When Luna entered Fluttershy’s dream, she was expecting it to be covered in a misty haze—not necessarily because the pegasus was in the midst of dealing with a particularly nasty fog, but because most ponies’ dreams were hazy and indistinct to some degree or another. Thus, it was with some surprise that the princess walked into a dream with clear, vivid imagery, and it was with even greater surprise that she came upon Fluttershy engaged in a pickup basketball game with three monkeys, a walrus, and a chupacabra. The teams seemed evenly matched: it was two monkeys and the chupacabra against Fluttershy, the walrus, and the third monkey, with Fluttershy’s ability to fly making up for the walrus’ inability to jump. Luna couldn’t help but notice that Fluttershy’s dream seemed to be adhering rather closely to the known laws of physics and magic (though not the commonly-accepted rules of basketball) as the pegasus took flight and completed an alley-oop from the walrus.

After a few minutes, though, the game was over, congratulations abounded, and the walrus walked off flipper-in-arm with Fluttershy’s primate teammate. It was only then that the pegasus noticed Luna’s presence. “Oh, Princess Luna! I, um, didn’t see you there. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about taking up my time,” Luna said. “After all, time itself becomes quite distorted in a dream.”

“In a dream?” Fluttershy repeated. An instant later, her eyes widened the implication clicked. “I’m dreaming! Wait... why haven’t I woken up?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, it’s just that I normally wake up as soon as I realize I’m dreaming.”

“Ah. Well, I’d venture to guess that you don’t normally have an experienced dreamwalker visiting your dreams.”

“Oh, well, I suppose that’s true.”

“In any case,” Luna said as she straightened up into a more formal posture, “I am here to inform you that the north winds you requested have started blowing. Assuming the calculations your liaison provided to the Weather Department are still valid, the fog should reach Ponyville shortly after noon.”

“Thank you,” Fluttershy said, though she still seemed distinctly uncomfortable.

“Is something the matter?” Luna asked.

“No, it’s just, well, once you’re gone, I’ll still know that I’m dreaming, which means I’ll wake up again, and I really want to be rested for tomorrow.”

Luna smiled. “I see. Well,” she said, her voice suddenly dispersing into soft echoes, “I think I can take care of that....”

Unsurprisingly, ten hours of sleep in the most comfortable bed Pencil Pusher had ever lain in left the bureaucrat feeling much better when he woke to the first rays of sunshine breaking on the horizon. His first reaction, naturally, was to close his eyes again, pull the extra-fluffy comforter over his head, and go back to sleep, because nopony in their right minds would ever want to leave a bed this heavenly. He was moments away from drifting back to dreamland when he abruptly realized that time spent in a comfortable bed was time not being spent around Fluttershy. Suddenly, being in one’s right mind seemed quite overrated.

Pencil Pusher flung the comforter back and dragged himself out of the bed so he could stare at the guest room’s exquisitely decorated mirror. His mane and tail were as shaggy as ever, but for the first time in recent memory, his eyes weren’t bloodshot. He stretched out his wings and gave them a few tentative flaps—everything seemed to be in good working order. A few seconds spent hovering in the air boosted his confidence even more. “Alright,” he said as he flew over to the balcony doors and pushed them open, revealing the cityscape of Canterlot before him. “Breakfast can wait. It’s high time I got back to Ponyville.”

The bureaucrat took to the skies... for all of about two seconds before colliding with a large, bat-winged stallion in purple armor who immediately pushed him back inside his room.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t let you do that just yet.”

“Huh?” Pencil Pusher said. “What gives? Tax season isn’t for another six months!”

“Seven, actually,” the guard replied, “but I’m not acting as a tax collector at the moment. The Princess was concerned that in your excitement, you’d attempt leave without the approval of one of the royal physicians.”

“Oh, right.” Pencil had completely forgotten about that part of Luna’s order. “Well, when can you get one of those doctors? I really shouldn’t be hanging around Canterlot longer than necessary.”

The guard responded with a brief nod. “Princess Luna suspected as much, so she’s scheduled an appointment for you an hour from now.”

“An hour?!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pusher, but it’s the earliest time slot available. If it’s any consolation, though, should the doctor approve, you’ll be traveling back to Ponyville on one of the Princesses’ private train cars.”

Pencil Pusher sighed. “Fine,” he replied, mostly because he could tell he didn’t have a chance at winning this argument. “Can I at least get some breakfast while I’m waiting for the doctor to show up?”

“I’ll have somepony bring you a menu.”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders reconvened in their clubhouse in the morning for two reasons. First of all, Mr. Shnookums’ contract stipulated that he be served a homemade breakfast in bed, followed by a vigorous deep-tissue massage before he took part in their human trap. Once these contractual obligations were attended to, the three fillies could begin discussing the issue that had come up the previous afternoon: the fog party. Though it was not in their nature to try and avoid Pinkie Pie’s parties, this one was getting in the way of their cutie marks, which meant that it was imperative that they devise some means of getting away from it as soon as possible.

Fortunately, Scootaloo had stumbled onto an ideal solution, which she had been itching to explain since sunrise. “Well, I was laying in bed—”

“Lying in bed,” Sweetie Belle corrected.

Scootaloo ignored her friend’s latest attempt to sneak educational content into what little remained of their summer vacation. “I was laying in bed when I remembered that we still haven’t opened up the mail-order spy kit we got a few weeks ago.”

Comprehension immediately dawned on her companions’ faces, followed soon after by broad smiles. “Of course!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “Everypony knows that spies gotta escape from traps all the time, so there’s bound to be somethin’ we can use to get outta Bon-Bon’s bunker.”

“Do you have it with you?” Sweetie Belle asked, having completely forgotten about her previous concerns about her friend’s grammar.

Scootaloo held up an important-looking metal briefcase and tapped it confidently with her hoof. “I’ve got it right here.”

Apple Bloom eyed the spy kit greedily. “What do y’all think’s in there?”

“I’m not sure, actually,” Scootaloo said, “but it’s got to have some awesome stuff. Like maybe miniature cutting tools hidden in watches, or one of those keys that unlocks anything.”

“A skeleton key?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Why would anypony want to unlock a skeleton?” Scootaloo said with a confused look on her face.

“Maybe there’ll be one of them grapplin’ hooks like in the comics,” Apple Bloom said.

“What good would a grappling hook do in a sealed underground bunker?” Sweetie Belle said.

Apple Bloom shrugged. “I dunno. Grapplin’ hooks are just cool, that’s all.”

“Well, if you ask me,” Sweetie Belle said (despite the fact that she hadn’t been asked), “the most practical thing would be a flashbang grenade.”

“Okay, that’s the first new word you’ve said all summer that actually sounds like it’s worth knowing,” Scootaloo replied. “What is it?”

“They’re really loud and really bright and they can disorient a lot of ponies so we can make our getaway.”

“Huh... that does sound useful,” Scootaloo said.

“Well, why are just standin’ around yammerin’?” Apple Bloom asked. “Open the dang thing so we can see what we’re workin’ with here!”

Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle crowded behind Scootaloo as the pegasus filly released the latches on the case. Slowly, she lifted the case’s lid, and as the three fillies looked inside, their faces were bathed in a warm, orange glow. “What do you suppose that light bulb is for?” Sweetie Belle asked, pointing at the small, incandescent orb attached to the case’s lid.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Obviously, it’s there so you can see the inside of the briefcase at night,” she said.

The first layer of stuff was mostly for communication—decoder rings, jars of invisible ink, that sort of thing. Beneath that, there was a book about codes and ciphers and several false envelopes for dead drops, as well as a pair of sunglasses with built-in rear-view mirrors. But beneath that layer... was the bottom of the briefcase.

“You’re kiddin’ me!” Apple Bloom exclaimed. “This can’t be all, can it? Where’s the lasers? Where’s the deadly weapons that look like harmless junk? There ain’t even any canisters of knockout gas!”

“I don’t know!” Scootaloo replied as she frantically looked over the empty case.

“Maybe there’s a false bottom,” Sweetie Belle said with a rather forced tone of confidence. “Spies always have secret compartments in their stuff.”

“I’m looking, I’m looking!” Scootaloo insisted. But several fruitless minutes of searching led the fillies to conclude that more drastic measures were needed, and Apple Bloom went off to find a hammer and chisel.

“There’s got to be something useful in there,” Sweetie Belle insisted as Apple Bloom’s hoofbeats faded away. “I mean, if you can’t trust the mail-order ads from the back of a comic book, who can you trust?”

Fluttershy and her committee of friends met in the library, and after a quick breakfast of puffed oats and coffee, they went over the schedule for the day. The timetable was relatively simple: around nine o’clock that morning, the weather team would cut the crosswinds that normally kept ordinary weather from drifting into the Everfree Forest. Pinkie Pie’s party would begin around ten-thirty, which would allow plenty of time for latecomers to show up before the fog spilled over the Unicorn Range at midday. With any luck, it would all be over before dinner.

As the group split up to take care of their various duties, Twilight Sparkle pulled Rarity aside. “Could we talk for a bit?”

“I suppose,” the fashionista replied as she cocked her head to one side, “but I don’t have much time. I need to get Rainbow Dash into her fog suit, or else she might not have time to collect more data for you before meeting with the weather team.”

“It’ll be quick, I promise,” Twilight said reassuringly. “In fact, it’s actually about Rainbow.”

“Oh?”

Twilight nodded enthusiastically. “Fluttershy was talking to her last night, and she thinks Rainbow might have developed a crush.”

Rarity’s eyes lit up as her mouth spread into a grin. There was no gossip quite like romantic gossip, particularly when it concerned one’s friends. “Do tell! Who’s the lucky pony?”

“Pencil Pusher!” Twilight said excitedly. “You know, the bureaucrat who’s been helping Fluttershy out?”

Rarity’s grin was still frozen in place, yet all of the joy still seemed to drain from her expression as her pupils shrank and one of her eyelids acquired a nearly imperceptible twitch. “Yes, I remember him quite well from yesterday,” she replied, attempting to keep her tone of voice calm.

“Isn’t it incredible?”

“I can hardly believe it myself,” Rarity replied. As images of a bodice-clad Rainbow Dash melting in the forelegs of an oddly muscular Pencil Pusher floated through her head, Rarity could at least take some miniscule comfort in the fact that her reply to Twilight had been truthful: the very idea was not merely unbelievable, but completely and utterly absurd.

And yet....