Cadence sang softly to herself as she drove to Twilight's place. Don't get her wrong, she and Shining Armor loved Flurry Heart to death, but even they needed a break sometimes. And Twilight was only happy to babysit Flurry.
Shining Armor was quite busy, being a captain of the army but he had gotten a day off today. Coincidentally, Cadence needed to run a quick check at the nearby town for an upcoming field visit for the students. She asked Shining if he would like to accompany her and he was only enthusiastic to come along.
Now, a short while later, they were returning home. Shining had stopped to get down so that he could do a quick patrol around the city. Cadence had rolled her eyes but nevertheless smiled fondly.
As she parked her car in the driveway, and made her way upstairs to Twilight's apartment, she couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that something was off. To her uttermost surprise, Twilight had answered the door, fully clothed in a Belle inspired ballgown.
Cadence stared. Then she giggled.
"Hey Twi," she said in between muffled laughter. "Playing dress up, eh?"
Twilight sighed. "No, Cadence, it's a long story."
Cadence nodded and followed her inside. On the couch, with Flurry in her arms, was Fluttershy, also dressed in clothing not unlike Snow White's.
She frowned. "Something's not right here. What is going on, girls?"
"Mama!" Flurry cooed in delight, clapping her hands at the sight of her mother.
"Well, Cadence you see," Fluttershy began. "Rarity, um, got mad at the Crusaders for wrecking her house, and um, now her magic's gone haywire that's, um, changing everyone's clothes."
"And we're trying to figure out if there is any counter spell for it," added Twilight.
Cadence nodded in understanding. Her eyes widened and she shrieked as she saw a bright ball of light headed straight towards her!
She was fully ready when the blast hit her, although it still shook her a bit. It felt oddly intense, like a localized, small scale electric shock you can sometimes get from touching things.
Twilight reacted almost immediately, speaking quickly. "Cadence, I intend to document the process for reasons of science. If we have evidence of it happening, I can work on how to reverse it. But first, in keeping with scientific ethics, I must request your permission to document this."
"Go ahead!" Cadence said, already aware of her jacket starting to become softer, like some sort of jello.
Twilight forced her skirt through a gap between two chairs.
"Move, you stupid thing!"
She then fired up the camera, whilst Fluttershy kept an eye on Flurry Heart to ensure she didn't get up to any trouble.
Cadence monitored the process herself as it started proper. Her jacket, which as previously discussed had the consistency of a highly viscous liquid, suddenly sank into her blouse, leaving her with a very odd looking full sleeved garment with a slightly lower cut than normal.
She glanced down and saw the sleeves compress onto her skin, becoming skin tight on her arms. Then, they began to extend forward, flowing over her hands, encasing both them and her wedding ring completely. They moved over both sides, covering her hands totally, before the material changed to soft fabric and pulled back to become tight to her hands. Her ring materialised on a nearby dresser as the sleeves and gloves turned to white, and became covered in elaborate embroidery and lace.
Her neckline started to drop, falling downwards a few inches before coming to a complete stop. Moments after that, her chest and waist tightened. Cadence cried out in mild shock as a corset formed underneath and pulled her waist in.
"Ow! I thought wearing that once for my wedding was bad enough!"
The shirt also turned white, and was also covered in elaborate patterning and even more lace and fabric as the shoulders on the dress started to grow in size. It was like watching a bubble expanding in size in a science experiment as more air is fed into it, only what was happening was that fabric was physically expanding in size and producing extra space and mass. They kept on swelling until they were close to the size of small beach balls, but then just as suddenly stopped expanding. Her necklace also vanished.
Cadence sighed for a moment. "Is that it?"
"We can't be certain yet," Twilight noted, doing her best to not knock over her camera tripod with her skirt. "If myself was anything to go by, the process is nowhere near complete."
"If you say so," Cadence said, sounding worried. "It's just that Shining is supposed to be returning from the game store soon. It's his day off, and if he saw this-"
"If I know my brother as well as I think I do, he'd love you no matter how you were," Twilight replied.
This, at least, reassured Cadence, and gave her strength as the process started up once more, throwing her headlong into the fresh throws of transformation.
Cadence looked down and saw her normally golden heels start to change, becoming white in color and gaining small bows at the bottoms of them. They also extended slightly higher up her feet, helping them to stay on them. She had to admit this felt pretty weird, but at the same time it was not the worst thing she had ever experienced.
The next stage concerned other clothing she had on. Cadence felt something forming on her feet, before suddenly white fabric flew out of her shoes, up her legs, and vanished up her skirt, before forming into place to stay in that position. "Well, that's one way of getting a new pair of tights!"
This was not the only thing that would change, however. Cadence's skirt turned white, much like her other clothes, and then began to grow longer, stretching down her legs and expanding towards the floor. The fabric was not so much stretching as physically growing, and eventually it flowed over her feet and to the floor, before pooling in a giant mass at the bottom which made moving difficult.
Cadence breathed in sharply as a metal band formed around her waist, but at the same time knew this feeling somewhat well. As they all watched, tense, Cadence's skirt suddenly began to inflate. The top of the skirt changed into a dome like shape, and the rest began to spread outwards, layer after layer of fabric, tulle, lace, and extra skirts forming underneath and helping the dress push out further and further.
The skirt was growing quickly, and determinedly, greedily consuming space around it as it flew outwards, forming an ever bigger dome as it stretched and grew. The skirt kept on inflating like a balloon, the floor being covered more and more in its vast white, wintery expanse. So much so it began knocking into furniture.
"Interesting," Twilight noted. "Mine didn't get this big."
"I hope I don't end up pinned in place!" Cadence said. "I don't think this house was built for skirts this big!"
The skirt collided with a chair and casually knocked it out of the way. Speaking of which, the layers of fabric began to creak and groan, indicating they were reaching their limits. Seconds later, the growth of the skirt began to slow down. After pushing onwards another few inches, it hiccupped out, and stopped.
White, petal like sections popped out of the bottom of the outer skirt as a long, flowery train formed behind her. The entire skirt was covered in elaborate embroidery and fabric patterns, and a necklace, a new one, appeared around Cadence's neck as a bouquet of flowers appeared in one of her gloved hands. Finally, a veil appeared on her head as the light faded, and at last it seemed to have stopped for good, much to the relief of everybody involved.
Cadence looked over herself.
"I wasn't intending on being in a wedding dress again so soon!" she joked.
"But it doesn't make any sense!" Twilight said, having stopped the camera. "The energy hits people and changes their clothes, yes. But there's no rhyme or reason as to how or why they get changed. I'm wearing Belle's dress for some reason, Fluttershy over here is Snow White, and you're in... well, that!"
Cadence suddenly made a connection, and tried to move forward, only to nearly get stuck. "I'll ask Shining to move some of the furniture around when he gets back, as we could do with more space for the time being. But I recognize this dress."
"You do?" Fluttershy asked.
"It was one of the options I boiled down to when I was planning my wedding to Shining," Cadence replied. "I tried it on and wasn't a fan. Thankfully, Rarity agreed to make that new number for me."
"Maybe the connection is clothing we all have some form of attachment to," Twilight thought, thinking to herself. "Perhaps if I can get to my spectrum analyzer, I can tweak and determine the wave forms to determine their origin! That could allow us to run a Melton conversion and-"
"Twilight, in English please," Fluttershy asked.
"Oh! Sorry. I may be able to measure things to fix this."
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. All three of them rushed for the door and bumped into each other seconds before it opened.
Shining Armor stepped through, replete in a magnificent red and blue army dress uniform, and started singing. "In short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral, I..."
He trailed off as he saw who was inside. His eyes widened.
"Am the very model of a modern major general?" Twilight finished.
"What happened to you guys?" Shining asked.
"The same that happened to you," Fluttershy pointed out. "Magic energy changing clothes."
"Touché," Shining said. "About half the police force currently look like 19th century policemen right now."
"Why not you, though?" Twilight asked.
"It's my day off," Shining replied. "Are you alright, Cadence?"
"I'm fine," Cadence replied. "It's just a heavy dress. It's not like I'm pregnant or anything!"
The look on Shining's face said it all. "Agreed."
Twilight and Fluttershy suddenly exited, heading off to find Twilight's equipment. Just as they left, they saw a blast of energy hit Flurry Heart.
Both parents looked at one another with a look of horror. "Oh no," they said in unison.