It's three in the afternoon. I stand beside Bon Bon's bed with a cup of herbal tea in hoof. I look around to see a mound of tissues, bits of green visible through the white.
"Yuck," I say.
Bon Bon stirs out of bed and looks up at me with blurry eyes.
"Whuzzat?" She says in her oh so eloquent manner.
I roll my eyes.
"Feeling better?" I ask.
Bon Bon responds by sniffing in, with the exact same sound as when a machine mixes cement, and then collapses back on the bed.
"Ntho." She says, in case I couldn't guess the answer.
I hold up the mug of tea I brewed.
"I made you some tea." I say to the unmoving object before me.
She stirs from the bed and looks up at me.
"Oh, Lywa, thanhk youhg!"
I narrowly avoid the hug she attempts to give me and instead hand her the mug of tea. She sips the tea, making a face when she burns her tongue with it. I turn and head for the door.
"Alright, let me know if there's anything else I can do for you." I say.
Bon Bon looks up with sparkling eyes.
"Oh, Lywa, therg is one thingh." She says.
"Yes, what's that?" I ask.
She smiles at me.
"I reagly want a bagel."
My left eyebrow rises.
"A bagel, why?"
Bon Bon goes into a coughing fit so I excuse myself from the room.
"A bagel, huh?"
I grab my saddlebag with my magic and place it squarely on my back, the bits in the bag clinking together as I do so. I trot outside, on my way to Sugarcube Corner, when I see a great many ponies gathered around something. Curious, I trot to the outskirts of the crowd and ask a yellow coated pony with a turquoise mane what's going on.
"Raindrops, why is everypony over here?"
Raindrops shrugs.
"I don't know. I've been trying to get a glimpse for fifteen minutes."
I raise an eyebrow again.
"Why have you been waiting for that long? You can fly."
Raindrops looks behind herself and gasps.
"What in the name of technicolor packaging companies? I have wings!"
I draw back from Raindrops at this.
"Hey, are you feeling okay?" My question is answered by Raindrops proceeding to poke her wings experimentally with a hoof.
"Riiigghht."
I look around for somepony to help me take Raindrops to the hospital, but, just then, Raindrops yells to the crowd.
"Look everypony, I have wings!" Dozens of eyes turn towards Raindrops with almost predatory fury.
"Eep," I say, ducking away from the crowd of ponies that gather to get a glimpse of Raindrop's 'amazing' wings.
"This is... wierd." I say, slowly.
A black hoof grabs me and pulls me into an alleyway. I turn around to see a very tired looking Thunderlane.
"Thunderlane, wh-"
Before I can inquire as to his reasons for pulling me into a cramped alley, he covers my mouth with a hoof. A trickle of snot travels down his face from his nose, leaving a trail of reflective fluid. I utter a muffled 'eew' before Thunderlane speaks again.
"You're fine. You're not affected by it either. Or are you? Lyra, you have a horn!" He speaks very quickly with a very crazy look in his eyes.
I'm no expert, but I'd say sleep deprivation. My eyes go up towards the direction of my horn and I look at Thunderlane's hoof. He removes it with an embarrassed blush.
"Yeeess, I do have a horn." I say, looking at him suspiciously.
He sighs, visibly relieved.
"Thank Celestia."
I look around for anypony to please get me as far away from this obvious madpony before he does something I'll regret. Thunderlane moves towards me and hugs me.
"Oookaay."
Yeah, I'm pretty freaked out now. I push him away a bit and look at him, wow he looks terrible. I shouldn't say that to him though, it would be impolite.
"You look terrible." I say.
Now this is why you're in these situations, Lyra: you don't listen to me. Shut up, brain. Thunderlane looks down at himself.
"Yeah." He acknowledges.
Okay, he seems to have some semblance of sanity left.
"What's going on?" I ask.
Thunderlane looks up at me, intensely, and sneezes.
"Aw, come on! You sneezed in my face!" I whine, exasperatedly.
He gives an apologetic smile
"Sorry, I have no idea what's going on. All I know is that you're the only other pony I've met that seems to be unaffected by whatever's happening."
Well, I wouldn't say that he's unaffected by it.
Quiet, you.
I nod. "Interesting, we have to tell Princess Celestia."
Why would Thunderlane and I be the only ponies unaffected by this strange hysteria?
Thunderlane nods, quickly.
"Good idea. Let's go." He says.
We look outside to see that now the crowd is ogling the ticking clock tower, and tiphoof to the train.
"Soo," I say, drawing out the 'o'.
"you wouldn't happen to know how to drive this train, would you?"
Thunderlane shrugs.
"It's on a track. How hard can it be?"
My pupils contract.
"Famous last words." I mutter.
"Did you say something?" Thunderlane asks, trotting towards the front of the train.
"No." I call back.
After a few minutes of indecision, I trot back after him.
"Any luck?" I ask.
Thunderlane looks at the various levers on the train, his eyebrows furrowed.
"I think so. From what I can gather, it looks like similar controls to the crane a friend of mine drives. The only thing I can't figure out is whether that one is the brake or the lever to change tracks."
Yeah, we'll be dandy.
"We should disconnect the parts of the train we're not using, they'll slow us down otherwise."
Thunderlane nods.
"Do you know how to do that?" He asks.
I look over his shoulder, remembering something.
<~>
I take a look to my right. Any second now, the train will come around that bend, then it's go time. The train turns around the corner, bearing down on my location fast. I lick my lips. Four griffin diplomats and one hay of a peace offering on that train, I love this job. I leap onto the train, using a spell to slow my descent enough to save injury. I land on top of the train, bending down so the air doesn't make me a green and silver stain on the tracks. I make my way towards the back of the train, slicing a hole into the offering car. I drop into the room, twisting my head to avoid a stun blast from the first Unicorn guard. As I land, I hit the second guard with one of my own. The first guard grabs him to prevent him dropping off the train. I fire a combustion spell in front of them, blasting them into the next car. I check to see that they're still breathing, but out cold. Smiling, I use my magic to disconnect the train car, causing it to roll behind the main part of the train. I laugh, maniacally, as the train chugs away, unaware of its missing loot.
<~>
"Lyra?" I am broken out of my reverie by Thunderlane poking my shoulder.
"What? Yeah, I know how to do it... in theory I mean, I've never actually done it. That is to say, I have no real life experience with disconnecting a train that would imply some kind of criminal past that I, heh heh, obviously don't have."
Thunderlane looks at me quizzically.
"Uhuh." He says.
I blush and turn around to disengage the train. I watch, smiling as the bottom part of the train slides away from our movement. Thunderlane figured it out. That's good. I turn around and Thunderlane and I sit down, leaning against a wall.
"So, you seem pretty sick. Why were you outside and not in bed, getting rest?" I ask.
Thunderlane shrugs. "I was bored so I went outside to see what all the commotion was about. What about you?" He asks.
"I was going down to Sugarcube Corner to buy a bagel for Bon Bon." I explain.
He nods. "Okay." He says.
riiiiigghhtt, I think to myself.
Eventually, we arrive at Canterlot to find the train station completely empty. A tumbleweed blows by, catching on a post of the train station before passing out of sight.
I furrow my eyebrows. "Huh... you know, tumbleweeds aren't native to this part of Equestria. Why would somepony import a tumbleweed? That doesn't make sense at a-"
Thunderlane looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "Drop it."
"But it jus-"
"Drop it." I look down at my hooves.
"Fine." I mumble.
We continue towards the castle without meeting a single other pony on our way. Upon reaching the castle, we see what appears to be a humongous party going on because, according to the persistent chant coming from the mob, 'we can breathe! We can breathe!'
"Well, it looks like here was affected by this craziness too."
Thunderlane nods. "We have to find the Princesses. They should be in the throne room."
I look up at the castle, teeming with crazy ponies.
"How will we make it to the throne room?" I ask, trying to count ponies in my head and failing horribly.
Thunderlane grins. "I have a plan." He says.
"Great." I lie, through my teeth.
<~>
"Wow, I can't believe that worked!" I exclaim.
Thunderlane nods emphatically, shaking toilet paper off of his hoof in the process.
"The fireworks were an especially nice touch." He adds.
I nod, grinning. We stand before the throne room door; pushing it open, we see the two Princesses playing patty cake on the floor and on the floor sits a very strange mare; she is an earth pony with a sort of dark pink coat and a mane that is alternating shades of purple and white her eyes are purple and pink and spins around in circles, she wears a propeller hat that perpetually spins because of some unknown force and she wears a cutie mark of a large screw and a baseball. She is obviously very pleased with herself and exhibits this by giggling, beaming, and periodically leaping up and bouncing using only her tail. Yeah, that really shouldn't work. I've decided this isn't normal.
The strange mare looks up and notices us, at least I think she does her spinning eyes make it really hard to tell, and she frowns.
"Aww, why aren't you at the party?" She pouts.
Her voice is high pitched but not particularly annoying sounding, except when it hits the word 'party', then it's very annoying sounding.
"It, uh, doesn't look like much fun to us? Do you know why everypony is acting crazy, miss...?"
She frowns. "Why doesn't the party sound like fun? You can breathe can't you?"
I turn my head to the side and look at her. "Yeees." I say.
Thunderlane steps forward. "What's your name?" He says, trying to decide whether he should ask or demand.
"Screwball. You're not at the party either." She asserts.
"You're the one that made the ponies like this aren't you, Screwball? Why?"
A clock tower outside rings the bells for three pm.
"Three? How is it three?" I ask, incredulously.
Thunderlane looks at me, quizzically.
"You nodded off on the train and we had engine difficulties." He explains.
"Oh, yeah."
Screwball seems very put off by this, judging from her hurried breathing and crossed eyes. I think they're crossed, it's pretty hard to tell.
"Oh, I know!" She exclaims, startling Thunderlane and I into attention. "You're both sick!" She says, very excited that she figured it out. "The fun orb won't work on ponies who are sick because being sick is no fun!" She beams.
"Aw, horseapples, I'm sick? I knew Bon Bon was contagious." I groan.
Thunderlane looks at me for a second, then turns his attention back on the, once again happy, Screwball. "Fun orb?" He asks.
"Yeah, this one."
Screwball reaches under her hat and pulls out a shiny crystal ball, glowing a faint green color.
"How does that work? The hat looks exactly the same! There wasn't a lump for that orb, how did you do that? It d-"
"Let it go, Lyra."
"Bu-"
"Let it go."
"Ggllg!" After a few minutes of exasperated and unintelligible mumblings, I groan and come back to reality.
"What happens if that orb of fun thing breaks?" I say, losing patience fast.
Screwball rubs her chin for a minute.
"Then everypony would be back to their normal, unfun, selv-"
A beam of green light shatters the globe in Screwball's hooves. A wave of green flows out from the broken globe. The Princesses blink and look up, confused.
"Welp, looks like that worked." I say. "Let's go."
Thunderlane nods and we make our way back to Ponyville. Thunderlane and I part ways, I trot into the house that Bon Bon and I share, and collapse onto the couch, just as the clock strikes for three in the afternoon, once more. I hear a voice from the next room.
"Digd you geth the bagel?"