//------------------------------// // 9. Of Books and Berries (Lopunny) // Story: Strawberry Time: A RariTwi Exquisite Corpse // by SigmasonicX //------------------------------// After a few minute’s flight, the Castle of Friendship was finally in reach, the crystal exterior glinting in the light of the never setting sun. Night Glider wished she could take a few minutes to admire the sight, but given that time was stopped for most of the world, she, ironically, simply couldn’t afford the delay. Beginning her descent, the rushing of wind through her ears began to die down, and a few new sounds met the pegasus’ ears. Namely, the sound of arguing, or at least, impassioned voices of varying levels of familiarity. She almost went down to head to the door, but realized that, given the nature of stopped time, and the door she’d been unable to close earlier, she’d have to find a different entrance. Mentally, the mare made a note to thank that peculiar talking plant for blocking the door to protect Roseluck. Finding a balcony to land on, Night Glider let out a soft sigh of relief upon seeing the door to the castle interior had been left open before this whole debacle. After taking a moment to wipe her hooves on the entry mat out of habit, she entered into the castle halls, hearing the voices begin to raise in volume again, ringing off the walls as she approached. “...can’t just put an explosion into every spell, Trixie!” A voice called out that Night Glider intimately remembered as belonging to Starlight Glimmer. “Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t see why not, considering it’s her magic that will be saving the day here!” A vaguely familiar voice retorted; maybe it was the pony who’d come to the Sunset Festival with Starlight a couple years back? “On a normal spell, maybe we can put up with it - but something of this level just isn’t safe!” Well, at least that explained the explosion she’d heard earlier. Finally reaching the halls outside the main library, Night Glider’s hooves clip-clopped loudly, acoustics echoing to her ears and causing the conversation to cut short. For a moment, she wondered if maybe she’d been intruding on something she wasn’t supposed to, but the realization struck that most everypony else had been frozen in time, and they likely weren’t expecting anyone else to come by. That explanation made a lot more sense. “Uh... hello?” Night Glider peeked her head around the entrance, doing her best to hide the annoyance in her voice. Just because she was upset that her first date with Roseluck had been interrupted, didn’t mean she had to be rude to the only creatures who might know what was going on. More importantly, they were the only creatures who might know how to fix it, and that mattered much more than the spark of frustration in her chest. “Night Glider? Is that you? How are - how did you - what are you doing here?” Starlight galloped over, seemingly dropping whatever argument she’d been having before, much to the apparent relief of some of the other ponies in the room. In particular, it looked as though Princess Twilight herself was in immense pain, the way she’d been holding her head as she lay down on a velvet couch. Next to her, another pony, completely gray and oddly textured, slowly and stiffly made to take care of the princess, machine-like in her methods. She looked familiar, too, much like the princess’ marefriend Rarity, but from what Night Glider had known of the pony, Rarity would never have allowed herself to look so disheveled, and her colors were far different. “Hey, Starlight! I’m here because I heard an explosion, actually, and with the whole... you know,” she began, sweeping a hoof in a vague motion, as if to say ‘everything’, “I figured there was something related, and maybe somepony else who wasn’t a statue.” “They’re not statues,” Starlight replied with a sigh, one hoof covering her face in a frustrated motion. As she did, Night Glider noticed what seemed almost like a spark of some kind coming from her horn, but didn’t get a chance to say anything before the other familiar pony spoke up - Trixie, she believed was her name. “They’re frozen in time. Big difference. And, not to worry, as the Great and Powerful Trixie has everything under control! She’ll be able to fix this whole problem in no time at all!” “Absolutely not!” Starlight turned and snapped before Night Glider could even respond. “You are not casting that spell unless you take the explosions out of it!” “Explosions? Like the one I heard earlier?” “The very same,” Trixie responded with a smug smile and a hoof to her chest, as if proud of the fact. “We couldn’t open any of the books in the library because of the whole ‘time’ thing, so I went to the effort of casting a speed reading spell to peruse the contents of every single book in here!” “...And you failed, and it exploded?” Night Glider asked, noting another spark from Starlight’s horn and a twitch from the gray unicorn. “What? No, of course not. I succeeded, and know the exact spell that will fix everything!” Trixie stated, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “So... why did the spell explode then? Did it partially backfire or something? I don’t really know much about magic,” the pegasus spoke with a confused curiosity as she sat down on the floor, “so I think I must be missing something.” Starlight let out an exasperated sigh, removing her forehoof from her face before responding herself. “Trixie apparently puts that explosion in all of her spells now. Every. Single. One. No matter what.” “Of course I do! Everything benefits from explosions and fireworks!” Trixie scoffed, flipping her mane back with one hoof, once again acting as though her words were the only sane ones being spoken. “Besides, how else would the crowd know to be impressed? Explosion.” Night Glider stared at Trixie. Starlight Glimmer stared at Trixie. The gray pony who looked suspiciously like Rarity, if Rarity were covered horn to hoof in a layer of soot, stared at Trixie. Princess Twilight groaned, covering her ears. “So... you’re putting an explosion into a spell to resume the flow of time? Won’t that like, explode time?” Night Glider felt that spark of frustration growing to a small ember inside her, and willed it to cool down. “This doesn’t really need to be for show, does it? It’s not like anyone who’s frozen in time is going to know.” “W-well... We would know! And I can’t just let this whole thing go without spectacle - I wouldn’t be the Great and Powerful Trixie if my spells weren’t Great and Powerful!” “You’re casting a spell to literally move time. I cannot think of anything more Great or Powerful than that,” Night Glider responded, not noticing the nervous cough and sheepish look on Starlight Glimmer’s face. “So can you please just cast the spell without theatrics, so I can get back to my first date with the mare I put a lot of effort into impressing?” “You simply don’t understand!” Trixie stood on her hind legs for a moment, waving her forelegs in the aforementioned theatrics. “It’s a matter of principle! Honor! Greatness! And...” “And?” “And,” Trixie’s voice lowered as she dropped back to all fours, “I maybe can’t cast spells without it.” The loud jolt sparking out of Starlight’s horn was more than enough indication that this was a big point of tension. “I don’t understand, I really don’t. When I first taught you magic, you were teleporting magical Cutie Maps and turning food into teacups with ease! Why can’t you just go back to doing that?” “It’s not that, Starlight! Sure, spells I already knew, pre-established spells, I can cast just fine, but this is something entirely different! Whenever I make new spells for my show, I have to put in some kind of fireworks, or explosions, or something, or else it just... doesn’t work! And this is a whole new spell! There’s almost fifteen different spells going into this, you know. The explosion is what holds it all together!” “You can’t... you can’t cast your own spells without explosions.” The fire roared in desperation to get out, barely held in by sheer force of will, but Night Glider kept her expression calm and stoic. Probably. “...No.” “So why doesn’t Starlight do it?” It was the obvious question, but even she had an idea nagging at the back of her mind towards why that might be. Given the sigh from Starlight in response, the pegasus was all but certain she had it right. “I would if I could, but that’s part of why we’re in this mess. When time stopped, Twilight and I were working on some magical theories. As luck would have it, this happened right when we were both putting our magic to work, and given that time stopped, it just bounced right back at us.” Starlight shook her head, looking empathetically over at the Princess of Friendship, completely out of commission. “Twilight got the worst of it, since it was her spell to begin with, but my horn is gonna be shot for a while. Hence the... you know.” Hooves gently and deliberately placed at her forehead, Night Glider rubbed her temples as she put the scene together. “So you two can’t cast the spell, and Trixie here can’t cast it without exploding all of time itself. Why not her?” She pointed a hoof at the unicorn that was almost certainly Rarity, who slowly turned to face the group, eyes lingering a bit on Trixie. And with all that soot, and her mane in such a mess, the pegasus began to realize why she was acting the way she was, and why she was on the opposite side of the room as Trixie, likely to keep her own flame of anger from incinerating the magician on the spot. “My magic is very... specialized, you see. I’m good at what I do, and anything related to fashion is likely within my reach, but fixing what’s been broken here isn’t something I can mend with a needle and thread, darling.” Her voice was a near whisper, and Night Glider struggled to strain her ears to hear. “And that is why we are at an impasse. You wouldn’t happen to know any other unicorns who managed to somehow avoid being frozen in time, would you?” Despite the sarcastic jest, no one had a real response to the conundrum, instead sitting in silence. Night Glider took the moment to gather her thoughts. Did that plant count? It was certainly magic. And none of this explained the strawberry oozes spreading throughout Ponyville. “Do we know who caused all of this?” No sooner did the words escape her muzzle than a bright flash of light filled the room, alongside the telltale crackle of some kind of teleportation spell. “Alright,” a male voice with a drawl filled the silence as Night Glider covered her eyes from the flash with a wing, “Who’s the genius who decided to give more strawberries to the Smooze?!” Exasperation clung to each word, and as Night Glider moved her feathers to take a look, she saw an upright, two legged chimera of a creature standing before her. He looked like he was a foal’s toy, made of mix and match parts from a dozen different species, yet in the back of her head, she remembered seeing him once before, at that same Sunset Festival she’d met Trixie. “Discord? Oh, thank goodness, you’re here, now you can help us with...” Starlight’s voice, at first full of relief, trailed off as each word tinged with confusion. “The Smooze? Strawberries? What does that have to do with anything? We’re just trying to figure out how to get time moving again, then we can worry about those-” “What does it have to do with anything?” He interrupted, his voice taking on the same bewilderment Trixie had earlier, “It has everything to do with everything!” A clawed hand pinched at the bridge of his nose, his other hand snapping once, and with the snap, a pair of scissors appeared, cutting a hole into... the air itself? Once the hole had been finished, the scissors disappeared, and the hole revealed itself to be a window to Ponyville square, where Night Glider had been just moments ago. The visages of ponies frozen in place, unmoving amidst whatever activities they’d been performing came into view as the window moved to different viewpoints, but more importantly, it showed the strawberry ooze creatures she’d seen running through the streets. Starlight and Trixie gasped at the sight, as each ooze ransacked stalls and storefronts, looking for something, as if by a second sense. “The Smooze and I were having a wonderful impromptu visit, walking through Ponyville, seeing the sights, when somehow, he ingested a strawberry! He’s deathly allergic, as you can plainly see here,” Discord stated, waving a clawed hand as the image in the viewpoint changed to a larger, red tinged ooze creature. It had a mouth but no eyes, much like the miniature oozes that were terrorizing the town, but it looked almost sick, and as some of the oozes came back, Night Glider’s eyes widened as she realized how they were multiplying. The smaller oozes, each carrying a strawberry inside themselves, jumped into the larger one, causing a gurgle and the whole being to visibly shake. After a moment, multiple oozes split off from the main... host? Body? Whatever it was, there were more being created than had come by to begin with. “I was going to get the spare medicine I keep in my house - Celestia’s sake, though, I need to do some reorganizing,” he said, something eerily feeling wrong with his body. Night Glider realized after a moment that all of his body parts had been shifted - legs in place of arms, tail in place of horns, and he, with one hand on the back of where his tail should have been, began to shift his body around like a toy cube until it resembled the original once more. “But now I see that even though I went to all the trouble of stopping time to make sure this didn’t get worse, someone managed to get another strawberry into the poor Smooze! Now this medicine isn’t going to be enough - say, you five wouldn’t happen to have an industrial sized sifter, would you? No? No, of course not, I’ll have to go find mine,” he spoke with an exasperated sigh, putting away the comically large Epipen he’d somehow acquired before pulling out a pair of scissors from thin air once more. “Now, you all might want to go ahead and get yourselves out of here. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to lug that thing back here, but it is not going to be easy.” “Discord, wait-” Starlight tried to interrupt, holding out a hoof, but Discord had already cut a hole into the air, tearing some other kind of portal open as he stepped through. “No time! I’ve got to find that sifter before this gets even worse. I don’t even want to think about how much rice we’ll need in that case,” he spoke, his body visibly shuddering before he stepped into the portal, which disappeared immediately behind him, leaving only the ‘window’ he’d made earlier. Night Glider sat in silence, staring between the space Discord had been in previously, the baffled Starlight Glimmer, and the seemingly unaffected Trixie. After a moment of grappling with herself, she finally spoke up. “This wouldn’t be a bad time to bring up the magical, talking plant that interrupted my date with Roseluck by spitting out strawberries, would it?”