"Howdy there, Circuit. And how are ya'll?"

"Fuck. Off. Applejack. This is the seventh day you have tailed me to the damn hospital and back."

"Well, there ain't no need to be so darn rude."

"And there isn't no reason for you to keep asking me the same fucking questions everyday. I am just caring for my friend in need. So I'd appreciate the privacy."

I turned my back towards Applejack and I walked away, my cheeks red with anger. She would not leave me alone ever since Barrel was flown to hospital a week ago. The last week has been extremely eventful, compared to the last few weeks we have been in Equestria.

In a nutshell, Smoking Barrel was caught in a potentially fatal explosion in the middle of Ponyville. It turns out that the highly charged Harmonious Crystals begin to destabilise when surrounded by disharmonious energy. So when I caught Armstrong in the gut after a short confrontation, the crystal nearly atomised Barrel's face. Luckily for all of us, Princess Twilight was summoned before the explosion happened.

She snapped Barrel out of the trance he was in and got him to throw it away from everyone so that Twilight could encase it in a magical shield, catching the shards and snuffing out the explosion. She stopped the explosion, but she could not encase the crystal fast enough, as it sent hundreds of shards straight at Barrel. Most of them missed, but some caught him, and one even got him in the right eye.

As you could tell, he lost vision in that eye instantly. And the multiple lacerations that the crystal shards caused was causing him to bleed profusely.

Some ponies screamed, few fainted, one vomited. It was a grim scene.

Within a matter of seconds, The Wonderbolts, were securing the area. Barrel was flown to the hospital by Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and escorted by Twilight herself. Me and Armstrong made a quick break for it before we were found out, as we had some Harmonious Crystals in our possession. It was quickly followed by another massive argument and we ended up going our separate ways.

No-one has seen Armstrong since that day. But rumour has it, is that he is Rainbow Dash's apprentice. Apparently she needed to help fly supplies through Tornado Valley and he helped out using his turbulence resistance, amazing her in the process.

Barrel has been taken care of by Fluttershy personally, as he now needs to get used to partial vision. She even gave him a diary, which I caught him writing in the other day.

Star has been fixating himself in the CMQ plans, making sure every detail is perfect. I told him to take numerous breaks, but he refuses to listen. I take it he wants to go home.

As for the crystal incident, Twilight declared Harmonious Crystals illegal, due to their unstable power. She confiscated all eight of Rarity's crystals, despite how hard she cried. I got Star to hide our ten crystals once I got back. And I was close to building the Crystal Core. The outer shell and wiring was complete. I just needed the five Chaotic Crystals to complete it.

But because somebody tipped Twilight off that I had helped Rarity gain those crystals earlier that day, she has been on to me. Even persuading the Element of Honesty to try and get some information from me.

But I know how Applejack works. She can tell if somebody is lying, instantly. So that's the trick. Don't lie to her. I answer her questions vaguely, but in the right way to prove my "innocence" and to get her to back off for another day.

But I was pissed off today. Barrel had been told that he would never regain vision in his right eye, even through the use of magic, Star was getting distracted, claiming that he met some other magic-crazed unicorn mare the other day and I was no closer to finding any of these Chaotic Crystals.

But it was a Friday. So I had that on my side.

I stormed home, as Applejack was going to interrogate me even more if I hung around. I walked to our cottage and opened the door, only to see Star in his own Shield Spell, casting various dark magic spells on a Harmonious Crystal. Which was also encased in it's own Shield Spell.

"Huh, Shieldception." I said to myself, observing Star.

He didn't hear my statement clearly, so he ceased his last spell and lowered the outer shield.

"Say again? I missed what you said."

I proceeded to point my hoof towards the Harmonious Crystal as it floated ominously.

"Shield in a shield. Shieldception." I repeated.

Star smirked at my joke and began to walk towards the kitchen, leaving the crystal still floating in front of me.

"Once, I went to the fridge." I heard Star shout from the kitchen as I heard various clutters of plates and cutlery.

I laughed at his reference as I tapped at the crystal, which refused to move. As if it detected my laughing, it glowed a light blue hue as my laugh faded into a smile.

"Seems like the crystals react positively to happy energy." I shouted back, hoping that Star could hear me over his noisy sandwich making.

"Give one of these to Pinkie, and she could drop it, smash it, fire it out of her cannon and nuke it and it'd still be glowing blue." I joked to myself.

But my smile quickly faded. Still no closer towards getting the required Chaotic Crystals. And with two of our group out of commission for the time being, I wasn't calling in external sources. If we were going to bring Discord into this, all four of us needed to be on top of our game. With Armstrong in a strop and being trained by Rainbow, that had no chance combined with Barrel being partially blinded.

I sighed and went to rub my temples, but I realised that I don't do that, because it did nothing for me. I twisted my head in such a way to click my neck joints, releasing some tension.

I then realised that the only way to fix this, is to recruit Armstrong back into our group, rally Barrel to top condition again, summon Discord and explain what we need. And we can say that we prefer chaos and instability, because it's true. He'll hopefully become friends with us in the process if we are lucky. Having the King of Chaos on our side would help us immensely.

As all these thoughts gathered, I narrowed it down to three objectives. And I knew exactly what the first one was.

"Dude..." I shout from the living room, still staring deep into the Harmonious Crystal.

Star popped his head around the corner of the door-frame, eating a cress and cheese sandwich.

"Mmphh?" He muffled under his sandwich.

"We need to get Armstrong back."

________________________________________

After 30 minutes of training, Star has finally mastered how to cast the Cloud-Walking Spell from a previous adventure the Mane Six did. We decided to go against wings, as Rarity would have lost her life if it wasn't for Rainbow's Sonic Rainboom. We rented a hot-air balloon and made our way for the outskirts of Cloudsdale.

We got some extremely strange looks from the circling Pegasi as we neared their flight-space. Just as if we walked into the wrong neighbourhood back on Earth.

Once we got above Cloudsdale Stadium, we looked all around to see if we could see any of them. But the main thing we looked for was a rainbow trail.

After long enough, we looked directly down and saw what we were looking for. The rainbow trail. But it wasn't alone. There was almost a fire trail, almost as if someone let a rocket or firework loose by accident. We moved the balloon to beside Cloudsdale Stadium, but far enough so we could see below it.

There was a white blur that was flying upwards slowly, and charging downwards at ridiculous speeds. You could even see the air pressure streaming from the front of this blur. We continued to watch, as Star was confident the Cloud-Walking Spell has plenty of time left.

Every time we watched the white blur plummet towards the ground, there was slight fire streaks coming from the front, as if he was trying to break the Sound Barrier...

He was trying for a Sonic Rainboom.

And he was getting closer and closer.

But the fires would snuff themselves out before the Rainboom would occur. Looks like he was fast, but just not fast enough. After seven times, he returned up to Rainbow Dash, who was watching him relentlessly.

"What did I teach you? Push harder as the air slows you down!" I heard Rainbow shout as she met the Pegasus where she was hovering.

Before we knew it, there was another trail plummeting towards the ground, and she was bending a large rainbow beneath her on her decent. Looked like Rainbow Dash could do Sonic Rainbooms on a dime now. But she stopped herself, before she broke both the rainbow, and the Sound Barrier.

"Come on Armstrong, you can do it!" I heard Rainbow shout back again as she flew back up towards the hovering Pegasus.

"I had a dog, and his name was... Bingo." I muttered to myself.

"Star, head towards them, Armstrong is over there." I told him.

Star fired up his horn and cast a Levitation Spell over the balloon and dragged us towards the pair.

As we floated towards the two, Armstrong plummeted towards the ground as fast as he could. I could hear him screaming as he gave that attempt his all. Again, the fires started to build up and just before they got snuffed out, he streamlined himself, causing the fires to implode slightly, causing a tiny explosion.

This explosion was no bigger than four firecrackers, but it launched Armstrong even faster than he was before, with a huge amount of fire trailing behind him.

"Woohoo!" I heard him shout as he banked upwards and he was heading straight towards us. Star saw this, but he couldn't move us out of the way fast enough.

"Oh fuck!" I heard him shout as he skimmed the balloon, nearly colliding with us head on. But his fire trail was less forgiving.

Being made out of cloth, it caught alight in a matter of seconds.

"Oh for fuck sake." I sigh as I observed the fire spread across the fabric. As the hot air escaped the balloon, we began to drop.

The basket we were stood in skewed, and we got tossed out of it. Me and Star were now free falling, just as Rarity was.

I was plummeting towards the ground, face down. I didn't want to face this way, as I could see the ground approaching fast. I was panicking and I had begun flailing my legs around wildly. I wanted to scream, but I had no air in my lungs to use. Because of the sheer amount of air rushing into my face, I could not breathe in properly.

As I got closer, I closed my eyes, expecting one final crunch and then nothing.

I felt a hard impact slam to me.

"This is it." I thought. But I was still thinking. Dead people don't think.

I realised that my senses were still here, and I could still hear air rushing past my ears, I felt the cold wind against my back and there was a extremely warm object wrapped around me. I opened my eyes and I saw a Pegasus is a fire-proof suit carrying me away from the hard ground.

After a few seconds, I was dropped onto the soft clouds on the outer ring of Cloudsdale Stadium.

I was still in shock. I could not move. I nearly died for all I knew.

"What are you doing here?" I heard distinctly as my consciousness faded in and out.

I tried opening my mouth, nothing happened. I think I just groaned. My ears were ringing from how loud the wind whistled past my ears. I could still feel the soft texture of the clouds, and it was so nice. It was all that was comforting me at that moment.

After about a minute, I felt feeling starting to return to my legs again. I slowly propped myself up with my hind legs and began to stand up with my forelegs.

I looked in front of me and all I saw was a very annoyed orange pony in a fire-proof suit.

"I said, what are you doing here?" Armstrong asked again, sternly.

"Heh, you look like a bit of a nob in that suit Armstrong..." I sniggered under my breath.

"The fuck did you say?" He said, venom on every word.

"I said, thanks for saving my life, Armstrong." I replied, swallowing my pride.

But I needed him back. And truthfully, I wanted my friend back.

"Where is Star?" I asked him, quickly gazing over him.

Armstrong wheeled around and pointed with his hoof to a faint rainbow trail in the distance.

"There. Rainbow Dash caught him." He quipped as I squinted my vision so I could see the trail.

"At least we are all okay..." I trailed off, trying to think of something.

I bit my lip as I thought of something, as Armstrong was watching Rainbow in the distance.

"Listen... I'm sorry about the other week. We are all caught up in trying to trying to get home, we lose what part of home we have left." I said sincerely.

"So breaking one of my ribs was part of that plan then?" Armstrong sneered back.

"Obviously not. But what we did actually created a diversion for Star, and he grabbed some of Rarity's crystals. So we actually ended up with ten, instead of eight. So I should be thanking you." I replied, hanging my head low.

He knew I was sorry for what happened, but he knew that if something serious has gone down, a bit of breathing space and time alone did a world of good. I heard him sigh deeply. It sounded like he saw logic to my reasoning.

"Come on man, we need you. We all want to get home together. And spending it apart isn't going to make our experience here any more bare-able. And besides, how can I summon Q without one of his biggest fans...?" I said, cracking a slight smile.

I even saw his facial muscles move slightly, so even Armstrong was smiling. Discord was easily our favourite character. But we always called him Q.

"And how do you suppose we do that?" He questioned, turning his head towards me slightly.

"We get the other two lads together, heist the Summoning Spell from Twilight, speak with Discord about it and see if he can do anything about these Harmonious Crystals we have." I said, thinking on my answer.

Armstrong remained quiet for a long while, dwelling on my response. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned and faced me.

"Then what are we waiting for? These Marks won't earn themselves."

Armstrong smiled as he held up a hoof for a hoofbump. I immediately obliged and we set about getting Star and heading to the hospital. But I had to get off Cloudsdale first.

After we rented another balloon so I could decent safely, we scoured Ponyville to look for where Star was dropped off by Rainbow Dash. We knew they landed on the outskirts, but they had both took off by that point. We looked near Sugarcube Corner, but we quickly spotted Rainbow Dash who was talking to some local townsponies. We decided to try to ignore her and not draw attention to ourselves.

Until we saw Applejack.

I quickly pulled Armstrong around a corner.

"Oh fuck! It's AJ!" I whispered, hiding with my back to a nearby cottage wall.

"What's your issue with Applejack? She's fine to me." Armstrong said, obviously confused.

"Since the incident, she's be trying to interrogate me. Every single day as well." I explain to him quietly.

"Sooo, she's been bugging you like hell since?" He asked back.

"Basically. If she sees me, she'll go asking questions galore again." I muttered.

"Why don't we swap positions then? I'll walk past Applejack, who is fine with me. And you walk past Rainbow, as she doesn't even know of you. If it all goes haywire, meet up at the hospital." He explained.

I thought it through over in my head quickly, and that was a sound idea.

"Alright man, let's do this." I said, leading the way.

We split up in the middle of the road and walked 30 metres apart. Luckily, it was in the middle of a market so we wasn't easily distinguishable. I kept my head low, and my mouth closed. If a fellow pony waved, smiled or said hello, I simply nodded with a quick smile.

I couldn't draw attention to myself at this time. I was a suspect to a massive incident, and getting caught out now would be serious proverbial shit hitting the proverbial fan.

We both walked in unity until we got out of the market. Once we got to the other side, we both turned a corner and bolted it for five minutes.

"That was fucking close. I like to limit my contact with that pony at all costs." I said to him as we galloped towards the hospital.

After our five minute sprint, we slowed down and returned to a stroll.

We decided to go to the hospital, as that's where one of us at least. We walked in inconspicuously and got to the room that Barrel was being held in. We walked in and closed the room door behind us.

Barrel was asleep, with Star sat beside him.

"Oh, so there you are." I said to Star, in a quiet tone.

"I've had enough of skydiving without parachutes today if you didn't mind." Star snapped.

He wasn't happy that we fell.

"I fell too you know. And I have a phobia of heights, so that was the cherry on top. No offence." I said to Star, turning to Armstrong mid-conversation.

"No worries. I'm just glad that I caught you and Rainbow caught Star." Armstrong added.

"Hmmph." Star sulked as he turned back towards a sleeping Barrel.

Or at least he was doing a good job at faking it. But I saw his good eye twitch upwards. That means he is purposefully closing his eye.

"Besides, we are all here now. And we need to summon Q." I said.

"Q? Who is that then?" Star asked, in the same blunt tone.

I clear my throat so that Star turns towards me once more. I mouth "Discord" without saying it, so he knows who I am actually on about.

Star nods back, so he clearly understood what I said.

I walked over to the Patient Report that was stored in the basket at the end of Barrel's bed and picked it up. I skimmed through the grisly details, but it seemed that his practice was much better. He could have left two days ago. But I think he must have enjoyed Fluttershy's company a bit too much.

I tapped Star and Armstrong so that they were looking at me. I mouthed to them "watch this" and they looked at me to see what I did next. I opened the door and feigned some clopping sounds so it sounded like an approaching pony.

"Oh hey Fluttershy..." I say to myself, clearly audible by Barrel.

I waited a few seconds so it did seem like would-be Fluttershy did give me a response.

"No, unfortunately. He's requested that we look after him now. Thanks for checking up on him though, he really appreciates it. I mean he REALLY does." I continued, with both Star and Armstrong struggling to not laugh.

Barrel instantly rustled into life and stretched his forelegs.

"Ahh, afternoon guys. Did I miss anything?" Barrel says, pretending to have not heard our previous conversation.

"Okay, bye Fluttershy! Oh, by the way..a Barrel said he would like to buck you sometime. " I finish as I hold the door slightly ajar.

"NO I DON'T!"

Barrel was instantly out of bed, pushing past me and was through the door, scanning the hallway for Fluttershy. But there was nothing.

Me, Armstrong and Star burst out laughing as Barrel walked back in, blushing with a face of frustration.

"Morning sleepy head, want some pancakes in bed?" I laughed, trying to stop the tears forming in my eyes.

But it wasn't working, tears of laughter were streaming down my face as I continued to belly laugh.

"Yeah right lads, laugh it up, enjoy your night..." Barrel smirked, trying not to laugh himself.

"It was just the way you raced out of bed, from being in a nearly comatose state..." Star added.

"I didn't want to look like a dick, okay?" Barrel snapped, returning to sit back on his bed.

"Come on man, I wouldn't do that to you. And I saw your good eye twitching, so I knew you were awake." I said to Barrel, rubbing tears from my face.

Barrel continued to sit there and sulk.

"Since we are together again, I suggest we take off. We got a heist to plan."

Next Chapter: The Golden Oak Library Job Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes