The Wheel and the Butterfly
A Dan X Pinkie Pie saga
Part 14 Pinkie Vs. N.A.R.F.
Chapter 122 Pinkie & Dan Vs. Math Test

If you tried to imagine what Hell sounded like, you might imagine the wailing of people being tortured, the cracks of whips against flesh, or even the cackling of dark and twisted creatures as they revel in the pain they were inflicting. Still, others might suggest that Hell is quiet, uncomfortably so. They might add that it’s the waiting for some noise to occur, a noise that’s sure to bring pain and suffering, which truly makes Hell a terrible place. They might contend that it’s silence in the waiting that’s truly painful. The not knowing when things are going to come to a head.

Still, some others might agree that Hell is indeed silent, but for completely other reasons. It’s not about waiting for a noise, but quietly stewing in your own frayed thinking as you strain on the problem in front of you. The very real problem in front of you that involves numbers that may not technically exist.

Far underground in L.A.’s National Association of Restaurant Foundation headquarters, many people would tell you just this as those said people stared at just such a problem.

Still, some might say that it’s not the silence, but someone breaking that silence as they work on a similar problem. And few people were as good at breaking silence as the two people who were working through a sheet of paper full of questions that put them in their own personal Hell.

“Pssst…” Dan said quietly from his desk. “Pinkie, what did you get for number 4?”

Pinkie stared down at her test with a slightly dead look in her eyes. Despite having only worked on the test for a short time, she had heavy bags under her eyes as if she missed out on a day or two of sleep.

“I drew a butterfly fluttering around my question,” Pinkie uttered in quiet, almost defeated-sounding monotone. “Butterflies are pretty… They just flutter around and have no worries… Omn...”

“Sssshhhh!” Amber shushed angrily from the desk in front of Dan. “Do you mind?! I’m trying to remember all my college math!”

“Shush you!” Dan snapped back. “Not all of us are lucky enough to have PhDs!”

“Just because I have a PhD in social physiology doesn’t mean I’m some sort of math whiz!” Amber snapped back.

“Would you mind keeping it down?” Wally asked from the seat to Amber’s left. “I’m really having trouble concentrating!”

Amber silently turned back to her paper, fuming as she stared at the questions in front of her.

Dan growled and frustration and turned to his other side. “Chris… what did you get—”

“I have done nothing but sob quietly to myself and write ‘Why? Why!’ since we started,” Chris answered.

Dan sighed heavily and raised his hand. “Can I trade seats with someone?!” he asked.

“No!” Melchior answered sternly. He leveled a weathered index finger at Dan. “You should have thought about your seat before we started if you wanted to cheat!”

Dan grumbled irritably to himself and folded his arms over his chest. “Why are we even doing this?!” he demanded.

Balthazar sat in his chair. His elbows rested on the armrests and his hands were steepled in front of his face. He tapped his fingertips against each other. “Surely you can appreciate that math is an important aspect of running any successful business!”

“Basic math, sure!” Dan replied. “Heck, I’ll even grant you things can get a little more difficult if we’re buying ingredients to meet demand, but some of these questions are ridiculous!”

“Nonsense!” Balthazar replied. “These are all very important and relevant questions one might find they need to solve if they’re working with food.”

Dan picked up the paper in front of him and scowled at it. “‘If Soldier does nothing but teleport bread for three days and a teleporter takes 10 seconds to recharge, how many loaves of bread did he teleport?’ is an ‘important and relevant’ question?!” Dan asked in a demanding tone as he slapped his test back on his desk. “Who even wrote these!?”

Caspar chuckled to himself.

Balthazar glanced at Caspar briefly then turned back to Dan. “Well, what if you need someone to teleport bread for three days? How will you know how many loaves you’ve teleported after it’s done?”

Dan flung his hands out in front of him. “We don’t have a teleporter! They don’t exist!”

Leaning on a desk next to Chris’s, Elise chuckled. “Of course, Dan…” she said quietly. “That’s what we want you all to think!” she added with a grin.

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Uh… beautiful?”

Elise frowned. “Crud, I said the loud thing quietly and the quiet thing loudly again, didn’t I?”

Chris nodded. “You sure did, honey.”

“Right… forget you heard anything… You too, Dan.”

“I’m sorry,” Dan said in an irritated tone, “was the non-bakery-employee speaking and distracting all the people with the math test?! Because if she was, she should maybe shut the heck up and let the rest of us concentrate!”

“Good job, Dan,” Elise said with a nod.

Amber looked up with a furious expression on her face. “Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!”

Wally hushed forcefully. “Ssssshhhh!”

Amber scowled at him and went back to her test.

Dan turned back up to the trio of men. “And why are there so many questions about imaginary numbers!?” Dan cried.

Caspar’s chuckling increased in volume.

Dan continued, “If the numbers don’t exist, why does anybody care about them?!”

“Dude,” Crunchy interrupted from a seat behind Dan and to his left. “Just because something is imaginary doesn’t mean it’s not important.”

“Quiet, flower child!” Dan snapped. “I didn’t ask for your hippy-dippy nonsense.”

From the desk in front of Dan and to his right, Gibson spoke up, “Electrical engineers care.”

“What’s that?” Dan asked as he raised a hand to his ear. “Sounds like someone is butting their nose in where it doesn’t belong so they can fast track their way to sacrificial lamb status!”

Gibson rolled his eyes. “Look, electrical engineers need to use complex numbers and complex numbers use imaginary numbers.”

D.H. spoke up, “They also come up in time travel a lot!” she announced. She giggled to herself. “I mean… could you imagine trying to calculate mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics without imaginary units?! I mean… derp! Hehehe… How would anyone be able to determine the densely defined self-adjoined operator, the Hamiltonian, without imaginary numbers? Am I right, or am I right?!” she asked with a smile.

The group collectively went silent and stared at her.

“D.H., brah?” Crunchy said. “You are blowing my mind here…”

D.H. sighed. Grabbed her test off her desk and backhanded the piece of furniture in front of her. It fell to the hard stone floor with a resounding ‘THUD!’ After a split second, it caught fire…

…

…as you do.

D.H. rolled her crooked eyes and said a half-hearted, “I just don’t know what went wrong.”

The group breathed a sigh of relief.

Dan turned back to Gibson and narrowed his eye. “How do you know that electrical engineers use imaginary numbers? Are you making stuff up to make yourself sound smarter and get into Amber’s pants?”

Amber’s eyes widened as she began to cough and sputter. She thumped a fist against her chest a few times and returned to her test.

“No dude,” Gibson replied. “My dad works a lot with electric circuits. I’ve helped him out since I was a kid.”

Dan’s eyes narrowed further. “No!” he cried.

Gibson blinked in confusion. “No?”

“NO!” Dan said louder. “I refuse to believe someone who spends their free time trying and failing to pick up girls is smarter than me in anything!”

Gibson rolled his eyes. “You do realize I actually know how to write music, too right… Like lyrics and notes and everything?”

“Stop it!” Dan cried. “Stop being better than me at things! I will not stand for this.” Dan turned to Chris. “Chris! I demand you devour that mouthy teen right now!”

“Dan, how many times do I have to tell you?!” Chris replied. “I am not nor have I ever been a cannibal!”

Amber suddenly shot up to her feet. “FOR PETE’S SAKE! SHUT UP!”

Wally looked up at Amber with a frown. “Could you please keep it down yourself? I can’t think with you going off like that!”

Amber gritted her teeth and sat back down.

Balthazar looked back and forth between the two men sitting next to them. “Should we stop them? This is by far the noisiest math test we’ve ever had.”

“The anger surges through this group!” Melchior cried. “If they learn to harness it they will be an unstoppable force and destroy all in their path!”

“Uh… Alright…” Balthazar turned to Caspar. “Caspar?”

“This is the most deliciously chaotic math test I’ve ever seen!” Caspar replied with a grin. “I wouldn’t dream of asking them to stop.”

“Well… alright then…” Balthazar said simply as he settled back into his chair and stared back into the group.

Back down in the testing area, Dan continued to argue with Gibson. “Prove to me you’re not just making this all up and you actually know what you’re doing!” he demanded.

“25,920,” Gibson replied.

Dan furrowed his brow. “What?”

“Assuming Soldier takes no breaks while he’s teleporting bread, he’ll have teleported 25,920 loaves by the end of day three.”

“Ha!” Dan cried as he turned to his test and began writing on it. “Thanks for the answer, sucker!”

Caspar clasped his hands around his mouth. “Remember to show your work!” he said with a grin.

“GAH!” Dan cried in frustration as he grabbed his test crinkled it into a ball, and tossed it at the raised platform.

It landed in front of Balthazar who leaned down and grabbed it. He looked back at Dan. “So I take it you’re finished.”

“I HOPE YOU DIE OF GINGIVITIS, OLD MAN!” Dan shouted.

“That’s a ‘yes’,” Balthazar replied.

Dan sighed heavily. “Sarge, how we doing?”

Sarge looked up from his test. “I am not good at many things, but those things that I am good at I am an expert at. Those things include ringing a bell, hand to hand combat, and helping run a thrift store. Complex mathematics does not factor heavily into any of those things.”

Dan frowned and turned to Pinkie. “Pinkie?”

Pinkie continued to stare at her test. Her eyes were glazed over as if she was staring far, far past the paper and the desk it rested on. She once again spoke in a quiet, defeated monotone, “Private Swift Slate fought the X-axis of Evil in question 8. Omn...” Tears began to form in front of Pinkie’s sky-blue eyes. “He didn’t… hick… He didn’t make it…” She raised her hands up to her cheeks and began to press them hard against her face as tears dropped onto the paper below here. “He has a newborn filly that is seven pounds six ounces, he’s never seen her… He wanted to get to Fillydelphia and hold her…” Pinkie suddenly broke into mournful sobs as the tears from her eyes formed small streams that dripped from her cheeks.

Dan frowned. “Remind me to cut back on your movie intake…”

“Seriously!” Amber cried. “Be quiet!”

“Stop talking!” Wally cried. “You’re just making it worse!”

Amber turned and glared at Wally. “Why do you only complain when I’m talking?!” she demanded.

“Sorry,” Wally said, “but I find your voice slightly grating when I’m trying to concentrate.”

“My voice is grating?! MY VOICE IS GRATING?!” Amber exclaimed in disbelief as she motioned to herself. She motioned to the people behind her. “Dan seems to talk almost completely out of his nose and Pinkie sounds like a chipmunk on helium!”

Pinkie let out a labored, empty giggle as tears continued to stream down her face. “Chipmunks tied to balloons sounds fun…” The corners of her lips sank into a deep, dark frown once more. “But then the balloons pop on the Point of Symmetry and the Chipmunks fall to into the cosine where they drown…”

Dan narrowed his eyes at Amber. “I hope you die of carpal tunnel syndrome!”

Chris spoke up. “Dan, you can’t die of carpal tunnel syndrome!”

“Fine!” Dan huffed out. “Multiple Personality disorder, then!”

Elise cocked an eyebrow at Dan. “But that’s not…” She shook her head. “Never mind…”

The double doors suddenly opened wide as a large, flat cart piled high with the ingredients Pinkie requested was wheeled in. The cart was quickly followed by Ninja Dave as he pushed it along. Becky walked alongside him.

“We’re back!” Ninja Dave announced.

“Aaaaand time!” Balthazar cried out.

Amber placed her hands under her desk and flipped it over.

‘THUD!’

“Oh, come on!” she cried.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Like you were going to get any more questions at this point anyhow!”

“I might have if you’d have just shut up!” Amber cried.

From one of the seats next to her, Wally sighed heavily.

Amber quickly wheeled on him and pointed an index finger. “DON’T EVEN START!” she cried.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Everyone turned and stared at Pinkie Pie as she began screaming at her test.

“Private Periwinkle was just crushed by a falling factorial!” she cried. “SHE’LL NEVER KNOW THE TASTE OF CANTALOUPE!... OMN!”

Dan sighed. “Pinkie, the test is over. Stop doodling ponies getting murdered by math problems.”

Pinkie’s head jolted up as her eyes slowly began to regain focus. “It’s… it’s over? Master has ended the range of terror? Pinkie is free?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Goofball. You’re free.”

Pinkie clenched her hands into fists and thrust both of them in the air. “Hurray! Free at last! Free at last! Thank Celestia, we are free at last! Omn...”

Becky looked down into the testing area with a worried expression. “Wow guys, you most of you look like you were put through a ringer!”

Pinkie looked up at Becky. “Oh Becky, it was horrible! There were ones and zeroes everywhere!” Pinkie wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. “… I think I saw a two…”

“Seriously?” Gibson asked. “The binary question was one of the easier ones!”

Dan narrowed his eyes. “Quiet mouthy teen! The adults are talking!”

“Uh, boss man?” Crunchy asked tentatively. “Tests always take a lot out of me. Can I be excused for a nap?”

Gibson smirked.

Dan frowned heavily. “Hippy man-children don’t count, and shut up,” he said. He turned to Crunchy. “Suck it up, soldier! You don’t see Sarge complaining, do you?” Dan motioned to Sarge’s desk where the large man laid slumped over it, snoring away.

Dan folded his arms as glared out into space. “You’re all so lucky I need you to rescue Pinkie or I’d infect you all with a deadly Trojan horse virus!”

Elise sighed heavily and shook her head.

“Ninja Dave,” Balthazar cried out, “would you please collect everyone’s test?”

Ninja Dave glanced down into the test area and frowned as everyone glowered up at him. “Oh right, the math test…”

Becky raised an eyebrow. “Math test? That’s what everyone is freaking out about?!”

Dave cringed. “It was pretty bad from what I remember…”

“Pretty bad?!” Dan roared from below. “You should have warned us! Pinkie could have been killed and that would have been tragic! Also... others may have died and we’d have to waste hours of our lives attending a funeral!”

“Some ponies didn’t make it…” Pinkie murmured. “Brave solders like Private Swift Slate and Private Periwinkle… who only wanted to keep their homes and family safe.”

Dave made his way down into the testing area. “Look, I told you it would be deadly!”

“I thought you just meant physically, and maybe I lose a few employees to some sort of grueling swim through a giant pool of cupcake batter!”

Caspar’s eyes widened and he reached into his pockets. “Oooo, I’ve got to write that one down. It’s a keeper…” he said as he fished out a pen and a notepad.

Dan continued, “I didn’t know these sadists would try to break us mentally!”

Melchior and Caspar cackled to themselves as Dave began collecting tests, many of which slightly crinkled or damp.

Balthazar looked down into the testing area. “Well, if the math test is the worst thing that happens to you today, you can probably consider yourself lucky!” he said with a smile.

Pinkie wailed in response, “MY DREAMS WILL BE HAUNTED BY THE GOLDEN RATIO FOR WEEKS!”

Balthazar nodded. “Hence why I said ‘probably’.”

Chris raised his hand. “Can we move on to doing something we know is relevant to running a bakery? Like baking?”

Pinkie nodded her head up and down vigorously. “Please, please, pleeeeeease with sugar, and whipped cream, and caramel on top! Omn...”

“Very well!” Balthazar said. “If you can all bake without setting any more fires…”

Dan looked over the group around him. “This group absolutely cannot do that.”

Balthazar shrugged. “Well, as long as you get stuff made without anyone dying…”

Dan took another look at the group. “We probably can do that…”

Balthazar nodded. “Then you may all begin!”

The group quickly ascended the steps up towards their ingredient pile and descended on the cart.