Flutter.bat Has Stopped Responding
“Fluttershy? Helloooooo…?” Twilight tentatively pushed open the door to the pegasus’ cottage. “Are you there?”
There was a hiss, and a sound not unlike the water draining out of a bath. The floppy remnant of a pear fell from the gloom of the cottage and impaled itself on Twilight’s horn. “Fluttershy?” She pulled the fruit off and looked up. “Oh dear, it’s getting bad again, isn’t it?”
A pair of glowing red eyes glared down at her. Above her, Fluttershy hung from a rafter by her pink tail, leathery wings slightly unfurled. Her fluffy ears twitched, and a long tongue slurped the last of the pear juice from her glistening fangs. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said innocently.
“Why else would you be hanging upside-down—”
“Just a little sinus congestion!”
“—with glowing red eyes—”
“I’m… I’m trying some new contact lenses!”
“—and sucking the juice out of fruit again?”
“The doctor said I needed more Vitamin C!” Fluttershy gazed away with a pained look. “On that note… could you pass me an orange from the fruit bowl, please?”
Twilight sighed and resignedly levitated the fruit up to her batpony friend. She rolled her eyes at the now-familiar shhhhk-unk-unk-UNK-ffffff noise of yet another piece of citrus being exsanguinated.
“Look, Fluttershy, I’m sorry for making you like this. And that I was unable to reverse my mistake properly!” Twilight said, a note of distress in her voice.
“I-it’s fine. It only flares up every so often,” Fluttershy murmured. “Besides, I’ve saved a fortune in candles since this happened! Echolocation!” She gave a frozen grin to Twilight. “I couldn’t be happier!”
Twilight grimaced and rubbed her forehead. “If this is about my attempts with the kale and cabbage shakes…”
“Nothing wrong with some extra iron!” The grin on Fluttershy’s face grew wider, gaze shifting slightly downward.
“Yes, well, I’m still sorry about that. It coated my tongue for days.” She bit her lip and forged on, “Maybe the Poison Joke tincture?”
Fluttershy trembled slightly and let out a hiss, before biting her tongue. “No, no… I can cope with being a fedora temporarily.”
“M-maybe it’s the Large Homophone Collider spell, then.” Twilight’s wings drooped, before she cried out in surprise as Fluttershy swooped down.
The batpony let out a small screech, whipping her messy pink tail against the floor. She prowled back and forth in front of her friend, fangs bared and eyes clenched shut. “Alright, fine! I can’t keep this up any more!” she cried. “I’d be so very happy to be back to normal, but even turning into a horrific violation of nature every month is better than everypony’s attempts to cure this!” Pain flared up in her red gaze. “Do you know what it’s like to turn into a length of maple wood all of a sudden? Or all of these features unexpectedly appearing every time I walked past the cricket green?! ‘Electing to bat’, indeed! I couldn’t even toss a coin for a week after that! I… I…” She ran over and grabbed a pineapple from her fruit bowl, squeezing her eyes shut again as she sucked the juice out of it with a vengeance.
“Um… Feeling better?” Twilight asked tentatively. She cringed as Fluttershy pulled her fangs out of the unfortunate fruit and stared at her, cradling it against her pale yellow chest.
“A little. Sorry for snapping,” she said quietly. “Really though, Twilight, I appreciate you trying to help, but it’s just making it worse!” Fluttershy smiled and tapped her fangs. “It’s no big deal; I can adapt. Angel can adapt! Just, please, please, please no more of your ‘remedies’!” She held the pineapple tighter, as though it were a protective charm. “I don’t even know what your latest efforts have to do with my condition!”
“I have just been arranging books on random pages and throwing darts at them recently…”
“What?”
“Nothing!” Twilight grinned and carefully pulled out a vial of glowing green fluid from her saddlebag and pushed it away with her hind hoof. “Alright, no remedies here!” she said jovially. “Just a friendly visit!” She grinned back at Fluttershy, eyes flickering away slightly as the glass bottle hit the far wall with a clunk. “How about a nice cup of tea, then?”
The batpony sighed and rolled her eyes. “What’s is it this tim—” She let out a squeak and darted across the room. “No, Angel, don’t drink that!” Fluttershy snatched up the leaking bottle and her rabbit companion, who had been lapping at a puddle of the potion. She backed away from it as the liquid started smoking and dissolving the floorboards. “Twilight, what in Equestria is in that?”
“Well, the full list is rather lengthy…” Twilight mused. “It’s based on Equalising Spider venom, so it’ll cancel out your bat powers. For other medicinal purposes, there’s apple juice, green moss, ground griffon talon clippings, pegasus feathers, timberwolf sawdust, a bezoar, um…” She taped her chin. “Zecora brewed it herself, and she wasn’t too keen on giving me the recipe. I have no idea why. I mean, I had to work out just those ingredients from tasting it myself, and now I’ve had no sense of smell or taste since Tuesday.”
Fluttershy set the bottle down on the floor and backed away from it. “Oh, wonderful. Um, c-could I pass on this one, please? I rather like being able to taste.”
“I’m sure it comes back eventually!” Twilight exclaimed. “Besides, there can’t be any other side effects if I’ve safely tested it myself, right?” She shook the bottle slightly with her magic, leaning forward and grinning.
Fluttershy frowned and bit her lip, before yelping and rubbing her lip where her fangs had pricked it. “Well, if it’ll make you feel any better. It’d be selfish of me to make you feel guilty about my condition.”
“I promise you, nothing can go wrong,” Twilight said. “Although, this has been a fascinating look at magical hybridisation. I wonder if it’s possible to select which traits are transferred? Or whether it’s unique to your Stare power or—” She stopped as Fluttershy broke the pineapple’s skin with her hoof, poured the potion in and drained the fruit of juice with her fangs.
“Mmmm… um… still can taste things…” Fluttershy raised her hoof to her mouth as she began hiccupping loudly and steam began to rise from her ears. “Oh… oh my, something’s happening!” She jumped up and ran to the bathroom, a similarly afflicted Angel in tow.
“Fluttershy? Are you alright?” Twilight called, following her friend into the gloom of her cottage. The hiccupping increased in frequency and volume, before a loud yell rang out. The alicorn hovered tentatively at the door. “Fluttershy? AHH!” She yelled a wad of something soft and sticky hit her in the face, knocking her to the ground.
“Oh! I’m so sorry, Twilight! Angel, you should know better!” Fluttershy said.
Twilight stared as she realised the voice had come from above her. “Fluttershy?! You’re no longer a batpony! It worked!”
“Ah, yes. Um…” Fluttershy trotted across the ceiling, hooves bonding effortlessly with the surface. Her eyes were now bright green, the fangs were gone, and her wings were once again feathered. Except now there were four.
The alicorn let out a whimper as Fluttershy descended from the ceiling head-first by a white thread of web emerging from her foreleg, Angel following suit. “The spider venom! The dose levels! It… I… Oh gosh!”
Fluttershy sighed as she dangled above Twilight, then let out a tired smile as the other three pairs of her eyes opened around her face. “Let’s just find some vampire fruit bats to ‘fix’ me, shall we?”