=====/===
“Excuse me your honor, Are we to actually believe this fable? I find it hard to believe that someone barely making a living selling pilfered goods could simply have a pile of gold bricks lying around.”

“Hey, he was just getting to the good part, where through mutual felonies we establish a lasting bond of friendship which eventually blossomed into a romantic encounter.”

“THAT LAST PART HAPPENED YOUR HONOR!” Double book shouted.

THWACK. Celestia gaveled yet again. “In the interest of time, please keep further interruptions to a minimum; and Pertinent, I shall be the judge of what is true or not, am I clear?” He nodded, his white coat turning a shade of embarrassing red. “Good. Now you may continue.”

Double Book took a sip of water before continuing.

==\/==

Darnit, that stupid featherbrain. I thought, walking down the street. The gold brick felt heavier and heavier on my back with each passing mile. “Why couldn’t he have just been honest in the first place! Why did he have to get me into this!” I shouted to nobody in particular. It was late in the afternoon now, everypony was either on their way home, eating out or off doing something that didn’t involve tracking down a birdbrain pegasus to beg for their patronage!

“Dangit.” I swore again. All I wanted to do today was finish my accounts and go home on time for once, was that so hard to ask for? I hung my head in defeat and kept walking, right into a brick wall.

“Looking for someone?” Somepony asked. I turned around and would have jumped if it were not for the gold. “YOU!”

The pegasus grinned from behind his stand. “And it's that guy from the bank with my bag on his back.” A pony interrupted our conversation by rushing up and plopping a pair of bits on the stand. “What can I do you for anyways?” He said to me as he served the pony.

“Um I’m here to tell you personally that after reviewing your financials, your loan has been approved!” I said.

He laughed while serving another customer. “I’m sure the brick of gold I left behind had nothing to do with it.”

I stuttered.

Yet another customer ran up to be served. “You know, I normally require someone to buy a drink before loitering.” He said.

I looked over his stand again. “Sure i’ll uh take whatever.” He poured a drink out from a keg and hoofed it to me. “So this is the um, what did you call it?”

“V-12, 12 fruits, vegetables and 1 special ingredient. Everypony loves it.” He said, hoofing me a cup. I stared at the orange liquid suspiciously. “Go ahead, try it.”

I took a sip. The explosive collage of flavors assaulted my tongue. Each individual ingredient added to the next.

“It's good isn’t it?” He asked.

“Um ya, its good.” I said, setting the cup down. I straightened my hat and grabbed the bag. “I um wanted to apologize on behalf of the bank of Goldenmane and Sacks for any improprieties on our part and to return the property you accidentally left behind.”

“You mean your boss sent you here to kiss ass.” He said, fiddling with something on his stand.

“However you want to put it Mr. um... Bojack.”

“Please, Mr. Bojack was my father, call me Bojack. Anyways, look I need an assistant tonight, come with me and tomorrow I’ll go to your bank and sign up for and pay whatever ridiculous fees you want.”

I needed to get his business at all costs, so I immediately agreed without giving it any second thoughts. “Sure I’ll help you out.” It's not like a juice stand is going to be that difficult to run anyways.

“Oh good, now go stand over there and look the other way, there's a constable coming.” Sure enough, one of the city’s constables was walking this way. his blue uniform and hat clearly visible in the evening light.

“Good evening officer!” he said, placing a small sack of bits on the countertop. “What can I do you for?”

He tossed a ball of paper at me. 'Right, go look the other way.’

They exchanged a few words and the officer was on his way, the sack of bits having gone missing in the process.

“Did you just bribe that constable?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t go using the B-word too loudly, I just accidentally gave him a lot of change with his drink. Look if everything goes to plan tonight that's the last time I’ll have to do this kind of thing.”

I frowned. Something felt wrong about all of this but I still couldn’t back out, not with all that was riding on this guy.

“So what do your butt-marks mean?” He said, attempting to make small talk.

I looked to the ledger on my flanks. “You mean my Cutie-mark?”

“Ya whatever. What’s it mean?” He said, packing up his stand. “Everypony’s got a story behind theirs, what’s yours mean?”

“It just means I’m good at math and book keeping and calculations. I discovered it one night looking over my parent’s taxes I spent all night audi-.”

“Pfff lame.” He interrupted. “Bet you can’t guess mine!” He said sticking his rump in the air in a very undignified manner. I looked, on either side of it were a single white snowflake.

“You’re a weather pony?” I guessed.

“Oh god no, I’m not allowed to fly more than 10 feet off the ground within the city limits, court order. No mine says I’m a special snowflake.”

'Did the guards hit this guy over the head on the way out?' I thought, staring at Bojack. “Are you sure that’s the only thing that means?”

“Oh ya I can also do this!”

POMF

I wiped snow from my face. “What the?”

POMF

“Huh, it never usually strikes twice.” I coughed as another snowball hit me square in the mouth sending me flying. Several more white frozen projectiles pounded me into submission.

“Aww it likes you alot.” He said, offering me a hoof after the barrage ceased.

“What even was that?!”

“I don’t know, it just happens sometimes.” He said, shrugging. “Anyways, you wanna see how I made that gold don’t you?” He said, strapping on the cart’s harness. “We’d better get a move on, we don’t wanna be late for tonight.”

==/==

I followed Bojack as he dragged his cart up town through the city, with him stopping at the most eclectic of stores and stalls, every odd ingredient was just explained with “We need this tonight.”

By the end of it all, one end of the ramshackle cart was stuffed with glass jars and wax bags full of unidentifiable ingredients, one in particular kept making me cringe. “Salted leech?” He said, presenting what looked like a shriveled black chip.

“No thanks.” I said politely. He did that wing shrug that pegasi do, and swallowed the salted insect.

“Ahh, thats good.” I gagged.

Finally as Celestia’s sun was lowering amongst the buildings he turned down an alleyway and parked his cart behind a rather unimpressive brick apartment building, the sort that were cheaply thrown up to meet the city’s booming population and often run by shoddy landlords.

“Home sweet hovel.” He joked as he pulled some of the reagents out of the back of the cart. “Oh fair warning, my roommate is a bit eccentric.”

As I followed him into the building, I couldn’t help but be nervous. Who could be even more eccentric than this guy?

We made our way up a flight of stairs to the second floor where he stopped by a door and pulled out a key. He opened the door and dodged to the right. A knife embedded itself in the door behind me. “Xanny!” He shouted in a surprisingly cheery voice. Another knife, another dodge. I took cover outside.

“GET OUT YOU BOO-YAK!” A strangely accented voice shouted from within.

“Xanny, what’s wrong?”

“YOU AND YOUR SO CALLED FRIENDS, I WANT YOU OUT AND NEVER COME BACK!” This time he threw a piece of cookware which shattered against the wall.

“Xanny, what happened?”

“Your friends came by looking for you, they said they wanted their money and they even went so far as to threaten to turn my stripes white!”

“Wait, does that mean you’re white with black stripes?” A dish went sailing by. “Ok I deserved that one but we’re tribe-brothers, we have to stick together, we have to look out for each other.”

“DON’T you use my people’s beliefs against me! You are no zebra! I want you out of my home, my life and I want nothing to do with you ever again!”

“Xanny, fine I’ll move out if that's what you really want.”

I peeked around the doorway. The inside of the small apartment had looked like a stormcloud had passed through it, with all the furniture overturned and everything pulled out and left on the floor. Standing in the kitchen area, was some kind of pony i’d only ever heard about. The pony called Xanny, was covered in an alternating pattern of black and white stripes with something vaguely resembling a cutie mark on his flank but was of the same colors as his coat.

“And who is this, another one of your friends?” He said, fixating on me.

“Xanny, meet… er what was it? Ledger Butt? No that wasn’t it, Spread Sheet? No…”

“Double Book.” I answered, rolling my eyes. “Accounts manager for Goldmane and Sacks Manehattan branch.”

“Ah so you have moved up in the world. Moved up from swindlers on the streets to swindlers in the banks!” Xanny said.

“Xanny, be nice. Double Book, this is Xanidus, a zebra and fellow tribe-brother.” Bojack said. “Look, Xanny, I have something to take care of tonight, but I promise by tomorrow I will have taken care of my other friends and I can even move out if you still want that.”

The zebra gave him a stern look. “Fine.” Turning to me, he said. “Whatever business you have with this pony, beware, he is not what he seems. Now unlike you, I have a faculty diner to attend.” He said storming out of the apartment.

“Zebras, you either love’em or hate’em.” Bojack said chuckling.

I still stood there spellshocked.

“SO anyways, we’ve got important work to do.” He said, taking even more ingredients out from his kitchen. “Well, come on, I can’t carry all of this.”

He shoved a pile of jars on the counter my way.
==\/==

Author's Note

Sorry, I didn't want this chapter to get so long so I broke it up once again.

Lightly edited, I probably will make another pass later on when I finish this chapter