PART(ie) Hard

“Have you seen this student?” asks Pinkie Pie, holding up a photo realistic sketch of Rarity to a student sitting on one of the many decorated cement picnic tables of the Canterlot Academy commons.

The student shakes his head and Pinkie Pie sighs dejectedly and shuffles her feet in the recently watered grass. As she walks, she stares at her picture, rubbing her chin and trying to think where Rarity could have possibly gone. It is while she thinks that her ears pick up nearby chatter, and she looks to the source and sees Team AVAS -minus Vinyl- underneath a fully bloomed tree's comfortable shade.

Adagio is going through her notebook, Aria is next to her, talking in her natural condescending tone, and Sonata plucking away the petals of a flower.

“Yes... No... Yes... No... Yes... No...” says Sonata absent mindedly.

“This is taking way too long,” says Aria. “Why are they waiting when its all... ready...”

Aria looks at Pinkie Pie, who is now right in front of the trio, smiling nervously with her Rarity drawing facing them. Adagio looks up from her book a second later, sneers, grabs Sonata's head and turns it so she is also facing Pinkie Pie.

“Can we help you?” asks Adagio.

“Yes, have you seen this student?” asks Pinkie Pie.

The trio looks at the picture and Sonata tilts her head slightly.

“Why are there sparkles surrounding her?” asks Sonata. “She's not a vampire is she?”

Adagio and Aria face palm and Pinkie Pie looks at her picture, scrunching her brows in scrutiny of the various pointed stars surrounding Rarity's head.

“No,” says Pinkie Pie, “she just has really great hair.”

Adagio leans away from the tree to point at a circular, two storied building with white brick, large windows, and a covered walkway ringing around it. In front of it is a fountain with rearing winged unicorns touching hoofs on a pedestal in its center, as well as the national and academy flags on an adjacent hill.

“I saw her heading to the Academy Center not too long ago,” says Adagio.

Pinkie Pie smiles and gives her a thumbs up. “Thank you! Love your hair, by the way!”

“Um... Thanks?”

“Bye!”

Pinkie Pie runs towards the Center, apologizing as she narrowly avoids running into Vinyl, who is carrying an arm full of Taco King bags. If Vinyl said anything, she didn't hear, and she apologizes again as she weaves between mingling students and when she pushes open the glass door she leave palm shaped cracks in her wake and screeches to a stop on the polished tile. A trail of rubber stretches from the bottom of her shoes all the way to the door and she meets the various confused and annoyed looks of the students and staff with wide eyes and red cheeks.

Pinkie Pie's head dips and she smiles with an embarrassed squee, then walks hastily through the brightly lit Center. She passes a bank, a bookstore, a food store, a tech shop, a small eating area -which she unfortunately sees Team DAFT with the radish head-, student aide, a few auditoriums, advertisements for an upcoming school dance, and a mostly wide open area with couches and chairs organized in squares with tables in the middle and a large projection on the wall displaying the news. “Faulty Structure and Gas Leak Tied To Mysterious Events” scrolls along the bottom bar while the anchor speaks, and next to him is a picture made up of a block of question marks.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie's eyes jerk left and right, and when she sees Rarity sitting in front of the projection, she bolts to her. Once at the couch she leaps over the top and lands next to Rarity with her hands cupping the back of her head and her legs stretched out on the table, one crossing over the other, and she smiles brightly.

“Hey, gorgeous, how you doing?” asks Pinkie Pie.

“Are you trying to lighten the mood?” asks Rarity.

“Yeah... Is it working?”

“No.”

Pinkie Pie sighs, puts her hands on her lap and pulls her legs off of the table. Her smile fades and her shoulders sag, too.

"Darn it," grumbles Pinkie Pie.

"Don't feel bad. It is not your fault. It is all on Trixie," says Rarity.

“That's actually something I wanted to talk about. I know you're mad at Trixie for that apology thing and she's mad at you for the racist thing, but this feud's gotta stop. It's been going for weeks and its not good for our team dynamic... stuff.”

Rarity glances at Pinkie Pie out of the corner of her eye. “Did you give Trixie the same lecture?”

“I was, but then I remembered last time one of us ran off-” Pinkie Pie looks around to make sure no one is near “-we kinda blew up a bunch of stuff and got hospitalized, so I wanted to find you before we landed in more hot water."

Rarity motions towards her sling. "What sort of trouble am I going to cause with this?"

"Limestone can tell you. She's a beast."

Rarity's eyebrow raises skeptically, but Pinkie Pie choses to ignore that. Instead, she hunches over, gripping the sides of her head and squeezing her eyes shut.

“To be honest, I'm surprised we aren't in prison for what I dragged us into,” says Pinkie Pie. "And I'm also surprised that you haven't sued me yet for messing up your arm."

Rarity shifts her body so her unbound hand can pat Pinkie Pie on the shoulder.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. None of us had any idea what was going to happen that night," says Rarity. "Besides, if I was afraid of physical pain I wouldn't be here."

Without looking up, Pinkie Pie shakes her head. "Still, I'm supposed to be a leader and I nearly got all of us killed, I messed up Flash's team, you and Trixie are still fighting, and Pinprick still hasn't shown up."

Rarity seethes. "Pinprick, yes... I don't see what he has to do with our team, but I'm certain he has very good reasons for not communicating with you."

Pinkie Pie sniffles, wipes the wetness from her eyes and looks up to see a cringing smile from Rarity. This prompts her to scrunch her brows and narrow her eyes suspiciously at her.

"What's with the weird smile?" asks Pinkie Pie.

"I always smile like this," replies Rarity.

"You hardly ever smile, which sucks because when you do smile a real smile it is nice." Pinkie Pie jabs her finger at Rarity. "But that smile is a fake smile, so you must be hiding something. Something big... Something important..."

Pinkie Pie hums and leans close to Rarity, stroking her chin, and Rarity leans back, having to use the couch for support. Pinkie Pie leans closer, her narrowed eyes focusing in on Rarity, and Rarity leans further back, lips hooked in a frown, brows wrinkled and her face tilted away just a bit. Pinkie Pie leans even closer now, forcing Rarity to lean against the arm of the couch, and Pinkie having to use one of her hands to hold on to her teammate's leg just so she can continue stroking her chin. With the advancement, beads of sweat trail down Rarity's face and Pinkie Pie can smell the mouth wash in her teammate's breath, but she still does not see what is being hidden from her, so she crawls further, putting herself on top of Rarity. With the two now nose to nose, chest pressed against chest, Pinkie Pie's hand on Rarity's good shoulder, the team leader hums louder and strokes her chin harder, regardless of the blush on Rarity's face or the passing looks of students.

"Pinkie, what are you doing!?" asks Rarity.

"Pinprick isn't secretly making a harem with you and me is he?" asks Pinkie Pie.

Rarity's lips warp into a disgusted sneer, and she looks away, shaking her head. "Your mind is in a disgusting gutter. Can you please get off of me?"

Pinkie Pie climbs off of Rarity and helps her sit up, brushing off invisible lint from her outfit before straightening out the skirt she is wearing. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees some students walking past them with flyers for the school dance, shaking their heads, but she pays no mind.

"Sorry about that," says Pinkie Pie, feeling a little hot in the face. "I just got carried away."

Rarity forces a cough and looks away. "Yes, I''m sure you did, and I would appreciate it if you didn't tell anybody about this oddness."

Pinkie Pie holds her hand to her eye. "Pinkie Promise. Now, about why I originally came to get you before you distracted me."

"What?" scoffs Rarity, snapping her wide eyes to Pinkie Pie. "How did I distract you?"

Pinkie Pie pulls out a random notebook and pen, flips it open to a blank page and leans against the couch arm with her legs squished against herself to create a makeshift. "What can I do as a leader to make you and Trixie get along? And what can I do as a leader to make your experience as a member of Team PART(ie) better?"

Rarity's eyes droop. "Well, for one, you can get rid of your emotional roller coaster and act like a normal human.”

“Oh, come on. I'm not that bad.”

“You're a manic, Pinkie.”

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"Oh, for goodness sake's, Pinkie, stop denying..."

Rarity's voice drifts off and her eyes fixate on the projection, prompting Pinkie Pie to have a looks see, as well. The anchor is still talking, but the picture of the question marks next to him has changed to a picture of gems.

“Gem merchants claim that the severity of the unexpected gem shortage is worse than originally estimated, causing panic in the local markets,” says the anchor. “Director of Commerce Laissez Faire is scheduled to hold a press conference to discuss the matter, but has advised the populace to remain calm. More after the break.”

Bombastic music plays as the camera pulls away from the anchor, and Pinkie Pie and Rarity slowly look at each other. Pinkie Pie is certain she just gained a brief telepathic ability because Rarity's thoughts are as clear as her own, and like a terrible found footage film, she remembers the day Discord robbed the gem shop and almost killed them at the pier. The pier which had a lot of empty containers and a lot of vehicles speeding away. This sparks a mental light bulb in Pinkie Pie's mental caverns, illuminating one simple phrase.

“Well, crap.”