Here goes. People love this episode. Even I love this episode. The song is the first bit of MLP I ever heard. Strange thing is, it feels a little incomplete without explosions and screaming in the background. See I first heard it played over a game of Team Fortress 2 on an MLP fan server. I really hope that server is still going. I don't have a computer that can run TF2 at the moment, but I hope to go back and hear Winter Wrap Up as I did the first time again.

Oh yeah, and now I have to write out this episode. Y'know, with Myles, the unicorn with no organization skill who can't possibly help in this episode. And as usual I'll be watching and re-watching the episode while I type. Hope this doesn't get ugly.

I don't own My Little Pony.

Winter Wrap-Up or Unsubtle Bonding

Myles squinted as the lights flipped on.

"Can't these use magic to change the seasons like they do in canterlot?" He heard Spike ask.

"Ponyville was founded by earth ponies so every year they wrap up winter without magic, it's tradition. Myles get up it's Winter Wrap-Up day!"

He sat up and stared at her. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Its time to get up!"

Myles groaned and laid back, covering his head with a pillow as Twilight rushed about.

"Oh, I suppose it's a little early." He heard Twilight say from the door downstairs. He chuckled a bit and rolled over, falling asleep again.

Myles yawned and stretched as he got out of bed later on. He glanced around to see an empty library, evidently Twilight and Spike had gone to help wrap up winter. He chuckled a bit as he thought of the baby dragon, who he assumed didn't go along willingly.

Myles got out the crystal he'd been working on a few weeks ago. With the focal point of another crystal he'd managed to blend it into one larger crystal over several attempts. This time he gathered a couple more crystals and set them nearby before pointing the melding crystal at the group of them and activating it. He slowly pushed the other two crystals to the main mass and forced some magical power to transfer between them. He grinned as they pressed firmly against the main crystal and stuck. The lines were still clearly visible, showing where the crystals were joined, but there was no gap between them. The problem was he now had an oddly shaped crystal with four structures joined at the base.

He grabbed a few more crystals and enchanted them to direct energy like the other one, now he had four crystals focusing energy on the misshapen crystal. He made sure to anchor them to his work table before trying again. This time he pressed the crystal structures together with his hooves, straining and sweating as they slowly shifted and protested until they joined as four parallel structures.

He heard the door open and before he could turn around he smelled something foul. He glanced downstairs to see a grumpy and soaked Twilight enter, followed closely by Spike, who was carrying several cans of Tomato paste. He put a closepin over his nose and decided not to bother them.

He looked at the compound crystal in front of him and frowned. The vibrations on the surface had troubled him as he pressed them together. The friction heated his hooves a bit and he was concerned about a rupture.

He went out to see Rarity obsessing over a bird's nest. He couldn't get her attention despite several attempts to ask for a small bit of fabric. After a while, he shrugged and decided to pay her back later. He retrieved some fabric from the clothing shop and formed a continuous loop of some of it.

When he got back to the library, Twilight and Spike had left again. He cut two holes in the one side of the fabric loop and sealed up the seams magically. He moved the compound crystal and then levitated two relatively flat and clear crystals into place on the fabric, placing the whole assembly in the middle of the fusion crystals. He activated them in short bursts and soon found the crystals securely bonded with the fabric, having grown a little to surround the fibers and keep them in place.

He gingerly put the loop over his head and pushed them in front of his eyes. He could see fairly clearly and his eyes were protected. Getting a sudden idea, he tapped his recording crystal.

"Try projecting images inside of crystals, so they can be viewed close up, like lenses."

He set the compound crystal back into the makeshift crystal array on the table. After making sure his newly crafted goggles sat snugly over his eyes, he focused on the array and channeled magic into each crystal, tuning some to force energy through the gaps in the crystals and a few others to exert physical pressure on the outside. He braced himself against the floor and triggered the crystal array. Then he focused his magic on the compound crystal in the center.

The crystal gave a bassy thrum as energy traveled between the gaps left over and the table shook. Sweat beaded on his forehead and streamed over his goggle lenses as he pressed more magic into the crystal. His ears twitched back and forth as he listened to the sound emitted by the crystal and adjusted the amount of magic flow to make sure not to overload it. He stopped suddenly when he saw the crystal pulse with light.

The light increased and decreased slowly and he heard the pitch of the array increase. He realized he'd left the array running when he'd stopped and was about to shut it down when the entire collection squealed in protest and exploded.

Myles groaned and picked himself up off the floor. He had seen a shard or two bounce off of his goggles and was secretly grateful he'd thought of them beforehand. He wiped his face and glanced down at his hoof, surprised to see a smear of blood. Myles sighed and made his way to the bathroom, where he cleaned the cuts on his face and bandaged one of them up. He tapped his memo crystal, "Safety note: full blast shielding needed for crystal bonding process, if it ever- huh?"

He had stopped mid-sentence, having walked back into the main room while talking, he spotted his work area. He tapped his note crystal to shut it off as he walked forwards to examine the area. The surrounding area and the surface of the table was covered in crystal shards and fresh blast marks. Almost everything was as he expected.

But in the center, where the compound crystal had been, was a solid light blue crystal that slowly pulsed with light. The light faded and a steady thrum swelled and reduced to silence as the crystal returned to normal. As normal as any crystal was to Myles, save for the fact that it was the largest crystal he'd ever seen, about the size of a chicken. It was all one color and running a magical current through it revealed there were little to no impurities whatsoever.

He eagerly tapped his note crystal again, "Crystal bonding process was a success. An array of no less than eight smaller crystals, four used for magic flow and four used for physical pressure is required, but I've successfully bonded four crystals into one larger whole. Furthermore, the impurities have all but been wiped out and the consistency of matter, color and texture have all formed into one uniform mass of blue crystal. The crystal array overloaded in the process, requiring too much energy for the bonding to work, but with this larger crystal that may not matter. It may be possible to channel enough energy through this crystal to control magical flow and exert pressure at the same time. Hmmm, I'd need a solid surface with sound dampening properties to keep the energy from overflowing, like…. An anvil." A wide smile crossed his face as he thought on this and tapped his note crystal twice. "Adjustments will have to be made to the testing chamber in my new basement. Once I have an ample supply of these larger, purified crystals I can begin experimenting with the possible capabilities leant to each crystal due to their increased mass and purity." He tapped his crystal again and laughed. Gladly sweeping up the shards scattered about the room, he collected them in a bag off to the side before flopping down gratefully on the guest bed.

He dreamt of the crystal cave again. Something had changed, however. He found one of the larger crystals tuned into harmony with the smaller ones he had adjusted on a prior visit. He considered calling Luna again, but decided not to on the basis that she likely would've contacted him if she had more information or was withholding all information because she wanted to keep him calm, as she had said last time. He considered tuning others as well, even the possibility of creating an array as he had done in real life earlier, but the world blurred as he heard another voice.

"Myles!" Twilight shouted as she shook him awake.

"Okay wow! I'm awake! I'm awake!" He groaned as he sat up and rubbed his ears, fighting the familiar spinning sensation brought on by a loud sound.

"Sorry," Twilight said softly, "I rushed home to talk to you and you were talking in your sleep."

He looked up and saw her wearing a multi-colored vest. "Got to wrap up winter after all, huh?"

She glanced at the vest, "Oh, yes," she smiled brightly, "the Mayor declared me all-team organizer after I got the teams to work well enough together to wrap up winter on time. But never mind that now, are you okay?" She finished with increasing concern in her voice.

Myles rubbed his head, "Ummmm, yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

She indicated the blast-marks on the table and then poked him in the cheek, tapping the bandage on his face. He briefly wondered if she could see his cheeks redden at the contact, but most of it was covered by the bandage and she'd probably think he was just embarrassed about his experiment.

"Oh right," he laughed nervously, "Yeah I managed to get those crystals to bond earlier."

"I can see that," Twilight nodded at the large crystal on the table, "I meant what happened to the room and your face!"

Myles coughed nervously, "The process needs some work… I kinda detonated eight other crystals on accident."

"Eight!?" Twilight cried in shock.

"Look, I'm sorry about the mess, I cleaned it up as best as I could, I swear I won't try again in your house, besides, mine is almost fini-" He stopped as she flung her hooves around his neck and hugged him, his cheeks reddened again, but Twilight didn't seem to notice as she pulled out of the hug and smashed a hoof into the side of his face that wasn't bandaged.

"OW! My cheek meat! What the hay, Twilight?" Myles rubbed his other cheek as he looked up at her angry expression.

"You could've gotten seriously hurt. Don't you ever think about your own safety?"

"Yeah," he said defensively, holding up his new goggles, "I made these. Look, I know what I'm doing here Twilight, you don't have to worry."

"Do you? You spend all your time with your ears pressed up against potentially lethal unstable materials and every time one of them goes off you act like it's nothing!"

"They're tiny shards Twilight, and yes its dangerous but I take precautions alright? I already said I wouldn't do it in your house anymore, what more do you want?"

"I want to know I'm not going to find you dead in your basement one day!" She shouted angrily. Myles gaped at her as her eyes began to water. "It's … I – You're my friend, Myles, and when I saw the new cuts on you and the bloody bandage I thought… I remembered when… when I…" she trailed off and Myles pulled her into a hug.

"I'm sorry I scared you, Twilight," he said quietly as he pulled away, "That… the thing with my house was almost a month ago. I didn't realize it still bothered you."

She sniffed, "You didn't see yourself that day, Myles," she shivered a bit as though chilled by what she was remembering, "You saw yourself after the doctor had cleaned you up. When I found you, there was so much blood… and you were cut all over… I thought you were gone."

He smiled and patted her shoulder, "I blew up way more crystals when we fought Nightmare Moon, they're hardly going to be the end of me. I know what I'm doing, Twilight, and I do take precautions, but accidents happen anyways, sometimes. I'm sorry I scared you."

She smiled a bit, "It's fine, I need to work past it, but I just want you to be okay."

"I'm fine Twilight," he smirked, "besides in my line of work I'm much more likely to be eaten whole by something." He laughed openly at her reaction.

"Yeah," Twilight regained her composure, "That's not helping. Nor is it funny."

"It was a little," he smirked again, "So winter's wrapped up, huh?" He quickly changed the subject as he saw her grow more irritated. She sighed, "Yes, it took a lot of work and coordination, but we managed…"

Myles grinned as he listened to her story, happy to be away from the topic of his health, but also encouraged by their conversation. Sure she had called him her friend, but it was nice to know she cared. Myles frowned a bit as he thought this, as it may be the best he could ever hope for.

Woo! Crystal progress and small bits of character development. Yeah it's short again, and while watching the subsequent episodes, that may happen again a couple of times. But it beats forcing Myles into plots he doesn't have much to do with.

Don't worry, there's stuff coming up that Myles will be more involved with soon, but I gotta get through these first.

I also just realized I forgot to put in what Myles was saying in his sleep. That's okay, its actually better that you don't know yet, since I had already crossed the line from foreshadowing to "ah ha, hes gonna do this" earlier in the chapter. If you didn't spot it, good, otherwise lets keep this between ourselves.

Yes there are definitely things Myles could have helped with by not using magic, but considering he would've been sleep deprived and still on call for watching the forest during the previous winter wrap up, he probably had resigned himself to not helping beforehand. I also could've had him follow Twilight around all episode and try and comfort her, but that would mean typing out the whole episode almost as-is with a few comments thrown in here and there. Tedious for me and probably not at all entertaining to you.

Oh yeah, and check out the next chapter too.

That's right! C-C-COMBO! Didn't feel like upsetting the pattern with an odd-numbered update, so I extended it to a DOUBLE BONUS! Four chapters in a DAY?!

That's so awesome that it might never happen again!

-Dr. Spacewizard Esq.