The sun's radiance was as glorious as ever. and the students of Canterlot High were in great spirits. Typical as it was seemingly impossible to destroy the motivation at the highschool of the Elements of Harmony—and Sunset Shimmer.
However, none were more radiant than Twilight Sparkle, who hopped along the school’s cobblestone sidewalk; her braided purple hair flailing around wildly as she did so. Her arms, meanwhile, went back and forth like pendulums in a grandfather clock with each hop the schoolgirl took. Her stitched outfit, which stuck to her body like a magnet, was something that even Calvin Klein would envy. The simplicity of it pulsated greatness, and caught the attention of every other student, many of whom gasped!
It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the apex of fashion, and made poor Rarity faint the second she laid eyes on her eleven-inch tall friend.
“Hi, girls!” Twilight beamed, her mouth moving like something out of a stop-motion film. “What's up?”
Each of Twilight's friends (save for Rarity, who had decided to take a cobblestone nap) sported facial expressions that ranged from terrified to the sort of face one gives if they'd just seen the world of Inception become a reality, but without the bloke from Titanic.
Well, except for Fluttershy, who took off screaming.
“Uhh… not much,” Rainbow said after a few awkward seconds of silence, saving her other friends (save for the still dirt-eating Rarity) from a potentially fatal few more seconds of awkward silence. She hesitantly looked at her friend, who stared back with eyes that were crudely attached to her face, despite the rest of what was on her appearing to be of decent quality. She did her damnedest to not run away for fear of her purple friend turning out to be a relative of Annabelle before she spoke again. “We’ve just been talking about the band and… other stuff,” she scratched the back of her head and gave a half-hearted smile. “You know, the usual.”
“Twilight, why in tarnation are you a rag doll?” Applejack asked with a blank expression, breaking the awkward atmosphere in favor of what her mama would've done, but without the holy water and desperate cries for her husband to grab some sort of weaponry. You look like you belong in Applebloom’s room.”
Twilight looked at her hands and giggled. “Oh, this? I, uh, tried to enter that world you all told me about.” She gestured to where the portal rested before she continued. “It turns out that there's a forty-seven percent chance that one's body will be mutated horrifically and turned into some unspeakable abomination when re-entering the world that they originated from!”
Applejack adjusted her hat and nodded, pretending she just understood each and every word that her raggedy friend just spoke. “So, why don't you just re-enter the confounded thing and try to fix the fact that you're a doll?” she asked as she came to terms with the reality that her friend was now a doll. A fact that, deep down, gave the country girl a terminal case of the creeps—among other, less lethal things.
Such as goosebumps, which Pinkie Pie took great delight in poking, much to Applejack's frustration.
“I did!” Twilight said, trying her best to seem like she had any sort of presence amongst her friends instead of being…
Well, a doll. A very good looking doll at that!
“But no matter how many times I tried, I couldn't get back to my old self.” She sat down beside Rainbow, who inched away, still fearful that her friend was going to grow giant teeth and eat her. “At one point, I came out looking like a maid, but I felt… different in a few areas.” Twilight cringed as she remembered the differences in question. “As I tried to figure out what I was, someone looked at me and said something about a run-by fruiting.”
“Did you try more than once?” Sunset asked. “Or… knowing you: fifty times?”
Twilight nodded, her hair nearly whipping Rainbow. “I tried approximately four-hundred and seventy-five times! The closest I got to actually being me was when I re-entered this world looking like Fluttershy, but with hair made of snakes.”
Sunset glanced over at Fluttershy, who had opted to continue hiding behind her.
“So… you looked like a Gorgon?” she replied.
“Yep.” Twilight looked down at the ground and sighed.
“Aw, don't worry, Twilight!” Pinkie exclaimed, having finally decided to stop poking Applejack's goosebumps. She ran over and picked up Twilight, wrapping her arms around the terrified doll in a loving embrace. “Everything will work out. After all, you're livin’ in a movie!” She looked at her friends, all of whom looked baffled (still with the exception of Rarity, who was now surrounded by EMTs). “What? I heard it in a song my sister Limestone loves.”
“It's… nothing,” Sunset said as she reminded herself internally to not question Pinkie. Especially where reality was concerned.
Or her sister’s taste in music, a fact that had gotten her into arguments with the embodiment of randomness and parties more times than she had blood cells. She counted.
A few more seconds of awkward silence went by before Rainbow walked off to help the EMTs with lifting Rarity into the back of an ambulance. After she was gone, Applejack spoke up. “Hey, Twilight, where's Spike?”
“Oh, I left him home,” Twilight responded with a sigh and a look of indignation as only a ragdoll could give. “He… kept thinking I was a chew toy.”
“Well, sitting looking like a child's toy isn't gonna do you any good, Twi,” Applejack said to her toy friend. “And you have nothing to lose going through that portal.”
“But what if I come back out looking like a dinosaur!” Twilight said fearfully. “Or worse, a dinosaur-human hybrid!”
“That would be awesome!” Rainbow said as she walked back to her friends. “You could totally help us win every sports game and give us piggie back rides!” She sat back down on the stairs.
Sunset rolled her eyes. “How's Rarity?”
Rainbow looked up at her friend and smiled. “She’s gonna be fine… for the most part. I think she got a concussion.” She looked over to Twilight, still unnerved by her appearance. “So… what are you gonna do? Go the entire day looking like that?”
“W-well, I mean, it's safer than-”
“Twilight, anything's better than looking like that!” Rainbow blurted out. “You look like something I'd see in my nightmares!”
“Yeah, Twilight, you… do look kinda creepy,” Sunset added.
“Yeah! You look like Maud’s Halloween costume!” Pinkie said “Only without the big, scary knife and you aren't some creepy doll guy's bride.”
“Eh, you don't scare me,” Applejack deadpanned. “Still, I'd like to see what you come out as.”
Twilight attempted to roll her eyes. Alas, her stitching proved to be far more powerful than she'd anticipated. As a bleak result, her eyes moved nary an inch! So, with a heavy sigh, she replied to her spooked friend.
“Fine, if it'll make you all feel better, I'll go through the portal again.” Twilight walked towards the statue and, in one swift motion, dove through the portal. Her friends waited anxiously until she finally re-emerged after what felt like an eternity.
“D-did it work!?” Twilight asked with a nervous look on her face.
There was a silence that spoke volumes to everyone.
Save for Twilight.
After a bit though, Sunset spoke up. “Yep, it did!” she said with a forced smile. “You're all back to normal!”
“Really!?” Twilight asked excitedly.
Before anyone could tell Twilight the tragic truth (namely Applejack, whose eyes were the size of flying saucers), the school bell rang, and students poured into the school, with a handful snickering as they walked by the group of friends; who walked towards the school doors.
As they did though, Twilight saw her reflection in the glass. To her delight, her body was back to normal!
However, something still wasn't right. And that something was all too easy to spot.
Twilight stared at her reflection for a few seconds before she shrugged. “Eh, close enough,” she said as she walked into the school, undeterred by her porcelain head.
Now all the boys are gonna be all over this doll.