149.1 (Evilhumour)
"What are you doing?!" Twilight shouted, grabbing the stick out of Sweetie's hoofs that almost hit Rarity.
"What are you doing, darling?" Rarity grumbled, grabbing the stick back. She wasn't wearing any of her makeup and hitting herself with the stick made things better?! "This is from a variant, darling."
Twilight blinked, and then sighed heavily before hitting the wall with her face. "A beauty stick?! Seriously?!"
"Well, it's better than the ugly stick that I found, Twilight," Rarity shuddered. "And I swore to never to speak of the party sti-"
"YOU BROKE A PINKIE PROMISE!!" A voice thundered, as Twilight did the most sensible thing possible and teleport herself to the moon for safety.
149.2 (Evilhumour)
Celestia watched the last pony leave the Day Court with a small sigh. Another long day, another long loop she couldn't dodge paperwork by dumping it on other ponies. Still, as she reached under her throne, the rewards would be gra-
With a loud meep, her throne buckled, throwing her into the now large pond around her dais. Before she could react, the roof above her retracted as she was suddenly catapulted clear across Canterlot and Equestria and straight into the middle of the frigid ocean water. Spluttering out, she found a water proof note stuck to her hoof.
I ate your cakes Tia
XOXO
Lulu
Celestia blinked, hearing a pop above her head. Looking up, she saw a water balloon fall and splash into her face.
149.3 (Gamerex27)
"Blah blah blah, Elements of Harmony, Luna in the Moon, make friends," Twilight muttered to herself. "Same old, same old."
Granted, she had picked up on a Generosity Ping shortly after she Woke Up, so it wouldn't be a Lonely Loop, but she had been having a lot of vanilla, Baseline Loops for a while now. She was suddenly reminded of how boring the Loops can be at times.
Pouring herself another cup of wine, she sipped it in her magic grip, glancing at the ponies around her enjoying the festival.
"Hello, dear."
"Hi, Rarity." Twilight smiled. "Any plans for this Loop?"
"Well, Spikey-Wikey is Sleeping, so we can't go on any dates," she said, shrugging. "I was just thinking of working on some of the more esoteric designs I dreamt up. Tell me, do you think anypony would be willing to wear a dress made of a black hole?"
"That...sounds like a bad idea," the Anchor said bluntly, scratching at an itch near her horn with a forehoof. "Wouldn't wearing it devour the entire solar system?"
"Magic, darling," she reminded her. "And besides, it-"
Suddenly, as the sun went down, everything froze. Twilight found herself totally unable to move.
As she casually pondered what Nightmare Moon was doing this time, and which spell she would use to break it, she saw a blue box with a black center appear in the corner of her vision.
Slowly, agonizingly slowly, letters appeared one by one on the box.
"W-H-A-T A -H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E N-I-G-H-T-"
Whatever you are, Twilight internally growled, finish up already. My nose itches like crazy!
"T-O H-A-V-E A C-U-R-S-E."
Everypony suddenly went back into motion. As Twilight furiously scratched at her nose, she noticed how the local ponies didn't react with anything beyond a mild flinch at the interruption. "What was that?"
"You haven't checked your Loop Memories?" Rarity asked. "That's been happening ever since Celestia and Luna took over moving the heavens. Discord's last laugh. Whenever the sun goes down, time freezes for about thirty seconds and we see that. And when it comes up, we get 'THE MORNING SUN HAS VANQUISHED THE HORRIBLE NIGHT.' More of an annoyance than anything else. It's odd, to see what ponies can get used to."
"...o...kay, then," Twilight said, sipping her wineglass again. "I've had weirder Variants. But-"
"HA! HA! HAHAHAHA! HA! I AM FREE!"
Nightmare Moon's voice interrupted Twilight;s thoughts, as the crowd gasped in surprise and terror.
"What have you done with the Princess?!" the usual voice demanded.
But Nightmare Moon looked a little...different from her usual self. Her eyes were wild, her coat was matted and knotted all over her body, and her ethereal mane had frayed to the point where it looked like she had tried to lick a live power wire.
"She's GONE!" the crazier than usual Luna declared. "GONE, I tell you! 'Just get used to it,' she said! But how can I when that accursed voice insults my beautiful night every! Single! DAY?! So now, the NIGHT SHALL LAST FOREVER! AND NOPONY SHALL INSULT IT EVER AGAIN!"
"Wait..." Applejack said lowly. "Yer tellin' us the reason you foalnapped the Princess and... uh... wanna make night go on forever is...because you're annoyed by the Sun Box?"
"The thing that everypony's known about since they were a foal?" Rainbow Dash asked. 'Sheesh, for a princess, you've got really thin skin! It's not insulting, just annoying! Like how you molt every once in a while! Just something you need to deal with before getting on with your life!"
"You don't understand!" the crazed Nightmare continued, spittle flying from her mouth over the crowd. "You can never understand! My night, forever belittled by a force nopony can ever stop! All ponies, frozen in place for half a minute while disasters go on! Storm clouds, unmonitored during the stop as their lightning burns homes to the ground! Uncontrolled unicorn spells devastating the countryside while their caster is indisposed! Earth ponies...okay, I don't know how this affects earth ponies, but it must be bad!"
"Um..." Fluttershy objected, "...we found solutions for those a long time ago. We just...stop working for a few seconds before the stop."
"SILENCE!" the Nightmare cackled, laughing again. "AND NOW, TO ENJOY MY GLORIOUS NIGHT! WITHOUT THAT BUCKING VOICE FOR ONCE IN MY BUCKING LIFE! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
With that, she vanished in a poof of dark magic.
Twilight sighed. "Elements as usual?"
"I suppose so," Rarity said, shrugging. "I wanted to see if I could incorporate mine into a new hat, anyways."
149.4 (fractalman)
Pinkie Pie jumped, then smacked into a shimmering cyan barrier.
"Interesting." Said GLaDOS. "Calling my barriers anti-fun walls has made them impervious to you."
There was a pause.
"Nevermind. Calling them anti-fun walls only provides a mild inconvenience for you. "
"Pinkie Pie, I would appreciate it if you did not violate locality while taking my tests" Said GLaDOS.
"Why is that a big deal? The portal gun violates locality, and you said I could use my powers 'cause you wanted to study them!"
"The portal gun violates locality in limited ways. It cannot be used to arbitrarily skip the entire test."
"Ohhhhh. Okie Dokie!"
149.5 (Masterweaver)
(With apologies to all native Hindi speakers; I used google translate.)
"Twiliiiiiight, I'm back from the breezy watching!"
Fluttershy slipped through the front door, giving the alicorn a wide, friendly, mischievous grin. Twilight took one look at her face and sighed. "Alright.... what happened this time?"
"Oh, nothing out of the ordinary. I joined the crew in watching the breezies, volunteered Ponyville as a mid-route pass, met up with Tree Hugger and invited her here, and--"
"Wait wait wait. You brought Tree Hugger here this early in the loop?!" Twilight groaned.
"Oh, when I told her about you, she really wanted to meet you! In fact, she's right outside."
The alicorn gave out a resigned sigh, shelving the galleyfrayian textbook she had been reading. "Alright... let's get this over with. Tree Hugger? Do you want to come in?"
For a few seconds, there was silence.
"...Oh, right." A relaxed, detached voice floated through the door. "I was just feeling the ki flow of this tree, it's so unique."
"Turns out that feeling tree flows is part of her cutie mark story six times out of seven," Fluttershy whispered to Twilight. "It's alright, Tree Hugger! Twilight's ready for you!"
The green mare meandered through the front door. "Good to know. I hope that I...."
Her voice trailed into nothingness gaze fell on the purple alicorn giving her an unamused look. Her eyes went wide, the pupils dilated until they covered almost the whole surface.
Twilight blinked. "Um... are you all right?"
Without warning, Tree Hugger fell prostrate before her. "Brahmāṇḍa kē mahāna ātmā, maiṁ tērē sam'mukha hō sakatā hai aura vinamratāpūrvaka mērē apanē kō śud'dha itanī kē rūpa mēṁ maiṁ apanī ābhā mēṁ snāna hō sakatā ki pūchanē kē li'ē sam'mānita kara rahā hūm̐..."
"I--what?"
"Maiṁ tumhēṁ karanē kē li'ē brahmāṇḍa kē śānadāra ātmā sunō," Tree Hugger chanted with her face downwards. "Kyā āpa mujhē batā'ō!"
"Um, Tree Hugger?" Fluttershy lowered her head. "Twilight usually casts a translation spell when she encounters foreign languages, and she... doesn't speak Hindi." She glanced up. "Is it Hindi in this universe?"
"I... don't know, actually, I'll have to check--Tree Hugger, what are you doing?" Twilight asked.
"I only wish to feel the vibe of your aura," Tree Hugger humbly explained. "You are the Soul of the Universe...."
"What--No I'm--Look, just because I'm Equestria's anchor doesn't mean I'm some sort of core of reality!"
Tree Hugger slowly lifted her face. "It... kind of does."
"No. No it doesn't, and also stand up. I'm not going to be worshiped for being randomly selected for this job."
The earth pony reluctantly got to her hooves. "I am sorry, Great Soul of the Universe. I allowed my eagerness for your presence to color my view of what you would wish. But I stand ready to listen to your wisdom; let your reverberations purify my inner self."
Fluttershy winced. "I... I'm sorry, Twilight, I meant for this to be just 'this is an awkward situation' kind of... thing, not..."
"No, it's alright... Look, Tree Hugger. I'm old, well traveled, and educated. And that... is basically it, that's where all my wisdom comes from."
"That is also true of mine. Age, observation, and learning." Tree Hugger bowed her head. "You have so much more, though, though your own life."
"O...kay, I can see where you're coming from there--Look, the point I'm trying to make is that I am not a god, and I don't like to be worshipped as one."
Tree Hugger stared at her. "You're so bright... so bright. Even if you aren't a god... you are amazing." She took a breath. "I... I can try to hold in my feelings, around others, around the unenlightened... but..." She shook her head. "You are the Great Soul of the Universe. I cannot deny that to myself."
"...so now I have a semi-loyal cultist-type pony sometimes," Twilight grumbled as she sipped her drink. "Anything new with you, Mac?"
The red stallion shrugged. "Learned ta throw mah voice."
149.6 (Evilhumour)
Shining Armor blinked he Woke up to his wedding day, with a black chitin mare gasping loudly next to him as the door slammed opened as another Chrysalis stood in the doorway, with Twilight propping her up.
"Get away from my Shiny you monster!" the changeling shouted, as the mare next to him flashed blue and revealed to be a wicked looking Cadence hissing at them.
"I will not let you ruin MY glorious day!" with a shout, thousand of crystal ponies began to invade.
Biting back a sigh, Shining took the measures to eject the invaders for this wedding, catching the smirk on Twilight's face knowing she won't let him live this down any time soon.
149.7 (wildrook)
The doors to the bar opened, revealing Twilight and Zecora looking like they went through Tartarus on Equestria.
"Due to the extremity of our plight," Zecora said to the stallion, "five servings of our usual poisons for tonight."
Big Mac cringed. "Eeyup," he muttered, looking at Berry Punch, who got the idea as they sat down at the counter.
"What happened to you two?" Berry Punch asked them.
Twilight groaned. "Let's just say that I now appreciate King Aspen's life of solitude," she muttered. "More so than usual because he doesn't attack unless something threatens the Everfree."
"But where we Looped into was quite a pain," Zecora replied, "when the Princesses, the Caribou have slain."
Big Mac cringed. Not a lot of words can be said about what happened...but from what's been happening, it sounded like they were beyond "Bureau-Level" bad loops, from what he can tell.
Berry Punch looked at the two. "I know Twilight can go Alicorn," she said, "but remind me, Zecora, can you do the same? Because you might need it..."
"When one can manipulate the plant life," Zecora replied, "you tend to avoid a lot of strife. Diluting certain materials in your being, it would be a blessing to gain horn and wing."
Twilight winced. "And I REALLY am glad you managed to find a loophole in their whole Magic Immunity gimmick, Zecora," she replied, the Zebra smiling.
"The forest is the best place to hide a tree," she replied. "When living in the one next to Ponyville, the most dangerous predator...is me."
149.8 (Detective Ethan Redfield)
The door to Fluttershy's cottage shook violently, before a hole opened up from a familiar orange hoof. Fluttershy arrived moments later, with Angel Bunny giving a withering glare at the mare who had damaged her home. Applejack leaned back and gave an uncomfortable laugh, "Uh...Ah'll fix that right up. Sorry, 'Shy."
Fluttershy waved her off, "Oh don't worry. I've been meaning to get the door replaced for awhile now."
Applejack shook her head before a positively boiling expression appeared on the farmer's face, "Is that no good, varmint, Discord, around?!"
Fluttershy shook her head, "I'm sorry, but no. He left this morning on an all expenses paid cruise around the world on his flying whale. It was the nicest flying whale I ever met."
Applejack grabbed her hat and threw it on the ground, "Consarnet! That varmint turned my apple orchard into a potato orchard!"
Fluttershy put a hoof to her mouth, "That's awful!"
She patted her on the shoulder, "Well, you could use this chance to improve your potato cider."
The farmer threw up her hooves and stomped out the door.
149.9 (Evilhumour)
As Applejack swam in the waters, she could swear she was hearing music.
Dunnu
Her ear flicked, head turning around. She did hear something!
Dunnu
But Dashie was off to the side and there was fin sticking out of the water....
Dunnunnnunnunnu-
"Lyra, if ya are trying to sneak up on me, it'd help if ya didn't sing the theme to Jaws." Applejack said deadpan to the water in front of her.
The mint green seapony poked up her head and pouted. Swimming away, she muttered "Shoo bee doo," under her breath before swimming after an unobservant Dashie, who let out a loud shriek as the seapony grabbed her rear hoof.
149.10 (Detective Ethan Redfield)
The Unsung Loops: Klingon Language
"Fluttershy! May the blood of your enemies fertilize your fields."
Cheerilee's eyes were twitching. This was definitely one of the craziest loops she had lived though. Worse, Twilight had just shrugged and decided to go with it.
"And may you die gloriously in battle...if that's OK with you," Came Fluttershy's reply. It was all spoken in the native language of the warrior race from Star Trek, the Klingons. It wouldn't be so disconcerting if they actually acted like Klingons, backing up their statements.
Fluttershy's kind eyes landed on Cheerilee, which momentarily put her at ease. And then Element of Kindness opened her mouth, "Cheerilee, let us drink from the hollowed out skulls of our foes as we dine in honor tonight, if it's not too much trouble."
Cheerilee gave a weak smile and a nod, but couldn't bring herself to reply. Thankfully, she was saved from responding when Rainbow Dash slammed against the library window. Cheerilee muttered, "The wind does not respect a fool," before shoving a hoof in her mouth and looking around. Fluttershy just nodded sagely, as if she conveyed a deep truth of life. Twilight was holding in her giggles at Cheerilee, who just shook her head and walked away.
Things finally came to a head when she saw Diamond Tiara commenting on how the Crusaders should drown themselves in their own blood, and the crusaders standing up and telling her they would tear her lungs out. DT stepped back a bit at being outnumbered, then muttered that fools and their heads would soon be parted. Cheerilee stepped over in preparation to end this nonsense, when the crusaders said, "Death is an event that should be shared together!"
The other two shouted out war cries together, and something inside Cheerilee snapped as she started screaming, running all the way to Twilight's Library. She opened the door and slammed it shut. Spike walked through one of the hallways, spotted Cheerilee and asked, "Have your battles wounded you? Will you die gloriously in battle soon?"
Cheerilee screamed, "Twilight!!!"
Eons of Loops later
Spike looked from the movie projector to the teacher and asked, "What was up with that loop anyway?"
Cheerilee sighed, "Twilight and I did some research in Canterlot. Apparently, a Klingon Bird of Prey had crashed into Equestria millennia before Celestia or Luna arose to power. It became Equestria's primary language, and none fully understood the implications of what they were saying. Except for Twilight who was awake and rolling with it, everyone thought they were wishing each other a wonderful morning, inviting me to lunch or something else non harmful."
149.11 (Evilhumour)
One Crazy Week Part Five
Twilight groaned, shaking herself out of the crater she had been blasted in by that damnable paintball blast. Once she figured out which the girls did it, she was so going to send them to the Moon for a very long time out.
As she stood, she realized several details as her sleep deprived brain put several facts out of order.
Two, there was Changelings coming to take her to the hive to meet the Queen. Six, she was about to pass out from exhaustion of running around yesterday, avoiding the paint warfare from above and crashing a great distance away after tripping over several paint mines a once. Three, Chrysalis was Awake, she could feel the un-accounted-for Kindness. Five, the paint she was covered in seemed to be a magical dye mixture, which meant she'd be this colourful eyesore for a very long time. One, she was in the badlands. Four, she still had that damn collar.
Shaking her head, as the mental list reorder itself, Twilight smiled to herself as her thoughts were now in proper order and promptly passed out for a nice, long sleep.
Or it would have been if she had not been woken up immediately, feeling slightly drained of her anger for some reason. She should be angry, being woken up in a strange bed after dealing with a snake destroying her home, nearly losing her home to the bank, getting swept away at sea and forced to wear this humiliating collar and being bombarded by paint constantly for twenty four hours.
Wait, why was she in a strange bed again and why she wasn't she scared?
"Oh good, you're awake Twilight," Chrysalis smiled, clapping her hooves together, as she stood in the doorway. "How are you feeling? Angry at the situation?"
"...no actually, I'm not," Twilight blinked, confused. She should be feeling something hostile considering what the last fou-five days had been like, but she was feeling completely indifferent to the whole matter. "Why am I not angry and why can I not get angry?" Twilight was reminded that being calm when you are angry is scary, and she learned that being calm while you are incapable of being angry is even more terrifying, considering how much the Changeling Queen gulped.
"It was something someone showed me, a trick to harvest emotions," Chrysalis said, trotting over to her. "While Doctor Friday's methods a bit much for me, that book she had did offer us some ideas in doing what her magics does in a less harmful way. I think our first test was a success Twilight, all things considered."
"First test-did you take my anger away?" She would have liked to snap, but she simply could not draw out the emotion fully. At the same time, she felt a trickle of the burning anger coming back to her and soon she could lecture until the next day. "Wait, all things considered?"
"Yes, and while your magic is being repressed by that adorable cork and collar, the test worked perfectly on you and I do know how to scale back for other ponies." Chrysalis smile grew, which should have worried her but she wasn'- "Would you like to help me test for the other emotions?"
"Sure, okay." Twilight said without a second thought before looking unamused at Chrysalis. "You took my worries too, didn't you?"
"Yup." The smile was reaching the ears now, her crooked horn glowing.
"So I wouldn't complain about this."
"Exactly."
"You do know once I get my magic back and full control over my emotions, you are going to be spending several years on the moon for this, right?"
"I'd be surprised if you didn't send me to the moon Twilight," Instead of Chrysalis's magic reaching her, it placed a piece of paper of Twilight's lap with a lot of notes. "Would you mind taking notes as we proceed? I'd like to make sure that this process is not harmful."
With the prospect of learning something new about magic, taking notes of the first true experiment of its kind, Twilight could only nod her head as the two of them spent the day exploring Twilight's emotional being.
149.12 (Gamerex27)
Celestia looked down at her hoof.
She looked over her cards. Her sister looked back at her, her eyes peering over the neatly assembled card hand in her magical grip.
"Okay," Celestia said. "Turn two. I play Lorewalker Cho,"
A magical representation of the Pandaren appeared on their life sized battlefield, bowing to the Dirarch of the Sun before turning to Luna's side of the field.
"Very well, then." Luna placed down a card. "I play the Coin I am entitled to as the second player to gain a temporary mana crystal, and summon King Mukla into play."
A gigantic gorilla materialized on the field.
"A five/five creature on turn two," Celestia noted. "That's worrying. But," she said, as Mukla threw two cards at her, "I get two Banana cards for it."
"Ah, but if you use them, Cho will just give them right back to me thanks to his ability," Luna said, grinning. "Sister, you have been hoist by your own petard."
"The game's only just started," Celestia said, grinning.
[br]
"Don't touch the Terminal, Spike," Twilight said. "It took forever to get a good copy of the Demon Summoning Program, and if you step on the summoning circle, you may end up fusing with the demon I hired, and then it'll be uncomfortable for everyone."
"Hired?" Spike asked, as he walked into the room. "How do you fuse a demon, any...ways..." he trailed off, as he saw Tirek sitting on his haunches inside a giant glass tube, reading a newspaper.
He looked up at Spike, and shrugged. "It's a living," he simply said to the dragon, turning back to the sports section.
Twilight mouthed the word "Variant" to her Number One Assistant. "Now, what happens to you when you get fused, Mr. Centaur?"
"We just head back to Tartarus, and the new demon you call forth inherits out skills and power." Tirek rolled his eyes, as he flipped to the comics page. "I fail to understand why you little ponies insist on calling it fusion when it clearly isn't!"
"-play Faceless Manipulator to create another Lorewalker Cho! And...I feed him a banana!" they heard Celestia say from outside.
"Two can play at this game, dear sister," Luna said in response. I summon my own Lorewalker Cho. Then, I play a Faceless manipulator of my own to make a fourth Lorewalker Cho!"
Spike's face fell. "Oh...oh no."
"And I feed him a banana!"
"Gah! That's four Bananas I get. I end my turn, and-YES! DEATHWING!"
"....Oh, dear, sister, you've hit your hoof limit, I'm afraid. You can't have more than ten cards in Hearthstone in your hoof at the same time. You must discard your Deathwing."
"No, we need to stop them!" Spike yelled. "Quick, Twilight, find Pinkie Pie and have her bring the stuff she needs for banana cake along!"
"They're just playing a card game," Twilight said.
"No, you don't understand!" he yelled. "I played it with Ysera! We had two Chos of our own, and we spammed Coins at each other! We ended up drowning in money, and we had to pause the game until we could walk back to our bodies and resurrect! They'll flood Ponyville with-"
"Have. Some. Bananas," Celestia said in a dangerous tone. "You MOTHERBUCKER!"
With that, bananas began to spill forth from the Princess' playing field, littering Twilight's floor with the fruit.
"EAT THEM!" Celestia yelled, laughing evilly. "EAT YOUR POTASSIUM!"
"NO! Luna yelled back. "WE ARE ALLERGIC! YOU HAVE THE BANANAS!"
More and more bananas began to pour into the room, pilling up to Twilight's barrel height.
"Okay, we do need to stop them," Twilight muttered. "Sorry, Mr. Centaur, we'll continue this later. We need to have an intervention for Celestia and her banana obsession!"
149.13
(Gamerex27)
Deconstruction:
"-the point where I would show you a graphic on the smart board, but the wires for that are still broken."
Twilight Awoke mid-class. Human with technicolor skin, ridiculous hairstyles, looking like her friends...no doubt about it, this was Canterlot High, alright. Around the time she first came here.
"Hey, uh..." Rainbow Dash raised her hand. "Miss Cheerilee, what happened after that big brawl, anyways?"
"I'm...not supposed to speak of it, Miss Dash," the teacher replied. "If you must, I'm sure your classmates would be happy to inform you. Anyways, since I can't continue with the lesson, that's all for today. You're all dismissed."
As the students began to pile out of the room, Twilight grabbed her bookbag, then started for the door. Hm. Looked like a minor Variant where her Unwake self actually enrolled in classes for some time.
"-gonna help Fluttershy at the animal shelter?"
If Twilight were in her usual body, her ears would've perked at that statement. That was Applejack...talking to Rarity? But they were supposed to be feuding at this point in the Baseline?
"I'll have to stop at home to get changed first," Rarity said, smiling, "but yes, I will. Speaking of the weekend, has everyone else said if they'll be coming to the movies with us?"
"Eeeyup!" Applejack said, getting up from her seat with her friend. "Dashie's headed there after her game, Pinkie said yes before Ah even finished askin' her, and Fluttershy's goin' too."
"Wonderful!" Rarity said, grinning. "I'll pay for it all, of course."
"Yah don't hafta-"
"Applejack," she said, stopping the farmgirl. "Of course I do. I have to make up for everything Shimmer tricked us into doing. If that transfer student hadn't..." she sighed, shaking her head. "Best not to think about it. Now, what did you say Applebloom invented?"
As they continued talking on their way out, Twilight followed them out, her legs running on autopilot. They never got back together until she herself exposed what Sunset did, so some other Looper had to be at work here.
She sent out a Ping. Before she could even take a breath, she got a loud one: a piercing magical signature that thrummed around her soul, and made her stumble in her steps. After that, she got a Kindness response and one with no Element, these ones at normal volume, and a bit closer to her.
"Hi, Twilight." Turning around, she saw Fluttershy behind her, beaming. "You feeling Loopy?"
"As always," she said, with a mixture of amusement and bemusement. "...you remember Sunset's plans being derailed before we Woke Up too, right?"
"I do," she said, nodding, "but I can't seem to remember how, or who did it. There's something there about a transfer student breaking her mind control spell and managing to fight her to a standstill in spite of her magic, but that's it. It's a bit chaotic in there."
"Did someone say chaotic?" Discord asked, popping out from inside a nearby locker in the form of a teenage student. "I have to say, I've never seen such an exquisite aura of chaotic magic ever! It's still floating everywhere after whatever big fight went down!" He patted his hand against a nearby wall. "Why, the place is practically oozing entropy!"
"Okay, that's a mental image I never needed to see," the Anchor replied, grimacing. "That aside, do you guys want to find this guy? I heard a really loud Ping before, like someone was shouting in my ear right next to me. Unless this is some kind of superhero-ish Variant or something, another Looper has to be at work here."
Slowly, the trio approached where they had heard the Ping: in front of a row of lockers around halfway across the school. Hesitantly, Twilight sent out another Ping. The intense, overwhelming response came from very close to her. And the only other person there besides the three of them was a boy inputting the combination into his locker.
"...Hey," Fluttershy said, hesitantly. "..You were the one who-"
"Beat the crap out of Shimmer and stopped her from brainwashing everyone in town?" the boy confirmed, without even turning around. "Yeah, that's me. Funny how no one ever seems to consider that maybe, just maybe, some tricks don't work on everyone? A magician doesn't have to show their secrets for someone else to figure them out."
"...well, that's nice of you (I guess)..." Twilight said, "...but you were kinda risking your life there."
"I'd just come back next time," he replied. "Loops and all that. It was you who sent out the Ping, right?"
"Uh...yes. You may want to be a bit more careful about checking for Loopers. If you're wrong about that, people will think you're crazy."
"Can't say I give a damn what anyone else thinks," the boy said, snorting. Wrenching his locker open, he knelt to the ground, rummaging around in his backpack. "'Sides, it was worth it to see the look on her face when she realized every single one of her perfect little plans were falling to pieces."
"...Ah, so we've got a vigilante on our hands, then!" Discord said, grinning and slapping the boy on his back.
The force of the impact ruffled the student's shirt, causing the hood of his sweatshirt, which had previously been propped up as if by a hook, to fall flat against the shirt. Revealed in its stead was a small, jet-black unicorn-like horn, growing from the the boy's neck.
Fluttershy and Twilight suddenly went very, very still.
"Not really," the boy said, turning around to reveal a young man, dark haired and of Asian descent. Also, with a gauze patch over one of his eyes. "I...I know what it's like," he admitted. "What she did to those girls. I know what it feels like to have your friends ripped away from you, to see everyone you know turn against you and hate your guts. I know how it feels to be alone. Damn if I'm ever gonna let that happen to anyone else, ever again."
"Even if you get your eye poked out for the rest of the Loop?" Discord asked, not noticing his friends' sudden freeze-up. "I mean, those things don't come cheap in magic-less worlds. You have to get a tooth removed and have a doctor jam it into your eye socket to grow again, and that's just gross!"
"Steal her phone, show those girls how she screwed them over, then beat the living shit out of her when she tries to mind control everyone into her own personal army." the boy said, shrugging. "Not hard at all. Even if I get an eye gouged out from her fingernail, it's worth it. As if I'm gonna let one little bitchy witch stop me."
"...Naoki?" Fluttershy said, in a barely audible voice. "Naoki Kashima?"
"Yeah, that's my name," he said, as he started walking past them. "Hey, you're one of those girls the redheaded bitch was trying to screw over, right?...I feel like I know you from somewhere. Before this Loop, I mean."
"...Naoki, it's me. Fluttershy."
Naoki froze mid-step. For several seconds, he didn't move. Didn't even breathe.
Eventually, he forced himself to turn around, and looked Fluttershy square in the eye. ".....hey," he said, after a long period of silence.
"...Are you feeling better no-"
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, cutting off Twilight mid-sentence. "You heard all about it, right? The Edit? What we saw, what we did? It's gone now. I dealt with it. We dealt with it."
"...I'm sorry!" Fluttershy blurted out, tears welling up in her eyes. "It's...it's our fault. If we knew that it wasn't the Nightmare Force, it wasn't a ghost, but your Shadow, we would have been-"
"The hell are you apologizing for?!" Naoki snarled. Catching himself, he gave her a sad smile, then sighed. "All you did was try and stop a crazy bastard who tried to kill you and everyone you love," he said softly. "You weren't the one to lose all self-control and give in to every worst part of himself. You didn't have a virus eating away at your soul. You didn't have your sanity snap like a twig and kill everyone you see for so many Loops after that.
"And you weren't the one who almost Ascended after everything was said and done, just to make it end. You weren't the one weak enough to give in. It was all me."
The inhabitants of the hallway were dead silent for a few moments.
"It's my fault," Naoki stressed. "All of it. I'm the one who owes you an apology. So...I'm...I'm..." he tried to say, then sighed. "I'm sorry. For everything I put you through. Your friends, your daughter, your world, yourselves...It's all on me. There's no evil spirit to blame, no angry, vengeful god out to make my life hell...just me, and my mistakes. All you did was try and stop my Shadow-try and stop me," he corrected himself. "Get over it. You're not the ones at blame here."
"Naoki-"
The demon sighed. "Look...look. I...need some time to myself," he finally said. "Just 'cause I get way more Fused Loops now, doesn't mean I've got to live a normal life in...ever. I just want to get the year done, graduate, do...whatever you’re supposed to do after that, I forget what, all that stuff that happens in normal life.. It's not that I want to be normal or anything: I just need...I need a break.
"If...you really need to see me again," he said, turning his gaze away and walking away, "I'll be here. No way I'll be in your own world. Not for a long time."
With that, he turned the corner and walked away.
Both Elements of Harmony were silent for a few seconds.
"What the hay just happened?!" Discord suddenly said, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen over the group. "I have no idea what any of that was about! At all! You've never been this down since the Molestia thing!"
"...It's a long story," Twilight finally said. "...It's good to know that it's over with...
"But it still feels like it's our fault," Fluttershy whispered. "We should have been able to figure out that the Shadow was messing with his memories. That it made everything we said and did so much worse. We should have known."
"Like he said," Twilight replied, "there's nothing we can do about it now. Hey...why don't you take a break? Go to those movies your Unawake self was going to see with the girls?"
"...alright," Fluttershy said, wiping her eyes. "I will. There's not much to cry over anymore, anyways. I...heard the stories about The Edit, and how the Amala Loopers did all that. But..." she sighed. "No, he's right. We shouldn't brood over what went wrong, especially if he did deal with the problem like he and everyone else from Amala said they did. I guess...as long as I can remember that, I'll be fine. See you later."
"Wait."
Discord grabbed Fluttershy by the shoulder, pulling her back to himself and Twilight.
"Look," he said, with an almost never seen before, actually serious expression on his face, "if whatever happened almost made you cry, I'm not letting this slip by. I want to hear what happened. No one messes with my friends and gets away with it! I'm the only one allowed to mess with my friends!"
"...Alright, meet us at lunch, then," Twilight said. "This is going to be a long story."
"It's lunchtime, we're all sitting comfortably, and the food surprisingly isn't terrible today," Discord rattled off, frowning. "You promised to explain what happened between you and Short, Pale, and Horny. I probably should have made you Pinkie Promise it, come to think of it," he muttered.
"...no, I can talk about it," Fluttershy said, sighing. "It happened millions of years ago. It was painful, but..."
"It's alright, Fluttershy," Twilight said, taking her friends' hand in her own. "If you don't feel comfortable going on, I'll pick up for you."
"No thanks," she said softly. "I was there, so I need to talk about it." She took a deep gulp of her water, then began. "No matter how much it hurt. It started during a normal Loop-a bunch of other Loopers were Awake, but Twilight wasn't. After she did her checklist for the festival, I went into town to do some errands. This young colt ran into me, but he said he was sorry: he was in a rush to meet with his friends."
"What does that have to do with-"
"And then he Awoke, and hit me so hard I went flying into the Everfree."
Discord abruptly stopped his question in the middle of his sentence. "...Oh."
"I managed to calm him down by Pinging him," she continued, "but he was surprised by that. He said he'd forgotten we were Looping, since he didn't get out of his Loop much, and went off instinct from when we first met." She paused. "...in a Bureau Loop."
She took another sip of water. "Apparently our Bureau selves personally converted his friends and he...did not take it well. He wasn't in a good mental state when we met-pacing, really deep breathing, twitching eyes and legs. He looked like he was ready to just...collapse. Or just stop."
"I take it he didn't want your help, since all this happened?" Discord asked.
"Not after the Bureau." she said, nodding. "That was a big reason why he didn't want us helping him...but it may have had something to do with pride, too. He refused to let us help. Vehemently refused. So, I sent him through the Mirror-here-so he could cool down as a human. We aren't supposed to force help on someone who doesn't want it, so I just helped him find some place quiet." She paused for a few moments, trying to find the right words. "That was a big mistake. He needed help, even if he didn't want it. From us, from anyone...he was on the edge. And, from what I gathered from Loopers from local sub-Branches, something happened here that snapped his last nerve."
She opened her mouth to continue. "Antheee-" she stopped. "Twilight, can you..."
"...alright, I understand," Twilight said, nodding.
"No, I'm fine," Fluttershy said hoarsely. "I'm...just not used to talking for so long, and my throat's dry." She smiled slightly, rubbing at her throat. "Could you keep going for now?"
"Uh...alright." Passing the Bearer of Kindness her untouched glass of water, Twilight picked up the story. "I wasn't personally there for this, but I think I can tell the rest well enough. So, the girls met up with the other two Loopers from his Branch-one was only on his dozenth or so Loop-and then everyone started seeing fireworks on the Moon. Everypony thought it was for the festival. It became clear it wasn't when of those flashes of light brought Luna's nearly-dead body to the stage. She had enough time to choke out a warning to Celestia, and...died.
"Then Naoki showed up out of nowhere and threw Celestia into a black hole. He also shoved my Unawake self into his Pocket. He looked worse than before-hang on..." Twilight grabbed a pencil from her purse and started doodling on a napkin. "I really need to brush up on my drawings one of these Loops," she said, apologetically, sliding it over to Discord.
The spirit of Chaos picked up the napkin and stared at it. "Yeeeesh," he said, staring at the mangy, unkempt, and blood-splattered pony with skeletal wings and a horn poking out of his neck rather than his brow. "That doesn't look good. I'll fix that."
"Wha-" Twilight was cut off as Discord snatched away her pencil and started drawing on the napkin.
"Done!" he said, sliding pencil and paper back. "That, Sparkle, is how you draw."
Twilight glanced at the moustache, top hat, and cane Discord had drawn on Naoki's image, and failed to suppress a few giggles. "That makes it a bit less scary," she said. "Anyways, he started ranting and raving about how all our lives were nothing but a happy dream, and he would show us a nightmare and kill us all, and so on. AJ figured out pretty quickly that he was possessed: twitching in place, constant spasms in his body, echoing voice, all of that. And also that 'Naoki Kashima is dead. There is only the Fiend.' That was kind of a giveaway. So they lured him into an open space where he couldn't hurt anypony, and went to go grab Trixie, since she was the only Element of Magic Awake there. Priority one was an exorcism: try and use stunning and restraining spells on him long enough to Element Blast him."
"When Dashie and Trixie got back," Fluttershy continued, "he'd started drawing Equestria into a pocket dimension called a Domain. We went in there, and found him. He...uh...was wearing Celestia's coat like a cape (though it looked kind of fake, so it was probably an illusion), and he trapped us in a Heartsong. A really dark Heartsong. He...sang about how everything was meaningless, we were no different from him, the usual villain stuff. Something in the last line of the song gave Nyx an idea, so she jumped into Naoki's mindscape while we fought him. Eventually, we wore him down to the point where we could hit him with the Elements. We nailed him..."
Fluttershy was silent for a moment, as she took another sip of water.
"They didn't work?" Discord guessed, shifting uncomfortably in place.
"They didn't," Fluttershy confirmed. "We hit him around a dozen times, but they didn't really do anything noticeable, aside from sapping at his strength."
"That makes no sense!" Discord exploded, making the two women sitting across from him jump slightly. "When I went through my evil phase, they turned me to stone! They blasted the Nightmare out of Luna? How come they, of all kinds of magic, couldn't do anything?! Why couldn't they get rid of one little possessing spirit?!"
"Because I wasn't being possessed."
"...Hey," Twilight said, tapping her fingers together.
"Hey." Naoki sat down at the table next to Discord, and drummed his fingers against the table. " I guess I should explain. The thing in control...it was me. A part of me, anyways. You ever been to the Persona Branch?"
"You don't need to dance around the issue. Just tell him."
"I need some context first, Purple," the Demi-Fiend said, rolling his good eye. "Anyways...there's something in psychology called a Shadow. It's...everything negative about you. Every repressed thought, everything about you you don't want to admit, every darkest secret, every bit of self-doubt and loathing squeezed into a corner of your mind. In that Branch, your Shadow can exit your body and try to kill you. My Branch is closely connected to theirs, since we're all in Amala, so things cross over...But, my Shadow was different. It was part of me. It knew it couldn't kill me. Not with the Loops going on. So, it tried the next best thing. To break me.
"It grabbed control of my body-something to do with me losing all hope and Ideal Energy, according to Suou when I asked him about Shadows, it happens sometimes-and did everything they told you about. The thing is...it didn't even let me see was really going on. It screwed with my senses, made you guys look like massive douchebags who were trying to kill me for daring to disrupt your Sanctuary. Locked away all my good memories, made every negative emotion I had kick into overdrive. Once Nyx got to the center of my mind and broke the Shadow's hold on me...it used the last bits of its energy to blow my body up. It ended the Loop."
The table fell silent, as Naoki took a bite of his burger, and Discord pondered this all.
"So, the Elements couldn't do anything...because the Shadow was part of you, and not some ghost grabbing your body for a joyride and a night on the town."
"Yeah," Naoki confirmed. "You can't run away from your own Shadow. It's like the shadow the sun casts on you: if you try to get away from it, it follows you just as fast. Try to get rid of it by shining a torch-or Magical Bulls__T MacGuffin, I guess-on it, and the shadow's still there. You can’t make your problems go away, in the blink of an eye, by just firing a flashlight at them. There’s no easy way out.
“Getting rid of the dark part of you leaves you nothing but an empty, giggling dumbass, since it's got the good things about you that you hide away too. And stuff. There's only one way to get rid of your Shadow. To face up to it yourself. And I was too much of a coward to admit when I was beaten, and that's where all of that came from. And you know what came next. Rampage across Loops, me killing a...a lot of people, I tired myself out of it and tried to Ascend, I got stopped, then the Edit. Heavy stuff.
"But, hey," he said, grinning, "when your kid brought her MacGuffin of Honesty into my head, the leftover energy broke down those fake memories the Shadow put in. I saw what you guys-here and some of the other, older Loopers I fought like the Original 7-really did. You didn't give up, you didn't take the easy way out and just kill me: you kept on fighting no matter what, to try and stop my Shadow. It reminded me: just because my Loop is pretty much the worst place ever, there are worlds and people worth fighting for. So I fought to get out, and I won."
"...and this is the part where you tell us about how terrible your Loop is, and how you're so alone even with Fused and Variant Loops?" Discord said, glaring at Naoki. "Seriously, haven't we had enough dark stuff today?" He snapped his fingers, and the lights in the cafeteria briefly shined brighter, blinding everyone. "Let's get back to the jokes and fun!" He munched on Naoki's burger.
"I could save it for-" Naoki blinked, and looked at his empty hands. Then he stared at Discord eating his food. "Crafty bastard," he said, chuckling.
"Knew I'd could break the ice!" Discord said, pumping his fist as he opened the burger and poured some ketchup on it, as Twilight rolled her eyes and Fluttershy stared at him disapprovingly.
"See, now you're ruining perfectly good food," Naoki said mockingly, reaching for his food, only for Discord to yank it away.
The foreign Looper crossed his arms, then smirked. "Those Variants you're talking about? Never had a single one."
Discord froze mid-bite. "Huh?"
Naoki grabbed his food back, and planted it on his plate. " Gotcha. Seriously, though. I said, I never had any Variants back home. And before the Edit, I had so few Fused Loops I can actually count how many there were, out of billions of Loops. For billions of years, I was trapped in my Home Loop. Almost totally alone, since Pixie was the only other Looper for a long time, and she was Awake about one in around a few thousand Loops.
"Home's a hell of a place to be stuck, too," he went on. "The world ends in the first half-hour, and there's no way to stop it. Trust me, I've tried everything. Six billion people, wiped out in the blink of an eye. A few of my old friends, ones I'd known since childhood, survive...and then go insane and fuse themselves to demons in a gambit to take part in remaking the world. Either they end up dying after being attacked by one another or by the asshat who orchestrated everything to get his perfect world, or I have to off them, since it's my destiny to break a never-ending cycle of destruction and creation by killing all the candidates that can make a new world. Now, it hurt like hell, but the first time through, I put that behind me, since it was more important to break the system that caused all of this than to grieve over what I lost. Then the Loops happened, and I got a second chance. So I tried to save them. And failed. It started again, and I tried something different. And failed. And again. And failed. And again. And failed. You get the picture."
"No matter how many times I try to think about it, I still can't get it," Fluttershy said, staring down at the table. "How can a world push people around that much? How can an entire universe be a giant bully?"
"The universe is broken. You know that's what the Loops are, right? Not some way to live forever and have fun. It's a desperate attempt to hold Yggdrasil together before it falls apart. Some places were hit a lot harder than others, and mine was pretty bad off." Naoki finished his burger, and sighed. "Hell, even after the Edit- even after Masakado helped us rip that glitch causing all the railroading and dark crap out of our codes, I can't save my world or my friends. I'm not there too often, anyways, 'cuz I'm usually in Fused Loops. The Junkyard, Dante's place, Mikado, anywhere. I just...made new friends.
"So that's what happened," he concluded. "I was too stubborn to just give up on my friends or my Loop-to leave a lost cause-and it drove me crazy, which lead to what they were telling you about. No one knew anything was wrong because I didn’t tell anyone.. I told myself that whining about it wouldn’t fix anything, for billions of years, but I kind of took it to an extreme. Guess I thought that would admitting that I couldn’t change anything would mean I admit defeat. Stupid, I know. It's my fault, yeah. But it's beyond all of us. I don't think any of us even thought about it until we bumped into each other."
"Y...yeah," Fluttershy said. "It was all a long time ago, and after we heard about the Edit."
"It's all in the past," Twilight said. She looked at Naoki. "Right?"
"...Yeah, it is." he said, getting up. "Thanks for the food."
"The fo-" Discord quickly glanced down at his plate, seeing that his noodles were gone. He glared at Naoki as he dropped the chopsticks back on the lunch tray. "You're not supposed to do that back!"
"Whatever." He started walking for the door.
"Naoki. Wait."
He paused mid step. "What?" he asked, turning around to see Twilight also stand up. "Is Sunset back in school or something? You want me to beat her up again?"
"No." The other Anchor smiled. "We're...we're seeing a movie later tonight."
"A movie," the Demi-Fiend echoed.
"It's been out a few days," she continued, "so there should be a few seats."
"You're asking me out?!" he asked, in disbelief. "Look, all that stuff is water under the bridge, but I'm sure as hell not gonna go out with you!"
"I didn't mean it like that!" Twilight glanced back at Fluttershy, who nodded approvingly. "I just thought you might want to come with us. You said you never got out of your home Loop until the Edit, so you probably haven't gotten the chance to enjoy other places' cultures yet."
"...me." he said. "You're asking me. Me, the guy who went insane and tried to kill all your friends. Me, the guy who infected your Unawake self with a hate plague that made you try to eat your daughter. Me, the guy who broke your Sanctuary's perfect record by being too stubborn to save?! Me, the guy who almost Ascended before I got knocked out of the ritual and saw the thing behind all the shit I've been through?"
"...um...yeah," she said. "You said all of that was in the past. Were you lying to us?"
The two stared each other down for a moment.
"...now I know you're doing this on purpose," he growled, scratching the back of his neck (and horn). "'Cuz if I don't come with you, that'd mean I learned nothing about what I went through. You can't let the past drag you down. You have to move on." He thought for a few more moments.
"...it's a chick flick, isn't it?"
Twilight nodded.
"...alright, sure," he said, giving her a small smile. "I don't care if it's Twilight, or M.D. Geist, or Evangelion, or anything at all. I haven't had popcorn in millions of years. Should be a nice way to wind down.
"'A nice way to wind down?!'" Twilight echoed, as she ducked under the seats. "You could have told me there were demons in the mall and all over town after Sunset tried her coup!"
"I thought you knew!" the Demi-Fiend yelled from his seat several rows back, as he grabbed a worm-like parasite from his Pocket and swallowed it. "Everyone knew! Why'd you think everyone stopped using their phones in class?!!" he asked, wincing as the Magatama re-wrote his entire biological makeup to give him immunity to the fires burning all around them. "'Cause they had to put the Demon Summoning Program on their phones to survive walking home after Shimmer's takeover! They didn't want to text their friends in class and blow them up with a Agidyne spell by a misclick!"
"At least no one's died yet!" Fluttershy added, as she carefully pulled a druid's staff out of her Pocket for battle.
"Not 'fer lack of tryin'!" Applejack shouted, punching a demon in the face.
Rarity shrieked as she was hit by a fireball, the Harmonizer on her phone stopping her body from turning to ashes in a single hit. Then she looked down and screamed. But not because it had taken off a good chunk of her HP.
"That was my third-favorite dress, you charlatan!" she yelled, sending the offending demon flying through a door with a spinning kick.
"I bet they won't even refund us the tickets," muttered Twilight. "I never go to the theater here because the guys running it are jerks. I didn't really want to be fighting tonight: I really did want to see that movie."
"Can't always get what you want," Naoki said, rummaging around in his Pocket. "Hey, geniuses, have you tried negotiating with them?"
"It's a full moon!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she uppercutted an oni and blasted another out the exit door with a wind spell. "They never listen on a full moon!"
"Well then you should've planned the movie night better!" Naoki yelled back.
But, in spite of the dangerous situation, he couldn't help but grin. After fighting for trillions of years on end, one couldn't help but find some enjoyment out of it. Like some kind of Stockholm Syndrome with his home Loop, he supposed.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a demon sneak up out of nowhere and punch Twilight in the face. He had to actively suppress the reflexive feeling of triumph at seeing the genocidal mons-normal, real version of the pony get nailed square between the eyes. Perhaps that was a reaction that would never go away. And judging by the guilty looks Fluttershy (and to a lesser extent, Twilight) had been shooting him through the entire movie, maybe they would never be at ease around him. A gulf that could never be filled in.
But, if he'd learned anything from his journey, it's worth a shot. And it was a gulf that'd already been jumped.
Ponies or no, he'd beaten his world at its game. He was free. Time to enjoy it.
149.14 (Kris Overstreet)
"So, why did you call us all together, Pinkie?" Rainbow Dash asked.
The party pony, uncharacteristically serious, looked at the four other Element Bearers. "I think we might have gone a bit too far with all the pancake pranks on Twilight," she said.
"I didn't think the library built into a giant stack of pancakes was that bad," Fluttershy whispered.
"Perhaps I was a bit, er, insensitive that Loop where we replaced the Elements with the Elements of Breakfast," Rarity admitted.
"I don't care what you guys say," Rainbow Dash retorted, "replacing every anvil in Equestria with stacks of pancakes that only turn soft and splatty when air-dropped was a brilliant gag! And in a thousand loops Twilight will agree!"
"Of course she will!" Pinkie agreed. "But not right now! Right now we've managed to do what Tirek destroying her library couldn't- what the Imperium of Man couldn't- what the Morrow's Days couldn't. We've broken Twilight Sparkle. I mean, really broken. Really, really, really broken, like a broken thing that's broken."
"Let's go see for ourselves, then," Applejack said, not mentioning the recent Loop when she'd made sure her Apple relations had all made pancake and waffle-related apple dishes for the Summer Sun Celebration... for Celestia's chosen overseer to sample.
"She's gone through eleven platefuls so far," Spike said, pointing to the immense stack of pancakes sitting on a plate on a small table next to Rarity's drama couch. On the couch lay Twilight Sparkle, alternating between quiet woeful sobs and extremely vocal eating noises as she took each pancake, dripping with blueberries and syrup, and ate them one by one. "So long as I keep her supplied with pancakes she's quiet and kind of lucid, but when I take them away the waterworks come on full blast."
"Er... hello there, Twilight darling," Rarity said, stepping a bit closer. "Are you feeling well?"
Twilight looked up at the ponies from the couch. "Oh hello, Rarity... Applejack... Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie... all my closest friends..." Twilight's voice broke on the last word, and tears ran down her face. "WAAAAAAAHHH om nom nom nom..." Each wail of horrible sorrow was interrupted by the momentary calming influence of an incoming pancake.
"Excuse me," Spike said, "I better hurry and make another batch before she runs out." He scampered to the kitchen, leaving the girls alone with the apparent basket case on the couch.
"Twilight," Pinkie said, waiting for the unicorn's mouth to be occupied before speaking, "I think we all have something we want to say to you."
"Er, yeah," Applejack said, stepping forward. "We're all powerful sorry 'bout all those pancake gags we pulled on ya. Guess we jus' couldn't help ourselves, and we shoulda."
"We really did rather run it into the ground," Rarity said.
"And we were unforgivably thoughtless about your feelings," Fluttershy added.
After a prolonged silence, something lifted Rainbow Dash's rump a foot higher into the air. "OW! Er, yeah, we were outta line, Twilight," she muttered.
Twilight paused in reaching for another pancake. "It... it's just so hard om nom nom nom...... knowing that even my closest friends keep harping on one little incident om nom nom nom... one stupid, meaningless incident om nom nom nom... again and again and again and AGAIN and AGAIN om nom nom nom..." Another pancake cut off the risining shriek of Twilight's whining.
"And we're never, ever going to do that joke ever again! Pinkie Promise!" Pinkie sat up on her haunches and raised a hoof in oathtaking.
"Cross our heart," Applejack said.
"Hope to fly," Rarity said.
"Stick a cupcake in my eye," Fluttershy said.
After another pause, and another pointed pink reminder applied to a cyan posterior, Rainbow Dash rushed through a mumbled repetition of the oath.
"Girls," Twilight gasped, for a moment overcome.... and then the moment passed. "But there'll still be Celestia and Luna and Leah and Leman and SkyNet and Donut and Anakin and Mikasa and Naruto and Hiccup and WAAAAAAAAAAH om nom nom nom..."
"No, no, no they won't!" Pinkie said hurriedly. "We'll tell 'em to stop! We'll Pinkie swear 'em to stop! Won't we, girls?"
The others agreed, even Rainbow Dash, who this time didn't need a reminder. (Which was good, since she'd run out of unkicked flanks.)
"P-p-p-promise?" Twilight whimpered.
In unison the other five ponies went though the Pinkie Promise chant and dance again.
Instantly Twilight smiled. "Well, that's settled then," she said in a perfectly normal voice. "And I'm going to hold you to all of that." She rose from the couch, striding off, adding, "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to clean out twelve super-stacks worth of masticated pancakes from my subspace pocket. I never thought I'd ever use that eating-contest cheat I learned from Ranma... but this one was worth it."
The front door shut behind Twilight, leaving five perplexed ponies to stare after her as they slowly realized they'd been royally had.
At this point Spike emerged from the kitchen with mega-stack number thirteen. He froze as he saw the empty couch and the unfinished stack next to it. "Well, of all the- I can't believe- I don't- well, what am I supposed to DO with all these?" he shouted.
"I have a couple of ideas..." Rainbow Dash growled.
"Pinkie Promise," a certain party pony hissed, eyes glowing dangerously red.
"... but I think I'll keep them to myself," Rainbow Dash said hurriedly, backing away.