“Look, I know you all just got paid, and I know you think you have the right to spend your money, but the lot of you have been asked to leave. You’re being rowdy, belligerent, you’re scaring the other customers, and you’ve been a little to grabby with some of the mares. So now it is time for you to sleep it off,” Sparkler said in a commanding voice as she stood in the middle of the tavern, staring down a group of earth ponies and pegasi.

Behind Sparkler, Thunderlane and Blossomforth stood ready for trouble.

“Maybe -hic- we’ll just get grabby with you,” one of the pegasi mumbled as he staggered sideways into his companion. He smiled stupidly at Blossomforth. “You wouldn’t be such a -hic- bitch if you had your plot plowed.”

“Bad idea,” Blossomforth announced. “Try grabbing me and see what happens.”

One of the earth ponies snatched a chair, grasping it in his fetlock, and swung it at Sparkler’s head. Sparkler didn’t move, she didn’t flinch, she simply turned to stone from the shoulders upwards and stood there as the chair shattered over her face.

“Oh horsefeathers, this just turned into a bad scene,” Thunderlane said as he backed up towards the door. “Come on Blossomforth! Somebody just set off Stoneface!”

“I’m right with ya Thunderlane… I don’t want no part of this!” Blossomforth replied as she retreated towards the door as well. “You poor dumb bastards… you hit Stoneface with a chair... Bad idea!”

“Um, I would find some place to hide if I was you Apple Dumpling,” Thunderlane suggested as he backed out the door and into the street.

The earth pony mare working the bar ran past the crowd of rowdy drunks who were all huddling closer together, now eyeing the pony made out of stone standing before them and snorting in drunken confusion.

“That statue is kinda sexy,” one stallion announced, unaware of his own doom.

“Right behind you!” Apple Dumpling shouted as she was escorted out by Blossomforth.

Three ponies stood on the dark street under a brightly lit sign, each of them cringing when they heard the sounds of violence. Pained squeals. Agonised cries. The sound of wood shattering. The muffled thump of a body being body checked or slammed into something.

“Don’t worry ma’am, when you go back in there, everything will be fixed, Sparkler is real good at repair spells,” Blossomforth said in a reassuring voice.

“Is she killing them?” Apple Dumpling whispered fearfully.

“Naw… naw… she’s knocking the fight out of them. She’s real gentle. There won’t be any broken bones or anything like that… well, not likely. Not unless one of them punches her real hard, but you break your own bones if you punch a statue. That’s their fault, not hers. She’s just being playful and letting them beat on her for a while until they get tired, and then she usually just gives them a good thumping they’ll never forget,” Thunderlane answered.

“This has happened before?” Apple Dumpling questioned.

“Well, there was a fight a while back with a pimp and a few thugs. One of the pegasi tried to shank Stoneface with a blade shoe. She took it personal. We need to post a list of rules of stupid things not to do to Stoneface. Anyhow, that pegasus, he’s in Canterlot now,” Blossomforth replied as she shook her head. “Ponies need to learn not to pick a fight with Stoneface.”

“OW MAH POTATER SACK!”

“I’m sure she didn’t do that on purpose,” Thunderlane explained as he cringed.

Nodding, Blossomforth grimaced from sympathy pain. “She probably just picked somepony up and used him as a weapon against his friends. She’s bad about doing that. Ever seen a pony hit a pony with another pony? It sounds real rough, but smacking one pony with another pony is more gentle then kicking them with a stone hoof. I told you Sparkler is gentle… she’s too kind… if I was her, I’d rough them up a bit more so they might learn their lesson.”

Shaking her head, Apple Dumpling’s ears drooped. “No, I ain’t never seen no pony smacked with another pony, and no, I don’t wanna.”

The bar was clean. The bar was whole. Each chair was right where it should be, each table whole, there was no broken glass, the only thing out of place was a pile of ponies in near the door and Sparkler watched them warily.

“Thunderlane, we’re gonna need a wagon to haul these jerks off to the railyard depot where they can be locked up in the box until they can be shipped to Canterlot,” Sparkler commanded.

“On it,” Thunderlane responded as he exited out of the door and then took wing.

“Drunk and disorderly… assaulting an officer,” Sparkler said. “Tsk tsk tsk… your mothers didn’t raise you right. You don’t even want to know what my mother would do to you for the way you were behaving. But I’ll tell you one thing. My mother has a thing for knocking out teeth in a scuffle.”

“My bar is cleaner now than when I walked out before the fight started!” Apple Dumpling shouted as she looked around. “Even the windows are clean!”

“Ponyville police look after our community ma’am. We clean up our messes just like we clean up our community,” Blossomforth replied, smiling a broad smile.

“Maaaah taaaters,” a stallion whined in a high falsetto from the bottom of the pile.

“Aw, did your taters get mashed? Well, next time, don’t pick a fight with Stoneface,” Blossomforth chided.

“She used me to beat up my buddies,” the stallion whimpered in a shrill voice.

“She probably warned you that you would only be hurting yourselves,” Blossomforth replied as she began to chuckle.

“She did warn us… we was stupid,” another stallion answered.

“And now you are going to Canterlot… and maybe off to live on the stupid farm,” Blossomforth said as she continued to chuckle.

“So what if one of them poops in the tub?” Rainbow Dash asked as she looked down at the four foals in the tub and saw Harper, Peekaboo, Pound, and Pumpkin all sitting in the shallow water, playing and splashing with one another.

“You drain out the water, dig out the turd, toss it in the toilet, and run more water. Or just dig out out the turd… depends on how tired you are,” Derpy answered.

“OOoooOoooh… ew!” Rainbow Dash groaned in reply. She looked down at the foals and scratched her belly nervously with her hoof. “So… uh… how do we get all of that sticky goop off of them?”

“Well, you have to grab one, careful, when they’re soapy they’re slippery, and then you scrub the sticky off. This is why we have bath brushes,” Derpy responded as she gave Rainbow Dash a smile. “Now don’t be shy… you have to get in there with them.”

“What if one poops?” Rainbow Dash asked in panic.

“Poop happens. So does pee. Just get in there!” Derpy commanded as she gave Rainbow Dash a nudge. Derpy prodded the reluctant blue pegasus a few times, getting a grunt from Rainbow Dash each time.

Carefully stepping over the side of the tub, Rainbow Dash crawled in and then sat down in the shallow water. She was immediately splashed by Pound and Rainbow Dash raised her forelegs to shield herself from Pound’s aquatic assault. Pound was soon joined by Peekaboo, who kicked and splashed water at Rainbow Dash as well.

“Hey! Hey! No ganging up on me you little brutes!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she was getting soaked from two different directions.

“They’re pegasi… you have to assert your dominance,” Derpy suggested.

Hearing Derpy’s words, Rainbow Dash chopped her hoof into the water at an angle and sent a wall of water at Pound, who was immediately drenched. The little pegasus colt sat there in the water, blinking at Rainbow Dash, his mouth hanging open, and slowly his expression of stunned surprise turned into a glower of angry submission.

Wings out, the little colt sulked and gave a baleful stare at Rainbow Dash.

Peekaboo, seeing how Pound had fared, eased off her assault and then sat there in the shallow water gnawing upon her own hoof, looking up at Rainbow Dash with wide nervous eyes.

“The water is going to get cold… start scrubbing,” Derpy patiently instructed.

Reaching out, Rainbow Dash grabbed Pound, gave him a little hug, and then slipped a shoe brush over her hoof. She began scrubbing Pound’s chest where sticky apple crumble had dribbled down, covering the colt in crumbs, apples, and sticky sweet sauce.

“Scrub everything. Carefully. In a moment, I am going to show you how to make him unsheath so you can clean around inside of there with a really soft cloth,” Derpy said.

“I have to clean there?” Rainbow Dash whined in reply.

“Everywhere that gets dirty. He’s depending on you to keep him safe, secure, well fed, and clean. Colts can get problems down there if they aren’t looked after,” Derpy softly explained.

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash responded in an unsure voice as she continued to scrub. Pausing for a moment, Rainbow Dash lifted her head. “There was a sudden rush of warm water past my legs,” she announced in a low whine.

“Doesn’t the warm water feel good?” Derpy asked as she smiled at Rainbow Dash.

“Eeeeeeuuuaaaargh,” Rainbow Dash groaned as she kept scrubbing away sticky brown apple crumble from Pound’s chest.

Forgetting that he was angry with Rainbow Dash, Pound closed his eyes and leaned against the blue pegasus mare as he was being scrubbed, yawning once, and generally being a good colt as he sat still while enjoying the experience.

Sitting still in the water, Harper, whose enormous fluffy orange mane was now plastered to her body, had a look of concentration come over her face. Her eyes narrowed and she let out a little grunt. A second later, a stream of bubbles rose out of the water, accompanied by a flooglehorn-like blast that reverberated off of the enameled cast iron claw footed bathtub.

“Fart,” Harper announced in a very serious manner. “Stinky.”

Reaching into the tub, Derpy patted Harper. “Very good Harper.”

“You’re praising her?” Rainbow Dash asked in shock.

“She didn’t poop in the tub,” Derpy replied.

“Fart?” Pumpkin asked.

“Fart!” Harper replied as she let one rip once more, another stream of bubbles caused the water around Harper to roil.

A very disgusted expression crept over Rainbow Dash’s face. “I’m in a bathtub full of fart juice and pee,” she complained as she kept trying to clean away the stickiness from Pound.

“Fart?” said Peekaboo in such a way that it sounded like a question. A moment later, something floated up to the surface of the water and bobbed about. “Not fart,” the pegasus filly spoke in reply to her own question.

“I still want a foal but this is really disgusting!” Rainbow Dash cried out in horror.

Yawning, Rainbow Dash pulled the blanket over the freshly washed and dried foals that she had all piled together in a crib. For warmth, each of them was dressed in little onesie pyjamas. Pound and Pumpkin snuggled together, while Harper clung to Peekaboo, and Peekoo grabbed ahold of the already sleeping Cadance.

Exhausted, Rainbow Dash stumbled to the bowl shaped chair in the corner, fell over, her wings flapped once, and then she went still. “I gotta rest for a moment,” she said to Derpy in a barely audible voice that was muffled by the cushion.

A moment later, Rainbow Dash was sound asleep, half in the bowl shaped chair, her hind legs hanging out over the edge. Derpy, seeing her friend completely worn out by foals, smiled. She walked over, pulled a blanket from the shelf, stood on her hind legs, grabbed the blanket in her fetlocks, unfurled the blanket, and then tossed it over Rainbow Dash, who lay snuffling face down in the chair.

The foals should have been in bed almost four hours ago and Derpy had no doubt that Harper and Peekaboo would be fussy foals come morning, but in general, Derpy believed that Rainbow Dash had done rather well. The pegasus had panicked at poop, become horrified at being sneezed on, had nearly broke down in tears when Derpy had whipped out the booger-sucker bulb and told Rainbow Dash to jam in it and start sucking out boogers.

Pound had been extra fussy getting his last ear drops for the evening, he had been up for way too long past his bedtime and decided to fight every step of the way, kicking, fussing, pounding, punching, and even biting Rainbow Dash on the snoot.

Turning off the light, Derpy left on the night light and gave Rainbow Dash one final smile.

Author's Notes:

There is a common recurring theme throughout this chapter...

But it shouldn't be typos.