Scarlet Mane's Diary, Entry 4: The Tale of Muffins and Cupcakes

Chapters

Enticement
Enchantment
Effrontery
Effectuation

Enticement

A pink pony held a leaflet against a wall and read it aloud in her high-pitched voice.

"...The contest will take place on the last day of summer in Maretown—"

"Where is that?" asked a gray pegasus of blonde mane and looked at the floor and at the pink pony both at the same time.

"I have no idea... Oh wait, I do! Isn't that near Manehattan?"

"I don't know. But I do know that I'd win with my muffins!"

Pink pony giggled.

"No way, cupcakes are far better!"

"No, muffins!"

"No, cupcakes!"

"Muffins!"

"Cupcakes!"

"Cup... I mean muffins!"

Both ponies frowned and as the pink one looked the other in her gold and apple green eyes. The gray one seemed to look at the leaflet and in her friend's left, cerulean eye, both at the same time, then produced a muffin apparently out of thin air and spoke.

"You want a muffin, Pinkie?"

"No, I—" the pink pony stopped abruptly and after a moment of intense thinking about what she just said, smiled widely. "Absolutely!"

She ate the muffin loudly and messily.

"Sho," she said with a full mouth, "whewe ish Mawethown awain?"

"Uh... didn't you say it's near Manehattan?" replied the gray pegasus.

"Whath awouth—" she swallowed, "we go to Maretown—"

"Woohoo!"

"You'll bake muffins and I'll bake cupcakes and win."

"Woohoo! I'll win!"

"No, I'll win!"

"Woohoo! I'll win!"

The pink one rolled her eyes and stuffed another muffin in her mouth and giggled.

"Mmm... we'll shee Dewpy, we'll shee!"

Moonbeam, laden with pouches for books and tools, rummaged through a cardboard box filled with various parts glimmering as if they were made of gold. She wasn't focused on this for the last minute or so and was very likely to have had the desired part just in front of her eyes. She never managed to prepare all the necessary parts in advance and even if she thought she did it later turned out that she counted them wrong when making blueprints.

Behind her stood a magnificent piece of pony armor ordered by the Royal Guard. She took the matter seriously after she saw what happened on her cousin's wedding in Canterlot. The armor was supposed to be capable of casting and dispelling simple enchantments for magically exhausted or even non-unicorn pony inside it. That should do the trick against any and all changelings, she figured.

But the Royal Guard was far less serious about the matter. It angered her that they wanted to remain dependent on their own, unaugmented abilities. Sure, the armor was causing trouble such as when it dispelled telekinesis in a wrong moment. But it was just a inconvenience, and besides, she already solved that problem. Everypony should wear a hard hat while there are heavy objects moving in the air, so she didn't feel responsible for that pegasus' bump on his head. It could be fault of that unicorn inside the machine, too. She never liked sorcery anyway. Only unicorns could cast spells on demand and she wasn't going to just drop the project—she knew that if she succeeded, any pony could use magic.

On the floor lay an enormous pair of brass wings, not even nearly finished yet still impressive, if only in size. She knew that if she succeeded, any pony could fly.

Her thoughts, however, were completely unrelated.

Moonbeam tried to remember as much as she could from the time before she read that fateful incantation in that oddly looking chamber. It was very difficult. Every time she recalled those events she had a feeling she remembers less than previously. The memories were fleeting, like of a dream.

She had made extensive notes. However, whenever she looked at them she found herself not remembering writing some of the parts at all. If only she managed to take a hold of a notebook earlier, maybe then it would make sense. On almost every page she wrote down the name of the artifact that seemed be the source—the Sagacity Stones. One of the very few remaining memories was that there were no pegasi nor unicorns. She remembered she was different, most notably an earth pony, and she liked magic and other things fantastic.

Come to think of it, she likes nigh-unreachable things right now. Though with a bit of magic they're not unreachable anymore. Just a little bit, though, no more than that. She still had a chipped hoof and refused to have it fixed magically, thinking of it as just a want, not a real need.

She mindlessly put the long-sought part in place and began to assemble the rest of her creation which she had already dubbed Rupert. A surprising knock on the door derailed her unrelated train of thought. She went to answer it.

"Hi Moonbeam," said a unicorn while looking around Moonbeam's spacious workshop with her royal purple eyes.

"Hi," said a small dragon standing besides her.

"Why hello, Twilight, Spike!" Moonbeam replied. "Come on in! What brings you to Maretown?"

"I thought it's a good idea to visit you while Pinkie and Derpy compete in a some sort of cooking contest here."

"That must be our Nom."

"Also... I realized that I distanced myself from my family lately," Twilight said meekly.

"A bit," said Moon with a poker face. She couldn't hold it for long and after a short moment she burst into a laugh and hugged her cousin. "I'm so glad you're here!"

Despite the differences and, well, sparks flying whenever somepony mentioned Twilight to Moonbeam, she couldn't conceal her genuine joy of actually being with her. She couldn't explain it if somepony asked, but so far no pony did.

"Me too, Moon. Oh, by the way, could my friends and I stay here? Your workshop is so spacious I'm sure we can find some room."

"I'm afraid one of you will have to stay in one room with Scarlet Mane."

"Oh, I know her! We're corresponding!"

"Really? You don't correspond with me," Moonbeam said, a little bit more bitter than she'd wanted.

"Uh... it's research-related. You know my attitude towards that," Twilight grinned broadly but awkwardly. "Anyway—"

"Yes, anyway, you have to sort it out with Scarlet later," Moon said, then added in a whisper. "One more thing. She's kind of shy."

"Oh, believe me, I know shy, I can deal with that," said Twi, rolling her eyes at the thought of a certain yellow pegasus.

"You know, you could help me with something while you're here," Moonbeam said, still unsure if it's a good idea, then produced a few dozen silvery punchcards from one of innumerable unlabeled drawers. "I need to record some spells."

Poppy Roll walked onto a small podium and approached a loudspeaker stand.

"Welcome! Welcome to the seventeenth annual Nom of Maretown!" she said, making everypony look in her direction. "Fillies and gentlecolts! I'd like to ask you for a good cheer for this year's sponsor and guest juror, Princess Wysteria!"

As ponies gleefully started stomping on the ground and Poppy got down from the podium, a wisteria-colored alicorn of light pink mane with plum purple streaks walked up onto it and looked at the gathered ponies with her persian green eyes.

"Thank you everypony! Simply «Wysteria» will suffice," she said with an embarrassed smile. "Aside from me and Poppy Roll, the perfect pony in all Equestria to ask for a poppy roll, jury will consist also of Mr. Truffle," she said and a ochre unicorn of long, burnt orange and flax colored mane lowered his blue and purple mirror shades to uncover pastel green eyes. He was standing besides Poppy when he waved his saddle brown hoof and smiled. Wysteria cleared her throat and continued.

"During my travels around Equestria I've seen many, many places. However, when I discovered this little island of tranquility, being as idyllic and charming as I've never seen before, I was so thoroughly moved that I decided to become a patron of this competition," she said and waited a few seconds until the hoof stomping subsided. "I must admit I wouldn't take notice of this place if not the brilliant fireworks a few weeks ago, but I hope you won't blow yourselves up anytime soon," she said, causing several ponies to smirk and Jelly Joy, in a mix of exasperation and embarrassment, to cover her face like Wysteria herself was going to explode for some reason. "This year the competition got a little bigger! Invitations have been sent to several other towns and I'm pleased to announce the final list of competitors in order of admission. Boggly and Cuddly Plum, Leaflette..."

As Wysteria went on, Jelly Joy knew who wasn't going to be on the list—Blasting Boom always liked spending time with her, which also included making food of course. Likely because she usually ate most of it by herself. Boom rarely visited home these days—she often worked in distant places. As far as Joy could tell, she was now far north of Neighara Falls due to some unexpected job from professor Do. They say it's a beautiful land, sights must be wonderful there, so peaceful, so...

"So yellow!" a completely pink pony unexpectedly shouted directly into her ear, startling her so much she jumped.

"So... suddenly pink," she replied after a couple seconds. "You're not from here, are you?"

"Oh, no, I'm from Ponyville. After you cross Crystal River you get on a train in Baltimare towards Canterlot and then it turns southwest, kind of towards Saddle Lake, right? Have you ever been there? I've never visited Maretown before. I didn't even know anypony from Maretown, and I know a lot of ponies. It's so exciting, isn't it? And we both look so similar, except I'm pink and you're yellow, so yellow! I bet there are other things like that! Oh! And I have a puffy-fluffy wavy mane and you have cute locky curls and—"

"Oh look! So teal!" Jelly Joy pointed her hoof at an aquamarine unicorn with pale, grayish opal mane with white highlights who was zigzagging in the distance, leaping between stands prepared for the competition.

"Where?! Oh, there! Wait, Lyra?..."

The distraction gave Joy time to drop a small smoke bomb on the ground, which went off with a quiet puff. The pink pony looked back to find that she can't find her new yellow friend anymore./

"Where did she go?" she said to herself, befuddled.

"...and Pistacia," said Wysteria, finishing listing the competitors. "Now, back—" she cut off as at this moment Pistacia laughed out loud ominously for no apparent reason.

"Erm, back to Poppy Roll!" Wysteria said calmly, trying to remain professional while staring awkwardly at Pistacia, along with just about everypony else in the market.

"Thank you. Rules are as follows..."

Enchantment

Twilight Sparkle, despite her extensive magical knowledge, wasn't able to make the spell last. She focused and cast an enchantment on a silvery card with the intention of embedding it in the item. The result was the same as before. Each time she tried to do this a complex emblem, or maybe an emblem-shaped rip in the very fabric of reality, appeared on the card just to vanish shortly thereafter.

"Maybe the spell needs something extra... I'll try something new and special," she said as she closed her eyes and focused, imagining an intricate runing charm, sweat appearing on her face. She pictured a magical infusion of the spell on the card with solidness and integrity. It was exhausting. After she finished, she opened her eyes and breathed deeply only to see Moonbeam trying to hide her smirk as she stared at the top of Twi's head.

"Twilimp," Moon giggled.

Spike opened his mouth as to say something, then closed it, opened again and finally closed once more and muttered something under his breath. Twilight looked at the silvery card, which was completely stiff now and still without any emblems. It was smooth enough for her to see a reflection of her horn hanging limply.

"Eek!"

"Just stand still," said Moon and focused strongly, dispelling the enchantment and reducing the the card to a puddle of metallic goo, which Spike quickly cleaned up. She felt a bit dizzy and shook her head, then took one of the books from her pouch, Metal Gear Magic. She skimmed though it, hoping to find a solution, but without luck.

"I need to take a look in a spellbook," Twilight said, "Maybe somepony knows how to embed a spell like that, but I don't. However, I'm pretty sure I saw a proper sequence to build a permanent runing charm in a book once."

"We don't have a magical library in Maretown. That's also why Scarlet is so bored most of the time."

"It'll take hours anyway, so we could just as well go to Royal Canterlot Library. Look, it's a very, very difficult construct, it's like..." she thought of an analogy for a moment, "like trying to work without checklists! Or building a machine like one of yours, you can't do it without well-thought blueprints—" She paused at the knock on the door, after which Eclipse the black wolf and Chewer the bobcat ran inside. Following them, Scarlet Mane entered the workshop and froze at the sight of Twilight, who then came closer to greet her.

"Hi, you must be Scarlet Mane!" Twilight said as both Eclipse and Chewer ran after panicked Spike in a circle around Moonbeam. "Nice to meet you in person at last!"

Scarlet didn't say anything but her eyes followed Twilight's perfectly and without blinking.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle, I... uh... are you alright?"

Scarlet didn't move. Twi looked back at Moonbeam, who again shown only a poker face, then moved a hoof as to poke Scarlet and check if she's fine. Carrie leaned back slowly to evade the poke and then straightened again as Twilight moved her hoof away.

"H-Hi," Scarlet finally said meekly. Twilight looked at Moonbeam again and gave her a you have to be kidding me kind of look.

"I warned you," Moon said.

A light bulb shaped like a baby dragon popped on in Twilight's head.

"Say, Scarlet, you know a lot about magic, could you cast a—" she stopped as she saw Moonbeam making a cutting gesture with her hoof across her throat, however didn't really know why the gesture was being made.

"Help us with a spell construction," Moonbeam quickly finished before Scarlet's face finished frowning.

"What? But this is impossible to do just like that," Twilight said angrily, as she just told Moon it's not that easy. "Scarlet, could you try to cast and embed a spell into this punchcard?" she asked as she moved it with telekinesis closer to her, then got a bit disconcerted as her horn shot some violet red sparks and the silvery card fell onto the floor. "Oh my, I think I need to rest."

Scarlet Mane seemed to shrink a little, Moonbeam facehoofed and Chewer glomped screaming Spike's tail, Eclipse joining soon after.

"I c-can't cast any spell..."

"But you're an expert! You should—" Twilight said and stuttered upon noticing the cutting gesture again and finally realizing what it means, "—n't feel bad about not casting spells if you know so much about them! You're a theoretical sorceress, that's all!" she continued. "What I wanted to ask, can you help us with a spell construct to record the spell on those cards so they can be used by that machine there. Maybe you have a book entitled—"

"Oh, be right back!" Scarlet said and ran off to her room.

"She never said in her letters that she couldn't cast spells—I mean, she's a unicorn! I properly assumed she could," Twilight tried to excuse herself.

"It seems that not so proper after all," said Moonbeam. "Don't worry. And it seems she has the book you want."

"I didn't even give her the title," Twi said and lowered her voice, "and I didn't notice her cutie mark, I take it's a taboo too."

Moon nodded.

"Well, many great wizards were eccentrics," Twi said quietly, as to herself, the moment Scarlet Mane came back with a notebook and a small brush in her teeth, then put them down and ran away again.

"Why don't you just use a telekinesis spell—" Twi stopped and winced as she got quite painfully nudged by Moonbeam, then continued, "to get us some tea, Moon?"

"Righto."

Scarlet opened her notebook. Twilight noticed it's empty and expected her to do something magical to reveal hidden contents. Instead, Scarlet just tore out a page, lay down and holding the brush in her teeth started drawing an increasingly detailed simulacrum of the spellthought.

"Don't you want to know what kind of spell we're embedding first?" Twilight asked.

"What kind of spell we're embedding first?" Scarlet laid down the brush and answered.

"Let's start with Want It, Need It, the one we tried as the last one..."

"Oh, a classical illusion. Mayhem group, we seek a master rank permanent rune..."

Twilight smiled nervously, remembering the mayhem it caused the last time.

"Maybe it's a better idea to start with a novice rank, just to see if it works," she said and began to wonder if it's really such a great idea to do that spell at all.

"Uh... I don't want to waste Moon's punchcards," Scarlet said as she took the brush in her teeth again, making Twilight look awkwardly at a pile of burned, disintegrated or otherwise destroyed cards in a trash can besides her.

"Okay, do you want me to help you bringing all the books and tables here?"

"Whath wooksh?"

Twilight slowly sipped hot tea Moonbeam provided when she began to see the black ink stick out of the flat piece of paper, then slowly move. After a minute the whole thing made her feel hazy, yet unable to turn her eyes away.

"It's... beautiful," she said just as Moonbeam returned with more tea, laid down the cups and joined Twilight. Both stared for several more minutes. "I've never seen a scroll so... alive."

"They aren't used very often, most ponies either learn spells or go to somepony who did it already, but this is a special case," Scarlet Mane said while she completed the pattern and then looked at them just to see them mouth agape.

"Uh... you can see the spell now, right?" she asked.

"Y-Yes," Twilight stuttered.

"Please cast it on Rupert then, should be working," she said and stood up to bring some punchcards.

Twilight nodded and tried to pick up the drawing, for the first second just lamely shooting sparkles from her horn. When she finally did so, she thought about what she had heard.

"Wait, did you say Rupert?"

"That would be this royal armor," Moonbeam explained.

"Let me guess... Royal Unicorn-Pegasus Enchanted Robotic... uh... Thing?"

"Uh... yeah, exactly. Yes," Moonbeam said and quickly scribbled something in her notebook.

"Rupert. Nice, I like it. Better than, say, Moonbot," Twilight giggled and focused on the simulacrum. She felt like it exploded into her mind, which felt quite nice—as if she was a bit smarter. She then aimed at Rupert and the spell exploded out of her mind, and with a sharp jolt took the memory of the pattern with it. She shook her head.

"I forgot how unpleasant this is," she said and looked at the piece of paper, now just a cloud of tiny bits held up by her telekinesis. "I don't remember that part either."

"That was just paper, not high-quality magically-tempered parchment you use in Canterlot," Scarlet said after putting down some cards. "It cannot withstand the curl of the thaumic field."

Both her and Moonbeam stared at Twilight, hoping she understands.

"You mean the rapid change in time of the primary field rips it apart?"

"Indeed!" Scarlet almost yelled, happy that at last somepony understands her in person. She then took another page out of her clean notebook and painted a different simulacrum.

"A box?" Twilight said in surprise when she saw the picture starting to stick out of the flat surface.

Soon, Scarlet added another dots and curves that in Twilight's eyes changed the box into a small metal-looking cube with a keyhole of an impossible shape.

"This is made to capture your first planned spell," she said as she laid down the brush. "Go ahead and cast it on the paper. After that, take the paper and cast the full spell from it on the card. Moon, just after it's done, put the card into the machine, otherwise it won't last very long."

Scarlet Mane, despite being unable to cast any spells herself—or so she said—knew exactly what to do to teach Rupert new enchantments. It seemed that she didn't just read a part of a magical library, but she wrote most of it. Which, as Moonbeam thought but kept to herself, might even be more or less true, if one of her ideas about how Sagacity Stones work was correct. She shivered. This was highly unlikely, but not impossible...

Twilight cast every spell in her repertoire on the royal armor, then another from the simulacrum, this final spell pushing her over the edge. The jolt she felt when the spell burst out of her was so strong she staggered.

"I'm exhausted! I don't think I can do it anymore, with or without tea," she said.

"I'm sorry, I should have warned you that the last one could be, uh... tiring," Scarlet admitted.

"The last one? Good, I'm off to take a nap."

"Sleep is good. At this moment the more sleep, the better."

"Don't eat now, though, Jelly Joy promised to bring back some tasty treats from the contest," Moonbeam said and noticed a glow from Rupert's direction.

Pistacia knew she can't beat Cinnamon Cream in baking. You don't bake ice cream, which was Pistacia's cutie mark after all. She went for something most closely related, namely waffles. Having taken them out of the oven she saw Cinny starting to decorate her cakes with Scarlet Mane's glowing cream that she recognized from Blasting Boom's party. The memory was strangely fuzzy, but she remembered the cakes were delicious.

Envy awoke inside of her. She began to sneak behind stalls. Upon reaching Cinnamon Cream's she noticed there were candles around the cake and that Cinny was looking away from it. Deciding it might be a good idea for some reason, she moved one of the candles a little closer. She looked around inconspicuously and pushed it even nearer, no more than an inch away from the cake itself, then snuck back to her own booth.

Cinnamon Cream turned around and gasped. She tried to blow out the candle, accidentally causing the flame to tilt enough to touch the cream. And so the first part of the competition, baking, started with a bang.

When Cinny managed to put out the red flames she looked around for a culprit. Pistacia appeared to be very busy, which she indeed was, due to all of the time she wasted on sneaking around. Jelly Joy with her cutie mark of fireworks was instantly a suspect. Cinny looked at her with her eyes narrowed.

"Pyromaniac," she said aloud, failing to notice jury standing in front of her stall.

"Quite fitting name for a..." Wysteria said and glanced at a clipboard with a list of competitors to make sure what she's actually going to taste in a second, "erm, a cake looking like this," she finished and despite it seemed completely burned, which it was, tried to take a piece. Mr. Truffle and Poppy Roll followed.

"Uh... no, I... ack!" Cinny stuttered in panic as she watched them eat. Wysteria winced noticeably.

"For Celestia's sake, what did you do to that cake?" Poppy Roll exclaimed. "It's burned and dry!"

"Deep inside it is good," Mr. Truffle said with his deep, booming and slightly trembling voice. "I do not think we can give you a good overall score, however."

Cinny sighed and observed as the jury gives similar scores to Jelly Joy, who baked pretty good, but also pretty usual cookies Poppy Roll loved, but which Mr. Truffle regarded as disappointingly boring. Pistacia, who didn't manage to finish her special sauce and the waffles ended up being not as sweet as they should, got a score very close to Joy's.

Jury then approached Pinkie Pie and began to sink their teeth into her cupcakes.

"Dashing!" Wysteria exclaimed and met with bewildered stares.

"Are you insinuating something?" Pinkie Pie asked her just as Poppy Roll let out a chuckle.

"Oh dear," muttered Mr. Truffle.

"What? But... uh..." stammered completely confused Wysteria. "I... what?..." she went on for a while and then sighed in resignation and lifted a porcelain plate with an 8.

Remaining jurors gave her 7 and 6, then continued to another booth. Derpy Hooves had her eyes on both Mr. Truffle and Wysteria, however in truth she was closely observing every move of Poppy Roll standing in between. Going crazy with anticipation as they all tasted her muffins, she started to shift her weight from one hoof to another.

"That deserves a 6," Mr. Truffle said coldly. Wysteria followed with even less impressive 5 points, then walked to the next competitor. Poppy Roll clearly had a different opinion and stayed behind for a moment.

"Dashing," she whispered as she lifted a 10 and they giggled together.

Derpy looked at Pinkie with a wide grin and then rolled her eyes in an impossible way as she did the math in her head.

"Twenty one. Huh," said Pinkie with disappointment as it turned out they got exactly the same score.

Derpy, who hovered besides her, just shrugged.

"We'll settle this in the final round," Pinkie said. "No holdsh bawwed, anything goesh," she added as she ate one of the cupcakes she just baked.

Effrontery

Twilight Sparkle went to sleep and Spike together with Scarlet Mane decided to spectate the contest. Moonbeam could again start working on the latest version of Rupert in peace. As the golden armor with a brilliant red crest stood there, bunch of loose wires extending from where the horn would be and faint, pulsing red light seeping through the seams, she attached a curled, spring-like metal rod to the wires and then put it in place and covered with glimmering brass horn. There, done. Now just to clean the mess up and she'll be able to take a nap, too. Field testing will have to wait.

All the punchcards were put inside and, as Scarlet explained, there was no need to finish the intricate controls of all the machine's functions because the first spell, which made Rupert capable of holding spells by itself, made him also aware of the wearer's will. Sort of connection, she said.

Aware.

Maybe it's better not to think about it for too long. But it satisfied her—the spell was necessary and, as Scarlet explained too, Rupert himself could be taught to cast it, which would remove the need for unicorn magic to build new bots. She liked that very much. She didn't want to give anypony an unfair advantage. She imagined a word where everypony can fly and cast magic at will and smiled. Including Scarlet Mane, because why not?

As she kept daydreaming a wasp lured by the sweet smell of sugary tea flew inside the workshop through narrowly opened window and sat on a saucer.

Nope, nothing there.

It took off and then landed on a big, shiny thing.

Interesting.

Deciding to check it out further, the wasp marched across its surface and finally found something that looked a bit like a beehive entrance, but with a distinct lack of bees.

Honey, honey, honey! were the wasp's thoughts as it went inside. Finding no honey in the end they changed to Escape, escape, escape! and as it bounced inside its little mind got magically connected with the machine's.

As if reluctantly, Rupert's brass eyelids opened to reveal complete blackness, deliberately designed to not show where the wearer looks. His eyes flashed with weak, white light, then became dark again. Clockwork inside started ticking almost inaudibly and very, very slowly, gradually increasing in frequency. A couple seconds later individual ticks weren't even distinguishable and produced a very faint buzz. His eyes flashed nearly imperceptibly again.

Loud sound of breaking glass made Moonbeam jump. She looked around in shock and through the broken window saw Rupert jumping around two confused young ponies who were playing marbles.

"Bwha?" Moonbeam blurted out loud and rushed after her rebellious creation, on the go trying to think of a way to disable him. Chewer and Eclipse followed, barking all the way.

"Stop! Disengage!" she shouted.

Rupert stopped jumping and menacingly turned his head in her direction. His horn gleamed. Moonbeam squeaked and took out a huge book, Magic Runes for Dummies. The spell hit just when she positioned her impromptu shield in front of her. While Rupert turned around and began to hop away awkwardly, as if he was trying to fly, Moonbeam stared at the book. The best book ever. She loved it, how could she ever use it like that? She'll treasure it forev—

Chewer bumped into her back just in time, causing her to hit her head against the tome and wake up from the magical daze.

Oh no, Rupert casts the Want It, Need It spell! she thought as she threw the book as far as she could without looking at it.

Rupert was made to think like a pony inside, but having just a wasp brain instead, he had to adapt. He had to be the pony to control his own mechanisms. Think like a pony, then connect with the wearer's mind, hear the wasp's will...

It began to work and the wasp began to walk normally, suddenly completely aware of its form... and enjoying it.

It caught a smell of icing sugar and other sweets and galloped towards a green meadow with a big wooden platform, on which there were standing two lines of booths covered with colorfully striped cloths. Each booth had a wooden window cover, all of which were currently lifted like awnings, providing shade for everypony underneath them. Many ponies could be heard walking, talking, and eagerly eating. However, this day Maretown market wasn't used just to sell goods.

Oh, no! He will mess up the contest! thought Moonbeam with terror, watching Rupert run up the ramp that led onto the market platform. She breathed a sigh of relief when, instead of going straight to where all the ponies were, he turned towards the left and the backs of the stores. From there, he jumped onto a large pile of crates, causing them to puff out clouds of white powder from between the cracks. He then leapt onto one of the rather tall booths and dashed away. This was still bad, but at least he wouldn't hurt anypony.

"Stop!" she yelled desperately as she jumped from one stall onto another.

The wasp seemingly got startled by that and Rupert fired a spell, which hit the competition trophy, a matte crystal statue of Raffaella Icing, the legendary baker mare and inventor of icing itself.

Moonbeam gasped. With this spell, everypony will go crazy for the statue! she thought and tried to dispel it.

Barmy, Twilight's spells are so strong! she thought, feeling her attempt had no effect at all. Hopefully this one doesn't really change anything when cast on something everypony already desires. Maybe it isn't so bad...

Cinnamon Cream enjoyed baking more than cooking or frying. Her steamed yeast dumplings covered with chocolate, jam, whipped cream and other various sweets gave her a chance to win this part of the competition, but she put more hope in the third and last round, for which she prepared something special.

She glanced at Jelly Joy with anger and decided to retaliate. She snuck behind Joy's stall and swapped labels on sugar and citric acid containers. Hearing somepony coming she quickly got back to her place and continued to make her sweet dumplings.

"Hey Jelly Joy, whatcha makin'?"

"Hello Pistacia!" Jelly said and continued in a whisper "Super-sweet jellies, family recipe. What about—"

"Oh, sorry, I should keep stirring or it will burn," Pistacia said and trotted away.

Joy raised her eyebrow and shrugged. She added lots of sugar and stirred for a moment, then licked her stirring ladle clean.

Sour?! she thought in surprise. She tasted her sugar and looked at Pistacia, who was stirring mindlessly while looking around. Stacie caught her look and waved. Jelly Joy barely restrained herself.

I don't have time to make everything from scratch! This... thing will have to do. But I will have my revenge! she thought and quietly got behind Pistacia's stall.

Finding a gas valve for her stove she reduced the flow and quickly got back.

That should do it, she thought angrily.

It did. Jury wasn't very impressed with Pistacia's donkish delight.

"Whatever you were making, it surely wasn't a pile of sticky goo, however sweet, was it?" Poppy Roll said to Pistacia.

"Well, I..."

"This is delicious, I must admit," said Mr. Truffle.

At the same time, one stall farther Jelly Joy was wearing a saucepan on her head.

"This could be the single most difficult fight we have ever fought. Opponents from distant lands of unknown skills. But we will not give up! I know I will hold my ground. And while a day may come when the courage of dragons fails... it is not this day. Let no pony forget how good you are. You are dragons! Who's with me?" she spoke proudly.

"Are you talking to your jellies?" Wysteria asked and munched on one of them.

"Their taste is stunning and will leave you speechless," Joy said quickly, making the juror freeze for a few seconds as she just noticed Joy's cutie mark for the first time. Finally, Wysteria swallowed loudly, letting out a happy sigh, relieved by the fact that she still could.

"So good," she said, then shuddered a little as the sourness hit her taste buds. "So sour! I've never tasted anything like it!"

"Thank you, Princess Hysteria," Jelly Joy sarcastically thought out loud by accident upon realizing the reason for her sigh.

Wysteria was not amused and opened her mouth to say so. Meanwhile Moonbeam rushed with the sole idea of tackling Rupert. It kept running from her till it reached the last booth in the row.

"End of the line!" she said with a grin.

Rupert turned around and aimed its horn at her. Not wanting to be zapped, she ducked. However, it didn't cast any spell yet. It aimed a little lower and its horn shone with red light stronger and stronger.

"Oh bugger!" she said and rolled sideways.

The spell charged and fired, missing her tail by no more than an inch and hitting Jelly Joy's jelly dragons instead.

Okay, this is kind of bad, but she can just eat them, Moonbeam thought and focused back on Rupert, failing to notice dragon jellies flying up and attacking bewildered Princess Wysteria.

Poppy Roll couldn't resist and rolled on the ground laughing as Jelly Joy tried to explain she didn't mean them to actually fight anypony. Mr. Truffle's face didn't even move as he observed everything.

"Very innovative," he said calmly as he magically dragged one of the jellies out of the air and ate it, then gave her a 10.

Plum family didn't surprise anypony as they made their specialty. Judges' mouths watered as they gaped at a pile of deliciously puffy trotch pancakes covered in thick, irresistibly fragrant plum jam.

"Family recipe by uncle Whisky from Trotland, no lie!"

It was obvious that they won that round. Whatever else other ponies made wasn't even close—most of them openly admitted that and after getting a score went over to Plums' stall to taste the delicacies for themselves.

Rupert turned around again and glanced down as to try and measure the distance to the ground to make sure the fall is safe. Wasp inside felt quite comfortably in its new body. It didn't want to abandon such power. Below, Eclipse was barking at it furiously.

Sun is behind me, Moonbeam thought and got an idea.

She got up and galloped. Rupert's golden head with its red crest turned towards the dashing unicorn and his horn lit up. She jumped up and as the wasp aimed higher to lead its target it got blinded by Sun and turned its black eyes away, flashing them brightly while he abruptly cast the spell in the form of some sort of reddish thunder that hit a basket of free Poppy Roll's poppy rolls.

That's not bad at all, everypony wants those already and somepony will eat them anyway, she thought, hoping she's right.

She fell onto the metal pony's back much to his surprise, but failed to topple him.

"Oh, for Celestia's sake!" she said and kicked one of Rupert's hind legs, finally causing him to fall with a clang. At this moment Chewer wobbled by. This somehow distracted her for a few seconds.

Why did I choose that name? Chewer completely doesn't fit an anteater, she thought.

The machine started rising.

"Eek! Help me, Chewer!" she yelled, having no idea how could he do so.

Chewer apparently knew as he stuck his long tongue inside the punchcard slot, then took it out with a wasp attached and ate it, growling happily.

Suddenly deprived of the angry wasp's mind, Rupert started to think for himself. After remembering what just happened he made a sad face. This surprised Moonbeam greatly, as the only face Rupert should show was an intimidating one, which she had molded from a solid piece of brass.

What kind of spell was it, Scarlet? she thought in astonishment. After several seconds she finally closed her dropped jaw.

"Come on Rupert, let's go home and fix you, dear," she said invitingly.

Moonbeam took Rupert back to her workshop. The first thing she did was to take out the Want It, Need It punchcard. She placed it on a table and stared at it for a moment, thinking of a safe way to destroy it. The problem solved itself when the punchcard folded itself into a cube and then vanished in a puff of smoke.

She shook her head and then decided to block the card slot with a mechanism Rupert could open and close when needed. That should do the trick, at least for now. Her next move—hoping she assumes correctly that the wasp was the real villain here—was to install a pair of retractable, mirrory sunglasses to remove Rupert's vulnerability to being blinded by Sun.

Snazzy, she thought as she saw them in action.

As soon as Scarlet got back from the contest, Moonbeam described the effect her constructed spell had on Rupert.

"This was unexpected, but don't worry, he won't go rogue by itself, he has safeguards," Scarlet replied.

"You mean, like a robot may not injure a pony or, through inaction, allow a pony to come to harm..."

"Oh, no, that would be silly."

"What then? Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, uphold the law?"

"Don't be a jerk."

"Don't be a jerk. Really? But... I... just that?" Moonbeam stammered in surprise.

"Why would you need anything else?"

Moonbeam tried to think of a reason, but this made perfect sense. Except...

"He shouldn't listen to jerks then as well. Can you somehow make him so?" said Moonbeam and picked up a cup of tea.

Scarlet Mane approached Rupert and looked him in the eyes.

"Listening to jerks is bad. Do you understand?" she said.

Rupert nodded.

"Then why did you listen to the wasp? Was it scared?"

Rupert shook his head.

"Did you—" she began.

"No brain. First run," Rupert's eyes flashed faintly as he spoke in a slightly buzzing voice, causing Moonbeam to spit her tea.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" Scarlet said sternly.

"Rupert didn't know. Sorry," Rupert replied.

Moonbeam rolled her eyes.

Nothing is going to surprise me anymore, she thought as she relaxed and started to sip her tea again.

Effectuation

"What's this?" curiously said a opal colt, poking something lodged in a small bush until it fell out.

"It says Ma-gic Ru-nes for Dumm-ies," read aloud a lavender white unicorn filly of superbly curly lavender purple and lavender pink mane. "I love magic runes!" she added as her eyes, green like dewy lavender leaves, grew round in pair with her craving for the tome. No pony would be surprised to hear her name was Lavender.

"What? But... oh... I need that book..."

"It's mine!"

"I'm a bigger dummy than you!" the colt said as he grabbed the book. At the same time the filly started to magically pull it away from him.

"Mine!"

He held on it as strong as he could and she focused so hard green sparks shot from her horn, one trying to take the book from the other. Finally, they tore the book in two and they fell onto the ground.

"Now look what you've done," they said in unison, then tilted their heads. "I didn't like it anyway," they both added and promptly blushed.

Everypony tried their best in the past two rounds, but when Plum sisters unlocked a small strongbox and took out ingredients they kept in secret for the final round some ponies gasped, others just whined. No pony quit the contest, but surely at least considered it.

"We have no chance against that," in a resigned voice said Shirley Daisy, an older mare of parsley green coat and long, messy alabaster mane with chartreuse yellow streaks and azure eyes. "I think I'll just give up."

"But Daisy, there's no point in quitting now. What if we team up?" Leaflette said, a sandwisp unicorn of short, neatly cut bistre mane and golden eyes. Her left ear was dropped, as always.

"Well, you're right, we could at least try. But don't call me lazy!"

"I said Daisy..."

"I'm not crazy!"

"Oh golly..."

"Very good you're sorry, you shain't treat your elders like that!"

"Ay, ay, ay, ay, ay!" Pinkie Pie exclaimed way too loud, then got back to making cupcakes just like nothing ever happened.

"Zap plums?" Jelly Joy said to Pistacia as the shenanigans continued. "Ay, ay, ay indeed!"

"What now? This is over, I think those are the first ever zap plums. How did they even make them? It's not a zap season!" Pistacia said with a hint of dismay in her voice and clearly very upset.

"The Plum family always was good in the art of growing magic food. Maybe they just figured out the thing that makes their fruits go zap and bling?" Cinnamon Cream said. Pinkie Pie overheard and yelled from her stand.

"Wow, this is funny, do you always talk like that? I know other pony who rhymes all the time. Well, not exactly a pony, but—" she cut off as a piece of cake splashed on her face.

"I'm not rhyming at all! Stop being such a foal!" Cinny said in anger.

"Anyway... we can't win by ourselves, not against zaps. We have to work together," Pistacia said reluctantly. Her previous attempts at undermining others' work had hurt her own efforts, so it was a lesson she had learned the hard way.

"We have to make something... superb!" Jelly Joy yelled, momentarily forgetting how loud she was speaking and nodded in agreement. "Something combining every good feature of what have we all planned."

Stacie again laughed out loud ominously and a sudden reddish thunder rolled and crackled above the ponies. Even she was surprised, but tried to keep that fact for herself.

They gathered in the middle booth and everypony presented their idea. Joy, the host, planned to make a new generation jelly of unparalleled taste and wobbliness, or, as she insisted on calling it, wobblicity. Cinnamon Cream wanted to bake the most confusing hybrid of cupcakes and muffins—so that no pony could definitely say it's one or the other.

"Huh, I recall something relevant," Pistacia said, "There's a conflict of epic proportions. The whole Equestria is divided in two—Cupcake Connoisseurs and Muffin Mavens. Both parties secretly wage war on each other as throughout many millennia the strife grew far past a petty squabble. What most ponies notice is just one of the sides trying to recruit somepony."

"It seems a very dangerous thing to know. But... that's unbelievable, literally so," said Cinnamon Cream, "I'm not convinced that's really true. I guess you haven't thought that through," she went on, narrowing her eyes ever more slightly with each word.

"Wouldn't that just cause Connoisseurs to say the hybrid is a kind of cupcake and Mavens to say it's a muffin?" Joy said to no pony in particular and rubbed a hoof against her chin.

"I made it up as I went, the same with my idea for the last round. I wanted to make ice cream," Pistacia said as she rolled her eyes.

Jelly Joy and Cinnamon Cream got closer in anticipation, making Stacie a little uncomfortable.

"That's it. Just very good ice cream. I'm good at ice cream," she said nervously. "Why do you stare at me like that? Ice cream."

"But—" Joy started.

"Ice cream!"

"Okay, relax."

"Very good ice cream," Pistacia repeated.

Cinnamon Cream stood up and stomped her hoof down. "Then let's work together to make a fresh design. Merge all these ideas into something divine!"

The intentions were good, but also apparently the pavement of the road to Tartarus needed a major refurbishment.

It didn't go very well—everypony tried to make whatever they wanted to do in the first place instead of devising a common goal. It's hard enough to imagine combining muffins and cupcakes, not to mention ice cream and jelly as well.

After long and exhausting mixing, cooking, baking, freezing, decorating and other -ings the ice cream cuffincake with jelly was finished at last—just a moment before jury approached their stall.

"This is... not even bad," Poppy Roll said. "In the negative way."

"I agree. I imagine your entries would be substantially better if you would stay separated and simply make what you are good at," Mr. Truffle nodded.

Wysteria didn't say a word and just lifted a 3. Others looked at her, expecting a comment.

"It doesn't even fly," she finally said.

"But wait, I mean... but... that's not how it should..." Cinnamon Cream stuttered in disappointment and then tried their creation for herself.

"Who the hay made it sour? Didn't we plan to make it of pears' taste?" she exploded, "It seems we spent an hour, making something that belongs in the waste."

The jury finally approached Plums and got presented an incredibly good smelling plum tart. Shirley Daisy suddenly appeared between the jurors, as if she'd sprouted from the ground.

"These ain't zaps!" she yelled, causing many ponies to gasp and murmur. "Those are just regular plums that got painted!"

Wysteria looked closer at them for the first time and wordlessly looked at Mr. Truffle, then at Poppy Roll, nodding.

"How can you say that so surely?" asked Poppy, as she never saw a zap anything before. Wysteria opened her mouth to speak, but Shirley was first.

"See, if you take a magnet, you have a north pole and a south pole. When you cut it in half, you get two pieces with south poles and north poles, not one piece with south and zero pole and another with zero and north pole. I've seen enough zap apples to know if they're cut in half they retain red and violet poles, they don't have a green pole. Even if you make jam out of them, the jam still has a red and a violet pole and a full rainbow between them as the magic field interferes with electromagnetic field and excites part—"

"Thank you very much for your in-depth explanation. I am sorry to interrupt you, but we would rather hear one from Plums," Mr. Truffle said.

"We never said they're zaps," Boggly Plum said meekly while Cuddly Plum expressed it with a slight air of smugness. "No pony asked, too. Check your clipboard, we claimed it to be a plum tart, not a zap plum tart."

"That's true," Poppy Roll said. "But—"

"We're not responsible for ponies giving up good ideas only because somepony tries to look impressive," Boggly said.

"And impressive appearances have nothing to do with impressive work," Cuddly added.

"We didn't have the slightest idea for something original for the last round," Boggly admitted.

"So, we went with something we knew the best."

"Not our fault others didn't do the same."

"We just wanted to make it tasty rather than spectacular or shocking."

"So, you want to try it?" they both asked.

"Or not?" Boggly added.

As it turned out, Plums were completely right. Everypony tried to make something peculiar and forgot to make it delicious in all the commotion. Plums celebrated their victory by eating the most successful yet the most typical plum tart they ever made and wondered why the trophy, a statue of Raffaella Icing, has an impressive moustache. At the same time, Jelly Joy, Cinnamon Cream and Pistacia were checking out other contestants' works. Poppy Roll approached them.

"You could've taken the whole podium with what you initially declared," she said. "Everypony panicked except that gray pegasus and Pinkie Pie, that pink blabbermouth. I remember her name probably only because she repeated it a dozen times within my earshot," she said and rolled her eyes. "Anyway, they made ordinary muffins and cupcakes and took second and third places."

Pistacia sat down, facehoofed and groaned.

"Oh well, what do we do with this... thing? And with the remains from the second round? There's a lot more than the last time we had a Nom," she said.

"Think fast!" Joy yelled as she threw a jelly dragon at Pistacia, but it flew away on its wings before it hit her. Cinnamon Cream rolled on the ground in a laugh. Poppy chuckled and expecting major shenanigans inconspicuously trotted away to safe distance. Not long after Stacie picked up a piece of mushy cuffincake and flung it at Cinny. Sour pear jelly made a distinct splat as it hit the target right in the face.

"Food fight!" Pinkie Pie yelled and tossed a cupcake at Derpy, who devoured it mid-air.

"This is not how it works," Pinkie complained.

"Yes it is!" said Derpy and fluttered.

Cinny's face was covered in goo and she didn't dare to open her eyes. She blindly moved her hoof around to find something suitable for a projectile and finally picked up a piece of biscuit deeply soaked in Scarlet's glowing cream.

Pistacia's and Jelly Joy's eyes widened as she threw the biscuit. It turned into a fireball almost instantly.

"Take cover!" Joy yelled and ducked involuntarily.

After the fires were hastily put out and the irritating smoke had dispersed, Joy, Cinny and Stacie stood besides each other and watched at the mess they caused. Joy spoke first.

"I promise, no more being jelly."

"I promise, no more making incen/dairies," Cinnamon Cream said with a nod. "So life will be just a bowl of cherries."

"I promise, no more being uncool," Pistacia agreed.

"Brohoof!" Pinkie Pie said, appearing from nowhere and sticking her hoof out. They all giggled and clicked their hooves together.

It was agreed Pinkie Pie was to sleep in Scarlet Mane's room. She got into her bed and blew out the lamp. It didn't became completely dark as moonlight seeped in through a windowed ceiling.

"Oh, hi, you must be Scarlet Mane! We haven't met before. You know, the contest. I'm Pinkie Pie," she said, then continued. "I heard you are an expert in magic, is that true? Twilight is good at magic too, but you know that already, after all you send letters to each other, right? I like party magic if anything, Rarity makes so pretty colorful dancing lights! Thinking about dancing makes me hungry. Do you want a cupcake? With or without chocolate? Hey, could you cast a spell for me? I wonder if you can make a muffin out of a cupcake. Oh, or turn it into a kumquat cake, or maybe a small pickle—"

Moment later the ground trembled and a blazing light shone through the slit under the door for a fraction of a second.

"What was that?" said Moonbeam, who was in the main part of the workshop, sitting by a table and opening a large paper bag.

"What was what?" Twilight said, apparently not having heard or seen anything.

"Oh, Pinkie stopped talking," she added a few seconds later and got up to peek inside Scarlet's room. "Huh, she must be dead tired after the competition," she said, seeing Pinkie sleeping sweetly.

"Plum sisters won anyway. Frankly, I got surprised. They are good, but Cinnamon Cream looked like the best bet," Moonbeam said, then took out several poppy rolls out of the bag and bit into one of them. Twilight licked her lips and followed. Soon they ate them all and in the middle of the night lay down on the floor. They were staring at the ceiling mindlessly.

"They're so awesome. Like magic," Twilight said with amazement in her voice, delighted by the rolls' bright red taste.

"Do you think Poppy adds some magic?" Moonbeam said sheepishly, wondering why the walls are made of violin music.

"She's not a unicorn."

"Maybe she is, but in secret?" Moon whispered theatrically.

"And, uh... what, hiding her horn?"

"Uh-huh."

"How?" Twi asked and giggled, snorting once or twice.

"With magic," Moon said in conspiratorial tone.

"Spike, take a letter!" Twilight said.

"Right away!"

"Dear Princess Celestia. Today I've learned—" she stopped as Pinkie's upside-down head appeared in her view. Her mane was deflated and her eyes filled with horror.

"It was like a millennium of Nightmare, above it, besides it... I gazed deep into this dark light and I was blinded by its blackness. I believed I knew the world of dreams, yet what I saw... I saw infinity... so many, and I saw everypony everywhere everywhen... also Sweetie Belle playing just outside the workshop with some colt, what is she doing here?..." Pinkie Pie droned in an unusual, low voice. Moonbeam just rolled her eyes.

"Here, have a cookie."

"Tis' not a cookie!..." Twilight protested, prolonging ie part far beyond reason, then tee-heed and crossed her eyes.

Pinkie stood there with glassy eyes, not moving in the slightest, mouth agape. Moonbeam without thinking took advantage of the latter and stuffed a poppy roll inside, then pushed Pinkie's jaw up and down several times with her hoof.

"Infinity!..." Pinkie mumbled. Her eyes closed slightly and she relaxed. She tumbled onto the floor just as her mane poofed back up, providing some cushion for the head. Moonbeam snuggled into the pink fluff and soon fell asleep.

Moonbeam woke up upon hearing Spike screaming in shock.

"Holy guacamole, are those bite marks? Why would you eat furniture? To what end? And why that cactus looks like it's holding a piece of parchment and a quill?"

Oh bugger!