Big Macintosh, Chief of the Ponyville Fire Brigade, was given the unenviable task of training the new recruits.

He scratched his beard with a hoof as he contemplated the lineup of colts standing before him. More like young stallions, he decided. They all had cutie marks, responsibilities, and some sort of plan for the future. Even if that future didn’t extend much past getting back home to plug in their Famicolt 64 games.

He stomped a hoof on the ground to get their attention, and only found himself slightly successful. Pipsqueak, Featherweight, and Rumble all but snapped to attention, but Snails’ blank gaze remained in the middle-distance. Snips and Button Mash were in the midst of a heated discussion on whether the game in Button’s Joyboy was the best in the series or the worst.

Spike was late. Again.

“Ah-hem!” Big Mac narrowed his eyes as the two arguing colts finally gave him their notice. “Ah think it’s tahm to get started.”

Button rapidly tapped his Joyboy. “Come on, save! Save! Darn you and your lengthy cut-scenes!”

Big Mac stood over the young stallion, his shadow falling across Button’s face. Button mutely set his game on the ground and grinned a half-smile. “H-hey, Chief. We ready to start?”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac traveled down the line, sizing up what he had to work with. Button Mash was fit enough, despite the fact that his favorite activity lacked much real “activity.” “Who can tell me what we talked ’bout last week?”

Rumble’s muscular foreleg shot into the air without a second thought. Now there was a pony who could pull his own weight, and probably that of seven others. “How each type of pony can assist with the water, Chief!”

Big Mac nodded. “And how’s that?”

Featherweight lifted his spindly leg. It looked thin enough to snap in a stiff wind. “Pegasi can push clouds around.”

Pipsqueak stood up, his head only just meeting the height of Rumble’s shoulder. “We earth ponies are strong enough to haul big, heaping cartloads of the stuff around, Chief.”

Mac’s eyes drifted to Pip’s legs, leading him to debate just how much of a load they could actually pull. He turned to the still spaced-out Snails and sighed through his nose. “Snails? How ’bout you?”

Snails blinked and turned lethargically towards Big Mac. “Huh?”

Big Macintosh rolled his shoulders. “Snails, what’re you thinkin’ ’bout?”

Snails smiled. “I was just thinking about why the sky’s blue, Chief.”

Everypony failed in their attempts to hold back snickers.

“I mean, if the sun is a disc hanging on the firmament, then maybe the sky is blue because that’s the color on its surface.” Snails’ brow furrowed. “But if the sun is actually a celestial object, then its rays shining through the atmosphere and reflecting off air particles might make the sky look blue.” He shrugged. “It really depends on what theory of the world you subscribe to.”

Silence fell over their little corner of the park. Big Mac knelt down to pluck a blade of grass and stuck it in his mouth. “Snails?”

The lanky, orange colt smiled. “Yeah, Chief?”

The blade of grass trailed a path from one side of Macintosh’s mouth to the other. “Do y’think you could keep yer mind on here and now? Just maybe?”

Snails smiled. “Oh. Yeah, sure, Chief!”

Big Mac grunted. “How does a unicorn help in a fahr emergency?”

“Pumps water through the hoses.” Snails raised his eyebrows expectantly, which Big Mac answered with a nod.

“Today,” Macintosh said, “we’re gonna be goin’ over the finer details of CPR.”

Snips chuckled, his rotund belly jiggling. He nudged Snails on the ribs. “Muchas Smoochas!”

Button Mash flexed his foreleg. “Don’t worry, babe! I know exactly what to do.”

Chief Macintosh smirked. “Ah’m gonna split yah into teams of two fer this exercise.”

Button and Snips fell silent as certain implications fluttered their way into their brains.

“Button, Snips”—Big Mac held back a devious chuckle—“yer on a team.”

The two colts looked at each other with hair-raising panic. While they were busy losing their minds, Big Mac separated the others. “Rumble, yer with Snails. Pip, Featherweight, yer next.”

“Hay, guys! Sorry I’m late!” The tapping of claws on pavement drew their attention to a large, purple-and-green shape plodding its way down the path. A hefty tail wagged behind an amethyst rump as a dragon walked up to Big Mac. “Twilight was, um… You know. Studying.

“Studying how to create abominations of science,” he muttered under his breath.

Spike the Dragon, when standing on his hind legs, had finally managed to grow tall enough to bump a head-spike on Macintosh’s chin. He did so, then shuffled back a few feet. “Sorry I’m late. Sorry.”

Big Mac sighed through his nose. “Spike, you can hand out the dummies.”

“Heh, dummies,” Snips laughed in relief. “Right.”

“I-I knew it was dummies,” Button said. “The whole time.”

The blade of grass slid its way to the middle of Mac’s mouth. “Find the middle of the dummy’s chest and press down as hard as you can. You’re givin’ their heart a jolt, not a massage.”

The colts went to work, with varying degrees of success. Rumble was able to push the chest down nearly far enough to be respectable, but the combined efforts of Featherweight and Pipsqueak fell woefully short. Each push bounced them off of the dummy’s chest, leaving their faux patient unattended. And probably dead.

“Hold on, guys. Spike an’ ah’ll demonstrate the proper way tah perform CPR.” Big Mac pointed at the rubber dummy. “Spike, find the center of the pony’s chest, got it?”

Spike positioned his fists above the dummy and looked up at Macintosh. “Like this?”

Mac nodded, and Spike pressed down. His purple claws, rather than simply press the firm yet pliant material down, punched a hole right through the dummy’s chest.

Rumble’s jaw dropped. Snips held his hoof over his mouth as his cheeks bulged. Button’s face scrunched up as he cringed mightily. Pipsqueak, being the quintessential Trottingham gentlecolt, lolled his tongue out in disgust. Featherweight’s eyes rolled back as he tumbled backwards.

Snails stared at something in the middle-distance.

A bird chirped cheerfully to its fellows. Big Mac sighed. “Spike…”

The dragon looked up as he chewed on his lower lip. “Yeah, Chief?”

“Could you do us all a favor and not perform CPR? On anypony? Ever?”

“Yeah, Chief.”

Big Macintosh stirred in his bed, sighing deeply with a smile on his face. The night had fallen several hours before, draping the lands with its woobie-like embrace. The world was at peace, the animals were quieted, the bells were…

Huh. The fire bell was ringing. Big Mac thought to wring the ringer’s neck. Then he figured he ought to do something about the fire.

Big Mac galloped out the door of the farm house, grabbing a few essentials as he went. A Firepony’s helmet, a fire-resistant coat, an axe to make a beaver weep with envy… that sort of thing. While he raced to the town square, he thought of what members of the Fire Brigade could be waiting for him.

“Caramel’s out of town, Thunderlane’s down with the feather flu again, Magnum recently discovered his repressed pyrophobia—”

He entered the town and nodded. “Figure’s, don’t it?”

Rumble, Featherweight, Snips, Snails, Pipsqueak, Button Mash, and Spike stood at attention, silhouetted against a ball of orange flame.

“Yer orders, Chief?” Snails drawled.

Macintosh looked from the fire team to the blaze behind them. “Take five.”

Snails grin was as wide as a banana split. “Gee, thanks, Chief—”

“And by ‘take five’ ah mean ‘put that dadgum fahr out’!” Big Mac snapped. “Rumble, Featherweight, get some clouds a-brewin’! Snails, Snips, pump water outta the fountain if’n you gotta!” He turned to Spike with a snort. “What’s burnin’?”

The dragon touched the tips of his claws together. “Rnbr drsh’s clerdhrs.”

“Spit it out, boy!”

“Rainbow Dash’s cloudhouse!” Spike wailed. He knelt before Big Mac and grasped at his hooves. “I told Twilight that it was a bad idea to study combustible gasses in an oxygen-rich atmosphere, but she was convinced she was safe because the clouds ‘are water, Spike, don’t be silly’!”

Big Mac blinked. “So that’s a cloudhouse.”

Spike nodded, his eyes watery.

“On fahr.”

Spike nodded a bit more rapidly.

“Ah admit, this is one of the weirder chemical fahrs ah’ve seen.” Big Mac stomped a hoof to get Button and Pip’s attention. “Where are those darned clouds!? Where’s the water!?”

In response, he was drenched from above by Rumble’s overenthusiastic spraying. “At the fahr, Rumble!”

“Sorry, Chief!” the strong pegasus colt said. He grasped the cloud around the middle, spattering a few more precious drops on Big Mac’s head. He squeezed the cloud like a tube of toothpaste and caused a jet of water to appear.

It sprayed away from the fire, naturally.

Snips and Snails carried a snake of water aloft in their telekinetic unicorn magic. Big Mac sputtered. “Where’re the dadgum hoses!?”

Button raised a hoof. “Um. Back at the station, Chief.”

“Then somepony race back there and grab some!” Big Mac booted Button Mash in the general direction of the Ponyville Fire Department. “Snips, toss that water this way!”

Though Big Mac pointed at the conflagration with an outstretched hoof, Snips’ attention was not at all on it. He was, however, paying close attention to both what the voice was saying, and where the voice was located. “Pronto, Chief!”

A shadow fell over Big Macintosh as light was distorted by a stream of water flying right at his chest. “It’s lookin’ lahk one of those days.”

GOOSH

Pipsqueak squinted at the oxidizing cloudhouse. “Chief Macintosh, do cloudhouses have any sort of structural integrity?”

“How should ah know?” Big Mac asked as water dripped from his beard. “Why?”

The cloudhouse groaned as its walls bowed outward.

Pip scrunched his face up. “Because I think the bally thing might collapse soon, wot.”

A screech sang out from within the house. Spike gasped, his eyes growing as large as dinner plates. “Twilight! She’s still in there!”

Overhead, Featherweight tugged a cloud closer to the fire. He heard the scream, followed by Spike’s declaration, and froze. A glint entered his eyes, like the house fire had suddenly made its way into his head. His mouth opened as he bellowed akin to the great minotaur lords of old. He propelled himself forth, spinning like a white and brown drill. He blasted through the side of the house and tore a hole in it. A moment later, he emerged from the other side, an alicorn princess carried in his forelegs.

The jaws of all present dropped to the ground.

Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn Princess of Friendship, gaped at her rescuer. “Y-you saved me!”

“Princess Sparkle,” Featherweight said, his forelegs straining with their burden, “there’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you, and I kinda wanna get it out before you almost die again!”

“Holy cow, you saved me!” Twilight blinked and tilted her head. “Holy cow, you saved me?”

She was answered in short order. Featherweight took a breath, puckered his lips, and then pressed them against the princess’ own.

“Dah, guh—” Big Mac blathered. “Well, ah figured that tonight was missin’ somethin’. Turns out that was a harassment lawsuit.” He placed a hoof on his forehead. “Ah ain’t gonna be the one fillin’ out the paperwork this tahm.”

The kiss lasted all of five seconds before the alicorn princess, who was at least three times Featherweight’s body-mass, finally overwhelmed the young stallion’s forelegs. She tumbled to the ground with a shriek, leaving Featherweight to make monkey lips at thin air.

Button Mash trotted up, his back laden with a multitude of fire hoses. “Hay, guys. What did I miss—Whoa!”

The roar of flame ripped through the air as the cloudhouse collapsed completely, disintegrating into tiny puffs of flaming cloud. Silence filled the air as the fire petered out of existence.

“Well, uh… okay?” Button Mash dropped the hoses and grinned up at Macintosh. “Fire’s out, Chief.”

Spike chewed his bottom lip. “Aw, man. Rainbow Dash is never gonna let us housesit ever again.”

Big Macintosh, Fire Chief of the Ponyville Fire Brigade, narrowed his eyes at the emblem above the stage. It was a red circle, with orange/yellow flames dancing within. Across the bottom was written in a flowery script: Non Ardet Equis.

“Equis Collisio et Combustio,” he replied to the sign. He lifted a medal in his hooves and placed it against a green chest. “Spike, for soundin’ the alarm and causing the least amount of collateral damage, ah am pleased to welcome you into the Ponyville Fahr Brigade.”

Spike grinned at Twilight, who smiled encouragingly. Her seat was suspiciously as far away from Featherweight’s as possible. That is, on the completely opposite side of the auditorium.

Button Mash munched on some popcorn he had smuggled into the ceremony. “Huh, you know what?”

Pipsqueak snatched a kernel away from Button and tossed it into his mouth. “What’s that, chap?”

Button Mash hid the snack bag from sight as Thunderlane trotted past. “Spike, the fire-breathing dragon, is the only one of us that’s actually a real firefighter now.”

Pip thought for a moment, his brown eyes glancing about the hall. “Well, blow me down. That’s a real pip right there, it is!”

The two colts were quiet for a minute. “Yep,” Pipsqueak said at last, “a real pip indeed.”

Author's Notes:

Now that I've got that little monstrosity off my chest...

This story, in addition to being a concept I've been dinking around with for a while, was kinda a proof-of-concept for me. I'd like to start my own little series of "near-future Ponyville" stories in the next couple months, and this is sort of a "Pilot Episode," as it were.

Now, it wasn't terrible, was it?