“Twilight!”
Twilight stopped and craned her head sideways. Her eyes quirked when she saw a frantic Fluttershy hovering towards from across the market. Angel sat nestled on her back, and she held a bowl of leafy salad in her hooves.
“Fluttershy?” Twilight said. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes, something’s wrong! Something’s very, very wrong!”
“Oh, no. You’re not still a vampire pony, are you?”
“No, it’s nothing like that. Just watch this.” She landed before Twilight and set the bowl of salad on the ground. She nudged Angel off of her back and towards the dish. The little bunny sniffed at a leaf of lettuce, turned a harsh green, and shoved the salad away.
As Twilight watched the scene, her eyebrow only lifted higher. She looked back up at Fluttershy and said, “What’s weird about that? Angel hates eating his vegetables more than Spike does.”
“That’s not what’s wrong. Normally when he does this, I use my Stare on him and he eats it, but just look!” Fluttershy squeezed her eyes so tightly shut that beads of sweat prickled her brow. She opened her eyes and stared firmly at the rabbit.
Angled crossed his paws and glared at her. He proceeded to yawn and tap his foot like a metronome, eventually pulling a stopwatch from his tail and looking at it nonchalantly.
Something clicked behind Twilight’s eyes, and she gasped. “Your Stare isn’t working on him!”
“It’s not just Angel, either!” Fluttershy’s pupils started quivering. “None of my animals respond to it anymore! I don’t use it very often, but I still need it to take proper care of them sometimes.” She met Twilight’s eyes with a pleading expression. “Twilight, do you think this has anything to do with the spell you used on me when I was a… a v-vampire pony? Do you think it might not have worked right?”
Twilight tapped a hoof against her chin. “It’s certainly possible. That was the first time I ever really used a spell like that, so I could’ve made a mistake. But I think there would be some other signs. Maybe your animals have just gotten used to the Stare.”
Fluttershy shook her head. “I-I don’t think so. Even if they could get used to it, how would it stop working on all of them at the same time? I really think—”
“Twilight! Fluttershy! We’ve got a situation!” The two of them turned in unison to see Applejack charging towards them.
“Applejack,” Twilight said, “we’re kind of dealing with our own situation right now. Fluttershy has—”
“It can wait! This is somethin’ that the both of y’all need to see, pronto. Follow me to the farm!” Without waiting for any sort of reply, Applejack turned right around and galloped towards Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight and Fluttershy exchanged a nervous glance before following suit.
Angel watched them all disappear into the crowd. After a moment, he shrugged, kicked over the bowl of salad, and hopped in the direction of Sugarcube Corner.
***
“You just… found them like this?”
“First thing this mornin’. They haven’t moved in hours, I reckon.”
“Oh, my…”
“Well, I think we figured out why you can’t use your Stare, Fluttershy.”
The mares stood before the Vampire Fruit Bat Sanctuary, transfixed by the spectacle within. None of the vampire bats were flying, eating apples, or doing anything other than staring at each other. They were locked into dozens of pairs, their eyes unblinking as they held each other’s gaze. Most of the apples around them sat perfectly untouched, and all of the trees stood in near-perfect health.
“How in the hay are these bats supposed to help my orchard grow when all they can do is stare at each other all day?” Applejack said, sweeping her hoof across the sanctuary.
“Wait, what about that one?” Twilight asked, pointing to a lone bat on a nearby tree. It hung by its talons from a branch, staring deep into the tree’s bark.
“He’s always been like that,” Fluttershy and Applejack said at once. They looked at each other for a moment, and eventually Fluttershy said, “I named him Woody.”
Applejack blinked. “Well… never mind that. I reckon this has somethin’ to do with all that magic you’ve been usin’ around Fluttershy and these bats, Twi. Ya gotta fix it somehow!”
Twilight groaned. “Why does it always have to be my fault? I don’t exactly make a habit of messing up spells, you know. My special talent is magic, for crying out loud! Maybe the bats just felt like having a staring contest, and maybe Fluttershy’s animals are celebrating opposite day. Did you ever think of that?!”
Both Applejack and Fluttershy stared at her blankly. Woody looked at her from his upside-down perch and simply shook his head.
Twilight sighed. “Fine.” Her horn came alight. “I’m writing a letter to the publisher of that spell, though. I know I did it right both times! It’s just a defective spell. Honestly, I can’t—”
“Just work your magic, Sugarcube,” Applejack said, patting Twilight on the shoulder with a little smile. “We believe in ya.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and released the magic from her horn, washing the world in a magenta tidal wave. The air sparkled and shimmered for a time before the light vanished and revealed the bat sanctuary around them once more.
Fluttershy opened one of her eyes and peeked around her surroundings. All of the vampire bats were craning their heads about, looking dazed. “Did it work?” Fluttershy asked.
Twilight beamed. “I think it—”
An apple sprouted fangs and snarled at them from a nearby tree. They all turned their heads in time to see a long tongue sprout from the apple’s mouth and latch onto a second apple. It pulled the fruit into its fangs and sucked it dry, spitting the core down at Applejack’s hooves.
Applejack stared down at the apple's dry carcass. She moved to glare at Twilight and cried, “You turned my apples into cannibals!”
“Alright, so it didn’t work!” Twilight said with a nervous chuckle. “This time for sure, though. Just watch!” Her horn flared again, and magic drenched the farm.
Twilight opened her eyes. “Did that—”
Fluttershy’s shriek cut her off. The trees around them had had their leaves replaced by thousands of eyes, all of which looked down at them with penetrating hostility.
“Try again!” Applejack cried as she clutched herself around a shivering Fluttershy. Twilight’s horn flashed.
Three vampire bats sat flapping above the farm path, and dozens of copies of Applejack, Fluttershy, and Twilight hung from the trees’ branches by their tails.
“So this is what it’s like to fly,” said the one bat wearing a Stetson. The bat next to it scrunched its face up and sent out a wave of magic.
Pinkie Pie appeared from Fluttershy’s mane and pointed a hoof at Applejack’s newly formed bat wings. “Suspicious!” she cried, just before another magic flash rolled over them.
All of the bats were locked in staring contests again, and the only noticeable change was the golden scepter Twilight held in her hoof, her own likeness carved into its tip. She grimaced at it and threw it sideways. “Okay, this is just getting stupid.” Her magic flashed one more time.
“Oh, for goodness sake!” Discord cried. The three mares stumbled away from his sudden appearance. He stepped over to Twilight, looking at her under slanted eyebrows, and said, “Let a professional handle this, would you?” He plucked Twilight’s horn from her forehead and screwed it into his mouth so that it took the place of his typical snaggletooth. It flared bright white and blinded them for but a second.
When the world came back, all three mares winced simultaneously, bracing for the next oddity. After a moment’s silence, though, Applejack peeked one eye open. The vampire bats flew about the trees around them, some of them even grabbing apples with their tongues, sucking them dry, and shooting the seeds into the earth.
Applejack opened her other eye, looked around one more time, and sighed with a smile. “Finally, somethin’ normal. I think it’s fixed, y’all!”
Twilight and Fluttershy both opened their eyes and smiled at the show of normalcy. Twilight gasped and moved a hoof to her forehead. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found her horn in its rightful spot. She grinned at her friends and said, “Well, that settles that, I suppose.”
“Wait!” Fluttershy called. She hovered up to a nearby vampire bat, squeezed her eyes shut, and gave the creature her most determined look. The bat’s pupils dilated, and it fell into an unblinking, trance-like state. Fluttershy relinquished her Stare and smiled warmly. “Thank goodness. I was afraid I would lose my Stare forever!”
“What to you girls say we go celebrate the end of this fiasco with some cupcakes at Sugarcube Corner?” Twilight asked.
Applejack nodded. “Sounds right by me.”
The three of them started back down the path towards Ponyville. “You know,” Fluttershy said, “I’m really glad to see the vampire fruit bats back to normal, but this whole situation made me wonder: why did the bats come back to Sweet Apple Acres in the first place?”
Applejack shook her head. “Beats me. Haven’t seen ‘em ‘round these parts ever since Granny Smith was my age. Can’t imagine why they came back all of a sudden.”
“I guess it’ll just be one of those things we’ll never know,” Twilight said.
As the three mares disappeared over the crest of the hill, none of them seemed to notice Discord hanging by his tail from a branch within the sanctuary, watching them go. He gave a wry grin and, in one last flash of magic, turned into a bat and stared into the bark of the tree next to him.