“And that is why you should buy this blender,” concludes Pinkie Pie cheerfully while pushing a large futuristic blender towards Nurse Redheart.

Redheart smiles nervously at blender, she’s not really sure what think of the blender, and truthfully, it was the last thing she was expecting. Redheart had let Pinkie Pie in after she spent a good minute frantically knocking on the door, thinking it was something important, like Rainbow Dash breaking her wing (again), or spraining all her legs (again), or anything to do with the pegasus hurting herself in some way, but she is mistaken. Apparently Pinkie Pie is trying to start a company and she’s using blenders as her base selling product. The blender that Pinkie Pie is trying to sell to her has forty two settings, forty two speeds, and has a radio with forty two channels. And, according to Pinkie Pie, it can walk so it can come to the customer should the need arise. That part slightly disturbs Redheart.

“Ms. Pie, this blender looks... um... nice,” says Redheart with an uneasy smile.

Pinkie Pie’s puffy mane and tail deflate. “You don’t like it, do you?”

Redheart cringes and tries to reiterate what she had said. “I-I didn’t say that! It’s a nice blender, and I’m sure it has a lot of uses, but I didn’t get a price. How can I buy something that has no price?”

“You’re just saying that so my mane and tail can inflate.”

“No! I mean, yes! No, um uh, but-uh I mean, I want you to be happy, but um-”

There is a hard rapping on the door and Redheart excuses herself and goes to check to see who’s at the door while silently thanking Celestia for the distraction. She peers through the peephole and takes back the thanks when she sees the last unicorn she wanted to see.

Terra.

Terra knocks on the door again, her patience dwindling rapidly, and Redheart tells Pinkie Pie that they’ll have to cut their session short.

“Ooh, do you have company?” asks Pinkie Pie, her mane and tail explode to their original puffiness as a huge grin stretches across her face. “Maybe they’ll want a blender!”

“Yes, Ms. Pie, I have company, and no, I don’t think they’ll want a blender,” says Redheart patiently.

Redheart opens the door and Terra walks inside without wiping her hooves on the welcome mat, not that they are muddy or anything, but Redheart still finds the gesture rude. The nurse coughs obnoxiously and points at the rough mat on the front door. Terra rolls her eyes, backtracks and wipes her hooves on the mat and then steps inside again.

“We need you back at the Citadel,” says Terra bluntly.

“HithereI’veneverseenyoubeforeareyounewhereI’mPinkiePiedoyouwanttobefriendsordoyouwanttobuyablender?” says Pinkie Pie as she jumps uncomfortably close to Terra.

Terra stares at Pinkie Pie, trying to comprehend what the obnoxious pink pony had just said. The only thing she really caught was something about buying a blender... and she does need a new blender. She looks past Pinkie Pie's shoulder and spots the most amazing blender she had ever seen. The light shining past the windows give it a holy glow and her eyes widen with starry sparkles as she imagines all the smoothies she can make with it.

“How much for the blender?” asks Terra quickly and hoof aimed at the gift to ponykind.

Pinkie Pie grins. “Three hundred bits.”

“Deal.”

Terra produces two bags of bits from her saddle and tosses them Pinkie Pie, and in return, Laughter zooms away, grabs a roll of bubble wrap, mummifies the device, then gives it to her. Redheart’s jaw drops and she stammers gibberish as she tries to comprehend what just happened.

Pinkie Pie giggles and she wraps her hoof around the nurse’s neck. “What you just saw was a satisfied customer.”

“But she didn’t-You didn’t-Nothing happened! She just bought it!” stammers Redheart.

“I know a good blender when I see one,” says Terra says defensively. “Now, if you’ll excuse us whatever your name is, me and Redheart need to talk.”

Pinkie Pie puffs out her chest proudly. “The name is Pinkie Pie. But you can call me Pinkie, or Ms. Pie, or back to Pinkie Pie, but never Pinkamena”

“Uh huh, well, Pinkie Pie, me and Redheart need to have a private conversation. So scoot!.”

“Scooting!”

Pinkie Pie plops on the floor and literally scoots out of the house, leaving Terra staring at her wide eyed and Redheart rolling her eyes dismissively. Once Pinkie Pie is outside, though, Terra shakes her head, closes the door with her magic and peeks out the window to make sure the pink pony is out of sight. When Pinkie Pie stops in the middle of the road and shouts after Time Turner, going into a full on gallop when he runs in the opposite direction, Terra closes the blinds and turns to Redheart.

“Who’s the unlucky one this time?” asks Redheart dryly.

“A mare you should be familiar with. Trixie Lulamoon,” replies Terra casually.

“And what exactly did you do to Ponyville's only blacklisted pony?”

“Nothing. Daddy is the one that beat her to a pulp, and then he told me to come down here and pick you up so she doesn't die in the infirmary. So, here I am. Let's go.”

“Well, I can’t go. Besides, you got plenty of medics in that place, so why not use one of them?”

Terra face hoofs. “Oh my goddess, Redheart, why do you have to be so difficult?” She stomps the floor, glaring daggers at the nurse. “You have a responsibility to the League, and since you work for my daddy you have to do what he says! And he says you have to come back and patch up Trixie!”

Redheart points at herself, body shaking slightly at Terra's threat. “Ponyville is my responsibility, and on top of protecting it, I have to help run a hospital to keep my cover. Besides, even if I find the time to leave, the trip will take two weeks, both ways, not including the days I need to treat her.”

Terra snorts and turns her new blender in every which way she can, squinting hard to try to see past the bubble wrap. “Redheart, you seem to forget that my daddy is a genius. He’s already expanded and improved his fleet, and you have to come with me. Once you’re in, there’s no getting out.”

“I’m not denying my duties to the League. What I’m saying is that I can’t go because of the situation I’m in.”

“Ponyville is an easy place to guard, Redheart, and even then, there is Mare-Do-Well to help keep the vandals in check,” counters Terra, frowning in disappointment when she fails to see past the wrap.

“I hate to burst your bubble, but Mare-Do-Well hasn’t been seen ever since that Eclipse fiasco ten years ago.”

“Uh huh, well you’re still coming. Whether you like it or not.”

“What am I supposed to tell the hospital? ‘Sorry, I have to go. Trixie had her flank kicked in a hidden mansion so I have to fix her up’?”

“We already took care of that. They are very sympathetic when you have a funeral to attend.”

Redheart’s jaw drops. “You told them somepony in my family died!”

“No. We said you had a funeral to attend with no specifics. However, they will be wondering about the funeral so I suggest that you get your story straightened out before you return. And the trip will take about a half a day of flight, so you’ll be back quickly.”

Terra hops off of the couch, stuffs the blender in her saddlebag, with a good portion poking out, and magically opens the door and flashes a wicked smile at Redheart.

“And since I am done arguing with you, you're either going to come with me willingly or I'll gag you and use some bondage techniques I learned from Wazza. Either way, you're coming,” says Terra impatiently.

Redheart's face flushes bright right and her ears droop at the unpleasant imagery of Terra carrying her away bound and gagged through Ponyville. Not wanting to be in such a situation, Redheart sighs in defeat, sluggishly gathers her medical gear in her saddlebags, and reluctantly leaves with the unicorn. She tries to look inconspicuous as she locks the door and offers a friendly smile to passerbys when she and Terra walk down the main road, passing election signs calling for Mayor Ivory Scroll's reelection or the election of Golden Harvest. The two walk for about an hour before they meet up with a group of ponies guarding a steampunk-ish ship made of wood and metal that strangely looks like a dragonfly sitting in a clearing inside the Everfree Forest.

Redheart stops and marvels at the ship's design. It is resting on six, metal bug-like legs with its long back tilted to the ground and its backdoor open to create a ramp. The front is rounded with two tinted, orb-shaped windows, it has four thin wings that are made up of a network of pistons, joints and metal beams with thin sheets of metal as it canvas, and on its back are two turbine engines on a ball-and-socket joint system.

Redheart is so entranced by its design that she does not realize that Terra is still walking, and she only looks towards the unicorn when one of the guards speaks.

“What’s with the blender?” asks the guard.

“None of your business!” snaps Terra. She then looks at Redheart after the pony mumbles an apology. “Come on, Redheart, you have work to do.”

Redheart nods and enters the ship through the back, where she quickly finds out just how crowded it is with gem and steam powered engines, cables and vent shafts, and a dozen chairs lines up along the wall with four Gatling guns aimed towards the ceiling. In front of each turret sits an armored pony, and they nod politely to her and she flashes a nervous smile in return.

Redheart takes a seat near the cockpit, as per Terra's instructions and is strapped down to her seat. The unicorn mare that strapped her in tests her restraints to make sure is snug, and when the tests show that the nurse is secured, she nods and moves to work on Terra.

“Roar Shock has been busy, huh?” says Redheart uneasily.

Terra smirks. “Daddy's always busy.”

Redheart nods, then tenses up with her hooves pressing tightly against the harness and her body squishing into the seats as the ship roars to life. Every turning gear, every sparking battery and rush of steam and gem powered energy can be heard, and it is deafening. She can barely hear Terra giggle at her current, terrified state.

“Lift off in twenty seconds!” yells a pilot over the chaos.

“You hear that, Redheart? We'll be flying in twenty seconds!” yells Terra excitedly while the remaining ponies rush to their seats.

Redheart, meanwhile, groans, squeezes her eyes shut and tries to force herself further into the seat, praying hard that their ship will not crash and burn.

In a time span that can no way be twenty seconds, the ship jerks and the metal groans as it lifts off the ground, and Redheart whimpers quietly as she feels everything start to spin. Next thing she knows, there is a sonic boom and everything feels like it is being tugged back as the ship zooms off into the sky.

Hiding in the thick, dark green leaves of an Everfree tree, watching the ship speed away into the clouds through a pair of binoculars, is Pinkie Pie wearing a safari outfit. Once the ship is out of sight, she lowers her device and rubs her chin quizzically. “Interesting...”

She then pulls out a pen and notebook from her shirt pocket pocket and scribbles down some notes and makes a crude drawing of the ship. After that is done, she quickly puts away her pen and notebook, spreads her forehooves out and lets gravity tug her off the branch. She falls out of the tree and lands on her back with perfect accuracy on a mattress that she had placed next to the tree a while back, being sure to have it completely hidden by the bushes that surround it.

“I knew I would need that one day,” giggles Pinkie Pie, still on her back, grinning from ear to ear.

Then she rolls on her hooves and bounces away, humming a nice tune to herself.

A little over an hour later, Pinkie Pie finds herself back in Ponyville and orders herself a strawberry milkshake from the Sugar Cube Corner. She’s still wearing her safari outfit and has yet to shake the leaves and twigs off, but no one is questioning why Pinkie Pie looks like a messy safari pony. To them, she’s just being herself.

Pinkie Pie sits at a covered table outside Sugar Cube Corner, and watches the ponies chat amongst themselves as they enjoy the spring weather. She sips her milkshake and goes to studying the picture she drew of the dragonfly ship she saw Redheart get into, but her session is soon interrupted.

“EXTRA! EXTRA! MAYOR OF BARNVILLE ASSASSINATED!” shouts an earth pony mare wearing a plain newspaper delivery cap.

The mare tosses out a stack of newspapers to a newspaper kiosk out of the back of a vehicle that looks like a small steampunk train with a flatbed on the back, treads for back wheels and fat, rounded wheels on the front. After tossing half a dozen stacks of thickly bound newspapers, a crowd of pedestrians converge on the stacks and the unicorn stallion operating the stack gets visibly annoyed as he tries to use his scissors the cut the bindings off.

Pinkie Pie looks up from her notes to watch the crowd buy the paper, chucking their bits at the kiosk operator, who, by now, is red with annoyance.

“Everypony, wait your turn! There is plenty to go around!” yells the operator over the confused, energetic chatter of the growing crowd..

“Shut up and take my money!” says a stallion with a white shirt and red jacket.

The stallion in the red jacket throws a big bag of bits at the operator, and it hits him in the face, exploding on impact and showering him with way too much money for a simple newspaper. The operator, however, is not too pleased with this and stumbles back, swearing up a storm while clutching his muzzle, and the idiotic stallion grabs a newspaper with his mouth and runs off.

Pinkie Pie sees this as a great opportunity to grab a newspaper for herself and she bounces towards the kiosk. Once there, she removes a tiny bag of bits from her safari shirt pocket, drops a couple on the kiosk counter and then hops back to her table with a newspaper in her mouth.

Once Pinkie Pie is back at her table, she spits out the newspaper, thankful to get the foul taste of rough paper and ink out of her mouth, and quickly immerses herself in the terrible news.

MAYOR OF BARNVILLE ASSASSINATED!
By: Quill Pen
Barnville- In a wave of violence that has left authorities stumped, one of Equestria's most feared criminal enterprises, the Cloud Cartel, has been completely eradicated overnight. According to anonymous sources, the violence that has left well over a hundred dead or injured and dealt B750 thousand in damages has been at the hubs of Cloud Cartel activity.

Hit hardest with the violence was the town of Barnville, the largest town in the Macintosh Hills and the stronghold of the Cloud Cartel. Among the many killed in a wave of has been described as “tactical violence” due to the minimal civilian casualties, was Mayor Ignacio Lugar and his cabinet, all under investigation by the Equestrian Investigation Bureau and the Royal Guard for corruption. According to witnesses, the city hall was stormed by a dozen masked individuals wearing combat gear and who were quick to execute the Lugar Cabinet during their quarterly session.

“It was terrible,” said a survivor that wished to remain anonymous. “They made it a point of making it a show by going through the front door and holding us hostage just so we could see [Mayor] Lugar and his Cabinet killed in front of us. After they killed them, they told us our town was free of corruption, then they left without another word.”

Among the many killed in the Barnville violence was Sunshine Cloud, who was found dead in one of his establishments with his sister, Scarlet Cloud, reportedly missing.

Witnesses in Barnville have stated that fleeing their town was what they could only describe to be a flying boat.

Captain Shining Armor Sparkle has announced plans to move five hundred Royal Guards to help the local guards combat the growing violence and corruption in the Macintosh Hills. Only time will tell if the numbers will either dampen or enforce the Royal Guard's growing incompetence.
-Continues on 11A

Pinkie Pie’s mane and tail deflate, and she rubs her head in disbelief. Over the past year there has been many small scale skirmishes between rival gangs, with the new superpower, the Grizelda Mob, coming out on top. However, this is the worst act of violence Equestria has seen in nearly five years, and Pinkie Pie gets the sinking feeling in her gut that this is only the beginning of what is to come.

In a feeble attempt to lighten her mood, she gingerly sips her strawberry milkshake, and it has some positive effects since her mane and tail inflate slightly. But with every hard suck against the delicious treat, the ideas in her mind turn like unruly gears, with each sip giving the a hard jerk in motion. Without taking her mouth off of her straw, she exhales through her nose and stares droopy eyed at the passing mail wagon. Then a particularly hard suck gives her mouth a burst of delicious strawberry goodness that sends joy surging through her, inflating her mane and tail with an audible poof and making her eyes pop.

“Mmmmmmm,” hums Pinkie Pie blissfully. Then her smile turns into a frown as the feeling of an icepick stabs her brain, and she breaks away from her treat and squeezes her eyes shut and rubs her head. “Owwwwie!”

She pushes her drink away, rubbing her temple with soft, circular motions, quietly cursing herself with childish profanity. And right as the pain subsides, a bright light shines in her brain with an idea.

Pinkie Pie gasps from the sudden realization her mind has bestowed upon her and tosses the empty milkshake container in a nearby garbage can with pinpoint accuracy. She then runs into her room in the Sugar Cube Corner with her copy of the newspaper in her mouth. Once in the safety of her room, she spits the newspaper on her plush bed and burrows herself underneath her bed until her backside is poking out, and she frantically rummages under her bed. She tosses aside everything from party supplies to rubber chickens, and cookbooks to a book called Business Building for the Mentally Inferior, until she comes across what she wanted. A plastic tub with thumb tacks, glue, scissors, and pens and highlighters, a book with snippets of newspaper articles, and a board that has the map of Equestria with various pictures and notes tacked to it.

She pushes the map against her wall and goes on to dissecting and storing the useful parts of the article, especially the highlighted part of “free of corruption”. She then goes on to adding her findings to her map and carefully draws a red line to connect with the other notable clippings. All the clippings she has, has highlighted segments regarding crime lords, investigated officials and masked assailants proclaiming liberation from the corruption.

All the dots are dated and marked the locations of the various assassinations, sudden violence or bombings, and it all started shortly after the famed Eclipse Incident in Ponyville, which Pinkie Pie has marked. It is a web with a front page article of the Ponyville Gazette titled: Mare-Do-Well Returns!

On the newspaper is black and white, artistic interpretation of Mare-Do-Well standing proudly on top of a roof top with an explosive background that fills the viewer with wonder. Around the article are more articles talking about Eclipse Lulamoon trying to move his operations into Ponyville, the rise of corruption and, of course, the clash between Mare-Do-Well and his goons in various locations. Two of the largest articles being around Sweet Apple Acres and Jubilee's Comfy Hotel.

Pinkie Pie can't help but get a nostalgic smile from thinking about the adrenaline rush she faced ten years ago on a near daily basis for trying to keep Eclipse and his criminal empire at bay with the help of her friends. All except for Rainbow Dash, anyway, who absolutely refused to wear the Mare-Do-Well costume and went in wearing something else that had been... flashy.

Memories aside, after Eclipse's defeat in Ponyville with the help of a mysterious masked mare at the Comfy Hotel, things did not get better. With the Mare-Do-Well clump is another line that leads to a Fillydelphia based newspaper article naming Eclipse the number one suspect of a deadly arson that took the lives of an entire family, with a daughter and the father missing, also presumed dead. Three months after that, everything revolving around Eclipse and his criminal empire had been systematically destroyed. From suspected guardponies in his pocket to his lieutenants, to accountants and suppliers, even lowly runners and basic enforcers. Total war destroyed his empire and it ended with him being tossed out the window.

Spreading from the Eclipse murder is another line that connects the article to another blotch surrounding the destruction of another major criminal enterprise, known as the Toolbox Mafia. The same pattern of systematic destruction of the Mafia's foundation follows, leading up to what an article titled The Manehatten War. In it, it explains how Manehatten, Baltimare and every major coastal city became a war zone between what Shining Armor has called rival gangs vying for control of the drug trade. A few days later and the violence ended with Toolbox's cliff side mansion suddenly collapsing into the ocean when the cliff crumbled, which investigators claim they found magical residue on the remains of the cliff.

Now only one major criminal empire remains, and that is the Grizelda Mob, which has grown exponentially strong with the destruction of the other two. And now there is a red line connecting a cluster of newspaper articles surrounding the said criminal superpower, with the one pertaining to Barnville and the Cloud Mafia being the newest addition.

With that addition, Pinkie Pie steps back and stares at the map intently, looking for more correlations between the recent attack and past attacks. All of them have something to do with criminals and corrupt government officials, most have been killed in the public or have their bodies left in public areas, and those that are hard to reach are usually blown to pieces by a crafty explosive. The final similarity between all of them is that strange flying vehicles have been sighted near the sights of the attacks. From ice cream trucks that have Gatling guns sprouting from the roof to flying boats, there is always something strange to go with the incidents.

Pinkie Pie huffs, flicking her red marker up and down in her mouth as her brain works to predict what this mysterious organization's next move is. As she thinks, her eyes drift back towards her newspaper and she notices an article about Ponyville that is showing through one of her cutouts. Thinking it will help her think or that she will at least see an advertisement about a carnival or other fun events, she opens it up, only for those dreams to drown in an flood of dread.

Mayor Ivory Scroll: Friend of the Public or Friend of the Griffins?

Pinkie Pie's jaw drops, and with it, her marker, and her eyes grow as she brings the newspaper closer to her face. After re-reading the article accusing Mayor Ivory Scroll of making deals with Gilda Grizelda's criminal empire to let Ponyville be a “drug highway” in exchange for generous sums of bits, she drops her newspaper and zips back towards the map and goes through the events again. She pays particular special attention to the Grizelda Mob's section of her map, noting how the Cloud Cartel had a very special alliance with them and how they had been a major supplier of narcotics. A closer look on the map shows that Barnville shares a highway with Ponyville, which shares an entrance with Canterlot, which just so happens to be where Gilda's base of operations is located. And seeing as how Ponyville has grown in size, it has become a major hub with roads and tracks branching out in just about every direction, making it a perfect launching point for businesses, legal or not.

And now Ponyville is on the map of being one of Gilda's major hubs of activity with their mayor being accused of sharing a bed with the griffins.

Pinkie Pie does not want to believe it, but the pattern is clear. Ponyville may very well be the next battleground in Equestria's shadow war.

Author's Notes:

Added on 20 Jul 2014