“Hi, Rarity!” Pinkie Pie shouts as she pronks into the store. Blue and pink balloons and streamers stuck to her mane trail behind her. Several of them come loose with every pronk, and more seem to bubble up from inside her mane to replace those lost. “And hi, Rare Find! How are you…”

Pinkie Pie pauses her mad pronking to stare hard at Doug. “Wait a second,” Pinkie Pie says, traveling from the far end of the store over to Doug in the blink of an eye. She scratches at her chin as she inspects him from a hoof length away, her eyes staring directly into his, the human gulping nervously. She states, “You’re not Rare Find.”

“That’s not me!” Doug exclaims, forcing a smile to his face.

“Where is he?!” Pinkie Pie yells. She zips around the store despite Rarity’s stressed and repeated objections, practically tearing the place apart in her search for the brown unicorn. She lifts ponnequins, shelves (dumping out the contents in the process), and even the white mare herself, leaving the store in shambles.

“Pinkie Pie!” Rarity shouts, stomping a hoof on the ground. “Stop it! Get over here!”

“But he’s not there!” Pinkie Pie shouts back, continuing to overturn smaller and smaller objects that Rare Find would absolutely not be able to hide underneath or within. “He’s not here, either! Is he outside? Upstairs? Did you send him ahead in order to deal with Doug?”

“He left Ponyville!” Rarity shouts among the clatter of falling objects. “For good!”

The room goes instantly still but for a single pin dropping. It makes a light tinkling sound as it hits the floor.

“He WHAT!!?” Pinkie Pie bellows in Rarity’s face, her head seemingly growing twice its normal size in order to give her enough volume. It returns to normal as she shakes the unicorn, Rarity’s eyes going all spinny.

“H-h-e g-g-o-t s-s-c-a-a-r-r-e-d b-y D-d-o-u-g-g,” Rarity manages to get out while being shaken.

“He got scared by Doug?” Pinkie Pie repeats, whirling on the human. Her mane begins sagging, her normal curls straightening out. “You know what this means, right?” She gets a wicked look in her eye, muzzle curling to a toothy grin that pulls the corners of her smile up way too far.

“...He won’t get his cake?” Doug says, fearfully backing up from the advancing mare.

“No!” Pinkie Pie shouts, though her demeanor instantly shifts as she scratches her chin with a hoof. “Actually, you’re right, he won’t get his cake.” It shifts back just as quickly. “But that’s because he won’t get his party! And that means that I’m ruined!!”

Pinkie Pie crumples to the ground, her eyes bursting forth with literal waterfalls of tears. Rarity wades through the quickly growing puddle to wrap a comforting leg around the pink mare, her mane getting drenched in the process.

“It’s not fair!” Pinkie Pie continues, sobbing uncontrollably. “You two were perfect together! I mean, look at your names! They mean practically the same thing! They share the first three letters! How many ponies can claim that? But just because I jumped the party cannon doesn’t mean my perfect party performance should be punished!”

“Your what?” Doug asks, cautiously getting closer but avoiding the puddle. Party cannon?

“My preventative party performance policy.” Pinkie Pie ponderously pulls pages of paper from her poofy pink mane as her tears pause. “I guarantee all my parties, giving the Pinkie Pie Promise that everypony will have a good time. And not one redemption yet!” She throws the papers into the air, and they rain down around her before soaking into the standing water. “But that’s all going to change after this fiesta fiasco.” She sighs heavily, slumping on top of Rarity, her eyes watering. “When there’s no pony to welcome to Ponyville, ponies are going to think I throw parties for absolutely no reason at all! Or worse, cancel them!”

“Well, I know someone new to Ponyville,” Doug starts.

“You DO?!” Pinkie Pie exclaims, bursting out of her funk and leaping for joy while a horn blares. Rarity tumbles through the air, landing in a pile of knocked-over ponnequins. “Who? Where?” She zips over to Doug, looking all over him, behind him, even lifting him up to look under him.

“Me,” Doug says exasperatedly, rolling his eyes. Behind him Rarity groggily peeks out from the jumble of displaced dresses, rubbing her head.

“Wait, you?” Pinkie Pie says, frowning as she drops Doug to the ground. She considers for a moment. “No, that wouldn’t work at all.”

“Why, because I’m not a pony?” Doug flashes Pinkie Pie a winning smile.

“Well, yeah,” Pinkie Pie says matter-of-factly. She takes a deep breath that turns into a long sigh as Doug frowns. She pronks forward, somehow managing to climb on his body and wrap a leg around his neck while she explains. “Doug, have you ever... been to a party?”

“Yes,” Doug returns, groaning under the heavy weight of the mare latched to his side.

“Let me rephrase,” Pinkie Pie says, unconvinced. “Have you ever been to a party?”

“No,” Doug says with a roll of his eyes. “I’m a reclusive shut-in who prefers books over people, spending quiet nights alone, all by myself.”

Pinkie Pie continues without a hint of hesitation or disbelief, “Then you might not know that the purpose of a party is for ponies to have fun.” Pinkie Pie hums to herself for a moment. “And you could expand that to say that a party is for anycreature to have fun.”

“That was sarcasm before, by the way,” Doug says. Rarity extricates herself from the dresses, frantically levitating as many of the scattered objects and starting to put things back the way they should be.

“Doug,” Pinkie Pie says with another heavy sigh, dropping off his side and walking to one of Rarity’s drawing boards.

“I know Ponyville-” she dips her front left hoof in a pad of black ink she pulls from her mane, pressing it to the paper and leaving a perfect map of Ponyville inside a small horseshoe sized circle. She pencils in ‘Sweet Apple Acres’ to the left.

“-like I know ponies-” she replaces the black ink with a pad of blue, her right rear hoof pressing dozens and dozens of blue dots inside the circle of Ponyville. She adds three dots scattered around Sweet Apple Acres.

“-like I know parties.” She pulls out a pad of pink ink this time. Her right front hoof raises as she considers the map, but then sighs heavily before replacing the ink in her mane.

“What the…” Doug says, inspecting the map. What sorcery is this!? Or is it a gimmick? That can’t possibly be where all the ponies are, right? And yet, there are three blue dots in the circular building that I think is Carousel Boutique.

“Sooo, trust me when I say that ponies would not have fun at a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party for you.” She ignores Rarity’s frantic shaking of the head as the unicorn realizes what Pinkie Pie is saying.

“...What?” Doug says, flabbergasted. I should have known I would never belong here. It’s included in the freaking name! He can feel his blood boiling, his knuckles turning white as his hands ball into fists.

“Ponies are not going to accept you just because there’s some party thrown in your name,” Pinkie Pie says confidently, sketching out some crazed contraption on the paper. “Parties are great, but they’re not that great.” She taps a hoof against her chin. “They’re icebreakers. Great against icebergs, but they won’t work wonders against Windigos.”

“Rarity, I know what else I want,” Doug says coldly as he stomps to the door. Rarity turns to him, opening her mouth to object. He continues over her, “I want a train ticket out of here. Canterlot, wherever, it doesn’t matter.” He yanks the door open, the bell above chiming merrily before he slams it behind him.

“Doug!” Rarity calls after him, but when he doesn’t turn she whirls on Pinkie Pie. “What were you thinking, telling him that?”

“Telling him what?” Pinkie Pie says, confused. She motions towards her drawing. “That we need to come up with some alternative to a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ party that everypony that attends would find enjoyable instead of a town-wide bash that would most certainly include ponies that don’t like him and would certainly break my Pinkie Pie Party Promise?”

“No!” Rarity huffs. “Well, yes, but maybe you should have led with that instead of making him think that he isn’t wanted!” She motions to the front door. “And now he’s about to leave!”

“...Then I guess we don’t need to throw him a party?” Pinkie Pie says, her head cocking to the side. She sighs. “Aww, but I like parties. And this still doesn’t fix the problem of not having a pony to welcome to Ponyville.”

Rarity grits her teeth in frustration, slamming a hoof into her forehead.

Hard Point and Bitter Pill watch from their positions next to Applejack’s cart in the somewhat busy road as Doug leaves Carousel Boutique. The young yellow earth pony mare next to them tips her blue rimmed glasses down, turquoise eyes narrowing. Her pink and blue curls bob as she glances back up to the two guards, her steely gaze returning to the human.

“This is the ‘monster’ marauding around Ponyville?” she asks condescendingly, pushing her glasses back up. “Not much at all to wrap up.” The three blue pieces of wrapped candy on her flank stretch as she flexes her leg, preparing herself for some sort of confrontation as Doug approaches.

“Officers,” Doug spits out as he walks up to the cart. He barely spares a glance to the two foot tall yellow mare.

“Doug,” Hard Point returns neutrally, neither guard moving from their spot.

He grunts, grabbing one of the empty seed bags. He glares at the guards as he roughly rips a head and two arm holes, the ill-fitting and scratchy material making a makeshift shirt that barely comes down to his waist. Without a cord or belt he quickly gives up on the idea of making pants or even a loincloth, especially with so many of the nearby ponies intently watching him, instead grabbing the cart and storming off to the west.

“Doug!” Rarity calls as she leaves her shop, the human again ignoring her. The white unicorn whirls on the two guards, snarling. “If you two could stop harassing him for two seconds, you would find that he means us no harm! He’s trying to fit in, but doesn’t know how! So stop punishing him for things he doesn’t know and teach him, or you’ll turn him into the exact thing you’re accusing him of being!”

“Ma’am,” Hard Point says evenly, “we were simply sent here to ascertain the facts about what happened so a formal decision could be reached, and to prevent any other occurrences.”

“Well,” Rarity snaps, “I hope your investigation treats him like anypony, because I most certainly will be conducting one of my own should it not!”

Bitter Pill calmly regards the unicorn. “Does this mean you’ve completed your statement about what happened?”

“My statement?!” Rarity grits her teeth as her horn flares. A quill, inkwell, and paper levitates from the front door. She fumes at the two pegasi for the entire minute she writes, nearly stabbing through the paper in several spots. She wads the page up, preparing to throw it at Bitter Pill. The pegasi barely moves, perfectly happy to let Rarity vent. The unicorn seems to notice what she’s about to do, clearing her throat as she regains a calm demeanor. The page uncrumples, smoothing out before levitating to the guard. Rarity flicks her nose to the air, strutting back to Carousel Boutique without a backwards glance.

The two guards and the young yellow mare read through Rarity’s version of events. The two guards don’t react, but the earth pony sighs. “Well, so much for what the Ponyvillians saw. You two need anything else? Otherwise I’m circling out.”

“No, we’re good,” Bitter Pill says. “Sorry it was a bust, S. D.”

“Happens.” S. D. pulls out a bag of yellow dust from the blue side of her mane, then an orange bag from the pink. She pulls out barely more than a dash of each, flinging them in a precise circle around her. A flash of golden magic later and she is gone, leaving only the circle on the ground.

“I hope she sends the bookworm,” Hard Point remarks, organizing the papers.

Bitter Pill rolls her eyes. “So what if your stallion has a crush on her, you’re not making any inroads by just doing your job. You need to do something to stand out.”

“Oh, stop being such a bitter pill,” Hard Point cuts back, both coming to attention as the circle flares a mix of gold and reddish amaranth.

Next Chapter: Ch. 16 - Redblade Tramplers Estimated time remaining: 14 Hours, 29 Minutes