It was under the fourth collapsed building that Iroh and the growing number of ponies assisting him came across something strange – a basement full of ponies, all but two of which were oddly calm.

"Did the nice bug get rid of the dragon already?" said an elderly mare, looking around for some pony and evidently not seeing them.

"A bug?" asked Iroh, "I don't think I have seen many of those today, certainly none that could fight off a dragon..."

His musing was cut short however, with a now regrettably familiar horrified gasp coming from the newly opened doorway.

"Ma-ma-ma-MONSTER!!!" shrieked the stallion who had just caught sight of him and dove back into the basement to the subdued complaints of a few ponies behind him.

Iroh turned back to look at Lyra and his first rescue, Lily Valley, "Ever have the sudden and indescribable urge to play the big bad blazewolf?"

Lily looked confused. "Big bad blazewolf?"

"A popular children's story where I come from, about a bunch of pig chickens trying to build wooden houses to hide from a blazewolf. My nephew used to love that story when he was small, especially when I acted out some parts?"

"Is it a nice story?" asked Lily, tilting her head to one side as she tried to imagine what a human child would look like based on what Iroh looked like.

"Oh no, it's a terrible story," chuckled Iroh. "You have no idea how bad an idea it is to tell to a fire bender child, especially when one of the the highlights is" – here his voice became even more deep and gravelly as he acted out the part – "'Little pig chicken let me in, let me in before I burn you out... BRARG!"

As he finished his line, Iroh reared his head back as he breathed a cone of fire into the sky, narrowly missing a couple of pegasi who we're hovering nearby as they watched Iroh.

At the surprised and fearful shrieks of those around him, Iroh realized his mistake, causing him to scratch the back of his head and grin ruefully.

"Sorry, overdid it a bit there."

A small orange filly standing on a box nearby looked on with wide eyes. "S-s-so. Cool... I gotta tell the girls I found him!"

She jumped off the box, slowing her fall with a buzz of her wings and made her way towards the edge of town where she knew Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were waiting on any sign of their sisters.

Iroh stroked his beard thoughtfully as he looked at the entry into the sturdy basement.

"Do any of you feel up to going in there after any stragglers? It would probably be best for me to move on to the next building after that little performance."

A couple of ponies nodded while another called out that he knew of another building close by that they could use help getting in to.

At the edge of town, a unicorn who just wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up with a nice book or five was finding yet another reason to be unhappy with today.

"Wait... What do you mean somepony's already organising everypony for the cleanup?"

The unicorn in front of Twilight glanced back at her a moment before returning to her task of carefully pulling the boards out of the half demolished house in front of her.

"Mr. Iroh got everypony on a task before he left to go help out in other spots around town. Last I heard he was over in the market square helping the ponies there get out from under the houses and shops that were destroyed."

Sproing...

Twilight's eye twitched as a few strands of her hair separated themselves from her normally neat and orderly mane and tail. Her stressful day had just been compounded by somepony else organising things!

Twilight's mind went into overdrive...

'Everypony knows that if you get two ponies organising the same thing, their checklists will get mixed up and if the check lists get mixed up then things won't get done and if things don't get done then it will be a disaster and this is already a disaster.

Do you know what happens when you add a disaster on top of a disaster?! It means you have to push things back in order to take care of everything and if you have to push things back it means you might not have enough time to get them done and that makes you... TARDY!!!'

The unicorn's world suddenly shrank as her vision filled with the narrowed, bloodshot violet eyes of an ever so slightly miffed Twilight Sparkle.

"Where. Is. He?" growled Twilight in the voice normally reserved for book defacers and fidgety ponies who just won't stop tapping their hooves in her nice quiet library.

"I-I just said... In the market square... Miss Twilight Sparkle, ma'am... Eep!"

When the mare opened her eyes again, Twilight was mercifully gone, a small dust trail indicating she was making her way to the market.

"Whew..." she sighed. "I wonder who put the pineapple in her rump today..."

With a shudder at what awaited the next target of that perilously pissed purple pony, she turned back and returned to her work.

Milky Way landed beside Mayor Mare just moments after she had emerged from the edge of the Whitetail Woods.

"Miss Mayor, I think we've spotted something you will want to see for yourself."

Mayor Mare's frown deepened with concern as she turned to face the young astronomer. "Oh dear. Nothing bad I hope?"

"I don't think so. You know those rumors about the strange creature wandering around Ponyville?" seeing the mayor nod, he carried on.

"Well I just spotted it in the middle of the town square with about a dozen ponies or so. It looks like it is helping them get to anypony who is trapped or hurt."

The mayor grinned knowingly. "So the mysterious Iroh has finally decided to make an appearance. Would you care to lead me to him?"

Milky Way ruffled his wings and stood straighter at being assigned another task. "Of course, Miss Mayor."

Mayor Mare's grin settled into a more pleasant smile. "Just a moment then, and we can go. Oh Scribed Scroll~!"

"You called?" said stallion intoned from almost directly behind her, causing her to startle badly.

"Sweet Celestia, don't do that!" she scolded as she held a hoof to her heart. "I'm going to go ahead to look at some of the damage for myself as well as to finally meet this Iroh I've heard so much about. Could you be a dear and look at the map I have Sightseer marking for me? We need to get the recovery teams to the least damaged areas first so there are more homes available for everypony to sleep in tonight. We don't know how bad the damage is but even from here I can see there is quite a bit of it."

"No problem, ma'am. You go get to your hoof shakin' and I'll take care of the details. Just go easy on those noodles, you hear?"

The mare blush heavily as the old stallion chuckled. "Scroll! I thought I told you never to mention that again!"

As Scribed Scroll's chuckles deepened, the mayor let out a huff of displeasure as she turned away from him, only causing his chuckles to erupt into full blown laughter.

It was the work of minutes – half of which were spent with the mayor mutter and cursing under her breath about Scribed Scroll and his stupid tasty pasta – to trot back into town and enter the street just in time to witness Iroh beginning some strange actions in front of the side wall of a house, the front of which was almost completely destroyed.

Iroh slid his feet out, taking a very wide legged stance as he cupped his hands before him, all the while staring at the solid wooden wall in front of him. This time there were no beams to cut so he would have to dig out a technique he hadn't used in years.

Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, a line of fire arced gracefully from one hand, over his head and then down to the palm of his other hand, bypassing that hand and completing the circle it had traced.

The ponies nearby were entranced. Some of them had seen Iroh burn through five or six beams so far, assisting in the freeing of dozens of ponies, but this was something new.

Within a few rotations, the line of fire became a true circle, the ponies nearby gasping in awe and appreciation, a pegasus hovering nearby was taking as many pictures as he could of the event.

A few rotations more and it was apparent to all around that the circle of fire was growing more intense, many of them feeling the heat on their faces from several body lengths away.

With a grunt of concentration, Iroh started walking the circle forwards, step by carefully placed step.

When he was close enough to the wall, he carefully pushed the circle the last few inches onto the wall as he maintained the rotation. With precision, he burned a quickly deepening circular trench in the wall, seconds later, there was a cry of surprise from inside as he broke through.

"Let me get out the way, then you can kick that hole in your wall so you can get – OOF!"

Iroh exhaled painfully as the new exit he had cut into the wall was ejected directly into his body and he was knocked onto his back.

"Quite impressive, Mr. Iroh."

Iroh looked up to see a yellow mare with a grey mane standing over him, peering down at him over the top of her spectacles.

After a couple of seconds of staring at each other, the mare added with a smirk, "Would you like a hoof with that, or a pillow?"

"Just as I was starting to get comfortable." Iroh joked. "A helping hoof would be lovely."

Several ponies rushed to help as the mayor stepped past Iroh's head and placed a hoof under one side of the scorched edge of the circle of wood.

"All together now, my dears. One, two, HUP!"

It was as the ponies were moving the disk to one side, that an agitated shout came from the town square, mere meters away.

"HEY! Which one of you ponies is Iroh?!"

Almost as one, those assembled turned their heads to regard the lavender unicorn standing aggressively in front of the fountain, glaring around as if daring them to be the object of her wrath.

"YES!" came the joyous shout from next to Iroh.

Twilight barely had time to turn from the group of ponies she was examining before she was caught by a joyous and very lively lavender Lyra.

With a shriek, the two mares tumbled into the fountain, Lyra focused on her prey.

"MWWWWAAAAHH!!!"

The brains of dozens of nearby ponies, Twilight included, short circuited spectacularly as Lyra laid a massive kiss on the surprised librarian.

Above them, Eff Stop cackled with glee as he snapped several shots, headlines for the celebrity section already racing through his head.

Lyra pulled back from the dazed Twilight to look back at herself. As she saw some of her normal green color showing through – and not realizing it was the fountain water washing the dye out – she exclaimed. "Yes! More PASSION!!!" and dove for Twilight again, oblivious to her audience.

"My goodness..." remarked Mayor Mare from beside Iroh, who was now sitting up.

"If you came looking to talk with me," Iroh muttered out the corner of his mouth, "now might be a good time to make ourselves scarce."

The older mare shook her head as if to clear it a moment before looking to the side and nodding her agreement.

"Yes, good idea. Come on this way..."

The mare turned and moved as quietly as she could around the corner of the building and out of sight, followed by the light padding of Iroh's sandal shod feet, and unnoticed by any of the ponies still staring at the spectacle in the fountain.

Author's Notes:

Sorry about the mispost earlier today. Being in a hurry to start writing again and using a new medium (I have a shiny new iPad ) does not always mix well.

"Quite impressive, Mr. Iroh." – This line for some reason made me picture Judi Dench in the role of Mayor Mare