Sunday in Ponyville was usually a quiet day. Few ponies walked the streets. Few pegasi flew the skies. Nopony was usually too busy on Sunday, nopony except for a unicorn with a purple coat and her baby dragon assistant. The Ponyville library was quite a mess. Books littered the floor and sat in stacks against the walls. The low, hooted snoring of Owlowiscious was occasionally interrupted by the crisp flip of a page, or pacing hooves on the library floor.
“Aw come on, Twilight,” Spike began. “You’ve been at this all day. Besides, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy aren’t even here yet.”
“I know Spike, but I need to have a list of possible spells that I can attempt before they get here, as well as the counter spells for those spells. And I need to have this report done for Princess Celestia by next week.”
“Next week?” Spike asked, raising an eyebrow. “But that’s seven whole days, Twilight.” The unicorn didn’t look away from her book.
“Spike this is a very complicated category of spells,” she replied. “I’m just trying to work ahead so that I still have time to fix things if I slip up.”
“Yeah but isn’t that what you always do?” The purple dragon questioned. Before Twilight could reply, a knock came from the door.
“Spike, could you get the door please?” Twilight asked.
“I’m on it,” Spike replied, stepping around a few books on the floor as he walked over to the door. Upon answering the door, Spike was met with a pink maned pony with a buttermilk yellow coat. Spike smiled. “Hey Fluttershy, come on in.” Upon seeing the baby dragon’s smile, Fluttershy’s timid stance seemed to fade just a bit as she stepped into the library.
“Thank you Spike,” she said, softly. Even though Spike was mentally old enough to be Twilight’s personal assistant, Fluttershy couldn’t help but find him absolutely adorable. He was a baby dragon after all. “H-Hi Twilight,” the yellow pegasus greeted. To Spike’s surprise, Twilight looked up from her book and over to Fluttershy with a smile.
“Hey Fluttershy,” she said. “I’m so happy you could make it.”
“O-Oh, it was nothing really.” Fluttershy said. “Though it took a bit of convincing for Angel to let me move his tail fluffing to tomorrow.” The pegasus suddenly looked at the floor a bit sheepishly. “S-So instead I skipped breakfast so I could fluff it before I came here.”
“Angel seems a little high maintenance,” Twilight commented. Fluttershy’s stance became timid once more.
“Oh he’s not too high maintenance,” she said. “H-He just likes to follow a schedule.” Before Twilight could respond a cyan and rainbow form suddenly came whizzing through the window and into the library, bringing with her a gush of wind that blew the pages of Twilight’s book aflutter.
“Yo Twilight!” The hurricane-esc pegasus greeted as she flapped her blue wings to keep herself off the ground. Twilight looked back at the blue pegasus with a semi annoyed expression. Not only was her mane a mess now but she had also lost the page she had been reading to the gust of wind that Rainbow Dash had brought in with her. Rainbow Dash snickered, putting her hoof over her mouth to stifle a laugh at the sight of her eggheaded friend’s now wind-styled hair. “Oops,” she chuckled. “Guess I went a little too far with my awesome entrance.”
“Oh really?” Twilight replied, still unamused. “How could you guess?” With a sigh, Twilight began to find the page that she had been reading. Meanwhile the two pegasi greeted each other and began to converse.
“S-So how is Tank doing?” Fluttershy asked. Rainbow chuckled at this.
“He’s perfectly fine, Fluttershy,” she said. “You ask me this like every time you see me.” Fluttershy couldn’t help but giggle a bit at this.
“I-I know,” she said. “I’m just always curious about him. It’s not every day that a tortoise can fly.”
“Tank’s been under my wing since I got him. He’s gotta be the best flying tortoise in all of Equestria by now!” The blue pegasus suddenly thought for a moment before speaking again. “Not that there was much competition for that title anyways.”
“I think I’ve got it!” Twilight announced, smiling.
“Got what?” Rainbow Dash said, looking over to her unicorn friend.
“Princess Celestia asked me to do a bit of research on more advanced age spells. I’m supposed to do a report on them. Though age spells are different when it comes to earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns.
“A-Age spells?” Fluttershy chimed in, albeit a bit quietly.
“There’s no need to worry,” Twilight said. “Unicorn magic isn’t strong enough to fully perform age spells. Only an alicorn like Princess Celestia would be powerful enough to do such a thing. If anything, this spell will only shrink your wings a bit.”
“Riiight, and if that were to happen is there a quick fix for it?” Rainbow Dash asked, raising a brow. Twilight nodded, before looking to Spike.
“Spike, could you grab me the book on pegasi anatomy please?”
“Pegasi anatomy!” Spike said, after he pulled a book from one of the many bookshelves within the library. “Here you go Twilight.” Levitating the book over and opening it to a specific page, Twilight spoke.
“I’ve done a bit of studying on pegasi wings over the past few days, and I’ve got plenty of counter spells that would be able to fix any alterations.” Rainbow Dash gave a nod at seeing this.
“Alright, cuz I’ve got a bit of pranking to do with Pinkie Pie later today, and I’m gonna need my super awesome flying for that.”
“S-So, um, h-how do we begin?” Fluttershy asked. Twilight picked up the book which contained the age spell, using her horn to levitate it in front of her.
“Well, I’ll have you two stand next to each other so I can focus the spell on both of you. It says that immense concentration is required for a spell like this, so I’ll just have to try my hardest. Princess Celestia wants me to document any minor changes that I’m able to pull off.” Rainbow Dash flew down to the floor before walking over to Fluttershy, standing next to her.
“And you’re sure this will only cause minor effects?” She asked.
“I’m positive. I don’t think it’d be possible for me to even pull something this complicated off,” Twilight replied.
“Alright, cool,” Rainbow Dash replied.
“W-Whenever you’re ready then, Twilight,” Fluttershy said with a shy smile. Twilight gave a nod in return, still levitating the book.
“Alright, here it goes!” She announced, trying to psyche herself up. After all, she needed to be able to document something in her report to Princess Celestia. Closing her eyes, the purple unicorn began to concentrate, causing her horn to glow. Clearing her mind more and more, Twilight strained herself as she focused all of her mind onto performing the spell at hand. And after a moment, her horn created a bright flash of magic that left Twilight panting a bit for air once it dissipated. Something about how she had casted that spell, she just couldn’t put her hoof on it. But something had certainly felt different. And oddly enough it reminded her of her entrance exam to Princess Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns. When Rainbow Dash had performed the mythical Sonic Rainboom all those years ago, which had ultimately granted Twilight’s entrance to the school and had given her her cutie mark. Upon opening her eyes, the unicorn was met with a shocking sight however, and she suddenly realized why she had felt the way she did about the spell. Where her two pegasi friends once stood now sat two oddly familiar looking foals. One had a cyan coat and a messy, rainbow mane. The other had a buttermilk yellow coat, and her semi wavy mane was a cotton candy pink.
“B-But how?” Twilight cried to herself. “H-How did I-”
“No way!” Spike interrupted. “You turned them back into foals! Just wait until Princess Celestia hears about this!” Though her dragon assistant’s intentions were good, Twilight’s heart suddenly dropped when she heard this.
“No!” She cried, cutting Spike off. “Celestia cannot know about this! She’d fail me if she found out that I was still somehow struggling with basic magic control!”
“But you pulled off an alicorn-level spell!” Spike said, trying to be encouraging. “I think she’d be impressed with you Twilight.” A sudden loud and high pitched cry interrupted the conversation. Wincing at the sudden noise, Twilight and Spike both looked over to its source. The foal-sized Fluttershy was now wailing unhappily as Rainbow Dash was flying above her, trying to tug her up by her pink tail to get her to fly.
“I-I think we have a bigger problem at hand…” Twilight said, realizing she now had two foals in her possession.