Chapter I - The Beginning of a Horrifying Weekend

It started when Twilight Sparkle left for a royal convention in Canterlot.

It also started when Twilight called upon Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo to meet with her regarding their next “Twilight Times.”

Everypony helped gather her stuff to the chariot waiting outside of her tree library-slash-home of the Golden Oaks Library. Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Spike all helped to load her suitcases into the chariot. Fluttershy was tasked to watch Owlowiscious while Pinkie Pie made her solemn Pinkie Promise to throw her a spectacular “Welcome-Back-from-a-Weekend-Long-Trip” party. As Twilight placed the last of the handbags in her seat, she turned to her three pupils, the Cutie Mark Crusaders with an expectant gleam in her eyes.

“Now as you three may know, I’ll be out of town for three whole days. Obviously, we won’t be hanging out during those three days, so I’m going to give you all each an assignment to show me what you’ve all learned from our sessions.” The three fillies all groaned in unison to the sound of having to do homework all weekend long. Twilight stifled a giggle as she brought Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle in for a hug.

“Don’t worry, silly fillies, these assignments won’t hurt you all. In fact, this will be the perfect opportunity to for you all to show me how far you’ve progressed in your lessons. You all want to earn your Cutie Marks in doing this sort of stuff, don’t you?”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders all looked at each other. They couldn’t argue with Twilight’s logic. After all, the only reason they set up time to be tutored by Twilight was for her to help them earn their Cutie Marks with assembly, potion-making and magic. With a heavy sigh, the fillies looked up to the lavender alicorn with a forced smile on each of their faces.

Twilight smiled at them smugly, then gave an assignment sheet to Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. “Okay, here are the assignments I want you each to work on during the weekend. Scootaloo, you’ve proven yourself you can put together a unicycle. Now I want you to disassemble and reassemble a simple bicycle. Do you think you’re up to the challenge?”

“Are you kidding!?” Scootaloo piped, her face written with determination. “It’ll be a piece of cake!”

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie shot her head up from the bottom of the screen, eyes widened and mouth drooling. “OOH! Did somepony say cake!?” she asked with a shrill voice.

“It’s a figure of speech, Pinkie Pie. Why don’t you prepare for my party while I talk to the girls here?” Pinkie Pie’s face turned to sadness and her ears drooped. The party pony trotted away slowly while Twilight continued to assign her pupils. “You’re next, Apple Bloom. I want you to make a potion that can make a single duplicate of an ordinary apple. Not two, but three, but one duplicate. You got that?”

“Yes, ma’am! You’ve got it, ma’am!”

“And finally, Sweetie Belle...” Twilight turned to the unicorn filly, whose smile squeed with her big glimmering eyes. “It seems you’ve been improving on how to levitate objects. Now I think it’s time that you took your magic to the next level. I’d like you to practice the use of a teleportation spell.” The alicorn grew a smug smile as she lowered her face into Sweetie Belle’s, a face written for a challenge.

"Do you think you can handle it?” she asked.

“I don’t think so, Twilight,” the unicorn filly replied. “I know so! Getting an object from one place to another is gonna be a snap!”

Twilight giggled lightly to the unicorn’s show of enthusiasm. “If you say so, Sweetie Belle. I already can’t wait for you three to show me how much you’ve progressed without my guidance.” Twilight climbed inside the seat of the chariot with Spike following suit. "I'll see you all on Monday!" The wheels of the chariot turned and soon, the vehicle was lifted into the sky by armor clad pegasus stallions. Everypony waved their goodbyes (while Pinkie Pie yelled not to forget her) as the chariot became a dot in the distance. Everypony, except for the CMCs, all went on their separate ways to commence with their daily routines. The three fillies gathered around in a huddle while they discussed their plans for the weekend.

“How cool is this!?” Scootaloo started. “We get to spend all weekend trying to earn our Cutie Marks doing whatever we learned with Twilight so far!”

“Yeah! Ah’m pretty excited mahself!” Apple Bloom concurred with a nod. “If Ah can get an apple ta be made into a duplicate, then not only will Ah might get mah Cutie Mark, but Ah might save the farm from any low quantity of apples we have in the orchards!”

“I know! I can’t believe that Twilight is having me learn how to teleport like her!” Sweetie Belle chirped, her horn glowing green from her growing exhilaration. “Pretty soon, I might grow up to be a powerful unicorn just like Twilight! I... I... I’m so excited, I’m gonna explode!”

Scootaloo laid a hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder. At once, the filly suddenly ceased her stimulation as her sparkling horn was doused. “Don’t get too excited, Sweetie Belle. We have the whole weekend to show Twilight what we’ve got.” The the orange filly slammed her hooves together with a determined smile of her own. “Plus, it’ll be so awesome if I earn my Cutie Mark in making totally super-awesome trick wheels!”

“Eeyup!”

“Totally!”

“Then it’s settled, Cutie Mark Crusaders! Let’s all show Twilight what we can do and get our Cutie Marks!” With that said, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom raised their hooves up in the sky, cheering out a hearty “YAAAAY!” in unison. Soon, the fillies went back to their homes, ready and willing to earn their Cutie Marks. Scootaloo would earn her Cutie Mark in building and disassembling unicycles, bicycles and scooters. Apple Bloom would earn hers in making potions and solving the problems of low food quantity. As for Sweetie Belle... well, let’s just say she wouldn’t get her Cutie Mark in death-defying thrills and perilous adventures like Daring Do did in her novels.

====

“‘To master the ability of teleportation, light your horn up and aim your magic at the desirable object. Then imagine the object is in another place and soon that object will appear in the place imagined.’” With a “hmm,” Sweetie Belle set aside the assignment sheet and the instructions onto her nightstand in her room. Sitting alone on the floor was a simple, plain spool of thread, the object that Sweetie Belle chose to be the subject of her magic practice.

“I guess if the instructions make it sound easy enough, then trying to teleport a single spool will be an easy enough task.” Sweetie Belle lit her horn up and focused her gaze on the spool. She imagined the sewing tool to be on the nightstand next to the paper, a simple enough task. But next came the hard part: using that magic. Sweetie Belle grunted as she covered the spool in her aura, slowly exhausting her strength and her horn. She lifted the spool up an foot off of the floor, then concentrated heavily on making vanish onto the nightstand.

The spool began to become a shaped of white light. Ignoring the beads of sweat trickling down her face, Sweetie Belle felt her first teleportation spell nearing success. The spool began to vanish when...

SLAM!

“Sweetie Belle! I’m home!”

Rarity’s barging in and her singsong voice caused Sweetie Belle to yelp. With it, a beam of pale green shot onto the ceiling, the spool failing to vanish and fall on the floor. The beam ricocheted and bounced off of the clean, yet reflective surfaces of the walls. Sweetie Belle managed to dodge the beam a few times with quick hoof-biting moves. But the beam bounced off of the vanity mirror...

...and hit Sweetie Belle square in the chest.

The unicorn filly screamed a blood-curdling scream as she was forced in the air by her own magic. Her body became a shapely silhouette of light as Rarity looked on in shock and horror at her sister’s situation. The bright light flashed, and with it, the screams vanished into oblivion. THe only thing the light left was a burnt mark on the floor where her sister stood for the last time.

“SWEETIE BELLE!!”

Rarity looked frantically around the room. She looked in her bed, on top of the canopy, under the sheets, under the bed itself. She checked the closet and rummaged through the clothes she made for Sweetie Belle. She even tore through the drawers at her sister’s bureau. Unfortunately, Sweetie Belle was nowhere to be found.

“Oh, Sweetie Belle! What have I done to you!?” Rarity screamed, flopping on the floor, sobbing into her own hooves. “My one and only sister is gone! If I hadn’t barged in on her practicing like this, then all of this wouldn’t have happened! Oh, Sweetie Belle, this is all of my fault! Wo-hoe-hoe is me-hee-hee-hee!”

The alabaster unicorn sobbed into the floor, mourning the passing of her little sister. But then a thought crossed her like a little jolt. “Wait, maybe Sweetie Belle isn’t dead. If I recall correctly, she was practicing a teleportation spell with a spool of thread. That means she couldn’t have gone far! That must mean that she’s still alive!” Rarity turned tail and galloped out of the door, looking both ways down the hall for any trace of Sweetie Belle. There was still none to be found, but that didn’t stop her from looking. “Don’t worry, Sweetie Belle! I’ll find you and bring you home safely! I promise!”

With that, Rarity galloped out of the room and scoured around the house.

====

Sweetie Belle felt herself floating down in a sea of never ending darkness. So this is what the next life felt like. Hovering in the eternal void, with time irrelevant in and on itself. Sweetie was colored both sad and disappointed. There was so much to do in her life, and it was all rudely cut off by a magical spell. She wanted to earn her Cutie Mark with her friends. She wanted appreciation from her older sister for helping her with her line of work. She even wanted to go out with Button Mash just one more time.

But all of her plans fell through, like walking on thin ice. Now she was adrift, lost in the darkness that reached out to infinity and the great beyond. She never got to say goodbye to all of her friends and family. Not to Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Twist, Button Mash, Pipsqueak. Not to Rarity, her parents and her sister’s friends. It would be a dull grey day for all of Ponyville. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon wouldn’t mind having her gone. After all, that’s what they all wanted: one less blank flank in the world while the other blank flanks were vulnerable to their jeers and snide remarks.

She would never stand up to those snobs ever again.

Now Sweetie Belle laid in the darkness, the feeling like lying on the surface of a cold, hard rock, floating in the middle of an ocean. But then again, nopony would feel anything if their time was over, right? Then that meant Sweetie Belle was alive. Then that meant her teleportation spell worked! A success! She managed to teleport herself

With that, Sweetie Belle laid up on her haunches, rubbing the near tip of her aching horn. She groaned as she tried to soothe the pain in her horn, despite the gingerly massage she gave to her horn. “Ooooh... Where am I?”

Sweetie Belle slowly opened her eyes. Her vision came out as blurry as a photograph before the picture took time to develop into a clear view. Sweetie Belle blinked her eyes three times, then gazed at. She saw herself on flat pieces of ice, bobbing along the surface of a small but deep lake of water. Something was wrong... terribly, terribly wrong. Sweetie Belle didn’t quite recognize her surroundings. The ice glaciers looked almost like they were perfectly cubed. Yet, somehow, they bumped along an invisible wall including the ice Sweetie Belle unintentionally found herself teleported on.

With curiosity getting the best of her Sweetie Belle slid across the ice, like she was hoof-skating on the traction-less surface to the invisible wall. It felt smooth and expertly polished. With a suspicious “hmmm” and her raised hoof, the unicorn tapped the wall repeatedly. The sound almost sounded like a little ring, kind of like the wall was made out of...

Sweetie Belle gasped as she realized what the material of the “wall” was made of.

“Glass,” she whimpered to herself. “The wall is made out of glass. But then that means...” Sweetie Belle shot a look through the outside of her transparent prison. She saw a lamp that looked to be around the size of Ponyville Town Hall. A giant novel titled “Fifty Shades of Hay” laid next to the lamp, the cover art blocked of by what looked like a yellow blindfold, bordered with pink frillies and decorated with two pink bows.

That’s when everything clicked.

“I’m in Rarity’s room,” Sweetie Belle muttered, horrified by the unexpected turn of events. “I’m in her room... and I’m in her glass of water she keeps at her nightstand... and that means that I’ve somehow shrunk... inside of her glass of water.”

Sweetie’s left eye twitched, both emerald eyes reduced to the size of pinpricks. Everything was silent at first, save for the gigantic ice cubes bumping into each other. Then Sweetie Belle let out an ear-piercing scream, a scream that would’ve easily shattered the glass if she was in normal size. All it ever did now was made the glass hum.

“I’ve gotta get out!! I’ve gotta get out of here!!” Sweeite Belle pounded the glass with both of her hooves, only to come out like small little taps. “HELP!! Somepony help me!! Rarity!? Apple Bloom!? Scootaloo!? Anypony!! HELP MEEEEEEE!!”

SLAM!

The door to Rarity’s room like, like rolling thunder to Sweetie Belle’s ears. Through the glass, she saw her sister shoot her head around the room, her eyes speaking of a panicked state. “Sweetie Belle, where are you!? Where could you have gone, my baby sister!?” The alabaster unicorn looked into her treasure chest, and threw all of the rags and garments out in search for her sister. To her dismay, she found nothing. Not even a little pink curl of her main or tail. “Oh, this is dreadful! This is just simply horrid! Mother and Father will be absolutely annoyed with me if I tell them that Sweetie Bell vanished into thin air! They’re going to scold me! Disown me! Even kick me out of my own house! OH, SWEETIE BELLE! WHERE IN EQUESTRIA ARE YOU!?”

Quickly thinking on her hooves, Sweetie Belle hopped up over to the ice cube further from her. She pounded on the glass again, her hooves becoming red from beating the glass. “Rarity!! I’m down here!! Rarity, I’m in your glass of water!!” Unbeknownst to Sweetie Belle, Rarity couldn’t see or hear her. Her minuscule body and her squeaky... well, squeakIER voice made impossible for her grab her sister’s attention. She saw the unicorn giantess stop to hyperventilate, laying a hoof over her chest.

“Calm down, Rarity! You mustn't for Sweetie Belle’s sake! If there is a chance for you to find her, you have to calm your nerves!” Breathing heavily from her anxiousness, Rarity spotted her glass sitting on the nightstand, unaware of her little sister trapped inside. All of this panicking was making her thirsty. “I think I may need a drink,” Rariy said, much to the horror of the unicorn filly. “I cannot think straight about this situation if I don’t quench my thirst.”

“Th-Th-Thirst?”

Suddenly, the glass was lifted into the air by Rarity’s baby blue magic aura. The sudden movements of the glass caused the water to wave, knocking a screaming Sweetie Belle from the ice cube she held on and into the water. The waving and the turbulence sent the shrunken unicorn all around the interior of her glass prison, smacking her underwater against the smooth, hard surface and pitting her against the oncoming ice cubes. To her, it was like being stranded in the middle of an ocean during a massive storm.

Then the water became calm. Sweetie Belle swam up to the surface and bobbed her head outside, coughing and sputtering the water remaining in her lungs. She looked to the giant face of Rarity, who opened her giant maw, welcoming the water to the inside of her mouth. Sweetie Belle gasped before she began to swim in the opposite direction of the current, the pull being too strong for her to resist. She heard sickly gulps from all the way behind her as she was dragged towards the giantess’s lips, the pearly white teeth coming in full view. Sweetie Belle gave her best effort, but was no expert swimmer. Then an ice ice cube surprised Sweetie Belle from the front and knocked her into her sister’s mouth.

“NO, RARITY!! PLEASE DON’T DRINK ME!!”

It was too late. She was inevitably pulled into Rarity’s dank and humid mouth, her tongue like an orange sea serpent dragging the liquid down to the back of her mouth. The dangling uvula undulated, forcing the torrent into the dark abyss below... and Sweetie Belle was next to join the digesting food in Rarity’s stomach. Panicking, Sweetie Belle made one last effort to avoid being swallowed by her own family, but the orange tongue surprised her from below. The spongy monolith forced Sweetie Belle into the back of the mouth. There, the last light of day was cut off by Rarity’s closing lips, her teeth clamping together with a CLINK!

In a last-ditch effort to preserve her life, Sweetie Belle grasped onto Rarity’s uvula, the slimy muscle making it nearly impossible for her to hold on. Then she heard the repeated deafening boom of Rarity’s coughing. The plan worked! Rarity on choking with her morsel, believing it to be water going down the wrong tube. The strong gusts of air shot upwards like a geyser, forcing Sweetie Belle out of her sister’s mouth and landing hard on her belly on the endless plane of the floor.

Rarity bumped her chest to force the source of her sudden coughing out from her throat, which proved fruitful for the fashionista. She cleard her throat a few times before she began to scold herself for the reckless drinking. “Well done, Rarity. Now you’ve done and nearly choked to death with all this pressure! You simply need to calm down! Searching for Sweetie Belle would prove pointless if you simply cannot retain your nerves!”

Sweetie Belle groaned as she staggered to get up on all four of her hooves. The impact to the floor knocked the wind out of her, but it was lucky that the fall didn’t do her in. She stumbled a little, but maintained a good balance with her body. She looked up to the colossus she called her sister, Rarity. Her white hooves stretched up like animate pillars, the undercarriage as tall and as long as a temple. Her shadowed eyes were nowhere in sight as they were cut off by her muzzle. Although, her mane still kept its natural curve, which to Sweetie Belle was bigger than a regular-sized hammock.

“Rar... *cough, cough* Rarity...” Sweetie Belle answered through her recovering, raspy voice. “Rarity... I.. I’m down... here.”

At this point, there was no other reason to call Rarity anymore. If the unicorn failed to hear her sister, then there was no point in calling her now. Sweetie Belle’s eyes began to leak tears as her giant sister pondered where the filly could’ve been teleported off to. “Now, let’s see. If Sweetie Belle isn’t inside of the house, then she could be anywhere in Ponyville. She could’ve been teleported off into her clubhouse. But then again, I doubt she would go there unless she and her friends are having a meeting there. Where could she possibly be, I wonder?” Rarity gasped as a worrisome thought surged through her head. “Oh no! Could Sweetie Belle have been teleported to the Everfree Forest!? Oh... Oh my. I cannot dawdle right now! She could be in grave danger! I have to rescue her, now!”

Rarity turned tail to canter out of the door. Her curling tail swept the floor like a spiral broom, carrying it and the micro-sized Sweetie Belle along with it. The little marshmallow filly held onto the fibers of the tail as the motion of her tail was carried into the air like a scary carnival thrill ride. The waving motion of the mare’s tail proved to be quite hazardous to Sweetie Belle as her sister galloped downstairs towards the door.. Her hold on the tail fibers began to slip as Rarity burst through the doors of the Carousel Boutique, doing a double-take in the busy streets of Ponyville.

“HAS ANYPONY SEEN MY LITTLE SISTER!?”

Everypony shot their shocked gazes at an overanxious Rarity. The booming volume of her yelling proved enough for Sweetie Belle to lose her grip as she used her hooves to cover her ears. She plummeted into a free fall into the grass of the gardens, screaming all the way down. She bounced off of a flower petal, slid down backwards a tall blade of grass and onto the dirt ground below with a PLOMPH! Dust clouds rose up from the impact of the fall. Sweetie Belle coughed away the clouds as she saw her sister through the jungle of flower stems and grass look around the streets for her in vain.

Sweetie Belle’s eyes watered and stifled a sob as she saw her sister gallop into the streets.

“Rarity...” she whimpered

The fashionista unicorn disappeared around the corner of the Boutique. Sweetie Belle fell on her flank, soaking in the harsh truth of reality. She was the size of a bug now. Rarity, her own big sister, almost swallowed her alive and she didn’t even know about it. Now she was in the presence of giants. With her current size, Sweetie Belle would be mistaken for a bug. She would be with squashed, eaten or dissected by somepony. Everything now seemed so big, that it would prove to be nearly impossible for Sweetie Belle to survive at a height of an inch.

“I’m in a nightmare,” the filly told herself. “Pretty soon I might remain the size of a bug and I might end up like the other bugs.” Sweetie Belle wiped her eyes of her tears and sniffled. “Oh, Rarity. I wish you could see how I am right now. I... I already miss you.”

With that, the filly curled up in a little ball. She began to sob as everypony went on with their day like there was no problem in the world... all except for Rarity, who desperately sought after her sister.

Chapter II - Across Dangerous Territory

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“Sweetie Belle!? Sweetie Belle!? Are you here, little sister!?”

Rarity’s breathing and worry became apparent as she galloped all over the town of Ponyville. The unicorn felt like it had been five hours into her search for Sweetie Belle while in reality, it had only been five minutes. She stopped between the prank store and Roseluck’s rose stand, shoot her head both ways for any trace for her little sister. Unfortunately, there was none to be found. Rarity’s paranoia grew as she began to realize the different possible outcomes of what might have happened to Sweetie Belle... none of which accounted for her becoming the size of a small bug and almost eaten by the fashionista.

Rarity looked in the square with the stone statue of a mare standing on her hind hooves. Still, there was no sign of Sweetie Belle anywhere. Rarity checked the shops, the restaurants and the town hall. All in all, there was nothing, not even a pink lock of her mane or tail anywhere. The fashionista was torn between denial and reality. Sweetie Belle must’ve been alive, but what would her father and mother think?

They would, in her words, surely be annoyed.

“Sweetie Belle!? Sweetie Belle!?” the unicorn called out, grabbing the attention of the nearby ponies. “Oh, Sweetie Belle, WHERE ARE YOU!?”

The screams echoed numerous times throughout the city. Everypony stopped and turned a shocked eye towards the alabaster unicorn sitting in the center of the thriving town. There Rarity sat, her head raised up high to shout up to sky and the pegasus ponies above for her little sister. All at once, everypony went back to their routine, conversing with each other, selling goods at the vending stand or transporting bales of hay with a wagon. Rarity grunted frustratingly and threw herself on the ground, smashing the dirt to form dust cloud under her hooves.

“Oh, this is simply horrid!” she yelled to herself. “If I can’t find Sweetie Belle by the time Twilight gets back from her trip, she’ll be very annoyed with me! What am I to do!? Oh, what am I to do!?”

“Apples! Get yer homegrown apples here!” Rarity perked her head up as she heard the Southern drawl of her friend, Applejack come around the corner of the nearest building on the right. The cowgirl pony dragged an apple vending wagon, loaded with rich red and succulent apples with Big Macintosh at the flank.

“Apples! Get yer apples here! Nice, sweet an’ juicy apples all grown and picked fresh from the farm!” Applejack turned to see Rarity gallop up to her with intense worry plastered on her face. “Well howdy-doo, Rarity. How are y’all doin’? And’ why do ya look upset?”

Rarity threw herself at Applejack’s forehooves, the latter lifting her right hoof out of uncertainty as the unicorn blubbered out her tragedy. “Oh, Applejack! You have to help me! It’s Sweetie Belle! She’s gone! Vanished! Disappeared!”

“WHAT!?”

Applejack lifted her other foreleg up from Rarity’s grip, but found her shoulders restrained by the same crazed unicorn. “It’s horrible, Applejack! I barged in on Sweetie Belle when she was practicing her teleportation magic for Twilight! But then, I made her lose her concentration and she was herself teleported to Celestia knows where!”

“WHAT!?”

“And the worst part is, I can’t find her-er-er! I’ve looked everywhere! In my home, around town, inside the stores! And still, I can’t find Sweetie Belle anywhere!” Rarity grabbed her country friend’s face by the cheeks and brought her close to her perturbed face. “Applejack! You wouldn’t happen to know if Sweetie Belle is at your farm, do you!?”

“Ah can’t say Ah have, Rarity,” Applejack responded. She pulled away from Rarity and fixed her brown Stetson hat. “But Ah’ll run back to that farm ta check. Hopefully Sweetie Belle transported somewhere in the orchards, maybe she’s with Apple Bloom at this moment.” Applejack turned to Big Mac, who wore his usual stoic visage. “Big brother, could ya watch the stand while Ah’m gone?”

“Eeyup,” answered the red stallion.

“Ooh. I hope you’re right about this, Applejack,” Rarity said with a shaky voice. “I simply cannot imagine Sweetie Belle trying to survive in a dangerous environment. I’m not sure that she’ll make it!” At once, Rarity’s insecurity was drained from her nerves by her friend’s reassuring hoof. It felt like all hope for her wasn’t lost yet.

“Sugarcube, of all the times Ah’ve been with you and yer sister, Ah know deep down that Sweetie Belle is a strong little filly. She won’t ever give up, even if the situation is as grim as the Everfree Forest. She’ll come along. Ah know it and you know it too.”

“But.. but... but...” Rarity stuttered with her words, clearly too worried to get Applejack’s message through to her. “But what if she’s alone in the Everfree Forest!? What if she was kidnapped and held for ransom by the Diamond Dogs!? What if--!?”

“She’ll be fine! Trust me, sugarcube, she’s got a heart as strong as horses! What’s the worst that could happen to her?”

====

Sweetie Belle continued to lay in the forest of tall grass, choking with her sobs. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. But somehow it was. Sweetie Belle, one of the cutest fillies to trot on the streets of Ponyville was now shrunken to the size of a small tack. The dirt underneath her hooves felt like a field of tiny pebbles. The grass stood as tall as Ponyville’s town hall... when Sweetie Belle was at regular size.

But that wasn’t the worst part about being one inch tall for Sweetie Belle. The worst part was how everypony towered over her like giants. She would be crushed easily underhoof like a bug, eaten by a giant-sized bug or an animal... and nopony would ever stop to think twice of the “bug” they disposed was actually a tiny unicorn filly who only wanted to earn her Cutie Mark badly.

The aforementioned worst part? All of these fates that would befall on her would be at the hooves of the ponies she loved and cared for the most: Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Twist, Pipsqueak, Cheerilee, her mom, her dad... even Rarity. These dulcet fears came to light when Rarity nearly sealed her fate with a glass of ice water had it not been for her quick thinking. It was close call... perhaps too close for her. Now she was shaken up in a fetal position, crying out of fear and sadness with all that was happening to her here and now. She prayed to Celestia that she would show mercy on this miserable soul.

That’s when Sweetie Belle perked up in realization.

Princess Celestia was a divine alicorn princess, just like Princess Luna, Princess Cadence and even Princess Twilight.

“That’s it!” the unicorn chimed. “I know how I’m going to get back to normal size! All I have to do get to Canterlot and get Twilight to grow me back to normal! That sounds like a perfect idea!” Then something suddenly came over Sweetie Belle that made her doubt about her idea. “Oh, wait. There’s still one big problem, though.”

By big problem, Sweetie Belle meant the town abundant with giant ponies. This was serious... everypony to her was like a 100 foot giant ready to step on her. In order to seek help, she would have to get across the street full of giant stomping hooves and rolling wagon wheels. If there was any chance for Sweetie Belle to return to normal size, she would have to take that considerable risk.

“Alright, Sweetie Belle. Deep breaths,” the filly told herself. “You’re going into dangerous territory here and you have every reason to be scared.” The marshmallow filly raised her hoof and yelled upwards to the sky. “Because I’m a Cutie Mark Crusader! I’ve got a heart as strong as horses and I won’t ever back down from a challenge!”

Coincidentally, Sweetie Belle felt the ground tremble underneath her like multiple rhythmic earthquakes. She looked up to see a towering figure of Octavia Melody, a grey Earth pony with a black mane, wearing a white collar and a pink bow tie on the front. Her Cutie Mark was a violet treble clef and her mane was styled to be posh like the upperclass ponies in Canterlot. Walking with her was Vinyl Scratch, a white unicorn with a frizzy blue-and-teal striped mane, wearing magenta shades over her eyes. Her Cutie Mark was a black beam note and was well known in Equestria for her career as a disc jockey.

At the same time, a little black ant, roughly the same size as Sweetie Belle’s scuttled along the dirt road. It was clearly scouting out for some food crumbs that ponies messily left on the floors of their own homes. Unfortunately, the ant did not count on scurrying its way into the path of the conversing mares. A grey hoof lifted and loomed over for its next step, its owner unaware of the little ant crawling under her hoof.

BOOM! SQUELCH!

Sweetie Belle looked in horror as the giantess lifted her hoof, revealing the green splattered remains of the ant inside of a hoof-shaped crater. The underside of the giant hoof was also marked with the corpse of the crushed arthropod as Octavia inspected what she recently stepped on by accident. A face of disgust grew on the slightly posh pony’s face.

“Uuugggghhh... how disgusting. Don’t these bugs ever watch where they’re going before they end up like this?” Octavia complained. She scraped her hoof against the ground, wiping off the ant’s body only to leave behind a greenish streak in the dirt. “I ask you, Vinyl, how can you live in a town like this when there are so many pests crawling out of the woodwork?”

“Aww, c’mon, Octy. They’re just harmless little ants. It’s not like they wanted to squashed or something.”

BOOM! SQUELCH!

Vinyl Scratch perked up in shock as she felt an ant, a slightly bigger one at that, splatter from the bottom of her hoof. She turned her hoof over, seeing the little bug as paste for her big toe. “Well, that stinks. Looks like Flutters is going to be sore with us in the morning if she sees this.” Vinyl followed suit with Octavia’s actions, scraping the ant’s remains into the ground, leaving only a streak in the ground. “Poor little dude. He really should’ve looked where he was going. Sorry Octavia, were you gonna say something?”

Octavia sighed. “Not anymore, Vinyl. Come on, let’s go home. I’m feeling a bit peckish right about now.” The two giant mares strolled their way down the street, leaving the crushed bugs in their hoof tracks. Sweetie Belle looked on wide-eyed and jaw gaped open as she witnessed one of the many horrors about being a bug. Those unfortunate victims could’ve been her if she so much as went out into the street like that.

But there wasn’t enough time to think about stuff like that. What was important is that Sweetie Belle needed to get to Canterlot somehow. The only question about it was, how was she going to get there at this size?

That’s when it hit her... again.

The Ponyville Train Station. All she needed to do was hop on the Friendship Express and that would get her to Canterlot quicker than she thought. The only problem was was that the train station was across town. With Sweetie Belle’s condition, it would be nearly impossible for her to even accomplish, but she saw no other choice. She had to take that risk.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Sweetie Belle ran into the street. In no more than five seconds, she was met two pairs of giant light blue hooves, the shadow of the right hoof looming over the shrunken filly. With a high-pitched scream, Sweetie Belle rolled out of the way as the hoof crashed down into the dirt with a BOOM! The shrunken filly panted heavily as she saw the hoof lifting back up, leaving behind the large print in the dirt. Thank Celestia that she got away just in time. Nopony would ever know that was the sister of Ponyville’s fashionista they would accidentally crush underneath their own hooves.

Sweetie Belle jumped back up and continued to gallop as fast as her tiny little hooves could take her. She navigated past and around the hooves of Daisy, who carried her prised bouquet of daisies in her mouth. She dodged the crashing hooves of the stallion, Time Turner, jumped from the stampeding hooves of Pipsqueak; she once even had a close encounter with Button Mash’s mom, who stopped at Roseluck’s vending stand to buy a couple of vibrant red roses. The tan Earth mare’s hind hoof loomed over her son’s micro-sized marefriend and brought it down on her. Sweetie Belle jumped away in time, only having the end of her tail caught beneath her pillar of a hoof. The unicorn filly had no choice but to rip out the end of her tail and escaped, just as Button’s mom took a step back.

Sweetie Belle huddled up against the side of the building near where Roseluck set up shop. She began crying once again, seeing as how she was forced to rip out part of her once wonderfully puffy and curly tail. Now it was only half a tail, ripped and tangled, a necessary sacrifice to ensure her own survival.

But there was no time to cry about something like this.

She was braver than that. She knew her tail’s sacrifice would be in vain if she kept crying and already given up. Why would she quit now, when she’s already gotten so far up to this point? Wiping her tears away, Sweetie Belle got back up on her hooves and ran around the corner of the building, keeping to the brush against the walls as the gigantic hooves walked on by. She shuffled along the concrete walls on her hind hooves, her back up against the wall as she looked around the environment for any giants walking on by. The coast seemed clear to Sweetie Belle’s peripheral vision. Then she turned and galloped her way out to the open and down the street...

SMACK!

...and headfirst into a wall of vibrant yellow. Sweetie Belle felt her world spinning for a little bit. Then she shook her head and scowled at the obstacle, to which she trailed upwards. Her cute little scowl transformed instantly into a shocked face as her eyes trailed up the yellow obstacle to meet a pillar of red, belonging to familiar, stoic Earth stallion.

Big Macintosh.

To her perspective, Sweetie Belle considered him BigGER Macintosh.

Sweetie Belle discovered that he was watching the apple stand cart without any sign of Applejack anywhere in sight. She must’ve gone off with Rarity to search for her in Sweet Apple Acres. The filly knew that Rarity and Applejack would be wasting their time searching for her, since she was only a mere inch tall and completely out of their sight but not out of their mind.

“Wait a minute,” Sweetie Belle thought out loud. “This is actually the perfect ordeal: Since Big Macintosh is Apple Bloom’s older brother, then maybe he can take me back to Sweet Apple Acres and have Apple Bloom concoct a growth potion! This is perfect!”

Then Sweetie Belle perked up, remembering something important about the farm filly’s potion making skills. “Oh yeah, I forgot. There was that one incident during Twilight Time when Apple Bloom tried to make an apple grow up too fast. I still smell like apples from that little ordeal.” Indeed, since Apple Bloom hasn’t fully mastered potion making yet, a growth potion would prove fatal to the little filly. One drop of the liquid and she would grow, yes, but then...

“No. There’s no way I’m going to explode,” Sweetie Belle chided herself. “I’ll go to Apple Bloom’s house and maybe she can bring to Canterlot by the train. What’s the worst that could happen, anyway?”

Sweetie Belle immediately regretted those jinxing words. All of a sudden, Big Macintosh brought the front of his hoof up, knocking the little filly up on the yellow toe and bringing the hoof up to the red titan’s face. Big Macintosh used his hoof to wipe his forehead away from the sweat, flinging the filly, now drenched in sweat, headfirst into one of the worst possible places to find herself in: a big red apple in the apple stand. Sweetie Belle fell headfirst through the peel of the apple and into the sweet and succulent fruit, leaving her stuck with her hind hooves wriggling and writhing to get herself unstuck from her little trap.

That’s when the unthinkable happened. Sweetie Belle felt her and the citrusy trap lifting up in the air. The filly wriggled and writhed until she pulled herself out like a cork from a glass bottle, falling on the top part of an apple. She shook her head rapidly and looked up around her environment... only to find herself and the apple she held on to be inserted into the yawning, drooling maw of Big Macintosh’s mouth! Hot gusts of Big Mac’s breath washed over the filly as she screamed out in vain to the hungry giant.

"AAAAHHHHHHH."

“BIG MAC!! WAIT, DON’T EAT THE--!!”

CRUNCH!!

It was too late. In a split second, Sweetie Belle found herself and the apple inserted into Big Mac’s widened maw, splitting a big piece of the apple with his teeth. Sweetie Belle was thrown into the darkness onto Big Mac’s moist and squishy tongue. Soon the jaws began to shift, crushing the fruit into a pile of mush. The filly screamed and held on to dear life onto one of Big Mac’s taste buds, but her grip was too slippery for her to hold on for much longer. She was tossed from the tongue onto one of the deathtraps she considered to be the giant’s molars. The filly shrieked in terror upon seeing the top molars lower onto her. Like before, Sweetie Belle jumped from the teeth as they clamped onto each other...

...right into a bolus of mashed apples. Sweetie Belle struggled to get herself free from the pile of mush. Oh, how badly was the marshmallow filly’s timing. Just as she could get her hooves free, Sweetie Belle felt the whale of Big Mac’s tongue rise up to the rough ceiling of his mouth. Gravity took a hold of the apples and dragged it plus the screaming filly down to the back of the giant’s mouth, the throat muscles welcoming the food. Sweetie Belle reached for Big Mac’s uvula to find herself a ticket out of his mouth. Unfortunately, the uvula was too high up to reach and the apples began to slide down into the slimy tunnel of Big Macintosh’s esophagus.

“BIG MAC!! WAIT!! DON’T EAT ME!!”

GLURK!!

Then Big Mac let out a deafening swallow, sending the screaming Sweetie Belle down into the giant’s throat, the muscles squeezing her down like toothpaste. The trip down Big Mac’s throat felt like forever, more or less torturous for Sweetie Belle. The throat muscles squeezed the wind right out of her lungs. While her breath was crushed from her lungs, Sweetie Belle heard the attracting and retracting air from Big Mac’s breathing lungs. His heartbeat beat rhythmically like a giant drum, following with the sickly gurgles of the next and possibly final destination: Big Mac’s stomach!

Sweetie Belle and the mushy apples squeezed through the sphincter, the entrance into the sac full of gastric acid. The mush spilled into the volatile liquid with Sweetie Belle joining it. The filly popped out of the surface and the mush and choked, trying to recollect the air in her lungs. She looked around at her surroundings. Everywhere she saw, there was a few chunks of apples floating in the surface of the acid, all kept up in a prison of pulsating flesh.

Sweetie Belle worked her way to the stomach walls, being extra careful not to fall in the boiling acid. She began to pound the squishy walls, all coming out in little taps to the red stallion. “BIG MAC!! IT’S ME, SWEETIE BELLE!! CAN YOU HEAR ME!!” she yelled from the top of her lungs.

Sadly, there was no response.

Just a gurgle somewhere in the acid.

Sweetie Belle put all of her strength into her hooves and pounded on the walls hard. “BIG MAC!! PLEASE, YOU HAVE TO HEAR ME!! I’M IN YOUR STOMACH!! DO YOU HEAR ME; I’M IN YOUR STOMACH!! PLEASE, BIG MAC, YOU HAVE TO HEAR ME, OR AT THE VERY BEST FEEL MY POUNDING!! PLEASE!!”

Then the next shipment of apple mush poured through the sphincter. Sweetie Belle yelped as she jumped out of the way of the falling debris of mush, landing in the acid with a big splash. All around her, Sweetie Belle heard Big Macintosh’s signature “EEYUP!” resound through the walls. The filly sat on her haunches on a big chunk of apple and hung her head low.

“It’s no use,” she muttered to herself. “I can’t even get anypony to feel me, let alone in their own stomach.” Sweetie Belle sighed with melancholy. “I guess this is how it ends. Being digested inside my best friend’s brother’s tummy.”

Sweetie Belle sat on the apple chunk, deep in saddening thought. Oh, of all the things she could’ve done in her life for years to come. Searching for Cutie Marks, marrying Button Mash, maybe having a few kids of her own and passing away at an old age. Sweetie Belle shed a single tear. She wished she could’ve seen her friends one more time. She cursed her horn for making life so miserable and it hasn’t been lunchtime yet... for Sweetie Belle, I meant.

“Wait a minute... horn!?” Sweetie Belle yelped in realization. “That’s it! I’ve gotta use the magic in my horn to get out of here! I need to teleport out of here before I get digested!” Suddenly, a doubting thought struck her in her thoughts. “But what if my spell shrinks me down even further? What if I end up the size of a flea? I would be living for a lifetime in somepony’s fur and would never find a way down.”

*GUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGLLLLLLLLLEEEEEE*

The inside of the stomach roared like thunder, nearly blowing out Sweetie Belle’s little eardrums. The acids began to bubble up, spewing out foul-smelling gases that burned her eyes and the insides of her nostrils. Her makeshift floatation began to sink into the boiling acid, dissolving in an instant. Wow, what strong stomach acids this workhorse possessed! But that also spelled trouble as the mush began to break up and sink into oblivion.

Without a second’s thought, Sweetie Belle ignited her horn. She imagined herself somewhere in Ponyville, anywhere but the churning deathtrap! The horn flashed and the filly vanished from the stomach, just as the apple mush sank into the acids, dissolving to become nutrients inside of Big Mac’s flank.

===

A little gleam of light flashed. The unicorn filly suddenly appeared inside of the flash before she fell on the ground on her belly with an “OOF!” Sweetie Belle lifted her head up, her eyes spinning and tweeting stars orbiting around her head. She shook her head a few times and then gasped with joy.

“I’m... I’m alive. WOOO-HOOO!!” yelled Sweetie belle, jumping up in the air with a bright smile. “I’m alive! I can’t believe it, but I’m still alive!! I took on death and I survived the fight!! Now I can go to Sweet Apple Acres and tell Rarity that I’m still alive!! But...” Sweetie Belle looked around her, taking in the strange new environment she found herself in. “...where in the wide world of Equestria am I exactly?”

*BUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPP!!!*

A loud, thunderous belch resounded somewhere close and above. Sweetie Belle found out exactly where she was. She was on the streets of Ponyville... still the size of a bug!! She saw herself in the shadow of Big Macintosh, the big red stallion who nearly digested the poor unicorn without ever knowing of her presence. His belch was the result of the apple he scarfed down from the apple stand, the stallion throwing away the core behind him. Nonchalantly, he spoke his signature catchphrase: “EEYUP.”

“AW, COME ON!!” Sweetie Belle snapped at the heavens. “IS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT I SAVED MYSELF FROM ALMOST BECOMING BIG MAC’S NEXT POTTY BREAK, AND NOW I’M STILL AN INCH TALL!? WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT IN STORE FOR ME, HUH!? WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT!?”

Suddenly, Sweetie Belle’s prayer came to light. A shadow of Big Macintosh’s flank lowered itself onto the filly. She looked on deadpanned at the sky as the red hindquarters turned her view into red. “Thank you so much, Celestia. This is why I prefer Luna anyway.”

SLAM!

Sweetie Belle yelped as she was pressed into the dirt, flattened by Big Macintosh’s big and, might she add, squishy and bulky flank. The cheeks smelled of fresh and pungent sweat, meaning that the giant stallion worked in the acres before he came into Ponyville. Big Mac shifted in his seating and ground Sweetie Belle onto his cheeks. She was very sure this was the most humiliating way for her to go out: at the bottom of his best friend’s brother’s flank. This was arguably the most time Sweetie Belle ever interacted with Big Macintosh than with those previous times.

Then Big Mac lifted himself from his haunches. The flattened unicorn was stuck tight to his sweaty flank, still keeping her deadpan towards fate. She felt her tormentor’s cheek move along with his hoofsteps. The steps still sounded and felt like an earthquake to her, but it was fortunate that she was stuck on Big Macintosh’s flank. Otherwise, she would have to wander aimlessly around the streets, dodging hooves, flanks and even hungry nocturnal animals. She did not want any part of this whatsoever. And speaking of wandering, Sweetie Belle knew exactly where her giant tormentor was headed next.

Sweet Apple Acres.

Sweetie Belle hoped to Luna that Winona, the Apple Family dog was friendly around bugs. She also hoped that Luna would get her out of situations like this better than Celestia ever did so far.

Chapter III - Down at the Farm

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Apple Bloom had already went through half a barrel of apples.

She tried her best to clone an ordinary apple into a single replica of itself. Her recent experiments with perfecting a cloning potion had ended with either horrible or horrific. One particular apple grew tentacle-like roots and a fanged mouth which tried to eat Apple Bloom. Another caused it to expand until it exploded like a balloon, leaving behind gooey remains of the succulent fruit. In one strange case, an apple doused in a potion had no effect. However, the earthworm residing inside grew to immense proportions with rows of circular teeth protruding from its mouth. It shot itself through the floor of the clubhouse and deep underground, leaving behind a very deep hole.

Apple Bloom marked this experiment yet another failure. Once again, she took the vials of her experimental potions and began to carefully mix them into a yellowish liquid, where she would later pour it into the distillery. She was so determined to finish the assignment for Twilight that she didn’t even hear her sister’s scream from outside.

Until...

SLAM!

Shocked by Applejack slamming the door open, Apple Bloom jumped, causing her to nearly drop the potion flask from her hooves. She fumbled to get the grip on the flask, nearly spilling the potion in the process until she got a good hold of it... upside down. The potion spilled onto the floor, melting the wood into a burnt hole. The melting wood then melted a hole in the ground, creating yet another vertical tunnel deep into the crust of the Earth.

Thank goodness that Apple Bloom was wearing protective gear and clothing.

“Apple Bloom. Didn’t ya hear me call out fer ya a few minutes ago!?” Applejack scolded before trotting in the clubhouse.

“Sorry ‘bout that, Applejack,” Apple Bloom said. “Ah’m just tryin’ ta get the hang of this potion-makin’ before mah next time with Twilight.”

“Honey, as much as Ah’m proud of ya tryin’ ta earn yer Cutie Mark, we have bigger problems on our hooves.” Applejack looked around the treehouse, as of she was looking for something. “Apple Bloom. Have ya seen Sweetie Belle around here?”

“Eenope. Ah haven’t seen her or Scootaloo since this morning after Twilight left.” Apple Bloom set her flask down and stood up on all fours. She took her protective goggles off and looked at her sister with concern. “Why? Has somethin’ happened ta her?”

“Ya bet yer sweet apples there has,” Applejack replied. “Sweetie Belle’s gone missin’!”

“WHAT!?”

Applejack reluctantly nodded her head. “Eeyup. Rarity told me that Sweetie Belle was tryin’ her teleportation spell when she walked in and she zapped herself to Celestia-knows-where. Ah thought Sweetie Belle would be here with ya. Ah guess it turns out that she ain’t somewhere at the farm after all.”

Apple Bloom jumped up on all fours, tearing off her protective eyewear. “We’ve gotta go find her! Ah can’t just sit around here and do nothing while mah best friend is lost somewhere in Equestria! We’ve gotta go now!”

The little farm filly turned and bolted to the door, only to be blocked by Applejack and the strong grip with her hooves. “Now hold yer horses, Apple Bloom. Ya need ta stay here just in case Sweetie Belle somehow winds up here in the farm. Ah can’t let ya come with me to the middle of the Everfree Forest. It’s too dangerous, even fer you.”

“But Ah’ve gotta find Sweetie Belle! Ah have ta go find her!”

“No ya ain’t!” Applejack snapped. Her strict tone of voice was enough for Apple Bloom to stop squirming against her grip. She fell on her haunches and drooped her head down, saddened by the thought of not helping to find Sweetie Belle.

“Listen, sugarcube, Ah know ya want ta find Sweetie Belle as much as Ah want to. But it’s too dangerous fer a little filly like yerself ta go out look fer yer friend. She could be in someplace dangerous and Ah don’t want ya ta risk yer own hide fer that cause. That’s why Ah have ta go out there by mahself. Ya understand?”

Apple Bloom sighed.

“Ah understand.”

Applejack turned and trotted out the door, but not before stopping to turn to her sister again. “If ya want, why don’t ya go and scout out the orchards fer any sign of Sweetie Belle? Ya can work on yer potion-makin’ afterwards.”

“Okay.”

With that said, Applejack galloped out of the clubhouse and into the orchards, disappearing into the thick layer of trees. Apple Bloom sat on her haunches and sighed for a moment or two. It wasn’t fair. She couldn’t just sit around or go scour the apple trees for the marshmallow filly! Sweetie Belle was probably in danger at that moment and the farm filly knew it! Oh, how Apple Bloom imagined the possible ways that Sweetie Belle’s life could end in an instant! She could be burnt to a crisp by a dragon, eaten by a cragadile or drowned in quicksand.

Apple Bloom shook her head. She tore her protective clothing off of her and stood on her fours with a bold look. “Ah don’t care how dangerous the place that Sweetie Belle teleported herself might be. She’s mah friend and a fellow Cutie Mark Crusader and Ah’m not gonna let her down by not doin’ anythin’ about it! Ah’m gonna look fer Sweetie Belle even if it means gettin’ grounded until Ah’m Granny Smith’s age!”

With it, the country filly galloped out of her clubhouse and jumped off the the ramp. She quickly recoiled from the hard landing and made a beeline towards Scootloo’s house. There was no way she was going to let Sweetie Belle’s disappearance go like that and not live it down. As a Cutie Mark Crusader, Apple Bloom was going to make sure that the unicorn returned to Ponyville, safe and sound, wherever she may be.

====

Big Macintosh returned to his work at Sweet Apple Acres.

The apple stand wasn’t very busy today, on account of his slightly introverted and quiet personality. He had only time to sit down for a few minutes and think things through. If Applejack and Rarity were looking for Sweetie Belle, then why couldn’t he help lend a helping hoof? Since nopony was buying any apples today, he may as well quit early and head on back to the farm. So Big Macintosh attached the reigns onto his torso and trotted back to Sweet Apple Acres, the apple stand pulling from behind.

As he returned to the farm, he undid the reigns and began to walk around the farm, hoping to find any trace of Sweetie Belle somewhere in the orchards. What he failed to realize, of course, was that Sweetie Belle was closer than he thought... and by closer, it meant stuck to the left cheek of his flank drenched with smelly sweat.

And boy, Sweetie Belle was NOT, in the term, HAPPY about it.

She kept deadpanning as she cursed in her head at the cruel vicissitudes that led her to become a speck of dirt stuck to the bottom of a workhorse stallion. Sweetie Belle was strong enough to take whatever life threw at her... being called “blank flanks” by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, shunned for the “Gabby Gums” incident, even taken a hit or two on her Crusading adventures... but this really took the cake. Being stomped on, sat on, nearly eaten by Rarity, nearly turned into Big Macintosh’s nutrients in his stomach and now stuck on his rear by his sticky sweat.

Sweetie Belle made a personal note to drop from Celestiism and convert to Lunaism if she survived this whole ordeal.

As the micro-sized filly deadpanned her misadventures as a fleck of dirt, covered in dust, sweat, saliva, applesauce and stomach acid, the unicorn felt something that she began to fear. The sticky hold on Big Mac’s sweaty flank was beginning to give away. The height at which she found her current predicament in was comparable to a ten-story drop from a building in Manehattan, more than enough to kill whoever would take that deadly drop. Unfortunately, at this size, Sweetie Belle was going to be one of those ponies.

There was no way of getting out of this one alive.

This would be the end of Sweetie Belle as she knew it.

BARK! BARK! BARK!

If trying to hold on to Big Mac’s flank wasn’t enough for Sweetie Belle, there was the shrill volume of Winona’s bark to add in to her most distressing moment. The border collie frantically jumped around one of her owners as she barked out happily, the wagging tail and repetitive panting made apparent. Big Mac patted the collie on her head and smiled back before he made his way down the orchards to find Sweetie Belle.

The latter began to wriggle, trying so hard in vain as to keep her grip on Big Mac’s flank. Unfortunately, panicking only made the grip looser and soon Sweetie Belle began to slip down along the narrow curves of the flank. Sweetie Belle held her tongue as she tried to not even think, “What’s the worst that could happen now?” But it was too late. As soon as those words ran through her head, an unthinkable force happened. A singled bead of sweat, the size of a vending cart, rolled down the cheek and directly towards the shrunken marshmallow filly.

“Oh no,” Sweetie Belle chanted. “Oh no, no, no, no, no!”

The bead of sweat trickled down to Sweetie Belle, eventually making contact with her, engulfing her in the salty, transparent liquid. The filly wanted to scream, but it was hard for her to do so since she didn’t want to taste Big Macintosh’s sweat, especially from his gigantic butt. The sweat trickled down the lower point of the curve and dripped off from the bottom, leaving the micro-sized unicorn plummeting down to her doom, floating in a sphere of salty liquid. Sweetie Belle closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable to happen.

SPLAT!

Sweetie Belle felt her watery prison splash onto a soft, moist and leathery surface. The filly coughed from the impact and took in the sweet oxygen that she longed to inhale. The B.O. of Big Mac wafted the air a little, but it was mixed with something else. It smelled like fur... not pony fur. Sweetie Belle recognized this smell.

“Please tell me I haven’t landed where I think I’ve landed,” Sweetie Belle told herself. She slowly and reluctantly opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was the floor she fell on, the soft, moist and black leathery surface. She trailed her widening eyes up to meet with a field of white, with three brown circles like freckles on either side. Her eyes reached the size of saucer plates as she saw a hill of brown with two slightly drooping ears and two giant glimmering black circles looking out into space.

“Sweet Luna from above!” Sweetie Belle shouted. “I’M ON WINONA’S NOSE!”

BARK! BARK! BARK!

Winona’s deafening bark, combined with the sudden lurch of the dog’s nose, had enough force to launch the shrunken Sweetie Belle towards her face, nearly making her ears bleed with the high decibel noises. The filly screamed, though she couldn’t hear herself scream through the painful ringing in her ears as she rapidly approached one of Winona’s drooping right ear.

Quickly thinking, she clasped her hooves at the tip of the ear on both sides, the fuzz on the ears easy to grip like velcro. Sweetie Belle dangled over Winona’s head, but found it hard to keep her lunch down as the giant canine began jumping frantically. The poor unicorn was flailed around like one of the loose bells on Twilight’s Starswirl the Bearded costume. Sweetie Belle felt herself flung around, up an down, horizontally, diagonally and vertically. Sweetie’s face turned green before the giant dog stopped her jumping.

“Ugh... I think I’m gonna be sick,” Sweetie Belle murmured, feeling her grip on Winona’s slowly slip off.

It wasn’t before long that Sweetie Belle had yet again felt the sense of danger coming her way. A shadow eclipsed her from the bright light of the burning sun above. Sweetie Belle reluctantly looked up to find yet another challenge: Winona’s hind paw reaching up to scratch the back of her ears. The paw began to scratch and Sweetie Belle fell, already weakened by the dog’s playful behavior. Sweetie Belle screamed as she plummeted into Winona’s ear, bouncing off into waxy canal and landing near the ear drum with an “OOF!”

Winona perked up as she thought she heard something. She also felt something land in her ear. Another bug, perhaps? The border collie scratched her ear and shook her head wildly, throwing the screaming filly around the canal, even hitting the drum a few times.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

Again, Winona perked up.

She was sure she heard something that time.

Winona scratched her ear and shook her head once more.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!! WINONA!!”

The border collie once more perked her head up. She knew that voice! It was Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom’s best friend, alongside the pegasus filly of course. Winona looked around to see where her voice was coming from... also to see why her voice sounded louder than before. “Winona! I’m in your ear!” the filly shrieked, prompting the dog to whimper in reply. “Yes! Yes, I’m in your ear! If you can hear me, bark only one time!”

BARK!

“Oh, yes! Finally! Somepony or something who knows that I’m here!” Sweetie Belle chirped, leaping for joy on the floor of the ear canal. “Winona, I need you to do something for me! I need you to go see Apple Bloom! It’s very important that you do!”

BARK?

“Yes, it’s very, very important! Now giddyap, girl!”

Upon the micro-sized filly accidentally inserted deep inside her ear, Winona rose up on her hind legs and began to sprint across the yard of the farm. She scoured through the trees in search of Apple Bloom, running through every row of trees, past the different sides of the orchards. Suddenly, Winona’s super-hearing kicked in as she heard the little pitter-patter of young pony hooves trekking across the farm. Tail wagging like crazy, Winona barked, much to the pain of the shrunken Sweetie Belle and ran towards the source of the noise. It was in about one short minute that the border collie found the filly sneaking around the farm towards Ponyville against her sister’s wishes.

BARK! BARK! BARK!

“Winona?” Sweetie Belle heard the giantess all the way from deep within Winona’s ear. She clamped her hooves to her ears as Apple Bloom’s voice resounded off the waxy walls of the ear canal and into hers. But she didn’t care about such things...

...Sweetie Belle finally found Apple Bloom! With the help of the giant canine of course.

“Winona, Ah don’t have time ta play right now,” Apple Bloom said to the dog. “Ah have ta find Sweetie Belle right now and I don’t want you tellin’ Applejack. Ah’m goin’ ta Scootaloo’s house so we can find her in the Everfree Forest.”

“The Everfree Forest!?” Sweetie Belle exclaimed panickly. “Oh no! This isn’t good! If I can’t make it to Apple Bloom right now, then she and Scootaloo are going into the forest for nothing! At my size, the only animals who could hear me is Winona!” That’s when an idea struck her... again. “Winona! Get me out of your ear! I have to get to Apple Bloom now!”

A resounding whimper came in reply. Sweetie Belle found her temporary wax prison tilt to one side, letting gravity take Sweetie Belle and tumble her down. She collected sticky wax on the way down, covering her worse than the tree sap during the time she went zip-lining for her Cutie Mark. The filly screamed as she tumbled down the to the edge of Winona’s ear, bright daylight shining the way towards freedom. The tiny unicorn fell out a good two-story drop, landing in a muddy puddle that felt like a lake to her. Sweetie Belle swam up to the surface, now drenched in mud from horn to hoof and quickly examined her surroundings.

Behind her, she saw the gigantic figure of Winona, her head tilted to her right, not sure if she successfully freed the bug-sized unicorn from her ear. In front of her was Apple Bloom, a towering yellow Earth pony gazing at her pet with narrow orange eyes as she scolded Winona for following her.

“No, Winona, Ah ain’t gonna stand by idly while mah friend, Sweetie Belle is lost somewhere out there,” Apple Bloom boomed with a voice rumbling like a thundercloud, followed by the intensely loud BARK! BARK! BARK! “No. Ah’m gonna go out and look fer her and there’s nothin’ that you or Applejack are gonna do ta stop me.” The gigantic filly began to gallop away, the hoof steps like quick multiple earthquakes calming down after each one. Sweating bullets and panicking, Sweetie Belle turned to the giant dog, who whimpered in dampened spirits from her owner’s disapproval and galloped over to her.

“WINONA!!” The said dog turned her attention down at Sweetie Belle’s diminutive size. At least her hearing was still working, so that’s one thing that the unicorn was thankful for. “Winona, you need to take me to Apple Bloom! You have to take me to Apple Bloom! I have to get my friends’ attention and you have to help me by any means possible and I really, really, REALLY need your help!”

Winona looked down upon Sweetie Belle for a moment or two, her head tilting in one direction. Then the dog began panting again and lowered her face down at the shrunken unicorn. “Winona? What are you--?” Suddenly, Sweetie Belle understood the dog’s intention. “No. No! Down, Winona! Down girl!”

Winona refused to comply to the order. Instead, the dog dropped her surging tongue on the dirt floor, collecting dirt, liquid mud and loose blades of grass. A wide-eyed Sweetie Belle turned to canter away, only to be met with Winona’s tongue scooping her up from behind and pulling her into the darkness of the her mouth. Sweetie Belle began to scream as she was pulled back past the folds of her mouth and the stained yellow stalagmites and stalactites that were her teeth. The filly’s shriek even louder as Winona shut her mouth, silencing the volume to only a muffle and trapping the unicorn inside.

Sweetie Belle’s troubles were only just beginning. Her environment, save for the undulating tongue underneath, shook up and down with Winona’s every sprinting step towards her owner, forcing her to hold on tight to the taste buds. The filly screamed so much her voice began to go hoarse, no pun intended of course. This would be a problem. Sweetie Belle needed her voice to help issue orders to Winona.

BARK! BARK!

Sweetie Belle clamped her hooves over her ears. In Winona’s mouth, her barking proved to be fatal for her hearing as the barking completely deafened her hearing, now replaced with a painful ringing in her ears. All sound was made void to the filly. Dazed and disoriented, Sweetie Belle staggered to find her hoofing... a very major mistake. Sweetie Belle’s hind hoof slipped on a small streak of saliva, causing her to slip and tumble backwards towards the back of Winona’s tongue, causing the throat muscles to open up for their new arrival.

Winona skidded her running to a halt. She felt her passenger fall in the back of her tongue, a bad place to be since she was on the inside of her mouth. Instinctively, the collie swallowed her morsel and anything else that laid on her tasting organ.

GLURK!!

Sweetie Belle felt the massive muscle lift up to the roof of Winona’s mouth, the spongy taste buds massaging her back as she slid down to the back of the tongue to the opening of the throat. She, along with the specks of dirt, mud and blades of grass, found themselves constricted by the throat muscles and pulling her down headfirst into the narrow, squishy tube. With an audible swallow, Sweetie Belle was sent screaming once more down the esophagus, though the grip was not like the crushing force of Big Mac’s throat. Within seconds of being quaffed, the shrunken pony was forced through the entrance of Winona’s stomach and landed on the spongy moist muscle with a SPLAT!

This was like deja vu for Sweetie Belle. She ignited her horn, finding herself inside a wet cavern of muscle and a shallow pond of deadly gastric acid. Defeated by deafness and hopelessness, she flopped down on the mound of flesh, feeling her resolve digesting like the little bits of vittles slowly dissolving away in the acid. Sweetie Belle felt herself cry and scream, but she couldn’t hear how loud her cries and screams were.

After all, she was made temporarily deaf.

With her horn nearly exhausted from her last teleportation spell, Sweetie Belle couldn’t afford to lose more energy to perform such an advanced trick to her. The unicorn flopped down onto the mound of flesh and buried face in her hooves.

“I can’t believe how much I’m beginning to hate everything,” she mumbled loudly, not having any control of the volume of her voice over her ringing ears.

====

BARK! BARK!

Winona ran straight for Apple Bloom, wanting to help her find her friend, Sweetie Belle, like the bug said before she scooped up in her mouth a minute ago. She didn’t meant to send the poor little critter to her stomach. The bug shouldn’t have been at the back of her mouth in the first place. As Winona carried on with her running, feeling the little bug tickle her in her tummy, she spotted a shape of bright yellow with red on top, carrying two light blue bags at her side.

Feeling happy to see Apple Bloom again, Winona quickly cut across the field and stopped in front of her owner, wagging her tail in a crazed, happy manner. Apple Bloom, however, wasn’t happy to see her sister’s dog delay her from finding Sweetie Belle. “What is it now, Winona?” she asked in a stern tone. “Ah told ya, ya can’t come with me and Ah’m not lettin’ ya or Applejack stop me from doing so.”

BARK! BARK! BARK!

"No!" Apple Bloom snapped, pointing her hoof to the direction of her house. "Winona, go home!"

Winona sat down on her haunches, whimpering once more from Apple Bloom’s disapproval. The farm filly suddenly felt pity for her dog, seeing Winona saddened when her offer to help look for her friend was quickly denied. It was like reenacting that moment between her and Applejack again. Smiling, Apple Bloom trotted over and patted the border collie on the head.

BARK! BARK! BARK!

“Ya know, Ah might just need ya fer this mission, Winona,” Apple Bloom said, pulling out Sweetie Belle’s old teddy bear, Button. It was pretty obvious of who the bear was named after. “Here, girl, why don’t ya track Sweetie Belle’s scent with this? Since this is Sweetie Belle’s teddy bear, ya might pick up on where she might be.”

With a wag of her tail and an approving bark, Winona placed her nose on the teddy bear’s white belly and took several good sniffs from the fibers. The collie placed her nose on the grass and searched around the area for any trace of Sweetie Belle’s scent. Suddenly, the collie raised her head towards the souther direction and barked a few times. “Ya got it!” Apple Bloom acknowledged happily, giving Winona a big hug. “C’mon, girl. Just keep followin’ that scent and maybe we can find Sweetie Belle in no time!”

Winona barked a few times in response. The collie placed her nose on the ground and ran across the field to Ponyville, the farm filly following close behind. It wouldn’t be long now before they would find where Sweetie Belle accidentally teleported herself to. But unknown to her or anypony else, Sweetie Belle hadn’t gone anywhere.

At this very moment, she was residing in the confines of Winona’s tummy.

Chapter IV - I Can't Stomach This Feeling

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Sweetie Belle managed to regain her hearing after Winona’s barking deafened her for a short time.

Unfortunately, the first sound she heard was the wet gurgling of the dog’s stomach she was trapped in.

After all that Sweetie Belle had been through for the past couple of hours, the unicorn filly was starting to get used to being eaten alive. Maybe it was the work of euphoria? She didn’t know. What she did know was that there had to be a way out. Her horn used up the last of her magic, and so, it had to wait and charge up like a battery. Winona’s stomach acid was about knee-high but was just as potent as acid itself. The grass, dirt and mud were dissolved in the volatile liquid, slowly churning away into soup for Winona’s nutrients. There were only a couple of ways for Sweetie Belle to escape her stomach, but both were easier said than done.

Option number one was to somehow reach the surface of Winona’s mouth. Sweetie Belle couldn’t climb up a slippery, wet surface all the way to the tongue. For one thing, she didn’t have anything with her to help climb up the moist esophagus. She could try and wait for Winona to somehow burp or throw up like all the dogs do, which brought her to option number two. She could escape from Winona through the natural way. Obviously, the answer was a strict NO.

She was not going to become the next dropping that Winona left behind. Even if she could, there was no way that she would survive in the acid... or in her bloodstream, if she was sucked in through the villi.

“Great. Now what do I do?” Sweetie Belle moped to herself. “It’s no use, I can’t get out of Winona now. I’m just gonna perish in here as Winona’s next meal.” The unicorn sighed, watching the grass blades and little specks of dirt dissolve into the corrosive liquid. “Oh, Rarity. I wish you were here with me right now. I don’t know what else to do.”

Sweetie Belle curled up in a fetal position on the mound of stomach flesh, drooping her ears back.

She wondered how everything was going outside with Apple Bloom and Winona. Hopefully, their day was going better than her’s did.

====

“Oh, dang it! It came apart!”

Scootaloo wiped her forehead as her attempts to reconstruct a bicycle fell in pieces. Both of her hooves were struggling to turn a screwdriver both ways, making her wonder how Spike made turning it look so easy. She disassembled and reassembled a unicycle once, so why wouldn’t it work now!?

Because those parts she used to assemble those cycles had pop-in parts that attached to another part, that’s why. This was a tough challenge that Princess Twilight intended for the young pegasus to complete for their next Twilight Time, so Scootaloo couldn’t argue with that logic. Giving a tired sigh, Scootaloo picked up the frame and the wheels, preparing to once again assemble the bicycle with determination to get her Cutie Mark.

“Scootaloo! Hey, Scootaloo!”

The pegasus filly’s ears perked as she heard that young, familiar Southern drawl from outside of her bedroom window. She looked out to see Apple Bloom and her dog, Winona standing at the base of the backside of her house, the border collie’s tail wagging and panting happily. “Apple Bloom? What you doing here?” Scootaloo asked. “Shouldn’t you be at home potion-making for the next time we meet with Twilight?”

“Ah was, Scootaloo, but we’ve got a major problem!” Apple Bloom yelled, her voice cracking at the word, major. “Applejack told me that Sweetie Belle’s gone missin’! She said Rarity messed her up with her teleportation spell and now she might have been teleported somewhere in Equestria!”

“WHAT!?” Scootaloo screamed, leaning over the edge of her window. “You’re kidding me!? You’re not serious, are you!? Are you saying that Sweetie Belle is gone and is somewhere stranded in Equestria!?” Apple Bloom nodded, leaving the pegasus to slam her hoof on the windowsill. “Oh, ponyfeathers! AB, it looks like we have a Crusader who’s MIA! We need to gather our stuff and go look for Sweetie Belle, pronto!”

“No need, Scootaloo! Ah got all the help that Ah need right here!” Apple Bloom replied, showing her hoof to Winona.

“Her? What do we need your dog for?” The pegasus asked, causing Winona to tilt her head in confusion.

“Winona’s not just a dog!” The farm filly argued. “She’s mah dog with the best nose in Equestria! We picked up on Sweetie Belle’s scent back at the farm and we need that scent ta track her down or we’ll lose the trail! We can’t find Sweetie Belle if we lose that trail!”

“Alright, alright! I’m coming down right now!” Scootaloo said, making Apple Bloom beam with a smile. “But first, my stuff!” The filly quickly zipped back into her room. Pots, pans and other metallic objects crashed and clanked from the outside as Scootaloo descended downstairs and came around the back of the house on her scooter with her wagon trailing behind, wearing her purple helmet and a backpack stuffed with survival gear. Scootaloo skidded her scooter to a halt, leaving marks in the dirt where her wheels dug into the ground and smiled a ready look on her face.

“Ya packed all that stuff fer this little adventure?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Of course. Since we have a fellow Cutie Mark Crusader gone missing, it’s our duty as her friends to find her and bring her back here, safe and sound." Scootaloo reached back and threw on a blue helmet on Apple Bloom's rose-red mane. "Now come on, AB! We've got a search and rescue to perform!"

"Yeah! We could be--!"

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS SEARCH AND RESCUE DUO!! YAY!!" the two fillies chanted in unison.

"Winona! Keep followin' that scent, and don't ya dare lose that trail!" Apple Bloom ordered Winona, who barked in happy compliance. The border collie led the two fillies towards downtown Ponyville, using only her nose. Scootaloo's stubby little wings buzzed like a motor and the two ponies drove after Winona, unaware that their friend was closer to them, but yet, so far from their grasp. As of right now, the dog's stomach began to gurgle. If only they knew at that moment that Sweetie Belle was struggling to keep herself from being digested by the rising acids.

====

*GUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRGLE*

Sweetie Belle held tight to the lump of squishy stomach flesh as the acids slowly rose into a small lake. The fleshy prison began to churn, and those movements, adding in the motion of Winona running, made it all the harder for her to hold on for life. The stomach became hot and smelled of sulfur, diminishing Sweetie Belle's strength by the minute. A slight little slip and the unicorn filly would be burnt alive. She would be turned into mush and dissolved into the soup, only to be passed along with the bile and released as excrement.

Sweetie Belle was NOT going to become that excrement. She had to stay strong, not just for herself, but for Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle... even Rarity. If she let go, she would be letting her friends and her family down. There was no way she would become nutrients for the dog! If she had to get out, she had to let Winona know about her current predicament.

Holding onto the lump of flesh, Sweetie Belle reeled back her hind hooves and jammed them against the stomach walls. All of a sudden, the stomach stopped moving. Winona must've stopped when she felt the sensation in her tummy, though it did nothing to stop the rising stomach acids. Sweetie Belled heard the muffled voices of her friends, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo. She didn't make their conversation out exactly, but she was sure they were asking why Winona stopped.

After a moment of recovery, Winona began to move again. Her tiny captive was losing her grip on her little "mound," the only thing keeping her from making contact with the acids. Sweetie Belle reared up her hind legs again and applied a harder kick, one that made a different reaction than before. The mucus-secreting walls undulated, and Winona stopped once more to feel the slight aches of the supposed "bug" she ate a little while ago. But there was an upside to it, though. The muscles that Sweetie Belle kicked caused them to spasm, thus draining a small amounts of the acid through the sphincter to the intestine.

"That's it..." the unicorn muttered, feeling her breath shorten by the sulfuric atmosphere. "Just... one... more... kick... and then I'll... I'll be... free..."

Sweetie Belle weakly reared her hind hooves once more.

Then Winona jumped over a trash bag in an alleyway in Ponyville.

The unicorn filly felt her world floating around her as she was flung up to the ceiling of the dog's stomach, hitting it hard with a wet SPLAT! Dazed by the high amount of sulfuric gas she breathed in accidentally and the sudden lurching movements, Sweetie Belle saw herself stuck to the stomach, facing down towards a deadly lake of acid. By the time she saw it, it was already too late. Winona landed on all fours, and the unicorn filly was plunging straight down to the liquid. There was no way to avoid the inevitable already.

This looked like the end of Sweetie Belle for sure...

...if not for the stomach acids draining out completely by the time Sweetie Belle landed on the stomach floor with another SPLAT!

Sweetie Belle laid flat on her belly, the impact doing so much to the shrunken filly. Her contact with Winona's stomach ceiling must've somehow made the acids drain out faster than she could realize. Thank Luna she was merciful to her today. Although she had already been weakened enough by the gas of the acid alone, which rendered her unable to move, let alone think clearly. Her world around her became dizzy. Her senses were too sluggish to respond. She couldn't feel anything against her body until the feelings came to late.

Take the stomach, for instance. The walls began to close around Sweetie Belle, slowly massaging her aching body, but also pushing her through the stomach sphincter to the mile-long (to her) intestine. Sweetie Belle's vision and nerves came back to partial restoration a little too late as she saw herself moving into another long, dark and squishy tunnel tunnel. The unicorn whimpered, slurry but fearfully while she felt herself gently squeezed along the intestine and heading towards her second option.

Out of Winona's "back door."

Sweetie Belle was too weak to stop the process now. It was only a matter of moments now until she was free from the insides of Winona, at the cost of her morale... and, if this got over, Rarity's water bill for the amount of showers she would have to take just to get the stink off of her. With a sigh, Sweetie Belle slowly passed through the border collie's gut.

"This isn't gonna end well," she slurred, no pun intended.

====

TWO HOURS LATER

====

Winona kept running like any fit dog would in Equestria, tracking the scent of the missing unicorn filly all over Ponyville for the last two hours. Scootaloo panted as her tiring wings buzzed sorely, trying to keep up with Apple Bloom's active dog while she grew anxious with every passing minute of not finding any real trace of their friend. It was only then when they stopped around the Carousel Boutique where Sweetie Belle disappeared, only to find the dog with her nose stuck in the garden, sniffing where the shrunken filly began her perilous journey. Scootaloo grunted.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHH! I can't take it anymore!" the pegasus filly said, throwing her hooves down on the handlebars. "We've been following that dog throughout Ponyville for hours looking for Sweetie Belle and all she's doing is stopping to smell the flowers! What's next, is she gonna buy the roses from Roseluck's stand or something!?"

"Scootaloo, calm down!" Apple Bloom urged. "Winona's doin' her best ta track Sweetie Belle down! These things usually takes time!"

"Yeah, right! If I'm tracking Sweetie Belle down, then Winona's gonna buy flowers from Roseluck!" Coincidentally, the collie tracked the scent she picked up from Sweetie Belle to the aforementioned pony's stand. She came to the near base where she found something in somepony's hind hoofprint. Winona turned and barked at the fillies. "See? What'd I tell ya!? She's gonna buy roses for Owlowiscious or something!"

"Now hang on, Scootaloo! Maybe Winona's found somethin'!" The farm filly said, jumping out of the wagon.

"What? A rose petal?"

"No." Apple Bloom galloped towards her dog and looked to where she found something in the ground. She gasped as she delicately picked up the object and showed it to Scootaloo. It was a curling piece of tail, the colors of the dull tones of pink and violet unforgettable. "This."

"So what? That's only a tuft of Sweetie Belle's tail," Scootaloo said. "So what?"

"SO WHAT!?" Apple Bloom snapped. "It's not a part of the tail that's worryin' me! Look at it! Sweetie Belle's tail only has those two kinds of curls at the end! Only this version of her tail is just..." The farm filly gasped once more, this time out of horror. Something inside of her clicked into place. "...smaller."

"Say what?"

All of a sudden, Apple Bloom darted off towards the inside of the Carousel Boutique, her eyes full of panic and enlightenment. Scootaloo galloped after her with Winona following suit. "Hey, slow down, Apple Bloom! What's the big rush about!?" Scootaloo yelled after her.

"Ah don't know, but it's somethin' Ah've gotta check out!" The farm filly shouted back. The fillies and Winona all zipped past the foyer and into Sweetie Belle's room. If intuition served right, then Apple Bloom knew that there was something in her room that could help tie in to the mystery of Sweetie Belle's disappearance. She slammed the bedroom door open and scanned around the perfectly tidy room (courtesy of her stickler-to-neatness sister, Rarity) for any clues. Eventually, her orange eyes fell onto something sitting in on the floor of her room: a lone apple and the instruction sheet to Sweetie Belle's lesson of teleportation spell. Apple Bloom read the sheet.

Then her eyes widened and her pupils shrunk.

"Oh mah..."

"What? What's going on?" Scootaloo asked with growing concern.

"Scootaloo, look at this sheet fer a minute, would ya?"

"Why? What's that got to do with anything?"

"Just read it. Please."

Scootaloo read the instruction sheet carefully. She took in every word written down, every number of steps needed to take, even the little sketches to help illustrate the point. Scootaloo read it a few times, her gears failing to click into place together. "I still don't get it," the pegasus said. "Why am I reading this? What's this got to do with Sweetie Belle's disappearance?"

"Everythin'!" Apple Bloom snapped, shocking her chicken friend back a hoof. "Look! Ya see how it says ta teleport this apple onto her nightstand!?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, what if that teleportation spell had already worked on Sweetie Belle!?" Apple Bloom asked, her answers coming out anxiously. "Think about it: Rarity interrupted her when she tried ta teleport this apple onto her nightstand, but she only struck herself with the magic!? That little piece of her tail we found outside can't be a coincidence! What if she also accidentally shrunk herself and teleported herself onto her nightstand as a result!?"

"Even if that were true, then where could she be!?" Scootaloo rebutted. "At her size, she could've been squashed, or sat on, or..."

GUUUURRRRGGLE!

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both froze in horror as they heard the grumbling of a stomach come from Winona. They turned to the border collie with shocked looks, while Winona happily panted and wagged her own tail. Then they looked at each other. Both of them knew what the other one was thinking and slowly turned back to the collie.

"Winona? Did ya, by any chance, see Sweetie Belle a little while ago?" Apple Bloom reluctantly asked.

BARK! BARK!

"Was she the size of a bug when you saw her?" Scootaloo asked, also reluctant.

BARK! BARK!

"Where is she now, Winona?"

The border collie turned over on her back and looked to her tummy. The gurgle they heard a minute ago was her digestion commencing. If the two Cutie Mark Crusaders didn't know any better, they would imagine that Sweetie Belle was inside her stomach, or even a little further. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other and face-hoofed. The good news was, they know where Sweetie Belle teleported off to.

Bad news was, she was going to be let out from a very uncomfortable place in a few hours.

"Oh, horseapples," they said in unison.

====

"Anything yet?"

"Nope. Ah'm tryin' mah best ta hold in mah lunch, though."

"Let me guess... hay and cheese sandwich with an apple, apple cider and a slice of apple pie?"

"How'd ya know about that?"

"I'm psychic. Oooooooh."

Despite Scootaloo's sarcastic remarks, Apple Bloom had repeatedly eaten the aforementioned food items for lunch every day. It became so routine, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle could memorize it all in their sleep. And speaking of Sweetie Belle, they waited for the unicorn filly to be dropped from Winona, who took behind the bushes while her master's younger sister watched her carefully. Scootaloo was too squeamish to watch herself, but she didn't want to admit it. It would label her as a "chicken." A big blow to her pride.

It had been thirty minutes, and yet, nothing happened.

"How long is this gonna take!?" Scootaloo grunted. "Don't you know that by the time Sweetie Belle will come out of Winona, she might not be Sweetie Belle anymore!?"

"Scootaloo, bite yer tongue!" Apple Bloom barked. "Don't ya dare talk that way about Sweetie Belle! She's a strong unicorn and she can take care of herself! There's no way she'll be digested in mah dog, unless Ah had ta force a whole bottle of laxatives down her throat!"

"What's a laxative?"

"It's somethin' that Granny Smith takes ta make her feel all regular again. But Ah wouldn't recommend takin' some. Trust me, Ah drank half a bottle, Ah felt cramps in mah digestive track and... well, let's just say Ah was forced ta clean up the mess." Apple Bloom shook her head embarrassed by what happened to her years ago involving her and a single drop of Flim and Flam's Super-Spectacular Laxative Tonic. "Trust me. Applejack was so angry, Ah hid away in the haystack until she got a chance ta cool off."

"Well, your word's as good as mine," Scootaloo said, still not getting what a laxative did for the body.

The girls waited for another ten minutes. Apple Bloom kept her eye on Winona. Scootaloo's patience was wearing thin. Winona was still happily panting and wagging her tail. Nothing out of the ordinary happened yet... except for...

"Hey! Scootaloo, come over quick! Ah think this might be it!" Apple Bloom shouted.

"I can see it fine from here!" Scootaloo lied. There was no way she was going to watch as nature called for Winona. Her pride of being a fearless pegasus like Rainbow Dash was on the line. Scootaloo waited for a minute as Apple Bloom kept watch over what could be a speck of white, pink or pale violet dropping from Winona's "back door." "Do you see anything yet?" she reluctantly asked.

"Nothin' yet," Apple Bloom said, peering over the bushes. "Wait, hold on... wait... wait... is that?" The farm filly squinted her eyes. Then those eyes suddenly widened with their owner's gasp. She began to jump for joy, squealing with delight knowing that she found who she was looking for. "YES! IT IS! IT'S SWEETIE BELLE! OOOH, LOOK HOW TINY SHE IS AND--!"

Apple Bloom sniffed a couple of times. Her face scrunched up with disgust.

"...and how bad she smells," she remarked. "But that don't matter right now! She's okay! She really, really is okay! Scootaloo, come see this! It's Sweetie Belle! She hasn't been digested at all!"

Apple Bloom's excitement and her claims of their shrunken friend being revealed were all the motivation Scootaloo needed to gallop over to where the farm filly found Sweetie Belle. She looked over the bushes and saw what she didn't believe to have seen at first. In the middle of the mess was Sweetie Belle at the mere size of a pea, struggling to sit on her haunches and rubbing her aching head. Sweetie Belle groaned a few times. Then the unicorn filly looked up to see the titanic faces of Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looming over her tiny self.

To Sweetie belle, this was a glimmer of hope that finally shone in these short few tormenting hours.

"So how's your day been going?" Sweetie Belle asked at an audible scream.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other with two different looks. Apple Bloom had an excited look on that would've rivaled Pinkie Pie's regular look while Scootaloo looked on dumbfounded. She wasn't sure exactly how Sweetie Belle ended up at an inch height, let alone surviving Winona's stomach for this long. It didn't really matter. They were just relieved that their friend was safe and somewhat sound. Both heaved out a big sigh.

"See? Ah told ya she was alright!" Apple Bloom chirped.

"Okay, okay, I got it. I was skeptical and I was wrong," Scootaloo quickly admitted before turning to the shrunken filly. "Say, Sweetie Belle, how'd you--?"

As the pegasus filly turned to Sweetie Belle, she and Apple Bloom made yet another terrifying discovery. Sweetie Belle was yet again gone! Standing near where she was a moment ago was Winona, who absent-mindedly slurped up the poor unicorn in her mouth again. Winona swished her morsel around in her mouth. She tasted a little repulsive on account of her traveling through the dog's bowels, but overall, Sweetie Belle had the distinct taste of marshmallows. Before Apple Bloom screamed something, Winona tilted her head upwards and, once more, swallowed the unicorn. A little bulge traveled down the dog's throat, disappearing into her chest. Then she began to pant and happily wag her tail.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo deadpanned at the dog. The farm filly sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Ah'll go get the laxative then," she said, turning around and trotting back to Sweet Apple Acres.

Chapter V - Plan of Action

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“Sweetie Belle!? Where are you, Sweetie Belle!? Please answer me!”

Rarity led her own expedition into the Everfree Forest, her search party consisting of Applejack, a bouncing Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, who scouted the areas ahead for any signs of Sweetie Belle. To Rarity’s dismay, the muck from the ground was staining her once-beautiful hooves and the methane smell was repulsive. Then again, this was Sweetie Belle she was looking for. She wouldn’t dare think about cleaning herself up once they know that Sweetie Belle was safe and sound.

“Sweetie Belle!? Wherever have you gone, little sister!?” Rarity yelled in her normal dramatic tone.

“Sweetie Belle!! It’s me, Applejack!” the aforementioned farm pony called. “Ya know, the sister you were gonna adopt fer one day!? Yeah, that Applejack!!”

“Hey, Sweetie Belle!! Come on out, will ya!? We’re all worried sick about ya!!” Rainbow Dash yelled.

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie popped her head out of the bushes and turned her gaze both ways before disappearing into the brush. Then she appeared from behind a very thin tree bark, though her body was somehow hidden from view. She disappeared again and looked under a huge boulder. There was nothing there, except for some colorful beetles and worms crawling around underneath.

Dropping the boulder down while deadpanning, Pinkie Pie lifted her head up and screamed. “SWEETIE BELLE!! COME OUT, COME OUT, WHEREVER YOU ARE!! OLLY, OLLY, OXYGEN-FREE!!”

“OXYGEN-FREE!!”

Somewhere in the Everfree Forest, a flock of birds flew away, startled by the shrill volume of Pinkie’s shouting. Everypony covered their ears from the intense shouting and they only heard ringing shortly afterwards. After rubbing her ear, Rainbow Dash flew straight into Pinkie’s face, which wore her signature child-like smile.

“Nice going, Pinkie Pie! Why don’t you alert the timberwolves where we are while we’re at it!?” Rainbow Dash shouted.

“Oh, really!?” Pinkie Pie chirped, not knowing the definition of “sarcasm.” “Okay! You know, I’ve been practicing my timberwolf calls for some time now and I think you’ll like what I can do! Watch this!” The pink part pony inhaled deeply to make her call, but was abruptly cut off when Rainbow Dash shoved her hoof in her mouth, therefore blowing a raspberry instead.

“That’s not what I meant, Pinkie,” she deadpanned.

"Plus, doesn't the old saying go like, 'Ollie, ollie, oxen free?'" Applejack asked.

"Nnnnooo. I would think of it as, 'Ollie, ollie, oxygen free,'" Pinkie Pie said. "At least that's how I remember it as."

"Nononononono. It goes like this: 'Alley, alley, ocean free," Rainbow Dash added in.

The three mares then began to argue over the old catchphrase used in foal's games. Rarity quit her trotting, feeling something inside of her boil up in a frenzy. It was anger, irritation and rage. All of this built up steam inside of her own system before she turned to her friends and, finally, snapped.

"WILL YOU ALL PLEASE BE QUIET!?" she bellowed. "HOW CAN ANYPONY THINK ABOUT SILLY LITTLE FILLY GAMES AT A TIME LIKE THIS WHEN MY LITTLE SISTER IS LOST AND ALONE SOMEWHERE IN, CELESTIA KNOWS WHERE!? CAN'T YOU ALL FOCUS AT THE TASK AT HOOF AND QUIT ARGUING OVER YOURSELVES LIKE LITTLE FILLIES!?"

Rarity's screams sent the whole bird population of the Everfree Forest flying south for an early winter. The screams left Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie’s manes all sticking backwards and their eyes showing emotionless fear. Rarity snarled while she regained her breath, but realized her mistake one second too late. The other three mares simply turned and began to trot the opposite direction but Rarity pounced on Applejack’s hind leg, hugging it tight.

“I’m sorry! I really, really am!” the fashionista sobbed. “It’s just that the thought of losing Sweetie Belle has rendered me unable to think clearly and control my emotions! I can’t bear to think of what will happen to my dear sister while she’s out there... lost... and alone! Will you ever forgive me!?”

Applejack, Pinkie and Rainbow Dash all looked at each other with unsure glances. Then the mares surrounded Rarity and helped her up from the ground. “Sure, we forgive ya, sugarcube,” Applejack said, bringing Rarity in for a hug. “We understand how ya feel. Heck, Ah wouldv'e flipped mah lid too if Apple Bloom went missin’ right in front of mah own eyes.”

"I second that," Rainbow Dash spoke up. "I'd feel the same way if Scootaloo disappeared too."

"Me three!" Pinkie Pie chirped up. "If Gummy suddenly vanished in front of me and I didn't know where that poor little alligator of mine could be, then I would literally have to tear Equestria in two until I find him!"

Applejack laid a reassuring hoof on Rarity, smiling with firm trust. "See, sugarcube? Most of us are concerned ourselves fer Sweetie Belle as we are fer our own sisters.. and alligator," the farm pony said, rolling her eyes slightly. "But don't you worry, Rarity. Ah'm sure that Sweetie Belle is waitin' fer ya ta come and rescue her. After all, that's what sisters are for."

Rarity wiped a tear away from her eye. She looked to her friends, growing a relieved smile. "I suppose that's true," she said,.her voice shaking with any remnant of her sobbing left. "Thank you everypony for helping me out. I really appreciate it."

"Think nothin' of that, sugarcube. Now, if only we can find out where Sweetie Belle is right now."

Suddenly, the ground started to quake. It started off as tiny little tremors, but as seconds passed, the tremors became big and rhythmical. Suddenly, the trees broke apart, and popping out into the clearing was the ferocious Ursa Minor. Its yellow eyes glowed with rage, waken up from its nap by the high volume of Pinkie Pie's screaming. All four of the mares were frozen in place as the ethereal bear bellowed out a roar, giving them the unfortunate glimpse inside of its maw where its teeth and its enormously large tongue framed the uvula and the narrow opening to its throat.

Everypony screamed in fright and zipped off towards the opposite direction, the gigantic cub pursuing them through the forest.

"Nice one, Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash yelled, flying over and past the branches of the trees. "You may not have attracted the timberwolves, but you sure as Tartarus had to go wake up an Ursa Minor!"

"Well, you can't always get what you want, right!?" Pinkie Pie chortled, bounding at a cantering pace.

"Ohhh... I do hope that Sweetie Belle never had to face this type of danger!" Rarity screamed. "Oh, Sweetie Belle, where are you!?"

====

“Well? Do I smell clean now?” Sweetie Belle asked as she scrubbed her back with a (clean) toothbrush.

This was her 18th bath she had for the past hour just to get the stench and filth of the insides of Winona out of her fur. Apple Bloom gave the laxative to her, and within the short amount of minutes, released the little unicorn filly from her body. They took her back to the clubhouse, where Apple Bloom placed Sweetie Belle in a small bucket while Scootaloo gathered up the bubble bath remedies from Rarity's house. It took all the strength of Sweetie Belle to thoroughly scrub the stomach acid, saliva, apple, dirt, mud and droppings out of her before she dried off with a hoof towel once again.

"Yer almost there," Apple Bloom said. "Ah guess we better dump and refill the bucket again."

Apple Bloom gently picked up Sweetie Belle with her hooves, not wanting to pick her up with her mouth. Scootaloo picked up the bucket by the handle and tossed the water out of the window. She filled the bucket up with a jug of water and squirted some shampoo in the water until bubbles arose from the surface. Apple Bloom placed Sweetie Belle in the water and the unicorn filly began to scrub her horn, mane, tail and the rest of her body.

"I still can't believe you were shrunken down by your own teleportation spell," Scootaloo stated. "I mean, come on. You were almost crushed, eaten and sat on by Big Macintosh, eaten twice by Winona and almost drank by Rarity. If you ask me, you're lucky that you're even still alive."

"Scootaloo!" Apple Bloom gasped. "Bite yer tongue! That's no way ta talk ta Sweetie Belle like that when she's gone through so much today!"

"No, she's right," Sweetie Belle replied. "I should be thankful that I've made it this far at my size. If it weren't for my reflexes, then I would've been burned in Rarity's stomach right about now. She keeps thinking that I've teleported myself somewhere in Equestria and doesn't even realize that I'm the size of a bug. But now it's too late. She must be off somewhere deep in the Everfree Forest."

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo both looked at each other, feeling pity for their shrunken friend. "Maybe we should go to the Everfree Forest too," the farm filly suggested. "Maybe Zecora has somethin' that could help you grow back ta normal size."

"I doubt it," Sweetie Belle huffed. "Besides, it's not like I fell into some Poison Joke or anything. This is a magic spell that I zapped myself with. I don't even know how to grow myself back to size, let alone teleport someplace else." Sweetie belle moved on to scrubbing her back, sudsy bubbles forming in her fur. "Besides, I already have a plan in mind."

"Really? What's yer plan?"

"I'm going to Canterlot and get Twilight to help me restore my size."

Both Scootaloo and Apple Bloom exchanged a look of slight uncertainty. "Ah'm not so sure about that, Sweetie Belle," said Apple Bloom. "Unless we happen ta be part of royalty or a member of the Royal Guard in any way, gettin' in Canterlot might be impossible."

"What are you, scared?" Scootaloo asked. "If this is the only idea that Sweetie Belle can come up with, then we may have to go through with it, whether we like it or not."

"But what if we got caught sneakin' around? We'll be in major trouble if we ever get caught."

"A-HEM!" Sweetie Belle squeaked, boldly posing like she knew the role by heart. Her two titanic friends looked down to her, both wondering why Sweetie Belle was standing with her hoof on her chest and looking posh like her sister, Rarity. "Getting in Canterlot won't be a problem for you two, because I plan on doing it myself."

"WHAT!?"

Sweetie Belle cringed under the combined volume of Apple Bloom and Scootaloo's yelling, rubbing her ear to massage the pain away. "Yep. You see, when we get to Canterlot by train, I can use my size to sneak past the guards, find Twilight and have her use her magic to grow me back. It's simple!"

"It's dangerous!" Apple Bloom retorted. "You already escaped from being digested three times already and barely survived bein' sat on by mah big brother! But with Canterlot, y'all get lost, squashed, sat on or eaten again! Ah ain't lettin' ya go ta Canterlot alone!"

"Apple Bloom's right!" Scootaloo chimed in. "We're the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and there's no way you can survive in the streets of Canterlot without us being there to stop you from getting killed! We're doing this together!"

"Yeah, we're... Hey, wait a minute! Ah didn't say we were doin' this together! Ah was sayin' we should wait until Twilight comes back from Canterlot!

"And I suppose your potion-making is gonna make things easier!"

Apple Bloom winced, remembering that one Twilight Time when, under a lot of peer pressure, made a growth potion that made the apple expand and explode. If she gave some of that potion to Sweetie Belle, she might grow into a 50 foot giant and explode... or at the very least, make her a rampaging giant filly. Apple Bloom sighed, defeated with no other options left but to go through with the micro-sized unicorn's plan.

"Alright, Ah guess we'll have to get goin, then," the farm filly said, earning a happy perk from Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. "But remember, girls, once we get back home, we'll have three very angry sisters ta answer to."

"That's no problem at all!" Sweetie Belle chirped. "I'm sure that Twilight can vouch for us once I become normal again!"

"Well, what are we waiting for, Nightmare Night?" Scootaloo asked, nearly impatient with the time spent dawdling. "Come on. Let's go and turn you back to normal."

"YEAH!!" Sweetie Belle then stopped, realizing something important about her size. "Umm... but how are we gonna get to the train station while I'm this small? At my size, if we take the scooter, then I might fly out somewhere out in the open." The three fillies pondered the problem for a minute or two. Then Scootaloo perked up once more, the solution coming to her like an inspiration.

"I got it! Sweetie Belle, could you climb onto my hoof for me?" the pegasus filly asked, extending her table-like hoof out to her inch-high friend.

"Umm... okay." Sweetie Belle reluctantly climbed onto the giant hoof. It felt like stepping onto a pillar of orange, covered in soft fur that slowly lifted her up like the uplifting motion of a hot air balloon. She could see her world going up and over, getting a good view of Scootaloo's large face with her monolithic purple eyes looming over her like a goddess watching her insignifcant body size. Then her field of vision was changed to magenta as she was lifted over Scootaloo's mane. The hoof tipped, and Sweetie Belle felt herself falling down into the forest of purple, landing softly on the orange plains.

A great shadow eclipsed over the purple forest, the unicorn filly included. Sweetie Belle looked up and the source of the eclipse. It was Scootaloo's helmet, and it enshrouded Sweetie Belle's entire surroundings, leaving her in the darkness. The strands of hair curled along the descending purple-and-white-stripe dome, and the unicorn filly ducked down to Scootaloo's head as she heard the straps snap in place.

"SCOOTALOO, WHAT THE HAY ARE YOU DOING!?" Sweetie Belle screamed from the top of her lungs. "YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I'M SCARED OF THE DARK!!"

"Sorry about that, Sweetie Belle, but this is the only way to keep you from flying out of my mane," Scootaloo's voice rang out from outside of the thick-layered helmet. "But don't worry, this is gonna be a five-minute ride, but it'll be a bumpy one. So hold on tight."

Sweetie Belle laid flat on Scootaloo's hot scalp as she felt her dark environment move up and down, presumably the pegasus cantering over to her scooter. Her stubby, underdeveloped wings began to flap, blaring trumpeting noises like the combined motors of one-hundred speedboats at a Manehattan speedboating contest. Then her world felt like it launched itself like a blasting rocket as Scootaloo sped down the streets of Ponyville to the Friendship Express station, five minutes away from the clubhouse. Although, in the opinion of the shrunken unicorn's experience, those five minutes became a living

Sweetie Belle screamed while she held onto Scootaloo's scalp for dear life, becoming hotter and hotter like a giant-sized sauna. The growing heat began to moisten to floor of the pegasus's head with sweat as she pushed her effort into flapping her wings to power her scooter. This proved to be a danger to the bite-sized unicorn filly. At her current size, one little slip might have her falling through the tiniest openings in the helmet, say the back part of the helmet where the tiniest trace of daylight shone on her mane. Sweetie Belle reached to a lock of Scootaloo's mane for safety, but that was a mistake made too late on her part.

A part of Scootaloo's mane was already soaked in her sweat.

Sweetie Belle's hoof slipped away from the hair, which contributed in having her slip suddenly down towards the back of Scootaloo's head. She used her other hoof to grip the part of the mane she held onto before, but the grip hadn't lasted long. The weight of holding Sweetie Belle alone was too great for the mane to keep to the scalp. The strands of purple hair bent down with the weight of the unicorn alone and snapped off. Terrifying shrieks were partially heard by Scootaloo as her friend slipped on her sweat and slid down the top of her moist mane. Her vision became blinded with daylight as she unwillingly slithered underneath the exit of the mountain-sized dome, that was Scootaloo's helmet.

Then things got worse as Sweetie Belle found the end of Scootaloo's mane. The laws of gravity decided to test her with a game of fate as she slid off the small incline at the end of the mane, like a ramp that Scootaloo was so fond of jumping up off with her scooter. She was launched into the air, shrieking hysterically, a soared even better than the giantess filly ever did in her entire lifetime... right into Apple Bloom's yawning maw!

It's true. Apple Bloom was really yawning! With everything that went on today, the farm filly became mildly exhausting to the point where she would yawn for a couple of times.

But that yawning proved to be hazardous as Apple Bloom's open maw welcomed in the flying unicorn filly. Sweetie Belle screamed as her world instantly became as dark as night. She quickly passing along her country friend's tombstone-sized teeth and bounced off of her enormous whale of a tongue right into her uvula. Sweetie Belle quickly grasped the uvula, hanging over the particularly dark, narrow and squishy tunnel. It felt like deja vu to her when Rarity almost swallowed her alive accidentally. Now she would have to relive this moment as Apple Bloom quickly gagged, closing her mouth and leaving her in the rancid, pitch-black cavern of flesh and teeth.

Suddenly, Apple Bloom began to choke, gagging and frantically waving her hooves around until Scootaloo looked back to her. The latter sighed and pulled her scooter over to attend to her blue-faced friend. "What is it this time, Apple Bloom? Did an apple slice get stuck in your throat again?" Scootaloo asked flatly.

Apple Bloom tried her best to speak with her uvula handled by her own best friend, but she couldn't. All that came out were gagging, wheezing noises, almost like she was on the verge of throwing up. With an impatient sigh, Scootaloo took a water canteen from her bag, opened the cap and extended it over to Apple Bloom. The latter refused, knowing perfectly too well what the liquid would do to Sweetie Belle if she drank it herself.

"Huuuggghhhh. Apple Bloom, just drink it already!" Scootaloo huffed as she tried to force the canteen into the aforementioned pony's sealed mouth. "You need to wash down whatever's in your throat or you're going to collapse from not breathing." Apple Bloom shook her head furiously. With a grunt, Scootaloo tackled her to the ground and pinned her completely to the ground. She took the canteen and forced it inside of her mouth, where the besieging water poured into the farm filly's mouth. With her throat muscles trying to show the entrance for the torrent of water into her stomach, Apple Bloom swallowed, drink, Sweetie Belle and all. She was sure she heard a tiny scream resound from the back of her esophagus, and lit at the pit of her stomach.

With a final, regrettable gulp, Apple Bloom sat up on the haunches, gasping in the needed oxygen. Scootaloo closed the cap on the canteen and patted her farming friend's back. "There, see? You're all better now," she said boldly, her boldness mirroring that of Rainbow Dash's. "No, no, there's no need to thank me. You're quite welco-- ACCCKKK!"

Suddenly, Scootaloo found herself vigorously shaken back and forth by a hysterical Apple Bloom. Her throat was held in a stranglehold by the amazingly strong grip of Apple Bloom's little hooves. "YA BIG DODO! DON'T YA HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT Y'ALL JUST MADE ME DO!?" she screamed, turning Scootaloo's face as blue as hers did a minute ago.

"Ack... save... your life?" Scootaloo asked.

"NO! YA JUST MADE ME SWALLOW SWEETIE BELLE!! AH WAS TRYIN' TA TELL YA THAT SWEETIE BELLE WAS IN MAH MOUTH, BUT YA JUST HAD TA GO AND FORCE ME TA DRINK WATER!! NOW SHE'LL DROWN AND WE'LL NEVER GET HER TA CANTERLOT!! NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!!"

Scootaloo forced the crazed filly off of her and took off her helmet for inspection. "What are you talking about?" she asked. "Sweetie Belle's not gone anywhere. I even had her in my mane under my helmet." Scottaloo ran her hoof through her hair, feeling nothing but her orange scalp. Her eyes widened with shock as she learned too late that Apple Bloom was right. She must've slipped from under her helmet when she was sweating a little. "Oh, we are soooo bucked..."

"What are we gonna do!?" Apple Bloom asked hysterically. "If Rarity finds out that Ah accidentally ate her little sister, we'll be dead! Expired! Departed! Pushin' up daisies! Sleepin' six feet under!"

"What are you, a dictionary?" Scootaloo asked. "Don't worry about Sweetie Belle. Last I heard, she made a good swimmer when she was teleported into her sister's glass of water."

"Ah don't even see how that's reassurin'! Fer all we know, she might be already digesting inside of me as we speak!"

"Actually, Apple Bloom, I'm alright in here," came the muffled voice of Sweetie Belle inside Apple Bloom's tummy. "Though it is getting really hot down here. Could you send down an ice cube in here please?"

"Sweetie Belle!" Apple Bloom held her tummy to her, speaking directly into her belly fur. "Sweetie Belle, are y'all okay!? Ah hope mah acids aren't doin' ya in, are they!?"

"No. I'm holding on to one of your apple slices, AB. Though I don't really have much time, the acids are starting to dissolve the apple." As if by coincidence, Apple Bloom's stomach began to gurgle. The filly and Scootaloo looked down at horror as they heard the belly's natural digestive process start up again, Sweetie Belle unfortunately being inside of her at this point. "Seriously, can somepony help? Pleeeeaaaasssseeee!? I don't think I can hold on much longer!"

"Well, can't you throw a protection spell around you or something?" Scootaloo asked.

"Does it look like I can put up a protection spell!?"

"To be honest, Sweetie Belle, I can't even see you right now."

"She's got ya there, Sweetie Belle," Apple Bloom spoke.

"I don't care who got who!! Just somepony please help me!! The apple's starting to sink in the acid!!"

Apple Bloom's tummy gurgled again, therefore sending its owner in a fit of panic. She grabbed Scootaloo again and vigorously shook her again. "WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO!?" Apple Bloom frantically asked. "IF WE DON'T GET SWEETIE BELLE OUTTA MAH STOMACH, AH MIGHT AS WELL TURN MAHSELF IN FER INVOLUNTARY CANNIBALISM!"

Scootaloo once again broke herself from the farm filly. "Relax, Apple Bloom! I'm working on it right now!" she said, rummaging through her backpack. She tossed out a compass, a bowling ball, a frying pan and her toothbrush and started to dig deeper. An "Aha!" was heard from the sack as she pulled out Apple Bloom's stolen bottle of Flim and Flam's Super-Spectacular Laxative Tonic. Apple Bloom's pupils shrunk to pinprick sizes as she knew exactly what Scootaloo had in mind for her.

"Oh no," she refused immediately with no effect. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

"Sorry, AB! Drastic times call for drastic measures!" Scootaloo opened up the bottle before she once again launched herself at her friend and pinned her flat to the ground. Apple Bloom struggled greatly to resist, but her efforts were all in futile as the tomboyish pegasus forced her mouth open and brought the bottle of laxative towards the open maw. "Now open wide and say, 'AHHHH!'"

With it, Scootaloo forced the other half of the bottle into Apple Bloom's mouth. The milk-like drink poured itself past the tongue and down her long, narrow, fleshy tube that was her esophagus. Unwilling gulps forced the liquid down her throat, flowing its way to the stomach sac. Sweetie Belle, meanwhile, held on to her raft... a single apple slice that Apple Bloom ate in one entire bite for breakfast... as it slowly sank into the volatile liquid, dissolving into to become nutrients for the young apple farmer. She was scared for her life... again. Not only was she accidentally swallowed by her best friend, but she was about to die... again. Of the many times she'd been eaten before, she would've gotten used to it by now. She supposed that was how the cookie crumbled.

Suddenly, a resounding few gulps were heard above the grumbling stomach area. The muscular sphincter opened up, and a waterfall of familiar white liquid splashed into her fleshy prison. Sweetie Belle was really scared now. This liquid that entered the stomach was the same liquid that helped her out of Winona for a second time. It was that laxative stuff, and Sweetie Belle knew exactly where this was going. As soon as the last drop of laxative dripped into the lake of mixing liquid, something terrible, to the unicorn's perspective, happened. The lake started to bubble, like water boiling over a heated stove. Then, the lake began to drain into the lower sphincter in the floor of the stomach. The liquid, food and Sweetie Belle were suddenly forced down through the narrow tube, rapidly emptying all of the contents of the stomach and steadily pacing through the miles of intestine that awaited them. Sweetie Belle groaned with dissatisfaction as she traveled through the large intestine. She could feel the liquidly contents churn and mix with the awaiting bile, making her dry heave a few times. Then they made their way to the colon...

In the outside world, Apple Bloom struggled to maintain herself as the laxative began to take effect. She held her cramping stomach, moaning and almost wailing to every painful sensation that traveled from her stomach to her intestines. That's when a loud gurgle became apparent to her. In a matter of minutes, Apple Bloom was about to go through that awful, messy experience again. With lightning striking her reflexes, the farm filly shot up and searched everywhere for the nearest bathroom.

The bushes? No, that would be the first step towards public humiliation.

In somepony's home? No, she didn't want to task herself with cleaning up the mess.

The outhouse? Perfect.

With fire growing in her belly (figuratively and literally speaking), Apple Bloom zipped off to the nearest outhouse she could find, her suddenly supersonic speed enough to make even Rainbow Dash herself drool. When she came upon a lone outhouse outside of Ponyville, Apple Bloom barged inside, threw Lyra Heartstring out with her newspaper still held in her hooves and slammed the door.

"Hey!" Lyra shouted. "I was using that!"

Then, to her and everypony within a five foot hearing range's horror, an ungodly sound was heard. It was the gross, sickening sound of a filly, who came down with a major case of the runs. This was followed by screams of pain, hooves banging on the walls, then finally, a tiny little drop.

And then...

FLUSH!

The outhouse door opened, revealing ghastly green clouds of smoke with enough potency to knock a few of the passing birds down to the ground with a crash landing. Everypony screamed and ran away from the scene, not wanting to be dissolved by the stench like a few of the flowers that were also unfortunate to be in the range of the smell. Apple Bloom trotted slowly out of the outhouse, gasping with relief as the excruciating experience was finally over. She fell to her belly as Scootaloo came around with her scooter, skidding it to a halt next to the fallen filly.

"That... was painful..." Apple Bloom gasped, looking up to the pegasus filly.

"Where's Sweetie Belle?"

"Wh-What?"

"Swee. Tie. Belle!?" Scootaloo repeated loudly, putting a lot of emphasis on those singular syllables. "You know, our friend, who got shrunk by accident, who you accidentally drank and forced her out of you via your digestive system? That Sweetie Belle!?"

"What are ya talkin' about?" Apple Bloom asked, slowly getting up on her hooves. "Ah was trying ta get the laxative outta mah system, so Ah went in there ta do some painful business and..." Apple Bloom suddenly gasped. She forgot about her. She actually forgot about Sweetie Belle! With all the pain of letting the laxative out, she forgot to even check in the toilet for Sweetie Belle swimming around her Number 2 liquid. To her horror, when the pain was over, she did something... something that she will never forgive herself for doing for the rest of her days.

"You flushed her down, didn't you?" Scootaloo guessed, deadpanning.

Apple Bloom nodded, too shocked to even show any other emotion.

Scootaloo facehoofed herself, slowly dragging it down her face. And she called her a dodo. "Ahhh! Apple Bloom, we were supposed to help Sweetie Belle get her out of your stomach, not flush her down like some piece of..." The pegasus grunted and galloped towards the outhouse. "I need to check the toilet. Maybe Sweetie Belle is still hanging around there somewhere."

"No! Don't go in there!"

It was too late.

As soon as Scootaloo got close enough to the outhouse, she accidentally sniffed in some of the toxic stench. Suddenly, Scootaloo coughed and gagged, holding her throat as she made a dramatic scene with her reaction to the most evil, most foul of all stenches. She stumbled on both of her hind hooves and fainted. An angelic form of the pegasus filly was lifted up towards the heavens, wearing a robe, a golden halo and a golden lyre.

Apple Bloom sighed.

This was gonna be one of those days.

Chapter VI - Perchance to Dream

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Four of the Mane Six limped through the depths of the Flame Geyser Swamp, tuckered out from their attempts to run away from the cranky Ursa Minor. This volatile and explosive land was the only safe place they could find to elude the gigantic ethereal bear cub, but, in a literal sense of the term, they jumped from the frying pan only to to land in the fire.

Rarity led the slightly injured search party with a very determined face, desperate to find a trace of Sweetie Belle in this dismal, yet dangerous land in Equestria. Applejack was held with her injured hoof draped over Pinkie Pie’s shoulder, who helped her across the plain of spewing geysers with bandages covering her eye. Rainbow Dash was stuck behind them, ready to cry as she held her wing over her left flank.

“Y’all just had ta wake up that Ursa Minor,” Applejack scolded Pinkie Pie as she narrowly avoided her tail from being burnt. “First ya treat Rarity’s time of need into a game of ‘hide-n’-seek,’ then we barely made it out with our Cutie Marks still stuck on our flanks.”

“Not mine,” Rainbow Dash whimpered with a quivering lip, revealing a spot of missing fur where her rainbow-lightning Cutie Mark used to reside. “Now I’m gonna be a Cutie Mark Crusader and those snobby brats are gonna call me ‘blank-flank!’”

“Relax, Rainbow. Ya still have yer Cutie Mark on the other side of yer flank.”

“Yeah!” Pinkie Pie chipped in. “You look like somepony who came down with Hasbro’s disease!”

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash began to wail and threw herself down in a temper tantrum, thrashing and pounding down on the sulfur and asphalt dirt. “That’s even worse!” she screamed. “Now everypony’s gonna be looking at me, and not the way I want it either!”

“Pinkie Pie! Haven’t ya caused enough trouble already!?” Applejack yelled.

“Why? Do you want some more?”

“No we don’t! Not while we’re trekkin' through Flame Geyser Swamp! If we don’t keep our ears open, we might get in some trouble, even more so since Ah ain’t got mah boots, lion-tamer’s chair, a snake charmin’ flute or a hunk of ricotta cheese with me!”

"Why? It's not like there's a chimera prowling around these parts or anything, right!?" Pinkie Pie giggled at her little banter. It was only after that she found herself the subject of Applejack's deadpanned glare. "What?"

"Pinkie Pie, that's exactly why Ah need those items," Applejack said. "Because somewhere around here, there's this big, nasty ol' chimera just awaitin' ta tear somepony apart. Apple Bloom tried ta get past through this here swamp without her items all by her lonesome when she encountered that three-headed varmint. It was a good thing I got ta her just in time. Otherwise, Apple Bloom would've been chimera chow, along with the pies she was deliverin'."

"Well that's silly! I remember this one time that a swarm of parasprites were attacking Ponyville, except I was there, you were all there and the parasprties were all there, but not all of the parasprites because the parasprites that were there might have already multiplied through their mouths and all and-- hey, what's everypony staring at?"

While Pinkie Pie was yammering pointlessly and aimlessly about the parasprites, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash all huddled together in fear. A massive silhouette rose up behind Pinkie Pie, the pony unaware of its presence until she saw her friends' scared faces. Like Owlowiscious, Pinkie turned her head backwards a complete 180 and her eyes became disproportionally huge. Standing behind her was a chimera, a mixed-up creature with the head of a goat, the head of a tiger and the tail of a live snake. All three of those heads stared down at the mares with hungry, fearful eyes, their stares making Pinkie Pie's whole body turn white.

No, seriously. Pinkie's pink melted from her body, leaving her entire self completely white.

"Four helpless little ponies lost in our swamp," the chimera's tiger head growled with venom.

"Without any items in hopes of taming us for their petty escape," the goat head added gruffly.

"And now," the snake head hissed. "We have a buffet of little poniesssss to eat."

"And how should we eat them?" the tiger asked. "I say we eat them raw."

"But I prefer them burnt nice and crispy over a geyser, like momma used to make," the goat said.

"Well, I like them boiled into a niccccce sssstew," the snake jutted in.

As the three animal heads debated with one another over how to eat the ponies, Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash moved, carrying the petrified Pinkie Pie on their backs like a statue. Silently, they made it past the chimera with no other problems, save for the fires spewing from the underground geysers. While they carefully walked through the swamp, Applejack took notice of Rarity's silence, something that seemed to span after their run-in with the Ursa Minor.

"Are ya alright, Rarity?" Applejack asked. "Ya haven't said a word since we left the Everfree Forest."

Rarity sighed. "I don't know, Applejack," she replied. "Ever since we narrowly escaped that Ursa Minor, I've been really worried about Sweetie Belle. I can't help but think deeply of whatever dangers my little sister is facing against right now. If anything happens to Sweetie Belle if she's trying to make her way back to Ponyville, I simply do not know what I would do!"

"Now don't go frettin' over that, sugarcube. Ah might not know Sweetie Belle better than ya do, but Ah'm sure she's stayin' strong and she's doin' her best ta keep herself alive." Applejack patted Rarity's back with reassurance. "Trust me. If yer doin' strong right now, than Ah know that Sweetie Belle is doin' strong too."

"Yeah. Hopefully she's being stronger right now than I am," Rainbow Dash lamented, sadly looking back at the bald area of her flank.

Rarity moaned insecurely, not feeling the comfort from the cowgirl's words. Then again, she was the Element of Honesty, so she couldn't question that. "I'm still not sure, Applejack," she said. "What if Sweetie Belle is in the face of danger now. For all we know, she could've already been eaten by some creature, or ended up somewhere outside of Equestria."

"Rarity. Sweetie Belle will be fine," Applejack stated firmly. "Ah promise you that."

"I should hope so," Rarity replied emotionlessly. Then she turned her head up to the sky, in hopes of sending her prayers for safety to Sweetie Belle "Wherever you may be Sweetie Belle, I hope you're alright. I just hope it's not a place that is disgusting."

----

"This. Place. Is. Disgusting."

Those three little words that ran through Sweetie Belle's head was clearly an understatement. There was no right word to describe the horrifying trip she went through in Apple Bloom's body and forced out of her other end. And now that she was forced out from that end, Sweetie Belle was sucked through dark, flooded metallic pipes, leading to the one place she never expected to be sent to at her current size: The sewers, the bottom of the bottom of the Equestria society that contributed into flushing away the disgusting expulsions of somepony's bottom.

This could end either way for Sweetie Belle. She was going to drown in sewer pipes, in the toilet water if there was no open place that provided air. If Sweetie Belle survived this ordeal, then there laid another ordeal that she had to face before her: Being disposed of at the sewer treatment plant along with the sludge that was Apple Bloom's waste and other ponies' leavings.

Either way, Sweetie Belle would die by the most disgusting of deaths she had ever experienced.

Death by chocolate, as if it were.

I know. Sickening.

As she was coursing through the metallic veins that was the Ponyville irrigation system, Sweetie Belle found her passage blocked by trash clogging up the pipes. A backup of sludge formed at the damming pile of paper, plastic, used diapers, anything that ponies recklessly flushed down the toilet and not thrown into the trash. Sweetie Belle both felt disgust and danger as she was being pushed down towards the blockage by the current. If she didn't find a way through, she would drown and nopony would ever know of her presence in the sewer pipes.

Panicking, Sweetie Belle tried to swim against the current away from the trash, but that was a futile attempt. The current was too strong to swim against. The shrunken unicorn filly needed a plan and fast. While attempting to swim away, Sweetie Belle saw a small opening in the pipe that allowed the air to flow out. If she could swim on over to the opening, then she would be free and not risk drowning in a blockage of poo. This was a long shot, but this was one she had to take.

Without a moment's hesitation, Sweetie Belle swam to the opening. At her size, the current of the sewer pipes were strong, but she used that to her advantage. Using her tiny little hooves, Sweetie Belle doggie-paddled over to the opening and reached for it with her hoof. She reached for the opening as far as she could, only for her miss it by inches.

With her tenacity preventing her from quitting, Sweetie Belle reached for the opening a second time.

She missed, this time only by centimeters.

"Buck," Sweetie Belle cursed in her head.

With another bout of strength left in her muscles, Sweetie Belle tiredly swam over to the opening. As if on instinct, Sweetie Belle looked over to her right by the corner of her eye. There, she saw another mess of trash somepony just flushed down the toilet, mostly dirty diapers. If she didn't know better, she would say that Carrot Cake was dumping Pound and Pumpkin Cake's diaper in a way not like how Cup Cake intended him to do. Now, with this oncoming mountain of diapers flushed down the pipe, Sweetie Belle knew she was in imminent danger. There was no way she would dodge the disgusting remains of the Cake Twins' meals.

Unless...

With a final ditch effort, Sweetie Belle pushed herself to her limits by forcefully swimming to the opening. The unicorn stretched her hoof out, her eyes narrowing and sweat drops carried away by the pipes as the diapers drew closer. With a grunt, Sweetie Belle reached her hoof out farther and farther while the diapers were only mere feet away from deciding the filly's fate.

And then...

SQUELCH!

The diapers collided with the blocking trash, thus backing up the sewers even further. The opening was blocked, and the toilet waters were refused passage to their destination. The diapers squished the trash together under their weight, crushing everything in between under the soft but deadly load of their cushiony fibers. Nothing could've survived in that deadly onslaught of garbage and fecal matter.

But then again, they failed to do in the micro-sized pony.

Sweetie Belle made it to the opening the second the diapers collided with the trash. Like a geyser, Sweetie Belle was shot up like a rocket through a narrow passage, something that only a shrunken filly like herself could only squeeze through. Resisting the strong urge to scream because of the sewer water and her shortness of breath, Sweetie Belle found her world slowly going black. Just as she saw a light at the end of the pipe rapidly approaching her, Sweetie Belle slowly slipped into a state of unconsciousness.

"Rarity. I... I miss you, big sis," Sweetie Belle thought. "Please help me, Rarity. Please."

With that, her world became dark.

====

A couple of squirrels were collecting nuts in the trees near the road.

Their caretaker and friend warned them not to go into the stream because of how there was a small pipe which released some sewer water. But then again, she didn't warn them about not using the trees nearby to collect some acorns for their nest, so they didn't bother pointing that out. Both of the squirrels were harvesting the acorns, carrying them around in their expandable pouch-like cheeks which expanded to the size of a big bird pill. All seemed to be going so well for the squirrels.

That was if one of those squirrels didn't do a spit-take at what she saw.

When the male squirrel went over to scold his mate for spitting out a month's supply of their food, the female squirrel chittered at him, pointing down at a tiny little animal in the sewer water. She was about the size of a baby mouse, all white with two grayish tones of pink and purple on her head.

The squirrel couple both looked at each other worriedly. Then they climbed down the tree bark with their little claws and approached the tainted stream, looking over the unknown creature that laid before them, unconscious and covered in a brown mess. They were repulsed by the smell, but behind that, they saw the creature to be like a pony. This was odd for them, considering that ponies were way bigger than this pony's size. She was no bigger than the squirrels' tummies, standing up.

The squirrels chittered with each other, discussing what to do.

Almost immediately, they knew what to do.

They needed to take the little pony to her.

Gently and carefully, the squirrels picked up the filly from under the undersides of her legs and gently placed her on the female's back. She wrapped her bushy tail around the little filly, providing her comfort and security for her unconscious state. Then they stormed off to their caretaker's cottage near the Everfree Forest.

****

Sweetie Belle slowly fluttered her eyes open to a headache.

She had been laying on a hard, flat surface, where the only light that shone was the overhead light that reached high above. Slowly getting up on all fours, Sweetie Belle looked around at her surroundings. She could see nothing. There were no buildings in sight, no trace of any pony to be seen. There was only darkness around her and the hard plain of blue that she was stranded on. Sweetie Belle became worried.

Where was everypony?

"Hello!? HELLO!?" Sweetie Belle shouted into the emptiness, only to be met with an echo. "Is there anypony around here!?"

There was no answer.

All there was was a pitch-black darkness surrounding the eerie glow of the light.

Emptiness.

But Sweetie Belle was not convinced. Surely, somepony had to be here. "HELLO!?! IS THERE ANYPONY OUT HERE!?" she shouted to the emptiness. "RARITY!? APPLE BLOOM!? SCOOTALOO!? TWILIGHT!? ANYPONY!?!"

Still nothing.

Sweetie Belle fell to her haunches, her ears drooped in defeat as her attempts for help were all for naught. Then she felt tremors underneath her seating. Sweetie Belle's ears perked straight up and swiveled towards the source of the noise. She looked on in fear as she saw a titanic silhouette in the darkness start to take form in the light. The silhouette looked to be a giant pony, with a long, curly mane and tail. A hue of dark white began to brighten with every earthquake-like hoofstep she took. Her sapphire eyes peered down on the filly as the latter recognized the giantess. The giant pony happened to be none other than...

"RARITY!!" Sweetie Belle yelped with a sudden rush of joy. "Oh, Rarity!! I'm so glad you're with me!! I've missed you so much!!"

The gigantic Rarity looked down on Sweetie Belle, bearing a smile.

"I missed you too... my dear little morsel."

As if the word "morsel" was the trigger word, Sweetie Belle suddenly reeled back, her blood running cold. She saw too late that her sister's smile was not what it claimed to be. "Wh-Wh-What did you just c-call me?" Sweetie Belle squeaked, shaking with growing fear. "D-Did you just call me a.. a... a morsel?"

Rarity giggled mischievously. "I do believe that you've heard correct, Sweetie Belle," she said seductively. "While I was working to create a suitable dress for my dear friends, I suddenly had this craving for something small... and sweet. And you, my dearest little sister, just happen to be the size of a little h'ors d'oeuvre coated with marshmallows. I simply cannot wait to see how satisfying it feels to have you descend down into my stomach."

"No..." Sweetie Belle shook her head frantically, daring not to look away from her colossal sister. "No, Rarity, please don't joke like that. It's not funny. You're scaring me."

"Does this look like a joke to you?"

Rarity lit her horn her baby blue aura. The magic enveloped Sweetie Belle and she screamed as she was lifted her up in the air in front of Rarity's face. The alabaster looked at the filly with an evil glint in her eye, licking her lips like she was about to enjoy indulging herself in swallowing up her puny sister.

"I think I might enjoy letting you slip down into my warm, dark throat, Sweetie Belle," Rarity cooed. "But first, I'd like to get a good smell of you. It's important to smell your food before you may consume them."

With that said, Rarity brought Sweetie Belle to her muzzle, near her nostrils. Rarity inhaled, smelling the sweet scent of her sister's fur, along with her salty sweat of her fear. Sweetie Belle began to whimper as her body was subjected the gale force vacuumed into the slimy caverns of her big sister's nose. With another inhale, the shrunken unicorn was then sucked in with that vacuum, bringing the air and the filly deep within Rarity's nose and into the dimly lit caverns of her nostril.

Sweetie Belle was forcefully passed through the orifice of Rarity's nostril and past her delicate little nose hairs, covered and coated with slimy mucus dripping from deep with the caverns. Sweetie Belle screamed as she was sucked further into the nose, becoming encased with snot along the way. Another deep and powerful inhalation brought the shrunken filly to the back of the nose, where, according to Twilight, was where the esophagus was also located behind the uvula. Curling up into a scared little ball, Sweetie Belle whimpered as she was sucked down towards the back of the throat where she might end up in Rarity's lungs.

Then, a sickly little snorting resounded from all around the fleshy tunnel.

Afterwards, Sweetie Belle felt a big gust of air push her and a fluidly blob of throat phlegm onto the back end of Rarity's tongue.

Sweetie Belle gasped.

She was back in Rarity's mouth.

"Oh no..."

"Mm-hmm-hmmm. Oh, yes."

Sweetie Belle felt herself tossed around Rarity's monolithic tongue, sliding all over her taste buds as her flooring was slick with both saliva and phlegm. The tongue curled back and pinned Sweetie Belle down on the soft muscle, and sucked in her flavor. She tasted like marshmallows mixed in with the saltiness of mucus and fear. Sweetie Belle tried to move and run, but the tongue was quicker than her, for Rarity used the tongue and threw her sister onto her molars. Then, the bottom molars lifted up towards the top molars, the little morsel screaming for dear life as the hardened teeth clamped her in both ways.

"AAAAAHHHHHH! RARITY!!! PLEASE STOO-AAAAHHH!"

A little giggle resonated from Rarity's throat. The molars ground Sweetie Belle, mashing her and chewing her into gum, though she had no trace of physical damage being done to her. Rarity must've cast an invulnerability spell when she used her magic on her so she would taste and enjoy. her sister's suffering. With an evil laugh booming out of her throat like deafening thunder, Rarity scraped her sister off of her molars with the tip of her tongue and near the back of the squishy, spongy muscle. The uvula undulated to welcome its new arrival.

"Mmm-hmm-hmm. This has been such a delicious experience. Thank you for being such a dear and loyal little sister, Sweetie Belle," Rarity's voice boomed with a sinister giggle. "But now I'm afraid this is where the role of food comes into play. Again, I thank you for being such a tasty little snack. Au revoir!"

Rarity's sea serpent tongue lifted up to the roof of her mouth. The slick layer of saliva and added mucus contributed Sweetie Belle to slowly slide down the back of the tongue, near where her sister's throat muscles began. Despite Sweetie Belle's crying and pleas for mercy, her fate was inevitable. She was going end up as food for Rarity, just a tiny little marshmallow soon to be dissolved into nutrition for her beloved family member. Her head inched closer into the entrance of the humid, moist tunnel of her siser's throat.

"No, Rarity!" Sweetie Belle sobbed. "Rarity, please!! Don't eat me!!"

GLURRK!!

With an audible swallow, Rarity sent the filly into her esophagus. But, instead of falling into the esophagus, Sweetie Belle was falling into the void, screaming as she plummeted towards a bottomless darkness below. Tears of sadness leaked from Sweetie Belle's eyes. Was this how everypony would see her as? As food? As a helpless bug? This was not how she wanted to go. She wanted to go peacefully in her sleep at the age of an old mare like Granny Smith.

Then a regal voice rang out from the darkness.

"BEGONE, DEMONS OF THE NIGHT!!"

Sweetie Belle perked herself. She knew that voice and the pony it belonged to. Before she could process who that pony was, a bright light flashed from the darkness, driving the black away into oblivion. Sweetie Belle then found herself floating down gently on a bright, warm floor. She looked up to the regal pony appear before her (thankfully not the size of a titan), her coat a midnight blue and her flowing ethereal mane like the night sky itself. A black blot bore a white crescent moon, the Cutie Mark that belonged to none other than...

"Princess Luna!" Sweetie Belle galloped up to the Princess of the Night and gave her a courteous bow. "I'm so glad you're here! Things have gone crazy! My own sister tried to eat me!"

"Calm yourself, Sweetie Belle. This is but a dream, a nightmare brought on by your current fears," Luna explained regally.

"Wait. This is just a dream?" Sweetie Belle asked, Luna replying with a nod. "Well that explains everything."

"Like why your own sister swallowed you alive?"

Sweetie Belle sat on her haunches, looking sad with her ears drooped back. She ginberly rubbed her forehoof with her other hoof and shyly looked up to the Princess of the Night. "I guess I can't hide it any longer. Ever since my teleportation spell got all mixed up, I've been trying so hard to try and get back to my normal size. I tried to call for Rarity and right now, I'm trying to get to Princess Twilight so I can get back to size." Tears formed up in Sweetie Belle's eyes, then covered them with her hooves. "But every time I tried to get somepony's attention, I would always end up being squashed like a bug or eaten! If Rarity saw me like this, then how is she gonna see me!? As a bug!? As a snack!? As a sister who can't be loyal to her size!? Why is this happening to me Luna!? WHY!?"

Luna felt pity for the young filly. She gently brought her chin up with her hoof so she could face her. Then she wiped away the filly's tears and gave her a sympathetic smile.

"I cannot answer to your last question, Sweetie Belle, but I assure you that you are not who you think you are at this moment. Just because you are small does not mean you should feel small. You are in pain of trying to make yourself big and having to go up against such perilous obstacles. I can sympathize with that. Before my hideous transformation into Nightmare Moon one-thousand years ago, I too felt myself insignificant to a certain somepony that you and everypony knows well."

"You mean Princess Celestia?"

"Yes. While Celestia may be my big sister, in the past, I felt small compared to her power. When I tried to reach to her level and become just as powerful, it came at a terrible price. I was banished to the moon by my sister, locked away for a thousand years before my return to Equestria. It was then I realized that I shouldn't have pushed myself to be as big as my sister was. I had friends of my own, but I ignored their help and tried to do everything for my own. In the end, my life was changed for the worse, but it was because in part of your sister's generosity that my life had changed for the good. I was reunited with my sister and I tried to live my life without any personal obstacles between us."

"But what does that have to do with me?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Everything, Sweetie Belle. If Rarity sees you in your current predicament, she will not take you as food or an insect. She will see you as her own little sister, somepony who looks up to her in hopes of winning her over with her affection and loyalty. You will see your sister again, but you cannot will yourself to see her or Princess Twilight alone. Through every perilous feat you escaped from, it will only bring one step backwards from your destination. If you try to go on this perilous journey alone, I assure you that at your current size, you will not succeed at this task. It will end just as how you would fear it. Do you understand?"

"I guess," Sweetie Belle replied meekly. "But what if--?"

"Do not worry, Sweetie Belle. You will be awake in a moment. When you do, you will have another friend who will be looking after you while you are at your current size. Maybe then, you will need her help to restore you back to normal." Before Sweetie Belle asked who was the other friend, Princess Luna unfurled her wings and hovered into the sky. Everything around Sweetie Belle was sucked back into the void, signaling the dream's end. As Sweetie Belle felt herself awaken from her slumber, Luna's regal voice was heard from what seemed to be a far distance, issuing her an important command.

"DO NOT BE AFRAID FOR HELP, SWEETIE BELLE!! DO NOT BE AFFFFRRRAAAAIIIIIIIIID!!!"

****

Sweetie Belle awoke to a yelp.

She rubbed her templed with her hooves, recoiling from that vivid dream with Rarity and Princess Luna. She wondered who that other friend was that would help her in her time of need. Pipsqueak? Button Mash? She didn't know. What she did know what to do was to take in her new surroundings, a place where she was mysteriously brought to. It all seemed familiar. Very familiar. It looked to be a cottage, the walls decorated with entwining vines and birdhouses perched at the walls. Her ground was on top of some wood, nicely smooth and polished. Outside the windows were some bushes, and in the background lied the borders of the Everfree Forest.

That's when it hit her.

"Am I in Fluttershy's house?"

That answer came when she found herself in a familiar situation. She felt her ground tremble with multiple rhythmic tremors, becoming stronger as those tremors drew closer. Sweetie belle reluctantly turned around and was shadowed by the looming figure of a giant pony. Her coat was made up of butter-yellow fur, her long and lengthy mane colored a gentle pink. Her shy, blue eyes looked down on the shrunken filly, blinking with curiosity.

Sweetie Belle knew she won the million-bit question: she was in Fluttershy's house.

That meant that Fluttershy herself was the other friend Princess Luna referred to in her dream.

Then Fluttershy opened her mouth to speak, her voice not too loud but also soft and gentle at the same time.

"Well, hello there, little one. Are you feeling alright?"

Chapter VII - Twice Eaten, Once Shy

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"Well, hello there, little one. Are you feeling alright?"

Sweetie Belle looked on in astonishment as the gigantic blue pool of Fluttershy's eyes were fixated on her. She felt herself in awe before the butter pegasus looking curiously down on her, as if the latter never saw a creature of this size before, aside from the Breezies and the Parasprites. Fluttershy had also never seen a tiny creature this cute before, like seeing a new kind of pygmy mouse with white fur, big green eyes and pale purple and pink fur on its head and its tail. What she didn't know was there was another pony in Ponyville with a similar color scheme like the tiny creature.

What she also failed to notice was that other pony Fluttershy was thinking about was actually right in front of her, right under her very nose... literally!

Sweetie Belle continued to stare up to the gigantic frame of the goddess-sized Fluttershy. Fluttershy, the pegasus who was one of her sister's best friends, the pegasus who allowed the Cutie Mark Crusaders to sleep over and the same pegasus who saved them and Twilight Sparkle from the wrath of a loose cockatrice. Sweetie Belle knew that Fluttershy was also one of the nicest ponies, bringing herself to do something crazy to protect not only the lives of the woodland creatures, but the lives of her friends as well.

That meant if Sweetie Belle could get Fluttershy to help her get to Princess Twilight in Canterlot, then she might have her ordeal of being a pint-sized pony settled in no time.

Without a second wasted, Sweetie Belle galloped near the edge of the table and began to bounce on her hooves, waving her front hooves frantically to grab Fluttershy's attention. "FLUTTERSHY!! IT'S ME, SWEETIE BELLE!!" the unicorn screamed from the top of her lungs. "CAN YOU HEAR ME!? I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY NEED YOUR HELP!! PLEASE! LET ME KNOW IF YOU CAN HEAR ME!!"

Sweetie Belle's attempts to grab Fluttershy's attention were once again in vain. Her voice was too high-pitched and squeak to be made decipherable for Fluttershy. All she could make out were pygmy mice squeaks, something she thought in a loose translation meant, "Thank you for saving my life earlier! I'm very, very much deep in your debt!"

"Aw, you're welcome," Fluttershy replied. "But if there's someone you should be really thanking, it should be Mr. and Mrs. Cheekers here."

All of a sudden, two squirrels popped out of the jungle that was Fluttershy's elongated mane. They humped out of Fluttershy's mane and scuttled along her hoof and onto the table, surrounding the shrunken Sweetie Belle with relief. "These little cuddly squirrels were just around the leaky sewer pipe when they found you lying in a puddle unconscious and tired. They just scooped you up and brought you here to me in no time at all, and I was able to make you all better."

Before Sweetie Belle could move another muscle, the squirrels bent down and nuzzled the little filly with their noses. Suddenly, Sweetie Belle broke out into ticklish laughter, the squirrels noses rubbing the sensitive side of her tummy area. Fluttershy smiled with a warm hum at the sight of the squirrels getting along so well with the tiny "pygmy mouse."

"See? They like you already," Fluttershy said. "Oh, and wait until you meet Angel Bunny. He may look a bit rude at first, but underneath, he's really a loyal, loving little bunny."

As if on cue, a snow-white rabbit climbed up to the top of the table, landing on his feet with slight thump! The squirrels stopped nuzzling the filly and turned to meet with the sight of their caretaker's pet before they jumped off the table. Sweetie Belle was rolling on the wooden surface, clutching her tummy area while she giggled to the aftereffects of the ticklish nuzzling. After a moment of laughing and giggling, Sweetie Belle finally calmed herself down and wiped a tear from her eye. Then she immediately found herself standing in a gigantic shadow of an animal standing directly behind her.

Sweetie Belle slowly turned around and then she let out a surprised yelp.

Towering over her like a frowning dragon was Fluttershy's pet rabbit, Angel Bunny. He wore a look on his face that was a mixture of unamused and deadpanning. His impatient thumping footsteps was like a series of three-point earthquakes vibrating through the wooden surface of the table, making Sweetie Belle shake by the force of the vibrations until she fell onto her rump. Sweetie Belle rubbed her rump and reluctantly looked back up to the monolithic figure of Angel Bunny. Even though she was shrunken down to the size of a bug, the gigantic height of the Angel Bunny was still comparable with an average-sized Ursa Minor.

She was even sure that she wet herself from the shock.

"Oh, look at that. It looks like Angel Bunny came up here just to meet you," Fluttershy cooed. She lowered her titanic muzzle to Sweetie Belle's size and nudged her towards Angel Bunny, the unicorn frozen by Angel's intimidating frown. Sweetie Belle gulped nervously then smiled sheepishly, fidgeting her hoof just to wave "hi" to the rabbit. The latter continued to glare at her, a face like stone that really frightened the bite-sized filly.

A green hummingbird suddenly zipped by, rapidly fluttering around Fluttershy's head. Fluttershy smiled and giggled slightly as the hummingbird orbited around her head, hovering next to her ear and muttering something made only in bird sounds. Suddenly, Fluttershy's eyes widened. "Oh dear, is it that serious?" she asked the hummingbird, earning a nod. "Oh, okay. If I have to."

Fluttershy turned to Angel Bunny and the so-called "pygmy mouse" with a concerned frown. "I'm awfully sorry, you two, but I have to step out for a minute. Hummingway has told me that Harry the Bear got his nose stuck in another beehive and his nose is all covered in bee stings," she explained. "Angel Bunny, I'm trusting you that you'll help take care of our new guest while I'm gone?"

Angel Bunny looked up to Fluttershy and gave her an affirming nod.

"Oh, okay. I just want to make sure that you won't give her such a hard time just like you did to the last few animals," Fluttershy stated. Angel Bunny shook his head and held one paw to his heart and raised the other paw, like he swore not to hurt the little pony.

"Okay. Just don't let her near Owlowiscous, alright?" Fluttershy asked. "You know how hungry he is around mice, you know?"

Sweetie Belle's blood ran cold as Fluttershy mentioned both Princess Twilight's pet owl and his appetite for small rodents. She once read (or heard? Sweetie Belle didn't pay much attention during that class) that owls ate small mammals like mice and insects. Since Sweetie Belle was the size of an insect and a mammal, this was already spelling quite the problem for her. What bothered her more was the sinister gleam in Angel Bunny's eye and his Grinch-like smile. Fluttershy had unintentionally given this infernal bunny a devilish idea.

Then Angel Bunny gave another nod, masking his true intentions behind his innocent smile.

"Okay, then. I'll be back in a moment." Quickly, Fluttershy flew in the air and opened the door, stopping to turn and look at Angel Bunny and the "mouse." "You two stay out of trouble, okay?"

Angel Bunny once more gave Fluttershy a nod and a masking smile, then waved with his paw, a goodbye motion. Fluttershy smiled before she turned back and flew out of her cottage, shutting the door behind her. When the pegasus was finally gone out of the house and out of his fur, Angel Bunny turned to the shrunken Sweetie Belle and unmasked his sly, sinister smile. Everypony knew Angel was tricky, sly and impatient most of the time. Whatever prank he had in mind was nothing but trouble to his future and unsuspecting victims. Sweetie Belle cowered under Angel's gaze and tried to make sweet talk with him.

"H-H-Hi, Angel Bunny. I-I-It's me, Sweetie Belle, r-remember?" the unicorn stammered, swallowing nervously. "I'm the unicorn who-o-o said bunny-sitting was gonna be adorable. I-I was there, and so was Scootaloo and Apple Bloom. You remember, don't you?"

Angel Bunny remembered. He just didn't care.

To prove it, Angel Bunny took his hind paw and lifted it over Sweetie Belle's shrunken body. Sweetie Belle screamed as the paw fell towards her, but jumped to the side just as the paw slammed the table, knocking her back by the force. Disoriented slightly by the impact, Sweetie Belle shook her head and looked up to see Angel Bunny prepare to squash her like the bug she was again. Sweetie Belle yelped once more before she dodged the falling paw, but happened to roll off the edge of the table.

The fall from the table was like falling off a five-story building and was just as scary, too. Sweetie Belle screamed the whole way down and covered her eyes, waiting for the hard impact to come and end her short-lived life. Instead, she found herself landing on something cushiony... and soft.

Reluctantly, Sweetie Belle uncovered her eyes and saw what she landed on.

All around her, she saw herself lying on a hill of magenta fabric, bordered by gold-colored braided stitches. Short, gleaming golden tails spanned out from the corners of the hills, as if they were taunting Sweetie Belle with the fuzzy stub of where her tail used to be.

That's when it came to Sweetie Belle.

She landed on a chair cushion. More specifically, she landed on Fluttershy's chair cushion.

Sweetie Belle wiped a tear from her forehead. "Thank Luna for making these chair cushions," she muttered to herself. "I would've been a goner if this wasn't on the chair."

THUMP!

Suddenly, Sweetie Belle felt herself launch from the cushions straight up in the air like a toy rocket, falling back down onto the soft fibers of the pillow. Groaning, Sweetie Belle rubbed her forehead, wondering what was it that made her fly like that. Then she looked back and saw Angel Bunny looming over her shrunken form once more, his front side shaded from the light.

The micro unicorn screamed and galloped a few paces before Angel Bunny lunged and scooped her up with his tongue and pulled her bottom half in his mouth, leaving the top half trying to wriggle out from his lips. The shrunken filly's struggles were all in vain, but pleasurable to Angel. He could feel every beating hoof from his bottom lip and his meaty tongue, every pitiful screams she blasted from her mouth. The flavor of the filly was like little marshmallows melded into one. Stifling an evil giggle, Angel Bunny slurped up Sweetie Belle's mouth and probed her with his tongue like a piece of candy, hopping away up to Fluttershy's room.

The inside of Angel Bunny's mouth smelled of old digested carrots and teeth plaque. Sweetie Belle felt herself assaulted by the merciless meat that was Angel Bunny's tongue. The tongue ran up and down Sweetie Belle's body, covering every inch of her backside and her undercarriage with the bunny's saliva. The shrunken unicorn screamed as she was thrown around in accordance with Angel Bunny's hopping, feeling herself smashing into his tombstone-sized teeth, almost getting herself scraped up by the edges of the teeth had it not for his tongue squishing her against his cheeks. One full minute seemed to pass on like it was an hour, but it was at that time that Sweetie Belle felt her prison stop all of a sudden. A stop like this could only mean trouble for her.

Then the light began to seep into Angel Bunny's mouth as his lips parted open. Sweetie Belle felt her environment tip downwards and rolled down his tongue and onto the wooden floor, covered in the sticky strands of rabbit saliva. Waving off a dripping strand of spittle from her front hoof, Sweetie Belle looked around her and scanned her area. She appeared to be in Fluttershy's bedroom, seeing a familiar bed with a familiar diamond-pattern-with-butterflies-in-the-center quilt. Sweetie Belle turned once again and saw the evil glint in Angel Bunny's dark, eclipsing eyes. Angel bunny put his paw to his mouth, blew a whistle (which, to Sweetie Belle, was like standing near a train whistle with a stethoscope on) and pointed his paw down at her.

Sweetie Belle then looked ahead of her and up high to a lone singing perch sat a pale tan bird with brown feathers on its sides and brown ears at the sides of its head. Slowly, the bird turned its head and revealed the face of the bird with an orange beak, big bright tan circles covering its black dot eyes and big brown eyebrows places over those tan circles. Sweetie Belle gulped, knowing that this bird was Owlowiscious, Twilight's pet owl and the predator to small mammals. Owlowiscious narrowed his eyes down at the shrunken filly, its instincts telling him that Sweetie Belle was about to become his snack.

Sweetie Belle flinched as Owlowiscious gazed at her predatorily. Quickly thinking, Sweetie Belle jumped and waved her hooves in an attempt to prove the old owl wrong about his future meal. "OWLOWISCIOUS!! IT'S ME, SWEETIE BELLE!! REMEMBER ME!? I WAS THERE WITH SPIKE ON THAT RIDE TO THE CRYSTAL EMPIRE!!"

"Hoo," hooted Owlowiscious.

Sweetie Belle stopped and raised an eyebrow. "ME, SWEETIE BELLE!!" she shouted. "I'M THE UNICORN FILLY WHO ALWAYS HANGS AROUND WITH APPLE BLOOM AND SCOOTALOO AT THE LIBRARY!? WE GOT TO TWILIGHT'S LIBRARY TO SPEND TIME WITH HER!!"

"Hoo."

"TWILIGHT!! YOUR OWNER, WHO TOOK YOU IN AND BECAME HER SECOND ASSISTANT!?"

"Hoo."

"NOT 'HOO', TWO!! LIKE ASSISTANT NUMBER TWO!!"

"HOO!!"

Sweetie Belle was drawn back by Owlowiscious godly, yet ungodly volume of his hooting. Suddenly, Owlowiscious spread his wings, causing a great shadow to fall onto the scared filly and dove towards her like a descending airship. Sweetie Belle screamed and turned to run away, but the owl managed to snatch her in his beak, slurp her up and flew all the way back up to his swinging perch.

As the owl glided back up to his resting place, Owlowiscious began to run his tongue all over Sweetie Belle's body, savoring the marshmallow flavor of the little filly, grimacing at the aftertaste of bunny saliva. All in all, the "pygmy mouse" was certainly a rare treat, and Owlowiscious decided to play with his prey before sending his meal down his gullet and into his stomach.

Sweetie Belle was yet again succumbed to the slithering, slimy serpent of an animal's tongue, sucking on her and feeling her taste all over the taste buds. Sweetie Belle tried screaming, but the roughness of the tongue, along with Owlowiscious's half-closed beak made it impossible for the owl to her hear clearly. Her squeaky voice must've also been the reason why Owlowiscious didn't recognize her, because her voice was almost like a pygmy mouse. Now she was going to be swallowed up like one... just like every other time, except for when Big Macintosh planted his big rump on her tiny form.

"OWLO-- glub-blub-blub-blu-- OWLOWISCIOUS! DON'T EA-- glub-glub-blub- DON'T EAT MEEEEEE!" Sweetie Belle screamed over the flooding interior of the owl's beak. Unfortunately, Owlowiscious still couldn't hear her pleas for mercy over her taste.

Suddenly, Owlowiscious pulled back his tongue and pushed Sweetie Belle towards the edge of his beak, letting in a little light in his mouth. Sweetie Belle coughed out the saliva that gruelingly made its way into her mouth before she took in what was left of a little oxygen poking its way in the dark, cramped space. She looked towards the back of Owlowiscious's beak,watching in suspense as the uvula hung over the owl's throat, introducing her to the fleshy tunnel of his stomach.

This was the only chance Sweetie Belle had to get Owlowiscious's full attention. "OWLOWISCIOUS!" Sweetie Belle screamed. "CAN YOU HEAR ME!? IT'S ME, SWEETIE--!!"

Suddenly, Sweetie Belle felt herself thrust out of the beak and straight up into the air, getting in enough airtime to look down to her final destination. That final destination awaited inside of Owlowiscious's wide open beak, anticipating its tiny catch before Sweetie Belle plummeted towards her doom, screaming while she was falling. Sweetie Belle closed her eyes and waited for the worst to come...

...but she never felt herself land in something wet and moist.

Instead, she found herself lying on a soft, feathery lump, whizzing on by in a speed that rivaled Rainbow Dash's speed along with the amplified sound of a buzzing noise. Sweetie Belle opened her eyes and saw she was lying on the back of Fluttershy's beloved hummingbird. "HUMMINGWAY! Thank you so much for rescuing me!" Sweetie Belle squeaked, earning a happy chittering from Hummingway.

"Hoo."

Sweetie belle cringed at the all too familiar hooting behind her. She looked back and saw Owlowiscious flying after them, a mad gaze gleaming in his tiny black eyes. Sweetie Belle gasped then held tightly on the back of her aviary savior. "Hummingway! Take me to Fluttershy, quickly!"

Hummingway nodded once and chirped in affirmation. Hummingway did a wide turn around the room and proceeded to fly out the open window he came in through, Owlowiscious following close behind. Angel Bunny gasped, knowing what the hummingbird had planned and quickly darted towards the open window. Just like a ninja-clad rabbit with a carrot for a weapon, Angel Bunny leapt with great speed and distance and slammed the window closed. Sweetie Belle and Hummingway yelped in surprise and quickly veered off to the left with Owlowiscious and Angel Bunny in hot pursuit.

The hummingbird swerved around and dove through every obstacle lying in the room in order to lose the hungry owl. Even though Hummingway had the advantage of speed and size to fit through places where Owlowiscous couldn't reach, the owl had the advantage of pursuit. This was not the first time that Owloiscious chased down his prey through such obstacles in the forest and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Hummingway turned and flew upwards to the ceiling, hoping to lose Angel Bunny from the ground and Owlowiscious within the strong wooden rafters and the leafy vines tangling the stretching wood. However, Owlowiscious boosted his speed with his wing power by using the extra energy he saved by pretending to lose Hummingway and his delicious passenger. Owlowiscious cut across the path where Hummingway used to make a wide turn and was now at his tail, opening his beak to scoop up Sweetie Belle with his tongue and swallow her. Sweetie Belle screamed as she saw the owl gaining on them.

"Faster, Hummingway!" Sweetie Belle yelled. "Owlowiscious is catching up to us!"

With another chitter, Hummingway dove to the left just before Owlowiscious closed his beak on nothing but air. Sweetie Belle herself felt like she was on a roller coaster ride mixed in with riding a flying pegasus's back as Hummingway made a dive towards the staircase. However, that feeling was short lived when Angel Bunny hopped up to the railing of the staircase and jumped into Hummingway's path.

Sweetie Belle and Hummingway screamed as they tried to veer into an open space, but it was too late. Angel Bunny caught the hummingbird and his shrunken passenger in mid-air and fell straight down, tumbling all the way downstairs and landed on the floor, all three spread out across the floor like a lump.

Sweetie Belle groaned and fluttered her eyes open, shaking her head. She slowly struggled to get up and gently looked at her environment. She was back downstairs with Angel Bunny lying on the floor and Hummingway sprawled out with a single broken wing. Sweetie Belle brought one hoof in front of her and slowly dragged herself only five paces across the floor...

...only to be met with the orange talons of the hungry owl.

Sweetie Belle looked up and saw the feathery giant looming over her, licking his chops and ready to swallow the "mouse" whole. Owlowiscious slowly bent down and opened his mouth, engulfing Sweetie Belle in his beak. He leaned back and felt the weakened little filly slide to the back of his mouth before--

"OWLOWISCIOUS!! What in Celestia's name are you doing to that mouse!?!"

Owlowiscious himself froze to the screeching of a calm, loud and familiar voice. He slowly turned to see Fluttershy looking down at him with such anger that would send Iron Will down to his knees. Owlowiscious shrunk back under her gaze. He was about swallow her newest patient and now Twilight was going to know about it.

"I am severely disappointed at you Owlowiscious!" Fluttershy said. "I bring a tiny, defenseless animal to be taken in and well cared for and when I come back to find some sting ointment and I find you trying to eat her, even when I specifically told you never to eat any of the mice around here! Shame on you! I thought you were wiser than that!"

Owlowiscious looked down in shame as Fluttershy turned her attention to Angel Bunny, who came to just as she came back into the cottage. "And you, Angel Bunny! I told you not to feed Owlowiscious our patients and you have deliberately disobeyed my orders! You're grounded young bunny; no more of that special salad for a week!"

Angel Bunny looked down to the ground, his ears drooping in shame as well. Fluttershy gently trotted over and scooped Hummingway up with her hooves and cupped them, looking at the fallen hummingbird with concern. "Oh, Hummingway. You came back just to save that poor little mousey didn't you?" Fluttershy cooed, a reply coming in weak chittering. "Well, don't you worry. I'll take of that mouse and I'll fix that wing of yours again."

Hummingway chirped weakly but happily. Fluttershy set him on her back before she turned to Owlowiscious once more, reverting back to her disappointed face. "Now, Owlowiscious, I want you to spit that mousey out right now, mister. You don't want me to have to give the Stare now, do you?"

Owlowiscious hooted, crestfallen and ashamed, but ultimately complied. He did not want to be the subject of Fluttershy's greatest and admittedly scariest weapon. Owlowiscious opened his beak and spat the "mouse" out, the tiny mammal coughing out the saliva just like before. Fluttershy carefully scooped the tiny animal from the wooden floor and brought her to her face, the same worrying expression grown on her face.

"Oh, dear, I'm so sorry, little mousey. You're not too hurt, are you?"

Fluttershy looked at the "pygmy mouse." As she looked closer, she could actually see the colors of the mouse through the dripping owl saliva slowly flowing off of her tiny white body. Her hair was soaked, but they were colored pink and pale purple, just like a certain filly she knew fairly well. Why, if she didn't know any better, Fluttershy would say the mouse looked like...

That's when Fluttershy finally realized it.

Gently, she brought her hooves closer so they would touch her muzzle, getting a better look at the diminutive form lying down on her soft yellow hooves. Fluttershy gasped as she recognized the little filly held between two friendly hooves looking up at her with a mixture of gratefulness and fear. After a minute of taking the information in, Fluttershy broke the silence with a single yet shaky question.

"Sweetie Belle, is that you?"

Chapter VIII - Arrival Platform Ponyville

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"Oh, you poor, poor, filly. I can't imagine you having to go through such an awful time."

Sweetie Belle wiped herself off with a handy dishtowel that Fluttershy kept especially for tiny animals when it was their bath time. This was the umpteenth time the Sweetie Belle took a bath in a small cup after being soaked in both bunny and owl saliva. Before then, it took her half an hour to recoil from her terrifying experience with Owlowiscious and the rabbit from Tartarus, held in the gentle embrace of Fluttershy's hooves against her soft, snuggly fur. It took Sweetie Belle time to come back to her senses, but it was nothing that Fluttershy's soft shushing and reassurance couldn't help. All in all, this was the first peaceful hour the tiny unicorn earned on this rough and hectic day.

Sweetie Belle rubbed her towel vigorously through her drying mane which, when she took it off, looked like the hairstyle of Bride of Flankenstine before she shook her head and it reverted back to its usual puffy state. "Thank you for caring for me, Fluttershy," Sweetie Belle said somberly. "Really, I appreciate what you've done for me so far. But I think it's gonna take more than your kindness and a few weeks of therapy to clear this out of my head."

"In any case, I'm just happy that you're alive," Fluttershy said before she perked up with a thought. "Oh! I have to tell Rarity about your condition right away! If she really has been looking for you just like you said, then that means she must be worried sick about you! I can't stand to see Rarity like this! We have to go and find her!"

"Don't bother, Fluttershy. I'm pretty sure she's halfway to Appleloosa trying to find me," Sweetie Belle said, sitting on her haunches as she rested her head on her hooves. "Besides, even if we find Rarity, I might end up getting lost or eaten somewhere in between. All I want is to get back to my normal size so I can get on with my life."

Fluttershy tapped her bottom lip with her hoof, pondering any possible option that came to mind. "What about Zecora? I'm sure she can conjure up a potion that will bring you back to your size."

"No," Sweetie Belle said flatly with the wave of her hoof. "Zecora told me and the Crusaders that she was going some place very far away so she could get a refill on some rare and powerful potion ingredients."

"Oh? When did she say that?"

"On Wednesday, when we tried to get our Cutie Marks in potion-making using some rare and powerful potion ingredients."

"Oh, umm... okay..." Fluttershy once again tapped her bottom lip with her hoof and hummed, but perked when another idea struck her like an arrow. "I know! Why don't we go and see if we can find Trixie? I hear she's reformed and she's got magic that's identical to Twilight's magic. Maybe she can help you out."

"And end up as one of Trixie's new sideshow freaks?" Sweetie Belle interjected. "Thanks, but I'll pass."

"Oh. Okay, then. Never mind."

Sweetie Belle felt a shiver of realization run through her nerves as Fluttershy's idea of Trixie inspired the shrunken filly. "You know what? That actually brings me to my original plan," Sweetie Belle squeaked to the gigantic pegasus. "I was wondering, since you're the Element of Kindness and a close friend of Princess Twilight, that if it was possible you could bring me to Canterlot so Twilight can use her magic and help restore me back to my original size."

Fluttershy "eeped" with a volume of a screeching dragon to Sweetie Belle and hid her face behind her mane. "Umm... I'm sorry, Sweetie Belle, I can't," she said, her voice becoming quite timid. "The Royal Convention is strictly for members of royalty only. I'm not sure if getting inside Canterlot is possible, let alone a being friend of Twilight's. Please don't be mad at me..."

Sweetie Belle grunted, throwing her hooves down on the hard wooden surface. She got up on her hind hooves and started to pace around the table, stomping her hooves down with frustration. "But we have to do something! I can't stay stuck like this when there are ponies looking all over Equestria for me! We have to go to Canterlot!"

"I'm sorry, Sweetie Belle," Fluttershy apologized. "Even with my role as the Element of Kindness, the Royal Guards won't let anyone in unless they're a member of royalty. If they caught anypony else trying to sneak into Canterlot Castle, then Celestia might banish you, or lock you in a dungeon, or..."

"Or banish me then lock me in the dungeon in the place she banished me to," Sweetie Belle finished with a roll of her hoof and a grunt. "I know, I know, but there has to be a way for me to get to Twilight! If I have to stay at this size for another minute, then I might go crazy! I have to go to Canterlot!"

"No, not in your condition, Sweetie Belle. You barely managed to survive nearly being eaten by Owlowiscious," Fluttershy said with a firm yet direct voice. "If you go out there without me to protect you, then I'll be responsible for whatever happens to you. Don't you know how horrified Rarity would be if I told her about how you tried going into Canterlot at your size, all by yourself?"

"Of course I do!" Sweetie Belle retorted. "That's why I have to go! Rarity is putting herself in danger looking for me out there while I'm stuck here not getting anything done to get me back at my own size!"

"But Sweetie Belle..."

"But nothing, Fluttershy!" The shrunken stood up tall and puffed out her chest, her face etched with determination to give the appearance of bravery as an illusion of the waving CMC logo appeared behind her. "I am a Cutie Mark Crusader and we'll never give up, not on each other, not even on themselves! I've run through obstacles today that an average bug never lived to tell and I survived them! I saw what it was like for food to pass through somepony's tummy and I survived it, too! If I lived through all that turmoil, then I can sure as Tartarus survive the streets of Canterlot at my size!"

Fluttershy gasped. "Sweetie Belle! Watch your language, young filly!"

Sweetie Belle perked and cupped her hoof over her mouth, smiling sheepishly to the gentle scolding giantess. "Sorry."

Fluttershy cracked a smile. She gently scooped up the micro filly with her hooves and brought her to her face, giving her a ticklish nuzzle. "It's alright, Sweetie Belle. There's no way I can stay mad at you for using such language," Fluttershy said as she nuzzled Sweetie Belle with her snout, the size of a hay wagon. "Now, let me find someplace to keep you safe, Sweetie Belle. I can't leave you alone now that I can't trust Angel Bunny and Owlowiscious with you in your condition."

Sweetie Belle froze, eyes bulging and frown reaching her shoulders. "WHAT!?" The tiny filly threw her hooves down on the top of Fluttershy's nuzzle and looked at her with desperation glimmering in her eyes. "No! I can't stay here all weekend! I need to go to Canterlot so Princess Twilight can restore me to my original size! I have to go to Canterlot, I have to!"

"I'm sorry, Sweetie Belle, but I can't risk you going to Canterlot alone. You've been through a lot today and I have to keep you safe until I can find Rarity."

"But Fluttershy--!!"

"No buts, young filly. Canterlot is off-limits to civilians and there's no way we can reach Twilight, even with me being the Element of Kindness. We're going out into town so we can search for Rarity. Until then..."

Before Sweetie Belle knew it, Fluttershy lifted her face and gently trapped the tiny unicorn between her lips, like a mother cat did to her kitten. Next, Fluttershy reached over and took a small cardboard box, big enough for Sweetie Belle to fit with enough room for her to move around. Bringing the box up to her face with her hooves, Fluttershy deposited the micro-sized filly who landed on her belly with an "OOF!" Sweetie Belle rubbed her head and gently shook it before she looked up to see the buttercream-colored titan looking down on her like a goddess, slowly closing the lid to the box with air holes at the top.

"You'll have to stay here in this box."

"Fluttershy! WAIT!!"

The lid closed over the box, leaving Sweetie Belle in complete darkness, save for the circles of lights peering through the air holes. Sweetie Belle groaned and fell to her haunches, her ears drooped back to her head. She could feel her cardboard ground tilt and shift as Fluttershy gently placed the box into her saddlebag and trotted out of her cottage. Closing the door behind her, Fluttershy spread her wings and gently took off in the air like an elegant bird, flying out to Ponyville plaza in hopes of finding Rarity somewhere. Maybe then, Fluttershy would have to explain Rarity the dire situation involving her very little sister.

Sweetie Belle couldn't describe what she felt when she was trapped in the box, feeling her world being lifted up in the air. It felt like she was flying in one of those airships that rich ponies traveled in, or like the hot air balloon with magical propellers helping it move through the sky, just like Rainbow Dash's pet tortoise, Tank. Sweetie Belle didn't know what to think. Right now, the only obstacles between her and an opportunity for her life to restore back to normalcy was the box and the gentle giantess, Fluttershy. Only a little bit of light shone into the shrunken unicorn's prison which dimmed with the flap of the saddlebags closing over the opening.

Sweetie Belle prayed that Luna would somehow help her out of her current predicament. She was grateful that Fluttershy helped restore her nerves for the past hour, but she couldn't stay in this box. She had to get to Princess Twilight. She couldn't sit in a recyclable box, spinning her wheels while another potential danger came to her at her size. Sweetie Belle needed to get to Canterlot, even if she had to risk her mane along the way like she did with her entire fluffy tail.

The micro-sized unicorn hoped she didn't risk her life with her mane as well.

====

Fluttershy gently glided through the sweet Ponyville sky, her head dropped down low as she scanned the area for a white unicorn with a deep, curly indigo mane and spiral-like tail. Rarity wasn't normally all that hard to find. Everypony would know the whining over a tiny spot on her coat or the consistent paranoia of drizzling rain ruining her beautifully coiffed mane. Bu that pony was nowhere in sight. Rarity must've taken off into the Everfree Forest and possibly somewhere beyond.

If so, that only meant that Rarity was in somewhere in either the Flame Geyser Swamp, or in the swamp where the Cajun ponies resided. That was all the lead that Fluttershy needed.

Fluttershy gently turned left at the shape of a wide arc, careful not to tumble the tiny Sweetie Belle in her cardboard box. She didn't really mean to keep the shrunken filly in the box like a pocket pet. After all, she was just as concerned for her wellbeing, as she was with her friends and her animals. If something happened to Sweetie Belle, Fluttershy wouldn't know how to tell Rarity, let alone of how she shrunken and was almost washed down her gullet.

Still, Fluttershy had to keep Sweetie Belle away from any danger until she could at least be reunited with Rarity. Nopony ever knew when danger was going to strike next. It could come in the form of a thundercloud, a gust of wind, or a certain cross-eyed pegasus mare who was making an erratic beeline towards Fluttershy.

Cross-eyed mare?

Fluttershy looked up too late and gasped as she saw a blur of grey make a crash course with each other.

"AAAH!"

THWACK!

POMF!

At that moment, after the dust settled on the dirt grounds of Ponyville, two bodies of pegasus mares lied on the ground, their packages dropped and wings unfurled open from the impact. Fluttershy groaned as she tried to move her now aching body, each muscle in her body attempting to resist movement while she lifted herself from the ground. An equally painful groan was heard next to Fluttershy, one that everypony in Ponyville knew too well. To confirm her suspicions, Fluttershy turned to see the pony she crashed into.

Her suspicions were spot-on.

Derpy Hooves was the culprit who crashed into her by mistake. The blonde, cross-eyed mailmare of Ponyville was known for her clumsiness, her walled eyes and her obsession for muffins. Why, she even subscribed to fourteen different magazines about muffins, among them being "Muffins Digest" and "Muffins Today." Some of those magazines were scattered along with their own kind, adding in her official mailmare hat, sealed envelopes, most of them containing bills, a few packages and Fluttershy's cardboard box.

Derpy slowly rose from the ground and gently shook her head, blinking her abnormally-placed eyes before turning to face Fluttershy. A sheepish smile broke across the clumsy pegasus's face. "Oops. Sorry, Fluttershy, I just don't know what went wrong."

"Oh, umm... it's alright, Derpy," Fluttershy said. "Just make sure you watch where you're flying, okay?"

"Okay," Derpy replied. She gathered her fallen mail and stuffed them back, placing her mailmare hat on her blonde-maned head before taking off to the sky. Fluttershy smiled; Derpy was a good egg, but even Fluttershy had to agree she was a few blueberries short of a muffin. With a sigh, Fluttershy gathered up her fallen box and gently lifted the lid off to peek inside...

...only to realize that Sweetie Belle was gone!

Fluttershy gasped, covering her mouth with her hooves in shock. "Oh no! Oh no, no, no, no, no, no! Sweetie Belle's gone! At her size, she could be anywhere! She could be already hurt! She could be lost! Or stolen! Or stepped on!" Fluttershy shot up in the air, her breathing quickened with wracking nerves as she scanned the ground for any moving white dot with a hint of pink and violet. "I have to find Sweetie Belle before something awful happens to her!"

With that, Fluttershy flittered her wings and hovered a foot above the ground, searching closely for Sweetie belle, whom she suspected didn't go far.

What she failed to realize was that Sweetie Belle was already far from her slightly overprotective protector.

====

THWACK!

Sweetie Belle screamed as her body was knocked around the box that rolled from its saddlebag, which opened upon impact from two giant colliding mares. When the box stopped tumbling, Sweetie Belle found herself lying flat on the walls of her recyclable prison, her breath knocked out of her lungs. The filly coughed as she tried to restore oxygen to her her aching lungs. From all of the Crusading Sweetie Belle did with her friends, she could have been used to a little danger. With a groan, Sweetie Belle tiredly lifted her face as the blinding light of the air holes hit her eyes right in front of her.

Sweetie Belle perked.

The air holes were right in front of her.

Sweetie Belle's limbs wobbled, threatening to keep her down to the ground so she could have time to recover. However, the new spangled shard of revelations prompted Sweetie Belle to ignore the pain as she hobbled closer to the air holes. She carefully inspected the openings. Each of the air holes was about one-and-a-quarter, only big enough for Sweetie Belle's size to squeeze through.

With a wiggle of her blank thighs, Sweetie Belle reached her hooves through the hole and began with her head. The cardboard was actually soft as fluff, but it also made Sweetie Belle the obstacle to her freedom. Her horn kept getting tangled up in the soft, shredded fibers, but it was fortunate that she squeezed her head through like she would with a wool sweater.

"Note to self: Thank Mom for giving me those tight wool sweaters for Hearth's Warming Eve," Sweetie Belle thought to herself.

With her head now poked through the hole of the cardboard box, Sweetie Belle looked around the outside. She turned and saw the titanic yellow figure of Fluttershy, sprawled out what seemed like a mile from her. Everywhere she looked, Sweetie Belle saw many large white rectangles, large brown rectangular prism-shaped objects at a size similar to a row of small buildings and a giant blue blob with a cave and a black crescent-shaped visor sticking out from it.

Sweetie Belle drooped her ears back and deadpanned.

"Derpy. Why'd it have to be Derpy?"

Sweetie Belle wriggled her tiny body though the hole, only pushing on the outer walls of the cardboard in order for her to extract herself from her prison. Suddenly, Fluttershy's gentle booming voice resounded, sounding almost like a painful groan as the yellow hills began to rise on those monolithic pillars Sweetie Belle called hooves.

The filly gasped.

She needed to get out of the box quickly before Fluttershy could put her back in.

Digging like how Winona normally did when burying a bone, Sweetie Belle rapidly dug her hooves into the ground like two miniature shovels. She dug in and pulled herself, grunting as the effort of getting unstuck began to exhaust her. Looking over, Sweetie Belle saw Fluttershy's colossal body struggle, but she eventually made it all the way up, her wings spread at their full width until they furled back to her body. There wasn't much time left. If Fluttershy discovered Sweetie Belle's escape attempt, the shrunken filly would never reach Canterlot.

With an ounce of strength, Sweetie Belle pulled herself harder, her blank flanks slowly inching out of the hole. When the apex of her thighs slowly dragged themselves from the small opening, Sweetie Belle popped out of the hole and landed on her tummy with an "OOF!" The filly steadily rose to her legs and shook her head before looking up to see the giant shapes of Fluttershy facing the good-hearted, klutzy mailmare.

"Oops. Sorry, Fluttershy, I just don't know what went wrong."

"Oh, umm... it's alright, Derpy. Just make sure you watch where you're flying, okay?"

"Okay."

Sweetie Belle took the beginning conversation as a sign to quicken herself and hide. Scuffling up to her hooves, the tiny filly sprinted to the nearest gigantic object she could find. She hid behind the house-sized packages and peeked around the corer, only to discover the klutzy giant pegasus picking up her fallen mail. Sweetie Belle flinched with shock as she saw the package she hid behind being lifted up by a pair of grey pillars, bringing the brown-wrapped parcel up like a humongous crane and safely deposited it back into her mailbag.

Thinking quickly, Sweetie Belle ducked underneath a magazine...

...only to realize that the magazine was lifted away back into Derpy's mailbag.

Sweetie Belle covered herself with an envelope.

That, among the other envelopes were all inserted into the mailbag.

Sweetie Belle backed herself unknowingly into Derpy's hat.

Then her world was flipped as Sweetie Belle saw a giant gray hoof grab the hat and placed onto the wall-eyed giantess's head, making the filly scream while she fell into a dark blonde forest. The forest smelled like the autumn air, which overpowered Sweetie Belle's delicate nostrils as she landed on the soft soil of Derpy's scalp. The filly grimaced; the scalp was decorated with dandruff. She wondered if there was any muffin-scented shampoo she could give Derpy if she could make it out of her flight alive.

It wasn't that Derpy was a horrible flyer.

It was that Derpy's wall-eyes frequently altered her vision, thus making her flight path erratic and, in the case of fragile objects and the tiny unicorn, completely unsafe.

To prove this point, Sweetie Belle held on to a strand of hair, the size of a tall tree as her world felt going up like a supersonic express elevator, then zoomed off into the direction only known to Derpy. The pegasus twisted and turned in her flight path, making Sweetie Belle's experience comparable to a roller coaster with no restraints. Sweetie Belle's face became green as the ride for her life made her stomach do twists itself, threatening to release her morning breakfast out of her digestive system.

Five minutes passed, which, to Sweetie Belle's horrifying experience, was like five hours at best.

Then her world felt itself tilt downwards as Depry began to descend down to Earth, only stopping when her hooves gently landed on a wooden ground with a "CLOP!" Sweetie Belle was left shaken, taking a minute to process her feelings, followed with quick rapid breathing, all while her morning meal began to travel upwards into her esophagus. "I think... I think I'm gonna..."

With a quick puffing of her cheeks, Sweetie Belle lurched forward and spilled her contents, spewing it all over the grey fur and formed a humongous puddle soaking past the fur and into the scalp. Sweetie Belle wiped her mouth and gasped. Now she felt what an orange felt like when she squeezed the citrus fruit in the juicer.

"That's it," Sweetie Belle panted. "I'm never going to the fair again."

The dark, spacious cavern above Sweetie Belle shook as the hat was lifted off of Derpy's head. Daylight broke through and burned into Sweetie Belle's eyes, prompting her to cover them with her hoof. For a moment, Sweetie Belle's eyes adjusted to the light and blinked them to eradicate any blurriness from her vision. When her vision focused into a clear view, Sweetie Belle climbed at the top of Derpy's mane and looked around her.

She recognized where she was at.

This was also the intended destination that she had waited all day for her to arrive.

It was the Ponyville train station, loaded with busy passengers intending to take the train from Ponyville to the Crystal Empire, Appleloosa or to the prestigious city of Manehattan. Looking at the loading charts, Sweetie Belle saw, to her chagrin, every train to Canterlot cancelled on account of the royal convention. It didn't matter to her. She knew ordinary passengers would have to be dropped off here at the station, so long as they didn't happen to be a part of a nation's member of royalty.

That gave Sweetie Belle an idea.

It had risks to it, but it would be well worth it.

Sweetie Belle rummaged her way through Derpy's mane, traveling through the thick forest of blonde hair until she found a clearing, presumably being Derpy's nape of her neck. The brown strap from her mailbag was wrapped around that nape, giving Sweetie Belle and edge to her escape off of Derpy. Without a moment's hesitation, Sweetie Belle galloped across the neck and slid down the incline, only stopping when the foot-thick strap hit her tiny little hind hooves.

With that, Sweetie Belle rose back up on her hooves and climbed up on the strap, letting her rear hooves climb down the hard, woven fabric, letting her frontal hooves anchor her grip. Inch by inch, Sweetie Belle carefully climbed down, proceeding with caution, for fear of a six-story fall down to the hardwood floor, something hard enough to definitely end the micro-sized filly at her size. Dripping sweat threatened to lubricate her fur as Sweetie Belle made it to a slight twist in the strap, leading down to the top flap of the mailbag.

So far, everything went like Sweetie Belle planned. Derpy's hoofsteps jiggled the bag a little, making the grip on the flap a small challenge for Sweetie Belle. The tiny filly held onto the flap by clamping her full body on the top of the fold, both sides secured by her hooves and held down by her tummy. Sweetie Belle nodded; this was happening like she planned it to be. The next step was riding the flap down to the floor once Derpy began to make her rounds at the Ponyville train station post office.

That plan came to motion as Derpy turned and went into the mailroom of the train station. With her lowering muzzle, Derpy opened the flap, completely unaware of the tiny filly hitchhiking on her mailbag. Sweetie Belle whimpered as her world was turned upside down, her hooves slipping from their grip on the flap. The fold straightened and Sweetie Belle's hooves finally lost their grasp, causing the filly to fall at a height of a one-and-a-half story building. Quickly, the tiny filly turned and landed hard on her hooves, just like how Opalescence normally did with her paws.

Sweetie Belle winced from the pain at first, but she knew she could walk it off. With her tiny frame finally on the floor of the train station, Sweetie Belle cantered underneath Derpy's body, a safe passage to avoid her gigantic looming hooves each containing enough power to squash a bug. The filly shivered from the memory of those poor ants turned to bug paste under those two ponies' hooves.

With Derpy only moving her head to lower and pick up the mail in her mouth, Sweetie Belle darted out of the mailroom and into the outside world of the train station. Everywhere she went, she saw titanic ponies trotting about, fillies nearly the size of Canterlot Castle and suitcases as big as the biggest mountains, stretching as tall as the sky itself. Most of the ponies waited at the train's platform, waiting for the Friendship Express to stop and disembark their passengers so they would have to move on to Canterlot to drop of any royalty.

Galloping along the outer walls of the ticket office was as safe as Sweetie Belle played it. She managed to avoid the hooves, squeezed through and/or climbed over any luggage leaning against the wall. The stealthy running seemed to do Sweetie Belle wonders, as nopony saw her, nor heard her and mistook her for a bug. However, as Sweetie Belle rounded the corner, the tiny filly realized one very important obstacle: the open spaces where anypony could trot through and unknowingly step of her.

Sweetie Belle swallowed a lump forming in her throat. This was where the idea began to get difficult.

Bouncing on behalf of her hooves, Sweetie Belle launched herself into the open, only to fall in the path of an oncoming luggage cart. Screaming, Sweetie Belle ducked to her right, just under the cart as the wheels rolled on by. When the cart passed, Sweetie Belle ran to the platform, dodging incoming hooves that shook the ground like earthquakes and jumping away from the lethal black wheels of luggage carts just as they were pulled by the station's employees.

Next came the platform. Sweetie Belle felt intimidated by the looming maze of hooves blocking her way, followed with the flanks that threatened to fall and sit on the tiny unicorn. The dead ends were the suitcases sitting right beside those hooves, making the way through the hooves more difficult and challenging than the Royal Canterlot Hedge Maze. Sweetie Belle jumped in, navigating her way through the hooves, shaded by the ponies' tummies. Sweetie Belle turned around corners after corners. She ran straight into the suitcases that blocked her way to the platform. She bounced off of a few sitting flanks, thanking Luna she was not there earlier to be crushed underneath that excess pressure.

Sweetie Belle seemed lost in the twisting labyrinth of monolithic hooves, when at last, she spotted light peering through the hooves of a filly. Sweetie Belle galloped under a few ponies, past the filly's hooves until finally, she made it. The tiny unicorn gasped with awe as she saw the platform, the edge of the train station where the floor was painted yellow, a caution to those who want to attempt a dumb jump over the edge and fall on the train tracks.

And speaking of trains, the next one destined for Canterlot was arriving very shortly.

By Sweetie Belle's count, the Friendship Express would stop at the station in 3... 2... 1...

"WHOOOOOOOO! WHOO-WHOOOOOOO!"

Sweetie Belle jumped to the high volume of the train whistle's thundering blow. Coming in from the left was the Friendship Express, a steam locomotive pulled by four musclebound stallions all wearing blue-striped hats and aprons. The train screeched to a halt, which nearly shattered Sweetie Belle's eardrums to pieces. She was definitely gonna go deaf at an early middle age, what wit the noises and such.

The conductor opened his stopwatch, looked at the time, closed the watch and yelled, "All aboard!"

The doors opened.

As if a flood had passed through the gates, a crowd of ponies began to swarm, all of them forced off at the Ponyville train station as a detour or needing a place to stay, due to Canterlot being closed off to civilians only. Sweetie Belle's pupils shrank as a tempest of hooves began to fall on her. Sweetie Belle screamed as she frantically dodged every hoof that tried to crush her to oblivion, nearly being swept away by their tails into the paths of doom. One such stallion lifted his hoof to take another step, one that cornered Sweetie Belle to the point of becoming immobile with fear.

Sweetie Belle screamed.

The hoof came down.

Of course, the hoof would've come down on top of Sweetie Belle, had it not been for the gigantic filly she ran underneath. The filly's mother dragged her daughter away, the latter kicking her hind hooves away as she tried to back up from the swarm of tourists, not knowing that a pony her age was kicked forward by her hooves, bounced through the doors and under a seat as the doors closed. Sweetie Belle groaned with slight pain, but luckily rose up back to her hooves without further injury.

As she looked around, Sweetie Belle saw herself under a cot, all arranged in a row running along the aisles of ivory carpeting. Her ground was a hardwood floor, only painted green instead of the natural wood color. Everywhere she looked, Sweetie Belle saw different ponies lying on the cots, consisting of a few regal crystal ponies, a couple of royals from Saddle Arabia and an elderly zebra mare.

At that moment, Sweetie Belle realized where she was.

She was finally on the Friendship Express to Canterlot.

After hours of turmoil, stomachs and giant hooves nearly crashing down on her, Sweetie Belle was finally on the Friendship Express, the same train that would lead her to the end of her troubling days.

Next stop, Canterlot and Princess Twilight Sparkle.

====

What Sweetie Belle failed to notice, during the ruckus of crowded hooves threatening to end her short existence was a certain group of ponies, covered in mud, burns and bruises. The smell of the swamp gas nearly drove everypony mad, some of them gagging from the smell, others keeping their distances whilst holding their noses together. One such mare had spent the entire ride, deadpanning and arms crossed as her search for Sweetie Belle came up zilch and zero. Her friends weren't successful in their find, either, which nearly drove Rarity over the wall.

Their search led Rarity and her friends to the Cajun pony swamp, asking the locals for any sign of Sweetie belle, all receiving a solemn shake of their heads. Pinkie Pie and Applejack seemed to enjoy the trip; they were discussing with some of the locals how distantly related they were as cousins, while Rainbow Dash hid her shameful self from everypony, not wanting them to see the place where her fur and Cutie Mark was shaved off trying to escape the Ursa Minor.

When they disembarked from the train, Rarity felt a flurry of emotions twist inside her: anger, sadness, anxiety, stress. Not even Applejack's honesty and reassurance could calm her down, what with the thoughts of losing Sweetie Belle tormenting her mind. Sweetie Belle was nowhere to be seen. Rarity eventually had to suck it up and, when she could get the chance, tell her parents about her sister's disappearance.

Though, much of her relief waved upon her as she saw Fluttershy hovering above the ground.

"Fluttershy!"

The cream-yellow pegasus looked up from her gaze and saw a teary-eyed Rarity canter towards her, her kindness instincts acting on instinct. Fluttershy opened her arms and Rarity rushed into her friend's gentle hold, sobbing into her chest as the tears began to ruin her mascara. A weave of black flowed down her cheeks and a gentle hoof stroked the unicorn's mane, all while Fluttershy gave her comforting reassurance.

"Oh, Fluttershy! Thank goodness we found you!" Rarity sobbed. "Oh, it's so horrible, darling, just horrible! My one and only sister id gone! I barged into her room as she was performing a teleporting spell, and now she's gone!" Rarity flung her head back into Fluttershy's chest while the latter continued to stroke her mane, moving on to patting her back. "I've looked everywhere! I've looked in my house, around Ponyville, even in the Everfree Forest and the Flame Geyser Swamp! But we can't find her-her-her-herrrrr!"

Fluttershy shushed her distressed friend, smiling. "Rarity, its alright. Sweetie Belle's alive, I've seen her."

Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie gasped, but none as shocked as Rarity. She broke free from her hug and looked deep into Fluttershy's eyes, gazing at her like a psychotic mare. "Y-You've seen Sweetie Belle!? Where!? Where is she!?"

"Umm... Rarity, I think you need to calm down first before..."

"Keep calm!? How can I keep calm when you've finally found my baby sister!?" Rarity dropped Fluttershy and raised both hooves at the side of her mouth, like she was speaking through a megaphone. "SWEETIE BELLE, PLEASE COME OUT, LITTLE SISTER! I'M SORRY I DISRUPTED YOUR SPELL! I'M SORRY I NEVER BOTHERED TO GO TO FLUTTERSHY'S PLACE! PLEASE, BABY SISTER, COME OUT AND SEE ME!"

"Rarity!"

The five mares turned and saw Apple Bloom and Scootaloo riding towards them using the scooter and the wagon hitched to the back. Scootaloo veered her scooter to a halt, creating a skid line in the dirt before she and Apple Bloom took their helmets off and ran towards their sisters. "Apple Bloom! What in tarnation are ya doin' here!?" Applejack scolded, her eyes narrowed with disappointment. "I told ya ta stay at the farm unless Sweetie Belle found her way back! Now yer gonna get it, missy!"

"Hold on, Applejack, Scoots an' I have somethin' ta say!" Apple Bloom piped.

"Yeah! We've both seen Sweetie Belle, too!" Scootaloo added before being grabbed at her arm pits and brought to Rarity's face.

"WHERE! WHERE HAVE YOU THREE SEEN HER!?"

"Hey, calm down, Rarity! That's no reason to go all-out on the little squirts!" Rainbow Dash shouted, grabbing Scootaloo from the unicorn's clutches and into hers.

Pinkie Pie nodded. "Yeah! I mean, it's not like they're not gonna say they didn't see Sweetie Belle who must've been shrunk down to an itty-bitty pea size and she's trying to go to Canterlot to see if she could get Twilight to magically restore her back to filly size so we could all live happily ever after except when she gets stomped on, sat on and swallowed up like a little bug along the way!"

The mares looked at Pinkie Pie blankly.

The pink pony raised an eyebrow in response. "What?"

Suddenly, Rarity began to giggle softly, each giggle turning into a fit of laughter, which followed with an unlady-like cackle escaping her lungs. The cackle attracted the attention of ponies around them, all looking at Rarity with confusion before shrugging off and getting on with their lives. When the final giggle was released and the tear wiped away from her eyes, Rarity cleared her throat, expunging any remaining giggles trapped in her windpipes.

"Oh, don't be silly, Pinkie Pie," Rarity said, waving her hoof down skeptically. "There's no way that could've happened to Sweetie Belle, right? Right?"

Rarity continued to stressfully giggle, turning to the two Cutie Mark Crusaders and the Element of Kindness all looking at her with solemn stares. Rarity moved her eyes back and forth from Fluttershy to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, tiny trickles of sweat pouring from her head as she tried to debunk the supposed joke. A lump in her throat being swallowed, Rarity turned to the only mare who knew the answer and how she could deliver it in her state.

"Fluttershy, what happened to Sweetie Belle?"

Fluttershy gently fluttered to Rarity, gently clutching her hoof as she led her back to the Carousel Boutique, the mares and the fillies following closely behind.

"Rarity, there's something you have to know. But first, let's get you settled back at your home."

Chapter IX - Get on Board, Little Pony

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Sweetie Belle kept to the corner of the wall and the cot's leg as she observed her surroundings inside the Friendship Express train car.

She was in a car packed with equine royals all from all over and outside of Equestria, all of which could accidentally reduce her into bug paste without giving as much as a single thought. Sweetie Belle recognized two Saddle Arabian horses at the left end of the car, the same delegates representing their exotic desert country, introduced by Princess Celestia herself to Ponyville. The pink mare and the brown stallion, garbed in their native clothes, sat apart from each other, separated by a pale brown middle-aged stallion wearing a red-and-white keffiyeh, a red cape and a white robe, and a mare, her whole body, save for her eyes and hooves, both of them having fur colored light lavender. The four horses were guarded by two other Saddle Arabian equines, a turban on their heads and swords sheathed and ready to strike against any attacker, as well as four others for security measures.

As Sweetie Belle trailed her gaze down the car, she came to an middle-aged zebra mare. Like Zecora, the elderly zebra wore gold rings around her neck, some on her ears and shared the same black-and-white color scheme. However, the zebra was paler than Zecora, seeing how her mane was silvery and gray, reaching down to her foreleg shoulders. Next to her was another zebra, about the same size, but half an inch shorter. She wore a green cloak with a hood on top of her head. There was something about the cloak and the zebra's muzzle that brought familiarity to Sweetie Belle, though she couldn't place her hoof on what.

It didn't matter, anyway. Watching the zebras wasn't really Sweetie Belle's priority.

The tiny unicorn then cast her gaze towards the right side of the car, where she spotted two crystal unicorn ponies, clad in silver armor and holding a spear in their hooves, both of them standing guard at the door. If Sweetie Belle didn't know better, she would say that the next car belonged to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, also known as Cadence to her friends. It must've been a private suite with Cadence inside, along with Twilight's older brother, Shining Armor.

This gave Sweetie Belle the perfect opportunity. Shining Armor and Cadence were both of Twilight's closest relatives; if she could somehow grab their attention, then she could get easy access to Twilight more easily and she would be normal-sized in no time!

There was only... one small problem (and Sweetie Belle used that term loosely).

The crystal pony guards. They were trained hard to guard the room of the Prince and Princess of the Crystal Empire to the point where they wouldn't let even a small bug walk under the door of the car. Unfortunately, Sweetie Belle was that small bug and there was no way of getting in the car to Princess Cadence. The question was, how was she going to sneak past the guards?

As if by perfect timing, one of the doors opened, the one not guarded by the guards, and revealed a unicorn mare pushing a food cart with her magic, filled with cuisine food from all over Equestria, with a taste of Saddle Arabian and Zebrafrican dishes. Sweetie Belle perked. It was as if the universe was opening another window of opportunity for the shrunken unicorn.

Sweetie Belle had to first assess how she would get onto the cart. The wheels of the cart are easy turning, becoming a major hazard for Sweetie Belle. One wrong turn of the wheel and she would become a stain on the prestigious train carpet that might be scrubbed away and reupholstered in the following month. So she needed just a surface she could easily climb up on and climb onto the bottom tray. That way, she could be wheeled into the next car where she could grab Cadence and Shining Armor's attention.

Sweetie Belle looked around the car for something to climb on. She trailed her gaze down the aisle and spotted, at the zebras' seat, a green sack, just big and sturdy enough to support the unicorn's weight and size. Perfect. Sweetie Belle did a double-take down the aisles, seeing the only obstacle being time and the wheeled cart. Nopony else was watching; that was good. Then she galloped across the aisle to the bag, immediately quickening her pace as she and the cart got close enough to the sack.

Sweetie Belle yelled as she jumped, belly-flopping onto the sack....

...only to be fall on something squishy and bouncy.

"Huh?" Sweetie Belle poked the bag she laid on. The sack wasn't as sturdy as she predicted, but more like a water mattress, squishy and sloshing with liquid. Sweetie Belle didn't like the feeling she was getting. It was a foreboding feeling, like whatever was in the sack might contribute into yet another situation at her puny size.

That feeling came true when the cart stopped at the zebras' seating.

"Would you like something to eat?" the mare pushing the cart asked.

Sweetie Belle looked up at the cart, stretching up nearly as tall as the mare, the size of the statue of Manehattan on all fours. Up above, she could hear the two zebra mares converse with each other with their native language. With the liquid-like bag, Sweetie Belle struggled to find her footing before she could find a nearly steady position and aimed at the bottom tray. Wiggling her rump, Sweetie Belle narrowed her eyes at the tray before she reeled her hooves back to jump.

Then a shadow loomed over Sweetie Belle. She looked up to see the sole a black hoof come down at her like a meteor. She screamed as the hoof made contact with the squishy sack. Fortunately, the hoof never hit Sweetie Belle and only missed her by a mere foot. Unfortunately, the hoof squeezed one part of the sack too fast, creating a big puff that launched Sweetie Belle backwards into the air. The tiny unicorn screamed, something that sounded more like a tiny mosquito buzzing to the ears of some ponies.

With an "OOF!" the micro filly fell on the bedding of the cot. With a groan, Sweetie Belle held her hoof up to her head and looked around, seeing herself on the cot next to the elderly zebra. Sweetie belle turned her head and saw whose cot it belonged to, and more specifically, who the zebra was. She recognized the supposed Cutie Mark on the zebra's flank, the shape of a swirl with little lines poking out from all sides, giving it the appearance of the sun.

It was Zecora. The hooded zebra was on the Friendship Express.

She stepped down from her cot while she looked at the many cuisine choices dating back to her homeland in Zebrafrica. She hummed as she looked for which dish she wanted to take until finally, she found one. "This particular dessert my mother won't take, having eaten before this ride. Perhaps I will bring this cake and carry it by my side."

It was official. Sweetie Belle knew that underneath the hood and cloak was Zecora, using the same rhyming scheme she spoke most of the time. By her guess, Zecora was invited to Canterlot for the royal convention. From what Sweetie Belle also heard, the elder zebra was her mother. Maybe she was royalty, maybe she was an ambassador, she didn't know. What she did know was that Zecora's mother must've been really important back at her homeland.

The cart mare levitated the cake to Zecora as she lowered her flank onto her cot, unaware that a tiny filly was directly underneath her rump. Sweetie Belle screamed and began to run to the edge, hopefully to avoid becoming paste under the zebra's butt. She looked up to see the elderly zebra as she ran. It was though the zebra cast her a glance back down on her as she was suddenly flattened underneath the posterior of Ponyville's only zebra, nearly knocking the wind out of her lungs.

Zecora adjusted her seating a little, wriggling her flank to do so, also grinding Sweetie Belle into the seat. Looking back up with only her eyeballs, Sweetie Belle saw the elderly zebra cast one glance at her before looking ahead, smiling. The amount of pressure built on Sweetie Belle became tremendous and dangerous. It would take one more wiggle of Zecora's flank to finally turn Sweetie Belle into paste... or in someplace very, very disgusting. Sweetie Belle managed to drag herself inch by inch with her hoof, until her head, hooves and torso was popped out from underneath the soft, yet deadly mounds. Sweetie Belle gasped for breath and brought in the precious air, relieved that she was partially still alive from being crushed underneath Zecora's flank.

"Geez! Every opportunity I take just comes right back in my face!" Sweetie Belle shouted to herself. "It's like the universe is just one dirty, stinking mule!" She turned to a donkey about her size, standing leg-high in a giant piece of chocolate cake, though he made no effort to escape the pastry. "No offense."

"None taken," the mule said simply.

The plate with the cake and the donkey inside was lifted up by Zecora's black hoof, another hoof used to navigate the fork stuck in the cake. Zecora lifted one piece of the cake with the fork into her mouth, chewing it and savoring it while she moaned to the flavor. With a graceful gulp, Zecora set the plate down. To Sweetie Belle's disturbance, the donkey was gone.

"The cake I have tasted was deliciously moist," Zecora told her mother. "Savor it and you will be rejoiced."

The elderly zebra held up a hoof and shook her head, replying through a language that only zebras could understand. Zecora nodded understandingly and continued to eat the cake, savoring it for only a little bit before she swallowed down the delicate dessert, down to her grumbling stomach. Sweetie Belle dug her hooves into the cot and slowly inched herself out. She was up to her lower torso when she felt Zecora's flesh wriggle, completely engulfing Sweetie Belle underneath the pressuring flank. There was a sweaty smell to it which burned Sweetie Belle's nostrils and made her cough. Luckily, she was wriggled underneath the crack of the flank, so she had some space to breath and a little bit of light peering from what seemed to be miles from the shrunken filly.

"Ugh! This is so humiliating!" Sweetie Belle groaned while a drop of sweat dripped off from the fleshy ceiling mound. "I just hope Rarity has any luck of finding me than I am finding Princess Twilight!"

====

"SHE'S WHAT!?" Rarity screeched, her voice becoming as loud enough for all of Ponyville to hear. Surely, Princess Luna couldn't have done better in terms of Rarity's heightened volume. "GRAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHH!!"

A flicker of lights flashed in the ground floor windows of the Carousel followed with a BOOM! Smoke bellowed from the cracks of the windows while the front door blew open, shattering it into splinters. Out from the smoking doorway came a crazed, yet concerned Rarity with a wide-eyed, tooth-gritting, twisted face and a galloping speed that would put Rainbow Dash to shame.

"RARITY! HOLD UP!"

Applejack came galloping out of the smoke after the unicorn, following with Fluttershy in her graceful flight, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo running side-by-side, and Rainbow Dash trotting out as fast as she could, whimpering like a dog while her rainbow tail covered her bare area on her flank. The ponies, save for Rainbow Dash took off downtown in their fastest sprint, doing their best to keep up with Rarity's unimaginable speed. With that speed and her bull-like charging, Rarity left behind a fiery trail behind her as other bystander ponies stepped away from the fashionista, all frozen and wide-eyed while the other ponies galloped after her.

Rarity turned a sharp left around the corner, made a beeline towards the train station and came to an abrupt stop to the ticket window. The stallion sitting behind the bars had a combination of half-asleep and half-awake, a perfect contrast to Rarity's near-psychotic meltdown. "WHEN IS THE NEXT TRAIN TO CANTERLOT AVAILABLE!?!" she screamed.

The stallion calmly picked up a clipboard and checked the train schedule, despite Rarity's snorting breathing. He hummed as he checked the times for the train stops on the next day under each thin layer of clipped paper. He set the clipboard down, crossed his forelegs over each other, looked Rarity into her bloodshot eyes and sighed. "Unless you're a part of the royal families of Equestria, I'd say until Sunday morning."

"WHAT!?!" Rarity slammed her hooves on the counter. "I CANNOT WAIT ANOTHER TWO DAYS TO GO TO CANTERLOT!! I HAVE TO GET THERE IMMEDIATELY!! MY LITTLE SISTER IS LOST ON THAT TRAIN TO CANTERLOT AND I HAVE TO FIND HER!!"

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but regulations are regulations," the stallion said. "If you want, I can contact the Equestrian Royal Guards so they can conduct a 'search-and-rescue' party, but all the while, we can't interfere with the convention going on in Canterlot. I'll have it sent by mail immediately."

"BUT HOW LONG WILL THAT TAKE!?!"

The stallion looked over another clipboard and checked the timesheet, humming while doing so, before he looked back up to Rarity. "I'd have to say two days."

"TWO DAYS!?!" Rarity bellowed. "I CANNOT WAIT IDLY BY FOR TWO WHOLE STINKING DAYS!! I HAVE TO GET TO CANTERLOT NOW, CELESTIA DARNIT!"

"Ma'am, I'm gonna need you to calm down and watch your language. This is a public area," the stallion said, motioning his eyes to a few fillies watching Rarity's outbursts. "Now, ma'am, I understand that you're concerned for the wellbeing of your sister. That's why I'm going to contact the Royal Guard for the 'search-and-rescue,' but it won't take me more than three days to hear back, what with the royal convention happening in Canterlot and all."

Rarity gave a frustrated moan and stormed away from the ticket window, her hooves stomping holes in the wood floor. It was around the same time that Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and two of the CMC members arrived, a mixture of shock and concern as they saw Rarity's face contorted to resemble that of a raging bull.

"I simply cannot believe the shape of this mail delivery system!" Rarity complained. "Everything has to be two or more days before it arrives to Canterlot! The nerve of that stallion to keep so calm while I'm concerned for Sweetie Belle's safety! I ought to slam him until his face is the same color of my mane!" Rarity turned to her tomboyish friend, cowering more timid than Fluttershy. "Rainbow Dash, go track down the train and find Sweetie Belle. She has to be somewhere on that train!"

"Sorry, Rarity. I can't..." Rainbow Dash whimpered.

"WHAT!? You're the fastest pegasus in Equestria and a member of the Wonderbolts reserves!" Rarity thrust her angered face into Rainbow's, a look of rage written in her bloodshot eyeballs. "Why in the name of Tartarus can't you just zoom in and out of the train in just ten seconds!?"

Rainbow Dash's timid face temporarily changed back to a scowl as she listed the reasons why she couldn't, in a way, catch the train. "One: That train is guarded is by guards from the inside and out who could easily get the drop on me in three seconds flat. Two: That train is already halfway to Canterlot and by the time I get there, it'll already be to late. Three..."

Rainbow Dash reluctantly removed her wing spread across her flank, revealing the naked spot while looking at it with a saddened expression. "My pride got stripped away with my flank," she said, nearly on the verge of tears.

For a long, suspenseful moment, Rarity simply stared at Rainbow Dash, her face devoid of emotions. Her left eyelids twitched, and a slight giggle escaped her mouth. "That's it? That's the whole reason why you can't chase after that train? Because your Cutie Mark got shaved off and you're too embarrassed to fly with a naked spot exposed?"

Rainbow Dash force a sad chuckle. "Yeah."

Rarity let out another chuckle, her eyelids now twitching. Everypony swore they saw Rarity's head twitch the same way in a split second. Then Rarity pounced towards Rainbow and roared like a predatory cat, only to be stopped by Applejack's forearms clasping her like a vise as she tried to thrash herself out of her grip. "Get ahold of yerself, sugarcube! Sweetie Belle is probably worried fer you as she is fer herself!" Applejack assured.

"Yeah!" Apple Bloom nodded. "From what Ah heard from her, Sweetie Belle is tryin' her hardest ta survive at her size!"

"Oh, I hope nothing bad happens to her," Fluttershy said, drawing her head into her mane with worry. "What if she's been stepped on, sat on or eaten again? I can't bear to think of what Sweetie Belle is going through right now."

"Well, that's just stinkin' thinkin'!" Scootaloo declared. "Sweetie Belle's already made it this far, so she should make it to Canterlot no problem!"

Rarity struggled in Applejack's hold and growled, her frustration reaching near its peak. She struggled and tried to wiggled herself out from the hold of the orange hooves until she realized there was no point in going on with it any longer. Applejack was the best in Equestria when it came to holding somepony down, and her forelegs were no exception. Rarity sighed. "Fine. I hope that you're all correct about this. Sweetie Belle has a tendency for finding trouble, even when it's not intentional."

====

Sweetie Belle was in definite trouble.

First off, she was trapped underneath Zecora's flank, rendering her immobile and covered with trickles of her sweat, all while she began to drift away from the heat.

Second, the food cart and the unicorn mare pushing it already moved into the car where Princess Cadence presumably resided. What she didn't know was the unicorns did a thorough magical scan for any unwanted visitors, weapons or poison inside or out of the food. Luckily, there wasn't anything in the food, so the unicorns allowed entry for the unicorn mare.

Finally, Sweetie Belle knew how long the train ride took from Ponyville to Canterlot. It took a few hours, which to Sweetie Belle seemed like days already. Another hour-like minute underneath Zecora's flank and she would've been asphyxiated from suffocation, ground into paste at the very least. It seemed all hope for Sweetie Belle was lost.

GUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGLLLLLEEE!

Sweetie Belle went wide-eyed as she heard a familiar sound amplified and muffled from Zecora's bottom. She heard the grumbling of Zecora's tummy and intestines push her food through her digestive system, a clear sign that she was about to go to the bathroom. That theory came to confirmation as Sweetie Belle felt the immense pressure lifted up and off from her. Zecora apparently stood up on all fours and jumped off of the cot, her black hooves making a distinct BOOM! sound as they touched the floor.

"I will be off for a moment or two. The food has driven me to the loo."

"Well, I suppose that's what happens when you eat a mule in your cake," Sweetie Belle thought as she took in the oxygen once more, coughing the excess carbon dioxide imprisoned in her lungs.

Zecora's mother nodded and let the zebra go to the lavatories, a series of earthquake-like rumblings to Sweetie Belle coinciding with each step she took. Sweetie Belle managed to gather enough oxygen for her to push herself up on the endless plain of the cot, nearly stumbling with the sagging fabric but eventually kept her balance in check. A humming tune caught her attention, and Sweetie Belle looked up to see a cloud of green diamond dust spray on her. The tiny unicorn coughed and wheezed from the burning smell the dust produced into her lungs. Then she felt something come up from under her hooves that knocked her down and lifted up and over in the air.

Sweetie Belle coughed the dust out and opened her eyes, only to be met by a pair of dark grey eyes belonging to the elderly zebra as she held her in her hoof. The little unicorn filly yelped in surprise and tried to scuttle away, only to be blocked by another hoof acting as a protective barrier to prevent her from falling at such an unbearable height.

Sweetie Belle found herself backed into the corner, afraid of the Zebrafrican goliath who held her in her palm. She had the unsatiable urge to cry in fear. Then Zecora's mother hummed another tune which helped flush Sweetie Belle's fears away like a toilet, calming her down by the second. Using her free hoof, Zecora's mother gently stroked Sweetie Belle's mane as gently as she would a mouse. Eventually, the tiny filly's whimpering simmered down from the gentle strokes and the humming. When all of her fears were lifted by Zecora's mother's gentle song, the zebra took her free hoof and placed it next to the hoof holding Sweetie Belle and began to speak.

"You have a brave heart, little one," she said in fluent Equestrian. "My daughter has told me much about you and your friends. I sensed your presence underneath from underneath her seat and I have been waiting for you until you were free."

Sweetie Belle perked up. "Hey! You can speak Equestrian!?"

Zecora's mother shook her head, smiling. "No, little one. In the ears of these ponies, I am chanting a song in my native tongue. The dust I have sprayed onto you was to help hear my voice in your own tongue."

"Oh..." Sweetie Belle had no words to express what she felt. "That's actually convenient."

"Indeed, little one, and it gives me a good opportunity to take a closer look inside your minuscule form."

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. "Inside of me? Like an x-ray?"

Zecora's mother laughed. "No, little one. I am going to look into your soul and see the path that has been laid before you by the stars above."

"Whoa. Are you like a psychic or something?"

"In a way, little one, I am. In my land, I am referred to as a shaman, able to cast spells with a single chant, dance and charm. My special talent is to see into one's future by looking deep into their soul." Sweetie Belle gaped up in wonder as Zecora's mother squinted her eyes. "Now, calm yourself, little one. In order for me to see what future lies ahead for you, you must clear your mind, empty it of any thoughts or feelings and I will the path you tread on."

Sweetie Belle ultimately complied with the zebra's orders. Closing her eyes, Sweetie Belle cleared her head of any thoughts running through her head, conscious and subconscious, leaving her mind totally blank. Zecora's mother squinted at the tiny unicorn in her hooves, closing her eyes as well as she began to peer into her soul. As a shaman with the power to look into somepony's future, Zecora's mother could only see fragments of one's future ahead, but the whole future. As she looked deeper, the zebra could see those fragments in Sweetie Belle's future, like a montage of clips on a projector screen before they ended. Zecora's mother opened her eyes and lightly tapped Sweetie Belle, who woke with an abrupt jolt. Sweetie Belle took her bearings for a moment or two before she looked up to the elderly giantess with hopeful gleam in her eyes.

"Hey, did you see something!? Did you see what's going to happen to me in my future!?"

"I have glimpsed into the future laid before you," the zebra said, her face grown forlorn. "But I fear it will be a short one."

"What!? What do you mean a short future!?" Sweetie belle squeaked, tears brimming in her eyes. "Am I going to... going to...?"

Zecora's mother gently lifted the tiny filly's chin with her hoof up to her face. "I am not certain, little one. All I see in you are obstacles that you will face in a short time. When you surpass those obstacles, you will be faced with a perilous trial, one that even you may not survive." Sweetie Belle jerked her away from the zebra, who continued to reveal what she saw in the micro unicorn. "Unless the strings of your fate have been tampered with, the future I saw will cease just as I see it."

"Wait, so I'm not gonna bite the dust!? Is there a way for me to be saved from that future!?"

"Unfortunately, I am not certain of the outcome. I could only see far ahead to where your future possibly ends," the zebra shaman said. "What you must to do prevent your own end rests on you and you alone, little one. All I can do wait and wish you the best of luck."

"But you HAVE to do something!" Sweetie Belle shouted, jumping a bit on the zebra's hoof. "You're the shaman! You have to fix this somehow!"

"I cannot fix what has happened to you, little one. You are already closer than you think." Before Sweetie Belle could ask, the train began to slow itself down, screeching to a full stop at the next train station. The zebra smiled smugly and carefully set Sweetie Belle down to the ground, tilting her hoof to help her roll down to the floor. Sweetie Belle shook her head and looked back to the zebra shaman, motioning her to go. "Go, little one. The path has already been set for you to walk upon."

"But Zecora's mom!! I--!"

"Go and hurry now!" the zebra urged. "If you do not, then the road you seek will be forever lost!"

Sweetie Belle gulped as Zecora's mother urged her to go with her motioning head. She turned and began to gallop into the aisle, only to find her path abruptly blocked by Zecora's stamping hoof, the zebra unaware that she almost turned her filly friend into a red stain. "The train's cuisine is not what it may seem. The chocolate cake concealed a bug and in my stomach does it tug." Zecora poked her tummy and it wriggled a little, a tiny tickle inside her stomach making her giggle.

"That is why I did not consume the cake, daughter," Zecora's mother said. "There are small things in this world that hold much value, that you know very well."

"Do not yet fret, my mother. Now you must meet ponies like no other."

While Zecora and her mother conversed with each other, Sweetie Belle took this opportunity to jumped between the twin black-and-grey pillars that were her hooves. She galloped out from under Zecora's belly and into the aisle, where she found herself in the path of the Saddle Arabian royalties, a clatter of hooves like one jumbled earthquake. Quickly and swiftly, Sweetie Belle navigated her way out and around the stamping hooves, each one nearly stomping the tiny unicorn to her doom. She dodged the hooves of the guards, their cloaks making it dark for the puny filly to navigate as they passed over her, the hooves of the Saddle Arabian mare and the aging ruler of Saddle Arabian himself. When the last ponies trotted past Sweetie Belle, all unaware and unknowing, she galloped close behind them, hoping to be safe near the back of their hooves rather than in front of them.

The trotting Saddle Arabians composed themselves as they trotted outside of the train cart, Sweetie Belle jumping at the last minute to grab the cloak from one of the guards. A bright flash of sunlight provoked her to shield her eyes, but her eyesight adjusted well to the light. With a few blinks and her vision coming into clear focus, Sweetie Belle looked at the surroundings and gasped. She finally made it to her destination! At long last, after hours of turmoil, tushies and tummies, Sweetie Belle made it to Canterlot, all in one piece!

And what a view it was to behold, too! There were armor-clad stallions keeping guard at all areas to ward off any possible attackers, royalties from the gryphon, dragon, minotaur and pony countries all over the world gathered here and guarded by their native protectors, and a herald that announced the next royals arriving to Canterlot. Sweetie Belle smiled. Coming to Canterlot was the stuff pony dreams were made of, but it was the dream of regaining her former size that made it all possible.

The herald blared his horn, setting it down as he threw his voice out for all to hear.

"Announcing the arrival of Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Prince Shining Armor of the Crystal Empire!"

Then the door to the train car next to the one Sweetie Belle stayed in opened. Sweetie Belle gasped and looked to her side as a crystal Earth pony guard and a regular orange pegasus stallion trotted out, followed with the graceful and majestic Princess of Love and her loving husband. Even at the size of a bug, Sweetie Belle could see how brilliantly that Princess Cadence's beauty shone, like a glimmering diamond in the sunlight.

Suddenly, a slap of the hoof on the shrunken filly's face brought her back to reality. This was no time to be admiring the alicorn! This was the only time to grab the attention of Princess Cadence and take her to Twilight! Wiggling her empty flank, Sweetie Belle jumped from the Saddle Arabian guard's robe and galloped what was like a quarter mile across the station to the regal pink alicorn. She screamed as a few hooves, and the ocassional gryphon talons, unknowingly fell upon her, but she jumped out of the way upon the first instinctive feeling. It was becoming quite the routine for Sweetie Belle, jumping away from whatever might end her at her size, find a way for her to get eaten or squashed and somehow survive her plight. She could already see Twilight's gigantic worried face already.

At last, Sweetie Belle moved past the metallic shoes of the crystal guards and under their bellies, stopping at the path in front of the oncoming royal giant and giantess. Puffing her chest out, Sweetie Belle prepared to scream as hardest as she could to catch the attention of Cadence's ears. "PRINCESS CA--!"

"CADENCE!"

Suddenly, a shadow quickly moved over Sweetie Belle, prompting her too late to see what the shadow was before it fell on her. The tiny filly screamed as the shadow came down with a THWUMP! Sweetie Belle's eyes were closed, waiting for the inevitable light to appear to her at the end of the tunnel. She couldn't see any light. She could only feel gravel, and a pungent odor that wafted into her tiny nostrils. Sniffing a couple of times, Sweetie Belle grimaced as she reluctantly opened her eyes to find where she was and what that unknown shadow did to her. The good news for the tiny filly, was the shadow did nothing to her.

The bad news was that she saw where she was at now.

She saw two purple valleys on both sides of her, trapping her in between. The texture and the pattern of the supposed valleys were like cobblestone painted purple, clumped together in a high-rising shape. Sweetie Belle looked up from her smelly prison to see the valleys reach up to two purple monoliths, reaching up to a voluptuous bulge of green joining in with a purple sphere shape. Sweetie Belle gasped, both shockingly and disgustingly.

She was stuck between Spike's toes. So that was his foot that almost made a pancake out of her.

Suddenly, the toes closed in on Sweetie Belle, making her scream as the wriggling digits caught her in their tight grasp. She was then lifted into the air, making a perfect arc for Spike's foot movements as he took a very perilous step. Then the foot was brought down hard like a meteor with the shrunken filly struggling to break herself free from their grip. The smell of Spike's feet reeked. When was the last time he ever took a bath and thoroughly scrubbed his stinky soles?

Then Spike brought his foot up and over again, lurching the filly and her stomach as she was submitted to the unwilling torture between his toes. The combination of the movement and the odor made Sweetie Belle dizzy and weak. A few more steps and she was going to suffocate. She'll be nothing for than toe jam for the baby dragon who was running up to the alicorn to give her and Shining Armor to welcome them both to Canterlot. With another step taken from the giant baby drake, Sweetie Belle's eyes slowly closed and she drifted into unconsciousness.

====

"Cadence!"

Spike paid no heed to the lump between the big toe and the index toe on his right foot as he ran over to Cadence and Shining Armor, giving them both a great big hug. Cadence and Shining Armor hugged Spike back then gently broke each other from the hug as the dragon looked up to his adopted brother and sister-in-law.

"Aw, man, it's good to see you both!" Spike said, feeling giddy with joy. "I'm so glad you two could make it for the convention!"

"Oh, come now, Spike, you little goofball. Why wouldn't I miss the royal convention for the world, other than being a princess and seeing you and Twilight again." Cadence brought Spike over to her and nuzzled his green-spiked head, causing him to giggle with a ticklish sensation.

"Aw, stop it, Cadence! You're embarrassing me!" Spike chortled, causing the alicorn to break from her nuzzling. "Actually, on second thought, keep on going."

Cadence giggled. "That's enough, Spike. You've had your fair share of nuzzling already," she playfully scolded.

"And speaking of Twilight, where is she anyway?" Shining Armor asked. "I thought she was gonna meet us here."

"She's busy helping with the last-minute preparations with the convention, so she should still be in the castle" Spike answered, gesturing his arm to his family. "Come on. I can take you to where she's putting up the finishing touches."

Spike turned to guide Cadence and Shining Armor to Canterlot Castle when he ran into someone with a SMACK!, knocking him down on the ground. Rubbing his head, Spike could see his world moving around him as Cadence and ShiningArmor ran up to his side. "Are you okay, Spike?" Cadence asked, helping him up on his feet with one arm, Shining Armor with the other.

"I'm fine, but I should've seen where I was going." Spike turned to creature he ran to. "Oh, and miss? I'm sorry for running into you and... HUH?" Spike looked up to see a familiar zebra standing in front of him, carrying a bag slumped over her shoulders and looking down at him with a smile. "Zecora? What are you doing here? Weren't you back at your home country restocking on your herbs?"

"What you have said rings true. But I have someone who would like to meet all of you."

Zecora turned to the elderly zebra mare trotting up next to her, both of them giving a smile to Spike and the two sovereigns of the Crystal Empire. "This is my mother, the ruler of my home. She was arriving here and asked me to come."

"Of course. You must be the ruler over the entire nation of Zebrafrica," Cadence said, giving the elderly zebra a graceful bow. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person."

Zecora's mother hummed in agreement. She said something to Cadence in her native tongue, leading Zecora to translate for her. "She is pleased to meet you, and the prince too. We have from the jungles of Zebrafrica, a few gifts to you." Zecora took the bag slumped over her with her teeth and set them down on the ground. She opened the bag up, and a pile of squishy, blue fruits rolled from the opening, juicy liquid sloshing around inside. Spike looked at them with a raised eyebrow before turning to the zebras.

"Uhh, just what are those, anyway?"

"Those are Juju Fruits, so tender and sweet. The juices they produce cannot be beat."

"Sweet, huh?" Spike licked his chops and wriggled his claws, before being stopped by Zecora's hoof.

"Before you can gorge through your dragon greed, there is a warning that you all must heed." Zecora's tone was serious, as was her narrowed eyes which made Spike shiver. "In the center of each fruit, there is a pit. When you hit that center, do not devour it. The seeds inside are very toxic. Eating a single piece can make you very sick."

"Hold on," Shining Armor interrupted, his eyes written with suspicion. "If these seeds really are poisonous, then why did you manage to bring them up to Canterlot?"

Zecora returned the look of skepticism to Shining Armor before she calmly answered his question. "To sell to the vendor who set up the fruit stand. He is an expert and known through my land. He knows the caution of using the fruit, for he knows how to give the toxin the boot."

Spike, Cadence and Shining Armor all gave each other a look of worry, then turned them towards Zecora's direction. "Well, if you're going to sell them to that vendor, I guess it's safe for us, too," Cadence replied, forcing a smile on her face. "But just in case, you might want to put those fruits back in your bag. I wouldn't want anypony to get sick off of those seeds."

"Your concern has been taken to heart." Zecora rolled the Juju Fruits into her bag, closing it up with the drawstring and slumping it over her back. "Now show to me to Twilight. We have been too far apart."

"Cool!" Spike said. "Come on, I'll show you the way through Canterlot first and then we'll meet up with Twilight before the convention begins!" With that, Spike led Cadence, Shining Armor, Zecora and her mother away from the train station and down the streets of Canterlot. While the baby drake walked along with his family and friends, the little lump between his toes was getting to become quite bothersome. He squeezed his toes, wriggled them to see if the sensation would pass. After a few wriggles, the sensation stopped and Spike gasped as he felt the lump become no more. Then he continued to walk down the streets of Canterlot, unaware that the lump between his feet was Sweetie Belle, who had at the same time, took a different approach to move inside the guarded city and eventually, the castle.

Chapter X - Dragon Daze

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Sweetie Belle woke up to the feeling of rough dragon scales rubbing against her like sandpaper.

Following with the sensation of nausea and vertigo combined, Sweetie Belle felt like she woke up on the wrong side of Spike's massive foot, the side where most bugs are subjected to his weight and pressure of his sole. The pungent smell of unwashed feet and festering toe jam was the second sensation to hit the shrunken filly's nostrils, though none torturous than what Spike had in mind for what he considered to be the "lump" between his toes. Sweetie Belle's mind slowly clicked its gears on, and her eyes finally opened to her purple vice grip that held her and rendered her unconscious for only a few long moments.

Sweetie Belle's vision cleared away all blurriness, save for the buildings in the distance that stretched up higher than Mount Everhoof. It was then she looked around and saw herself still stuck in between Spike's big toe and index toe, holding her lower torso without any efforts of tightening her whatsoever. Spike must've traveled a few good feet into Canterlot before stopping to deal with the bothersome sensation in his foot. That sensation, however, was the unfortunate Sweetie Belle, doomed to be a part of Spike's foot forever.

The first part of this torture were the toes squeezing Sweetie Belle's already fragile body. The immense pressure from both sides reactivated Sweetie Belle's pain receptors as she felt herself pinched in between the baby dragon's foot. It was as painful as getting her tail slammed by a door, but that was nothing compared to the pain when Button Mash's mom squashed her tail with her hind hoof. She still has the little stubble where her tail used to be to prove it.

Spike scrunched his toes like a dissatisfied pony's muzzle, adding in to the pressure brought on to Sweetie Belle. The tiny unicorn screamed hoarsely from the vice grip as her breath was squeezed out from her lungs before the toes reverted back to their flattened form. With Spike's toes loosening his grip on Sweetie Belle, the unicorn took advantage of this moment to collect the sweet Equestrian oxygen, coughing and wheezing the crushing sensation in her lungs out.

"That... was bad..." Sweetie Belle muttered to herself in between breaths and hard coughing. "If I ever... get squeezed like... like that again, I... it'd be... too... soon..."

"Is something wrong, Spike?" the gargantuan voice of Princess Cadence asked the gigantic baby dragon. "You just stopped walking all of a sudden."

"Nah, I'm cool," Spike replied, waving his claw down for effect. "I just got this pebble in my foot and it's been really bothering me." To illustrate his point, Spike squeezed his toes together, unknowingly causing Sweetie Belle to once again shriek out in unbearable and unspeakable pain. He wriggled his toes and cringed from the sensation, unaware that he subjected Sweetie Belle to another round of torture with his feet as his toes rubbed upwards and downwards roughly against her body. "See? It's really annoying."

"That's no surprise," Cadence giggled. "For as long as I remember, you've had the most sensitive feet since you were just a hatchling."

"Isn't that the truth?" Shining Armor chortled. "You're the only dragon I know who's biggest fear is stepping on some feathers."

"Hey, that was a one-time deal. You don't even know how much it hurt when I laughed that hard," Spike deadpanned. "Anyway, let's go."

Before Spike could take another step, it was high time he had to deal with the problem at his right foot. Sweetie Belle coughed once more and groaned from the painful rubbing sensation before she slouched over Spike's index toes. A shadow eclipsed the sunlight over Sweetie Belle, and she reluctantly looked up and saw Spike's glowering face glaring down at her shrunken form, he too not recognizing the white dot between his toes. "Stupid pebble. Why don't you just get lost?"

Spike wriggled his toes a little, causing Sweetie Belle to inch down his toes with her screaming from the rough turbulent movement until she reached the end of his foot. Sweetie Belle was mildly relieved that she would be at the edge of Spike's toes, but that relief fell short when she saw the baby dragon lift his gargantuan toe to squeeze her out. The tiny unicorn screamed bloody murder as the toe came down on her, threatening to turn her into red jelly left in between the crevices of Spike's digits. Luckily for her, the toes were mildly wet with glimmering sweat. Like a fat pony squeezing his way through a small window with butter, Sweetie Belle was forced out underneath Spike's foot as his big toe pushed it out.

The tiny filly fell on her flank on the hard stone road. After a slight groan and the shake of her head, Sweetie Belle looked around and saw darkness, mixed in with dark purple and linear lights where it peaked through the draconic toes. Then the light appeared in front of Sweetie Belle and shone in her eyes as Spike's massive foot went up and over her, the tiny filly gaping in amazement by how a creature half a pony's size could be so huge.

Her wondrous thoughts were replaced by logical thoughts. Spike was Princess Twilight's adopted little brother and Number One Assistant. He was undoubtedly Sweetie Belle's best chance for her to get her attention and restore her back to normal size. As Spike was figuratively the closest character who could easily have access to Twilight and the literally closest character she could find, Sweetie Belle quickly went up on her hooves and cantered towards the heel of Spike's feet. Her little hooves and her speed made for great time as Sweetie Belle took a split second to crouch and leapt toward's Spike's left heel, clutching onto it just before it lifted to take another step.

Another feeling of vertigo overtook Sweetie Belle as Spike's foot lifted up and fell down to the ground, ending with an earth-shattering BOOM! The feeling was like a combination of a roller coaster with the added sensation of a haunted elevator ride at the end of each step. Sweetie Belle moaned slightly by the sensation in her nerves, but forced herself to ignore it. She was holding on to the scales of Spike's heel and that would prove both rough and dangerous for her. With no other option other than getting onto a more even level, Sweetie Belle began to climb.

The scaly surface was comparable to the side of a rocky ridge, except made flesh and mobile. Luckily, Sweetie Belle remembered when she and her fellow Crusaders tried out for becoming Cutie Mark Crusaders Rock Climbers, which nearly ended with a disastrous result. However, since Spike's scales were tough and only months away from its shedding, Sweetie Belle had a good chance of reaching up to Spike's tail in no time. Sweetie Belle remembered the important routine of rock climbing: put one hoof up as high as she could, pull up and repeat it with the other hoof. The first several climbs up were cake, but then Sweetie Belle slipped at a couple of points and nearly fell off. After all, she had no harness to protect her, so she had to be extra careful, especially since she was coming up to the back of Spike's knee.

Sweetie Belle watched as the back of Spike's knee bent in an angled movement, squishing at the midsection before opening back up to take another step. There was no way Sweetie Belle could ever compete with that. She may have been a death-defying filly since she shrunk, but even she knew when to take it easy and take a more easier route to safety. With that in thought, Sweetie Belle shimmied over to the front of Spike's knee and continued to climb, making it past Spike's knee wrinkles and making it up his thigh. Again, Sweetie Belle shimmied over to the back and climbed up to the base of Spike's tail, using one of his lime green spines for support. Then, using some extra muscle in her forelegs, Sweetie Belle pulled herself up and settled onto the gigantic reptilian tail, in between two tombstone-sized spines to help her hold her position.

The tiny unicorn sighed, completely relieved that she made it up to safety. She slumped back against one of Spike's spines, closing her eyes for a moment to help her regain her strength. Upon opening her eyes, she saw only the purple backside of the titanic young dragon, complete oblivious to his shrunken friend currently resting on his tail. Sweetie Belle looked back until she couldn't see through the corner of her eye. She saw Princess Cadence on the left side of Spike, conversing with Shining Armor on the alicorn's right. To her left, Sweetie Belle caught a glimpse of Zecora and her mother, smiling sweetly as they heard Cadence's plans with her husband and to the group. She swore saw Zecora's mother return the look back with a sweetly smile, though it was hinted with sadness.

Maybe the end of the supposed path was coming up soon. That's why the zebra elder was masking her forlorn frown with her smile.

Sweetie Belle couldn't deny there was a hint of truth somewhere in Zecora's mother's words, but she dared not dwell on them. Right now, her top priority was to find Princess Twilight, change her back to normal and return to Rarity and friends before they get badly hurt trying to find her. That moment would come soon as Sweetie Belle looked up past Spike's mountainous head and saw a castle in the background rising up into the sky. In an instant, all of Sweetie Belle's lost strength seemed to return, for she knew the castle as well as the next pony.

She was coming up on Canterlot Castle.

Sweetie Belle squealed with joy as Spike walked up to the grandest structure in all of Equestria, rising up near the peak of the mountain without counting the tall spires that perched at the top of each tower. Never before had Canterlot Castle look so majestic at the size of a bug. Not only that, but Sweetie Belle was nearing her long and endearing journey, and it would take only one alicorn to fix it all up. Now all she had to do was wait for the right moment and she would finally meet with Princess Twilight.

The waiting began as two armor-clad stallions allowed Spike, Princess Cadence, Shining Armor and the two zebras entry into the palace, where the castle underwent last-minute preparations before the royal convention began. In the meantime, Sweetie Belle had to lean forward and hold onto the spine until the time was right.

====

"No, guys! The banners should have the perfect length of thirty-seven and three-eighths centimeters, not thirty-seven and one-eighth! Come on, everypony, this is a worldwide gathering of royalty, not just some get together between Equestrian nobles!"

Twilight directed the voluntary workers who helped prepare for the gathering to hang up decorative banners colored white, hanging from one banister to another in the aforementioned measurements. With a mass gathering of such royalty from the lands of Diamond Dogs, Dragons, Griffons, Saddle Arabia, the Crystal Empire, Zebrafrica, Germane, Prance and all other countries with any form of monarchy, the pressure could not be any higher. In fact, the workers had a hard enough time with trying to produce satisfactory results for Twilight than she did pushing them for those results. As always, she was a dictator when it came to organizing important events.

Luckily, the much-needed relief for everypony in the room was rewarded with the doors to Canterlot Castle opened, revealing Spike, Shining Armor, Princess Cadence and two zebras walking alongside, all escorted by a couple of armored crystal stallions. Twilight gasped as she saw members of her own family arrive and galloped up to Shining Armor and Cadence, a big smile crossing her muzzle. "Cadence! Shining Armor!"

"Hey, Twily! Aw, I missed ya, kid!" Twilight cantered over to Shining Armor, who pulled her in for a bear hug before they pulled each other away. "How's my LSBFF been?"

"I've certainly been great, BBBFF!" Twilight replied happily. "You have no idea how much work I've been doing just to help organize this event!"

"Well, I'm sure that whatever you went through to get this all organized was worth it."

"Totally! This place looks amazing!" Spike commented.

"Oh, it was nothing, Spike. Just a little direction here and there, nothing else."

"Nothing else?" Cadence parroted, keeping her stance composed regally. "Surely the Princess of Friendship isn't that modest, is she?"

Twilight looked back to Cadence, first with near blankness, then converting to a stance similar to the Princess of Love. She cleared her throat before simply stating, "No, of course not, Your Highness. Why, it's merely a matter of planning and organization that is critical for an event such as this."

"Yes, quite right. Now then, shall we commence with a proper Equestrian royal greeting, Princess Twilight?"

"It would be rude not to, Princess Cadence."

The two alicorns bowed down to each other like they would for royalty. Then, as they were at the pinnacle of bowing out of respect for each other, Twilight and Cadence peeked at each other with only one eye open before their lips began to wriggle and they burst into laughter. After their laughter died down, Twilight and Cadence approached each other and commenced with their secret greeting which consisted of a secret dance and a little poem.

"Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake.
Clap your hooves and do a little shake."

Twilight and Cadence finished off with a giggle, followed with a hug and a sisterly nuzzle. "It's so good to see you again, Twilight. It's been almost like forever since we last saw each other."

"I know," Twilight replied happily. "It looks like we have so much to catch up on, and this convention might be the perfect time to do so."

"Alright. How about you start with the three flower fillies at my wedding you promised to teach?"

Twilight rolled her eyes in a whimsical manner. "Sure, only if you'd like to start with how the Empire's been doing."

"It's a deal," Cadence giggled before perking up in realization. "Oh, Twilight, I'd like you to meet the ruler of Zebrafrica. I just ran into her while we got off at the train station."

Twilight turned to faze the elderly zebra mare, who wore a gentle smile on her muzzle. "Of course. I recognize you from the tabloids. The newspapers told of how you helped to end poverty and hunger in your nations." Twilight gave the zebra a formal bow. "It's an honor to meet you."

The zebra mare hummed and nodded her head once, then spoke to Twilight in her native tongue that normally most ponies would not recognize. The zebra then turned to her cloaked daughter, who translated her speech in the form of a familiar rhyme. "My mother is honored to be here as well. She commends you for your heroics as the papers tell."

Twilight nearly went into shock upon hearing the familiar voice and mannerism. "Wait a minute... is that...? No way!"

The zebra smiled as she pulled her hood off, revealing the familiar face of Zecora, causing Twilight to freeze with astonishment. "I can see the wonder deep in your eyes. You were not expecting me; what a surprise."

Twilight could not come up with the right words, which expressed her confusion perfectly. "Wha... but... I..."

"Twilight, Zecora is the daughter of the queen and the next in line for the throne to Zebrafrica," Cadence explained gently. "I thought you knew that already."

"But I didn't! This is uncanny! Zecora never told me about her lineage before! This changes everything!" Twilight turned to an exasperated Zecora. "When were you planning to tell me this and why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Zecora was planning to tell you soon on the first day of the week under the full moon," the latter zebra said. "As for why I hid my title was because I did not think it was too vital."

"Not too vital!?" Twilight snapped as she grabbed onto Zecora's shoulders. "This is too vital! When you first came to Ponyville, everypony was afraid of you because you lived in the Everfree, but now you're welcomed into our society for a few years now and... you never mentioned how you're the next in line to rule Zebrafrica!?"

"You did not ask, and I was too busy with each task."

"UUUGGGGGHHHH!" Twilight grunted, holding her temple with her hooves to keep a pounding migraine at bay. "This is unbelievable! I would've spent hours at your hut in the Everfree Forest talking with you about your country, your culture and your family! I would've sent a million notes to Princess Celestia telling her about everything you would've told me! But now you're telling me about your lineage now of all times!?"

"I would say the timing couldn't be any better."

Every pony, zebra and Spike turned to see Princess Celestia and Princess Luna standing at the top of the main stairwell, looking more regally and composed as they ever were. The worker ponies working on the banners bowed out of respect for their princesses as Celestia turned and looked at them. With a delicate clearing of her throat and a gentle flick of her head, Celestia gestured the workers to exit the premises, for they had fulfilled their work and it was time for them to leave Canterlot. The worker ponies nodded in accord and went out the front entrance as the guards shut the doors behind them.

Then Celestia focused herself onto Twilight as she and Luna gracefully trotted down the stairs. Twilight bowed to her former mentor on instinct, but was met with a hoof lifting her chin up to meet her smiling face. "Please, Twilight, there's still no need for that. You're a princess now, not my student."

"Sorry. Old habits, die hard," Twilight replied meekly, smiling sheepishly as her dimples squeaked.

"That's alright, Twilight. Being a princess of Equestria means you will have to kick a few habits now and then," Celestia said before clicking her tongue. "Now, as for Zecora's lineage, Twilight, it's been a long tradition in Zebrafrica that the eldest child of the royal family must venture out on their own into the wilderness and explore the world, eventually settling down in the nearest jungle or swampland they can find that reminds them of home."

"Well, that also explains why Zecora chose to live in the Everfree Forest," Twilight said.

"So true, so true. Plus it helped me to practice my brew," Zecora rhymed in accord.

"But there's something I still don't get, Zecora," Cadence said concerningly. "You've known Twilight and her friends longer than any of us here in this room and you've completely earned their trust. Why didn't you tell them about your lineage in the first place?"

Zecora gave everypony a serious glance, as did her elderly mother. "I was sworn to secrecy to the throne of my home, for there is great danger wherever I roam. Apart from the creatures that roam the Everfree, there are assassins who would want to end me."

"So that's why we have tight security around Canterlot," Twilight guessed. "We're trying to keep the royals safe from any possible hostile attack from any assassination!"

"That is not all, Twilight," Celestia continued, turning her face up to the ceiling with seriousness. "Should anything happen inside the walls of this castle, like the threatening of a royal member's life, then it could very well lead Equestria into a hostile war. While Equestria's safety remains my top priority of this convention, so do the lives of every monarch from all over the world. It would take just one incident and this convention would end with Canterlot and our subjects going up in smoke."

Twilight reached out a hoof to her former mentor's foreleg, a comforting gesture that. "Don't worry, Princess. I have every confidence that this convention will go without any sort of incident."

Celestia smiled, sighing as her former student gave her comfort. "Thank you, Twilight, for your kind words. Now, since the time is about noon, I would say this might be the perfect time to officially begin the convention."

Celestia lightly stamped her hoof twice like a judge's banging gavel. The doors opened again, and in a single file form, came the royals from every corner of the planet, all ranging from the Griffons, to the Kirins, to even the Diamond Dogs. The royal guards announced the arrivals of the royals as they all walked in, each graciously providing a respectful bow to each of the four Equestrian princess while they passed them by.

Each bow that Twilight returned to royals made her feel as equally as a princess herself. She felt no twinge of nervousness from meeting the royals; she had seen them before when she was only a filly, when she would peep through the cracks of the door and listen to Celestia and another monarch discuss their politics. Of course, there was the fact of Twilight being punished for snooping around after curfew, but at least she learned a bit from the political world and the monarch system. To her, this convention would be a piece of cake.

Twilight felt her mane being tugged at before she turned down to Spike. "Wow. For a first-timer alicorn at her first royal convention, you're actually doing pretty good so far," the baby dragon complimented before bowing to another passing royal.

"Thanks, Spike," replied Twilight. "I spent a few hours yesterday and this morning reading a book on how to keep my regal posture for royal gatherings such as this. It's always a good thing to read ahead so you would know when to be be prepared."

A short grumbling made Twilight jump as she looked to the undulating form of her stomach, demanding to be filled. A royal Griffon couple passing by looked down on Twilight as they too heard the grumbling. Twilight giggled nervously and smiled sheepishly, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment as the Griffons huffed and continued to walk with their beaks held up high. Spike couldn't help but giggle at the moment as well.

"Does one of those preparations include having something to eat before the event?" he asked.

Twilight nervously giggled again in response. "Sorry, Spike. I was so busy organizing that I had to put off breakfast."

"Perfect timing, too. The last royal couple just went by and we're headed towards the dining hall. I heard the Diamond Dog country just shipped in some rare amethysts for lunch." Spike licked his chops and shivered as the thought of eating those sweet, succulent gems ran through his mind. "I can taste them already."

"Easy there, dragon boy," Twilight chortled, rolling her eyes. "Remember: self-control. You'll have to be patient before you can snack on your crystals, you know."

"I know but..." Spike reached out to an imaginary purple crystal in the air, shining down on him like an angel sent from Elysium. His clawed digits twitched as his eyes glimmered, noisily slurping up his chops at the very thought of the crystals. "...Diamond Dog amethysts are the best gems I have ever tasted, and they're so rare!"

Twilight rested a hoof on Spike's shoulder. "Don't worry, Spike, you'll get those gems soon. Remember, you can't let your hunger go by without any incident, right? I mean, what would be the worse thing that could ha-MMMPPPHHH!"

Spike was snapped out of his reverie and stuffed his claw over Twilight's mouth before she could say another word. "Don't say that, Twilight! You know how finishing that sentence brings bad luck to anypony who says that!"

Twilight grumbled in a muffled tone as she lifted the baby dragon up with her magic and set him to on her back. Once Spike was settled on her back, Twilight began to trot behind the enormous crowd of royals and their guards, followed by a couple of armor-clad stallions by her side. "Honestly, Spike, that whole bad luck story you told me was just a myth, an urban legend designed to trick ponies into believing something might happen at that moment."

"I don't know, Twilight. Ponies who even attempt to say that sentence is likely to be jinxed in the near future."

"Don't worry about me, Spike. I don't believe in that myth anyway. Besides..." Twilight used her magic to seal Spike's mouth and tightly restrained the dragon onto her back, conjuring up a leather belt to pin his arms and legs down from any interference. "...what's the worst that could happen?"

Spike wriggled frantically in his seating and screamed through his sealed lips, but knew that his efforts were all for naught as he deflated into his adopted sister's back. Feeling defeated, Spike groaned, not noticing that Twilight spotted a single blue fruit on the floor. With her stomach grumbling like timberwolves in the Everfree Forest, Twilight levitated the fruit to her mouth and bit into it, chewing it and savoring the flavor, like blue raspberry mixed with regular raspberry. The juices tingled her tongue and caused her to shiver out of sheer enjoyment before taking another bite into the fruit.

====

"Oh, perfect! I just had these hooves cured the other day!" Rarity whined as she stepped in the mud of the dark, cavernous passage, her friends and the two Cutie Mark Crusaders tagging along.

It wasn't long after the train left that Rarity zipped back into the library, searching for maps that showed a secret passageway that led into Canterlot. Obviously, the sewers wasn't the ideal travel plan, what with Rarity's persnicketiness and the fillies' health and all. So, with a frantic search in one of Twilight's books, "The Secret Passages and Roads All Over Equestria: A Reference Guide", Rarity found a passage closest to Ponyville: an old abandoned tunnel used to smuggle escaped prisoners of war to Canterlot.

Of course, in Rarity's case, she was using that same tunnel to secretly enter the dungeons of Canterlot and find some unorthodox way to find Sweetie Belle.

"Rarity, there's a whole lot more ridin' on this search and rescue than just a muddy hoof," Applejack pointed out as Apple Bloom flanked Applejack, Scootaloo trotting next to her and a forlorn Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy kept an even pace and Pinkie Pie just bounced alongside, keeping a bubbling smile on her face.

"Yes, I'm quite aware of the consequences for our actions should we get caught sneaking around Canterlot," Rarity replied. "But I don't care about the rules. I only care about finding Sweetie Belle and fixing her right up so there would be no further cause of incident."

"B-B-But, Rarity...? What happens if we do get caught and we don't find Sweetie Belle?" Fluttershy asked. "I mean, Sweetie Belle is tinier than a pocket mouse and she's in a castle full of ponies and other creatures big enough to stomp her..."

"Alright, Fluttershy, I get it," Rarity interjected.

"...or eat her..."

"Please, Fluttershy, that is enough," Rarity said, anxiety growing inside. "You're frightening me..."

"...or keep her as a pet..."

"Fluttershy, enough!"

"...or keep her as a pet, then take her home where they can stomp her and eat her!"

"Fluttershy! Please stop! You're not helping me keep calm about this situation!" Rarity shrieked. "Pointing out the dangers my sister is experiencing is one thing, but that is my sister we're talking about! I can't bear to think of what Sweetie Belle is going through right now!"

Fluttershy covered her face with her hooves, her irises expanding as tears leaked out from her eyes. She shrunk back into her mane and began to sob quietly. Applejack trotted over and held Fluttershy in a gentle embrace, joined in by the other ponies, except for Rarity. "It's alright, sugarcube. She didn't mean ta make ya cry." Applejack turned back to the unicorn. "Right, Rarity?"

Rarity's lower lip quivered, a sign of guilt piercing her as she saw her timid friend cry because of her. She rushed over to Fluttershy and snatched her up in her forelegs, bawling out a dramatic weep of her own as her vise grip squeezed the air from Fluttershy's lungs. "Oh, Fluttershy, I am SO sorry! I should never have yelled at you like that! With all the talk about what might happen to Sweetie Belle that I got angry and... and... I'm so sorry-hee-hee-hee-heeee!"

Fluttershy gently released herself fro Rarity's vice grip and pulled her in for a more gentler, soothing embrace. "No, Rarity, I'm the one who should be sorry. I was so worried about what would happen to Sweetie Belle, I didn't take your feelings into consideration. Can you forgive me?"

Rarity sniffed, wiping a tear away from her eye. "But of course, darling I forgive you."

The two weeping ponies smiled as they brought each other in for another hug. Applejack, Apple Bloom and Pinkie Pie all smiled warmly as a trio of "d'awwwwww" resounded through the cave, leaving only Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo to hold their hooves to their gaping mouths and their drooping tongues. "Okay, okay, enough with the sappy stuff already," Rainbow Dash interrupted. "Can we get on with the search-and-rescue before I get bored to Tartarus here?"

"Oh, right." Rarity and Fluttershy pulled away from each other and dusted themselves off, the alabaster unicorn levitating the pilfered piece of map up to her face and inspecting the lines. "Now, if we continue onto this path, then we might be able to reach the underside of Canterlot Mountain in no time at all."

The walk down the dark, underground tunnel spanned for less than a mile. As the party continued to trek into the tunnel, the air began to feel musty, the sound of water droplets dripping away from the stalactites. The muddy, soil ground began to harden into damp rocks underneath the ponies' hooves as it carried them into a slightly steep incline, prompting Rainbow Dash and Applejack to carry their little sisters on their back. When at last, after nearly reaching a long mile on their voyage underground, the girls spotted a lone ladder reaching up to a wooden hatch in the ceiling.

Rarity used her magic and undid the locks keeping the hatch in place before lifting it open, slowly as the hinges creaked open. Rarity poked her head out, did a double-take around the dark area and perked her ears up for any noise. "It's all clear," Rarity whispered as she climbed out of the hatch, the mares and two fillies following.

Rarity floated the map over to her face, trotting straight ahead without looking past the ripped paper. "Hmm... we seem to be on the right track, and this is the underside of Canterlot Mountain," she said with growing confusion, "but the path just stops here and nothing else. Where did the tunnel lead us?"

CLONK!

"Ouch!"

With her view obstructed by the map, Rarity did not see the vertical, metal bar she walked into. With the heavy CLONK!, Rarity's magic suddenly wore off, as did the magic surrounding the paper floating gently down to the ground. Rarity's head swam for a moment. Then, after a quick shake of her head, Rarity saw herself behind a set of bars which made her suspicions arise inside. After peering past the bars, Rarity looked and, to her horror, saw similar caverns with similar bars attached.

"Oh, dear..." Rarity quickly checked the map and carefully inspected the location. Then the unicorn gulped nervously as she dropped the paper and turned to her friends. "Um, girls? I'm afraid we might've taken the wrong tunnel."

"Huh? Whaddya mean by that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"I mean, it did take us to the underside of Canterlot Mountain, but..." Rarity gulped. "We took a wrong tunnel, and now we're in... the dungeons!"

"WHAT!?" came the choir of shocked ponies.

"Ya mean ta tell me we went the wrong direction and now we ended up in the dungeons!?" Applejack demanded.

"Yes," Rarity admitted. "It seems we took the red tunnel by the rock when we should've taken the tunnel by the red rock."

"Umm..." Fluttershy whimpered. "I pointed that out earl--"

"I totally knew something was wrong with that tunnel!" Rainbow Dash shouted, pointing a hoof at Rarity. "Now we've ended up in the slammer, like how you're plan was going to end!"

"Oh, please, Rainbow Dash! Even if we did get caught or not, we would still get an audience with the Princesses!"

"Yeah, but what if we don't get the audience!? Suppose we get stuck down here waiting for somepony to come across us and thinks we were locked up before his shift began!"

"Well, that is why we turn around and go back the way we came through."

SLAM!

The mares all turned to the spot where the hidden hatch was and where Apple Bloom and Scootaloo stood with a shocked expression, the yellow filly's hoof covering her "O"-shaped mouth. Scootaloo looked at the mares blankly before she subconsciously pointed her hoof at Apple Bloom, who in turn, pointed her hoof at the pegasus filly as well. Rarity rushed over to the spot where the hatch was and attempted to use her magic to lift it open, only for her aura to fizzle away into dust.

"Magic dampening spells." Rarity threw herself up and wobbled over to the bars, leaning down on the rusted metal as she began to weep. "It's no use. We're stuck in this filthy dungeon cell, the only way out of here has just shut behind us, and now my coat is covered with rust!" Rarity covered her face with her forelegs and wept, her voice muffled by the fur. "I'll never be able to find Sweetie Belle!"

"Never say never, Sugarcube," Applejack reassured. "We're gonna get out of this. Ah'm sure of that."

"How can you be sure, Applejack?" Rarity asked, her mascara flowing down her face. "We're the only ones down here in the dungeons and there's nopony in sight."

"Not yet," Pinkie Pie replied with her trademark innocence. Before Rarity could ask what she meant, Pinkie Pie took a deep breath and yelled at the top of her lungs, the same volume that attracted the Ursa Minor in the Everfree Forest.

"HEY GUARDS! COME DOWN HERE AND HELP US! WE HAVE A RABID MARE ON THE LOOSE!"

"MARE ON THE LOOSE!"

Just like before, Pinkie's shrill voice rang out through the dungeons, reverberating off the stony walls and echoing all the way up through the cave. Everypony covered their ears a little too late, and they were met with an intense ringing in their ears. Then, immediately responding to the voice, the sound of clanking armor and metallic hooves quickly marched down to the mares' cell where a few armor-clad stallions appeared with unsheathed spears.

The stallions pointed the spears at the mares, which, even though they were protected by jail bars, made them flinch in response. Rarity darted her eyes back and forth as she sat on her haunches with her hooves up. Then she swallowed a nervous lump in her throat before she let out a shaky, ladylike giggle.

"Can we, by any chance, see Princess Twilight Sparkle please?"

====

It took nearly an hour for Sweetie Belle to regain most of her strength.

The shrunken filly had enough strength to navigate through Spike's giant spines and jump off his purple head and onto Twilight's head, had it not been for her restraining spell holding the giant baby dragon down. Sweetie Belle was forced to wait a little longer until Twilight lifted her spell off of her and Spike as the giant alicorn trotted into the spacious dining room. Everywhere Sweetie Belle saw, there were round tables the size of a small town (at her size of course), royal members of every nation in the world and trays filled with food, each dish cooked by their originating nation's best chefs.

It was shortly afterwards when Sweetie Belle took in the sights when Twilight undid the spell around Spike, allowing him to move and speak once more, which also proved fortunate for the tiny unicorn as well. Spike climbed off of Twilight's back as soon as they reached the table where the Princesses of Equestria, the Royals from the Crystal Empire and Zecora and her mother were assigned. Spike, being Twilight's closest friend to a brother, was assigned a seat at the table and he climbed on the chair with ease. Spike's tail loomed past the back of the seat, which worried Sweetie Belle a little.

The tail had a slight decline towards the edge of the chair. Sweetie Belle was lucky enough that she had some lime green spine scales to hold onto.

With a bit of strength, the shrunken unicorn climbed up the spine she held onto for so long. The spine felt like cardboard with a tall height, and wobbling movement that nearly knocked Sweetie Belle down. Sweetie Belle, however, managed to get her footing on the apex of the spine before she crouched and wriggled her blank flank, jumping ahead to the next spine. Then, when she found perfect balance with the spine she landed on, she jumped to the next one...

...and the next one...

...until she found herself staring at the incredibly big, vertical ladder of Spike's spines. There was no way she could make it up there without her hooves slipping off their grip. An idea popped inside Sweetie Belle's head before she slid off the spine and clutched the scales on Spike's skin, climbing up the tall, purple wall with an able grip on the grip. Hoof after hoof, Sweetie Belle climbed up Spike's back, taking about ten minutes to accomplish until she found her vertical grip becoming a declining hill at Spike's right shoulder. When the ground became more stable for her to walk on, Sweetie Belle cantered along Spike's arm and jumped off of his elbow and onto the table.

Unfortunately, the timing and location could not have been batter. For one thing, Sweetie Belle was so completely focused on climbing Spike that she could not hear him order a plate of rare Diamond Dog amethysts over her pain and adrenaline rush.

Also, Sweetie Belle neglected to note that she was on top of the same platter that served as Spike's appetizer plate.

As Sweetie Belle's tiny hooves landed on the porcelain surface of the platter, a shadow was cast over her. The tiny unicorn lifted her head up and was immediately met herself in a monsoon of boulder-sized gems falling on her like a bad meteor shower. Sweetie Belle and ducked to the reflective surface, covering her head with her hooves as she was pummeled and piled by the amethysts, completely obscuring her sight of the outside world, including the hungry eyes of the baby dragon towering above her.

The shivering filly opened her eyes, finding herself in a cave of darkness with the faintest of light peering through only a few cracks. She suffered only a few bruises and sustained minor injuries, but she was nevertheless feeling alright. Sweetie Belle sighed a breath of relief; nothing else had gone wrong for her.

Unfortunately, Sweetie Belle's relief ended abruptly as she was piled in with the amethysts by a giant, purple claw, lifted up into the proverbial sky. The tiny filly yelped with surprise as she struggled to get free of her stony hold, only succeeding in inching her head through the cracks of the amethysts. A shrill gasp came from the filly and she immediately regretted ever trying to see what was happening, for she was staring straight in the giant, reptilian face of Spike!

Sweetie Belle's heart stopped momentarily as Spike licked his chops before opening his mouth. The mouth was coated with sticky, slimy dragon saliva, with a dark silhouette of the uvula and the throat, carpeted by the waving plump tongue.

The teeth made Sweetie Belle worry the most.

If Spike can chew through a rock with his teeth, just think of what it could do to Sweetie Belle at her size.

The answer would soon come as Spike tossed the amethysts into his mouth and onto his tongue, taking the tiny filly along with them. Sweetie Belle screamed bloody murder when she landed on the squishy, forked tongue, rolling over a few times before the teeth clamped together. Sweetie Belle coughed and got up to rush at the front of Spike's mouth, only to be interrupted by the movements of Spike's jaws crunching down on the gemstones. The shifting jaws pulverized the amethysts into a fine powder, and the saliva made them all the more gooier and easier for Spike to swallow. Sweetie Belle held onto dear life on one section of the tongue as Spike continued to chew and savor the amethysts before he used his tasting organ to scoop up the gems onto his tongue, and lifted it up for them to slide down his throat. Sweetie Belle once again screamed as the tongue threw her onto the roof of the draconian mouth, pinning her against the surface as the blow knocked the wind out of her. Turning back, Sweetie Belle watched as the gemstones slid into the entrance of Spike's throat and disappeared with a GLURK!!

Eventually, the tongue flattened into its original position, which made Sweetie Belle splash in a puddle of saliva. The tiny filly groaned and rubbed her head; she thought she could get used to this sort of thing after a while. That feeling would soon pass, though, as Sweetie Belle staggered up on Spike's tongue and headed for his sharp teeth. She slipped a little on Spike's saliva, having little or no traction at all, and came up to the white stalactites and stalagmites that helped frame the dragon's mouth. Then, with a deep breath, Sweetie Belle took her hooves and banged them against the teeth enamel and screamed as loud as she could.

"SPIKE! IT'S ME, SWEETIE BELLE!! CAN YOU HEAR ME, SPIKE!? WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T SWALLOW ME!! PLEASE, I CAN'T AFFORD TO--OOF!"

Sweetie Belle was rudely interrupted by Spike's tongue as it took the tiny filly and once again slammed her into the roof of his mouth. The taste buds savored the flavor on Sweetie Belle's fur, and she could feel him sucking on the taste too. Spike maneuvered his tongue to his cheek where Sweetie Belle found herself caught between a massaging pink serpent and two layers of gigantic dragon teeth. Then, with the work of his lip muscles, Spike caught the micro unicorn in between the corner his lips and moved her to the front of his mouth, where a few good wriggles allowed Sweetie Belle's head and hooves to stick between a purple and a green mound.

Sweetie Belle once again coughed as she took in the sweet, cool air, as opposed to the humidity inside Spike's mouth. Looking up, Sweetie Belle saw a gigantic hand reach to her place in the lips, two gigantic claws forming a crane while the other two were curled up in his palm. The claws gently caught Sweetie Belle by her back and her belly and removed her from the dragon's lips, and loosened themselves as Spike turned his hand upwards. The tiny filly whimpered with surprise as the loosened grip allowed her to slide down Spike's thumb and into the very center of his palm, where four, building-sized fingers acted as some sort of cage for her.

Sweetie Belle looked up past the hills of Spike's palm and saw the gigantic, green, reptilian eyes looking down on her, though not the way she expected them to look at her. She saw Spike's eyes glowering down at her with both disgust and anger as the titan-sized drake opened his mouth to speak.

"The heck!? How did a bug get in my food!?"

Chapter XI - Reunion

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"The heck!? How did a bug get in my food!?"

Sweetie Belle winced at the thunderous words that the giant-sized Spike spoke as his green, reptilian eyes gazed down at her. Kept in a firm hold between two purple, scaly fingers, Sweetie Belle felt like what Spike called her, a bug before a gargantuan baby dragon, glaring down at her insignificant form like a god for sneaking into his food, which happened to be the same sort of gems that Rarity longed for to use in her fashion lines. Now with Spike holding the tiny unicorn down with his fingers, squeezing her lightly for added firmness, he was about to show the tiny "bug" what it meant to be big.

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you're the same bug that was bothering me earlier," Spike said at a whisper in his size. "I don't get it. First you irritate my foot, then you almost end up being my meal. Look, I may have eaten those baked goods out of the trashcan before, but eating a little bug like you is just gross!"

Sweetie Belle immediately slapped a hoof to her muzzle. Her stomach churned not from Spike's firm hold, but from the memories of getting food poisoning by those awful muffins Applejack baked that one time. Spike's glowering eye suddenly transitioned into a mischievous glint, and Sweetie Belle was a tad too late to notice it. "Well, you did have a distinct taste of marshmallows, so I think I'll go a little easy on you. I won't stomp you or squish you again..."

Sweetie Belle gasped as a ray of hope shone down like Celestia's sun. Her big eyes expanded with all the hope she could muster.

"...or chew you into itty bitty bits..."

Thank Elysium, Luna had finally answered the tiny filly's prayers for mercy!

"...so instead, I'm just gonna swallow you whole."

Then, all of Sweetie Belle's hopes and expectations cracked and shattered like a world of glass being broken all around her. She watched with horror as Spike opened his mouth and lifted her above his maw below her. Sweetie Belle began to wriggle frantically in her grip, but that never did her any good, for the baby dragon was going to end her in every way possible. The fingers loosened, and the tiny filly was sent screaming into Spike's mouth.

Suddenly, Sweetie Belle felt something lift her up in mid-air, like a warm, tingly sensation. Before Sweetie Belle could process what happened, she was quickly and carefully yanked out of Spike's hot mouth before his rock-like teeth clamped shut, leaving the baby dragon one "bug" short of his meal.

"Spike, what did I say about playing with bugs and eating them?" a familiar voice boomed in Sweetie Belle's ears.

The tiny young unicorn turned around and saw the gigantic muzzle of Princess Twilight Sparkle staring down at the giant dragon scornfully, her horn igniting her magenta aura. That meant Twilight spotted Spike playing with Sweetie Belle's tiny form and used her magic to levitate her out of Spike's mouth before his stomach acids would quickly do her in.

"Aw, come on, Twilight. That bug's been bothering me ever since I arrived at the train station," Spike whined.

"Spike, there's only one rule that you should've known by now and that's never to eat any kind of bug," Twilight scorned. "Do you know why nopony should ever eat a bug?"

Spike sighed in frustration. "Because they might have germs on them or secrete poison."

"That's exactly right," Twilight said before she turned her eye down to the little "bug" in her magical grasp. "Therefore, you should never eat any kind of bug, even if they happen to bothe--"

Twilight narrowed her eyes to get a closer look at the "bug", another ray of hope that Sweetie Belle was hoping for. While she looked at the tiny filly, Twilight gasped lightly as she finally realized what, or who, the little bug was. Using her magic, Twilight lifted Sweetie Belle up to her head, the tiny filly going wide-eyed as she recalled a similar situation involving getting lost in a forest full of purple hair. Turning her horn off, Sweetie Belle was dropped into the young alicorn's mane, gently landing on the soft, purple ground on her belly. The tiny filly grumbled as she recovered from the fall just as she felt herself and her ground lifted up, indicating that Twilight was standing up from her seat.

"Excuse me, everypony, but I need to use the bathroom really quick," Twilight said before she went at a pace that was half trot and half gallop. Holding onto the tree-sized hair strands, Sweetie Belle tried to keep her from flying off with the sudden rise and fall of Twilight's body pacing as she exited the dining hall and into a more secluded area of Canterlot Castle. Fortunately, there was a hallway that was only accessible by royalty, so this was an opportune place to quietly chat with her shrunken student in private.

Once there, Twilight levitated Sweetie belle out of her mane with her magic and gently dropped her on her gigantic muzzle. "Sweetie Belle? It is you, isn't it, Sweetie Belle?"

The tiny unicorn filly gulped nervously as she stared into the big violet pools looming down at her. "Yeah... Yeah, it's me, Twilight."

Twilight gently did a double-take around her, glancing at both ends of the hall to see if anyone was present in the hallway. There was nopony in sight, so that was good enough for the alicorn to have a private discussion with her passenger lying on her muzzle. "Sweetie Belle, what in the wide world of Equestria happened to you? How did you get this way? More importantly, what are you thinking sneaking into the royal convention like this?"

Sweetie Belle looked up to the giant princess, her eyes widening and lips quivering as she was being scolded by her mentor. "I'm sorry, Princess Twilight, but I had nopony else to go to," she sobbed, which surprised the lavender giantess. "I was trying to perform that teleportation spell you assigned me to, but Rarity barged in on me while I was performing that spell! But then my spell hit me and then I became the size of a bug! I've been eaten, nearly eaten and sat on by everypony bigger than me, but I had to endure all that so I could get to you!

"I tried to get my friends to help me, but they couldn't do anything! You're the only pony I know who's got magic powerful enough to bring me back to size! That's why I had to go through all the trouble to finding you, Twilight! You've got better control over all kinds of magic and to me..." Sweetie Belle drooped her head down, her ears folded back with sadness. "...I'm just a little, good-for-nothing unicorn who can't even get one spell right."

Curling up in her hooves, Sweetie Belle buried her face in her forelegs and began to cry silently. Twilight looked down at tiny, bite-sized Sweetie Belle with empathy as she felt the filly's tears on the fur of her muzzle, like a single, hot droplet of water soaking on her nose. Then, with a gentle smile, Twilight scooped Sweetie Belle off of her muzzle with her hoof and held it flat so it acted as a soft platform for Sweetie Belle's tiny form to rest her haunches on.

"Hey, it's alright. I'm not mad at you," Twilight cooed, gently using the tip of her hoof to caress Sweetie Belle's head and mane. "In fact, I think I'm very proud of how brave enough you were to survive at your size."

Sweetie Belle sobbed a little and wiped her eyes, sniffling. "Y-You are?"

Twilight nodded. "Of course. You may not have performed your teleportation spell accurately, but you've managed to make it all the way to Canterlot on your own and live. To me, that's the biggest thing that could happen to somepony so small."

"Really? You mean it?" Sweetie Belle asked as her spirits began to lift.

"Would I be lying to somepony your size who could fit their entire bedroom on my hoof?" Twilight quipped, making the tiny unicorn in her frog giggle.

"No, of course not."

Twilight giggled lightly. "I thought so," she said, lowering her muzzle to Sweetie Belle and gently nuzzling her diminutive form. Sweetie Belle felt the ticklish sensation of Twilight's fur rub her chest, giggling as a reaction. Once Twilight finished rubbing the tiny filly, she brought her face back and gave her another gentle smile once more.

"So, you want me to change you back to your normal size, do you?" Twilight asked, earning a nod from Sweetie Belle. Then, lighting her horn, Twilight enveloped Sweetie Belle with her magic and levitated her onto her horn just near the base of her mane, the tiny filly immediately clutching the hard bone for support and grip. "Well, you came to the right pony. All I gotta do is find somewhere private with a secret exit to help you get out of Canterlot quicker. Then I'll simply flick my horn and you'll be back to the way you are."

"Really? Is it really that simple?" Sweetie Belle asked as she held onto Twilight's horn.

Twilight snickered. "Sweetie Belle, I've had some experiences altering the size of objects and some ponies as well. Changing you back to the size of a filly is going to be cake."

"I hope so. Rarity is probably turning all of Equestria upside-down looking for me," the unicorn groaned dejectedly.

Twilight reached a titanic hoof and gently tapped the tiny unicorn on her horn, a friendly pat at her size. "Don't worry about it, Sweetie Belle. I'm sure you're gonna run into Rarity soon."

As Twilight approached the end of the hall, she was met with a couple of armored stallions, one being a unicorn, the other an Earth pony, both sporting their required, stoic visage. Twilight looked at the guards with an expression as blank as a piece of paper before one of the stallions spoke up, a deep thunder in Sweetie Belle's ears. "Princess Twilight Sparkle?"

"Yes?" the latter responded.

"There is a group of mares and a couple of fillies that mysteriously appeared in the dungeons. They seem to want an audience with you." Sweetie Belle's ears seemed to perk up with interest, and her face spoke of surprise. A group of mares and two fillies? That could only mean that Rarity had somehow made it to the dungeons with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo being dragged along for the ride!

"Alright, I'll be right down," the lavender alicorn replied before she began to trot towards the dungeons' location.

Having much interest in where this was leading her and Twilight, Sweetie Belle shimmied down the giant alicorn's horn and under her violet bangs, her hair almost like the canopy of a major Equestrian sports stadium and just as dark with streams of light shining in. Once Sweetie Belle made it to the base of her horn, she began to trudge past the thick thrush of hair strands and into the direction of her left ear, only getting tangled in her back hooves a couple of times before she pulled them free of those knots.

Once she made it to Twilight's left ear, Sweetie Belle climbed up the back of the ear and swung around to the front, her tiny hooves somehow keeping a good grip as she began to swing herself into the furry cavern of the Princess of Magic's ear. Aside from the mild adhesion of nearly-washed earwax, Twilight's inner ear seemed very clean and fuzzy to the touch, whereas it was done using magic and an entire 156-page rulebook on how to clean ears.

"Hey, Twilight, you heard what that guard said, right? About the mares and two fillies?" Sweetie Belle whispered into the ear canal, a brief echo for every word spoken.

"I have," Twilight's voice boomed in response, making Sweetie Belle instinctively cover her ears from the thundering echo. "What about it?"

"Well, what are the off chances that those mares and fillies are Rarity, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and the rest of your friends?" she piped, nearly cracking her voice with growing excitement. "Think about it. Apple Bloom, Scoots and Fluttershy must've told Rarity and the girls about my situation, so they should've found a way into Canterlot so they would come find me or find you."

"Hmm... that would make sense, actually," Twilight concurred after a moment's thought. "Although, there's no physical evidence that would support your theory. That's why I intend to see this for myself before we can assume that the girls have made it here."

"Oh... alright," Sweetie Belle said with little dejection before she curled up in her hooves and laid down.

All of a sudden, the tiny unicorn's ground suddenly tipped over to the left and she tumbled down towards the ear's opening, holding on to the fuzz for a firm grasp before her ground leveled itself out. Once it did, Sweetie Belle found herself lying on her tummy before she got up on her hooves and marched over to the innermost part of her savior's ear, particularly near the ear drum.

"Hey, is everything alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine, Sweetie Belle," Twilight answered. "I just felt a little dizzy is all."

"Okay, but please be careful," Sweetie Belle advised. "I'm still in your ear, you know."

"I can hear that," the alicorn joked. "Don't worry, though, I'll be careful."

What Sweetie Belle had failed to notice in connection to the sudden dizziness Twilight suffered was the first stage of the fruit she devoured with the seeds inside. The next step she was currently experience was a slight fever, following with beads of cold sweat pouring out of her pores. She didn't know if she was catching Hay Fever or if she was nervous about meeting other royalty from different countries. Twilight waved it off as she trotted down to the hallways where the door to the underground dungeons was built.

====

Rarity had been anxiously pacing back and forth, squeaking out worried whimpers as she awaited a reply to her request.

Pinkie blew a tune with her harmonica while Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo played a few rounds of "Appleloosa Hold 'Em", the cyan pegasus shifting her tail constantly to mask her shaved, bare flank.

It had been about ten, twenty whole minutes since the guard was requested to send for Princess Twilight and so far, the mares were already bored of the growing suspense to inform their alicorn friend of Sweetie Belle's predicament. Everypony but Rarity relaxed while they waited for any signs that the guards would visit their cell to bring them the news of their progress.

And what better timing was there when the doors to the dungeons clicked and squeaked open, grabbing the perked ears of the ponies as metallic clip-clops reverberated down the cavernous bowels. The mares and fillies threw everything they had down and stood up as they saw two of the Canterlot Royal Guards enter their sights, along with a certain alicorn escorted by the armored stallions.

"TWILIGHT!!!" they all shouted as they rushed up to the bars, prompting the stallions to unsheathe their spears.

Twilight laid a hoof on one of the guards' forelegs. "It's alright, sirs, they're my friends."

The guards held their spears in an upright position as Twilight approached her friends locked away behind the bars with Rarity the frantic mare in the front.

"Oh, Twilight, thank Celestia you're here!" the fashionista cried. "It's terrible! Horrible! Tragic, even! And I was the one to bring it on upon myself!"

"Calm down, Rarity," Twilight commanded. "Just tell me what happened and why you had to go through all the trouble to take the red tunnel by the rock just so you could get yourselves locked up."

"Because this was the only way to get an audience with you, Twilight!" Rarity blubbered. "I need your help! Sweetie Belle was at home practicing her magic and I just got home from after making my errands! But then I barged into Sweetie Belle's room without knocking and the magic she used shrunk her down to size! I was trying to find her all over Equestria and beyond, but I couldn't find one trace of my little sister and it turns out, she was shrunken down to si-i-izzze!"

Rarity's face fell into the bars and she began to wail woefully while Twilight looked at her with a feigned shock expression. "M-M-My little sister wanted to go to Canterlot so you could change her back, but I worry what might happen to her at her size! I can't bear to see the sight or hear the news of somepony eating her, stepping on her or even keeping her as a pet! I can't even live with myself if she becomes a little foal's pe-he-he-het!"

Twilight trotted over to the jail cell bars and grasped Rarity's hooves into hers and looked at her with a gentle smile. "Don't worry, Rarity, everything is going to be fine," the alicorn said, looking at her ear. "In fact, I'm pretty sure that Sweetie Belle is closer than you think."

"Thank you for those kind words, Twilight," the alabaster unicorn sniffed, "but I highly doubt those kind words will help me get through my time of need."

"No, Rarity, I mean it. Sweetie Belle is closer than you think," Twilight restated, making Rarity perk up.

"Wait, you're saying that my sister is here!?" she yelped. "Oh, where is she!? I need to see her, Twilight! Please show me where she is."

With a smile, Twilight's horn lit up, and a tiny white grain of rice floated out of her left ear. She held out her right hoof under the rice and canceled out her magic, making the speck of white fall in the soft center of the frog. Rarity looked closer at her friend's hoof, her eyes widening as she saw the "grain" move and move its head up to meet her sapphire eyes. She gasped with surprise as she realized that the "grain" Twilight held gently was actually Sweetie Belle and her eyes began to moisten up.

"Suh... Suh... Sweetie Belle?"

The tiny unicorn looked up with big, puppy-dog eyes that moistened with tears as well.

"Hi, Rarity."

A delightful squeal rang out and Rarity whisked her very "little" sister out of Twilight's hoof and brought her near chest in a loving, joyful embrace. Then Rarity couldn't help but bring herself to bawl with a warm heart while Sweetie Belle's life was being squeezed out by the bear hug, buried in the soft, delicate coat. Yet, despite this vise grip, she couldn't hold her tears as they trickled down her cheeks.

"Oh, Sweetie Belle! Thank goodness you're alright!" Rarity cried. "I... I... I thought I would never find you-hoo-hoo-hoooo!"

Sweetie Belle sniffled. "I thought I'd never see you too, Rarity!" she sobbed.

Rarity brought Sweetie Belle up to her delicate face in cupped hooves and snuggled her cheek against the unicorn's tiny form. "Oh, Sweetie Belle, I am so sorry for ruining your spell! I should've better than to disturb you like that and I almost paid the price of losing you! Will you forgive me!?"

Sweetie Belle pulled back from Rarity's cheek with a big, wriggling smile and joyful, tearful eyes. "Don't be silly, Rarity! I've already forgiven you!"

Rarity returned the big smile and resumed nuzzling her sister, feeling her tiny hooves hug her cheek while hot tears flowed over her little body. "That's all I wanted to hear, little sister. That's all I wanted to hear."

Rarity brought her cupped hooves out in front of her where she could see Sweetie Belle stand in the very center of the frog. Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and the other two Crusaders all surrounded Rarity and looked down at the micro-sized unicorn filly, all feeling their hearts melt at the sight, though Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo were too cool to admit they were touched by the scene.

"Boy howdy. Ah guess Apple Bloom was tellin' the truth after all," Applejack said, chuckling. "Heck, you're even tinier than Ah was when Ah ran into that Poison Joke patch."

"I guess bigger things do come in small packages after all," Rainbow Dash joked, earning a deadpan from everypony but Scootaloo. "What? I mean it."

Pinkie Pie shot her muzzle near Sweetie Belle, though in the unicorn's eyes, it was like her nose was a spaceship hovering dangerously close to her. "Oh, wow, Sweetie Belle! You're even tinier than a tiny little sprinkle! Hey, when we get back, we're gonna throw a 'Sweetie-Belle's-Been-Found-But-Only-As-A-Shrunken-Filly' party and I'm gonna serve you the biggest cupcakes there is! Do you want a cupcake!? I'm gonna add it with super-duper-HUGE rainbow sprinkles on top so we all know what it feels like to be as small as you!"

"Pinkie Pie!" Rarity snapped, bringing her hooves and Sweetie Belle away from the hyperactive pony. "Honestly, darling, you're scaring my sister out of her wits!"

"Don't worry, Rarity, I've been scared worse at my size!" Sweetie Belle yelled. "Like recently, when I was almost eaten by Spike!"

"What!? My little Spikey-Wikey almost ate you!?" Rarity yelled. "Oh, you poor, poor dear! I shall have to keep Spike out of my boutique for a whole week!"

"Hey, that rhymed!" Pinkie piped before she giggled. "Also, you said 'a whole!'"

Everypony ignored that last joke as Sweetie Belle waved her arms up at her gigantic sister. "Don't worry, Rarity, I'm alright. Spike wouldn't have known that he almost ate me in the first place!" she reassured. "In fact, neither Big Mac, Winona or Spike knew I was tiny in the first place, but I survived! Look at me, Rarity, I'm still here and alive now, aren't I!?"

"Well, I suppose that's true," Rarity reluctantly agreed. "Fine, then Spike will have to be banned for half a week."

"Rarity..." Sweetie Belle whined as Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Fluttershy approached the tiny filly.

"Wow, Sweetie Belle, you made it to Canterlot all by yourself!" Scootaloo said, exhilarated. "I honestly didn't think you would make it here after Apple Bloom flushed you down the toilet!"

"Yeah, after y'all forced me ta drink down Sweetie Belle and made me drink some of Granny Smith's laxatives," Apple Bloom grumbled.

"Well, you shouldn't have had your big mouth open in the first place!" Scootaloo argued.

"And I thought a dodo like you had Sweetie Belle safe and secure in your mane," Apple Bloom remarked, making the orange pegasus gasp.

"Don't call me names that I still don't know the meaning of, you dictionary!"

"Don't call me a dictionary, you dodo!"

"Dictionary!"

"Chicken!"

"That's it!"

The two fillies began to roll around in the dungeon floors, jabbing and biting each other as the dust clouds began to rise up. Applejack and Rainbow Dash attempted to restrain their little sisters back in their tight grip while Fluttershy turned to Sweetie Belle, a dam of tears flowing in her eyes ready to pour out. "Sweetie Belle... did you... did you make it up here all by yourself? Did you get stepped on and eaten on the way here? Were you hurt at all?"

"Well, I was sat on by Zecora on the train, stepped on by Spike and was nearly eaten by him, but I'm not hurt too badly," Sweetie Belle answered.

"My Spikey-Wikey stepped on you as well!?" Rarity gasped. "That's half a week more that he shan't be allowed in my boutique!"

"Rarity!" Sweetie Belle snapped.

"Oh dear," Fluttershy whimpered before she hid her face behind her curtain-like mane and sobbed silently.

"Oh now, Fluttershy. What's gotten you to shed tears again?" Rarity asked concernedly.

Fluttershy sobbed before she brought her timid, yellow face out of her mane. "It's nothing, Rarity, it's just that..." Fluttershy broke down in tears for a moment before she gently took Sweetie Belle away from Rarity's hooves and hugged her to her cheek, nuzzling her. "I'm sorry, Rarity! I tried to keep Sweetie Belle from putting herself in danger so I could show her to you, but I failed at that! She was nearly crushed and swallowed on the way here and I feel like I've been an awful caretaker!"

Sweetie Belle pulled herself away from Fluttershy's cheek and looked up at the gentle giantess. "Don't be absurd, Fluttershy! If it weren't for you, Owlowiscious would've turned me into his dinner! You've done enough for me and I was too determined to even thank you for what you've done for me in my condition!"

Fluttershy whimpered again and nuzzled the tiny unicorn gently, which tickled Sweetie Belle's tummy. "Thank you, Sweetie Belle. That means a lot to me."

Sweetie Belle returned the smile before Rarity's magic draped over her body and lifted her up, gently placing her on the rocky ground before Rarity cleared her throat. "Ahem. Now that we have that out of the way," Rarity began, turning to the alicorn. "Twilight, would you mind doing the honor of turning my sister back."

"I'll be happy to," Twilight smiled. "Stand back, everypony, this spell might affect you all if you stand to close."

Opening the jail cell door, Twilight cautiously stepped up to Sweetie Belle sitting on the ground, careful not to step on the tiny filly. The other ponies backed away from her as Twilight prepared to perform her spell. Sweetie Belle looked up to the titanic, lavender pillars of Twilight's forelegs and hooves as her horn began to light a magenta light. As the horn began to glow, it also began to fizzle, making Twilight sweat profusely, raising a questionable eyebrow from the ponies.

"Twilight? Is there something wrong?" Rarity asked.

Twilight turned her horn off and breathed heavily, trying to catch her escaping breath. "It's nothing. I haven't had much to eat lately." The alicorn lit her horn up again, only for the magic to sizzle up in little sparks, also causing its caster to feel out of breath, hot and sweaty.

"Twilight?" Rarity attempted to ask.

"It's alright, Rarity. I guess I kinda feel nervous of this whole 'Princess' thing. I just need to... need to..." Twilight was cut off by a sharp pain in her stomach, like the acid began to burn away at its walls through the many layers of mucus. She began to feel dizzy and the joints in her knees trembled before she lost her balance and fell forward. Sweetie Belle screamed as the titanic alicorn fell towards her like a tower and cantered out of the way before Rarity scooped her up in her hooves.

"TWILIGHT!!!" the mares screamed.

The guards surrounded their princess and looked on with horror as Twilight wriggled with pain, the unknown affliction taking its effect on her body.

"The princess has fallen ill!" one of the guards yelled.

"Quickly, take her to the infirmary! Contact Princess Celestia immediately!" the other guard yelled.

Both of the guards levitated Twilight on their backs and raced towards the medical wing of Canterlot Castle with the eight other ponies looking on in shock as they saw her friend collapse on the floor in front of them. Rarity quickly placed her little sister onto her horn and raced after her, Sweetie Belle beginning to cry on the magical conduit. She buried her face in the horn and began to weep on as the only pony who could help her in her time of need fell ill.

"Twilight..." was all that she could whimper out.

Chapter XII: Journey into the Twilight

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Princess Twilight Sparkle wriggled with nerve-burning pain as her bed was surrounded by her friends and family. Princess Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor and Spike stood on the one side of the bed facing the wall. Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and the Cutie Mark Crusaders all stood by helplessly as Twilight continued to suffer from the sickness. Pinkie Pie's mane and tail were deflated from the overwhelming sadness, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were held in the forelegs of their sisters and Sweetie Belle couldn't help but release tears onto her giant sister's horn.

Sweetie Belle had made it so far for her to be restored back to normal size, but the twist of fate had struck Twilight with pain and illness. She was afraid she might lose Twilight, her spellcasting mentor and the one alicorn she knew would help her in her hour of need.

When Twilight was carried into the infirmary by her guards, the Elements of Harmony and their sisters were permitted to see her as long as they did not disturb her rest. Moments later after a guard was sent to retrieve Princess Celestia, the latter alicorn, with the addition Princess Luna, Cadence, Shining Armor and Spike all joined in with watching Twilight suffer with the pain growing inside of her.

"This is too unfortunate," Princess Celestia lamented. "It's not like Twilight to suddenly fall violently ill while she had to visit with the other royal members from around the world. There must be something else at work here."

"I can't believe this is happening," Shining Armor said, placing a hoof on the rail of the bed. "Someone must be out looking to start a war with Equestria on purpose, and they knew they would start with my little sister. When I find out who it was..." the stallion's eyes narrowed, "...I'll make sure to make his life a living Tartarus."

Cadence stopped him by placing her regal hoof on his foreleg. "It's too early for that, Shining Armor. There must be something we can do for Twilight, but the question is what?"

"The doctors are all on their way, but there's no way they can get here on time," Celestia pointed out. "All we can do is give them a diagnosis of Twilight's suffering, but that's all we can do at this moment."

"Allow me," Luna offered as she lit her horn blue, scanning Twilight's body from her horn to her hind hooves that took no more than fifteen seconds to complete. The Princess of the Night narrowed her eyes as her diagnosis became clear to her. "Twilight did not fall into any known affliction. She has ingested poison."

"POISON!?!" everypony shouted.

"Yes, unfortunately," Luna began. "Between now and half an hour ago, Twilight must've eaten something laced with a poisonous substance, but my scan shows that none of the food she ate at the dining hall was poisoned. She must've ingested this poison much earlier than we realized."

"But that can't be right!" Spike shouted. "She couldn't have eaten something she would know would be poisoned without her knowledge of food!"

"While you bring up a valid point, Spike, that is where you are half-right. While Twilight has knowledge beyond any one of you average-day ponies, she does not have knowledge for all kinds of food, including the ones that could potentially bring upon her affliction. My scans show not only that she has eaten something with this poison inside without this knowledge, but the poison has derived from the lands Westward from Equestria."

"You mean she ate something from a country just West of Equestria?" Applejack asked.

Luna nodded her head. "That is where you are correct. The only problem is trying to find the source of this poison and creating an antidote in time."

Cadence perked up as a worrying thought ran across her head. "Hey, don't we know somepony that came West from Equestria?"

Shining Armor and Spike all pondered the question before the stallion realized where this conversation went. "Yeah, I remember. We met her at the train station when Spike came to pick us up."

Spike was the last of the three to feel a shock course through his body. "Wait a minute! You don't really mean...!?"

"Her? Who? What are y'all talkin' about?" Applejack questioned.

"When Spike came to pick us up at the station, we ran into Zecora and her mother there," Cadence explained. "She introduced us to this fruit with poisonous seeds inside that would cause pain and suffering, but never went into details to what the symptoms were."

The mares and fillies all gasped while Rainbow Dash was the first to speak out her mind. "WHAT!? Are you kidding me!? Are you telling me that Zecora and her mother plotted to kill our friend by poisoning her!? You're insane!"

"It may sound insane, Rainbow Dash, but these are the facts we have to face!" Shining Armor piped up, marching towards the cyan pegasus. "If my sister doesn't pull through and the word gets out how she got this way, then Equestria and Zebrafrica may be pulled into an all-out war we can't prevent! Zecora may be your friend in Ponyville, but the poisonous fruit she carried on came from her homeland!"

"Now hold on a gosh darn moment!" Applejack piped up. "Y'all can't start pulling each other's manes out unless we can gather more about how Twilight was poisoned!"

"Applejack is right! This is Twilight we're talking about!" Pinkie Pie yelped. "If we start going all super mad at each other and start fighting without pillows, pies or cakes, then these things are gonna get worse!"

"Be it as it may, we haven't obtained any vital information about how Twilight got this way or how long she has," Celestia spoke up with a direct voice. "We can only hope that Zecora and her mother can clear things up with us in time. If one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony is gone, then Equestria may fall into a state of disorder and chaos without the Element of Magic to guide them into friendship. That's why we must put aside our difference and disregard any accusations until this situation closes."

"Speaking of which, where is Zecora and her mom anyway?" Scootaloo asked, looking back at the door. "They should be right about now."

SLAM!

Everypony turned to the doorway as Zecora and her elderly mother cantered inside the infirmary, up to the bed where Twilight laid dying. "I was told there was an emergency, so I came down by your urgency!"

Apple Bloom turned to Scootaloo with a smug grin as the pegasus filly returned her smile with a deadpan. "You were sayin'?"

"Shut up," Scootaloo replied as the mares approached the two zebra mares.

"Zecora, we're glad you're here. We need your help," Princess Celestia asked. "Twilight suddenly fell ill when she was visiting her friends who mysteriously appeared in our dungeons. Her whole body is trembling, sweating and hot, she's feeling intense stomach cramps and she's been having trouble with her balance. Cadence and Shining Armor suspect this was the work of a blue fruit you brought her to Canterlot."

Zecora's eyes widened before she trotted up to Twilight's bed, to the side where her muzzle was facing towards the right side and gently opened her eyelid. "Twilight Sparkle, please tell me what is true. Have you eaten a fruit that was colored blue?"

Twilight forced her eyelid shut as a stomach spasm began to kick in. "I did. I did eat a fruit that was exactly what you described," she confessed, surprising everypony. "It's my fault. I was so busy trying to organize the convention that I had to put breakfast off for a while. Then I saw the blue fruit fall right out of Zecora's sack and I couldn't resist. I was so hungry and... oooooh!... I'm sorry."

Zecora shook her head. "So not blame yourself for this mistake. If you want to lay the blame, then it is mine to take."

Once Zecora had finished speaking, Twilight's heavy eyelids closed as she slipped in unconsciousness. The mares all surrounded the bed again and looked up to Zecora and the elderly zebra for help. "So what do we do now?" Rarity asked. "Is there nothing we can do for her?"

"The Juju Fruit seeds does not digest quick, for its purpose is to make somepony sick," Zecora explained in rhyme. "The seeds inside did not yet melt, or agonizing pain is what Twilight would have felt."

"Uh, can somepony translate that to Equestrian?" Rainbow Dash asked, "because I can't make heads or tails of what she's saying."

"What she means, Rainbow Dash is that there is still time to recover the seeds from inside of Twilight Sparkle's stomach," Luna rephrased for the zebra. "We must safely extract the seeds from inside of her somehow. Is there any possible way?"

Zecora thought for a quick second before an idea popped into her head. "The only hope is for a potion to cease the toxins' deadly motion. But since the entire pit inside her stomach, then she will pass by the clock's short tick."

"There must be a way to slow the toxins down!" Shining Armor argued. "I can't afford to lose my little sister like this!"

Zecora sighed. "Unless there is anyone willing for Twilight to swallow, then there is nothing I can do to make the time slow. If we do not take the seeds anytime soon, then I am afraid that Twilight is doomed."

Sweetie Belle's ears perked up as she obtained an idea. It was an awful idea and she knew it would be dangerous, but it was something she was willing to do for Twilight. She hopped up on all fours on Rarity's horn and cantered all the way to the very point. "I'll do it!" she yelled, grabbing everypony's attention. "I'll be the one that Princess Twilight can swallow! I'll hold off the seeds long enough for you to get that antidote!"

Rarity gasped with exasperation. "No, Sweetie Belle! I refuse!" she scolded. "I won't let my little sister risk her life when we only just saw each other for a short time!"

"But I have to, Rarity! I'm the only one here small enough to go inside Twilight's stomach and get the seeds out before it's too late! I have to save her, Rarity, I just have to!" Suddenly, Sweetie Belle felt herself tumble off of Rarity's horn and into the center of her hooves, stared down by her sister's gigantic, frantic face.

"Listen to me, Sweetie Belle, you have no idea what I have been through when I was trying to look for you!" Rarity scolded. "I've been all over Equestria, trying to find any trace of you and I kept assuming the worst possible thing ever! I was worried about how mother and father would react if they heard how I failed to look after you! You could not imagine how worried I was to thinking about the many ways I would lose you, my one and only little sister! I can't let you risk your life for Twilight's sake!"

Sweetie Belle screeched, but the scream never escaped her bulging cheeks as she stamped Rarity's frog with her hoof. "Fine! Then it's your turn to listen to me! I've been trying to find a way to Canterlot no problem at my size because I needed the only pony I was closer to help me with my problem! I lost my tail because somepony nearly stepped on me, I smell bad because Spike stepped on me, I was nearly eaten by you, Owlowiscious, Angel Bunny and Spike, nearly digested by Big Macintosh, Winona and Apple Bloom, and I survived being butt-crushed by Zecora! To tell you the truth, I was scared the whole time! I was scared I wouldn't see you again in my condition because you were looking for me! I was scared that... that..."

Tears formed in Sweetie Belle's eyes as she looked up to her sister, her eyes flowing tears as well. "I was scared that I wouldn't live to see you and my friends again! That's the real reason why I wanted to see Twilight in the first place! I was afraid that I wouldn't live to see you guys again, to live the moment when I get my Cutie Mark, to go to a hoofball game with dad and learn how to cook with mom! I'm afraid of leaving you guys behind in my condition and I couldn't bear to think how you guys might react to my disappearance as well! Twilight's the only pony I know who could teach me how to control magic and I have to use what she taught me so I could save her life! Don't you know how sad everypony will be if Twilight passed right now because we couldn't do anything to save her!?"

Rarity's lips wriggled, then she hugged Sweetie Belle up to her cheeks and sobbed. "I'm sorry, Sweetie Belle! I have no idea how strong you've pulled through your obstacles all by yourself, but I'm afraid of how hard you're pushing yourself! What will I tell mother or father if you don't survive this ordeal!?"

Sweetie Belle returned the hug before she pulled back and looked up to her big sister. "Just tell them I perished saving the life of a princess. If they don't believe you, then tell them everything I've been through. You know how understanding they are!"

Rarity held the tiny form of her little sister in front of her face and smiled. "I suppose that's true," she said, wiping a tear away. "Now then, are you sure you're up to this dangerous task?"

"Are you kidding!?" Sweetie Belle stood up tall and proud, holding her hoof to her chest and smiling triumphantly. "I'm a Cutie Mark Crusader! I've been through all kinds of danger in the name of obtaining Cutie Marks, so I'm sure I can handle this!"

Rarity sighed reluctantly. "Alright, if you say so." The alabaster unicorn trotted over to Twilight and moved her sister into one hoof while gently opening Twilight's mouth with her other hoof. Twilight's maw was sticky with saliva, possibly due to the seeds drying her mouth that quickly. With a nervous swallow, Rarity brought Sweetie Belle up to her pursed lips and gave her a gentle kiss.

"Be safe, little sister. I love you so much."

Sweetie Belle sniffed. "I love you too, Rarity."

Tilting her hoof, Rarity dropped her filly sister onto Twilight's tongue and gently closed the alicorn's mouth. She could only watch in sadness as an audible gulp! was heard, followed with a lump sailing smoothly down her throat and disappeared past Twilight's collar bone. Rarity covered her face with her hooves while Fluttershy trotted over her and laid a hoof on the unicorn's shoulder, which quickly transitioned into a tight, sympathetic hug.

Zecora's mother watched in silence too, for this was the perilous trial she had foresaw in Sweetie Belle's future. She could only pray to her ancestors that the strings of fate would be tampered to spare an innocent child's boiling fate.

====

Sweetie Belle yelped as her sister dropped her on the spongy texture of Twilight's tongue, her tastebuds tickling her hooves. The air was damp, humid and moist, and the tongue was sticky with hot saliva secretions that were drying up in Twilight's vast mouth. Sweetie Belle looked behind and saw as Rarity closed the bottom jaw and sealed her inside Twilight's mouth, leaving her in total darkness. For a moment, Sweetie Belle's vision adjusted itself to see in the dark, but the filly could only make out the faint shapes of Twilight's molars framing the entrance to her esophagus.

Then Sweetie Belle felt the tongue give way underneath her tiny form, using the sticky drool to guide her down to the back of Twilight's throat, where the sounds of her rapid breathing blasted her like a fan. Then, with a heavy breath herself, Sweetie Belle held her air as she passed underneath the uvula and felt her hind hooves caught by the throat muscles, sending her down the fleshy tunnel with a loud GLURK!

Twilight's throat muscles squeezed the filly down her esophagus which took her quite a short time to reach her collar bone. Sweetie Belle heard the drumming heartbeat in the background, but only as a fast repetition of beats. That meant the poison was increasing her heart rate, and there wasn't much time left in the pony's body. In a matter of moments, Sweetie Belle felt the stomach sphincter open up and accept the offering Twilight swallowed.

Sweetie Belle landed in a quagmire of half-digested berries, salad and stomach juices, nothing too harmful yet. Not until Twilight's digestive system kicks in and dissolve everything trapped inside the stomach, Sweetie Belle and Juju Fruit seeds included. Quickly, Sweetie Belle swam out of the burning liquid and climbed onto a squishy floor where the stomach juices had not reached, the filly panting as she took in her sights.

"Now, if I were a poisonous fruit seed, where would I be?" Sweetie Belle thought before the stomach began to resonate a digestive gurgle.

Then, in response to the acid's agitation and blocked by layers of flesh and muscles, eight identical seeds began to illuminate a luminescent blue, the shape of each seed resembling a skull. It was quite fitting for a fruit with powerful toxins inside its seeds. Once the gurgling ceased, the seeds kept their eerie glow before it slowly faded away. Sweetie Belle gulped, knowing now that there were only six seeds she could easily access in the cavern of Twilight's stomach, the only two already submerged in the deadly soup.

With no more time to waste, Sweetie Belle began her mission to prolong Twilight's life for as long as she could by extracting the seeds out of her digestive sac, starting with a seed floating near to her. Sweetie Belle crouched over to the edge of her floor and reached a hoof out to the seed, batting it back to her before she lifted it out of the liquid and onto the floor. "That's the first seed, but how am I supposed get it out of here?"

Then it hit her: She had to use her teleportation magic to send the poisonous pits out.

Sweetie Belle grew a worried face as a series of worrying scenarios filled her mind. What if she gets the spell wrong? What if her magic is already drained out and she can't save Twilight's life? What if she uses all of her magic to send the pits out before she could save herself?

Her answer had to came quick as the stomach wall began to spasm and gurgle, nearly knocking Sweetie Belle off of her perch but slipped her on her belly instead. Sweetie Belle knew she had no choice but to put her magical abilities to test soon. She remembered what the assignment sheet said, about imagining where oneself or one object should be and using her magic to make it a reality. Sweetie Belle imagined a platter on the stand near Twilight's bed, big enough to hold such a dangerous seed.

Then, lighting her horn lime green, Sweetie Belle concentrated her magic into her horn, and the seed began to glow green. A few beads of sweat dropped from her head as Sweetie Belle pushed her mind into making the seed disappear. With no ponies to distract her, Sweetie Belle cringed and put all of her might into the spell as the seed began to turn into a white figure of light and vanish with a POP!

Sweetie Belle gasped happily at her success. "I did it!" she chirped. "I sent a seed out with my magic!"

The filly's celebration had to be cut off when the stomach sac began to spams and grumble, splashing the volatile slosh near her ground and on her coat. Sweetie Belle screamed as the burning sensation scorched her fur and her skin, leaving second degree burns. She couldn't help but whimper in response to the pain, but it was the motivation that reminded Sweetie Belle why she allowed herself to be swallowed by Twilight Sparkle herself.

Sweetie Belle found another part of Twilight's stomach that was smaller than the flashy island in the gastric lake, but the floating seeds nearby were there to serve as rickety platforms for her to jump across. Sweetie Belle jumped to the second seed furthest from her, turned around and concentrated her teleportation magic on the first seed she jumped on. With her horn glowing green and her strength put into using this spell, Sweetie Belle made the seed vanish from the stomach, feeling satisfied with her progress.

Sweetie Belle managed to jump on a floating piece of carrot that was slowly becoming an orange mush, but it was solid enough for her to stand by and concentrate her magic on the seed she jumped from. With a glow of her horn, Sweetie Belle made Juju Fruit Seed Number Three disappear from the digestive sac. Sweetie Belle turned to face a seed that was floating just barely at the surface of the stomach soup and concentrated her horn and performed her spell.

With another POP! the fourth seed vanished, marking the halfway point to the completion of Sweetie Belle's dangerous mission.

Unfortunately, the mission had begun to take its toll on Sweetie Belle. The unicorn's head was moist with sweat, aching and light, making her dizzy only by a little with every ounce of magic she squeezed out. She turned and ventured to a couple of seeds that laid against the undulating stomach walls, glowing its skull-like features as Twilight's stomach gurgled again. Sweetie Belle stumbled with her footing, but she somehow managed to keep her ground as she aimed her horn towards the two seeds that threatened to end its host's life.

This time, however, Sweetie Belle decided to test her limits of her teleportation spell by concentrating on the fifth and sixth seeds. She grunted as she forced the sparks to sizzle out which transitioned into the green light her body's mana channeled into her horn. The green aura surrounded the two seeds and lifted them out of the liquid, then they disappeared in a flash of light.

After using such power in her magic, Sweetie Belle felt her body become exhausted by the efforts she put in testing her magic. "Only two more," she panted to herself. "I just need to know where they are."

Twilight's stomach resonated with a sickly GUUUUURRRRRGGGGGLLLLLEEEEE! The blue glow that made the seed's disturbing feature slowly became green, the second layer of the seeds melted off before the toxins would be released into Twilight's bloodstream. The only problem was, the two seeds had been submerged beneath the burning liquid, the last seed sinking near the sphincter into Twilight's small intestine. Sweetie Belle groaned as she concentrated her horn at the seed closest to the surface.

Sweetie Belle's head and body began to sore up as she pushed herself to use the levitation spell she learned during Twilight Time and slowly lifted the seed near the surface of the deadly. Fatigue began to make itself apparent as a single moment of Sweetie Belle's concentration zoned off into oblivion, dropping the seed back into the stomach acids.

"NOOOOO!" Sweetie Belle screamed before she charged her horn and gave a magical grasp on the seed.

The deadly pit slowly made its way up the surface and in range for Sweetie Belle's teleportation spell. With what little power she had, Sweetie Belle pushed her magic into the spell and the seed disappeared with a POP! "There's... one more... left" the filly said between exhausted breaths. "Now... I just have to get... the last... one..."

Unfortunately, like all stomachs, Twilight's sac undulated, and the floor beneath Sweetie Belle's tired hooves gave out and made way for the filly to become extra protein for Twilight's nutrition. Not that either of them might not live through the ideal, for the seed's green glow slowly darkened, which meant that the second layer was being melted off into its final layer, which happened to glow in a red illumination. Once the red glow darkened into blood crimson, the toxins would finally take its deadly effect and its consumer would be dead in less than a minute.

Then there was Sweetie Belle, struggling to keep herself to the surface of the deadly stomach soup which began to slowly burn into her fur and skin and add itself into Twilight's body as the added nutrition. The digestion process would take as much time as it would for the last seed to release the poison into Twilight's weakened system. Sweetie Belle knew the hard way it was going to be her and Twilight that were to approach Elysium's door, or just her alone.

"I guess I don't have any choice," she muttered to herself as she dived into the stomach juices.

The liquid was as hot as a jacuzzi, and its bubbles were very much deadly. Sweetie Belle did her best to cope with the pain as she dove down towards the last seed, its red color slowly becoming darker with every second passing. She hugged the deadly pit, closed her eyes and concentrated the remainder of her strength into one final spell, all power transferred into one final charge. While she closed her eyes, in a flash, Sweetie Belle saw her whole life in a quick montage about the times when she and Rarity were playing, when she became friends with Scootaloo, then Applebloom, all the adventures she partook in obtaining her Cutie Mark, even the time when she and the Crusaders became flower fillies for Princess Cadence's wedding. It all led up to this moment, when everypony she knew and loved, save for her folks, were looking down on her with a gentle smile.

The red glow of the seed began to darken, as did Sweetie Belle's consciousness as she charged her horn for one more teleportation spell. "At least I got to see you again, Rarity," she thought as her horn flashed, and found herself falling into oblivion. "Goodbye, mom, dad. Goodbye, girls. Goodbye, Button Mash. Goodbye, Twilight. Goodbye, Rarity. I'll see you all real soon... okay...?"

====

Sweetie Belle felt her whole body at peace, resting on a plain of cool and warm comfortable sheets. She could hear the faint beep! beep! beep! of a heartbeat monitor nearby as her eyes slowly opened to reveal blurry white. Blinking a couple of times, Sweetie's vision slowly came into focus, and the first thing she saw was the face of a familiar unicorn, looking at her with a proud, relieved smile.

"R-Rarity?" she weakly squeaked.

"Oh, Sweetie Belle. Thank goodness you're awake," Rarity said, nearly choking while tears streamed in thin streaks from her eyes. "I really thought I lost you..."

Sweetie Belle raised a confused eyebrow, looking around the blurred environment. "Wait a minute. The last thing I remember was that I was trying to teleport that last seed out of Twilight's stomach and then... everything went black. Does... does that mean I'm in...?"

"Heavens, no!" Rarity interrupted. "You're not, Sweetie Belle! You're okay! You're alive!"

"I am!?" Sweetie Belle looked down to her forelegs, whelmed with disbelief. "Well, how did I make it out of Twilight's stomach alive!?"

"Well, darling, isn't that obvious?" Rarity pointed to Sweetie Belle. "You did. You teleported you and that seed right out of Twilight's belly at the last second. You've only came out suffering from exhaustion and second-degree burns, but you came out just barely breathing. You have absolutely no idea how worried I was to see you like that, passed out and covered with bile and such."

Sweetie Belle's eyes widened. "That's right, where's Twilight!? Is she okay!? Please tell me she's okay! I still haven't returned to my normal size!"

"Don't worry, Sweetie Belle. I've been alright for quite some time now."

Sweetie Belle jerked her head to the other side of the room and saw Princess Twilight Sparkle standing with all her glory, not a single trace of her sickness displayed on the lavender alicorn's body. A wide smile cracked across Sweetie Belle's lips as the filly saw her mentor and savior smile at her, all alive and well. "Twilight! You're okay! You're back!"

Twilight giggled at the unicorn filly's excited outburst. "I am, Sweetie Belle, and it's all thanks to you. If you hadn't entered my stomach when you did, I wouldn't have lived to see you or my friends and family again."

"Speaking of friends and family, could you please restore me back to my normal size?" Sweetie Belle asked politely. "I really wanna be the size of a foal once I earn my Cutie Mark."

"That's the thing, Sweetie Belle. What do you think is different since you've woken up?" Twilight asked, leaving the filly puzzled for a moment.

"I-I don't know," Sweetie Belle said, looking to her hooves again. "I mean, I feel fine all over and I'm in the hospital bed..." That's when the realization hit her and she let out a high-pitched gasp with a mile-wide smile. There was something about the sheets she laid in that seemed different. "I'm back to my own size! Rarity! I'm back to my normal size! I'm back to my normal size!!"

The posh unicorn could not resist the tears of joy trickling down her face as allowed Sweetie Belle to jump into her embrace. "Yes, Sweetie Belle! You're back to your own size!" she giggled as she held her sister in her hooves, "and I'm glad you're back to your normal size! I'm so glad you're back to your size!"

Twilight approached the two unicorn sisters as they hugged one another, the alicorn's hoof placed where her heart was. The door to the infirmary opened, and in came Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Spike, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, Princess Cadence, Shining Armor, Zecora and her mother, all smiling at Sweetie Belle as she was truly reunited with her big sister. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo all cantered to Sweetie Belle as soon as the unicorn saw them, and jumped from her sister's forelegs and met up at the base of the bed.

"SWEETIE BELLE!!" Apple Bloom and Scootaloo shouted.

"Guys!" Sweetie Belle chirped before giving her best friends a bear hug. "Oh guys, I missed you two so much!"

"What are you talking about?" Scootaloo asked. "We've only been outside the room for only a couple of hours!"

"Yeah!? Well, at my size, it seemed like forever!" Sweetie Belle said, rolling her eyes at "forever".

"Well, Ah thought you were gone from us forever ever since Scootaloo forced you out of mah flank!" Apple Bloom said, putting much emphasis in her words as she glared at Scootaloo.

"Hey, it's not my fault that you couldn't speak up when you have a Cutie Mark Crusader in your mouth!"

"At least Ah knew Ah had Sweetie Belle in mah mouth!"

"Dictionary!"

"Chicken!"

"Guys, don't fight here in front of me," Sweetie Belle insisted, spreading her hooves between her head-butting friends. "We've only just met each other for a minute and already you're at each other's throats."

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom immediately quit their fighting and looked at each other before looking at their newly-restored friend. "We're sorry, Sweetie Belle," Scootaloo apologized.

"We didn't mean nothin' from all that," Apple Bloom lamented.

"Hey, don't worry, guys. The main thing here is that I'm back," Sweetie Belle thrust a hoof into the air, "and the Cutie Mark Crusaders are back!"

"YEAH!!" the two shouted, thrusting their hooves up in the air and laughing before the Mane Six and Spike approached Sweetie Belle.

"Hoo-wee, Sweetie Belle! For a filly yer size, you sure have a big ol' heart in ya!" Applejack yee-hawed.

"Totally!" Rainbow Dash agreed. "What you did back there, going inside Twilight and risking yourself getting digested for her sake was awesome!"

"And dangerous," Fluttershy whimpered before she brought Sweetie Belle in her arms for a hug and sniveled. "I'm so glad you're alright, Sweetie Belle!"

Pinkie Pie suddenly popped from the right side of the screen with her signature big smile on her face. "Hey! You know what this calls for!? This calls for a party!"

Twilight placed her hoof on Pinkie's shoulder, which instantly calmed the hyperactive pony down. "We'll have to postpone that party until I come back, Pinkie," Twilight said before she trotted closer to the unicorn filly. "After all, the fair thing to do is hold a celebration for a hero who rescued a princess from a terrible fate."

Sweetie Belle felt herself jolt with surprise and pointed her hoof towards herself. "Me? A hero? I'm a hero?"

"Indeed you are," Princess Celestia spoke up, prompting Sweetie Belle to bow to the Princess of the Sun as she approached the young pony. "You have shown us how something so small can have a big impact on everything. You have volunteered yourself to save a friend in need and you put your own life on the line to ensure that she is safe."

"Not only that, but your act of bravery has also prevented a possible conflict between two nations of the world," Princess Luna declare as she approached Sweetie Belle as well. "If Princess Twilight Sparkle succumbed to such a fate, then the lands of Equestria and Zebrafrica would have been thrown into conflict that would almost never cease to end."

"And for the heroic achievement that you have made by saving the life of Equestrian royalty, I hereby award you the Equestrian Medal of Honor to you, Sweetie Belle, the youngest pony in Equestria to be rewarded with such an achievement." Princess Celestia levitated the lid of a crimson box open that Spike had taken out from his back and lifted a gold medal around Sweetie Belle's neck. Sweetie Belle took a good look at the golden reward in her hoof and smiled as the other ponies surrounded her and commended her for the medal she earned.

Zecora and her mother watched on happily as they watched the happy ending unfold before their eyes. It was then that Zecora turned to her mother and asked, "You have seen the future in Sweetie Belle's heart. Is that why you have kept secret in out train cart?"

The elderly zebra smiled. "I have only seen where the path was tried by fate, my daughter. It was not for me to decide how to avoid this fate, but rather how the child overcame her fate," she spoke in Zebrafrican tongue.

"Fate is such a cruel donkey with random ridicule." Zecora rubbed a hoof at her belly. "I say this with no offense, my little mule."

"None taken," came the reply from inside the zebra's stomach.

While the mares, stallion and dragon all complimented Sweetie Belle for her award, a worried thought ran through her head and she turned to the ivory alicorn. "Princess Celestia, I know you said that everypony who's not royal enough is going to face a punishment for breaking into Canterlot, and me and my friends all snuck into Canterlot. Please tell me, Princess, am I going to face the same punishment for trying to get help from my friend?"

Celestia looked to her younger sister, then to her adopted niece. Then she gave a smile that would melt the hearts of angels in Elysium and rested her gold-clad shoe underneath Sweetie Belle's chin to face her. "You have saved my former student from a fate that even magic itself could not avoid, so I am willing to let you and your friends free to go."

Sweetie Belle and the other seven ponies all cheered for joy, until Celestia raised her hoof to silence them. "But that doesn't mean I'll let you all go scot-free without a proper punishment. I hereby sentence you all to a 400-bit fin, 50 bits from each of you. I'll have the fine received within the next two months, and not a bit less and a day late."

The eight ponies all nodded with accord and Sweetie Belle spoke out for them. "Princess, you'll have your fine in no time!"

With another joyous cheer, the eight mares celebrated their happy ending once again as Princess Celestia trotted up to Twilight and craned her neck down to her ear. "Are you sure you're feeling okay, Twilight?"

"I am, Princess," Twilight said with a smile. "After Sweetie Belle teleported outside of my stomach with the last seed and Zecora got back with the antidote in time, I had the doctors perform an emergency procedure on her burns and her exhaustion, but I was already making a rapid recovery by the time the doctors gave me their diagnosis. In a cosmic sort of way, this has been the most frantic day I've had so far in my life."

Celestia smiled. "I'm glad to hear so, Twilight. It seems that Sweetie Belle had fought with all of her resolve just to make it to you, her mentor in magic."

"I'm not just a mentor to Sweetie Belle, Princess," Twilight stated, shaking her head. "I'm a dear friend to her and to her friends alike. I guess that made Sweetie Belle a hero before her big adventure."

After Spike had apologized to Sweetie Belle for stepping on her and nearly eating her and Rainbow Dash showed off the area where her Cutie Mark was previously shaved off, now restored by Twilight's magic, the unicorn perked up once more.

"Hey, I just thought of something!" she piped. "If I got a reward for saving the princess, then maybe I got my Cutie Mark in princess saving or maybe adventuring the wild at the size of a bug!" Sweetie Belle turned around and examined her flank, waiting for the change on her backside before her rising hope quickly fell into a deadpan at the failed results. "Nuts. I really thought I had it this time."

Rarity trotted up to her sister and laid a hoof on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Sweetie Belle, you'll have your Cutie Mark soon enough. It'll probably be tomorrow or maybe next week, but I certainly don't think that day is today."

"Then hopefully I can get mine in patient waiting," Sweetie Belle said, "but I don't think I can last ten seconds with that."

Then, everypony in the hospital room, the two zebras and the mule tucked away in Zecora's stomach all began to laugh at the little joke, like how all happy endings should end.

And this story ended with a gold medal on Sweetie Belle's nightstand.

Snack-Sized Sweetie

by Autismo555

Chapter I - The Beginning of a Horrifying Weekend

Chapter II - Across Dangerous Territory

Chapter III - Down at the Farm

Chapter IV - I Can't Stomach This Feeling

Chapter V - Plan of Action

Chapter VI - Perchance to Dream

Chapter VII - Twice Eaten, Once Shy

Chapter VIII - Arrival Platform Ponyville

Chapter IX - Get on Board, Little Pony

Chapter X - Dragon Daze

Chapter XI - Reunion

Chapter XII: Journey into the Twilight

Epilogue