Celestia drifted through the darkness, the void around her echoing with what she thought were the screams of ponies, coming from every direction at once. She opened her wings to take flight, but felt no air gather under them due to the chains constraining her body. Celestia fell, not knowing where she was or what was happening, the screams slowly getting quieter as she plummeted through the darkness.
Her addled mind struggled to determine how she had ended up bound and in the middle of nowhere when she suddenly slammed into a hard surface, her chains rattling as she sat up slowly. Celestia looked about her, seeing nothing but darkness, until a faint light took hold of her senses. Rising to her hooves, she trotted toward the light, her binds clinking with each step. Closer and closer the light came, darkened shapes emerging from the shadows, and Celestia recognized them as houses and trees.
Where was she?
The landscape began to take form before her, rolling hills and thatched-roof homes punctuated by trees surrounded her, and the whole place gave her a chilling sense of deja vu. Looming in the distance, she could see a massive tree casting its shadow across the town, its branches filled with flattened pastel shapes that only made her think of balloons.
Her heart skipped a beat as she realized she was in Ponyville. Twilight's library stood, its staggering height shocking the Princess. Had her home been this large? Celestia wondered, reaching out to open the door, stopping when she heard a faint cry for help echo through the wood. The voice cried again, louder this time, and it gave Celestia shivers. She froze, noticing the voice sounded just like...
"TWILIGHT!" Celestia screamed, bursting through the library door, entering into a personal hell. The bookshelves were bare, the volumes having been evacuated to the floor, as a comically-large Spike ran about the room, arms flailing, before he took to the air, puffing up steadily. In the center of the room stood, or rather, floated, Twilight. Her body had expanded well past the point of any pony Celestia had ever seen, her eyes bulging out as she steadily grew in size. The mare's eyes trained on Celestia, their now-black voids pulling the Princess closer and closer. Celestia advanced, unsure as to what she was witnessing. Twilight's mouth opened, and her voice echoed through the entire library.
"Are you happy now, Princess?" Twilight's voice held hints of squeaks, indicating her transition to rubber. "It was my goal to please you. To succeed. And I have!" Her limbs inflated, growing larger by the second, as a loud boom filled the room, followed by purple and green shreds of rubber, a black, shiny eye landing on Celestia's muzzle. She jumped back in fear, looking about frantically for Spike, whose presence could not be felt anymore. "We're all balloons, Princess. Everypony is taking part in your grand experiment! Inflate us, Celestia!" Twilight said, her head disappearing under her expanding skin, her body becoming that of a plain lavender balloon, its mouth sealed by a string that found its way to Celestia's hoof.
"Inflate us, Celestia! Inflate us!" The cries echoed around the Princess, her ears ringing. Her vision swam, distorting about as the balloon above her popped. Its scraps rained down upon her as her vision grew dim. "Inflate us!" the calls reverberated through her head, making her feel sick. "Inflate us!" Her lungs screamed for air, her face dripped with sweat, and her ears rang with a deafening silence.
"NO!" Celestia cried out, slamming her hoof into the floor, the landscape about her cracking as though made of glass. The walls shattered, dropping away to reveal darkness once more, the shards falling out of the floor as her environment was ripped away from her. Once more, Celestia found herself falling through the darkness, her mind scrambling to keep up with her body, plummeting to the unknown depths. She could see a small light appearing below her, growing steadily larger as she fell. The light grew into an image of herself and Twilight, the latter still just a foal, learning her first magic spells. Celestia smashed through the image, glass shards raining about as another image came into view.
Picture after picture, Celestia fell and broke through, their depictions chronicling Twilight's life up until her last moments, the image of a lone unicorn, surrounded by rubber scraps, crying and inflating, providing no resistance as Celestia crashed through it.
With a scream and a sharp inhale, Princess Celestia awoke from her fitful slumber, sweating profusely. The dawn's rays penetrated the windows of Town Hall, where she had fainted after learning the true nature of the reformation spell.
Celestia's eyes slammed open. "The spell!" She scrambled to her hooves, searching about frantically, before laying eyes once more on a pile of ash, now scattered about the desktop, and letting out a pitiful moan. "Oh, Twilight, what will I do now?" Tears streamed freely down her face. Why had the nightmare come about, and where had Luna been? Ususally her sister was skilled at halting their subjects' nightmares before they became too terrifying, but Celestia had heard, and felt, that everything about her nightmare was too real. She looked about her, noticing the piles she had knocked over while kicking in her sleep, and grumbled over her constant rearranging.
She sat and caught her breath, before she was hit by a novel idea. The spell she had sent Twilight was located in a book in the Starswirl wing of the Royal Library. If only she hadn't needed to fake her own inflated death, she could teleport right there and take the book as reference. Surely if Twilight hadn't developed a counterspell, then she, the most powerful magical being in Equestria, could. Celestia paced about, contemplating how to get to the book without being seen, before remembering the note her sister had sent her the previous day. Grasping a quill off the Mayor's desk, Celestia began to form her request on the back of Luna's note, before whisking it away with a flash.
The spell was designed to inflate balloons until their critical levels, to test materials for tensile strength and durability in the years before manufacturing became common, but Twilight had done...something...to override the cutoff point for the spell, and she had to figure out what exactly that was. She mused over the issue for a moment, before being shaken from her stupor by a loud thud to her side. Looking to her left, she saw a large, worn-out tome resting on the desk, its cover depicting a caricature of Starswirl the Bearded. Atop the book sat another small note from Luna, marking the date by which she had to return it. Noting the date for three days later, Celestia opened the book and skipped through until she reached an earmarked page, the spell she had bequeathed Twilight sitting plain-as-day in the middle. Celestia's heart tightened, her goal had been hampered by that zebra, whose identity tickled at Celestia's mind. She could have brought back an army of the undead! 'Well, mostly undead' she mused, smiling and inwardly thanking her lucky stars that the zebra had known about her plans.
Mysterious zebra aside, Celestia worked the issue out in her head, the spell taking shape as she fired it at a broom in the corner. The broom's handle began to fill up, the head inflating soon after. The broom inflated steadily, the only sound being that of the occasional squeak as the handle converted to rubber. Suddenly, the spell cut out, the broom having been inflated to three times its original size, the handle now as thick as Celestia's leg. The balloon-broom, 'balloom?' she wondered, fell to its side with a squeak, the wood having converted fully to hollow rubber. With a smile, Celestia began to shape the counterspell, twisting the matrices of the spell's workings to reverse the inflating effects.
Smirking as she wrote down her steps, Celestia lit her horn and fired at the balloom. The handle slowly began to shrink, the air rushing out of it as it grew heavier and heavier, solidifying under the spell. With a clatter, the broom fell back to the floor, having been converted back into wood and straw. Allowing herself a small cheer of victory, Celestia set about arranging together the scraps of one pony in the center of the room, the lavender shards punctuated by deep blue and pink. Princess Celestia moved about the room, ensuring that the entirety of Twilight's remains were collected in the center of the room.
Lighting her horn, Celestia began to slowly piece together the body of her faithful student, beginning with her hooves. The spell warped and twisted through the shreds, bringing them closer and closer, sealing them with a flash of gold. Twilight's legs began to take form, their deflated shape emerging out of the steadily-dwindling pile of scraps. Celestia's horn strained with effort, her energy quickly leaving her as she put her entire being into the spell. Twilight's cutie mark assembled itself, before merging with the slowly-forming flanks, golden flashes of light radiating out every second. The deflated mare's tail and mane came into being, the small pile of scraps rising into the air and moving to piece together her face, her eyelids closed, and a frown of disappointment taking shape. With a flurry of rubber and a heaving sigh, Celestia's horn puttered out, her breathing labored as she beheld her efforts. Arranged before her, on the floor, was the deflated body of one Twilight Sparkle, horn, mane, tail, and all.
The Princess smiled, she had finally netted herself a victory! New hope building in her chest, she solidified the spell in her mind, ushering up a wave of magic filled with her hopes and aspirations. The counterspell took shape, the magic tendrils winding their way about Twilight's deflated body, the streams of magic flowing into her limbs and torso. Celestia's horn grew brighter, her forehead beginning to sweat once more. Her limbs shook, eyes set in concentration as the spell drained her of her life force, it seemed. Slowly, but surely, Twilight's body began to take on definition, the rubber receding to make way for matted fur, muscles, bone, and blood as the pony's body reformed. Celestia closed her eyes, forcing the magic out of her, and releasing a wave of golden magic throughout the room, a soft gasp echoing in her ears. Her mouth had been shut, however, and that made her open her eyes in shock, the spell dissipating before her. If it had not been her who made the gasp then...Her gaze drifted to the fuller, and organic body of her faithful student, laying haphazardly on the floor before her. The mare's mane waved in the gentle breeze from the window, and her horn gave off a feeble purple spark, igniting Celestia's hope. Celestia held her breath, focusing on the intact body, watching for any sign of life, staring intently at the neck and chest. She was staring so hard, she almost didn't notice the small gasp that permeated her senses once more.
With a sharp gasp of breath, and a soft cough, Twilight Sparkle's body shifted slightly, her chest beginning to rise and fall slowly. Celestia's heart skipped a beat, while tears of joy ran down her face, staining the rug.
Twilight Sparkle was alive.