can't—” Scootaloo scrunched up her face. “That's way too many bits. Why do you even want it, anyway?”

“I just do.” Apple Bloom stamped her hoof. “C'mon. Ah only need a few more.”

After tossing a few coins onto the small stage, Sweetie Belle pointed up at the hat rack on the left. “We'll take a beanie cap.”

Foolhatty picked up the coins, squinted at them closely, then dropped them individually to hear them ring. He nodded before scooping them off the stage into a pouch. Sweetie Belle grabbed the top cap with her magic and pulled it down.

“Hey. Why'd ya go and do that?” Apple Bloom frowned. “We don't need one of those.”

“Yes we do. We threw Button's old hat out the window, and he can't keep what he has on now.” Floating the headpiece in front of her, Sweetie Belle blew on the colored propeller. She nodded in satisfaction as it spun.

“And you don't need another bow. You already have a closet full of them,” Scootaloo added.

“Yeah but that one was special.” Apple Bloom sighed. “Ah really wanted a souvenir from Button Mash's killer too.”

“Uh, speaking of that...” Sweetie Belle bit her lip. “He's kinda packing up.”

Much to their surprise, the wagon folded down just as quickly as it had sprung up. Foolhatty was already hooking the harness back up when Scootaloo ran over. “Wait! You can't just leave!”

“And why not, little mint faerie?”

“Because you haven't taken the blame for Button Mash's death yet,” Scootaloo said.

“This still?” He snorted and shifted his weight, extricating himself from the harness so that he could point to an empty spot next to them. “Who did you say you were again?”

“We're the Cutie Mark Crusaders!” Apple Bloom declared.

Foolhatty nodded and pulled out his notebook again. He scribbled that down. “Well, little dudes, thanks to you all I have a brand new skit that I'll be performing for the whole town tonight.” He grinned and blew on the book, as if trying to clear of dust that wasn't there.

“Uh...” Sweetie Belle shuffled in place.

With a huge grin, he held it in the air before pivoting and stuffing it in his saddlebags. “I call it, The Death of Button Mash, by the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

“What!?” they practically yelped.

“Yep!” He nodded as he clicked himself back into his harness. “So long, bros. It's been weird.” And with that, he grunted and strained his ropes as the cart failed to move. Glaring back, he gave a swift kick to the block under the wheels and then his cart started lurching off. Finally clearing the way, there was an audible sigh from the many ponies stuck behind him. The Cutie Mark Crusaders sat there with their mouths open as many dubiously balanced wagons rolled past.

“Wow, we really messed that up,” Scootaloo said eventually.

“Gee, ya think?” Apple Bloom glared at her.

“Now what do we do?” Sweetie Belle asked. “We only have until tonight, and then the whole town will think we killed him!”

“Or sooner.” Scootaloo stuffed her hoof in Sweetie Belle's mouth. The townsponies walking along the street were starting to give them strange looks again. She grinned and waved.

“Actually, that whole play thing gives me an idea.” Apple Bloom tapped on her chin. “Yeah! Ah know just what to do!”

“Really?” The others asked. “What?”

“Uh... not here.” Apple Bloom blinked. One gray mare with a bubbly flank was giving them a death glare. A couple of sheepish grins and ten-point swan dives into the nearest bush later, she pulled her friends into a tight hug and whispered, “Sweetie Belle, I'll need lots of string. Scootaloo, gather some wood. Ah'll bring—” Apple Bloom nodded towards Button's deceased corpse. “—ya'know back to the clubhouse and get 'em cleaned off. Meet me as soon as ya can.”

“Okay.” Scootaloo nodded.

“Sure.” Sweetie Belle dropped the beanie cap on Button's head. “Cutie Mark Crusader Button's secret plot servants!”

“Ugh.” Scootlaoo winced.

“Why?” Apple Bloom moaned.