//------------------------------//
// Cutie Malfunction 
// Story: Cutie Malfunction 
// by Takarashi282 
//------------------------------//

Trying to cope with the headache that was nice enough to greet me as soon as I woke up, I slumped in my throne, my tea cup floating off to my left. Conversation was tossed over my head between my five best friends as they discussed exactly what they put in the memory crystals dangling from the chandelier that was made from the roots of the Golden Oaks library. It didn't mix well with the fact that my brain felt like it was hitting itself over the head with a Clopsford Dictionary, but since the Cutie Map wasn't showing any signs of acting up, they should be outta here in a couple minutes. 

Wow, I thought. Never before had I ever wanted my friends to go home so badly. But in the end, it was only a half-an-hour meeting, which I thought was bearable... right?

... Right?

"Still can't believe that Starlight Glimmer," I caught Applejack saying, hoof raised. "Ah mean, c'mon! Thinking she could brainwash us into her equalism mumbo-jumbo? Ah still can't get that voice out of my head..." 

"Pssh," Pinkie blurted, "I know, right?" Her expression turned sour. "It's an extreme injustice to force somepony to make bad muffins!"

"It's an extreme injustice to take somepony's talents away period," Rainbow Dash added.

Fluttershy sighed. "I just really hope she takes time to really think about what friendship really means. She looks like she could be nice..."

"Well, darling, that's only if she can look past herself," Rarity said. Her eyes swapped to me. "Twilight, dear, are you feeling all right? You're looking really pale."

My head feels like it's about to explode and I feel like I'm going to puke, I was tempted to say, sipping my tea. "I'm all right, Rarity," I said instead. I peered at the Cutie Map. "Huh. Doesn't seem like the marker is pointing anywhere." 

Each of my friends shook their heads a quick negative. "Maybe we should check on it less often," Fluttershy suggested.

Rainbow Dash nodded. "Yeah. All this waiting around is making me restless."

"But how'll we be able to tell whut the hay the Cutie Map wants us to do?" Applejack asked. "It's only been activated once. We can't know for sure if it will let us miss somethin'."

"I agree with Applejack," Rarity said. "We don't even know how the map works! I think we should continue having these meetings."

When I was absolutely sure my brain was slowly committing suicide, an idea sparked into my mind. "I think I may have an idea..."

"Please let it be having these meetings once weekly," Rainbow groaned. 

I shook my head, though my neck was practically locked in place. "No, no, that isn't what I mean: I mean how the Cutie Map works."

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "Explain."

I closed my eyes, trying to force back my brain bomb. "Well... it's said that there were six magicians before the Princesses, Star Swirl being among them. It just so happens that there are six Elements of Harmony."

"So?"

I set my tea cup on the Cutie Map. "So, they may be the creators of the Elements, Rainbow. And if the magic in the Elements is alicorn magic, then I could probably figure it ou—" I swung my hoof out a bit too far. It nicked the handle of the teacup and sent it flying across the Cutie Map. The contents flew out like cute little waves that would've been devastating to small Applelossa as the teacup spun a couple donuts around it, and came to a slow stop.

"Ah, ponyfeathers..." I cursed.

"Don't worry, darling," Rarity chimed. "I'll get that for you." She stood from her throne and faced the door. "Huh... now where were the towels..."

That was when a small flash burst in the corner of my eye. Static electricity?

"Uh..." Rainbow mumbled. "Twilight?"

Her cutie mark began to glow and push out like it did back at the Equal Sign village.

"Not again!" Pinkie Pie groaned, teeth bared in pain.

"What's happening?" I yelped. It felt as if something rather large was pinching at my flank and pulling on it like Winona in a game of tug-of-war. I tried pulling back against it, but the stubborn thing didn't want to budge.

That was when we all slammed together. Or rather, squished together.

"What in the world?!" Rarity screeched, looking around frantically. I felt her struggle to move, but to no avail. "What the...?"

We all tried moving together, but it was like trying to pull a hoof out of putty. No matter how much we tugged against it, we couldn't separate ourselves from each other.

"What the hay was that?" Rainbow Dash blurted. "It's like our... our..."

"It's like our butts are stuck together!" Pinkie Pie screamed. She tried pulling away from us again, and it felt like she was causing an earthquake. And like she was about to pull our flanks off.

"Pinkie!" we all yelled in unison. "Stop that!" 

With a whimper, Pinkie relented.

"Okay," I said, my headache taking backstage to shock and panic. "We can figure this out, all right, girls?"

"But how?" Rainbow Dash yelled. "Our flanks are literally glued together!"

"I'll try a divergent spell," I offered. "Then we should pull." I closed my eyes, and my headache came back for a second hello. Pushing through it, I managed to cast the spell. "You ready?" I asked, not even waiting for their response before I yelled, "OnetwothreePULL!" I tried walking forward, and now my flank and my mind were about to split in half. "STOP! STOP!" I screamed, releasing the spell. We all slapped back together, all of us groaning in pain. 

"Oh no!" Pinkie whimpered. "We're stuck together forever!" A flood of tears sprang from her eyes.

"There, there, Pinkie," Fluttershy cooed. "It's all right." 

"Ah..." Rainbow muttered. "So, what now?"

"I don't know," I admitted, flinching at my official migraine. "Maybe we could—"

We flew through a window at lightning speeds. I didn't even feel the impact: it was like the window scrambled out of the way out of fear of being turned to dust. Pinkie screamed like bloody murder the whole way, while I was too shocked to even produce a single noise. The world blurred around us until we jerked to a sudden stop at the mouth of the Badlands.

"Whut in tarnation was that?!" Applejack blurted.

"We just flew halfway across the continent," I recounted. "In about fifteen seconds." 

"Why would it bring us here?" Rainbow Dash squeaked. "... Whatever this is!"

"I don't—" I started, but then we were flying again. This time, we were all screaming bloody murder as we spun at Mach 1 speeds. Greens and reds and blues sped right past us, leaving a blinding streak of color before my eyes. 

We jerked to a sudden stop again, this time in a cave. In the corner of my eye, a blur of pink jumped up. Adjacent to me was Starlight glimmer, mane messy and skewed, eyes red. "You..." she breathed. "You little—"

And we were off again, my ears popping as the air pressure changed. I just didn't have the lung to scream this time, it was all knocked out of me that last stop like a punch in the gut. I struggled for air as we jerked to a stop one more time, landing on the Cutie Map. Behind me, Pinkie gagged and spewed it, the contents of her stomach emptying onto the Crystal Empire. The whole entire group shifted in my direction, nearly shoving me off the map.

"I really hope—" Fluttershy belched. "—that's done..."

"Wait..." I said, looking to my left and right. Rainbow Dash and Applejack. "Wait... what was the order of the cutie marks on the Cutie Map's marker?"

"Hmm..." Rarity hummed. "Well, there was my cutie mark, Applejack's... Rainbow Dash was next..."

"Then there were mine and Pinkie's," Fluttershy finished. "But, wasn't your cutie mark in the center of ours?"

"Yeah..." I recalled, "... but the order is the same..." Somewhere in my pounding head, something clicked. "What if, when I spilled my tea on the map, the whole thing just... malfunctioned?"

"Malfunctioned?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yeah. Probably some properties in the tea offset the magic. So maybe..."

"Hold it right thur," Applejack interrupted. "This don't make a lick of sense. Are y'all telling us that somethin' as simple as tea makes alicorn magic go skewhompus?" 

"I dunno," I said. I shook my head. "But, that doesn't matter now. Right now, we need to get ourselves off of each other!"

Rainbow Dash snickered. "Seriously, Twi? You couldn't find any better wording?"

I sighed, flinching. Rainbow Dash's obnoxious laughter wasn't contributing well to the migraine that loved me a bit too much. "Let's just... fix this, and, hopefully, fix the map."

"But how, darling?" Rarity asked.

I shrugged. "I have no idea how this magic works."

Those words hung in the air for a few seconds, then the girls sighed.

"Princess Celestia?" Rainbow Dash groaned.

I nodded. "Yes, to Canterlot. I haven't teleported more than two ponies at once before, and since I don't want to risk injury, here's how it will go. Pinkie Pie, you lead, since you're closest to the door. Everyone else, try to sidestep." Then a realization fwopped me in the back of the head. I sighed. "Hopefully, we'll make it down the stairs alive."





Barely. Even after a few, very cramped minutes trying to make it down my stairwell, it took about an hour of strange looks and awkward whispers until we finally got to Canterlot Castle. Sweat dripped from my brow as we reached the foot of the steps. There were two guards at the top of the steps, one with a light brown coat, the other with a white coat. They both wore the same, very reflective armour, and just stared at us as we attempted to climb yet another set of stairs.

"Ah, Princess Twilight Sparkle..." The white guard looked so confused, and he nearly forgot to bow—a gesture I still was not used to. "Would you like us to alert the Princesses for you?"

I managed my best to smile, my whole backside shaking because of pain. "Please?"

The guards nodded, opened the gates, then trotted inside, a whole new set of guards coming out and taking their shift.

"Wow," Rainbow Dash remarked. "This place dispenses guards like gumballs from a gumball machine."

"Necessary safety measure," I answered simply. Every 's' sound sent a spiking pain through my brain. 

"Hm..." Rainbow Dash hummed. "I really wonder how many cycles it would take for Twilight's special somepony to show up?"

My mind suddenly went blank. "Uhm..." Heat started swirling in my cheeks, and in all honesty, I didn't know why. "F-Flash? Rainbow, you know we're not a thi—"

Just like instant haybale soup, Princess Celestia zoomed down onto the top of the stairs. "Twilight?" The white princess raised a questioning eyebrow. "What seems to be the matter?"

"U-Uhm..." I stammered. "Well, you see..." I explained everything that happened at my castle, including the theories I had managed to cook up during the awkwardness of the trip there. Normally, the Princess was really receptive and understanding, but while I don't doubt she was receptive of our situation, she was giggling the whole time I was explaining.

"Oh, Twilight," Princess Celestia managed to say through her giggle attack. "I never knew that the tree's magic worked like that." She giggled once more, then cleared her throat. "Anyway, I'll be sure your predicament is sorted out. Just be glad that Discord hasn't seen you yet."

In an unraveling cloud of steam, and as if on cue, Discord appeared right beside Celestia. A pink towel was wrapped around his waist, his coat and mane damp, and a toothbrush stuck from his dragon-like maw. "You rang?" he asked.

Celestia facehoofed. "Oh, dear."

Floating in mid-air, Discord leaned forward. "Oh? What's this? Flank to flank to avoid any surprises, are we, girls?"

Oh no, I thought with a grimace. He will not work with my headache. "No..." I sighed. "In fact, I sorta screwed up the Cutie Map... and we are now the marker."

As anypony in Equestria could've predicted, Discord rolled back and laughed his silly head off. "Oh, dear! That is truly rich! Wh-wherever have you flown? Pray tell?" 

I flinched at the time bomb in my cranium. "Discord. Please. I just want to get out of this."

"I knew that everywhere you six go, you would be... bound at the hip!"

"DISCORD!" I screamed. Immediately after my head started to pound with its best buddy, the heartbeat, and my ears chimed with the highest note possible. "Just! Stop. With the stupid puns."

"Ooh," Discord mused. "Someone's a bit feisty!" 

If my glare had a name, it would be the I-will-kill-you-bring-you-then-back-to-life-and-rip-out-every-one-of-your-coat-hairs-and-talons-in-a-never-ending-game-of-odds-or-evens. Discord didn't even seem to be phased until he looked slightly to my right, and judging by the sudden fear in his eyes, I knew Fluttershy was working her magic.

"Fffine..." Discord sighed. "Ruin my fun, why don't ya?"

Princess Celestia bowed her head, humming thoughtfully. "Perhaps you, Discord, could help with this."

Discord was taken aback. "Wha... me? Oh, no, no, Princess. It's true that I am able to undo my own magic, but that's because it's my magic. I can't undo whatever rather hillarious thing happened to them."

Classic Discord, I thought, my brain finally calming down.

"Hmm," Princess Celestia hummed again. "Perhaps we've been looking in the wrong place. Have you attempted to fix the actual ma—"

Of course, I thought as we spiralled halfway around the world, as far as to Gryphonia and to the Dragonlands before we came to a halt in front of Discord again, who was, of course, laughing his head off again.

"Pl-please make it stop..." Pinkie Pie whimpered, gulping.

"To answer your question, Princess," I said, disregarding my colloquialism, "no." 





It took maybe a half an hour for the repairs for the Cutie Map to be made, and for us six to be unstuck. According to Princess Celestia, the magic in the map was one of the most ancient forms of magic, one that drew from the world's energy rather than being cast from a unicorn. Of course, it was just about as unstable as Pinkie Pie after drinking a cup of coffee. Only just.

"Next time, Twilight," Princess Celestia said, "leave your tea on a coffee table. There's one downstairs in the library."

I nodded, though I would never look at stairs the same way again since how my friends and I crammed down them. I'll have Spike do that for me, I thought. Even though my headache had subsided in its own sweet time, being tossed around the continent like six ragdolls didn't do much to settle the stomach. 

Princess Celestia cleared her throat. "Anyways, for old times' sake, have you learned anything about friendship on your... interesting misadventure?"

"Uhm," I hummed. "No...? I mean, I had to be pretty patient with my friends while making the journey down to Canterlot... I guess that counts?"

Princess Celestia cocked her head to the side, then sighed. "Yeah, there's really nothing new to be learned about friendship when your butts are plastered together."

I nodded. "Yeah. Nothing."