The next day, sitting on her bed in her bedroom, Starlight Glimmer was preparing to do something for Sam, Twilight Sparkle, and the rest of her friends to show her appreciation for them. Starlight's horn was glowing and a humming ball made of turquoise magic, the same size as her head, floated in front of her. Open books lay spread out on her bed’s mattress, which itself was covered with a white blanket. Beside her bed was a stack of papers the same height as the bed. Blue, red, pink, and yellow kites rested by the room’s walls, dark-brown dresser, and window. On the dresser, near the bedroom’s window, was the box containing the Dragon Pit board game; sunlight shone over the dresser.
During the previous day, some time after she and Sam had finished playing Dragon Pit, Starlight visited Twilight’s castle to ask Twilight to lend her some books on spells. Twilight agreed, but didn’t ask why. Sam was currently working at Ponyville's Toy Store, so Starlight was alone in his -- or rather their -- house.
“Okay, I just need to add some Pensuadarie and it’s ready.” A stream of magic oozed from the tip of Starlight's horn and into her magical ball, causing the immediate air surrounding the sphere to glow purplish. After the change in the magic, some of it leaked into the paper beside Starlight's bed. Despite being infused with magic, the papers’ outward appearance didn’t change, though the magical ball had slightly shrunk, but the sound of its humming didn't decrease.
“Good. Now Twilight will never have to worry about checklists making her late again, because these papers will sense what she’s thinking and write themselves!” Wearing a proud-filled smile, with her magical sphere floating beside her and paper behind her, Starlight trotted out of her room, down the stairs, into the living room, then to Sam’s late father’s chair.
Once in front of the black chair, Starlight willed a stream of magic from her magical orb, which seeped into the chair. As with the papers, the chair's appearance remained unaffected. Also like before, the ball shrank to be three-fourths the size it started off, its humming's volume mildly reducing in intensity.
“There we go! This will make it feel three times more comfortable. Now, to go find Twilight.” Starlight hurried out of the house, levitating her magic and paper with her.
After a short trip, Starlight approached the grand, two-leaved golden doors to Twilight’s crystal castle. She knocked on the door while calling out, “Twilight?! Are you in there?!”
No response.
Starlight considered returning later, but another thought made this an opportunity. The corners of her lips curled into a smile. “I could leave these papers inside the castle as a surprise! Twilight won’t mind.” Starlight used her magical telekinesis to open the doors and walked into the castle.
Inside the castle’s lobby, to ensure that the castle truly was empty, Starlight again called out, “Twilight?! Spike?! Are either of you here?!”
She heard the sound of her echoing voice, but nothing else.
“Yep, they’re gone. I think Twilight’s library will be the best place to put these papers.” Starlight strolled through the lobby and to the castle’s hallways. The latter was lined with light-green double doors. She had grown accustomed to the castle’s majesty, but its blue and purple stalagmites can still amaze Starlight if she allows the sight to soak in long enough.
After ten seconds of traveling down the castle's hallways, she encountered one of the library’s doors and went inside. Near one of the bookshelves lining the walls was a table, with a lamp bearing a green shade on top of it, and a purple chair beside it. Starlight knew that Twilight frequently wrote her checklists at the library’s table, so she levitated the paper on the table.
Her first task now complete, Starlight laid a hoof on her cheek, pondering her next move. “Hmm. Who should I go to next?” After a moment deep in thought, she smiled. “I know, Applejack!” Starlight departed the castle to head to Applejack’s farm, Sweet Apple Acres, still carrying her magic.
Upon arriving at Sweet Apple Acres, Starlight turned her head to the left and right, scanning the farm. Nopony was in sight. Save for three pigs oinking in the farm’s pigpen, Starlight saw no signs of life other than herself.
However, like with Twilight being away from her castle, Starlight figured this could be a blessing in disguise: it would allow her idea to be a surprise for Applejack. She focused her gaze to the numerous apple trees in the distance, a confident smile forming on her lips. “Okay, now to send some magic into all the apple trees, so a single buck on one will knock apples off all of them! This will save the Apple family so much time!” A stream of magic oozed from her ball and into all the surrounding apple trees in a turquoise smoke, similar to a river branching into smaller and smaller rivers as the magic traveled. In the process, the sphere shrank to be about half the size it started off and the magic's humming quieted a little more. Once done, Starlight congratulated herself and moved on to the Sugarcube Corner bakery, hoping to find Pinkie Pie.
In Sugarcube Corner, Starlight trotted into its storefront. Nopony was present, so she walked around the room’s counter, which held two cakes for display, and went through a door leading to the kitchen.
Inside the kitchen, Starlight looked at the bowls, pans, bags full of flour, cake boxes, and other items used for baking that sat on the table, cabinets, and oven. She mentally took note of everything, then released magic from her magical orb and into them all. In the process, the magic-filled sphere shrank by half again to become a fourth its original size, or one-fourth the size of Starlight’s head. The humming it emitted grew quieter, much like the sound of faint whistling now.
“That should do it. Now, let’s head to Carousel Boutique.” Starlight left the kitchen, but once she trotted out the bakery’s doors, she spotted Spike and Rainbow Dash conversing with each other. Their backs pointed toward her. She nearly called out to them, but a better idea came to mind. “I could tell them...but I’ll let it be a surprise. Spike said he love surprises anyway.”
Once again, a current of magic drifted from Starlight's magic-filled orb and into Spike's and Rainbow's bodies, further shrinking the sphere’s size to a fifth its initial size. The sound of its humming weakened to be just barely audible. Rainbow and Spike rubbed their heads, but otherwise appeared to be unaware of the turn of events.
“Now Rainbow will fly 20% faster and gems will come to Spike on their own, so he’ll never have to look for any again!” Bearing a grin, Starlight snuck away and made her way to Fluttershy’s cottage, then to Carousel Boutique for Fluttershy’s and Rarity’s “surprise.”
Twenty minutes after Starlight had left Carousel Boutique, Rainbow Dash and Spike were sprinting through Ponyville’s streets, whizzing by ponies in their path, sights set on Twilight’s castle in the distance. Green, red, yellow, and other colored gems trailed Spike from behind; some stuck to his body, others floated in midair. Two twigs stuck in Rainbow's mane. As the pair ran, they came across Applejack, who was also on the run.
Spike asked, “Applejack, you know where Twilight is?”
“Nope, but ah’m hopin' she's in her castle. Why?”
Rainbow explained, “Every time I try to fly, my wings flap way too fast and I spin out of control and into stuff! Even when I tried flapping them gently, they would flap hard on their own!”
“And gems keep following me around and sticking to me!”
“So, it’s not just me that weird things are happenin’ to.”
“Weird stuff is happening to you too?” Rainbow asked.
“Yep. Earlier, ah bucked one of my apple trees and apples from all of them fell off, even the underdeveloped ones that we can't sell yet! Then half of the trees’ leaves fell off too!”
Spike said, “Whoa! I knew you were strong, but not that strong!”
“Ah’m not, and nothin’ like that has ever happened before! There’s gotta be somethin’ goi--”
In the distance, a chilling feminine scream filled the air, forcing the friends to stop running.
After the scream ended, Rainbow asked, “Who’s that?”
“Uhh…” Spike snapped his claws. “I think that was Rarity!”
“Then let’s go and find her, y’all’!” Applejack ordered.
With gems still pursuing Spike, Rainbow, Applejack, and Spike once again ran, but this time toward Carousel Boutique, where Rarity’s scream seemed to come from.
Once Rainbow, Applejack, and Spike reached Carousel Boutique, the source of the previous screaming, they sped through the door.
Inside, Rarity’s fabrics, sewing machine, scissors, and other materials for apparel were all moving and operating on their own, making more dresses, hats, and shoes by the second. They collected in rapidly growing piles throughout the room. With her horn glowing blue, Rarity’s teeth were gritted as she groaned, tugging on a sewing machine with her magic, but the machine operated as if Rarity wasn’t pulling on it.
Because Spike had stopped running, the gems chasing him managed to reach him. All he could do was groan when they clung to his body.
Not showing a reaction from Spike’s dilemma, Rainbow asked, “Rarity! What’s going on?!”
Rarity’s horn ceased glowing and she lifted her head toward her friends. “That’s what I would like to know! Dresses, shoes, hats, everything are making themselves, but they won’t stop!”
Rainbow stared at each of the still-growing piles of apparel. “Well, at least you won’t have to make any more for a while.”
“I suppose, but at this rate, it will be at the cost of my home becoming too full of clothes to live in!”
Spike started, “Maybe Twili--”
A new feminine scream was heard outside in the distance.
Applejack spun to the still-open door of the Boutique. “Uh-oh. Sounds like somepony else is in trouble. Ah think that was Pinkie Pie.”
Rainbow groaned. This day was getting worse and worse. “I guess something’s happening to her too.”
Spike said, “I think it came from Sugarcube Corner. Let’s go there and see what’s wrong!”
Rainbow, Rarity, Applejack, and Spike (with gems still attached to him) sped outside. Rarity turned her head toward her Boutique, seeing clothes still filling it, but thoughts of Pinkie potentially needing her help made her turn and dash away with the others.
Once inside Sugarcube Corner, the four friends sped into its kitchen. A bowl full of cake batter, two pies, as well as three cakes and six cupcakes covered with pink icing, all sat on the table. Pinkie was setting a white box full of cake mix on the top of a cabinet, which floated off immediately, forcing Pinkie to catch and set the box back down with a hoof repeatedly.
“Pinkie?! What’s happening?!” Spike asked.
Pinkie turned her head to her friends, but continued setting the box on the cabinet over and over. “Beats me! I got here and saw cakes, pies, and cupcakes baking themselves!”
Applejack asked, “What?! How is that possible?”
“Don’t ask me, ask them!” Pinkie’s frustrated frown softened to a smile, as if her mood randomly changed. “Oh, and ask them how they baked themselves so fast because it happened in half the time I bake them. While you’re at it, ask them if they know what the deal is with weird magic I saw from some ponies earlier.”
Rainbow asked, “Uh...how about we find Twilight first?”
“Okay, and maybe she will ask the cakes, pies, and cupcakes how they baked themselves so quickly because she loves asking questions.”
Pinkie forced the box she struggled to keep still on her cabinet into her mane, which oddly remained there. With the box dealt with, the five friends sped out of Sugarcube Corner.
After reaching Twilight Sparkle's castle, Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, Spike, and Rainbow zipped through its front doors, through the lobby, down the hallways, and finally into the library.
“Twilight, there’s somet--huh?” Rainbow started, before the scene unfolding in the library silenced her.
A red quill hovered in midair over a sheet of paper lying on the table, seemingly writing it by its own will; more paper sat in stacks. In front of one of the library’s bookshelves sat Twilight. She was flipping through the pages of a book lying on the floor, wearing a frustrated frown, and two stacks of books were behind her. Fluttershy stood beside Twilight, watching her, seemingly in waiting.
Applejack pointed at the table with the self-writing paper. “What in tarnation is goin’ on with those papers?”
Twilight lifted her head to face the group of five. “That’s what I’m trying to find out! I was about to begin writing my daily checklists for next Wednesday, but when I got near the papers, my quill started writing them on its own! In fact, I don’t even know where this paper came from! Did you bring them, Spike?” Twilight's frustrated frown became a puzzled one as she stared at Spike, slightly tilting her head to the side. “And, why are you wearing gems?”
Spike looked down at his torso, where one of the larger gems -- a red one -- attached to him was located. “I was hoping you could figure out why they’re sticking themselves to me.”
Rarity said, “So, odd things have been happening to all of us.”
Fluttershy asked, “Really?”
Rainbow answered, “Yep! Twilight, you said your quill is writing those papers on its own?”
“Yes, and it won’t stop! What’s even weirder is that some of the things being written are things that I had on my mind, but wasn’t planning to write down.”
Pinkie hopped to the table and stared at one of the stacks of paper, which the quill had already written on. “Hmm. This says, ‘Now that the portal is functional again, I should finally confess my true feelings to Fla--’”
Twilight’s pupils shrank to be little dots, she instinctively spread out her wings, and her cheeks flushed bright red. With her magic, she pulled the paper Pinkie just read from to herself as she said, “L-Let me take that.” Once the paper was close, Twilight fired a magenta blast of magic from her horn, vaporizing it. With the issue of the paper resolved, she folded her wings to their normal position and her cheeks cooled to their usual lavender color. “So, uh, strange things happened to all of you too?”
“Yep.” Spike turned his head to Fluttershy. “You saw something weird happen too, Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. The animals in and near my cottage acted like how I might want them to act, not like how they should or usually act, such as Angel being so well-behaved.”
“So you ran here too, hoping Twilight knew what to do?” Rainbow asked.
“Yes. What odd things did all of you see?”
Rarity, Pinkie, Rainbow, and Applejack explained what happened to them to Fluttershy and Twilight. Spike explained more on the gems chasing him that he didn’t already say a moment ago.
After her friends’ stories were over, Twilight set a hoof under her jaw, leaning her head down in thought. “I see. Things are even worse than I thought.”
Spike asked, “Could all this be because of a spell?”
“Or a curse?” Rainbow asked.
“Or a spoooooky ghost?” Pinkie asked.
Twilight raised an eyebrow at Pinkie. “Uh...I highly doubt it’s because of any ghosts, but a spell being the reason is far more plausible."
“But who could have cast this spell?” Applejack asked.
After a second, Rarity guessed, “Could Starlight have done this?”
Similar to what she had done before, Twilight rested a hoof on her cheek, slightly raising her head up. “She did stop by yesterday to borrow some books on spells, but I have no idea why she would do this.”
Pinkie said, “Yeah, Starlight’s a good pony now. Why would she be doing anything to cause trouble? Maybe she’s trying to teach us lessons, like how to bake faster?”
“I don’t know, but I really don’t think Starlight’s trying to cause problems," Twilight answered. "Still, let’s look for her and at the very least, she might have an idea of what’s going on. Do anypony know where she is?”
Applejack answered, “Uh...probably either flyin’ kites or at Sam’s place. She’s more likely at Sam’s, so ah say we go there.”
The friends all agreed, then sped out of the castle and toward the direction of Sam and Starlight’s house.
In the living room, Starlight was lying on the couch, listening to one of Sam’s CDs, slowly swaying her head from side to side. She initially had no real favorite songs -- they all sounded amazing to her -- but she gradually developed preferences to some over others. The song currently playing was the first one Sam introduced her to.
However, a knock on the door snapped Starlight from her music-induced trance. After turning off the CD player, she walked to the door and opened it. Twilight, Spike, and her other good friends were there, save for Sam.
“Hi, guys!" Starlight greeted with a cheerful smile. Seeing their frowns, her smile quickly faded. "What’s wrong?”
The group explained to Starlight everything that just happened to them.
After hearing the news, Starlight gasped. “Uh-oh. I might have added too much Pensuadarie to the spell I cast.”
In an angry voice, Rarity said, “So, you were behind this.”
“But why?” Twilight asked in not an annoyed voice, but a baffled one.
Starlight frowned, gulped, and felt the pounding of her faster-beating heart. She cast those spells to show how grateful she was for her friends' friendship. If her spells instead caused them problems, would they end their friendships with her out of anger or disappointment? Starlight didn’t think lying would be of any benefit, so she stuttered, “I-I did it to help y-you out!”
“Well, that spell of yours ‘helped’ me crash into houses and trees!”
“And cost my farm apples!” Applejack yelled.
“And made cakes, cupcakes, and pies bake themselves twice as fast as I can bake them!” Pinkie paused. Her frown flipped into a smile. “You know, now that I think of it, that's not such a bad th--”
“Don’t you even try to praise her, Pinkie Pie!” Rarity pointed at Spike. “Just look at poor Spikey-wikey!”
“I love gems, but not this much! Although I was hungry and some of the gems were quite--”
All the mares except Starlight and Pinkie yelled, “Spike!”
Spike jumped from the yells. “Uh, that is, that wasn’t a good thing to do, Starlight.”
In an understanding voice, Fluttershy asked, “We all appreciate that you wanted to help us, but why didn’t you just tell us all of this first?”
Starlight sighed and looked down. Memories of how she tried to “help” by stealing Cutie Marks flooded her mind. She hoped that helping her friends with spells could allow her to atone for using a spell to steal their Cutie Marks against their will. Instead, the unicorn made things worse. Was she a good pony? Was she any good at all? She fought tears from welling in her eyes and lifted her head back up to the group. “It...it’s just that you all have been so great to me, and I haven’t done anything for any of you. Before I became friends with you all and Sam, it was years since I even had a real laugh or felt true happiness. So, I wanted to make things easier for you with the spell I cast as thanks. Then, I thought it could be a good surprise, so I didn’t tell you what I was doing.”
Twilight affectionately rested a hoof below Starlight’s jaw. “Well, your heart was in the right place, Starlight, but you should have--wait, hold on.” Twilight moved her hoof off Starlight’s jaw. “If you did something for all of us, what did you do for Sam?”
“I cast a spell on his dad’s chair to be three times more comfortable.”
"You did what?!" Twilight bolted by Starlight -- with an audible zip as she moved -- through the front door, into the living room, and stared closely at Sam’s father’s chair from different angles. It appeared to be unharmed, making her wipe sweat off her forehead that had just formed. “Whew. It looks fine, but you should cancel the spell you cast on it, just in case.”
Spike pointed out, “Yeah, Sam can be...sensitive about his dad’s chair.”
Starlight walked back into the house, heading to the chair. When she was halfway to the chair, a male voice called out, "Hey guys. What's going on?"
Everyone spun to the voice. It belonged to Sam, who had just finished his shift at the Toy Store, strolling to the group still outside the front door. He was wearing his dark-blue coat, less tolerant to the chilly air of late winter than Spike and the ponies.
Spike said, “Nothing, Just...taking care of something.”
Sam walked between the friends and through the door as he said, “Well, you do that while I--” With Sam in the living room, the chair that he claimed to have belonged to this father shook violently, forcing a gasp from him. “W-What’s going on?!”
As the chair continued convulsing, rips tore in its fabric. Sam’s mouth widened, but he said nothing and grew still. Starlight's pupils grew, but she also froze in place. The rest of the friends still outside hurried into the living room to get a better look of the situation, then gasped when they saw the chair ripping itself apart.
“Starlight, do something before it gets worse! Hurry!” Rarity ordered.
Starlight shook her head, breaking out of her stunned state. She dashed to the chair with her horn glowing, then released a beam of magic. On impact, the chair became still and no further rips erupted. Even so, it was covered in small tears, white cotton from the fabric sticking out of the tears.
Sam broke from his own frozen state and ran to the chair. “NO! Not my father’s chair!”
Pinkie dashed to the chair to take close glances at it from various positions, but zipped from spot to spot more quickly than when Twilight did this. Once Pinkie's examination was over, she said, “Uh, look at it this way, Sam: it’s more ‘ripped’.”
Everyone glared at Pinkie with tense scowls.
Pinkie’s upbeat smile faded, understanding her attempt to lighten the mood failed to do its purpose. “You know, that human expression sounded way better in my head. Kinda like how what Starlight did to your chair with her spell earlier probably sounded better in her--”
“She what?!” Sam spun to face Starlight, glaring down at her. His scowl was one of the fiercest she has ever seen her best friend, or anyone, give. Worse, it was aimed at her.
Starlight's ears drooped and she gulped from the glare, yet managed to give a nervous smile. Her heart raced and pounded even faster and harder than before. Sweat flowed down her forehead and cheeks. “Uh, Sam? I can explain…”