“Eeek!” Lyra Heartstrings cried out in terror. She had been merely walking out to the market for a morning grocery run when a massive rat with spikes growing from its cheeks emerged from an alley and gave her chase, teeth clacking as it missed several attempts to bite her flanks.

She tried lifting it with her magic, but the spikes on its cheeks glowed with the color of her aura and seemed to ‘pop’ the bubble of telekinetic magic. As she retreated toward her home, her roommate opened the door, quickly assessing the situation and starting to move to intercept.

Before the earth pony mare could reach the monster, however, a rainbow colored blur streaked past them, smashing into the creature and ending it in a single blow. The gemstones in Rainbow Dash’s uniform hummed with the kinetic energy that had been redirected into them by the weathermare’s rapid stop, but they held together and in the end the only harm to Dash herself was a mess of blood and gore on one of her hooves. “You’re welcome, ladies. No need to thank me,” Rainbow said in a transparent attempt to solicit thanks.

“Thank you,” Bon Bon said calmly, while Lyra was momentarily speechless.

“That was so… awesome!” Lyra gushed when she had recovered.

Rainbow grinned happily at the praise while giving off a bit of false modesty. “Well, you know… it was nothing. Anyways, I gotta get back to my other job. Those clouds won’t arrange themselves, you know.” And in another multicolored streak she was gone.

Pipsqueak felt the slight rumble of another pony sitting down against the far side of the tree his back was to, letting him know he wasn’t alone. He didn’t know who was on the other side, but still… the matter was driving him a little crazy and he needed to talk to somepony about it. It was too embarrassing to bring up with his parents, and anypony from school would be far worse. Maybe a stranger? Not seeing them made it a little easier.

“I… umm… I have something I want to confess, if you’ll hear me out. I’m sorry to dump this on you suddenly, but, well…”
"Can you hear me, Pinkie? As much as it pains both of us, I must discuss something serious with you."
Pinkie’s voice rang out with its customary cheeriness. “Of course I hear you! I’m a good listener. That’s what friends are for!”

His ears flicked. He recognized her, as one of the Elements of Harmony she was pretty famous, and she’d also served him baked goods more than once and helped with all of his birthday parties as far as he could remember. But she might not easily recognize him, and also… “Friend might be going a bit far, but… well I do need a good listener. So. Lately I’ve started… wetting the bed. Only it isn’t like when I was a baby… it’s white. It’s so weird but, it’s not like I hurt or anything.”
"I know your secret. You can't hide something like that from the Spirit of Chaos, even a fragment of him."
Pinkie’s voice came back much darker than it had been, a threatening calm to it. “Of course you do,” she said. “But… you’re not going to tell anypony else about it. Are you?”

Pipsqueak pushed back against the tree, stiffly holding perfectly still a moment before remembering she had asked a question. “No, ma’am.”
"Why shouldn't I? It'd cause such delicious chaos if I just told Cloud... or even my own marefriend."
Her tone remained the darker, deeper tone but took on a seductive hint as she spoke again. “You know, I can make this whole situation very good for you. I know what you like, better than you do in fact.”

His involuntary reaction made the situation even more confusing than it already was and he just ended up whimpering a bit before she continued.
"Compared to what I'm passing up?"
“But I can also make it very bad for you,” she threatened deeply. “Have you ever watched paint dry? Knowing your life depends on watching every glistening droplet slowly stop glistening, until the lack of change makes every second drag on into an eternity. That could be you if you cross me. So… you tell nopony.”
"How did you survive? Fine... I don't even have eyes anymore but they'd find a way to bleed anyways."
The bell from the schoolhouse rang out, making Pipsqueak jump to his hooves. “I promise,” he called out loudly before rushing off toward class, eager for the excuse to be anywhere but here.

Pinkie looked out from around the tree trunk, her long straight hair covering one eye as she watched the retreating foal, and saw nopony he could have been talking to. “What was that all about?” she wondered. “Oh well. Nice talking to you, John. But remember what I said. We aren’t going to have this conversation again.” She then drew in a deep breath, screwed her mouth up tightly shut and pushed the air out of her lungs, causing her hair to reinflate into its usual curly mess with enough force to lift her off the ground for a few seconds of hang time. “Better get to the morning baking!” she said in her usual cheery voice before bouncing off toward Sugarcube Corner.

Rainbow landed on a nice fluffy cloud, kneading it a bit like a cat as she prepared to settle in for her morning nap. It was a bit later than usual for her. Morning weather duties had taken longer with the random monster encounters. It was worth it, of course, giving ponies an up front view of just how awesome the fastest Element Bearer was. But extra exercise combined with a delayed nap were taking their toll on the speedster. She was even more ready for her nap than usual.

But before she could settle in, her ears perked up, hearing another cry of alarm. She was tempted to dismiss it when there wasn’t any follow up, but looking around more carefully, she saw the reason. It was Roseluck who had screamed this time, and had promptly fainted. A boar was stalking toward her from where it had been demolishing her flower garden, and seemed to be leaving a trail of flames behind with every hoofstep.

More ponies were calling out in alarm as they noticed the situation, but they were backing away in fear rather than addressing the situation. Only one pony both could and would reach it before it got its slavering jaws on the poor flowerpony.

Crack! The noise rang out in stereo, as both the creature’s jaw and one of Dash’s uniform crystals shattered from the force of the flying hind-hoof kick. She used the brief moment before the monster recovered from the attack to call on her inner power, using her materia to boost her own speed before returning to the fight with a devastating combination attack.

The boar wasn’t anywhere near as easy to dispatch as the rat had been, but it also wasn’t something that needed a full party to take on. She kept it off its hooves until it succumbed to its injuries, but she didn’t escape entirely unscathed herself. Scorch marks decorated her legs, as well as a couple on her belly where she had been careless.

The cheers of the ponies gave her a boost of energy, but her fluffy cloud was calling to her. And she almost made it back before the next call for help.

A strong clopping on the door brought attention, followed by a verbal greeting, and finally after a minute and a half, the glow of magic turning the knob to let the guest in as the hostess approached.

“Oh! Twilight, darling, what brings you by today?” Rarity inquired.

“I, umm, brought you this book on… ancient Anugyptian textile patterns,” Twilight offered, floating the text in question toward her friend.

“How… thoughtful,” Rarity claimed generously, taking the book in her own glow and setting it aside. “Do come in, though. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Coffee would be great,” Twilight said, heading into the main room of the boutique and checking the various doorways of the building without approaching them, obviously searching for something while obviously trying to avoid being seen as doing so.

As Rarity returned with a cup for each of them she nodded toward one of the upstairs doorways. “He’s there right now, and she’s off at school. Why don’t you call him down to talk, or else go see him.”

“Was I that obvious?” Twilight asked sheepishly. “What’s he doing in there, anyways?”

“Typically? At this hour he’s studying. He got a copy of all the textbooks the foals use, Cheerilee’s lesson plans from the last few years, and Sweetie Belle’s old homework for reference, and he’s doing his best to homeschool himself,” Rarity explained.

Twilight clopped her hooves excitedly. “Oh, do you think he’d let me help?”

“You can ask but… Twilight? Keep in mind, he’s… well he’s grown,” Rarity said. “He’s not quite an adult yet, but he isn’t the same little Spikey Wikey you and I remember.”

“It hasn’t been that long since he left,” Twilight objected.

“It was the reason he left,” Rarity countered. “Go. See for yourself, it’s why you’re here anyways.” Having said that, though, she floated the book over to herself and started browsing the pictures while Twilight moved on to other things.

“Spike?” the lavender mare asked as she clopped on his bedroom door.

“Twilight? Come in,” he invited. His voice was so much deeper than she remembered. It had been, since that night, she was forced to recall, but in his absence she always reverted to remembering that high voiced baby dragon that used to ride around on her back.

“Hi Spike,” she said with an uncomfortable smile as she looked around the room. His room. That he shared with his marefriend. Who had his face on her cutie mark… if they weren’t destined to marry, and soon, nopony was. “So… I hear you’ve been studying?”

Spike nodded. “I’ve been breezing through the math and science bits, and even tutoring foals on occasion, but there are a lot of bits I didn’t know from history, social studies, civics and so forth. Not that you didn’t teach me any of those things, but they’re pretty broad subjects. Honestly most of what you taught me there is harder subject matter than Cheerilee is teaching, but I ended up with gaps in some of the basic stuff everypony is supposed to know.”

Twilight cast her eyes on the ground, taking his words very hard.

“Oh, come on,” he objected, using a clawed hand to gently force her to look up. “You did a great job teaching me, and not just from books. But you also taught me that there’s always more to learn. And hey, I’m even earning a few bits with the tutoring. It’s not a career for me, but it’s a good job until I figure out what that will be.”

“A teacher is a perfectly good career,” Twilight offered.

“Maybe for somepony like Cheerilee. I don’t think it’s quite… me,” Spike said. “At any rate, I’ve been taking a lot of odd jobs around town, being a help and earning my keep. Even saving something up to rebuild the clubhouse someday. Maybe make it more of a… house house.”

“That’s… that’d be great,” Twilight said unconvincingly. Suddenly she found herself wrapped in a hug. A big, powerful hug that lifted her off her forehooves, and crushed the wind out of her without doing any real harm. Finally she leaned into it, regaining her breath and nuzzling his powerful, scaled shoulder. Tears ran freely down his scales as the hugged in silence for a little longer before breaking off into a more awkward silence.

“Thanks for visiting, Twilight,” Spike offered, eventually.

“You can visit me too, you know?” she suggested. “I have lots of books… being the town librarian and all…”

Spike nodded. “I’ll make sure to stop by in the next few days,” he promised.

Twilight nodded and smiled, trotting happily as she made her exit.

The call for help she heard wasn’t a physical, audible sound. It was more of a high pitched vibration deep in her soul, but she knew what it meant and where it came from.

“Consarnit. Not another one,” Applejack complained as she dashed through the orchard. Somewhere, one of her trees was under attack.

Wood voles had always been a challenge for the Apple family. But they were usually a manageable one. Especially with Fluttershy’s help, they could be directed to distribute their feeding and keep from doing too much harm to any one tree, letting them recover from the nibbling on their roots.

These were different. These new voles were the size of ponies. And as she came into view of it, she could see this one in particular was the size of Big Mac. It was skipping the roots and had its jaws clamped on an apple tree’s trunk, gnawing on it.

Her first, powerful buck knocked the creature loose, but made AJ cringe at the sight of bark being knocked loose as well. That tree was in bad shape already, and would need to be spared the rigors of bucking for apples this year, and maybe next. Picking the apples by hoof was always a lot of extra work, but it would be worth it to save a tree that was older than she was and still had many years of apple production ahead for it.

The vole charged, hissing angrily, but Applejack just sidestepped it with a well trained maneuver, leaving the loop of her lasso where she had just been standing, and then pulling it tight around the vole’s neck.

From that point she had complete control of the fight. The vole was bigger and stronger than her, but it wasn’t a trained fighter and it didn’t have the intelligence to compensate for what a well timed tug on its neck could do.

Applejack was sore and tired, but completely uninjured when the creature went down. But sore and tired was something the farmer was quite familiar with, and it wasn’t about to stop her from getting back to plowing for the spring planting.

“So, is Nanaki going to be your new daddy then?” Scootaloo asked, her tongue sticking out in concentration. She had a pair of long metal handles in her hooves that she was carefully manipulating.

“I guess? Maybe. That’s a weird thought,” Diamond Tiara admitted. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. They just went out on one date. And yes they’re spending the day together in Canterlot, and yes I assume they slept together by now. But Nanaki’s slept with like everypony. That doesn’t make him Applebloom’s brother-in-law.”

“Ah reckon ah’d have a lot of ‘em if it worked that way,” Apple Bloom agreed. “But I do think Nanaki and Cloud will stick it out and make it official.”

DT looked away, not wanting to address the issue.

“You miss your real dad,” Silver Spoon said gently, resting a hoof on her friend’s withers.

That got a brief surge of anger from Tiara. “Why couldn’t he have stood up to her in the first place?” she demanded, before shaking it off. “Look, we’re on guard, let’s look out.” With that she returned her focus to the woods around them, while Apple Bloom and Silver Spoon watched other directions. It would be dark soon, and the Everfree was dangerous enough in the day.

Meanwhile, Scootaloo used her long handled tongs to carefully place more of the blue blossoms into the sack at the end of Sweetie Belle’s pole, careful not to damage them or spread their pollen too much. Harvesting Poison Joke was no joke, but the need for the concentrated form to defend themselves with had only grown in recent weeks.

Howls rang out around them, as a pack of timber wolves made their presence known, and the three lookouts promptly rose onto their hind hooves, pressing back to back to support each other so they could more easily take aim with their squirt guns.

“Stay back!” Diamond demanded. “I’m in a bad mood, but if you flee now I won’t hurt you.”

The nearest wolves didn’t heed her warning. But as three of them fell to the ground writhing and crying out in pain from the herbicides the fillies were packing, the rest took that warning seriously, and backed off.

“Wrap it up,” Diamond instructed. “We need to get back home.”

“Eeek!” Rarity cried out.

“What, where?!” Rainbow asked, looking around in near panic for the monster. Judging from where Rarity was facing, she guessed it must have been right behind her, but a quick turn did not reveal a foe.

“You, darling! Just look at the state you’re in!” the fashionista said, before lifting the pegasus in her aura’s embrace, and starting to carry her off. “You’re going to the spa this instant, and I won’t take no for an answer. And then we’ll see what I can do about the state of your uniform.

Several tears had been ripped into the cloth in parts where the gems magically protecting it had been broken. Her hooves were covered in blood and less identifiable substances and had started to splinter in places. Her mane was a ragged mess and her eyes had dark rings around them from lack of nap.

“A-ight but nothi- too girly…” Rainbow muttered as much objection as she could manage. But in the end she wouldn’t have much say in the matter. The comfortable grasp of her friend’s magic put the pegasus to sleep before they arrived, and she was still snoring by the time the pair left.