Another Day in Downtown Ponyville

Reference: https://plus.google.com/u/2/104974365925577954887/posts/hQxVuxxpVpd?hl=en&pid=6103983845317124514&oid=104974365925577954887

Mirage opened the flaps of her tent to see the downtown streets of Ponyville bustling with activity. She stepped outside and trotted along with the crowd. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and her saddle bags were overflowing with "magic" props.

"What a perfect day" Mirage thought to herself.

Mirage trotted past several stands where ponies would sell their goods. Scents of baked goods and fresh fruit drifted through the air. There were many types of shops. Shops for accessories, food, furniture, toys, and even books.

"I'm not sure which stall I want to stop at," Mirage thought silently.

"I think I might get some fresh produce and maybe a new hair bow," Mirage thought," My grey bow is getting a little old and dingy."

Oh, today was going to be awful.

As a dignified young mare of Canterlot, Elegance of the noble Design family was not used to shopping in an open market, especially one in such a rural backwater such as Ponyville. It honestly said a lot about the mare and her view on life that she viewed the township where almost everything world-shattering had happened as a 'rural backwater'. Thus, it probably should come as no surprise at all that she had come to the decision that she hated being here. This decision was formulated in about ten seconds.

She was this close, this close, to giving the next annoying, in your face merchant that tried to force upon her yet another useless trinket a telling off about, about....something. She sighed, recalling the reason she was here in the first place. She was looking for a unique little thing, something that was apparently left here to rust. So far, she did not have much luck at all.

So she continued searching, glaring fiercely at anypony, anypony at all who even gave the smallest hint of getting in her way.

Mirage trotted happily to a stall selling bows. She bought a grey bow that was identical to the one she was already wearing and stuffed it into her bags. She noticed an extremely irritated mare who was walking through the market streets.

"I wonder what has her tail in a twist," Mirage thought, "Maybe something is wrong and I could help

Mirage contemplated this more, "But maybe she just wants to be left alone

"But if she doesn't and she ends up having a horrible day on this perfectly amazing day," Mirage whispered to herself.

This battle continued back and forth for a couple minutes...

Mirage concluded "Ok, I have thought through every possible outcome, I'm going to talk to her!"

Mirage laughed to herself, "And other ponies say I over-think things...psh"
"Oh carrot creampuffs where is that mare now" Mirage muttered

She finally spotted the mare and trotted towards her. Upon reaching the mare Mirage said, "Hey, my name is Mirage!"

Mirage plopped her heavy saddle bags on the ground and took out a deck of cards. She shuffled them, threw them into the air, caught them, and shuffled them again.

"Pick a card any card!" Mirage said with the utmost enthusiasm. She smiled mysteriously at the mare.

Elegance's eyes scanned over the stalls, scouring every detail for a sign of that elusive device, or the pony that she was told had it last. It would be regarded as a curiosity by these simple ponies, she supposed, its barebones design hiding the its rather elegant nature.

Wait, hang on. Is that-

A wire frame cylinder with an inscribed ring of metal, slowly but steadily rotating. The strange contraption was dwarfed by the pendulums and wheels and spinning tops that surrounded it, but to Elegance, it was quite clear.

This was what her older brother was talking about.

It was at that precise moment that some random earth pony decided to appear in front of her and-

"What? I- what?" she spluttered, eyes rapidly scanning the fan of cards that was splayed out in front of her. When her brain had finally caught up with the rest of reality, the first thing it thought was Oh, Celestia, not now...

Normally she would have snapped and scolded the mare for interrupting her, but she figured that would only delay her that much more. The fastest way out, it appeared, was through.

She was keeping track of the location of her wallet, though. These sleight-of-hoofers were extremely good at making things 'disappear'.

Without a word, only a sigh, her horn glowed to pick up a card from the earth pony.

Mirage shuffled her cards again and shouted loudly, "Hocusy Pocusy Alakazam!"

She revealed the card that the unicorn had chosen. Then, Mirage reached into her saddle bags and pulled out a black silk hat. She cut up the card into several pieces and threw them into the hat. Next, she spun the hat clockwise, reached in, and pulled out the card fully intact. She handed the pony the card.

"Keep it," She said with a shy smile.

"So...urm..." Mirage said awkwardly, her magic tricks were really the only thing that gave her confidence in conversation.

"I really admire unicorns," She blurted out. Mirage immediately started hitting herself in the face with her hoof.


"Sorry, I'll explain" Mirage mumbled, "I really admire unicorns and their ability to use magic. As a little filly I had always been amazed by magic. Just to talk to or perform for a unicorn makes me happy."

"After all, unicorns inspired me to learn slight of hoof so I could perform my tricks" She said sheepishly.

"Dang it Mirage you've scared off another unicorn haven't you" Mirage thought to herself angrily.

"Mind if I help you out, you looked irritated when I first saw you," Mirage mumbled, staring at the ground and digging at it with her hoof.

Elegance gave the trickster (Mirage, was it?) the proper amount of attention required as the cards were shuffled (or at least, they seemed to be) and her card, the three of clubs, was revealed. Nothing too fancy. The noble was about to give the customary 'oh, how amazing' reaction as was required when a silk hat was retrieved from Mirage's saddlebags, the card was sliced into many pieces, the pieces were put inside the hat, the hat was spun...and voila! The three of clubs was retrieved intact from the head wear.

Elegance's mission was temporarily forgotten as she took the three of clubs from the magician. Obviously this card was not the same one as whatever she ripped up, she thought, So she either switched the cards before she ripped up a decoy, or she placed a copy of my card inside the hat to give to me. In both cases, the trick probably occurred when she got the hat. Yet I didn't see a thing. Well done, Ms Mirage.

Her internal monologue was interrupted by Mirage making a rather strange declaration. Momentarily stunned, Elegance listened intently to the hurried explanation. She was...pleasantly surprised, for she had never heard anypony say they liked unicorns before. On the contrary, 'snobbish', and 'uptight' were two of the kinder adjectives she heard describe her kind.

The explanation seemed to end on negative note, though, as the magician's mumblings got too quiet for her to hear and she started staring at the ground.

Oh, this won't do.

Placing a hoof on Mirage's shoulder, Elegance declared with the confidence of a mare that thought she knew everything, "Chin up! You shouldn't be ashamed of who you are and what inspires you. You should be proud! We are, after all, ponies. Who we are is literally inscribed on our flanks!

And take it from a mare who sees magic messed about with almost every day of her life. I think the subtlety of what you ponies do is far more skillful. Magic is not subtle in the slightest, believe me. It flashes, it sparkles, it combusts, it spins..."

As Elegance was saying this, her eyes fell to the stall where the contraption lay, spinning. Her eyes narrowed at it.

Something was wrong.

It was spinning faster than before.

And it was speeding up.

And Elegance was quite sure that it was not supposed to be glowing.

"Not to be nosy or anything, but what is that contraption you are looking at?" Mirage inquired, craned her neck around the unicorn.

Mirage couldn't help but notice that spinning object. Ever since she started practicing magic tricks her observation of small and possibly insignificant things had increased.

"As far as I can understand it, it is like a magical sponge, absorbing excess magic and transforming it into harmless spinning," Elegance said, recalling what her brother had told her in more complex yet enthusiastic terms, "Apparently, the design is getting use in all sorts of applications. My brother left one here from when he lived in this place for a while, and asked me to retrieve it."

Elegance slowly walked towards the stall, trying to gauge what would be a safe distance. Already strange things were happening. A pendulum next to the contraption had flipped over and was now swinging backwards and forwards upside down. Another had its oscillations infrequent and wildly changing in amplitude. A spinning top had ceased to spin entirely, and was now jumping up and down instead.

"It doesn't look to safe," Mirage said as she took a cautious step back.

"I don't think that pendulums are supposed to do that," Mirage muttered as she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the upside down pendulum.

"Well magic and magic contraptions are your expertise," Mirage said nudging her, "what is making that contraption spin so crazily?"

"Hmm? No! No, these things aren't my-" Elegance miserably waved a hoof over at the growing commotion that was starting to be noticed by other ponies, "These things are my brother's business, I just clean his messes when I fail to stop him making a mess in the first place. I'm just glad that nothing has caught-"

WOOSH

"Celestia damn it."

A container of rainbow juice that was on the next stall over suddenly burst into monochrome flame causing the poor owner to duck for cover.

"Excess magic," the unicorn growled, "Excess, uncontrolled magic that the dampener is trying to absorb."

This was a problem. She needed to get to the dampener, but whatever was causing the chaos made it far too dangerous to approach with caution. And the chaos was growing.

"I may not know much about magic, but I'm pretty sure this isn't good," Mirage said started at the flames that began to engulf the stand.

Everything became mayhem. Pushing and shoving, ponies fled the scene. There didn't care who they were pushing, it could be their grandmother for all they cared. The force of the wave of ponies running from the scene pushed and pulled at Mirage forcing her away from Elegance.

Mirage struggled against the mass of panicked ponies. The strap of her saddle bags got tangled around the hoof of a random pony and she was dragged to the ground. Her saddle bags ripped open and spilled an assortment of magic props everywhere.

Mirage hesitated, "Should I gather my magic props of should I just try to get back to Elegance?"

Mirage shook her head and stood up. She loved her magic but helping out Elegance was more important. She picked up her magic wand and forced her way through the steady stream of ponies until she made it to the stand.

"Ok, do you need my help with anything?" Mirage said as she approached Elegance.

Elegance had no idea what to do in this situation, but she didn't show it.

"If you could possibly see the thing that's causing all this, like...a broken crystal or something, we need to somehow get it out of here and to a safe-"

A pony ran into her, interrupting her chain of thought.

"Or even better, if you can somehow get everypony to calm down before somepony gets hurt. That might be the biggest danger here."

(apologies for the delay)

((May I join?))

((Yes! You can join if you want to))

(Go ahead)

((Thank you!))
Calico Blastsides fervently pushed her way through the crowd, focused on the beaked head on the other
end of the square. In a flurry of "Excuse you"s and "Move!"s, she fought against the tide of equine bodies.

There was a popping sound as a nearby vendor screeched, drawing the captain's focus away for a moment.

"we need to somehow get it out of here and to a safe-"

She ran into a pony, interrupting her train of thought.

As she reoriented herself she looked about desperately for the bird, but could see tail nor feather of her target.

"Damn..." She muttered, adjusting her cavalier's hat. "Damn and damnation." She would have to start all over again. The more pressing matter of explosions made her forget her troubled.

""Or even better, if you can somehow get everypony to calm down before somepony gets hurt. That might be the biggest danger here."

Whatever the exploding thing was, these two fine gentlemares were going to take care of it, given the space to do so. If she could maybe take the spotlight, that feather duster could find her as well. She tapped the yellow furred one on her shoulder and quickly bowed to the one she accidentally ran into. She spoke rapidly but clearly, with a purpose. She tried not to yell to be heard over the din.

"Hello I couldn't help but overhear you two fine ladies, Ever sorry to run into you madam, If I may be so bold as to offer my humble assistance in controlling this rabble so you two may focus on whatever the devil is causing such a ruckus?" She beemed at them both, keenly awaiting an answer.

Mirage took a moment to comprehend what the pony had just said.

Then, she smiled and said "Well I certainly don't mind, my names Mirage by the way."

She grabbed her magic wand prop and began to draw in the ground.
"Ok, here's the stall," she said as she sketched the downtown area into the ground, "And whatever is causing the device to react like this can't be too far away."

She scrunched her face in concentration as she thought some more, "I'll look for the item or crystal that is causing this reaction while you too could maybe try to control or calm the crowd."

"There's a fountain in that is pretty center in the crowd. If you two could somehow get on top of it, Elegance can cast some magic that will get the ponies attention and then you can talk some sense into them," Mirage said, feeling she had struck brilliance.

"Well only if wanted to," She said, "I'm open to any ideas, the plan is not set in stone or anything."

Elegance flustered as control of the situation was quickly wrested from her. After being bumped into by a scruffy earth mare(stallion? it was difficult to tell) that quickly volunteered his- her- their services, Mirage quickly drew up a plan to halt the chaos. Even through the difficulty of trying to listen in a very busy market place, Elegance felt that there was a minor flaw in the plan.

It was, however, a little embarrassing as this flaw was caused by her shortcomings as a unicorn and, indeed, a pony. "I don't feel that I have the magical strength necessary to get enough attention over all of this," she awkwardly confessed. It was a bit frustrating to admit as almost all non-unicorns simply thought a horn could do practically anything. The sad truth was that ponies like Twilight Sparkle were exemplary, and that the most a lot of unicorns could actually do was basic levitation. This included Elegance.

Angry at what she saw was her failure, she looked around at the stalls, "But there must be something in one of these stalls that could get everypony's attention."

Calico grinned, exchanging pleasantries. "A pleasure, Miss Mirage. They call me Captain Blastsides." She tipped her hat. She listened to the plan set out by the magician, and the issue described by the unicorn.

"If a little public speakings the thing, I am able. I've just the thing to cow the crowd." She assured the unicorn. What was it her mother had once said? Never let a rich pony do the job of an actor. Calico's confident grin widened slightly.

Get the spotlight, look for the bird.

"But I've not a wit for anything of the magical persuasion. " She exclaimed, scratching her chin in thought. "If the two of you start on this..." She motioned to the spinning contraption. "This... thing. then I shall have that crowd out of your way. Do we have an accord?"

A Stallion jumped over Calico, kicking her side in his panic. She gasped and held her side, gritting her teeth. "Before this crowd turns into a stampede..." She grunted. glaring after the screaming stallion.

Mirage could tell Captain Blastsides was a reliable pony for controlling the crowd. She nodded her head curtly and scouted out a stall that might have a magic item that could be causing the machine to react so crazily.

Her grey eyes fell upon two possible candidates. An old antiques shop with didn't look like it had had customers since Ponyville was created and a jewelry stall that sold an assortment or necklaces, bracelets, and gems. Mirage concluded that the jewelry stall would be the best place to check first.

"I'm going to check that stall selling jewelry, and if it isn't there I might check out the antique stall on the right" Mirage said hastily as she began trotting off. She attempted to avoid the crowd as best she could but bumped into the occasional pony.

She finally made it to the jewelry stand. The sales pony was long gone and showed no sign of being there. Mirage proceeded to inspect the items on display. Her eyes passed over insignificant items like pear earrings, a ruby necklace, and several gold bangles. She inspected a handful of jewel that had been laid out on a velvet cushion.

"It can't be these," Mirage thought, slightly irritated.

She was about to leave when her eyes were attracted to a bizarre necklace. The gold chain was ordinary but the pendant made Mirage tremble.

Mirage thought to herself, "The crystal in the pendant could be the source of this untamed magic." Mirage scrutinized the trigonal crystal. It black but thin streams of silver seemed to coil and swirl around the crystal. There were small writings or runes etched on the sides.

She bit her lip in concentration.

"Should I take..." She argued silently, " it could be dangerous

"But I shouldn't steal and I don't have any bits to buy it" She countered back

"There is a chance that it isn't the source anyway" She thought

She shook her head in frustration, "I have to take it there is a chance that it is dangerous!"

"I can return it when we don't need it anyway" She concluded

Mirage glanced about, making sure no-pony was watching. Skillfully, she slipped the necklace into a box and tossed it on her back.

"I should be careful with this I have no clue what it might do," Mirage thought as she carefully walked along the edge of the mob.

"I'll check on Elegance and see how she is doing, Mirage thought as she looked for the graceful unicorn.

Elegance nodded. "Right."

As Mirage went off in search of the source, and Blastsides went off to calm the crowd, Elegance went to retrieve the dampening device. It had thankfully remained where it was, spinning midst the chaos around it.

Weaving in and around rushing ponies, hopping over various debris, Elegance cautiously approached her target. Levitation was out of the question, as the device would merely absorb that magic as well. Placing some bits next to the dampener, Elegance grasped the device with her mouth. It shook and rattled her teeth, making the unicorn wonder how the other pony sub-races dealt with this kind of thing.

Elegance backed away from the stall slowly, keeping the device in her mouth, watching with concern as the stall slowly but definitively started to rock, and shake, and fall to pieces.

She got what she wanted. There was no reason whatsoever she had to stick around, she told herself, and she started to look for the others. She didn't have to be involved in the clean up of of some other pony's mess. And yet...

She was here anyway, and it didn't appear that anypony else was actually doing anything constructive. So she had a duty to help her fellow pony, so that meant seeing what the others must be doing.

Calico briskly started through the crowd at a light canter. Wary of from the kick she recieved, she was careful not to have the incident be repeated, at least until she could be above the crowd. She didn't much think on the two ponies she just left, only on what she should do and how she should do it.

Blastsides managed, through much shoving, diving, and sometimes a 'Pardon!' or two, to get to the center of the square. The pirate hopped up on the fountain and surveyed the square.

No plumes of blue in the crowd, and not a hint of golden armored stallions or mares. A auspicious sign. She sniffed in determination, reached into her justacorps. She pulled out something of wood and steel, and pointed to the sky. She had to take the spotlight.

A shot rang out from the double barreled flintlock in Captain Blastsides, and everything: the panicked ponies running rampant, the cacophony of shouting, except for the wirring of the nefarious machine, stopped.

"Stallions and Gentlemares!" She bellowed. Her voice pierced the second of silence and brought all attention to her. "This..." She let silence reign for a moment. She slowly leveled her pistol on the crowd. A few ponies closest to her stepped back.

"...Is a robbery." She explained, clearly and crisply. "In order for this to be as easy and painless as possible, you will all exit the square in a calm, orderly fashion. No shoving, there. Tis not a race. You! Bite your mother's tail. Wouldn't want you to lose each other in this crowd now, would we? That's a good lad." her voice was like one would adopt when taming a dog. Firm yet calm, forceful yet reassuring. She kept a cautious hoof on the cutlass in her baldric and a weather eye on the crowd.

The crowd, with much coaxing, slowly complied. Her gruff yet authoritative tone, accompanied with the immediate threat of being shot, was remarkably persuasive. The market-goers gave a few meek objections, some old stallion grumbled, but in large they were cowed. The crowd filtered out of the square, leaving a wide berth for whatever was causing the cataclysmic ruckus.

"Wait a moment," Mirage thought in shock, "Is Captain Blastsides  actually robbing these ponies!?

Mirage shook her head decisively, "No, It must be a tactic to get these ponies out of danger."

As she approached the antiques shop, Mirage approached an old and frightened salesmare cowering beneath the cash register. Mirage, smiling innocently at the salesmare, quickly browsed the shelves for an item that might be causing this madness. She already had a necklace that could possibly be a source but she wasn't sure just yet. A small wooden chest sat in the back corner of the stall. It was worn down and had deep scratches and gouges in its' aging wood. Mirage gently opened the lid to find a beautiful gemstone sitting on a velvet cushion. The gem was a deep red and seemed to pulse and glow with energy.

"I think this gem might be the source," Mirage thought as she inspected the gem. Although beautiful, the gem had several scratched on it's red surface. If this was the source, Mirage had to act quickly. She causing a big distraction by 'accidentally' knocking down a tower of tiny glass animals. The salespony shreiked and dove to catch the figurines before they hit the floor.

Although Mirage felt regretful form bringing potential harm to the merchandise, she knew it was for the greater good. Well, she hoped it would be. While the mare's attention was diverted, Mirage deftly bumped the chest with her hind leg and let the gem fall into the box. She backed away blushing shyly.

"I'm awful sorry about what happened but I really gotta go... she trailed of as she turned and ran towards the rendezvous point. The box bounced dangerously on her back and Mirage had to slow down. She was thankful for her 'magician's hoof', which made it easy to deceive people. However, she would only use her ability for important occasions like performances or town threatening situations.

Elegance was pretty happy to admit that she had not once had the misfortune of hearing a gunshot outside the remembrance ceremonies that she attended, and was not pleased at hearing one set off in a crowd that was already frightened beyond belief.

Her initial reaction was complete and utter disbelief at the sheer stupidity at the action of the pony standing on the fountain, weapon in air. It was followed by complete and utter relief at the crowd, instead of being whipped in a further frenzy actually being stilled in shock. Then horror, as the scruffy mare then threatened the crowd with her weapon and started ordering them about.

And yet, unbelievably, against all of Elegance's expectations, the threat of robbery was not met with a violent reaction, or indeed any resistance whatsoever as the crowd were herded out of the market square.

A small voice in the back of her head was fully expecting the authorities to arrive in full force. Didn't the Elements of Harmony live here or something?

...

Hope beyond hope that their sort of silliness is not involved, Elegance. If half the stories they tell about Element business is true, you'll be lucky just to be...eaten, or something equally horrid.

She looked at the dampener again, spinning wildly as ever. It was doing an admirable job of absorbing the magic in her vicinity, but as soon as she left a stall's proximity, the strangeness affected that stall again.

What in Celestia's name can be magically powerful enough to affect this entire marketplace to the point even this dampener is ineffective? Maybe an Element is responsible.

I've always cleaned up your mess, Intel, but they're getting too big for me to handle. I shouldn't- This is not what I should be doing.

As the last stragglers were evacuated, Elegance saw the pony called Blastsides, and approached her. Putting the dampener down, she said, "That was a huge risk you took, you do know that."

She left it at that. There was a time for arguing about methods, and now wasn't it. Not when the dampener was picking up speed and started glowing brighter as a certain magician started to arrive.

Blastsides watched, pleased as punch, as the remnants of the crowd left, some curious onlookers lingering to watch from the outskirts of the square to see what was transpiring.

The pirate hopped down from the fountain and leisurely strolled toward the stalls, passing by the Noblemare on her way there.

"That was a huge risk you took, you do know that."

Calico stopped and blinked, squinting at the mare for a moment before turning her gaze to the ground. Her eyes widened suddenly as her eyes returned to the mare accosting her.

"By the Bowsprit, I suppose I'twas!" to further her mockery, she scratched her chin, simulating worry and stress.

Her charade dropped as she shrugged dismissively. "Eh." She passed the mare with the spinning contraption, turning to address her. "I wouldn't worry your pretty head. Should the guard come you may say that I took you and your friend hostage. No fuss, Aye?"

She plopped down on a stall and started to reload her pistol. All the bravado and panache drained from her as she suddenly felt tired. She didn't know that there were no guards present, and no doubt that they'd be coming in force. It was by shear dumb luck that she didn't start a full on riot, and she simply marveled on what else could have gone horribly wrong.

In truth, she didn't (and still didn't) even consider the Elements of Harmony to even be an issue. The six mysterious mares seemed more myth than mere ponies, and most of the stories she heard she assumed to be tall tales. Exaggerations of exploits not nearly as impressive. A skeptic to the Core, Calico certainly was respectful of the cult following the band of friends had accumulated, and dearly wanted to someday rival them in the lore of Equestria.

Calico Blastsides breathed in through her nose, and out through her mouth. She did this multiple times, and she did this slowly. She wasn't stupid. She knew the noblemare wasn't either, despite her poking fun. She only hoped that the magician was not as stupid as Captain Blastsides, but there was still time to prove Calico right.

The pirate finished loading her barrel and reached behind her to get at the cash register of the stall, taking a few bits (but not all, decidedly) before moving on to the next one. She hailed the magician as Calico was sticking her hoof in the next stall's register.

"Oi, you find what-cher lookin for yet? T'would be a shame if all my chicanery was for naught." She grinned pleasantly as she shoved a few more bits into a sack. "Anything more I can help with before the authorities arrive?" She offered, moving to the next stall to take a few more bits.