"Heat protection? No. Rain Proof? No. Oh, I've got it! Size adjustment enchantment, perfect reduces need for multiple sizes, one size fits all." I was working on my latest line of heavy duty clothes for the apple family, their normal clothes had gotten a bit ragged so they put in an order with me for new farm work clothes but it wasn't just orchard family orders…it was the entire family! Luckily they were the same style for every one so the only issue was size adjustment…but now with the Size Adjustment enchantment it would be one size fits all and makes my job a lot easier…that would be a lot of orders to take from a LOT of Apples. As I thought out the perfect size to fit the biggest apple member I heard the door open and turned my head to see Lily entering the shop.
"Hey Lily, what can I do for you?" I asked setting aside my plans for the Apple family work clothes.
"I just need some patch work on my ribbon if you could Alice." Lily said handing me her trademark ribbon, it was starting to fray and break apart in some places which meant that it needed its usual repair it got every few months…but there were some holes that seemed weird.
"What was this from?" I asked pointing out the holes.
"Well, when I went to visit Soren he was practicing some new sword moves and he kind of lost grip and it got sent flying…into my bow, hahaha." Lily said shyly; Soren really needs to get better at holding his blade, I know he has past training but I almost lost my ponytail because of him! I worked my needle with ease as I patched up the holes and kept the edges from taking the whole ribbon apart; working a little magic I added a bounce back enchantment to keep another sword from taking this thing apart and hopefully send Soren's medicine back at him, "I don't think I can pay you for the enchantment."
"That's okay; Soren will pay for it sooner or later." I said putting her mind at ease.
"Well thank you, how is the Apple order coming along?"
"Great! I've already know how to fit every Apple member now I just have to get specs on the biggest Apple member. As good as the size adjustment enchantment works if it can't fit the biggest pony then it can't adjust to their size." I levitated the sewing machine to me as well as the needed fabric and set both to my work station before getting up and heading for the door.
"Where are you going?" Lily asked.
"I have to see Granny Smith at the Orchard, since she's the oldest Apple family member I can find out which member is the largest member and use that as my model." I answered grabbing a quill and clipboard.
"Don't think I have them?" Lily said holding up her book.
"Do you?"
"…No." She said giggling embarrassed, "I suppose my record is a bit lacking. Maybe I'll come with you."
"Hey Lily! We've got clouds to bust!" Rainbow yelled from the sky.
"Maybe next time." I said shooing her off to do her work.
"See you next time Alice!" With that Lily took off after Dash to do her job for the day; I'd probably see her later, time for me to do my job.
As I approached the apple orchard I watched as Derpy flew over me and crashed into the barn making a large hole; the next second Soren glided over me brushing my hair with his back hoof startling me; he really needs to learn how to fly!
"Ditzy! Are you okay?" He yelled as she fell backwards onto his back.
"Where'd you go Soren?" She said confused and obviously unaware of whom she landed on, as he groaned she looked down and gave a big smile, "There you are!"
"Yeah, anyway do you have the mail?" She gave a shrug to his question and I felt something on my back and turned to see a letter had fallen on it, when we looked up mail was falling from the sky slowly; looks like Derpys' bag has another hole in it, "Come on, let's get it before it falls in a river." As Derpy swooped trying to grab letters Soren double jumped and glided grabbing about three or four letters every time; he's good at that double jump though. Letting them get to their work I entered the house to see Granny Smith sitting in her rocking chair looking through old albums; perfect opportunity.
"Excuse me Granny Smith." She rose from her book and gave me an aged smile.
"Hello there dearie, what can I do for you?" She answered waving me over.
"I was wondering who the largest member in your family is?" As I said that she pulled me over and pulled open an enormous family album flipping through page after page.
"Well if were talking biggest member that would be Orchard Picker, standing at twelve feet tall, he always got the apples down by knocking the tree on top." This pony doesn't even fit in the picture, "Largest in weight would be Jam breath with a weight of over two hundred; he had a name before that but after the hundredth jar of jam every time he talked all we could smell was the jam on his breath. Now we just roll him into trees to shake apples loose, gotta be careful though, one wrong drop and the entire orchard will fall." He looks like a big bowling ball.
"Thanks Granny Smith. Both are actually very helpful, it makes it easier for me to work…it might take more material then I thought though." I quickly jotted down the width and height onto my clipboard and had a thought to myself…what fabric would work best for farm work? After leaving the house I looked around and saw Big Mac working on nearby fields, guess I'll ask him first; I walked up to see Big Mac was bucking apples out of a tree but something was stuck in the tree along with it. Taking a closer look I noticed it was a letter left behind by Soren and Derpy; I pulled it out with my magic to see it wasn't a letter addressed to the Apples so I put it into my satchel and pulled my clipboard back out.
"Excuse me but what fabric would you prefer your work clothes be made of." He turned to me and scratched his head in thought, "Is denim good?"
"Yep."
"Thanks. That's very helpful." With that written down I had him point me to the south field where Applejack was and headed over hastily; the sooner I get her input the sooner I can get to work, after all, hard work promotes forward thinking. As soon as I entered the south orchard I could hear Applejack talking.
"How in tarnation did you get stuck in the leaves Derpy?" I walked over the hill to see Applejack and Gareth looking at Derpy who was upside down in the branches of an apple tree.
"I was collecting letters when one floated over here and then there were branches everywhere." Derpy answered as she flailed in the branches.
"Need some help?" I asked as I walked over to the situation.
"Depends, can you dislodge her from the branches without breaking them?" Gareth asked as he looked at the stuck mail pony.
"Well…she's really splayed out up there isn't she?" Her limbs were all weaved through different branches making this even more confusing.
"Usually Soren is able to lead her out of this but he had to take off to deliver the mail on time." Applejack said scratching her head, "Without him I don't know if we can pull her out."
"Then I'll go get Soren." I said with a sigh, before Soren came along she would always take out three different trees whenever she visited the orchard, now we have longer living trees and avoiding any more dying would be great…oh I almost forgot! I dashed back and pulled out my clip board, "AJ what fabric do you prefer on your clothes?"
"Burlap, it last long and can take a beating."
"Thanks. Don't move till I get back Derpy!" As I walked away I heard Derpys' voice holler at me.
"Okay Alice, I won't move at all!"
Quickly searching the town I couldn't find hide or hair of Soren no matter where I went, he seemed to be missing; the one time I needed to find him and he's nowhere to be found! As I trotted down the street the houses seemed desolate of people, even the vendors stands were empty; was it everypony's day off? As I thought I heard the sound of fireworks going off; sounds like they're coming from the square, better rush off to see what the commotion is. As I approached the square I noticed a large group surrounding a stage with a pony on top of it pulling off different show magic spells; she looks slightly familiar…where have I seen her before?
"Gaze in awe at the great and powerful Trixie!" …TRIXIE! I pushed through the crowd to see the pony in question wearing the custom unicorn cloak I had designed for a unicorn named Trixie; since I mailed it all I've heard is the infamy and scorn she attained from town to town and that means my cloak had become infamous because of her! She stood there on the center stage boasting of her talents and magic as everypony watched in awe as I gave a glare hoping she would catch on fire with all of those fireworks going off; this girl would pay! As I sat there watching her showboat I turned to see AJ and Rainbow scoffing at her gloating; as least they saw the fraud behind her like I did, "Does anypony think they can match the great and powerful Trixie? Come up and challenge me if you dare!" Before I could storm up there I felt somepony bump into me and turned to see Sukia standing there.
"Sorry Alice, I was trying to get to the front and ended up tripping." She replied with a giggle.
"It's okay, what's with Trixie? She's snobbish and a showoff nd everyone is eating it up!"
"Small grudge dear?"
"A little…she brought my credibility down."
"She did?" We both turned around to see Soren standing there enjoying a cotton candy stick looking oblivious to the situation.
"Why do you have cotton candy?"
"Pinkie is selling it around the group; she makes really good cotton candy." He replied chomping a gob of the puff happily, "So how did she ruin your credibility?"
"I was a rising talent, I not only had the eye for proper outerwear but my enchantments were great for each individual outfit. Then my newest line of clothing came out, the earth pony overalls, the Pegasus sky uniform and the unicorn cloak all very useful for their respective ponies.
"I saw those the first day here, they looked great."
"They didn't just look good; they had top notch enchantments on them. The earth pony overalls had a fatigue enchantment that made it easier for ponies who wore it to work for longer; the Pegasus sky uniform had a natural repellent that kept birds from crashing into you without knowing there was a pony there so it didn't interfere with their formation. But the unicorn cloak was my crowning jewel, it was fashionable, covering and had a magic compressor enchantment that was a pocket for magic energy; as long as you kept pouring magic into it the compressor would act as an emergency pocket of magic which you could use for big spells or when you run out of magic energy, it even had a pocket dimension that could hold an infinite amount of items!"
"Like mine?"
"No, sadly it still weighed you down but only the weight would affect you while the size didn't matter, it was my greatest work…but then she came along." I shot a glare at Trixie who was currently humiliating Dash, "She was my first customer who bought the unicorn cloak…and my last. She ordered a custom cloak with star patterns on it, she paid extra for custom but had I known what would happen I would have charged her enough to stop her from starting her showboating business."
"Besides the star pattern that is definitely your design." Soren said squinting at Trixie's cloak as she turned Rarity's hair green…that's just…unpleasant.
"What you saw is what every customer saw when I showed them the cloak, no one wanted to be associated with Trixie so I wasn't able to sell another cloak; to have my cloak associated with Trixie makes even me want to disown it." I gave a sigh thinking of the business I missed out on because of her.
"Is that all you've got? Can no one match me?"
"I'll give it a shot!" We turned our heads to see Soren had jumped up on the stage, "You may be able to do a lot with your magic but can your magic do this?" Pulling out his practice sword from his cloak he started doing fancy maneuvers and tricks with the blade like a sword dancer in a traveling circus, topping it off he jumped up and flapped three times; he threw the sword up and pulled out a blank sheet of paper and as the sword dropped down he grabbed it and sliced along the paper quickly. When he dropped down the paper fell apart revealing he had made a paper Pegasus, unicorn and earth pony all connected together by the hooves; we all gave respective cheer to his talent…myself included.
"Well let's see if you can handle this." Her horned glowed as the paper figures grew in size and surrounded Soren.
"You wouldn't hurt me, right guys?" They jumped him and in a dust storm of paper fists he was thrown off the stage into the crowd with a crash, "Apparently our relationship is paper thin." Trixie laughed at her victory as Soren got back up on his hooves.
"Only magic can counter magic." Sukia said starting to walk up before I stopped her; as good as that sounds it won't work here.
"Your logic is sound but that means she can counter your spells as well." I said thinking of how to beat her…I need something that can stop her spells…but what? Maybe the library can help me find what I need.
Abandoning the show I headed to the library where Twilight was currently studying another book in her free time.
"I'm telling you Twilight you can wipe the floor with Trixie." Spike said trying to convince Twilight of…something.
"I'm not going to be a show off Spike, my friends don't like it and I'd rather not upset them." Twilight responded and she levitated a stack of books to her side, "Besides I'd rather spend time studying than showing off." I knocked on the side of the wall to get her attention making her drop her book in surprise, "Oh hello Alice, what brings you here?"
"I was wondering if you had any enchantments that block magic." I asked as she reorganized her pile.
"Nothing that deflects spells but I do have a spell nullifier." She answered pulling out a book and setting it on the pedestal to a certain page; the page described the proper way to set a spell nullifying enchantment but it had some drawbacks. It took a lot of magic energy and the person who wore the item enchanted was not only was protected by spells but couldn't preform spells while wearing it, in a battle of magic it would end up just waiting for the caster to run out of juice…maybe that would work and that to!
"I can actually use this! Thanks Twilight I'll return the book when I'm done." Slipping the book into my bag I left the library and rushed back to Carousel Boutique ready to add some additions to my unicorn cloak, for the last time unfortunately.
Soren
I watched Trixie make a mockery of all my friends from Gareth to Pinkie in an instant as her magic confounded them and sent their skills back at them with ease, seriously any magic battle was wrought with her counter spells knocking us down, so far the only ponies who haven't gone up against her are Alice and Twilight. Even Sukia tried but Trixie put a muzzle on her stopping her from singing her beautiful song; Gareth lifted over twenty stacks of hay with one hoof but she added an anvil on top and he toppled over when the anvil went through every bail and hit his hoof full force. Even Lily challenged her with a test of her recording skills jotting down everything about Trixie she got in under five minutes and over a page long but she retaliated by burning the page and leaving the words 'great' and 'powerful' burned into the next page; looking back at Lily she looked like she was about to burst into tears, her record of Trixie had been burned away after all. She really had us all trumped on how to beat her, no matter what we did she had a counter spell and it was starting to piss me off!
"Hey Trixie!" We all turned to see Alice with a determined expression on her face and she wore one of her unicorn cloaks, what was she planning? She approached the stage and walked up staring Trixie directly in the eye.
"You want to lose to me as well? Fine then, give me your best shot." She said cockily beckoning her to do something.
"After you." She replied shocking all of us; Trixie laughed loudly before looking her over and lighting her horn up.
"Let's see how you fare without that cloak!" She shot a fire spell at her that engulfed Alice; I've got to save her! I skid to a halt as Alice brushed off the fire on her cloak with ease, "How did you-"
"Guess it's my turn then? Hey Soren?" She turned to me and beckoned me up on stage, why did she need me, "I need everything in your coat."
"Everything?"
"Everything. Don't leave out anything." I quickly pulled item after item out of my coat as she picked them up and put them in her cloak and after a while I watched as she struggled to stand up with everything weighing her down…her body couldn't handle the weight of everything I had, "Why…do you have…so much in…your coat?" She asked through deep breaths.
"Sometimes I forget what I put in there, even I don't know why I have so many planks of wood in there…must have been left over from rebuilding the shed."
"So you put them back in your coat?"
"No…they never came out when I shook everything loose." I answered honestly making her jaw hang in disbelief.
"Doesn't matter, I think I've got what I need." She looked over at Trixie and I turned my head to see Trixie flailing on the ground.
"What did you do?"
"I made the pocket dimension enchantment link up with every cloak I made, it's now a shared storage and that storage is too heavy for her to carry." She replied trying to unclip the cloak.
"Get this cloak off me! I can't stand up!" Trixie said unable to move at all, "Snips, Snails!" The two colts quickly moved to her side and unclipped the coat as it clunked to the ground too heavy to lift.
"Soren, get the cloak!"
"What? Oh, right!" I rushed forward and swiped my coat over it moving it into my weightless storage, "Finally, my credibility can make a comeback…now please empty the storage before it crushes me." Moving to her side Sukia and I started unloading everything in her cloak as she started to stand up feeling the weight gone from her body, "I think we got everything." She quickly reached into my coat pocket and pulled out Trixie's cloak giving a relieved sigh, "That was amazing Alice, how did you survive the fire?"
"I made the cloak I'm wearing magic nullifying so any spell she threw at me would fizzle and die without affecting me. I couldn't use any spells while wearing it but that's why I made it shared storage, I beat her with my brain rather than my skill." She replied, "Now I'm going to destroy this cloak and every unicorn cloak I ever made."
"What!?" Sukia and I said in unison, "But why?"
"Every unicorn cloak I make will be connected by this spell making it one big shared storage; no one is going to buy a cloak weighed down from other customers." With that she put the cloak in her cloak and walked off; It's too bad she has to get rid of the cloaks they were actually pretty cool, magical armies would have loved to use them…that's it!
Alice
It took a few hours but I managed to gather up every unicorn cloak I ever made and put them into a pile…time for the cut off, literally. I grabbed a pair of scissors and picked up the first cloak…Trixie's coat…the start of all this; guess this is it, as I put the scissors over the cloak the door slammed open.
"Gah!" I dropped the scissors and cloak and turned to see Soren and the gang standing at the door, "Have you lost your mind!?" I got up in Soren's face angry at his sudden appearance.
"Don't destroy your cloaks!" He said hastily.
"Why, I told you I can't sell them." He shoved a letter in my face from the castle guards.
"I told the royal guards about your cloaks and they want to use them for training cadets!" Reading over the letter he was right; the training program wanted them to learn the importance of sharing supplies and weight as a unit, with my cloaks they can do just that and it teaches unicorns not to rely on their magic in combat, "They want a full order of your cloaks and they're willing to pay double for them!"
"It wasn't easy but I made your cloaks sound appealing." Sukia said.
"I listed all the uses for it." Lily shyly said raising her hoof.
"And I…didn't do much; I can recommend some good fabric to make it out of." Gareth said with a grin; these guys are awesome!
"Thanks everyone, this means a lot to me." I responded giving all of them a big hug, "I didn't want to lose my best work, but I couldn't let her ruin my cape without ruining it myself."
"She couldn't ruin your cape." Soren said, "The only person who can make you feel your cape is ruined is you. Honestly I think they were really cool, I didn't want to see them go away so I had to do something for you." He spoke so honestly and sincerely…it kind of made me blush, "There's no way I'm letting my friend give something up she really cares about."
"Well…thanks a lot Soren…and everyone, now my cloak has some use. There's still one thing though." I turned my attention back to Trixie's cloak and picked up the scissors.
"You're still going to destroy it?" Soren asked.
"I still have to get rid of this one; Trixie still leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I say her name and this will feel too good to pass up." Picking up a few more scissors I handed a pair to everyone, "Care to join?" With a nod we all took apart the cloak piece by piece leaving it in small clips of fabric which I put into the trash with glee, I was really lucky to have all these friends, this wouldn't have felt right without their help. Now my cloak has a better use than a showboats accessory; and it was all thanks to Sukia, Lily, Gareth and Soren…I feel like I'm forgetting something though.
"Hey has anyone seen Ditzy at all, I haven't seen her since Sweet Apple Orchards." Oh no, that's right!
Meanwhile
Ditzy sat in the tree still tangled as the owls hooted in the night; somehow she had ended up more tangled than before.
"Alice will come back, she told me to wait and I will wait as long as I have to! I just have to wait!"