Applebloom's hooves slid on the crystal-like floor, skidding to a stop. As soon as she did, she turned, panted, and stared at the ponies by the door. They were stuck for trying to enter in a large group at the same time.
“Quick!” Applebloom turned to the table, where the two fillies watched in horror and a dragon trying to calm his nerves. “Help me close the doors!”
How she expected three small fillies to close two giant doors, we will never know.
Outside, the Mane Six were trying to talk and calm everypony down. They may have persuaded some, but the enraged and confused ponies were getting angrier by the second.
Spike was taking deep and fast breaths to calm himself down. The loud and angry noises that echoed around the castle was getting on his nerves, which was growing harder and harder to tame.
Finally, the ponies broke through, and charged after the shocked and horrified Applebloom.
“QUIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The blue creature was crying. The poor thing was tied on a log, raised on top of burning logs, as ponies around the burning scene angrily chanted for it to die.
“No!” Spike shouted. “We will not perform such a thing here in Ponyville! Equestria as a whole forbids that!”
Filthy Rich sighed, his ears drooping. “A common practice back home it is, for witches and spirits we want to dismiss. If the ponyfolk find it extreme, they I won't suggest this kind of theme.”
A few ponies chuckled. Zecora facehoofed.
“Wow, Tiara,” Diamond Tiara said, smiling at her friend. “I didn't know your dad can rhyme!”
Silver Spoon glared at her. “That's be cause he can't, you dope! Zecora's inside his body!”
Diamond Tiara blinked at that revelation. “Oh... Well, that makes much more sense now.”
The Mane Six carried the table and chairs to the side to accommodate the ponies who now sat on the crystal-like floor. Spike, the six ponies, the three fillies, and one blue creature were on the flight of the stairs so ponies can see them.
Spike was trying his best to fight the urge to study and examine the curious creature, who was laughing with the three weirded fillies. He took a breath to calm himself, before addressing the ponies before them.
“Okay, so aside from burning the strange and magical creature, any other ponies want to voice their suggestion?” ‘When did my castle became a courthouse?’ Spike mentally sighed. ‘I miss my libratree...’
The ponies looked at each other and talked quietly among themselves. After a while, a hoof was raised, and Spike asked the pony to step in front and share their thoughts.
“Um...” Spike scratched his head. “I...know how you are, but uh, I don't know who is currently you, so for the sake of everypony around, please introduce yourself first.” He doesn't want to get surprised like Filthy Rich being Zecora again.
The pegasus stallion cleared his throat. “I'm Mayor Mare, princess.”
A few ponies in the crowd chuckled, while others looked around, trying to search for the ‘mayor’.
“And may I suggest to leave this on your hooves? I don't think the rest of us can do anything about...what happened.”
A few ponies voiced their disagreement, but the majority thought that it was a good idea to leave everything to the Mane Six. After all, they fixed quite a number of problems in the past years. This won't be any different.
The ‘trial’ went to vote of who was in favor, and seeing as the majority agreed, the Mane Six dismissed the audience and helped them out. The common question now was where they were going to sleep.
“Their problem, not ours,” Applejack snickered.
The ponies were inside a large empty room on the second floor. Twilight has yet to decide what she'll be using this room for.
“Uh huh,” Fluttershy glared at her. “I bet you'd like that, being me and sleeping with my bro.”
“You sleep with your brother?” Twilight innocently asked.
Fluttershy blushed, stammered, and struggled to save herself. “T-t-that's not what I meant!”
Applejack blushed earlier, but now she was laughing.
“Ahem,” Spike cleared his throat, and then turned to the fillies. “Okay. So... That thing calls you its mother.”
“Actually,” Scootaloo said as she shook her hoof to set it free from the long blue ear that wrapped around it. “It keeps on saying ‘mana’, as in the magical aura.”
Spike blinked.
“If that's true,” Pinkie said, rubbing her chin with a hoof. “Then it's quite easy to mishear it with ‘momma’, I suppose.”
The rest of the Mane Six nodded in agreement.
“Mana!” the blue creature giggled. “Mana! Manafeeee!”
“Point taken,” Spike said.
Fluttershy nodded. “Well, it's nice to know that you love your parents very much.”
Nine sets of eyes blinked at her.
Fluttershy looked at them. “What? Why are y'all lookin' at me like that?”
“Eep!” Twilight gasped, earning her friends' attention. She pinned her ears with both hooves. “I-I didn't hear it! My special talent! I didn't understand the poor animal!”
“Calm down, Flutters,” Applejack said as she and Pinkie Pie tried to calm her down.
“Huh,” Spike eyed the creature, then back to Fluttershy, who was talking to Rainbow Dash and Rarity. “Fluttershy?”
“Mrmmrmmm...” Twilight mumbled with a shaky voice.
Spike rolled his eyes. “Who's inside Fluttershy's body again?”
“That'd be me, sugarcube.” Fluttershy blinked. “Er... Applejack.”
Spike nodded. “And you said that you understood what the creature just said, right?”
“I...guess so?”
Spike gestured with a claw for the pony to approach the fillies and the creature. “Do you mind if you'll act as our bridge of communication?”
“Mana!” the creature jumped and approached a yelping Spike.
“Uh...hi?”
“Mana!” it said happily. “Manafeee!”
Spike blinked, and then turned to Fluttershy with a ‘what the hay did it just say?’ look on his face.
Fluttershy approached them. “The little fella said that it can understand us.”
“Mana!” the creature nodded.
“Wow, really?” Applebloom said as she and her friends approached. “Lemme try! Um... So, what's your name?”
The creature blinked. It tilted its head to the side. “Mana... Mana-manafee-mana?”
“Er...”
Fluttershy was already arching an eyebrow. “It said that it doesn't have one, because you three didn't give it a name yet. Oh, and it said that the three fillies are its parents...”
“What?” Pinkie Pie and Applejack asked at the same time.
The three fillies gulped.
Spike sighed. “I knew it...” he mumbled to himself.
“Huh,” Rainbow Dash scratched her head, looking confused. “And here I thought it was already obvious...”
“But that's impossible!” Pinkie Pie cried. “How could it claim my sister and her friends as its parents?”
“Manafee!” the creature said cheerfully at Fluttershy. “Mana-mana-manafee!”
“Uh huh...” Fluttershy nodded. “Well, the thing said that it heard our sisters' voices when it was about to hatch.”
Sweetie Belle sighed. “He was still an egg when we found him on the pond outside the Everfree Forest.”
Applejack blinked, and then facehoofed.
“Mana!” the creature looked at the unicorn filly with an angry stare. “Manafee!”
“It said it's a female.”
Sweetie Belle blinked. She then turned to the creature. “How was I supposed to know that?”
The creature huffed. “Fee...” It suddenly yawned, and began to wobble. “...fee...”
Lavender aura suddenly enveloped the creature, and she was gently lifted up, and rocked in the air. Everypony turned and saw Twilight, her horn glowing. She was smiling and humming a lullaby as she approached the sleepy darling.
Applejack leaned to Fluttershy. “I guess taking care of animals is her ‘natural’ specialty,” she whispered, and Fluttershy just nodded, looking surprised.
Spike smiled, and looked up at Twilight. “Wow. I didn't know you co—”
“Shh,” Twilight said, then continued humming a lullaby.
“Manaaa...” she yawned again with a smile, before closing her eyes and began to sleep.
Fluttershy chuckled quietly. The little thing already has good manners, greeting them all ‘goodnight.’
...and then everypony glowed white.
“My dear sister,” Luna said after pulling her head from leaning on a telescope on her sister's balcony. She turned and entered the room. “Have you already raised the sun, perchance?”
A loud snore was her reply. Celestia opened and closed her mouth, and mumbled something, before turning and settled and snored again.
Luna rolled her eyes. “I suppose not.” She shook her head slightly before turning outside, curiously watching the glowing town of Ponyville.
“Manaphy, huh?” Applebloom said as she and her friends sat under the shade of a tree outside the school. It was recess, and the foals were either playing or sharing stories with one another about that one specific event that happened three days ago.
Sweetie Belle nodded. “Yup. Scoots and I paid her a visit yesterday.”
“Sorry that you couldn't come, Applebloom,” Scootaloo said.
Applebloom just shook her head. “It's alright, y'all. Ain't like it was your fault.” She smiled. She was mostly thankful that her sister was more focused on Rainbow Dash and Big Mac than with her. A two-day no-crusade was too merciful, even for Applejack. “I'm just glad that things are back to normal now. Who ever thought that the little guy j—”
“Girl,” Sweetie Belle corrected.
Applebloom rolled her eyes. “Girl, whatever. Whoever thought that she only needed to go to sleep to undo her magic.”
Scootaloo scratched her head. “I wonder what would happen if a pony dies before they switched back...”
They became quiet.
Scootaloo coughed. “Sorry. Bad topic choice to talk about.”
Sweetie Belle frowned. “Well, I just can't believe we didn't get our cutie marks after all that trouble.”
Applebloom shook her head. “I'm actually glad I didn't get a cutie mark from all of that.” She then smiled. “Anyway, I'm gonna visit the little gu—girl at Fluttershy's. Wanna come with?”
Her two friends nodded immediately.
“Of course!” Scootaloo said, wings buzzing. She placed a notebook before them and opened it to a page full of notes. “I already have a lot of ideas we can try to get our cutie marks with Manaphy!”
“...already?” Applebloom blinked, leaning forward to take a look.
Sweetie Belle frowned after reading a few of them. “I'm not sure if Fluttershy approves with some of those ideas...”
“I know!” Scootaloo said proudly. “That's why we're taking her back to the clubhouse, and then we can begin crusading!”
Applebloom and Sweetie Belle looked at each other with worried frowns on their faces.
“So what do you say?” their pegasus friend asked excitingly.
Sweetie Belle sighed. “Do we have a choice?”
Applebloom sighed. “I'm starting to rather go visit Twilight and see what she found out about the eggshells...”
“Aw, come on!” Scootaloo closed her notebook. “We're not the Cutie Mark Crusaders if there's only two of us!”
Applebloom rolled her eyes. “Ugh, fine... But I'll be the one to choose what we'll be doing.”
“Deal!”