//------------------------------// // Chapter 6 - Therapy! // Story: Flutterphobia // by JesterOfDestiny //------------------------------// It was a bit of time to find Pinkie again, but there she was. Prancing along the street, holding a floating balloon with her mouth, cheery as ever, like she forgot about everything that happened that morning. Her prancing was interrupted by Twilight appearing right in front of her. „Alright Pinkie.” She said. „You don’t like spiders and they don’t like you. But it’s time we end this!” Pinkie let go of her balloon, letting it fly up into the sky. Twilight stomped at the ground with her hoof. Pinkie hunched down into attack position. They locked stares and stood there for a second, the townsfolk looking in concern. “Nope!” Said Pinkie, then disappeared in a big cloud of dust. “Get her!” Twilight shouted. Discord appeared in front of Pinkie, wielding the butterfly net, but Pinkie managed to avoid it this time. Twilight tried to stop her with a few force fields, but that only made Pinkie run into a different direction. She kicked up a fruit stand and Twilight managed to trip on the fruit rolling around. Discord kept chasing, until two large barrels of even more fruit flied towards him. Then came a long straight stretch. Pinkie was finally running in a straight line. She seemed to have lost both of her chasers, which she celebrated with a cocky smile. Then suddenly, Applejack stepped out in front of Pinkie, spinning her rope. Pinkie stopped running immediately and slid for a while. She then started running in the opposite direction, but Twilight and Discord were standing there. “Gotcha!” Twilight silently gloated. The lasso surrounded Pinkie’s chest, then tightened. She fell to the ground backwards and Twilight quickly put magical hoofcuffs around her hoofs, binding her to the ground. “You will get over your fear whether you like it or not!” Said Twilight. “Discord, bring her in.” Discord snapped his fingers and Flutterspider appeared. “No! Please don’t” Pinkie pleaded and tried to get away. But of course, she was too heavily bound. “Don’t do this!” Discord put Spidershy on Pinkie’s stomach. “No! Get it away!” Pinkie begged further, tears started rolling from her eyes, as Fluttershy’s legs skittered along her belly. She could barely even look at her. “It’s okay Pinkie!” Fluttershy tried to calm her down, as she got into hearing distance. “It’s me.” Pinkie stopped for a moment. “Fluttershy?” She looked down at the spider and saw that it was indeed Fluttershy. “Hi Pinkie!” Fluttershy waved. “You were the spider all along?” Pinkie asked. Fluttershy nodded. “Oh, and I tried to set you on fire.” “Yes you did.” Said Fluttershy with a somewhat annoyed tone. “But why?” Asked Pinkie. “Is this part of the therapy?” “Well, originally no.” Said Fluttershy. “But we decided to make it so.” “I’m sorry, Fluttershy, I didn’t know.” “It’s okay.” Said Fluttershy, then turned to the others. “You can let her go now.” And surely enough, the magical hoofcuffs disappeared, the lasso widened and Pinkie got up. “Pinkie, I would like to introduce you to an old friend of mine.” Said Fluttershy, after she jumped off Pinkie and another spider crawled out from the bushes. Pinkie was scared by the second spider, but she didn’t run away. “This is Fuzzy Legs.” Fluttershy introduced the spider, who then waved to Pinkie. “I’m sure you can learn to get along well.” “Hi... Fuzzy Legs.” Pinkie waved to the spider, but was still shaking in fear. “Come on, Pinkie,” Said Fluttershy, “why don’t you take a closer look at your new friend?” “A closer look?” “Yes. Just extend your hoof.” Pinkie hesitated, then nervously extended a hoof towards the spider. She could barely look at the arachnid skittering up her leg, but she looked at her anyway. Fuzzy Legs stood on Pinkie’s hoof calmly, then took out a tiny flower and offered it to Pinkie. She seemed to have been warming up to the spider. “Aw, you’re kinda cute actually.” Said Pinkie. “I have many other spider friends around.” Said Fluttershy. “Would you like to get to know them too?” “I guess, it wouldn’t hurt.” Said Pinkie nervously. Fluttershy smiled. “You can come out now!” She shouted with her tiny spider voice. And sure enough even more spiders crawled forth. “These are all the spiders I rescued yesterday.” Pinkie looked around with worry. A very small spider lowered down in front of her and presented a tiny heart made out of web. Pinkie still looked a bit worried, but ultimately, she was touched by the spider’s gift. “See,” Fluttershy said, “spiders aren’t mean. They might be a bit scary, but they’re real sweethearts if you look at them a bit closer. Just imagine all the way worse insects they catch. And all the spiders you harmed because you were scared.” She looked around the other spiders and saw their many many sad eyes, one of them even had more tiny spiders on her, another had to use crutches, because some of its legs were missing. “I’m sorry spiders.” Pinkie apologized. “I didn’t mean to harm anyone. I was just scared of you.” “But now you see the spiders’ true nature.” Said Fluttershy. “They didn’t mean to scare you either.” Pinkie lifted Fuzzy Legs closer to her eyes. “Yeah, I guess it was a bit silly of me to get so scared.” And that was the thing needed to break the spell. A bright light appeared around Fluttershy and she was transformed back into a pony. Upon realizing what just happened, Fluttershy quickly hugged Pinkie. “You did it!” She exclaimed in happiness. “I am so proud of you!” “Does that mean we don’t need the horse-eating spider?” Said Pinkie. “Horse-eating spider?!” Said everyone around. “Relax,” Said Discord, “that was never a thing.” “By the way Fluttershy,” Said Pinkie, with multiple spiders dangling from her, “why were you a spider?” “I don’t know.” Said Fluttershy. “I woke up this morning and I was a spider.” “You getting over your fear, is what the spell needed to be broken.” Twilight stepped in to inform. “Wow!” Said Pinkie. “That’s a really specific spell.” “What I’d personally like to know,” said Applejack, “is who the hay turned Fluttershy into a spider?” Discord and Fluttershy just shrugged. “Huh, I guess that’ll remain a mystery.” Said Twilight. “I’m a bit concerned about the fact,” said Applejack, “that some crazy unicorn is running around turning ponies into spiders.” “I wouldn’t worry about it.” Said Fluttershy and winked to Discord.