Chapter 37: Rarity’s Dismay

Dusk and Fluttershy arrive at Sugarcube Corner slightly ahead of schedule.  As soon as Dusk steps inside, he is overwhelmed by the smell of sweet smelling baked goods.  Pinkie Pie is still making a batch of cupcakes in the kitchen, while Rainbow was ‘helping’ by eating a few of the cupcakes from her last batch.

Dusk greets the rainbow maned pegasus. “Hey there Rainbow, I saw you eating those cupcakes before.”

“Uhh yeah, that’s because Pinkie is using me as a taste tester.” Says Rainbow.

Dusk facehoofs, “Are you kidding me, a taste tester? Why would she need a taste tester.”

He hears a loud gasp from inside the kitchen, and then Pinkie pops out of nowhere, and lectures him, “Of course you need a taste tester Dusky, you need a taste tester to make sure that the food tastes yummy and that everypony else will like it as well. If there was no taste tester, than you could make a really yucky batch and then nopony would’t like you anymore. Even worse is if you give something yucky to either of the princesses, they could put you in a dungeon, or send you to the moon, or send you to the moon and put you in a dungeon too.”

“…”

“I think that I’ve made my point.” Huffs Pinkie, as she walks back near the stove in.

As she leaves the room, he looks at Rainbow, and shakes his head. “*sigh* Remind me to never question anything involving Pinkie Pie.”

She seems humored after watching watching Pinkie’s little lecture. “I gotcha, she was the same with me, when I question her obsession with cupcakes.” She looks at his injured wing. “So how long until you can fly again?”

“Eight days, I can take this cast off tomorrow, but I’ll still need time to be able to fly again. But I’m sure that I’ll be able to go to work by then.”

“Ok then Dusk.”

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Dusk had left the kitchen, to see that nearly everypony had arrived at the Sugarcube Corner while he was talking to Rainbow Dash. He sees that Applejack, Twilight and Zephyr were all in a conversation with Fluttershy in the main room. He notices that Rarity seems to be a little bit late, as it is 11:42AM on the nearby clock. Zephyr looks up at Dusk while the rest of the girls were busy in another one of their conversations.

“Hey Dusk.” Greets Zephyr.

“Hello Zeph, how have you been?”

“I’ve been pretty good, things have been going well with Twilight and me, and the Princess approves of our relationship. Life is good right now.”

Dusk felt that something is amiss “Wait a second, I already know that Twilight is Princess Celestia’s protégé, but how did you two tell her about your relationship? I’m sure that the Princess doesn’t have the time to visit you two in the library.”

“Of course not, it’s just that she wrote about us, in one of her weekly friendship reports, and she used Spike to send the letter to her.”

Dusk looks confused, and tries to understand the situation. “But why would she make Spike give the letter to her? If I remember correctly, than he is just a baby dragon.”

“I know he is, and I know you are not going to believe me when I say this, but he actually burns it with his flame, and it somehow sends the letter straight to the Princess. He also burps back letters sent from the Princess.”

“…I don’t even pretend to understand the logic behind any of this, so I’ll just blame it on magic.” Says the puzzled Dusk.

“I gave up trying to understand that a long time ago.”

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Rarity finally arrives at the bakery, at 11:45AM, which is fifteen minutes later than the scheduled time. As soon as she greets the girls in the main room, Pinkie Pie pops out of nowhere again, and begins to yell. “So everypony is here? BECAUSE IT’S PARTY TIME!” And when she finishes, a small explosion of confetti appears out of nowhere, and some dance music begins to play from an unknown source. Dusk notices that the nearby table is filled with an assortment of baked goods, which weren’t there a minute ago.

‘I thought that this would be a simple meet up, not one of Pinkie’s parties. I’m not complaining though, I love it.’

Pinkie had lined everypony up for the piñata, before any of the party guests could realize what is happening. Dusk is fourth in line, with Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow in front of him. Rarity, Applejack and Zephyr were all behind him, while Pinkie Pie was putting the blindfold on Twilight. He turns around and starts to talk to Rarity.

“So why were you late?”

She sighs in slight frustration. “Sweetie Belle decided to have one of her Cutie Mark Crusader meet ups in the Boutique, thirty minutes before I had to leave. They caused quite a mess before I got them to go someplace else, so I had to clean up before I left. After I cleaned up, I realized that my mane and tail were a mess, so I needed time to be able to fix them up before I left.”

*mental facehoof* Dusk isn’t really shocked with Rarity’s decision, more so disappointed. “Did you really need to spend so much time on your mane and tail?”

“But of course. I always need to look my very best, all the time, or I could become the laughing stock of the fashion world, and that would be THE, WORST, POSSIBLE, THING!” She mock faints onto a nearby couch that she somehow magicked into the room. Before Dusk could facehoof, Pinkie turns him around to face the battered piñata, puts a blindfold on him, and gives him a medium length wooden pole.

Just as he is about to swing, he hears the door of the bakery open, and he can hear an unknown mare’s voice. “Thank Celestia that I found all of you, there are a pack of diamond dogs in town, demanding that they want Rarity, and they threatened to destroy the town if they don’t.”

He hears another mare’s voice, “The horror, the horror!”

The other mare continues. “The rest of the town, have locked themselves up in their homes, but we need you to convince them to leave the town before they cause any damage.”

Dusk pulls his blindfold off and takes a look at Rarity, and she looks mortified, and extremely scared of what is happening. The rest of her friends give Rarity a reassuring look, in the attempt to comfort her.

“Who or what are diamond dogs?” Asks Dusk.

Twilight begins to explain the situation to Dusk. “Diamond dogs, are canines that live in underground caves that are full of gems. They tend to have an obsession with gems, but they don’t know where they can find them. They ponynapped Rarity once and forced her to find and dig out gems, since unicorns possess magic that can help them find these gems.”

“That’s harsh, but do you think that they’ve come back, so they could enslave her again?”

“Probably, so that’s why we are going to make sure that doesn’t happen again, right girls?”

“Right!” Yells her other four friends with vigor.

Twilight turns to Rarity, “Don’t worry Rarity, we will all help you. If they want to get you, then they have to get past all of us first.” Next Chapter: Chapter 38: Never Again Estimated time remaining: 4 Hours, 60 Minutes