It had been three days since Fluttershy had walked in on Discord being, well, Discord. She hadn’t expected his surprise visit. Things had gotten awkward. At least, it had been awkward for Fluttershy. Whether it felt the same for Discord was anypony’s guess.
She had asked him before about those surprise visits, but Discord dismissed her concern with his usual tact. He’d said that if he couldn’t even so much as show up unexpectedly, then they might as well turn him back to stone right then.
Of course, it didn’t help things that his visits tended to be as ill timed as possible. Once, he had popped in while she had a severe cold. Discord’s idea of recuperation included far too many rollercoasters and junk food for her tastes. “Fight flu with fun,” he’d said.
Fluttershy released a wide yawn, thinking of the last few nights she had struggled with the covers in her bed. She –once again– tried to push away the nagging thought that she had driven Discord away. He should have arrived to visit her by now. If the last meeting was an indication of things, then perhaps she had embarrassed him by walking into a private moment with his puppets. For all that she knew, he was upset with her for not asking to participate. Discord was a puzzle that could never be solved. It was a fitting description for the spirit of chaos.
With a sigh, Fluttershy said “I wish I understood him.”
While walking through her cottage she felt a fluffy lump touch her hoof, before nearly losing balance in her sleep deprived state. She almost didn’t catch herself before her face hit the hard wooden floor.
“Oh, I’m-” she yawned “-so sorry, Angel. I didn’t look where I was going. I’ve just been so sleepy. Angel?”
To her surprise, her pet rabbit wasn’t throwing a fit, or even mildly annoyed. Instead his face was on the ground. His tiny torso was rising and falling slowly. Fluttershy’s face scrunched up with confusion. Angel was usually such an energetic little bunny. It wasn’t like him to still be asleep at this time, in the middle of the floor.
“Angel? It’s time to wake up now sweetie,” she said.
Still groggy, Angel barely managed to lift his head up.
His responding noise could only be interpreted as “Lady, I don’t want to hear it!”
“Aw, don’t be a sourpuss, Angel. If it’ll help, I’ll make you some of that special carrot tea. That always perks you right up,” Fluttershy said.
The rabbit looked less than amused, but hopped after his owner to the kitchen anyway. Well, hopped isn’t the right word. It would be more accurate to say he dragged himself across the floor with his two front paws, moaning like a zombie. In the kitchen Fluttershy already held a cup of tea in her left wing for him. It was orange tinted, with a baby carrot sticking out like a stirrer. In her other wing was a more normal looking cup of tea.
Fluttershy offered the carrot tea to him. He took it from her with as much haste as his fatigued state would permit.
“I take it you had a rough night too, Angel?” Fluttershy asked.
The bloodshot stink eye she got for her inquiry was all the answer she needed. The two of them jumped when a loud knocking came from the door. The pegasus set down her cup of tea on a table and tiptoed to the door. She opened it just enough to peer beyond the portal. Palettes of purple, orange, and blue rested beyond the door.
“Oh, Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, what are you all doing here?” Fluttershy lowered her head, but maintained eye contact. “Not that I don’t want you here. I just wasn’t expecting so many guests all at once. Would you like to come in?” Fluttershy asked, after opening the door the rest of the way.
The expression on her friend’s faces didn’t speak of an intended social call. They looked tense. Rainbow wasn’t even hovering so she could exercise her wings. Judging from the bags under their eyes, Twilight and Rainbow Dash were pretty exhausted. Applejack’s movements weren’t as sluggish, but she looked rather irritable.
Twilight sparkle spoke up first. “We don’t have time for that, I’m afraid. I got a letter from the princesses to gather the other Elements of Harmony. We’re to meet them at the castle as soon as we can.”
Applejack noticed the slight tilt of her timid friend’s head. She put a hoof over Fluttershy’s shoulder. “Sugercube, have you been outside your cottage recently?”
“Not since a couple of days ago. I’ve been rather busy trying to get my animal friends to get enough sleep. They’ve been so tired and cranky lately,” Fluttershy said.
The other three mares traded knowing and disheartened looks before facing Fluttershy again.
Rainbow Dash held a hoof in front of her and spoke. “Well if you had been out lately, then you would have noticed nopony else is getting a good night’s sleep either. There are also rumors floating around that some ponies have started seeing things.”
“Which is probably what the princesses want to talk about with us,” Twilight said.
Fluttershy’s forehead wrinkled. “That is strange, but I haven’t had that much trouble sleeping. I don’t remember seeing anything out of the ordinary either. Have any of you seen things?”
Applejack looked away and tapped her chin. “Ah haven’t seen nothin’ weird myself. Ah don’t usually remember my dreams anyway. All this lack of sleep is really not helping with my work though. Ah can barely get more then a wink’s worth. It’s getting’ kinda frustratin’. What about you two?”
Twilight hummed briefly while looking down. “I have been feeling pretty restless. None of my sleeping agents or spells has helped. I’ve been having some pretty crazy nightmares too. There was one time when I was studying that I thought I saw a strange shadow. I was hoping I was just having some rough nights.”
“I’ve been getting no sleep at all actually,” -Rainbow Dash shrugged- “This is my third solid day without sleep. It’s not a huge deal since I can handle it, but I could see how it might drive others a little batty.”
As soon as she finished her sentence, her head drooped down and she started to lightly snore while still managing to stay on her hooves. Applejack rapidly shook her friend’s body side to side. Rainbow’s head jerked back up and looked around in a daze.
“Huhbwa?! I-I’m good! I’m awake. I’m fine,” she said.
Applejack closed her eyes and shook her head.
“It’s been like this since we found her,” Twilight explained.
Fluttershy could feel her heart thump in her chest faster then Angle Bunny’s leg when she scratched him behind the ears. “Oh my, this does sound pretty serious.”
“Don’t worry Fluttershy. That’s why we’re going to Canterlot Castle. If anypony knows what’s wrong and how to fix this, it’ll be Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.” Twilight proclaimed.
“Alright, let me just tell Angel I’ll be gone,” Fluttershy said.
She turned around in the door way to tell the little bunny the news. He was face first in his now empty tea cup, snoring away. Fluttershy’s heart melted at the sight. A few minutes later and she was gone, while he was asleep in his favorite spot on the couch.
Not five minutes later, Angel woke up with a shriek. Hazy images of being turned into a carrot that was about to be eaten by a giant, rabbit version of Discord plummeted out of his mind’s eye and into an abyss. He massaged his head to try ridding himself of the leftover memories. Then he rubbed his eyes to clear the weariness. When he opened them, with a temporary boost of lucidity, he noticed a sticky note stuck on the side of the couch. He pulled it off and read it. Fluttershy was gone and he was going to have the cottage to himself for the rest of the day. Angel found himself wishing he could enjoy this turn of events, but he was far too tired to care.
The idea of more sleep made his fur stand on end. So he forced himself to stay awake on the couch. His back went stiff and his muscles tensed as he did his best to keep his eyes open. He was starting to get the hang of imitating a statue when he fell backwards. Light snoring filled the tranquil air of the cottage.
He felt a strong paw grab him by the scruff of his neck. He was hurled into a blender by a gargantuan Discord that left him feeling like an ant. The spirit was wearing gold neck chains, a sideways cap, and his snaggle tooth was also made of gold.
“Yo Angel, I heard you like carrots! So I’m gonna mix you in with a carrot smoothie, so you can be surrounded by carrots while you eat yo carrots!”
He pressed the ‘on’ button the same time as when Angel woke up screaming. The cycle of struggling to stay awake, falling back asleep, then having a horrifying carrot and Discord related nightmare would keep going until Fluttershy eventually returned home.
Fluttershy, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight had arrived at Sugercube Corner to retrieve Pinkie Pie. When they traveled through the doorway they were surprised to find the store was in a state of pandemonium. Customers filled the bakery almost to capacity. The room was filled with the agitated murmuring of its occupants. Most of them held cups of coffee or sugary sweets in their hooves. All of them looked like they were either struggling to stay awake or wanted to beat up the nearest pony.
Behind the counter, Mr. and Mrs. Cake were completely overwhelmed. Their manes were all over the place. There were bags under the bags under their eyes. They fumbled with the various baked goods and coffee. Every other minute Mrs. Cake would drop something. Mrs. Cake was doing most of the bakery work and had a wild look about her. She would have looked more fitting in a mental hospital. Practically every motion of hers was inflexible and stiff. Mr. Cake was just as bad, sitting down and rocking in one corner of the room. All he was missing was a straitjacket. Held in his arms were the Cake twins. They were crying at the top of their lungs. The lanky stallion joined them in their wailing.
“Please, please, please will you just go to slee-hee-heeeep? That’s all I aaahaaahaaask! Why won’t you go to sleep?” Mr. Cake sobbed.
The babies continued to wail. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!”
Suddenly, yelling erupted from a pair of ponies at one of the tables nearest to the door. One was a blue and silver maned unicorn stallion and the other was a red maned and cream colored earth mare.
“Hey, that was my cup of coffee you just drank, again! Now I have to buy another one!” the stallion complained.
“Well, you shouldn’t have put it on my side of the table,” the mare countered.
“So you just go and drink anything that’s put in front of you? Well then, why don’t I just put a gallon of yellow paint in front of you? Maybe that will brighten up that lousy mood you’ve had lately,” the stallion said with a wave of his hooves.
The mare pointed an accusatory hoof at the stallion. “You’re the one with the lousy mood! All you’ve done today is act like you don’t want me around.”
“You’re the one who invited me to spend the day together.” The stallion gestured at himself. “Then you have me pay for all the coffee! Do I look like I’m made of bits to you? Of course not! If I were you wouldn’t be hanging around me anymore. You’ve already bitten my head off.” the stallion yelled.
“I told you I forgot my bits at home! Stop being such a jerk about it!” the mare retorted.
“Liar!” the stallion punctuated his word with a hoof slam to the table.
“Will you two just shut up already?!” a different stallion in a beekeeper uniform yelled. “Do you have any idea how stressful it is to calm down several hives of restless, angry honey bees?!”
“Mind your own beeswax bub!” all the other customers yelled.
“Gee wiz, I didn’t think things were gettin’ this bad,” Applejack said.
“All the more reason for us to get Pinkie and Rarity, then meet up with the Princesses.” Twilight gave a sideways glance to Applejack.
She stepped up to the counter and rang the bell. “Mrs. Cake, we’re here to see Pinkie. Is she in right now?”
Mrs. Cake wasn’t really listening. She stared at Twilight with dull and distant eyes. Occasionally she would mumble something under her breath. It sounded like she was listing off ingredients. Of course, that was only when she was mumbling anything coherent at all.
She ignored Twilight’s question and trotted over to the new magic coffee machine. She and her husband had ordered it recently. The machine was undergoing a stress test from the constant use. Mrs. Cake turned it on again, only for the appliance to sputter like a broken engine. Smoke erupted out of its top.
Twilight attempted conversation again, while the older mare banged the coffee maker with a stale baguette like a primitive cave-pony. “Mrs. Cake, it’s me, Twilight Sparkle. I wanted to know if Pinkie Pie is here or not.”
Mrs. Cake’s reply was less then intelligible. “Its okay, the vanilla extract doesn’t need the cupcake money.”
“What?” Twilight said with one raised eyebrow.
“I, with the thing, and the other thing. The rocks exploded with the chew toy. Here’s your change,” Mrs. Cake continued.
She put a scone on the counter like it was supposed to be Twilight’s afore mentioned change. Twilight’s frustration tangled in her chest. She slammed a hoof down on the counter, causing the baker to jump.
“Mrs. Cake, will you please listen to me!” Twilight said, just short of shouting.
After the little scare, Mrs. Cake looked at Twilight. Her eyes widened with recognition before nearly closing again with fatigue.
“Oh hello dearie. When did you get here?” she asked.
Twilight looked over her shoulder to her friends. They just gave various expressions of uncertainty and shrugged.
“Uh, I’ve been here for the last couple of minutes actually. You gave me a scone as change for something I didn’t order,” she said, turning her head back to the baker.
A blush cascaded across the baker’s blue cheeks, “Oh, so sorry, we’ve both just been so tired the last few days. The twins absolutely refuse to fall asleep no matter what we do. Oh, but just listen to me. What’ll you have Twilight? Coffee like everypony else I assume.”
“Actually we’re trying to find Pinkie Pie and Rarity. We’re all going to Canterlot to see if we can get this whole insomnia problem fixed.” Twilight said.
Mrs. Cake’s ears moved straight up and a small smile showed itself.
“Well that’s the first good news I’ve heard in a while,” she said, before her smile faded. “I didn’t know this was some sort of epidemic. Pinkie hasn’t been getting any sleep either Twilight. She’s not, err, acting like her normal self. You’ll find her in her room upstairs.”
Twilight and her friend’s pupils all shrank from the way Mrs. Cake used the word “normal”. Nodding in thanks, the four of them trotted up the narrow stairs. Rainbow Dash in particular had a timid nature to her steps as they got closer to Pinkie’s room. At the end of the hallway nothing looked out of place, but the usual party type noises or frequent hopping thuds couldn’t be heard.
Applejack knocked on the door. “Pinkie Pie, you in there? It’s AJ. Can we come in?”
“Sure, let yourselves in! Just be careful not to trip on Dora,” Pinkie Pie called through the door.
“Who the hay is Dorauaaah oof!” Applejack started to say before getting her hoof caught on something and falling flat on her face.
“Aww, AJ, I told you not to trip on her, and it’s pronounced Dora, not Doruahoof,” Pinkie said.
Twilight, Fluttershy and Rainbow all hesitantly filed into the room and around Applejack. They didn’t want to damage her pride anymore than need be; she picked herself up and dusted herself off. Looking at her hooves she picked up what looked to be a small pink rock. She glared at it for a moment. Pinkie Pie was sitting at a wood table in the middle of the room with a pointy party hat on her poofy haired head. She was surrounded by inanimate objects that wore identical party hats. Rainbow Dash gulped.
“Gosh darn it, Pinkie Pie! Why did ya go putting a rock in the middle of the doorway?” Applejack said. Her voice sounded a little harsher to her ears then she intended.
“Sorry, she just likes to hang out near doors. Let me introduce you! Dora, these are my pony friends. Everypony, this is Dora the door stop. She’s the adventurous type with a passion for learning about new cultures!” Pinkie said, with a slight twitch to her eye.
“Uuuuuuh…” was all the other ponies had to say.
The poofy haired pony bounced over to them. Taking Twilight’s face in her hooves, Pinkie Pie squished her cheeks together as she eagerly began speaking.
“You girls won’t believe this! Just this morning, I found out that I’m an inanimate object whisperer! All this time I thought I could only throw parties for my friends, my pet Gummy, everypony in town, everypony else’s pets in town, random strangers, and the occasional pony delivering a restraining order. But I never thought that inanimate objects wanted to party with me, well except for that one time when I forgot about my own birthday.” Pinkie’s eye twitched again.
Fluttershy cowered behind Rainbow Dash whose eyes kept darting from her friends to the exit. Twilight wiggled her way out of Pinkie’s grasp and went quiet as she tried to figure out how to even approach the metaphorical elephant in the room. Applejack beat her to the punch, in her less then elegant manner.
“Uh, Pinkie, random stuff can’t talk. You feelin’ alright?” Applejack said.
Pinkie’s forelegs flailed in the air like boneless noodles as she explained. “You girls don’t get it! Only I can hear them. I’ve been chosen by the party god to be the party loving voice for all the inanimate objects who like to party! By the way Applejack, I really like your hat. I never realized it was interested in magic.”
Everypony else in the room was oblivious to it, but to Pinkie it was all clear as day. Her pink tinted vision focused on Applejack’s stetson hat. It possessed a gruff looking face reminiscent of the folds in a burlap sack. Here ears picked up the words that eluded the others.
“Hufflepuff! Hufflepuff! This one needs to go to the wizard house of Hufflepuff! Why isn’t anyone listening to me? Also, would it kill you to buy some dandruff shampoo? I’m brim deep in snowflakes up here,” said Applejack’s hat.
Before the others could say anything, Pinkie gasped and raised a hoof in the air, her tail wagging.
“Oh-oh, I forgot to introduce the other party members here! Silly me,” she zipped over to the table where the other random objects sat on stools.
She pushed all the stools together, so that they were lined up in front of the other ponies.
“You already met Dora the door stop.” She held up the pink rock in her hoof like a trophy.
“Vamonos Pinkie! Do you want to go on an adventure with me after this?” Dora asked.
“Sure, but later. Okay girls, over here is my other new friend Lincoln the Log. He’s kind of a downer sometimes though,” Pinkie said.
“Four score and seven years ago my father was a tree. Then he got wood rot and died. It was very sad,” said the short log.
“Over here is Bubba the soap bar. He says he used to work at a dungeon,” Pinkie said.
“Yo! Hey! Whatever you do, don’t drop me in da shower, or things ‘bout to get real uncomfortable round ‘ere,” said Bubba.
“And last, but not least, here is my friend Boxy Brown. He’s so super duper fantastic, he knows everything! Plus, he and Gummy get along so well. Say hello Boxy,” Pinkie said.
On the last stool was a small cardboard box with a fake afro glued to its top. Drawn in crayon was its face that resembled a bad seventies disco star, mustache and gold neck chains included. When Pinkie heard it talk its voice came out deep and oh so smooth.
“Mmmm look at all these foxy mommas. Ain’t never seen so many fiiine looking ladies in one room before. Awww yeah. Heh, you know what I’m saying, Pinks?” Boxy Brown said.
There was a brief pause from everypony in the room.
“Not really, no,” Pinkie Pie said.
“Well let me break it down for ya! You know when a foxy lady and a rugged fella get together? Well, after that the they—”
There was another pause and another awkward silence for eveypony but Pinkie.
“What?! I mean, I don’t know about that Mr. Boxy. I mean, I’ve seen colt and filly friends kissing in the park, but they don’t do that,” Pinkie said.
“Well then maybe you invite your groovy friends over for a private party and I’ll show you what it’s all about. Mmm-hmm,” Pinkie heard Boxy say.
Twilight and the others looked at each other with confused expressions.
“Uh Pinkie, when was the last time you had any sleep?” Twilight asked.
Her voice brought Pinkie out of the trance she was in while talking to the box. She blinked a few times –trying to process the question– before turning her head to Twilight.
“Sleep? I can’t remember the last time I did that. I’ve been so busy giving all the things in town overdue welcome to Ponyville parties that I haven’t had time. I’ve had to make all the parties smaller and faster. I call it speed partying. After this, I have to feed the dust bunnies under my bed and then it’s on to another party. I don’t need sleep anyway since I found out about Red Minotaur,” she said.
Fluttershy piped up for the first time since they had arrived. “What’s Red Minotaur?”
Pinkie tossed a can at her, but the timid pegasus ducked behind her braver counterpart Rainbow Dash, who caught it with a hoof. It was a tin can with a red minotaur’s head printed on it. Dash focused on the can. Her eyes went wide.
“I had this dream a few days ago where a crazy old hermit pony told me to go buy this energy drink and when I did, I found out about my inanimate objects whisperer powers. Pretty neat huh,” Pinkie said with a smile.
“Pinkie Pie, do you have any idea how much caffeine is in these? How often have you been drinking these thi-” Rainbow tried to finish saying before she fell asleep standing up again.
While Fluttershy tried to wake her back up with far too gentle a shake, Pinkie Pie started bouncing around them all. She was acting like a pink land shark that needed a trip to the psychiatrist.
“I’ve been drinking these every two hours!” Pinkie said in a singsong tone.
Twilight Sparkle’s ears perked up. She inhaled sharply and ran up to Pinkie and held her face in her hooves to stop her bouncing.
“Pinkie Pie,” she said, “did you say that you’ve been doing this because of a dream? Was this dream about three days ago?”
“Well now that you mention it, yeah. How’d you know? Was your Twilight sense sparkling?” Pinkie replied.
“No. What? Okay, if I had any doubts before I certainly don’t now. Some kind of disturbance is causing ponies to have trouble sleeping. Something is very wrong about this. Let’s go get Rarity and get to Canterlot as soon as we can,” Twilight said with a stern look.
The others gave various kinds of agreement before leaving Pinkie’s room. Exiting last, Applejack tripped on something and fell flat on her face. Getting up, she rubbed her reddened nose. Looking down, she saw what had caused her to trip for the second time. It was Dora the door stop again. How had it even gotten back over to the doorway?
Applejack growled then threw the pink rock across the room. The door stop ricocheted off the ceiling, then the wall, then Boxy Brown who fell to the floor, then finally hit Applejack in the head.
“Ouch!” she yelped.
For a moment she thought she could actually hear voices, or maybe that was the ringing in her ears.
“Aw naw! Is Boxy Brown gonna have to smack a rock?” said the cardboard box.
“I didn’t do it on purpose. It was an accident. Honesto!” Dora said.
“The best way to destroy an enemy is to make them your friend Brown. That, or setting them on fire. That’s how my mother died,” Lincoln the log said.
“Well, I know how I'm gonna feel better. Hey you, the southern fried honey in the hat, come over here and give Boxy Brown some sugar.” Boxy said.
At that moment, Gummy the alligator sauntered in. He headed straight for Boxy Brown.
“Ah no, not this boy again. Don’t you come near Boxy Brown with that filthy mouth of yours. Uh-uh, I ain’t having none o’ yo sass today,” he said.
Gummy either ignored him, couldn’t hear him, or was just wasn’t smart enough to understand. Whatever the case, Gummy put his slimy jaws around Boxy Brown and started slobbering away.
“Uh oh, we getting freaky up in here now,” Bubba the soap bar said.
The door to Pinkie’s room shut with a resounding slam.
The five ponies later reached Rarity’s house and boutique. Everything looked normal from the outside, then again, so had Pinkie's room.
Twilight let out a long sigh. “Okay everypony. Let’s get Rarity so we can put a stop to the entire town’s craziness.” She swiveled her head to the right. “Pinkie, stop talking to the rocks!”
“Sorry,” Pinkie said.
“Let’s just go,” Twilight said.
As soon as those words left Twilight Sparkle’s lips, there was a high-pitched scream that could be heard by the deaf.
“Rarity!” all of the ponies yelled.
Rainbow Dash was a rocket, bursting though the door, ready to tackle any threat. Her puffed out chest and aggressive flapping both stopped as soon as she looked around. Rarity was screaming all right, but her home was perfectly fine. All the dresses were on display. The walls and floors were spotless. Not a thing was out of place, except for Rarity herself. The bags under her eyes and her frayed mane revealed how much sleep she needed and had been denied recently. She was dancing on a stool in the center of the room like she had just seen a giant rat. She held a frying pan in her magical grasp the same way a knight would hold his spear out against an encroaching dragon.
“Back, back I say!” Rarity warned.
“Rarity, what’s wrong? Are you alright?” Fluttershy asked.
The crazed unicorn looked up. Her balance wavered from her jarring movement. “Fluttershy?” The stool she was on began rocking and fell over, taking Rarity with it. She started screaming again. Jogging in place, she waved her frying pan around like a mad mare.
“Eww, they’re touching me! Oh Celestia, they’re everywhere! Girls we have to get out of here! Eww, eww, eww!” she yelled.
Twilight and the others looked to each other for answers. There were none. Pinkie squinted to in an attempt to see what Rarity was so afraid of.
Before any of them could utter more then the word “what”, the unicorn had magically shoved them all into a very large burlap sack. She tied the end and dragged them with her to the upstairs room. Unfortunately for the ponies inside the bag, she was not strong enough in her magic to do more then drag all five of them across the floor, and the stairs.
Twilight’s muffled call fought to be heard through the fabric. “Rarity, what are you doing?! Let us out of here! Oof, will you girs please stop jabbing me in the ribs.”
Applejack spit Fluttershy’s hoof out of her mouth and tried to push the others away. “Hey, don’t ya’ll go blaming me! It’s Rarity who’s gone off the deep end and foalnaped us in the first place. Besides, Rainbow is the one doing the kicking!”
“I am not!” Rainbow almost succeeded in throwing her hooves out in denial, but hit Applejack and Twilight both in the guts instead. “Just teleport us out of here already Twilight. I don’t do well in tight spaces. Is it getting hard to breathe in here?”
Pinkie Pie started hyperventilating. “The bag just ate us! I think I can feel myself being digested. If only I had packed pepper with me to make it sneeze!”
Fluttershy just quietly cowered on her side of the sack.
Outside the bag, Rarity pulled her impromptu passengers and cooking wear weapon into her bedroom. She locked the door behind her. She could hear her friends arguing.
“Rainbow Dash, stop hitting me! Pinkie, be quite!” Applejack said.
“Somepony let me out of here! I’m can’t breath!” Dash said.
“Oh no, we’re both named after food! Twilight hurry up and get me and Applejack out of here or we’ll be the first ones to be digested, especially her, because she’s filled with fiber!” Pinkie said.
“Will you all just be quite for one minute so I can concentrate? I can’t teleport if I can’t concentrate!” Twilight said.
Rarity untied the rope around the bag’s opening and dumped her pals unceremoniously onto the floor. After a series of less then graceful ‘oof’s, Applejack got up first to yell at Rarity.
Applejack stamped her hooves on the ground. “What in the name of nonsense is wrong with you, Rarity! Uuuaagh! If I weren’t not so tired and you weren’t my friend while I’m not tired I don’t even know what I should do!”
Twilight tried and failed to rub away the rapidly heightening headache of hers. “Applejack, I’ll explain all the things wrong with that sentence later, For now,what the hey Rarity!”
Rarity responded with what was perhaps the loudest shush in history.
“Not so loud or they’ll hear you!” Her whisper was more of a low-pitched yell then actual whispering.
Twilight face-hoofed: this did nothing to relieve her headache. “Ugh, do we really have to go through this again?” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay Rarity, who will hear us? Is it the furniture, changlings, maybe the Sassquash is listening?”
Applejack shot the bookworm a glare without her noticing, at the mention of a Sassquash.
Rarity took no notice of the tone in Twilight’s voice. She frantically ran to every corner of the room, examining every lock, whether it was on the door, windows, or even the jewelry box next to her bed. She nodded at each lock before going through the entire routine again.
“It’s not a who, dear Twilight, but what I’m afraid will hear us. Did you not see all those icky, green blobs down there? They touch everything and leave trials behind them made of Celestia knows what! Even worse, they seem to be impossible to get rid of. I’m telling you my boutique is infested by living slime! Its worse then the year Sweetie Belle brought home a box of pet snails!” she said.
Not even knowing where to begin, Twilight decided the best course of action would to be to explain things in a calm and rational manner. “Rarity, nothing you’re seeing is real."
The fashionista froze in mid trot. “What?!”
“What I mean by that is, you’re suffering from the same basic problem as everypony else in town,” Twilight continued. “Granted, yours is apparently one of the more severe cases. In case you didn’t know, ponies all over town are getting grumpy-” Applejack snorted while looking away from the group. “-sleepy-” Rainbow Dash made a loud snore, having fallen asleep again. “-craz-err, I mean, happy? Yeah, let’s go with happy,” Pinkie Pie waved her hoof in the air when Twilight pointed to her. “-and I’ll be the first to admit I’ve had difficulty focusing.”
“That makes her Dopy! So Fluttershy gets to play Bashful and Rarity can play Sneezy and Doc at the same time!” Pinkie interrupted.
The others –that were awake anyway– looked at Pinkie, wearing raised eyebrows and frowns.
“Pinkie Pie if you don’t mind, I’m asking ya to please keep yer ramblin’ down fer now. The big ponies are trying ta talk here,” Applejack said.
“Fiiiiine,” Pinkie poked the hat on a rack next to her. “That’s the last time I take joke suggestions from a fedora named Fink.”
Twilight groaned before trying to get the conversation back on track. “Shoot, I lost my train of thought. The point is Rarity, that everypony is having all kinds of problems since about three days ago from lack of sleep,”
Rarity interrupted Twilight with a shriek. “They’re squeezing under the doorframe! They’re squeezing under the doorframe!!! Aaaaaahhh!!! Zap them, Twilight! Zap them! They’re right there!”
Twilight scanned the room. “I don’t even know what I’m looking at. There’s nothing here!”
Pinkie jumped on Twilight’s back and grabbed her tail with her hooves like a crank. “Don’t worry about aiming silly; just shoot in every direction at once and you don’t have to know where the targets are!”
She twisted Twilight’s tail around as fast as she could. Lasers shot out of the unicorn’s horn in all directions. It was akin to a very painful lightshow with an emphasis on the color purple.
One of the lasers ricocheted off of the window behind Dash and zapped her in the flank. This, of course, woke her up and freaked her out. “We’re under attack!” She then proceeded to fly around the room like a drunk, randomly crashing into things. Fluttershy tried to talk her pegasus friend down, except her hushed voice could hardly be heard over all the screaming.
“No Pinkie, over there! There’s one over by the bed! Oh Celestia, they’re coming though the ceiling! Shoot faster!” Rarity screamed while pointing at every corner of the room.
“Pinkie stop! How are you even doing that?! Quit it!” The unicorn turned gatling gun started bucking in an attempt to dislodge her crazed friend. This only made the shots go wild even more. Miraculously, nopony was getting shot.
Rarity had entered another screeching fit when there was a loud metallic clunk. Everpony’s heads turned to Rarity. She fell down, eyes crossed. Directly behind her was Applejack, holding the frying pan in her teeth.
“Ah think that’s enough crazy fer today,” she said before spitting out the frying pan.
The others could only shrug. At least the worst was behind them now...probably.