The Forgemaster and Shattered Globe were inside of The Forgemaster's home. Broken Bulb, fortunately or unfortunately, hadn't yet recovered from his ordeal. Turns out the doubly insane personality was deathly afraid of any kind of sexual innuendo, as well as the act itself.

At the moment, both were resting. Walking for 3 days and nights isn't a terribly easy feat to accomplish. Shattered Globe, for instance, was a spy and not at all used to walking long treks across the landscape. He and The Forgemaster had eaten nothing but trail rations and whatever edible plants they could find on the way back. The Forgemaster had caught a rabbit and ate that, but Shattered Globe couldn't eat it. No matter their physical appearance, ponies that were disguised as griffons were still ponies on the inside. And no matter The Forgemaster's bluffing towards the griffons they had captured, ponies-turned-griffons still couldn't, or wouldn't, eat meat. The first thing Shattered Globe had done once entering the house was to raid the fridge and the cabinets for food. The Forgemaster was just sad that he would have to go back to hiding his meat eating ways… they had some damn good meat in Griffonia.

While Shattered Globe was demolishing a third salad and a pair of cupcakes, The Forgemaster had elected to take look-out. He wasn't quite sure what was going on in the town hall, but figured that if Pinkie wanted him there, and knew that he was in town, she would drag him there, kicking and screaming. Then he would be publically beaten by Rainbow Dash and probably completely flattened by Pinkie Pie's shenanigans.

The Forgemaster was peering through the blinds he had drawn across the windows, "Hmmm, I don't think anyone knows we're here. I'm not sure if that's a good thing…"

Shattered Globe spoke through the cupcakes in his mouth to say, "We aren't here on a social visit, we're here resting for the last leg to Canterlot. No matter what interferes, we have to report in to Princess Celestia."

"I could always just magic a letter to her…" The Forgemaster mumbled.

Globe shook his head, though The Forgemaster couldn't see, "Nah, she needs this report in the flesh. It would be terrible manners to just send a letter."

"Since when have I cared about manners?" he asked, wryly.

"Since never," Globe said while grinning, "But Celestia would have my hooves if I had sent her a letter when I am supposed to be telling her face-to-face. She might have question, you know, nothing that could be easily fixed with letters."

This time The Forgemaster nodded, it was reasonable after all.

"You know? I've been talking too much recently; I should cut back on that. Then again, there are actually people, er, ponies, here worth talking to on a daily basis…" The Forgemaster scratched his chin in thought and then blankly stared at Globe when he didn't respond.

Shattered Globe hadn't even noticed him speaking, so engrossed was he in eating. Sure he was hungry, but damnit, it had only been a few days since they last had actual food. Rations don't count as real food, by the way.

"You done yet?" he asked Globe.

Shattered Globe had just polished off the last cupcake, and burped before nodding excitedly, "Yep! We can go now. But, why are you so afraid of being seen in this town?"

"I'm not afraid of being seen, I'm not afraid at all. I'm merely worried about the things that may come to pass should I be seen."

A knocking was heard at the door, strong and impatient. The sudden noise startled the 2 inside the home.

The Forgemaster began saying, "That's impossible; no one knows we're here…"

An angry voice yelled out from behind the door, "Forgey! I know you're in there! Come out here NOW!"

"Oh shit, that was Pinkie." The Forgemaster muttered, "I want my Zapper…" he continued with an almost child-like whine.

The Forgemaster ducked into a side room and retrieved the before-mentioned sword. While he was not planning to hurt Pinkie Pie, it was an electricity-based weapon. Surely even she would be stunned from it, right? The Forgemaster wasn't very certain about that, but felt better knowing that he could at least try.

Pinkie was hitting the door hard enough that the door was caving in slightly with each blow.

"Oh buck, mate. This mare seems to want you pretty bad." Shattered Globe remarked, still sitting at the table.

The Forgemaster started up the stairs, saying back to him, "If you wish to escape the wrath of an enraged Pinkie, then you will use the trapdoor I have in my room. I installed it just in case the Vietcong attack."

Shattered Globe hopped off of the seat and followed him up the stairs, asking, "What's the Vietcong?"

The Forgemaster turned back and with an exaggerated yell said, "I don't wanna talk about it!"

Globe backed off saying, "Okay, okay, jeez. We won't talk about it, now where's that trapdoor?"

The Forgemaster tilted his head towards the door to his room and they both walked in. Once there, The Forgemaster flipped a lamp over, causing it to tilt back on a concealed hinge, and revealed a button. Once pressed, the button caused an entire cabinet to open up like a door. Behind the cabinet was a tunnel, and it was about half as tall as the normal doors in The Forgemaster's house. Perfect size for a pony, Shattered Globe just walked right through, but The Forgemaster had to turn his body over almost completely. The Forgemaster shut the cabinet behind him and kept following the path the tunnel provided. There was little illumination, the little light there was provided by a few strips of photo reactive paint, giving off some tiny amount of light to see by.

The tunnel wasn't that long, in retrospect; it probably should've been longer. Of course, one has to add in the mind-bending it took to make a tunnel from the second floor work as an effective escape route without being immediately noticeable in the other rooms. It's not like a giant tunnel can be hidden easily in the walls. It took skill to blend in a tunnel with a wall, 2 completely opposite things, and The Forgemaster made them one. The tunnel, for all the difficulty there was in making it, definitely should've been longer. I mean, it only goes to the street in front of his house, as though that would stump anyone with half a brain. Then again, when he was first making the tunnel his opinions of the ponies probably could've been better: he had underestimated them quite a bit before he learned their true limits in the later weeks since he first arrived.

The Forgemaster climbed down the incline that was present in this part of the tunnel, and looked down the strait-shot all the way to where the tunnel ends to see Shattered Globe and Broken Bulb already there staring at the ladder with an extremely perplexed look on his face.

'Oh yeah, that's a ladder… ponies can't use those.' He thought.

The Forgemaster chuckled to himself as he approached the secret agent. Once next to him, The Forgemaster looked up the ladder and put on the same expression that Globe had on.

After a few silent moments, he asked, "What the hay is it?"

The Forgemaster rolled his eyes and said, "It's a ladder. I have fingers so I can climb it, but it wasn't designed for ponies at all." The Forgemaster chuckled at his indignant expression, then cocked a thumb up the ladder, "I'll go check if the coast is clear, then I'll lift you up."

The Forgemaster climbed the ladder silently, though it wouldn't really matter at all, some habits are hard to break but moving silently wasn't one that he ever wanted to go. It was just too damn useful.

The Forgemaster slowly lifted the metal cover to the tunnel hole, raising it only a few inches so that he can look in every direction without being spotted. Once assured that no one was in sight, he lifted the cover further and placed it off to the side before hauling himself up onto the ground. Thankfully, he managed to put the tunnel exit behind a bush nearby the entrance to his house, so he wouldn't be seen easily. He had strategically placed the exit in a tiny forest in the middle of town, a small thing, no more than a few bushes and trees, but it was sanctuary for the moment. Afterwards, he reached down into the tunnel and lifted Globe out by a hoof.

He had just taken Globe out of the hole when behind him he hears, "F~o~rgey…" in a quiet, creepy, drawn out voice.

He immediately drops Globe out of fright. Globe yelled out a scream for a moment, he was still halfway inside the tunnel opening after all, but he managed to grip the wall in time, and haul himself up to ground level as well.

The Forgemaster quickly turned towards the sound of the voice, silently cursing his bad luck, and spotted Pinkie Pie quite fast.

She was, after all, about 6 inches from him.

She was hanging from the trees above her in an effort to bring herself to eye-level with him. Her mane was all straightened out and her eyes had a mixture of crazy and sadness that immediately put The Forgemaster on edge.

"Yes Pinkie?" he nervously asked.

"Why aren't you at my party? I made it especially for you and your friend."

"I-I'm sorry, Pinkie." He stuttered, "W-we didn't know about it."

She regarded him with suspicion for a few moments, gazing deeply into the depths of his soul… when suddenly.

"OKAY!" She suddenly smiled brightly and her mane regained its poofiness and she dropped from the trees above her only to start jumping around him in circles, "I-thought-you-weren't-going-to-the-party-and-that-made-me-sad-so-I-decided-to-go-and-look-for-you-because-I-thought-you-were-being-a-meanie-mean-mean-pants-but-it's-okay-now-because-you're-here-and-you're-coming-to-the-party-right!"

The Forgemaster looked unfocused for a moment, apparently trying to digest the spew of words just thrown at him, "Alright." He drawled out after a moment.

Pinkie just stared at him for a moment before smiling again just as brightly.

She turned to Globe and said, "Oh look a new pony! Good thing I knew he was coming or else I couldn't have made the party into both a 'welcome back' party AND a 'welcome to Ponyville' party! What's your name! My name's Pinkie Pie!"

Globe reached out with a hoof to shake hers and started to say, "The name's Shatt-" but he moaned for a moment before clutching his head in pain. He quickly stopped and looked back up at Pinkie Pie before matching her bright smile and saying, "Hiya! I'm Broken Bulb, nice tah meet'cha!"

"It's so nice to meet yah Bulby! Now c'mon we have to go to the party all the other ponies are waiting!"

She rapidly bounced away and Broken Bulb, who apparently just forcibly took over the body even from the depths of his self-imposed imprisonment, stayed back a moment to say, "I really like her! She's awesome in every way!" he then followed after her, matching her bouncing gait jump for jump.

The Forgemaster sighed, mumbled about having '2 of them now', and followed after them at his own pace.

wWwWwWw

In the meantime, those at the party were still in their positions to enact the surprise. Then again, both of those the party was for knew about it… So, it won't be a surprise, per se, maybe more like... a town-wide yell at The Forgemaster and whoever this new pony was that Pinkie had said was coming the day before.

The townsponies were confused when Pinkie had barged into the Town Hall early in the morning the previous day and said that The Forgemaster was coming home and was bringing another pony with him. She just immediately started putting up decorations and setting up the snacks. She really did a good job, but the ponies had no idea whether Pinkie was telling the truth or not. Then again, she did justify it with saying that her 'tail twitched, her knees shook, and her eyes tingled'. Apparently, that's Pinkie-sense for 'somepony is coming home with a new friend'. It wouldn't be the first time Pinkie had predicted something strange happening.

But, there was a problem: Pinkie was late.

Huddled underneath a table together were Applejack, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Rainbow. After a few more minutes of Pinkie being late, they started to discuss Pinkie.

Rainbow spoke up first, "Ugh, Pinkie's so late!"

"Ah agree, she's been out there for an awfully long time." Applejack put in.

"Y-You don't think s-something happened to her, do you?" Fluttershy quietly asked.

The blank stares she got in response answered her nervous question.

Twilight said, "I would be more worried about her happening to something."

A loud explosion drowned out whatever response there may have been. The entire building shook and confetti and sweets scattered throughout the room, which was now full of ponies trying to collect their bearings. A quick look to the door revealed… the outside?

The Forgemaster was standing there, rubbing the back of his head in exasperation, Pinkie Pie was there as well, doing almost the same thing only with a lot more giggles, and there was a second pony there bouncing up and down in utter glee.

Twilight thought she heard The Forgemaster say something about the real surprise being that the building was still standing, but was still shocked from the explosion and could have heard that wrong.

The ponies were supposed to have shouted 'surprise' by now, but none could muster any sort of enthusiasm: they were all still disoriented from the explosion.

A few minutes passed before any of the ponies inside were able to think straight. Surprisingly, Rainbow Dash was the first one to snap back to life after such an event, probably due to similar events in the past involving lightning and cliff sides. While all of the other ponies were still stumbling about, shell shocked, she ran full tilt at The Forgemaster and tackled him to the ground. She tackled him straight to the ground, he not offering any resistance to her, and stood on his chest, face inches from his.

She roughly kissed him full on the lips before pulling back and slapping him across the face saying, "Don't you ever leave again and only tell me about it in a letter you bucking idiot!" afterwards, she immediately kissed him again, gentler this time.

None of the other ponies that weren't meant to see this moment hadn't, they were still in the midst of clearing out their ringing ears and regaining their balance.

After that, the ponies took to the party with increased vigor. Sadly, the party had to be taken outside as The Forgemaster dubbed the town hall a deathtrap. Considering the damage and the moans and groans of the structure, the ponies agreed it was a wise decision. So, the ponies had to look at the decorations from afar, but at least the snacks were saved by enterprising unicorns.

Broken Bulb appeared to be smitten with Pinkie Pie, though it wasn't clear if he actually was or not. Speaking to him was like speaking with a violent toddler so no one was sure if he liked Pinkie Pie in such a manner, it may just be the relationship that occurs between 2 adult children, who knows? Well, either way, Bulb spent the entirety of his time following Pinkie Pie, no easy feat, but he took to it religiously. Through her he met everypony in the town and was better for it.

Applejack correctly assumed he was a nut, and tried to steer clear. Rainbow Dash pretty much felt the same without the need to stay away from him as much. Twilight thought he was interesting considering his mental condition which he had told her about, few persons with multiple personality syndrome are aware of the other personalities, much less be able to actually carry on a conversation with the others. Fluttershy thought he was scary, but immediately changed her mind after he had suddenly given her a full-body hug, claiming that she was more adorable than The Forgemaster had let on. Rarity thought he was a child, and treated him as such, though when she came into contact with Shattered Globe, who managed to fight through for a few moments, enjoyed his company. Globe tried to be a gentlecolt if at all possible, though he still had terrible pick-up lines.

Thus, the agent known as Shattered Globe, Broken Bulb, and Silent Knife was introduced to Ponyville.

The Forgemaster, for his part, had most of his attention on Rainbow Dash. She had taken it upon herself to 'punish' him for leaving for a week and only telling them through a letter. Between slaps she devised more punishments for him, all the while being introduced to Broken Bulb and eating sweets.

Once, she told him that he would be sleeping on the couch but he replied that it was his house, to which her meaningful response was 'so'?

The other Elements just shook their heads at their antics. It was clear that they were perfect for each other, though The Forgemaster might have something to say about that.

Back in Canterlot, Celestia was still going through The Forgemaster's memories…