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After blinking a couple of times and focusing really well, Candy could start to see where The Big Bad Wolf made sense. The ears, the furry outfit...yes! But she was right. It didn't look like it was supposed to.

Candy saw the blinking, and knew what was coming. She herself had felt that before, especially when a treat didn't work out right. She lifted a hoof to pat the filly on the shoulder.

"There there, it's ok. How did it get ruined?"

"Well that wasn't very nice!" She exclaimed, realizing that this wasn't just a poor costume design, but a case of bullying! The hoof went from Shrill X's shoulder to her own mouth.

"How awful!" She continued, looking at the poor filly with new emotions. This little one was sad. And it was Candy's job to cheer her up!

"You know, some bad things can be made better by smiling." she said slowly, wracking her brain for a positive spin on this.

"Yes, it moves. It's very odd...almost seems to be sentient," Truths murmured, his brows furrowing as he thought about the orange blob. "Makes me wonder if it isn't some jello experiment gone wrong. Not that I'd get close enough to find out."

Nodding at the explanation of Maple's knowledge, he regarded the dog, getting a little closer. "It sounds like you trained her well. She must be a pretty clever dog." Glancing back at Candy, he asked tentatively, "Er...may I pet her?"

"Oh...yes, just let me know when would be a good time," he responded, glancing at the book in his bag to make sure it hadn't fallen out. Between it, his costume, and his candy bag, it was getting a little tricky to keep track of.

When Shrill X came in, Truths moved well out of her way, wondering if it was her own temper or her costume that caused her to act the way she was. Upon closer inspection, however, he realized that her costume wasn't falling apart because it hadn't been put together well. Rather, it appeared as though something had happened to rip and tear it so horribly.

He watched as Candy asked her about her costume, ready to defend the cheerful store owner if need be. Even if she wasn't in the best of moods, Shrill had no reason to take out her anger on anyone, least of all Candy. That didn't seem to be the case, though.

Eventually the story came out and Truths quietly listened off to the side, pretending to be more interested in Maple than anything or anyone else. He liked dogs, he decided, even as he did his best to ignore the tremble in Shrill's voice that seemed to warn of oncoming tears. As much as he didn't like seeing fillies cry, he also guessed that tough little Shrill wouldn't have wanted anyone to see. Like him, she had a great deal of pride from what he could tell.

"Hmph. What a poor excuse for payback," the unicorn spoke up. "They might think they just lost it somewhere. If you're going to make them regret what they did, you'll have to do better than that." Putting down his saddle bag with his book and candy, the dragon-costumed colt tugged his tail out from under the bag he accidentally placed on it. Grumbling under his breath, he went up to Candy and Shrill.

"I think we can fix your costume," he said, looking it over. "It doesn't seem too bad...and we can make it better than before." Smirking, he asked, "What do you think they might make of a Big Bad Wolf zombie? After all, from all the fairy tales he's been in, one would think he should have been good and dead by now..." And if they made it scary enough, not even the older phonies would stand a chance.

Candy was happy when Hard Truths decided to come over and offer a suggestion to Shrill X. It was one thing to be told by an adult that everything will be ok, but quite another when it was someone your own age. Someone who didn't tower over you when they spoke.

She clapped her hooves on the ground in a strange dance. "A zombie Big Bad Wolf? That sounds like a great idea! And I think I have just the thing to make it work!" The food phony trotted into the kitchen, leaving the two foals together for the moment.

When she returned, she carried in her mouth a squeeze bottle the color of Truth's body.

"It's red food coloring." she explained, putting the bottle on the ground carefully. "It should look like blood when we put it on, but will come off when you take a bath." She looked over the torn costume. "It already looks like you are falling apart so I don't think we need to do too much with that. You'll be the best zombie Big Bad Wolf ever!"

Truths raised a brow at Shrill's bold confession. "He knew and you still managed to get away with it?" he asked, surprised. "Hm...quick hooves. One might have wondered why, after a daring feat like that, you had reason to seem so upset upon showing up here." He figured she might have felt exhilarated or at least a little better. But perhaps after seeing all the other foals' costumes on her way to Candy's, she had been reminded of the state of her own and felt bad all over again.

Disregarding her reasoning - since he found fillies hard to read in general and Shrill was a particularly vexing enigma - the colt simply focused on the fact that she more or less seemed to approve of the idea. "Good. Then why don't you take that off and we can get to work? Don't want to be stabbed with pins and sewing needles, do you?"

He turned to Candy at her encouragement, feeling pleased by her approval. Truths was even more elated when she went into the kitchen and returned with a colored squeeze bottle. Perfect.

"That'll do quite nicely, I think," he said, inspecting the food coloring. "Thank you, Candy. I wonder if we could find some glue around here...or I suppose a needle and thread would be ideal, but I don't know the first thing about sewing. How did you make it the first time, Shrill?"

At that moment, another colt walked by. He was wearing the oddest costume Hard Truths had ever seen - or was that make-up? it was hard to tell - though he completely missed seeing the tool belt. The colt appeared to be a patchwork pegasus, though a timid one at that. He seemed to attempt to say something before deciding against it and simply heading for the candy instead.

But Hard Truths wasn't about to let him avoid social interaction so easily. If he was forced to put up with it, he'd make certain the other foal was, too. Besides, Truths didn't recall ever seeing him around before and he was particularly curious about his patchwork pattern.

"Ahem," he said, trotting up to the stranger in his dragon costume. "Trick or Treat?" Wasn't that the customary holiday greeting? It seemed about right, particularly for this situation.

"There's no need for 'sir'," Truths told him almost indignantly. "We're the same age, as far as I can tell. I'm Hard Truths. And you are...?" He frowned at the tool belt, noticing it for the first time when the colt mentioned being a mechanic. "...I mean your name, not your costume."

Huffing, the unicorn shook his head. "It'd be rather difficult to offend me even if you tried, I assure you." He circled the pegasus as they spoke, surprised that the other colt could move the wing that appeared to be stitched onto his body. Was it just cosmetics after all, then?

Ignoring the compliment, as he had simply bartered for the costume for the occasion, he nodded at the latter statement. "A mechanic...I see. There's a plumber over there if you'd like to exchange career conversation," he said offhandedly, gesturing with a hoof toward Afterparty Aftermath with a utility belt of his own.

"Before you do so, however, I have to ask...what in Phonyland did you do to get all those stitches?"

Perplexed by the colt's answers, Truths critically looked him up and down. "...'Wicked', is it?" he murmured. "You don't seem particularly wicked to me."

"Tell me, Stitch - do you know anything about sewing or stitches at all?"