Prime Delivery

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Door
Chapter 2: The Hammer
Chapter 3: The Elements
Chapter 4: The Princess
Chapter 5: The Order

Chapter 1: The Door

The door lands closed.

She instantly flattens herself against it, hyperventilating as she searches the room. The well-lit room, with nothing in it.

Finally, she lets herself slide down the door, seating herself on the floor, and forcibly calms her breathing. “Alright, Jake- er, Golden Locks- you got this. You’ve been awake for a whopping four hours, but have you seen anything pink?” She searches the room. “No. Not that pink at least. But that doesn’t mean anything: Has she seen you?”

She scrambles to her hooves and navigates quickly through her new home, double-checking all the doors and windows- and every little nook and cranny. She doesn’t find anything, and finally sneaks back into the entryway. “Nothing. Hopefully, she hasn’t.” She shudders. “... Kinda surprised, actually. I don’t think I saw a single one of them today… And I walked right through the middle of town.” She lets out a sigh, walking over to her bag. “With a strange bag hanging around my neck. Yet I made it all the way to the town hall and back, all without encountering a single one of them.” She shakes her head. “That’s… Unnatural.” She flips her bag’s strap up with one hoof, slinging it quickly over her neck, before glancing down at it. “Though, I suppose this is also unnatural. Now then, the kitchen. This…

“Oh. Um, good thing I thought to stop for food before I left town. I still think it’s suspicious to not see any of them after a good two hours in town.” She scowls at the dirt-encrusted sink she’d somehow not analyzed in her earlier pass through this room. “And the way the bank teller said I ‘looked creditworthy’ at a glance… There’s something I’m missing.” She shakes her head, leaning her odd bag against the wall before undoing the clasp on her saddlebags and slipping them off. She shuffles the contents around for a couple seconds before looking up sharply.

“I bet it’s a spell,” she states. “That teller was a unicorn. I didn’t see any glow, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t a spell involved.” She raises one hoof to touch her forehead… Or, the spear-like object sticking out of it. “I wonder if I can learn that spell…? Maybe someday, but not right now. Um… Oh, how am I going to earn money? Getting a loan is all well and good, but how am I going to pay it off? That spell will probably tell the tale if I default on it and hunt up another bank, no matter how well I disguise myself! Ugh…”

She hangs her head briefly, removing her hoof from her horn, and returns to her work in her saddlebags. “Anyways, I need to eat. I’ve got… Ah, I think I’ll have one of these. I’ve got a couple dozen of ‘em anyways…”

She lets out a sigh, using her teeth to open the preprepared meal and consuming it efficiently. “Ahh… Much better. I’ve got enough of these to last… What, a week? Then I’ll have to make another foray into town.” She shudders. “Unless… No, unless nothing. Anyways…” Leaving her saddlebags on the kitchen floor, she returns to her bag, once again slinging it over her neck. “Let’s see, the study was over there…”

She walks her way into the other room, stumbling only once, before she reaches the little desk in the corner. A quick glance into the bedroom as she passes tells her all she wants to know about the state of her bed. “Ugh, I’m going to be sleeping on the floor for the first little bit, I guess… Honestly, given how little this place cost, I’m lucky there even is a bed, I suppose.” She chuckles lightly. “At least it’s structurally sound… I think. I’ll have to get someone… er, somepony… in to look at it sometime.” She sighs, placing her bag on her new desk and pulling out a small, plastic rectangle. And a length of black plastic cord. She places the rectangle carefully on her desk and runs a hoof gently across it. “Honestly, I’m glad this place has electricity. Not very good electricity, mind, but at least it’s some… and you can handle the variations they have here.”

She smiles, slotting the cord into place with one hoof before using her mouth to pull the other end down to the enormous wall outlet… and dropping it. “Well, I don’t suppose I’ll be going that anytime soon- can’t plug it in… Oh well.” She returns to her chair, carefully prying the plastic rectangle open. The top half of it swings back on the other, right at the very edge of the rectangle, revealing a screen- very suddenly lit, with various startup procedures- and a keyboard.

Five minutes later, despite the thirty-second startup time on the device, she’s managed to log in.

“Ugh… I’m going to hate typing. At least walking was okay- I had only to think of it like walking on my hands and knees and boom- but if I have to use the tip of my horn to select each key every time…” She shudders.

Then facehooves.

And yelps.

“Ow! Owowowow… That hurt. Note to self, don’t facepalm… facehoof, I guess. Of course I won’t be horn-pecking the keyboard every time- at some point, I’ll learn to use the thing like every other unicorn does- and simply levitate the keys downwards or something! Ugh… I can’t wait. Anyways… Ooh, I’m glad this thing has a touchscreen. I’d be so screwed without it.” She chuckles; she’d touched her desired icon on the screen with the tip of her hoof and, unlike the physical keyboard, the touchscreen had been more than willing to localize the touch data to the exact point she’d actually intended. Much better than how the keyboard had eagerly generalized the press of her hoof on a single key to mean that key… and at least six others around it, resulting in her horn-pecking to type.

Then she raises an eyebrow, glancing across to the right side of the taskbar. “Wait a second… Why is that…?” She touches the symbol. “Connected… Internet access? Huh. I didn’t know ponies with basic electricity had both wifi and internet.” She pauses for a second. “And that my laptop knew how to connect to their network off the bat, as well… Interesting. Whelp, maybe next time, I guess. Um… Well then.” She reaches up to touch the URL bar on her favorite Web browser and, after spending a couple seconds activating her computer’s ‘tablet mode’ and pulling up the on-screen keyboard, punches in her desired URL in far less time than it had taken to punch in her Windows password.

smile.amazon.com

It rather helped that her browser remembers the page from her history- so she had only to push the ‘s’ key… and the ‘enter’ key.

She watches as the page loads up. The images… are definitely human, not pony, and she’s already verified that ‘human’ doesn’t seem to be a word in the locals’ vocabulary.

She chuckles, touches the search bar, and punches in her query. A little test; if she can reach her favorite e-commerce site from Equestria, can they still reach her? She glances down at the wall next to the desk, and the truly enormous electrical socket no human device would ever plug into. Seriously, even a 220-volt plug for a dryer- or electric range- would be smaller than THAT! … And while she’s on the topic, she’s pretty sure she’s seen entire electrical breaker boxes smaller than that single-socket fixture.

So she adds the result to her cart, picks out another item, and finally checks out.

She smiles to herself, after punching in her Equestrian address to the delivery section. Funny, it accepted it… Huh, whatever. Then she touches the ‘place order’ button. “Right then! In two days, I guess I’ll find out how they plan on getting two outlets and two outlet boxes to my doorstep… and if it’ll even work.” She rubs her hooves together. “Oooh, I hope I don’t get the UPS guy stuck in Equestria as well… What-? Low battery? Shoot!”

She closes out of the browser and goes through the motions of turning the laptop off. “I think I’m going to need those parts sooner than I thought,” she states. Then tilts her head. “I wonder who I can get to install them for me…?”

She snorts. “Like they’re even going to get here. I know Derpy is supposed to be a mailmare, but last I checked, mail is usually sent by dragonfire or something of the like! I…” She looks at the closed laptop. “I wish I could watch the tracking details as it comes… but I’m not going to get very far on a dead battery. Um…” She glances out the window, then hops off her stool. “I wonder what kind of trouble I can get into- without running into… Her?”

She trots to her front door, stepping out, and makes sure to lock it behind her before looking up and down the deserted road. Pretty typical; the dilapidated home she’s acquired isn’t even in Ponyville, even though its address labels it as in town.

She looks steadily down the road towards town… and the inevitable ‘welcome to Ponyville party’ she’s been working her hardest to prevent. Then she looks in the other direction. After a shrug, she sets off. Perhaps…

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Sled Racers!”

“There ain’t no way that’s gonna end well,” she states outright. Then she tilts her head. “Though, I wonder if they’ll take a fourth contender…?”

As it would turn out, they wouldn’t- if only because they didn’t have a fourth sled for her to use. But they did appreciate her help in coordinating their start; Scootaloo won outright, shortly before slamming into the huge pile of snow she’d insisted they have at the bottom of the track, in front of the trees. It had taken only one mention of how much it would hurt if they happened to overshoot the end of the track without such a hill before they set about building it.

Applebloom is a close second, but Sweetie Belle fell off her sled shortly after takeoff; her unattended sled slips off the track halfway down and, shortly after the other two hit the hill, passes next to the hill… to fragment apart against a tree.

She looks down at Sweetie Belle, standing next to her; she just helped pull the filly out of the snowbank she’d managed to bury herself in. “Good thing you weren’t on it, eh?”

Sweetie Belle nods slowly. “... and a good thing you had us build that mound.”

She nods solemnly. “Though they might need help getting out of it… Hmm, and with that speed, Scootaloo might have her Mark, even.”

She then has to canter- thank Celestia that’s not much harder than walking- to keep up with the unicorn filly. When they reach the bottom, true to her word, the other two- Scootaloo in particular- need help getting out of the hill. By the time the two finish extricating Scootaloo, Applebloom needs only a little tug to finish her extrication, her earth pony strength having contributed enormously to her self-extrication ability.

Neither of the two have their cutie marks. After the quick round of disappointment, and a good few minutes extracting the surviving sleds from the mound, the question comes up: What does her cutie mark mean?

She blinks; back when she’d first gotten here, it hadn’t even registered she had a cutie mark. Or that she might have one. As a matter of fact, she’d come up with her pony name based on the color of the hair that had fallen down in front of her eyes when she had been busy convincing her hands-and-knees gait to look natural. All of which, of course, was after she’d discovered the other problem.

After all, in her previous life, she’s pretty sure she wasn’t a she.

But now, the cutie mark problem has arisen. “Uh,” she begins, and turns to look at it. Then she blinks, and smiles- how perfect a representation of her past life’s passion! “It means I’m good with computers,” she states simply, turning back towards the fillies.

“Computers?” Scootaloo asks. “What’s that?”

She shrugs. “It’s… a device that does all the hard thinking for you, I suppose.”

“Really?” Sweetie Belle asks, tilting her head inquisitively.

“How’d ya get it?” Applebloom asks.

She tilts her head, glancing back at it. “Honestly, I didn’t notice when it appeared.” She smiles at them. “The thing is, sometimes, you have to be smarter than the computer. Sounds like an easy thing to do- until you realize it can compute the exact distance it is from something by making a noise and listening to the echo. That it can find the square root of every number from zero to a billion in about a second- you try doing that.

“In many ways, the computer can think far faster than we can- yet many times, I still have to outsmart it. I think my Mark appeared the first time I successfully outsmarted it.” She shrugs, then chuckles at the three fillies dumbstruck expressions. She finds herself wondering if she hasn’t just caused a future cry of ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders Square Root Calculators’. Oh, and it would even rhyme- possibly triggering ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders Poetry Rhymers!’... which would rhyme, but wouldn’t match quite as well.

The door lands closed.

She instantly flattens herself against it, hyperventilating as she searches the room. The well-lit room, with nothing in it.

Then she lets out a breath, calming herself quickly, and sweeps a forehoof across her forehead. “Whe-Aaah! Note to self, be wary of horn. Those Crusaders really can be a hoof-full… But hey, it sure ate up time. It’s time for dinner and bed, I believe.”

Author's Note

No, I'm not going to try a serious fic with a premise like this. That'd be... impossible. For me; I'm still not very good with slice of life.

Chapter 2: The Hammer

The door lands closed.

She instantly flattens herself against it, hyperventilating as she searches the room. The well-lit room, with nothing in it.

Then she lets out a breath, calming herself quickly, and sweeps a forehoof across her forehead- just below the level of her horn. “Whew! And I thought the Crusaders were a hoof-full!” She lets out a sigh, looking cross-eyed up at the tip of her own horn. “Turns out I’m a little more of one. Ugh… But hey, at least I’ve figured out basic levitation.” She shudders. “At the expense of… Oh, what’s the total? Something like half a forest and at least a hundred Diamond Dogs? I hope they don’t send me the bill; I doubt I could pay it.”

She stops at the door. It’s the morning of the second day.

She pulls her horn sternly away from the door. “No, no you’re not. You’re going to scrub your house clean today… Uh, maybe? I guess I don’t have any cleaning supplies… Drat. Maybe I’ll make them… Nope, not happening. I’m going to have to go into town today, aren’t I?” She looks around for a second, and turns back towards the door, unlocking and opening it with her magic.

“GAAH!”

And leaping backwards at least ten feet, catching similar airtime, at the appearance at the door. Three sets of eyes blink innocently; one hoof, poised to knock, returns to the step.

She steps back forwards, returning to the door. “Sorry, uh… What brings you three up here?”

Applebloom shrugs. “Well, after the help you gave us on Monday with trying for our sledding cutie marks, we thought we might try helping you.”

“Helping me?”

“Yes,” Scootaloo states, like it’s obvious.

Sweetie Belle takes one look at the room behind the older unicorn. “Maybe some help cleaning?” She looks at the other two. “We haven’t tried for our cleaning cutie marks yet, have we?”

She raises an eyebrow. The scene playing out in front of her seems… Unnatural, to her. She might even label it out-of-character.

“Uh, how many buckets?”

“Buckets?” Sweetie Belle asks, looking startled.

Applebloom scowls briefly before pulling them into view, from where they had apparently been waiting against the outside wall of the house. “Four.”

She smiles. Especially after Monday, she can definitely see this going well… Or poorly. She’ll have to make sure it’s the former. She puts on a wide smile. “Let’s do this! What is it, Cutie Mark Crusaders…?” She holds out her forehoof.

The gleam in their eyes could outshine Celestia’s sun. “Cutie Mark Crusaders House Cleaners!”

She glances up at the waterproof laptop bag once again, resting solemnly on her desk, protecting the sensitive electronic device inside. She smiles to herself; if that were working, she could…

Oh wait! One of the things she’d done yesterday was to return to her original waking site and retrieve the other object that had come with her. She’d done it late in the day- and has yet to find out if its exposure to the snow damaged it. She looks down, under the desk, at where it rests on the floor… and reaches out with one gentle prod of magic, to touch the power button.

The red light comes on, with a pop and a hiss. It starts making a few other noises as well.

She puts on a wide grin, lifting it into the air with her magic- the thing is heavy, weighing as much as one of the fillies, she’s pretty sure- and carting it out to the kitchen, where she places it on the grimy counter.

Applebloom looks up at it as she does so. “What’s that?”

She turns one of the wheels on the top, watching the text changing on the un-backlit display. Oh, how much she wishes she had a proper power outlet to plug it into. “This? Oh, it’s just a little something cheerful.”

Sweetie Belle looks up at it. “Cheerful?” she asks. “That looks more… uh, what’s the word…”

“Powerful?” she offers, pushing at one of the buttons a few times.

Tilt. “Yeah, that works. So…?”

She smiles, and touches one last button. “Well, my noisemaker here is about as old as I am…”

Then the music starts.

“Woohoo!” Three fillies cheer, slapping their hooves together.

Together with an adult’s hoof, that is- probably a first, for them.

“Yeah!” Golden Locks agrees. “Good work, thank you! Um- Oh?”

A solid knock is heard at the front door, and the sound of hooves leaving the walk.

“Who’s knocking…?” She trots over to the door, pulling it open… to find nopony. At all. She looks both ways up the road… Still nopony.

Then she looks down.

She picks it up.

“I… I didn’t know UPS delivered in Equestria,” she states, bringing the yellow paper-and-bubble-wrap package into her home and closing the door.

Three fillies, standing in the door to the kitchen, tilt their heads at it.

“What’s that?” Applebloom asks.

She smiles, telekinetically ripping the top of the package open and removing the contents… and stuffing the packaging into the tiny, dilapidated trash can she’d discovered shortly after she moved in. She looks up at the three Crusaders. “Alright,” she states. “Who’s got a number two phillips screwdriver, who’s got a hammer, and who wants to turn off the power?” She flips the package around to show them what’s in it.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Carpenters!”

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Electricians!”

“Yea-hah! Awesome job, Crusaders!”

As it turns out, she decides, all the Crusaders need is a little guidance and their destructive propensity to try everything can be converted into a very powerful constructive energy. With their able (and carefully guided) help, she just replaced the giant, ugly-looking electrical socket in the wall behind her desk with a small, dainty little one, complete with USB charging slots. Not that she expects to ever use them, but who knows? She might… Oh, get a phone. Or tablet. Or… Or any number of other products possibly charged by USB. Like… Just about any small device intended for use with a computer, like a headset, wireless mouse, keyboard… And so on.

She might need to get a hub as well.

Or another outlet.

The other outlet she had ordered- a GFI socket- they installed behind her fridge… Or at least, what had been behind her fridge. The named appliance is currently sitting in the backyard, awaiting recycling; the compressor pump caught fire when they tried plugging it in earlier. Oh well; if Amazon could ship her an outlet, chances are they can ship her a fridge, as well. She does remember that positive testimony video about the couple living on an island only reachable by propeller plane… that Amazon still got a washer and a dryer to, on two day shipping no less.

What’s more, the fillies don’t seem to have a clue what ‘Amazon dot com’ could be, nor what UPS might possibly be. Even when she showed them the shipping label, showing it had been delivered by UPS Second Day Air, they still didn’t recognize it.

Perhaps the only disappointing part of the installation was that none of the three got their Cutie Marks. While she would have been disappointed had one gotten a Mark while cleaning her house, a carpenter or electrician mark would be a splendid mark to have. Most people don’t have easy tickets into the skilled trades.

But now… It’s time for the Crusaders to enjoy a little of the fruits of their labor. She breaks out her laptop, setting it carefully onto the desk.

Like the boom box she’d introduced them to earlier- they’d taken to it like a fish to water, singing along with every song- it is first greeted by a row of tilted heads and a “Huh? What’s that?”

Without answering, she pulls out the power cord next, using her magic to slot one end into the side of the machine- right where it belongs- and the other end to stick it into the wall outlet.

“Oh,” Sweetie Belle nods. “That makes sense. I was wondering why the sockets were so small.”

Then she looks over to them, using her magic to- very gently- lift the screen.

It lights up.

Like it always does; some setting or another, she thinks. It automatically boots itself when she lifts the screen, removing the necessity of pushing the power button.

Three fillies gasp.

“This,” she smiles, “is a computer.” She glances at it. “It’s… Very delicate technology. I was thinking, though…” She chuckles, watching their expressions. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees it’s reached the login screen; a flurry of magic across the keyboard corrects this quickly, sending it straight to the desktop.

Then, the fillies watching with silent intensity, she pops open the web browser… By touching the symbol on the screen. Magic sure makes the keyboard a zillion times easier to use, but it doesn’t seem to work with touch screens. Or touch pads.

Meh.

She touches the URL bar, pushes the S key, and hits the Enter key. Then she turns to smile innocently at the three fillies. “This, Crusaders, is Amazon, dot com.” She glances at the computer. “Where I can buy anything… Well, almost anything; there’s a few things Amazon doesn’t have, but there aren’t very many.” She chuckles.

“Uh…” Scootaloo mumbles.

“Wait, is that a store someplace?” Sweetie Belle asks.

She shakes her head. “No. This is the only way one can reach- and order stuff- from Amazon.”

Nod. “And you got those outlets from Amazon?”

Nod. “I’m liking that thought,” she states.

Sweetie smiles. “Can we help?”

Shrug. “I’d have to make sure I can actually get the money to them first… But if that works, absolutely!”

Nod. “Please do!”

Five minutes and a bank login later, it turns out her loan from the Ponyville Bank shows up on her previous bank’s site. She’s got some rather significant debt on a credit card to deal with- to be specific, the card she’d used to order the outlets- but…

She tilts her head. If the loan carried over, a bank deposit should too… Problem solved.

She logs out.

“Right then, we can do this.” She smiles. “I’ll handle the financial side of things- who wants to fetch our first order?”

She spends the fifteen minutes or so it takes the Crusaders to find something hunting up something for herself. A fridge, a new range as well… Along with the 220 socket to plug the thing in. She’d confirmed, during her exploration of her home’s wiring with the Crusaders, that the circuit does exist there as a 220, just the socket is… Well, she could almost drive a truck through it.

In the end, the end result is Big Mac. His hammer broke yesterday- and none of the stores in town have a viable replacement. They’d caught him just before he’d placed an order with some Equestrian company- based out of Baltimare, it would seem- to acquire a shiny new claw hammer… for the price of only sixty bits. She’d almost balked at it, before getting some specification. Apparently, he was willing to spend up to a hundred bits on that hammer, so long as it got to the farm within the next week or so; that Baltimare company would have it out in two weeks at the earliest.

Then, she’d punched in a quick search on Amazon… and found a nice, forged steel claw hammer. Fancy handle, good reviews, even twenty ounces… and that little magnetic nail thingy on the tip should easily exceed anything Big Mac might expect from any Equestrian hammer.

What’s more, she’d found it for only twenty bucks… on Prime two-day shipping.

Judging by the numbers she’d found on that bank’s website, one bit equals one dollar.

So she tacks on a ten percent markup- for her own and the Crusaders’ profit, of course- and orders it for him at that price. Two dollars isn’t much- but if her prediction holds out and this ends up being the beginning of an enormous explosion in ordering, she’ll be reducing her markup fairly soon. Probably down to one percent. Or even lower, depending.

Chapter 3: The Elements

The door lands closed.

She instantly flattens herself against it, hyperventilating as she searches the room. The well-lit room, with nothing in it.

Then she relaxes, and even laughs at herself. She’s been living hear an entire week and she’s still afraid her welcome party will crop up someplace.

Big Mac’s new hammer was an amazing hit. She’d delivered it herself, still inside the packaging; the Crusaders didn’t know their address for a normal delivery.

Big Mac had taken one look at the yellow package and raised his eyebrow. Granny Smith had taken one glance and started mumbling something she hadn’t caught.

Then Applebloom had made it into the room and, ahead of her sister, had raced to the package and shredded it open in midair.

That had been… messy. Good thing she’d still had the package held in her magic, though- the shredded fragments were, by necessity, still encased in her magic, making cleanup easy.

Then the hammer had fallen out. Applebloom had splintered open its inner package during her blaze, so it was just the hammer, no extra tags, plastic, or anything, head-first.

The hammer had hit the floor with a solid thud and fallen over, the handle bouncing slightly on the hardwood floor. She’d raised the packaging in her magic, scowling down at Applebloom. “You know, there’s a cleaner, safer way to do that,” she’d stated.

Applebloom had accepted the berating calmly, even as Big Mac walked over to look at the hammer. He had then picked it up, and tested it.

“ ‘S good,” he’d said, before heading out to give it a trial run.

That had been Friday. Now, it’s Monday, and the Apple family has a new barn. Two of them.

And according to Applejack when she came by half an hour ago, he’s practically gushing about how nice a hammer it is. She’d placed an order of her own; some of the buckets she uses for her Applebucking are starting to break apart. She’d specified dimensions and, a quick search later, they’re on their way.

Of course, that had only been after she’d noticed the packaged fridge on her front porch, helped her unpack it, and even helped get it into place. Something about being friends with Rarity long enough… So she’d zeroed her markup on Applejack’s order in thanks. She hadn’t told her; the mare had refused payment for helping with the fridge when she’d offered.

Now, of course, the Element of Generosity herself just left her humble abode.

She’s rather surprised there hadn’t been any panic attacks nor mention of new dresses for her. Though, in light of the two-day delivery on a twenty-but-aught-to-be-hundreds-of-bits hammer, she’d been interested to know what that kind of thing might do for her boutique.

Two sewing machines, eighteen packages of needles, an entire wall worth of thread, and enough fabric to build a bridge to Canterlot.

That’d been her order. All very specific; very few items had a quantity over five. She’d been amazed by the low prices; apparently, Equestrian prices- especially for textiles, since those are apparently hard to make- are ridiculously high by comparison. The entire order, she’d stated, cost her about as much as a single Equestrian sewing machine… or just thirty bolts of cotton cloth.

Yet, with that same, single order, she’d single-hoofedly paid off the loan she’d taken out to get this house… and most of her credit card. And she’d only marked it up by one percent, and was only keeping half her profits for herself- no, the Crusaders got to enjoy the other half, as thanks for their ongoing advertising efforts. She’d had to have Amazon pull directly from her checking account for that order; the total was several times the size of the credit limit on her card.

She can only hope the Ponyville Party Planning Pony doesn’t come looking for a new party cannon; she’s pretty sure Amazon doesn’t carry things like that. She shakes herself, unleashing a chuckle- Amazon has everything, why wouldn’t they have a magical device that doesn’t exist in their home dimension? She trots over to her laptop, and punches in a search.

And facehooves. Of course Amazon has it. For only nine ninety-nine, ninety-nine, to boot.

Some banging sounds on her door. She glances over and heads over to open it.

FzzzzPOW!

The confetti-layered party pony outside looks down at her party cannon, whose tip just burst outwards in a spectacular failure. A spectacular failure that completely failed to get any confetti into her house, though.

Pinkie sighs, brushing the confetti out of her mane and hiding the failed cannon in the pile of it. “Sorry! I thought I missed your Welcome to Ponyville party, but then you’re not really in ponyville, but then Big Mac has this new hammer and he said you’re making a business out of it, so I thought I’d throw a launch party, then…” She trails off for a second, looking at the pile next to her, before she looks back forwards. “Do you sell party cannons, by any chance?”

She glances back towards her study. “Uh, yes, actually… A thousand and ten bits apiece, two day shipping.” She looks down at the pile. “How about we plan to have that party Wednesday evening, at Sugarcube Corner?”

After all, it’s not the party she doesn’t want- it’s the surprise party.

“Yepperoni!” Pinkie promptly hoofs over some bits.

“Is that…?”

“Two thousand, twenty bits? Absolutely! My backup went kablooey last week, and it takes a year for me to make each one! So, two party cannons, please! Oh, and, here’s my address.” She pulls a note out of her mane, offering it.

She accepts it alongside the bits, and salutes. “Roger that!”

Half an hour later, the party cannons are on their way when her doorbell rings again.

It’s the Element of Loyalty. “Hey, I hear you’re doing some kind of sale thing here?”

Nod. “Yes… Did you need something?”

“Uh, yes. Do you happen to have the latest Daring Do book? It’s due for publication tomorrow, but even Twilight can’t get a copy for two weeks…”

She scowls. “Hmm… Lemme check. You know what it’s called?” She leads the pegasus in, to her laptop.

Of course, Amazon carries it. It’s on pre-order, though, like any other not-yet-published book. She places the order- apparently, it cost around half as much as Twilight is paying for the book alone, not counting shipping- with Rainbow’s cloud mansion address and finally confirms. “Ahh… Looks like you can expect it to show on Thursday, but we can’t be certain just yet.” She smiles at Rainbow. “It hasn’t arrived in the warehouse just yet.”

Nod, and she leaves.

Not five minutes pass before a dainty little knock comes from her door. She opens it gently; had Rarity come back, or is this somepony gentle?

As it turns out, it’s the latter. Fluttershy flinches backwards. “Hi…” She squeaks.

She smiles. “Hello, Fluttershy. Did you need something?”

A faint nod.

“No problemo! Do you know what it is?”

Another nod.

“Uh…”

A tiny smile breaks across her muzzle before she opens her mouth again, barely squeaking out the names of the items she needs.

It takes almost twenty minutes to process that order. She’s looking for a good bed for a few of her animals, a good flea solution for some of her pets (seems ponies don’t get fleas, interesting), and at a few other items related to her animal friends’ care. Like brushes. The hard part was that Fluttershy refused to come in… Well, not-so-hard part. Her laptop’s four-hour battery life came in handy.

Finally, the door closes, and she returns the laptop to the desk- and charger… before returning to the entryway to sit on the floor. Her little business is turning out amazingly… and, unless she misses her guess, she only needs one more pony to complete the Elements of Harmony: Princess Twilight Sparkle… Though, she didn’t see the Castle of Friendship, so she supposes she might not be a princess yet, either.

The door doesn’t move.

Until dinner time, but that’s because she’d like to get something from in town someplace; she’s getting tired of the instant meals she’s been having.

Author's Note

... And no, the real amazon doesn't carry Pinkie's party cannons. Yes, I looked.

I was hoping...

Chapter 4: The Princess

Pinkie’s party is a huge success. Especially since she opened it by tapping the ends of two giant Amazon boxes, the result being that the party cannons unpacked themselves with blasts of party decor. Apparently, they had seemed to simply appear in Sugarcube Corner’s receiving area between times she checked it. Since she had been, reportedly, checking it every twenty-seven and a half seconds, that would seem to be quite the feat by the delivery crew. She’d been puzzled by the UPS shipping labels, but hadn’t dwelt on it. Brand-new party cannons, brand-new…

Rarity had shown up for the party late, reporting that everything had arrived. She’d only just finished putting it all away- and she can’t wait to get started.

Applejack and Fluttershy had been quiet, with no more than a statement that it had arrived on schedule- and been exactly what they expected.

Two hours later, Rainbow bursts into the room, showing off a new book. “It arrived early!” she screams, for the whole room to hear.

“What?” Twilight asks… Yes, it’s Princess Twilight.

She then stuffs the latest Daring Do novel, officially published just yesterday, in Twilight’s face. “It just arrived!”

The previous day, she’d gotten a couple random background ponies coming in to make small orders, referred by the Crusaders. Good to hear they’re being effective.

Today, she’s also had a tiny trickle. The night comes uneventfully.

Then the morning starts.

First in line is Princess Twilight. It’s a good thing she’d thought to order an extension cord on Monday, after Fluttershy’s order; it reaches the power to her laptop by the front door while she works her way through the long, long line of ponies waiting to place orders. After Pinkie’s, Rainbow’s, and Rarity’s flaunted successes, everypony wants to try.

But again, first in line is Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Several hundred thaumic resonance coils, a half ton of wiring, an entire pallet of pens, several three-quarter-ton rolls of sheetmetal, including one of each type she could think of…

The list goes on. At the very bottom of the list, of course, is a 3.7GW-rated arc reactor.

It’s a good thing Twilight has the bits required for the purchase. She cuts her markup for that order down to a hundredth of a percent.

She’s still wondering where even a Princess might have gotten eighty million bits.

But then, she gets to the second pony… person… whatever in line.

Discord.

He seems determined to find something she doesn’t carry- but everything he asks for, she finds. Even the stuff she wouldn’t normally have expected- like a gentle breeze. She actually asks if he could record the delivery on video- she’s curious exactly how they plan on delivering a breeze, a waterfall, or that other thing, 793.41 Newtons.

His bill is also in the millions- but she’s utterly unsurprised both by his possession of over half a billion bits and his ability to shove them into her bank account with the snap of his fingers.

The rest of her customers have much, much smaller orders- and it takes all day to get through everypony.

So she tickers in and orders a few things for herself. With today’s profits totaling close to sixty thousand bits, even after the fifty-fifty profitshare with the Crusaders, she’s got plenty to acquire a few things to help the ordering process go smoother.

Saturday. Everything arrives.

Most ponies simply find packages sitting on their doorstep.

Twilight comes to the door of the library, just past noon, to answer the knock.

A unicorn, wearing some kind of sparking red-and-gold metal armor, offers her a paperless clipboard thingy with lots of buttons on it and an attached inkless pen. “I’m going to need you to sign for the delivery,” he states.

So she signs for it. And refrains from examining the clipboard, much like she’d refrained from examining Golden Locks’ ‘computer’.

He steps back, holding out one hoof to the side. “There’s most of your order… But the arc reactor. Where do you want us to build it?”

She takes one glance at the stacked shipping containers before smiling at him. “Just outside of town, please. Can I show you?”

“Yes please.” He then takes off, riding some kind of fire coming from his hooves; she takes to the air on her wings and flies to her target land: The land she’d acquired for the purpose just last night. She lands in front of it, and holds out her hoof. “Right here, please.”

He nods, and punches a button.

Golden Locks pauses on her way past, watching the spectacle.

A flurry of activity- banging, crunching, rumbling, hissing, sparking, everything, sounds from the cloud of motion that is that plot of land for about five seconds… before the reactor is completely built. A bulldozer is spotted backing away from it, fading into nothingness as its beeper also fades out.

Twilight’s jaw drops.

“Wait,” Golden Locks states. “Did that dozer have ‘Stark Construction’ written on it?”

With a deep, momentary rumble, the reactor comes on.

Author's Note

This makes the end of what I have currently written... Chap. 5 might very well be the last one.

Chapter 5: The Order

Monday.

She lets out a groan as she punches in a number of orders to Amazon. She’s been so busy these last few days, she’s a millionaire already… and has hardly been in Equestria for two weeks!

Of course, Princess Celestia is planning on stopping by today. She heard from somepony who heard from their brother who heard from the Guard who heard from his brother who heard from the Manehattan City Council that heard from… She’s not sure from there, but the information is indisputable. If only because she asked the local Princess.

Ten minutes after her door is closed, she hears a distinctive crash just outside- then her door shudders. She steps towards it, preparing her magic for a fight as she pops the latch.

Discord falls in, and promptly hits the floor with a crash, struggling with something she can’t see. She blinks, relaxing her magic. “Oh hey. How’d it go?”

“Well,” he mumbles. “The breeze is nice, and the waterfall looks excellent coming off the banister, but, uh…”

“Having some trouble with the Newtons?”

“Why, yes. Is there a way to, um… stop them, perhaps?”

“Um… We can try returning them. Just a sec.” She flips her laptop open once again, navigates to Amazon. A couple clicks and a quick search later, she’s located the order. “Right then. Returning the Newtons… Reason?”

He glances at her screen from the floor. “Uh, don’t want it anymore?”

“That works,” she states, selecting the reason code and punching next.

A couple screens later, Discord stands up. “Whew! Now, I’ve got some ideas for next time.”

“Ahh… Um, there’s a refund of thirty-six thousand bits, so-”

“Nah, go ahead and keep it. What else have you got?”

“Uh… Anything. Like, literally anything, apparently.” She smiles at him. “Personally, I’m rather curious what Princess Celestia plans on buying.”

“Oh? Hmm… I think I’ll wait on my next order, then.”

“Wha-? Huh… Um, ‘Due to the size of your order, we are not able to offer our normal two-day shipping speed. The fastest we can get your order to you is Thursday afternoon, in three days’ time.” She looks up at Princess Celestia. “First time I’ve seen that, I’ll admit.”

“Uh… ‘Unfortunately, this is a unique item. We cannot ship more than one because only one exists in the universe.” She looks up at Princess Luna. “Well, we can’t get a dozen of those, but there’s probably something similar that we can…”

“Wha-? Oh, this again… No, wait. ‘Due to the size of your order, we are not able to offer our normal two-day shipping speed. The fastest we can get your order to you is Friday afternoon, in four days’ time.” She looks up at Luna. “Are you completely sure you want to order that?”

Thursday. Celestia’s order arrives.

Golden Locks is in Canterlot to witness it.

Three Helicarrier-sized cargo planes, loaded full of stuff. Most of it goes into storage; even Celestia is surprised to learn that, thanks to the quantities she’d ordered an entire one of those planes was stuffed chock full of confectionary delights.

Friday. Luna’s order arrives.