“Okay, Twi, the 'prankster quartet’ should be running in here soon. You have your ‘positive’ pregnancy test stick all set, right?”
“Yep, Buggie, on the table with the unused ones.”
“Good. Ooh, can you create a paper bag with your magic? You can do stuff like that, right?”
“I can, but why?”
“Make one. Then, when those jokers come in, pretend that you’re panicking by blowing into it.”
“Oh, of course! That’s a great idea!”
Hey, Eric “Buggie” Reed here, and it’s time for some delicious payback.
Last week, Princess Twilight Sparkle and I got ourselves rolling drunk and later collapsed from it. Not one of our better moments. With us in a drunken sleep, Starlight Glimmer, Spike, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash cooked up the sneaky idea to stick Twilight and me in Twilight’s bed as a prank. Because of how wasted we were, they knew we would have woken up with no memory of what happened.
Because Twilight and I gained a brother-sister friendship some time after she found me in Equestria, waking up in bed with that alicorn was a BIG shock for both of us! The prankster quartet then told us that we made out and...more, freaking my "big sis" and me out even more!
But after "Starie", Spike, Pinkie, and Rainbow had their laugh, they told Twi and me the truth: we passed out, but nothing happened between us. As a lover of pranks, I can appreciate a good, well-done prank, and theirs was good and well-done.
Though, while I can take pranks, dishing them out is much more fun! I also could have used a warm-up for the monthly prank week Rainbow, Pinkie, and I would have in a few days anyway. So, Twi and I put our heads together and cooked up a revenge prank, which we are set to do with some help.
But anyway, at this moment, Twilight and I were in the Map Room in her castle. She was sitting in one of the seven thrones -- her throne -- in front of the Cutie Map. On a little brown table beside her lay a silver plate holding five cupcakes with yellow icing, as well as a purple box full of pregnancy test sticks. One test stick was red on one of its ends, lying by itself: that was the one Twi used, so it was separate from the others.
As for yours truly, I stood on the side of the table opposite Twilight, so the table was between us. I was playing with the brim of my white hat with designs of my friends’ Cutie Marks on them, which had Twilight’s and Starlight’s (who I also have a brother-sister friendship with) Cutie Marks near the top of my hat. I also had a necklace with a green geode around my neck.
“I can’t wait to see their faces when they think you’re pregnant because of their prank! I bet Starie will faint over this! Ha ha!”
Twilight wasn’t quite in a giggling mood like me, though she was smiling. “She probably will faint when we tell her. But I still can’t believe they put us in my bed after we lost consciousness and made us think we...you know.”
“Yeah, those clowns nailed us good last week, big sis, but now it’s our turn to nail them good. Oh, this is going to be glor--”
The sounds of hoofsteps coming closer meant it was nearly showtime. Twilight’s horn glowed purple, materialized a paper bag with her magic, and put the open end over her mouth, ready to “panic” once those doors opened. Trixie, who’s in on our prank, had the task of finding the four jokers and telling them to come to the castle fast. “Ms. Powerful” is close with Starlight, but she promised to not squeal on us.
Plus, Twi and I each paid that boastful unicorn twenty bits to keep her big mouth shut about our prank.
One of the light-green double-doors to the library glowed light-blue. When it swung open, it revealed Starlight, Spike, Pinkie, and Rainbow, who ran in panting.
That was Twilight’s cue to breathe deeply into the bag over her mouth, over and over. She has a lot of experience in doing this kind of stuff for real, but it was the first time she pretended to have a panic attack.
The prankster quartet sped to Twilight and me. Starlight and Spike were right beside me, Rainbow was beside Twilight, and Pinkie was on the top of Twilight's throne because she's Pinkie Pie.
Spike asked, “Twilight, what’s wrong?!”
I answered, “Twilight, show them what’s ‘wrong’.”
Twilight "stopped" hyperventilating, picked up, with her magic, the pregnancy test stick she had used, and held it up.
Starlight's mouth dropped and she shouted, “Whoa! You’re pregnant, Twilight?!”
Twilight answered, “Yes, I am, thanks to you and that prank from last week!”
"WHAT?!" As Twi and I thought she might do, Starlight moaned and fainted. Rarity couldn’t have done it better herself.
Spike’s and Pinkie’s eyes and mouths widened. Rainbow's eyes and mouth did the same, but she also shouted, “How?!”
Twilight set the test stick on the table while raising an eyebrow. The eyebrow thing is one of Applejack’s favorite things to do when you say something silly. "Uh, Rainbow? You do know where foals come from, right?"
Rainbow groaned, rolling her eyes. “Of course I do, Twilight, but you and Eric were out cold when we put you two in your bed! How...how...”
I needed to up the emotion, so I groaned and threw my arms in the air. “I don’t know, Rainbow! Maybe we woke up for a bit while still drunk.”
Pinkie set a hoof on her cheek. “What have we done?”
“T-This can’t be happening...wait.” Rainbow's frown full of worry flipped into a smirk. “Oh, I know what you two are doing.”
Twilight asked, “What?”
Rainbow pointed at Twilight. “You're trying to get us back for last week!” Rainbow pointed at me. “And I bet this prank was your idea, Eric! Ha, nice try, but I'm not falling for it!”
Spike smiled, full of relief, for now. “Oh, yeah! You two almost had me! And having Trixie in on it too, genius!”
“We wish it was a prank, but Twilight’s really pregnant!”
Still on the top of Twilight's throne, Pinkie waved a hoof at me. “Oh, pleaaaase, Eric! We all know she used her magic to make it ‘positive’.” Pinkie looked at Starlight, who was still lying on the floor with her eyes closed. “Uh, almost all of us.”
Luckily, the ever-calculating Twilight Sparkle foresaw this and had already thought of a countermeasure. She picked up one of the five cupcakes on the table beside her. “But I didn’t! I’ll even Pinkie Promise!” Twilight performed the “Pinkie Promise”: along with the motions with one of her forelegs, she said, “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!” and it ended with her hitting one of her eyes with the cupcake. She closed it at the last second, so none of it actually got in her eye.
“She Pinkie Promised. Uh-oh.” Pinkie gasped. Jury’s out on if that pony would truly hurt you if you break a Pinkie Promise, but with her randomness, none of us wanted to find out.
Rainbow covered her mouth with her hooves, but still asked, “To repeat what Pinkie asked before: what have we done?”
Spike asked, “You’re really pregnant, Twilight?”
“Yes! I like foals, but being the Princess of Friendship is tough enough without being a mom too!”
Twilight’s a pretty good actress right now. She sounded like she was really losing it! Time for me to step it up myself.
“And I’m not ready to be a dad, and...oh my Celestia, I’m going to be a dad...”
Rainbow ran behind me, patting me on the back to “calm” me down. “Wait, wait, let’s not freak-out yet. Maybe it’s a ‘false-positive’. I heard about how that sometimes happen.”
Pinkie jumped off Twilight's throne and pulled out a stethoscope from her mane, looking like a doctor now. “Don’t forget: You two think of each other as brother and sister, but you aren’t the same species, remember?” Pinkie yanked out two sheets of paper from her mane, holding one with her left foreleg’s hoof and the other with her right foreleg’s hoof. One of them had a purple-colored alicorn and an egg drawn on it. The other sheet of paper showed a light-skinned human, wearing a white shirt and blue pants. Beside him were some little...uh...okay, fine! I’ll just say that it was sperm drawn on it. The alicorn and human drawing resembled Twilight and me some, but colored with crayons or something. “See? So, can you two even have foals?”
Why Pinkie Pie had those pictures in her mane is something I will NOT try to question. Nor will I ask why she chose to put them back in her mane like she might need them again. The others apparently felt the same way. And don’t ask how she gripped the edge of the papers with hooves: it’s stuff Pinkie just...does.
Twilight "facehoofed", and it wasn’t an act I don’t think. “First, Pinkie Pie, I KNOW Buggie and I are different species. Second, Rainbow, before this one, I tried twenty-seven different pregnancy test sticks to make sure and they all came up positive. Not only that, but third, I went to the human world on the other side of the portal to find out, but pony and human chromosomes are similar enough for Eric and me to have a foal.”
Actually, Twi made up the part about our chromosomes. She never tried to find out for sure if humans and ponies shared enough genes to really have a foal. Or if it would even be a “foal”.
I put my hand over my forehead, pretending to be in shock. Had to keep selling it.
“Okay, well, if you two really are going to have a foal, we’ll be by your sides the whole way!” Rainbow assured.
Spike faced me and asked, “Eric? Did you hear?”
I took my hand off my head and tilted my head down to Spike. “Sorry, I wasn't really listening. I was too busy thinking about how I got an alicorn PREGNANT!”
I probably would have been yelling at this point if this was real, so I yelled to make sure they bought it. My shout also woke up Starlight, who moaned and slowly forced herself to her hooves.
“Ugh...what happened?”
Pinkie answered, “We got Twilight pregnant last week because of our prank.”
Like the last time when she learned this...news, Starlight’s mouth dropped, but her eyes also grew big. “What?! She’s pregnant?!”
“Yeah, she is” -- I pointed at Starlight -- “and don’t you faint this time, Starie! I'm too young to be a dad! I'm not even twenty yet!”
Starlight rubbed me on my back with a hoof, more gently than how Rainbow did it. Whenever she sees me worried or stressing out, she’ll drop what she’s doing and try to calm me down. I was almost starting to feel bad for pranking her…almost. “Okay, okay, calm down, little bro. If Twilight really is pregnant, you know we’ll be there for you two.”
Spike suggested, “Yeah, so let’s plan our next move.”
Rainbow started, “Okay, well, first we need to...uh…”
“What?” Spike asked.
Rainbow rubbed her neck bashfully. “What do we have to do first?”
“First, we should inform my parents and Shining Armor that I’m going to have a foal.”
“We should also tell Princess Celestia. Oh, and let’s tell her all about why Twilight is going to give birth to the first-ever human-pony hybrid foal.”
Twilight said, “In fact, I think all of Equestria should know.”
The prankster quartet's pupils shrank and they all gasped. They did not want that to happen! Now the battle to not even chuckle started.
Rainbow rapidly shook her head and she begged, “Oh, no, no, no, no! You can’t! If the Wonderbolts find out it’s because of one of my pranks, they will NEVER let me live it down! I’ll be re-nicknamed ‘Rainbow foal-maker’ or something!”
With a worried frown, Starlight laid her hooves on my shoulders. It’s not hard to do, because we’re around the same height. “My parents wouldn’t let me hear the end of it either! It’s already bad enough that my dad ‘foals’ me to death! I’ve told you how bad it is!”
“Maud would just tell me to never do it again, but Marble will chew me out and she talks on and on when she’s mad! Please don’t tell anypony else it’s all our fault! I’m sorry!”
“Or at least not the Wonderbolts!” Rainbow flew to Twilight and grabbed her by the shoulders. It was becoming so hard to not laugh. “Please don’t tell them, Twilight! Please! I’m sorry too!”
“If we keep how this happened from at least my dad, I’ll do anything you say for a week, no, a month! I'm so sorry!”
Spike said, “We won’t do anything like this again! We promise!”
Oh, this was just too good. I reached my limit, so chuckles forced themselves out of my mouth. Best I could do was cover my mouth. Twilight had a hoof over her mouth, so she must have hit her limit too.
Rainbow stared at Twilight; Starlight stared at me.
“Wait, what’s so funny?” Rainbow asked.
“Buggie, are you laughing?” Starlight asked.
Since they were figuring it out, there was no reason to fight it any longer. I uncovered my mouth and laughed my head off! Twilight did the same, lying farther back in her chair.
The prankster quartet went back and forth between staring at themselves and at Twilight or me.
“Wait, this is a prank?” Pinkie finally asked.
“Yes it is!” Twilight answered between laughs.
“You four fell for it, hook, line, and sinker! Twilight’s not pregnant.”
Rainbow growled. “Okay, that was low! You two scared us half to death that we made you parents!”
Yeah, like Rainbow could say anything. I stopped laughing and countered, “Well, you scared Twilight and me half to death by putting us in her bed last week!"
“And by tricking us into thinking we...you know, after we woke up. He’s like my little brother!”
Spike said, “Okay, you have a point. We deserved this.”
Like me, Rainbow can appreciate a good prank, so her mood loosened and even chuckled. “Fair enough. I will admit that you two got us good!”
Pinkie said, “Yeah, you did! I’m sooooo glad that it was just a prank!”
Starlight pointed at the pregnancy test stick Twilight showed her and the others, still lying on the table. “Where did you get that fake pregnancy stick?”
Twilight answered, “Oh, it’s real, but if I were really pregnant, the end would be blue, not red." Twilight pointed at the box of test sticks on the table still between her and me. "There’s the box it was in.”
She was still standing beside me, so Starlight walked around me to get to the table with the test sticks, then picked up the box and sticks with her magic. She left the four cupcakes on the table.
Starlight took a closer look at them. After a moment, she gasped and dropped the box and sticks on the floor. “Wait. Twilight, if it’s negative, it’s supposed to be green.”
Well, this was a turn of events that even Twilight didn't see coming, let alone me! Twilight's jaw dropped and she shouted, “What?!”
“WHAT?! Twilight, you said that thing being red at its end was a negative result!”
“I thought it was!”
Pinkie asked, “Then what is it supposed to be if it’s positive?”
In a low voice, Starlight answered, “Uh...red.”
Spike pointed at the test stick, now on the floor with the other sticks in front of Starlight. “The stick's red, so that means…”
Rainbow said, “O-Okay, the joke's gone on long enough. Starlight, if you are in on their prank too, just say you made that thing red with your magic.”
I laid my hands on Starlight's shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “Starlight Glimmer, this isn’t funny. Just tell us if this is a counter-prank!”
Starlight shook her head, hard. “This isn’t, I promise! Look, I’ll Pinkie Promise that I have nothing to do with this!” Starlight grabbed one of the four remaining cupcakes still on the table, then did the Pinkie Promise. She’s telling the truth. Uh-oh.
Spike asked, “So if you didn’t do it, what about Trixie?”
Starlight answered, “She’s gotten pretty strong thanks to my lessons, but not that much. Only very strong unicorns, or gifted unicorns that trained in Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, can do something like this with their magic, and I don't think she's ever gone. Those sticks are infused with powerful magic to lower the risk of false-positives, and no unicorn in Ponyville I know of could do something like this!”
“So if it wasn’t you, Trixie, or Twilight, that means...” Pinkie’s mouth dropped. Her face "said" what her mouth didn't say.
“I’M REALLY PREGNANT?!” Twilight shouted with her pupils small. After a moan, she fainted in her chair. Crazy how I didn't faint with her!
But while I stayed on my feet, Starlight passed out and hit the floor again. She fainted twice in less than fifteen minutes. Rarity would be so proud of her.
I ran around the table still between Twilight and me to reach and shake her. “Twi? Twi?! You all right?! Speak to me, big sis!”
Twilight remained quiet.
I let Twilight go, spinning around to the others. “Wonderful. Twi’s not waking up till she’s over the shock of what happened, but how is she pregnant?! You said we were out cold when you put us in her bed!"
Rainbow answered, "Like you guessed before, Eric, maybe you and Twilight woke up while still drunk and...well...did that.”
I gave one of the hardest facepalms of my life. It hurt, but I didn't care. “Are you bucking kidding me?! You guys really made me knock up Princess Twilight Sparkle, my Equestrian big sister?!”
With a confused frown, Pinkie stared at me, rubbing the back of her head. “Uhh...that depends. What does ‘knocked up’ mean?”
I facepalmed again, and this one had the force of my usual facepalms. Keep forgetting Equestrians would be clueless about human expressions from my old world. “Oh. ‘Knocked up’ has a few different meanings, but it can mean ’to become pregnant' or 'to get someone pregnant', even if it's somepony in this case.”
“Oh. Your world has a lot of weird expressions,” Rainbow said.
“Maybe, but enough about how humans talk: what are we going to do?! I meant it when I said I’m not ready to be a dad!”
“Uh, well, look at it this way: Twilight’s a princess, so if this makes you have to marry her, you’ll become a prince!” With a smile, Pinkie hopped beside me and poked me on my side. “Huh? Doesn't ‘Prince Eric’ have a good ring to it?”
Well, the thought of gaining the title of Prince was appealing, but not by marrying Twilight! Though, if I had to marry one of Equestria’s alicorn princesses, I would pick the one I’m the closest and most comfortable with, which would be Princess Twilight. Plus, I do think she’s the cutest of the princesses, but just don’t look at her that way.
And if things weren't bad enough, a new thought came to mind. “Wait, marrying and having a foal with a mare that’s like my sister might be the least of my worries. Do you know what Shining Armor will do to me over this?!”
Rainbow asked, “Why would he be mad? You two don’t see each other much, but he knows you’re a good guy.”
“Yeah, but when he finds out I got his little sister pregnant, it's going to make him think of me as a ‘good’ punching bag! That’s how I would feel if some guy got Twilight or Starlight pregnant like this!”
I will confess that I was a...tad protective of my two big human sisters back in my world when it came to dating. I needed to know their boyfriends were good before I could cut it out. This would carry over to my two Equestrian big sisters, if they would finally go and land themselves a very special somepony. If they do, it better not be some jerk like Prince Blueblood. Just...NO!
Though I’d be cool if it’s somepony that’s only a jerk sometimes, but is otherwise nice and truly cares about them. Thus I’ll be fine if Starlight ever asks out Trixie or vice versa and be done with it.
Anyway, Spike said, “Don’t worry, Eric. Shining Armor won’t try anything because Twilight and I will talk to him. Besides, Twilight and Starlight wouldn’t let him do anything anyway.”
Pinkie said, “Like we already said, we’ll be there to help you out with your foal. Auntie Pinkie Pie’s good at taking care of foals, remember?”
A new, horrifying thought popped into my brain, forcing me to gasp. “Guys, we might have an even bigger problem than Shining Armor: can Twilight even carry a human-pony hybrid foal?”
“I don’t get it. Why shouldn’t she?” Spike asked.
“We have no idea what a growing ‘foal’ like ours might do to her body. Alicorn or not, this kind of pregnancy could kill Twilight if her pony anatomy can't handle it!”
Spike's, Rainbow's, and Pinkie's eyes doubled in size, they deeply gasped and shouted, “WHAT?!”
Rainbow’s head turned left and right in a panic. Since the Princess of Panicking and Starlight were still out of commission, I guess somepony had to take over. “Well, maybe, uh, oh! Maybe Zecora might have an idea on that.”
Spike said, “I don’t know. She knows a lot of stuff that we don’t, but this might be--”
Rainbow snapped, “Well, it’s not like we have any ideas! Let’s go!”
After Rainbow got Starlight on top of her back, she, Spike, and Pinkie all sped out of the library to search for Zecora.
About five seconds after the prankster quartet had left, I burst out in laughter. So did Twilight, who “woke” up and sat normally in her chair. With us both laughing, we fist/hoof pumped.
Yep, that “panic” Twi and I did was also an act! Ha!
Twilight calmed her laughing, turning her head towards the doors opposite the ones the four suckers fled out of. “They’re gone! It’s okay to come in now!”
The doors Twi called out to opened in a red light. A giggling gold unicorn with a red and yellow-striped mane and tail walked into the library. Once inside, she let herself full-on laugh as she ran to Twilight and me.
The unicorn’s name: Sunset Shimmer.
“Ha ha, did you see how fast they ran out?!” I asked.
“Not really, because I pretended to faint and Sunset was outside the room, remember?”
“Oh yeah.” I rubbed my neck over that embarrassing oversight.
“But I wish I could have been in here to see it happen, not just listen to it behind the door.”
I said, “Well, you could have hid using an invisibility spell, but you were too worried that you might laugh and give yourself away.”
“I know. Maybe next time I’ll do the invisibility spell idea, if we ever do anything like this again.”
Twilight said, “But thanks for coming to help us, Sunset. If you weren’t the one that made that stick red with your magic, our prank wouldn’t have worked! Not even Spike and Starlight suspected we had your assistance.”
“I was happy to help. I was getting bored and wanted to come hang out with Eric soon anyway.”
“Anyway, with the prankster quartet good and pranked, Twi, Sunset, let’s have our celebratory cupcake!”
Twilight levitated one of the three remaining cupcakes to me, one to Sunset, and the last one to herself. Once finished, we would track down the four jokers and tell them the truth.
After what we did to them, I DOUBT Starlight Glimmer, Spike, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie will be throwing drunk friends in bed together again.