Gallus and Sandbar waved Yona, Smolder, Silverstream and Ocellus goodbye as they left the Clubhouse and went to the Spa trip that Silverstream’s parents had paid for as a Hearth’s Warming gift.
“Have fun!” Silverstream called back to them before they took a turn out of view, leaving Sandbar to look to Gallus.
“So, ready to make this place look better than town square does?” Sandbar eagerly asked.
Gallus groaned. “How’d we end up being the ones to decorate while they all get to go ‘have fun’?” He grouched.
“Wasn’t it your idea to pull straws?”
“And I regret that so much.” Gallus drolled out, flopping to the ground “It’s gonna take so long…”
Sandbar dragged him inside, shutting the door behind them. “Maybe with that attitude, but we can get it all done before the girls get back. You just gotta believe it.”
Gallus snorted at that, before sighing a few seconds later and grabbing a nearby box of decorations.
“Fine… Where do we start?”
A loud knocking at the door caught the duo’s attention, causing Gallus to slip off his ladder and crash to the floor.
“Ow…”He groaned as he got up, rubbing his head while Sandbar went to the door.
As he picked up a box of decorations that fell, Gallus heard the door open and a gasp from Sandbar.
“Uhhh… Discord? What are you doing here?” Sanbar nervously asked as Gallus quickly popped up behind him.
The mismatched being slithered his way around the door with a sizzle, pulling some cameras out of his ear as he waltzed to the wall. “Just getting ready for the show, I can’t wait to see what happens this week!”
“Wait, what show?” Gallus tilted his head, confused.
“Spoilers!” He said as he finished nailing some cameras down to a wall, “Can’t ruin the fun before it starts, and I like mine Well Done.” Satisfied with his work, he patted off some dust from his hands, which blew away out the door, “Time for some popcorn!”
With a snap, Discord was gone, leaving Gallus and Sandbar confused.
“You know that Chaos survival pack Headmaster Twilight had us bring here?”
Gallus nodded. “The big purple box of doom? Yes.”
“I think we might need to open it.”
Gallus rolled his eyes. “Ya think?”
After setting up all the magic wards Twilight had put in the box and bringing the first aid kits in it to the main room, they started setting up more of the colorful decorations, albeit with more caution.
“What do you think’s gonna happen?” Sandbar called out as he set up some festive birds on the walls.
“I think he’s just pranking us!” Gallus started putting up ribbons and tinsel on the walls, “He’s gonna get us all worked up and worried while he watches through these things.” He said, hitting one of the cameras.
“I don’t know, he doesn’t come around for nothing that much. Doesn’t he usually spend his time with Miss Fluttershy?”
“Who cares? He’s just trying to get a rise out of us.” Finishing with the tinsel, he started pinning wreaths to the walls, “C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Sandbar gave Gallus a raised eyebrow, “Didn’t miss Pinkie tell us not to- Woah!” He was cut off by a rumble going through the building, knocking him off his hooves and a majority of the decorations off the walls.
Gallus’ squawk of indignation was heard as the rumbling subsided, Sandbar dizzily getting up. “I just did all that!”
“We better see what that was!” Sandbar charged through the door, a grumpy Gallus on his tail as they looked around the clubhouse to find the source, only to see a winded Applejack and Big Mac panting outside as they caught their breath, the ground torn up and trampled into small hoof prints all over.
“Gosh darnit! Them Varmints are harder to wrangle than a fox with a thorn in his paw!”
“Eeyup….” Big Mac agreed, still panting.
“Miss Applejack? What’s going on?” Sandbar asked as he and Gallus walked up to the duo.
Applejack let out a groan of exhaustion as she stood straight to answer, “The Crusaders decided ta try an’ make some science projects fer school, an’ scared the whole herd of pigs into a stampede. We’re trying ta catch ‘em, but…”
“Is there anyway we can help?”
“Wait, hold on!” Gallus quickly pulled Sandbar to the side, “We need to finish decorating the clubhouse, remember? Catching those pigs could take all day!”
“Well… I could finish decorating by myself while you help them look?” Sandbar tapped his chin, “Maybe see if they’re anywhere in the forest?”
Gallus hummed in thought. “I could use a break from putting up decorations…”
“I’ll keep working while you tell them where the pigs are. How long could it take?” Sandbar gave a cheeky smile.
Gallus glared at the green stallion before walking over to help the two Apples.
Sandbar had just finished replacing everything he had put up before when another series of knocks sounded out from the door, sounding like thunder.
“Who is it this time?” He set down his box of streamers before heading over to the door, revealing a nervous Zecora on the front step.
“Ah, Sandbar, I’m so glad you’re here, back at your homes were all of you, I feared.” She smiled at him, before frowning and looking around, “But where are the others, there should be six, I need your help with Discord’s dark tricks.”
“The girls all went on a Spa day, and Gallus is helping Applejack and Big Mac track down some runaway pigs, but- Wait, Discord? He was by here earlier today! He was acting weird, well, weirder than usual.”
She rubbed her chin in thought. “A chessboard we’re on, inside his game, but even knowing that, I don’t know his aims. But I’ll save that for later, we must save the town, will you join me, Sandbar? You’re my only help right now.”
Sandbar nodded. “Of course, Zecora. What kind of pranks are these?”
“Pranks made of chaos, made just for turmoil, his nefarious works, these pranks we must foil.” She held out a hoof, showing a polka dotted pattern that seemed to overtake her leg with purple and green.
“Woah! Did he do that to everyone?” Sandbar looked at it, worried.
“Only to those who passed by his stall, he gave them free treats, he gave them to us all. We must hurry to stop this mad joker’s plague, for the ponies of ponyville have gone into a rage!”
Sandbar nodded. “Alright, let me just right a note for Gallus and I’ll be ready.”
Zecora bowed her head in acknowledgment, turning back to stare worriedly in the direction of Ponyville while Sandbar wrote his note on a piece of parchment.
Gallus landed at the clubhouse with a huff, stretching his back with several loud pops before heading inside, only to see that Sandbar wasn’t anywhere around.
“Uhh… Did I come to the wrong enchanted treehouse in the woods?” He sarcastically thought aloud before calling out, “Sandbar! You here?”
Heading over to where the decorations were, he saw a long note on the table.
Sorry I’m not here, Gallus. Zecora needed my help to stop Discord pranking Ponyville, I’ll be back as soon as I can to help finish decorating.
~Sandbar
Gallus groaned. He had just spent the last hour flying all over the forest and looking for pigs, and was exhausted from the exercise. He glared at the ornaments as if that would get them to put themselves up, but they just sat in their boxes.
“Why couldn’t I just flip a coin?” He grumbled to himself, pulling a box out the door getting to work on putting up some strings of lights outside the clubhouse.
Gallus’ eye twitched as he heard a boom from the forest, his claws pausing in the action of stringing up lights.
Oh, come on! He thought.
Taking a deep breath through his nose, he let the lights fall from his grip with a sigh before flying into the Everfree in the direction of the sound.
With how loud it was, it had to be close, and not long after searching the nearby Everfree, twisting around the trees and dodging the various creatures, he spotted some kind of crater with machine parts scattered all around, most slightly melted.
“That’s something you don’t see every day…” He said to himself, “I should probably get Twilight… Or I could check it out first.” He landed and started poking around the area to try and see if anycreature was around.
As Sandbar made it to the last stretch of trail before the turn to the Clubhouse, he heard an explosion sound out, the ground shaking slightly.
“What the hay was that?”
From what he could tell, it came from somewhere beyond the Clubhouse, towards the Everfree. At least, he hoped it wasn’t from the Clubhouse. “I hope Gallus didn’t get hurt…”
He started galloping towards where the sound came from, making his way past the trees and sparing a glance towards the Clubhouse to make sure it was in fact still standing before heading deeper into the Everfree, dodging around the underbrush and trunks on his way to find out what happened.
He quickly came upon Gallus exploring some sort of crater, shards of metal scattered around it, some still intact gears and panels laying in a pile near the griffon.
“Woah! What happened?!” Sandbar’s eyes wandered over the blue gryphons body as he approached, looking for any signs of injury.
“Nice to see you’re finally back. And your guess is as good as mine on what all this junk is.” He tossed another solid sheet of metal over to the pile he had built up, “At least these things look like they’re worth something.”
Sandbar raise an eyebrow at that, “Shouldn’t we check if anypony’s around, first? Somecreature might have gotten hurt.”
“I already looked around, the only things hurt around here were some singed trees. Now come on, let’s get all this stuff into a pile. It could be worth a few bits.”
Before Sandbar could persuade Gallus out of selling the scrap, they heard a slow laugh approaching from the sky, like a drawn out series of “Ho Ho Ho!” Looking up, they spotted what looked like an Earth Pony wearing a parachute slowly descending to meet them at the explosion sight. He was very… Rotund, dressed in a red suit and cap with white trim, a white beard hanging to his legs and a gift box on his flank the stuck out as a pretty red and green against his coat.
As he landed in front of the pair, the parachute covering the ground behind him, he stretched and gave off a series of pops from his back, before looking over to Gallus with a grin, “Thanks for organizing my sleigh pieces! Even though the intentions were less than noble, I appreciate it none the less.”
“Uhhh…” Gallus’ mouth opened and closed for a few seconds, his voice lost at the weirdness in front of him.
“Who are you? And where did you come from?” Sandbar filled in for the befuddled Griffin.
“Why, I’m Santa Clause! I was taking my sleigh out for a test run, but it went wild and ended up falling from the sky. I managed to get out, but it looks like the old girl wasn’t as lucky.” He walked over to the pile of scraps, patting it with a fond smile, “She had a good run, but she’s got an early retirement.”
Sandbar’s eyes widened as the pony pulled a huge red sack out of his hat and started shoving the pieces scattered about inside.
“Wait, so you’re not with Discord?” Gallus finally spoke out.
“Him? He’s still at the top of the naughty list! I wouldn’t dream of working with him!” He looked a little insulted at that, “Is he acting out of turn, again? I swear, he never learns, no matter how many Hearth’s Warmings there are…” His speech devolved into some mutterings as he finished shoving the metal into his sack, shoving that back into his hat and giving a nod of satisfaction.
“So… Do you need help getting back home?” Sandbar asked.
Santa gave off a laugh, “Hohohoho, nonsense! I’ll just call my assistant to send a friend to pick me up.” He pulled a pocket watch out of his coat pocket, giving it a little shake before pressing the button on top, causing the face to light up. He smile turned into a small frown as he looked back over to the two friends, “You should probably get on your way, though, you still have a lot of decorating to do if I recall.”
“Oh yeah, it is getting pretty late…” Sandbar rubbed his chin, “But how did you know about that?”
The white pony gave a big grin, “I’m Santa, I know a lot of things! You should get back before your friends are done with their spa trip.” Looking up at what looked like nothing to the two, he grinned, “Ah, thanks for the pickup! Bye you two, and Merry Hearth’s Warming!” He took a step to the side and with a wave of his hoof disappeared from view, like he disintegrated in front of them.
There was a short silence between the two before Gallus spoke up, “We’re never telling anyone about this, are we?”
“I don’t think they’d believe us…”
Finally having gotten the last of the decorations up uninterrupted, Gallus and Sandbar sat down for a break of Apple Cider and cupcakes, and were well into finishing them when the girls came walking in, Yona and Silverstream looking on in awe while Ocellus flew around to see everything and Smolder gave an appraising eye over it all, their bags set down by the door.
“Not bad, you two. I expected the place to be burned down by now.” Smolder gave a teasing grin, “Didn’t run into any problems, did you?”
“Well…”
Gallus shoved an elbow into the Earth Pony’s side, shutting him up, “Everything went off without a hitch! How was your spa trip?”
“It was reallllly weird. Yona saw Discord there, and spa people kept putting snacks on Yona’s face. Tasty, but not sure why…”
Ocellus giggled while patting the Yak’s shoulder, “Ponies do some really weird things sometimes, don’t they?”
“Wait, you said you saw you saw Discord?” Gallus asked.
“Yeah! He and Miss Fluttershy were there for a spa trip too!” Silverstream had stars in her eyes, “They were so cute together, I wish we could’ve talked with them more!”
“…Sounds like you had a lot of fun.” Sandbar said, glancing at Gallus who still shook his head no. They still weren’t saying anything.
“Oh, while we were out we got you two some gifts!” Ocellus went to the bags and pulled out two wrapped parcels, “Since you were doing all the decorating, it was the least we could do.” She finished with a smile.
“The place looks great! You two deserve them.” Smolder said as the packages were passed over.
And with wide grins, the two tore through the wrapping paper.
“Another nice episode! I wonder what we’ll get next year?” Discord said as he sat with Fluttershy in her cottage.
“I hope it’s just as lovely as this year was. Thanks for showing me, Discord.” She planted a kiss on his cheek, “Happy Hearth’s Warming.”
Discord blushed a little and gave smile a back, “Happy Hearth’s Warming to you too, Fluttershy.”