Following directions from Lotus, Ashen Blaze the dragon found his way to the private bath area that Zecora had booked for the experiment. The solid grey former zebra looked up from pouring a jar of the poison joak curative into the water as Ash entered the room. With a thankful smile, she took the truth-grown flowers from him, set one aside, and then with a single quick movement shoved the other bloom into Ash’s mouth, pointed to the tub, and said, “Chew on that and immerse completely.”
“Ish it shafe oo shwallow?” Ash asked, pointing at his mouth.
“That is how it works under normal circumstances,” Zecora answered, turning to the first flower, “Doing both cures at once but separately probably won’t work, but it won’t hurt to try.”
Can’t argue with that, Ash thought, and that thought combined with hearing the sound of multiple hooves approaching lent speed to his climb into the tub. The soothing texture of the warm, cure-laden water made itself felt even through his scales, and the flower tasted like the best parts of both summer and winter simultaneously as he chewed it up. Altogether, it was an experience that bordered on blissful, but when Ash had swallowed the flower and come up for air, he was still a grey and red dragon, and Zecora was no longer the only pony in the room with him. He took in the smugness on Gale’s face, the concern of Soul Mage and Gold Heart, and the suppressed but intense sparkle in the eyes of the Rari-mouse on Heart’s head, and returned the lot with simmering glower. “Zecora,” he said, “What’s the next plan?”
Zecora didn’t reply, busy as she was grinding up the truth-bloom with mortar and pestle. Once the flower was broken up to her satisfaction, she poured it into a larger bowl along with another jar of joak cure. Her tail fished a seed of truth out of a bag and flicked it into the air, where Soul caught it in his magic. “Prepare another flower, just in case,” she instructed. Soul went to the door and passed the seed and the instruction onto somepony waiting out in the hallway, who took the seed in a magenta bubble of magic. “Now,” Zecora said, having mixed the powered plants together, “I’ve never seen a truth seed flower used as a component in a mixture or potion, but hopefully the essence of its power still remains if freshly ground.”
“Well, give it here then,” Ash said. He leaned out of the tub, grabbed the bowl, and dunked it into the water. The mixture gave off a large puff of smoke as soon as it hit the water, obscuring Ash completely and causing everyone else to take several panicked steps back. Coughing, Ash waved a hoof to try and clear away the smoke, and then stopped when he realized that he was waving a hoof instead of a clawed hand. He quickly felt himself over, finding ash-grey fur, a red and orange mane currently too wet to resemble flames, and a unicorn horn. “Zecora,” he said as the smoke faded, “I think you’ve done it.” He hopped out of the tub and levitated a towel over to start drying off, but his good mood faded as he rubbed the towel across his neck and realized something. “Where’s the AEM?” he asked.
“The what?” Heart asked.
“My necklace,” Ash clarified, throwing the towel aside, “My power enhancer, the Artificial Element of Magic, the one thing that lets me do any decent amount of magic in this pony world! Agh, it must have fallen off when I was sneezing my head off and transforming. It’s in the Everfree somewhere. We have to go get it.”
“Whoa there,” Gale said, interposing herself between Ash and the door, holding him back as he tried to run out, “no need to panic. Rarity can make you a replacement. I know she’d be more than happy to,” she finished with a sly smirk.
“Truth,” Ash admitted, “but I can’t risk leaving mine unaccounted for. Can’t let him find it.” He shoved Gale aside and ran out the door.
“He’s lost more than that necklace,” Gale muttered as she picked herself up off the floor, “I’ll go after him.”
“We’ll all go,” Heart said, setting Rarity on the rim of the tub before heading for the door herself, “We might have to stop him by force.”
As such things tend to do in a crisis, word that a solution for the mass transformation of Ponyville’s citizenry was being worked on at the spa spread quickly through the town and practically every afflicted pony capable of voluntary movement and the ability to stay in one place for an appreciable amount of time had gathered around the building, trading gossip and speculation to ward off fear and impatience as they waited. Even Trixie’s troupe, all still within the privacy of the wagon except for Trixie herself, were near enough to hear any announcements that would be made. With so many ponies around, it hadn’t been hard for Twilight to find enough willing “confessions” – cutie mark stories for the most part – to coax the seed of truth Soul had given her to full maturity, and she was in the process of taking the flower to Zecora when a damp ash-grey unicorn with a red and orange mane and tail, which were quickly drying and flaring out into their distinctive fire-like appearance, came bolting out of the spa and weaving through the crowd like the hounds of Tartarus were after him. Gale, Heart, and Soul emerged soon after, and from the looks on their faces it was obvious that they were the metaphorical hounds in question. Ash zoomed by before Twilight could process what was going on, but as the other three Order-naries passed by she brought Heart to a stop with a gentle magic tug on the tail. “What’s going on?” Twilight asked.
“Ash is just having one of his stubborn moments,” Heart said, rolling her eyes, “and by the way, Zecora figured the cure out. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“They have the cure?” a nearby pony exclaimed as Heart took flight to catch up with her team. The news spread like fire through the crowd, and within seconds everypony was charging at the spa.
“Stop!” Zecora, in all her striped, exotic zebra glory appeared in the spa doorway, facing the oncoming tide of bodies fearlessly. “Curb your enthusiasm friends,” she shouted, “or this press may lead to untimely ends.” Reacting more to her sudden blocking of the entrance than to her words, the ponies at front of the charge came to a stop and dug in their hooves, where applicable, as the rest of the crowd piled up behind them in a great heap of forms. Overhead, Rainbow Dash and a squad of her fellow cloud-form pegasi found themselves squishing together from the momentum, and there was a brief frenzy of activity as they tried to separate.
Rainbow was the first to fully extract herself from the mess, and she floated down to confront Zecora. “Don’t hold out on us,” she said, practically begging, “What’s the cure? How do we get back to normal?”
“The base lies in the cure for the pranking flowers of azure,” Zecora explained, walking out into the crowd, which parted to make way, until she found Twilight and claimed the truth-born flower from her. She held it aloft for Rainbow Dash to see and added, “But this must be added for a much-needed kick, for this new flower twists inner desires as its cruel trick.”
“A bath?” Rainbow asked. She look behind her to the other cloud-ponies, who had untangled themselves and were currently putting distance between each other, and then leveled a skeptical look at Zecora. “Is that going to work out for everypony?” she asked, “Some of us aren’t exactly solid.”
“And what about those ponies who were turned into plants?” Twilight asked, “Especially Fluttershy; she’s a full-grown tree.”
“Not to mention others who can’t be moved, or hold still for very long,” Bon Bon added.
“The final solution is something I do not know,” Zecora said, “We’ll have to continue making it up as we go. There is at least one thing we will certainly need: many more flowers grown from truth seeds.” She dropped a small bag full of the seeds at Twilight’s hooves.
“Well, I reckon we’ve got enough ponies round here ta make short work of that,” Applejack said wryly.
“Rainbow Dash, if you would come with me,” Zecora said, “we can see if the cure will work for thee.” Rainbow hesitated for a second as the zebra turned to head back into the spa, but on seeing the challenging tilt of AJ’s head in her direction, she mustered her bravado and floated after Zecora.
“Sure, no sweat, what’s the worst that could happen?” she said, mostly to herself. As they made their way to the private bathing room they crossed paths with Rarity, who was now back to normal and wearing a bathrobe and her mane wrapped up in a towel.
“Ah, you may want to change out the water,” she said, waving a hoof toward the private room, “It turned rather murky and unpleasant-smelling after it was done changing me back.”
“My thanks for the warning Rarity,” Zecora said, “So, it seems that dose was only strong enough for three.” Rarity nodded and continued on her way, as did Zecora and Rainbow. As they entered the room, the zebra’s nose curled as she caught a faint stench of spoiled food coming from the tub. “Rainbow Dash, if would be so kind, drain the tub while I work, to save some time.”
“Yeah,” Dash said hesitantly, staying by the door, “I can’t exactly hold or move solid things, and I’m a bit leery of touching water like this. I’m afraid I’ll either suck it up like a sponge and get fat or get pulled into it and…” Her wings shivered.
Zecora nodded slowly as she considered the cloud-pony’s words while grinding up the truth flower. “Those concerns seem quite fair,” she said at last, “since you are mostly water and air.”
“Water, air, eyes and wings,” Rainbow replied dourly, but then she perked up as a thought came to her. “What do you think would happen if I were to, uh ‘eat’ some of that cure mix?”
Zecora smirked as she mixed the ground-up truth flower with some poison joak cure. “If that is something you wish to test, then by all means be my guest,” she said. She beckoned Rainbow over and sprinkled a little of the mixture on her head. Dash winced slightly at the sensation of the particles falling through her and gave herself a firm shake to try and keep them inside. She and Zecora waited expectantly for several seconds, but when nothing happened the zebra reached up to sprinkle a little more.
“Come on,” Dash grumbled, shaking as best she could, “work, dang you, work!” Frustrated, she sent herself into a tight spin, and then with a burst of smoke her cloud body was replaced by normal cyan-furred flesh and blood. Caught off guard by her sudden increase in weight, Rainbow fell to the floor with a grunt, and then proceeded to cough up a wet mass of ground-up herbs and flowers. “Ugh,” she moaned, “That wasn’t fun… Did it work?” She looked and felt herself over, and then leaped into the air with a whoop and posed triumphantly. “Fillies and gentlecolts, Rainbow Dash is back!” she declared.
Zecora chuckled. “When you are through with the ‘yahoos’,” she said, “You should probably go give the others the news.”
“Right,” Rainbow said, sobering, “you keep mixing up the cure, I’ll send in the other cloud-pegasi.”
“If there are new flowers of truth,” Zecora called as the pegasus flew out of the room, “send them in here too.”
When Rainbow Dash stepped out of the spa she saw that the crowd of transformed ponies had been organized into a line leading around to the back of the building. She followed it to find Twilight and Applejack at the head, maintaining a sort of assembly-line “confession circle” to grow truth flowers, with each pony in the line taking a turn to state some sort of truth about themselves to the seeds and sprouts and then trotting away to go to the end of the line while Twilight harvested any flowers that reached maturity. There were about six or seven full-grown flowers already set aside. AJ looked up as Rainbow approached and gave her a wave. “Lookin’ good there RD,” she said, “Looks like Zecora got you fixed up proper.”
“Yep,” Dash said proudly, striking a pose, “Now listen up everypony: I need every pegasus who’s been turned into a cloud to go inside so Zecora can fix you up. Oh, and we’ll probably be needing more of these too.” She dived down to grab the mature flowers, but her ascent was stopped by AJ grabbing her tail.
“Hold up there,” the squat earth pony said, “Give me a good reason why the pegasi should get first dibs on this cure.” A murmuring chorus of assent rose up from the line.
“Uh,” Rainbow said, looking around wildly as she tried to think fast. Her eyes fell on the mess of clouds clogging the sky overhead and a light-bulb went off in her head. “Because,” she said with confidence, “I’ve got an idea for getting the cure to everypony at once, but I’m going to need as many pegasi as I can get to pull it off.” A nearby truth sprout quivered and developed a bud.
Twilight and Applejack shared a glance, and then the lavender unicorn looked up at the overcast sky and smiled. “I think I know what you’re thinking Rainbow,” she said, “Go for it.”
Ashen Blaze led his friends on a rough chase through Ponyville, matching wits all along the way. Due to their long experience with one another and the trust held between them, the Order-naries had an almost perfect knowledge of one another’s weaknesses and how to exploit them should the situation demand it. By the same token, however, they also knew how to make such exploitation a difficult task. Gold Heart, empowered by a spirit link to Soul Mage, attempted to fly ahead of Ash and block his path, only for Ash to give her a telekinetic push or tug on a wing to upset her balance and slow her down. Soul occasionally diverted some of his power from the link into a lasso, which Ash would manage to teleport away from at the last second. Gale, simultaneously blessing the natural speed and endurance of her earth pony form while cursing her lack of Magebane and the means to propel it at Ash, simply focused on closing the distance between herself and the ash-grey unicorn.
Eventually, as the chase neared the end of Mane Street and the Everfree Forest came into view, luck finally smiled on the pursuers. Heart shook off Ash’s latest attempt to trip her up and landed square in his path, wings spread and legs braced to leap left or right if he tried to dodge around her. Suspecting that but not having enough time to warm up a teleport spell, Ash attempted to hurdle over the golden-yellow pegasus. This move bought him into contact with the ethereal blue tendril linking Heart and Soul, and with a simple thought Soul severed the link and wrapped the energy around Ash’s waist. Heart rolled to the side as Ash’s momentum was halted in mid-air and he crashed to the ground, where he was quickly dog-piled by Gale and Heart.
“Ok…” Gale said, breathing heavily, “Ash… I ask this not in anger or annoyance… but in genuine concern for you: what is wrong with you?”
“My necklace is lost in the woods,” Ash began, only to be silence by a tap on the head.
“It’s a tool,” Gale said, “It can be replaced. You can’t avoid Rarity forever anyway.”
“This is not about that…” Ash sputtered, “Can’t you ever give it a rest? Rarity’s crush on me isn’t the issue here.”
“No, it isn’t,” Heart said. She climbed off of Ash and then laid down in front of him, looking straight at him but not quite meeting his eyes out of habit. “She’s part of the issue though,” she said with fond concern, “You’ve been growing more distant lately Ash, and I don’t think it’s all due to Discord. You’re still letting guilt over your past eat at you, aren’t you? Shadowstar is still on your mind; you’re angry with yourself for not being able to work up the courage to go back and face your past head-on before it was too late.” Ash’s face hardened and turned away from Heart, but she just reached out a hoof and pressed it gently to his cheek. “I understand,” she said, “we all lost… almost everything to Tau’rin. You lost an opportunity, but you’re still alive, and in a world where your past matters even less than it did on Taryn.”
“Not to mention the Shadowstar Empire probably got ripped apart like the rest of the universe,” Soul added drolly.
Heart gave her brother a dubious look and then focused back on Ash to see him grimacing and covering his eyes with his hooves. “Ash? Are you ok?” she asked, worried.
“Skvetch,” the unicorn muttered through clenched teeth, “Nicht goh, gi foso nicht goh, vei Discord… skvetchte vet’chiu.”
“Don’t try to hide behind another language Ash,” Gale said, pressing an elbow into Ash’s back, “Tell us what’s bugging you; we can help.”
“Don’t ask,” Ash pleaded, “Could just be another of Discord’s jokes, I don’t know. You three have adjusted, moved on. You’re happy here and I don’t want to risk dragging you from it with doubt…”
“What are you talking about?” Soul asked, “You’ve got me curious now, so don’t think I’m going to just drop it. What’s Discord been taunting you with now? The idea that Taryn still exists and that we could go home?” He gave a short sarcastic laugh, but when he saw Ash go limp and his irises start to shrink down, he grew serious. “That’s it, isn’t it?” Soul said, “Did he actually convince you of that?”
“No,” Ash said, “and that’s the problem: I’m not sure! He’d easily lie just for a laugh, but he sounded so confident and knowledgeable when talking about Tau’rin. The blasted, skvetchte beast is on my mind even when he’s not doing anything!”
“Ok, ok, calm down Ash,” Gale said, finally getting off of him. She pulled him to his feet and took his face in her hooves, staring intently but not meeting his eyes. “Fact or fiction, we can deal with his Taryn riddle. More importantly, we need to put an end to his games once and for all. If we find him and shut him down completely, will that put your mind at ease?”
“It will help,” Ash said weakly.
“Good,” Gale said, releasing him and clapping him on the shoulder, “No one’s allowed to cast doubt at you but the three of us. Come on.” She started trotting away into town.
“Uh Gale,” Ash said, pointing uncertainly in the other direction, “Discord’s in the Everfree. In fact, I have a suspicion I know exactly where to look.”
“Not yet,” Gale said firmly, “You need some time to cool down. Also, we should probably bring the Elements of Harmony with us as back-up, which means waiting until they’re all back to normal and rested up. I’m also feeling a bit hungry.” A shadow fell over the group and they looked up to see Rainbow Dash flying by pushing an oddly-colored cloud in the direction of Fluttershy’s cottage. “Weather might be a bit iffy on top of everything else,” Gale said.
The cloud Rainbow Dash was moving around had been carefully seeded with the joak remedy and truth flower mixture, and upon getting it to Fluttershy’s yard she proceeded to bounce on it to unload its contents onto the pony-turned-tree and the disproportionately bulked-up critters gathered around her. It took a few minutes, but soon a thin puff of smoke curled around the edge of the cloud and Rainbow peered down to see a soaked but ecstatic butter-yellow pegasus pulling her legs out of the dirt and cleaning them off with Angel’s help. Rainbow left the cloud and swooped down to catch Fluttershy up in a celebratory hug, and then gave her a quick run-down of the plan to fix all of Ponyville before zooming off to tell the weather patrol to get busy. Fluttershy looked at the clouds hanging over the town, and then at the giant hole in her house where the roof and wall of her bedroom used to be. “Come on everyone,” she said to her animal friends, “We have a lot of work to do.”
Back in town, Rainbow quickly organized her pegasi into two teams. The first team’s task was to organize the haphazard clouds into a proper rainstorm configuration and find or make new clouds to patch the inevitable holes. The second team collected sacks of the remedy mix being prepared by Zecora and a team of assistants and sprinkled them onto the clouds, tinting them a sepia color as the herbs mixed with the suspended rain in the clouds. Once everything was ready, the pegasi would initiate a town-wide rainfall reaching from the farthest corner of Sweet Apple Acres to edge of White Tail Wood and the boundaries of the Everfree and Froggy Bottom Bog, creating a curative shower that would restore every pony or other creature affected by the Twisted Desire who stayed outside long enough.
Some ponies didn’t wait for the rain however. Applejack took advantage of the cure in a bath as soon as she could and then rushed home and returned with Apple Bloom in tow to put an end to the filly’s ever-changing Cutie Pox. With some effort and frustrated pantomime Trixie reminded Twilight that Cabbage Patch did not want to be seen as a half-changeling, and so they appropriated another dose of the cure and ended up curing the entire performance troupe inside the wagon using the sea-pony tank Barnacle Salt was floating in. When it was Cabbage’s turn, she stubbornly kept herself completely swathed in rags even as she entered the water, which led to Trixie having to help her free herself from the soaked and heavy cloth after the cure did its job.
By mid-afternoon the rainclouds were in place and seeded. With arguably excessive ceremony, Rainbow Dash gave the order to turn on the waterworks from a perch on top of Town Hall. On top of the clouds, pegasi made a single perfectly coordinated hop and the cure began raining down upon Ponyville. In a café somewhere, four friends and soldiers of order watched the rain begin and raised their glasses to another crisis averted.
End of Act II