Apprehensiveness wafted through the air in Celestia's throne room. Even though Pinkie Pie had enjoyed how Twilight had duped her, the others were not so easily manipulated by the things they took pleasure from—this was a serious situation, and the other ponies and Spike saw it only in that manner. Twilight knew herself the shared thoughts amongst her friends, so she would have to go to even greater lengths to mess with them—but to her, that would simply make her spread of bedlam all the more pleasurable. But, the question now was: where would she begin? To any normal trickster, Fluttershy would seem the obvious choice, though maybe a bit too obvious. Besides, she could provide only so much of an entertaining reaction to whatever Twilight would cook up. No, Twilight would need someone whom she would procure a real kick out of tormenting. With that thought in mind, Twilight flew over to the center of the room, which was also in the center of where her friends were all standing. After a moment of contemplation, Twilight turned her gaze towards the second most fearful pony: Rarity.
Upon glimpsing Twilight's wicked gaze, Rarity promptly darted behind Applejack, sticking her head out from behind the Earth pony. Twilight waltzed over to the two ponies, holding her sinister smile as she bent down closer the ponies: Rarity feeling frightened and Applejack not showing any fear.
"Always the cowering one, aren't we, Rarity?"
"Actually, that would be Fluttershy."
"She's right" Fluttershy agreed. "I am that pony."
"But, in cases like this—yes, I would be frightened."
"Well, you can't always hide behind your friends, you know," Twilight explained as she suddenly appeared directly next to Rarity, her face right up in Rarity's. Rarity leapt up in fright and landed on Applejack's back. Rarity's fumbling had pushed Applejack's hat down over her eyes, causing the Earth pony to become irritated at the bothersome mare on her back, so she simply told Rarity in her own polite way, "Rarity! Get offa me!"
"Absolutely not! I don't want to be anywhere near that dreadful creature!"
"Well I don't want you anywhere on me! Now would you git off buhfore I havta buck you off?!" As enticing of a proposal this was, Rarity still preferred being perched atop Applejack rather than being face-to-face with the abysmal being that was evil Twilight.
Speaking of Twilight, she had been enjoying this spectacle laid out before her, but it could still use a little something—and Twilight knew exactly what that something was.
"Here: allow me to help!" Twilight snapped her fingers, and the three gems that made up the cutie mark on Rarity's right flank had detached from her body, much to the shock of the anxious unicorn. Each gem then made a turn so that the pointed ends of each gem were facing squarely at Rarity's bottom. Twilight snapped her fingers once more, and the gems were thrust straight at Rarity, prodding her directly in the flank. This was obviously the push Rarity needed in order to release Applejack, even though she was none too happy in receiving it. Rarity yelped in pain as she flew straight up into the air, holding her aching bottom. She fell back down to the floor with a crash, more in pain from the jabbing than the collision against the ground. The others gathered around the aching Rarity.
"Rarity! Are you okay??"
"I am anything but!" Rarity turned her head and glared at the sniggering Twilight. "How dare you treat my bottom with such disregard for its well-being!" she proclaimed irately whilst rubbing her hurt flank. Rarity then stood up and stepped towards Twilight adamantly and angrily. "You will pay for this atrocity!"
"Well, if you insist," Twilight then lifted up a coin purse from nowhere, opening it up and peering inside. "Hmmm...I do believe I've got enough. What do you think, Rarity?" Twilight presented the purse to the bewildered unicorn, who hadn't a clue as to what Twilight was speaking about.
"What?? I...don't think you can buy your way out of this, Twilight!" Rarity shouted as she continued taking her heavy step-taking towards Twilight.
"Are you sure? Why don't you take a look!" Twilight thrust the open end of the coin purse at Rarity, which in an instant discharged a tremendous quantity of gemstones with an identical velocity to that of Pinkie Pie's party cannon. The gems came rocketing forth, directly at the now terror-stricken unicorn, who in her petrified state engendered a shortfall of her instinctual reaction to evade the oncoming projectiles. Before anypony else had the opportunity to assist their imperiled companion, the unicorn was swiftly walloped by the looming gemstones, blasting her across the room and crash landing with the pile of precious gems forming into a pile around her—all directly adjacent to the still enamored Pinkie Pie.
Rarity popped her head from the gemstone mound. After shaking several gems from her hair and spitting out an emerald, Twilight asked Rarity if the gems would be a satisfactory payment for her previous actions toward Rarity. Upon hearing this query, Rarity became increasingly flustered. "You really think that assaulting me with all of these precious gems will entice me towards forgiving you? You are clearly a bigger fool than you make yourself appear for presuming I would care that much about these paltry, uninteresting, soporific...rather nice...lovely, gorgeous, incredible...alluring...exquisite..." Rarity continued her description of the gemstones in the unvarying monotone brought upon by her trancelike state.
Applejack watched Rarity's mindless bloviating, then remarked to the others, "Looks like we've lost another one."
"Your numbers are dwindling fast! You'd better do something about it!" Twilight supplemented a bout of chortling, but was abruptly cut short by the intervening of Rainbow Dash, whom had flown up from behind Twilight and grabbed her by wrapping her front legs around Twilight's arms and torso.
"How about we start by getting rid of you!" Rainbow squeezed as hard as she could in her effort to immobilize Twilight—however, her attempts would soon be seen as nothing short of futile.
Though generally surprised at first, Twilight quickly retaliated in the way she felt was most appropriate—with entropy and insanity. Holding her trademark grin, Twilight swiftly stretched out both her eyeballs and moved them up and around to Rainbow Dash, who was understandably flabbergasted at the sight of these elongated peepers. "You wanna see a real surprise maneuver?"
"Not really," Rainbow replied with a look of acute apprehension.
Without a second thought, Twilight proceeded to snake her stretched-out eyes around Rainbow Dash in a coil, effectively wrapping the pegasus in a tightly-bound convolution. Rainbow struggled with every ounce of brawn she had contained within her being, but this proved to be fruitless against the prodigious power of the metamorphosing draconicorn.
"And here I thought you were supposed to be the fast one," Twilight sniggered. "But don't worry, I can help you with that," Twilight lowered her outstretched eyes, placing Rainbow's bottom hooves squarely on the floor. It couldn't' be predicted what maltreatment Twilight was soon to inflict upon the ensnared pegasus, but Twilight was as eager as ever to exhibit her new showing of ignominy for the mortified Rainbow Dash. With a single vigorous tug, Twilight pulled away her eyes from Rainbow Dash in the same fashion as pulling a wound-up string from the crown of a spinning top, and Rainbow Dash consequently did just that: spin. Twilight had made Rainbow into her personal spinning pony top, and the draconicorn laughed and laughed at the pegasus' adversity as she rapidly spun around and around the floor of the throne room. Rainbow Dash was helpless in decelerating her gyration, as were her friends, who lacked any means to halt their friend's ceaseless whirling. After at least ten seconds had passed, a noticeable decrease in velocity came about. Steadily, the rotation of her spinning lowered more and more, until Rainbow Dash was now spinning around while stumbling on her own two back hooves. Eventually, Rainbow finally stopped, but she was too dizzy to stand up straight or even remember what had been going on. With one last moan, Rainbow Dash gave out in her balance and collapsed headfirst to the floor.
Applejack was increasingly anxious. Twilight had defeated three of her friends in no time, and hadn't even broken a sweat. She was merely toying with them, as was the nature her newfound insane personality. Applejack hadn't a clue on what to do; Twilight was unstoppable, and everypony knew it. The only thing any of them could do now was stand by and see what she would do next—and in each of their minds, they hoped that they would not be the draconicorn's next target.