Crystal Clear glanced at the bubbling beakers and test tubes with a warm sense of pride. Certainly the little wooden cart  they had set aside, a showpony's wagon refurbished for holiday purposes, was hardly suited for laboratory grade conditions, but that hadn't stopped a pony as brilliant and resourceful as he.

Though, this close to Dodge Junction, some air conditioning would have been nice...

"Softheart, look at this."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, it's mana crystals, just like the last batch. It's all the same, bitch."

Clear shot a scowl over his shoulder, watching the disenfranchised youth with no small amount of barely-concealed contempt. "It's not all 'just the same'. Soft, I didn't want to believe you were soft in the head as well but-"

"Alright, alright, quit your yapping, old timer, and just tell me whatever it is you want to tell me."

"Ninety nine percent." Crystal declared, allowing himself a proud grin.

Softheart blinked.

Softheart blinked again.

"Ninety- no way, dude, you have got to be kidding me." Crystal Clear was brushed aside as the younger. dirtier, scruffier tan unicorn brushed him aside, gaping at the glowing drip.

"Actually, it's a little bit more than that, probably closer to ninety nine point one percent." Crystal amended with a dismissive gesture, "But, clearly, if you had paid attention to any of my classes, you might have been able to-"

Crystal was silenced as Softheart smooched him, a chaste kiss out of excitement rather than any genuine affection, but enough to stun the old science pony into silence.

"Oh man, you are not yanking me on this, are you, you condescending old prick? No... no way."

Crystal couldn't decide whether he felt more flattered or offended. In the end, he supposed it didn't really matter, so long as Softheart continued with his share of the work.

"No hot sauce in it, either. That's a reckless impurity." Crystal took the opportunity to scold his 'partner'. Frankly, he took every opportunity to do so.

Every second he didn't spend scolding the reckless idiot was either spent contemplating new and unique ways to scold the pony or how to get a better batch the next cook.

Now, with the recipe perfected, he had freed up an awful lot of time just for scolding.

"Yeah, yeah man, I totally get you." The other pony muttered, his lustful eyes never leaving the deep-blue crystals condensing before him. "You're gonna let me try this, right?"

"Damned junkie." Crystal growled, silencing Softheart with a glare. "You-"

"Yo, bitch." the 'damned junkie' cut him off. "I helped make this too, you know, fifty-fifty? You gotta let me try it. Quality control and all that horsecrap, right?"

"Softheart!" Crystal snapped, "Watch your tongue." Finally Crystal Clear wrestled the mask off his muzzle with a hoof and rolled his eyes, "Alright, fine, you can have one dose, one. We can't make a profit if you-"

"-Use it all before the customers get their hooves on it, I know, I know, I hear you, geeze." Softheart sighed, "It's not like the end of Equestria if I just try some, alright?"

"Fine."

"So, maybe if you just shut your damned- Wait, what did you say?"

"I said fine, Softheart." Crystal Clear growled.

"I... oh." He slumped. He almost seemed disappointed by his uncontested win, the older stallion noted with wry amusement.

Nothing a mana hit wouldn't fix, Crystal scowled.

"Just let me step outside. I've got to send a letter to my wife, okay?" the old, white unicorn sighed, running a hoof through his rapidly thinning, matted grey mane.

"Yeah, sure, whatever." Softheart was already pressing his horn to a tiny crystal, sparking as it hit the tip.

Crystal Clear stepped outside, noting with satisfaction the complete and utter isolation around them. He pulled out from his saddlebags, hanging off the outside of the cart so as not to catch the reek from The Process, a simple blank scroll.

"Dearest Sky Blue

Boss has me staying back late. He's in a really bad mood, really riding my plot, won't be home for a while. I'm sorry. I'll get us some pizza on the way back, to make it up to you.

Your husband."

Crystal charged his horn with the simple sending spell. Pain rippled and cracked through his horn, his brain, bursting like cold fire behind his eyes and shredding through his psyche. He screamed in pain, not noticing he had fallen until the ground pressed itself rudely into his side.

He heard the cheap tin screen door of the cart slam open behind him, but he couldn't raise his head, couldn't move, to see it. He was simply forced to writhe on the hot, desert sand.

"Yo! Yo, Mr Clear! What's- Oh, horseapples, Mr Clear! Oh, ponyfeathers, ponyfeathers, ponyfeathers!" his assistant cursed over and over, a forehoof pressed tightly to forehead, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what? There's nothing to tell you, Softheart." Crystal groaned.

"What, not like, 'hey, Softheart, I have horn cancer, I'm totally dying.' Nothing like that?!" the response, a bitter snipe, blew right through Crystal's armour.

Still, he blinked, delirious as he was. "What? Softheart, how-"

"That's what it is, right? The marks on your horn, your mane falling out in those weird clumps, those burns you've been trying to hide from me... you're dying, aren't you, Mr Clear," Softheart spoke reverentially, almost in awe, as he stared down at the husk of a stallion before him, "and you didn't think to tell me? We're partners, idiot, this affects me!"

"Calm down," Crystal coughed, "This doesn't affect you-"

"Bull." The affected stallion intoned, "Shit."

"-Would you just listen to me?" The 'dying' pony hacked out, "Alright. I have horn cancer. There, are you happy?"

"No! Why would I be?!" Softheart snapped, throwing a hoof into the air.

"Look, can you just... send that letter for me, please. Just send that letter and we'll talk about it."

Softheart growled, pacing back and forth and muttering angrily to himself. Finally, he turned back to his reluctant mentor. "Okay. Okay, you promise?"

"Cross my heart and hope to fly."

"Alright then. Who does this-"

"You know where I live. Just... send it there."

There was a char, a poof, and the deed was done.

"Alright, now your end of the bargain, Mr Clear. Just tell me... how long? How long, exactly, until... you know... you take a long trip to Belize?"

"Belize? What-" Crystal propped himself up, shaking his head of the thoughts as one might do mental cobwebs, "Never mind. A few months, maybe. This was going to be my last cook."

"Celestia," Softheart breathed, sucking air through his teeth with a harsh hiss, "I mean... oh man. So all this? Just to get money for your family, right?"

"Yes." He nodded curtly, "With college, my new daughter, the mortgage, the car, groceries, utilities and other expenses I worked it out to be somewhere around seven hundred and thirty two thousand bits." Crystal stated it matter-of-factly, though the number still drew bitter icicles through his heart, "And I only have a little while to do it. And the cancer, the cancer means I can't even just rely on my magic. I don't have it anymore, Softheart. Just the science."

"Celestia." Softheart breathed again. "Oh, man-"

"If I die." Crystal followed up, waving his own words away with a hoof and a wince, "I mean when the cancer kills me, not if, when, I want you... no," he pointed a determined, wavering hoof from his slumped position, right between Softheart's stunned eyes, "I need you to get that money to my family. This, this right here?" He swept his hoof in a wavering gesture over the cart, "This should get you one point eight million bits, easy, if you play your cards right. More than enough, even if we split it fifty fifty. Do you understand now, Softheart, do you understand now just how serious this is?"

Softheart blinked away tears, holding a hoof down to the broken pony before him, impotent for all his rage. "Yeah, yeah I can do that. We're square, alright?"

Crystal Clear dusted himself off, gingerly brushing his horn. Then, head held high. turning back into the sheltered cart, he muttered low, words that carried only by the grace of the winds to Softheart's ears, two soft words with all the weight of the world behind them.

"Thank you."

Crystal Clear stepped into the dark, disgusting room. Smoke filled and hazy, with only a fey old, upholstered chairs could be seen in the sunlight that filtered in through the shut blinds. The bulky puke-green pegasus had patted him down with muscular wings whilst another large, oh so large, mustard-coated and ketchup-stained earth pony in a cheap suit had stood by, watching with disinterested appraisal. Both had smirked at what the pegasus had found.

A large bag of transubstantiated mana crystals.

Loco smirked as the bag was winged to him. Levitating a combat knife before him, he slit the bag open and examined the contents delicately, as one would admire a snowflake in cupped hand. So fragile, so delicate a thing, so powerful a kick...

"So, what's your name, little pony?" Loco's smirk stayed in place, but his eyebrows drew tight as his eyes shifted from the bag to its provider, transitioning fluidly from playful to snarl.

"Highsabird." Crystal Clear lied gracefully, his chosen nom de plume, his persona, resting as an easy mantle upon his shoulders, a war mask he wore as his own face. He adjusted his glasses disdainfully with some minor levitation, concealing the wince as he did so, daring not show weakness to the vicious monster before him.

The meaning of the name was lost utterly on the crazed junkie before him and the idiot muscle meathead featherbrains behind him, and yes, he was bitter enough to warrant them all three redundant adjectives, thank you. Highsabird had been a rocket scientist during the Luna Rebellion, a pony who had found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, who found himself willing to work for less than moral objectives if that was what paid for the science. Many ponies had lost their lives to Highsabird's work, certainly, but that wasn't what the science pony had intended.

He just needed the bits.

Still, Crystal Clear couldn't help but chuckle at Highsabird's name and its parallel with the junkie euphemism...

"Yeah? Well, why don't you take a seat." Loco flashed his teeth dangerously, sweeping a hoof out slowly in a welcoming gesture.

"I don't think I'll be here that long, Loco." Crystal shot back, drawing courage from the mask he so easily hid behind. Inside he was cowering.

If he got himself killed now, his family would never see those bits... all his work would be for nothing.

No.

"It's your meeting," Loco growled low, undercurrents of implied violence evident in every malicious word.

No, he would not be killed by this whelp.

"Why don't you start talking-"

His work would not be all for nothing at the hooves of this snarling little foal.

"-and tell me what you want." Loco finished, flicking the combat knife meaningfully.

Crystal Clear would provide for his family.

"Fifty thousand bits." His expression, stone, his words, lead.

Loco laughed, cackled, his dumb muscle awkwardly joining in, incredulous looks plastered on their dumb mugs.

"Fifty? How you figure that, egghead?"

"Thirty five for the pound of mana you stole." Highsabird, for the line between the pony and the mask had now ceased to be, uttered cool as ice, "And another fifteen for my partner's pain and suffering."

Loco silenced himself, leaning forward in his cheap-arse chair and extinguishing his lit cigarette on his tongue in an arrogant display of dumb machismo.

Highsabird was obviously not amused, even as Crystal squirmed uncomfortably below the surface.

Loco laughed again, dumping the cigarette unceremoniously into an ashtray, "Oh yeah, I remember that little bitch," his voice oozed acid, but that was fine, Crystal worked with potent acids everyday and he made sure never to let it burn him, then, either "so you must be his daddy." Loco stood, now, abruptly and violently, as was his tendency, walking around the large, cheap antique table between the pair, getting in Crystal's face, but coming eye-to-eye with Highsabird instead,  "What, did the little bitch go cry to his daddy, huh?"

"Let me get this straight," he continued, "I... steal your bits. I-" he shadowboxed, sending rabid spittle flying from his slasher-grinning mouth, "Beat the piss out of your little mule boy," he shoots a glance over to a shadowy corner, "No offense."

"None taken." Comes a ghostly response from the corner.

"And now... you bring me more mana?" He stares daggers, fiery and burning with passion, back to Highsabird, "And you call me Loco?"

"Oh, that would all be true, just for one little mistake on your part." Highsabird flashed his own withering glare at the smirking, smug stallion before him, even as Crystal cowered from his own actions.

"Yeah? And what would that be, buddy?"

"This... isn't mana."

And with that he snapped a small crystal lying on the table, fragmenting it.

The world roared in unholy white and blue flames, ringing in the ears of those in the room. The entire wall rocked back from the blow, the shutters rippled out through thin air where panes of glass had been standing, and the wall of muscle simply toppled flat on their plots.

When the dust settled Highsabird was standing in the centre of the room, holding an entire bag of the demon-stones

"You got cajonies, friend, I'll give you that," Loco growled, even as Crystal winced at the word 'friend', "Alright, look, fifty thou, yeah? It's in the safe. It's all yours."

Crystal stood in Highsabird's place, desperately clinging to the shredded remains of the mask. Fortunately no-pony seemed to be paying him strict attention... just the bag in his grasp.

Crystal Clear had to suppress another wince as he caught the heavy sack of bits with his telekinesis, shuddering through his horn.

He had to leave before the facade cracked completely. He could already feel a thin stream of blood roll down his nose, the taste of copper down the back of his throat...

And you must never let them see you bleed.

"Your stuff was good, a'ight?" Loco intoned solemnly, "Let's say you bring me another pound next week."

Crystal stared dead eyed-

"Money up front."

-at his new business partner before turning to take his leave, scowling at the cringing and cowering muscle that had so calmly thought to fuck with him moments prior.

"So!" Loco shouted over the ringing in his ears, "What was that, anyway? That crazy stuff you just pulled?"

Crystal stopped in his tracks and shot a look of pure disdain over his shoulder.

"Crystallized brimstone." He spat, barely deeming this pony worthy of his words, "A little trick of science."

And with that he left, careful not to show his limp, wiping away the rapidly growing pool of blood congealing in his sinuses.

Show no weakness.

His family deserved no less.

"Dear Princess Celestia

Today Rainbow Dash called me sheltered, and my other friends appear to be dodging my inquiries as to the meaning of her accusation. I'm not sheltered, am I?

If what they said was true, Shining Armour would surely have informed me. It's not like crime could so easily slip past the guard whilst my brother was in charge.

Right?

Your faithful student

Princess Twilight Sparkle."