It was getting dark and Sasha was walking towards the friendship castle having left the town center after watching the foals perform their show. She was still giggling from Singer Joy's jokes but was happy to have met Miss Tetris. They had discussed how Tetris had 'convinced' her students to perform and gave Sasha an unmarked balloon. It was translucent with a black nose (somehow) floating in the center which Tetris had explained that they are like this when they haven't been configured to seek out a target and will change their appearance to match the coat colour and (if they have one) the cutie mark of the pony. She had also warned that it only works on ponies and currently has no means of targeting something like a griffin or donkeys.
"I hope Sprinkle finds a way to mass produce these toys and maybe make them turn non-ponies as well" Sasha said out loud as she hugged the balloon while thinking about the possibilities with this fun device. She opened the castle doors to find Magic on the map table. She appeared to worshiping a blue flower constantly bowing to it with the widest smile Sasha had ever seen on her.
"Um Magic, what are you doing" Sasha said with caution. Magic turned her head towards her human friend.
"Why giving this gift of the earth the respect it deserves, the one that brings bliss, the one that bring o so joyful laughter, the one thing that I have been asking for, the one that can make that noise machine of a pony finally shut up, POISON JOKE." Magic said with a creepy expression on her face. She pulled out some sort of gun that was loaded with syringes with were filled with a blue liquid and walked towards some sheets and took one off reveling a tied up Loopy with a face of fear.
"Please Magic, I won't annoy you anymore, I will be less loud, just don't inject me with that stuff" Loopy begged. Magic ignored her and fired a needle into her neck. Sasha watched as Loopy's mouth slowly formed into a painful grin who tried opening her mouth to no avail.
"Magic, I think you need a holiday, being around Loopy nearly all day is causing you to go somewhat loopy" Sasha suggested. Magic snapped out of her insanity and sighed.
"Maybe your right, I could have just taped her mouth shut after all 'Silence is golden and duct tape is silver'. I kind of messed about with mixing the poison joke with other stuff and tested one on Pinkie which caused her to go into a deranged state of mind" Magic said while pointed to a large black box. Sasha took a look through a small window on the box to find Pinkie with her back turned in a more macabre version of her clown costume.
"Pinkie...." Sasha said
"Yesssss Sasha" Pinkie said while turning towards her, eyes locked on to Sasha's own. Her mane appeared deflated with the yellow and pink having become faded and darker. Her fur was still mostly white with a grayish tone and the blush had been replaced with blood red smiling lips with Sasha hoping it is just make up and not blood due to it constantly dripping. Her eyes were glowing yellow/orange with her teeth appearing sharp and the rainbow coloured parts of her costume had become gray scaled with the pink parts between them having turn black with tiny grinning pony skulls hanging off them.The cutie mark on the costume had the balloons burst while her socks were dark red and black and a little tattered with white shoes. With the exception of the gray scaled bow on her neck, the bows were nowhere to be found and her hat had turned purple with some sort of black smoke coming out the top. The feature that frighted Sasha the most however was the clown nose which looked red but translucent somewhat looking like a crystal ball where Sasha could see a creature's head appearing in it. It was whispering to her yet she couldn't make out what it said except for one part.
"They all float down here" it said.
"What is wrong, looks like you have seen a ghost Sasha" Pinkie said with a grin. Sasha didn't know what to say.
"Maybe you want a cupcake to cure that scared face" Pinkie said pulling an odd cupcake from her costume.
"Um I will pass" Sasha said before Sprinkle entered the room.
"O I see you have met Pinkamena" Sprinkle said with a sad tone.
"Pinkamena, is this part of some split personality" Sasha asked. Sprinkle nodded
"Pinkie is short for Pinkamena and goes into this sort of depressed or deranged state when she becomes too sad. Of course Magic's experiments I think Pinkie could have done well without" Sprinkle said with a glare towards Magic who responded with a shy smile.
"I think I will go back to the circus tent" Magic said who grabbed the grinning Loopy and left the castle. Sprinkle led Sasha to her room, telling her that Glimmer Joy will take care of Pinkie. As they entered, Sasha showed her the balloon.
"This device was made by the town's school teacher, it can be programmed to seek out a particular pony and only ponies" she explained before asking "I was wondering if you can mass produce these and maybe find a way for it to seek out non ponies?". Sprinkle gave a wide grin at the request.
"Sasha this device is amazing, we could repeat what had happened at the concert hall at Canterlot, we could easily turn other nations to be like us before they could....sorry I am getting too excited, an idea like this is better than a another one that Smile's hippie friend showed me but that one would harm your lungs in the process" Sprinkle said with a smile. Sasha giggled and noticed that lab had been made in Sprinkle's room and noticed a green liquid in one of the test tube with a note next to it which read:
"Reminder: place some random plants into this liquid and sabotage it then get it back to Glimmer's shop before she finds out it is gone."
"Hey Sprinkle what is in that test tube, the one with the note" Sasha asked out of curiosity. Sprinkle gave out a sigh
"That is Glimmer's attempt to create that 'laughing venom' or whatever it is called. She seems so in love with that demented clown human although I don't really find him funny so I keep sabotaging it for fear she may use it." Sprinkle explained.
"Well do you need some help with anything" Sasha asked.
"Well there is one thing. I have an idea for a prank that I wish to play on Zecora, I kind of spied on her through the window this morning and heard her mentioning to herself that she was using some special large dark blue berries for a potion later tonight. I was wondering if you had a dark blue nose on you" Sprinkle asked. Sasha smiled and took out a red nose, crushed it completely in her hand and upon opening it, it had changed colour and showed no signs of damage.
"I am going to guess by her name that she is a zebra" Sasha said while giving the nose to Sprinkle
"How did you know?" She asked
"Zecora used to mean 'zebra' in East Africa but not anymore. I often didn't pay attention in school but somehow that information manged to get into my head" Sasha said. Sprinkle shrugged as they made their way to the Everfree Forest. It was dark and Sprinkle used an illumination spell to use her horn like a torch and see the path to lone zebra's tree hut. Sasha felt a little uneasy having heard that the animals are not known to be friendly and the thunder clouds in the area tend to set off at random. Sprinkle noticed the fear in the human's eyes and couldn't resist playing about.
"Come on Sasha, you ain't afraid of a big scary, possibly deadly forest are you" Sprinkle asked with glee. Sasha noticed her friend's mocking tone and pulled an unimpressed face.
"I am not scared, just being cautious because I don't wanted to devoured by a wolf made of wood. Can't say if that is worst then being devoured by a regular wolf" Sasha said with a smile only for Sprinkle to set off a thunder cloud.
"AHHHHHH THE CLOUDS WANT TO.....very funny just don't attract the Timber Wolves please" Sasha said. Sprinkle merely giggled as they continued on. They managed to get to the hut in one piece with Sasha keeping eyes fixed on Sprinkle in case she sets off another cloud and looked through the window where they saw Zecora placing some ingredients in a cauldron and reading from a recipe book.
"There she is Sasha, the zebra sage I want to prank with this nose" Sprinkle said with a grin.
"What exactly are you going to do?" Sasha asked narrowing her eyebrows.
"The nose goes into the cauldron" Sprinkle whispered
"Well ok if you insist on doing this but be aware that while this is intended for fun, I don't know what happens when a magic nose ends up in a pot full of other magic stuff. I am warning you that if when its put in I end up seeing clouds and a golden gate or a red fiery wasteland where I have to be with Pennywise for the rest of eternity I won't be laughing" Sasha warned. Sprinkle used her magic to cause a pot on a self in Zecora's bedroom to fall leading to the zebra to go and clean the mess which gave the pony time to levitate the nose through the window and place the nose into the bubbling cauldron. It began to bubble up wildly as Zecora ran back into the room in a panic and looking into the book only for the whole thing to explode in a colourful mess. Sprinkle and Sasha silently giggled at the unfortunate zebra before Sasha spoke.
"Well I can still talk, my body hasn't been incinerated, flesh still attached and I haven't seen some gold gates or a fiery wasteland. In other words I am happy with this prank" Sasha said while still giggling before noticing Sprinkle pointing her hoof towards Zecora who was wiping the mess off her body and yelling to herself.
"Dam that Applebloom with her messy pranks, now my broom can't clean this mess and the book has been rendered blank" Zecora shouted as she held the book now covered in the fragments of the potion completely ruined as a result. She was about to yell again when she felt a strange tingle and her mind seemed to shift through reality. She appeared to be in the center of her tribal village which she had not visited for awhile. She saw the tribe leader known as Zebazz who seems to be in an unimpressed mood.
"Well you wished to participate in this was Bright Stripes so do so now" he demanded. Zecora was confused by this as a red clown nose formed on her face leading to further confusion.
"How did I get to this sacred place, I did not sign up for the entertainer's race" She said as she tried to remove the nose to no avail. Her mohawk split into three smaller mohawks with the front half of each being blue and the back half being bright green. Her body seemed to move against her will and made her start juggling recently sharpened spears.
"No no no the seers will be most displeased when they find me shredded by spears" she said in desperation as her face became coated in tribal paint. The top half of her face turned yellow with red paint forming over her eyes in the shape of dragon wings while the bottom became green with with white and blue paint covering her mouth. Her body made her go towards another zebra who appeared as her neck rings turned in metallic golden frills.
"Here you need this for the race" the zebra said. It was a rainbow coloured amulet that glowed with a white hue and while the zebra put it on her, Zecora's head started to hurt.
"You will not....I accept this gift, may it help me become swift through this race....no" Zecora said clutching her head as the amulet vibrated, causing magic to wrap round her and dress her. An orange robe with red, yellow and blue patterns and a large grass like collar formed on her body while her ear rings turned silver.
"These clothes need to....Time for the yearly race that I will ace" She said struggling to remain in control as she headed towards the race track.
"It is time for our sacred race, on your marks, get set, go". an announcer said while blowing a starting horn. Zecora along with the other participates had to run around a track for three laps with the twist being they must juggle four long spears while running on their back legs. After two laps her cutie mark started to glow then change into a green hypnotiser.
"Go, go you slowpokes, back where you ran and show the tribe that you are total jokes" She said as her eye glowed green like her mark and the other racers who also had green eyes turned back and ran backwards causing the tribe to laugh while they go the wrong way. The hypnotic effect of her eyes disappeared, reveling pink eyes and now known as Bright Stripes. She ran past the finish line and bowed to the crowd leading to her vision to return to normal. She looked at her messy hut with a smile.
"This potion brought joy to me, I will make all enjoy this joyful liquid" She said to herself. Sasha and Sprinkle giggled at the changed zebra and began walking back to Ponyvillie.
"Well that was fun" Sprinkle said
"Yeh maybe we should fi-WAHHHHHH" Sasha said as she fell through a small pile of leaves which reveled to be covering a pit. Sasha had quickly grabbed Sprinkle but only ended up dragging her down as well. Upon recovering from the fall. they noticed they were in a pit full of a familiar blue plant and a sign that said "Stay off my property Applebloom - signed Zecora". Sprinkle panicked and quickly grabbed Sasha and flew out the pit and landing on the ground with a thud.
"I hope the joke has not affected us too much" Sasha said. Sprinkle grew wide eyed as she noticed Sasha's hair bow had been replaced.
"Sasha why is there a beret on your head" Sprinkle said as her voice seemed to be a quieter. Sasha pointed to Sprinkle's head
"I can ask the same thing" Sasha said as the same had happened to her pony friend.
"Uh oh" they both said.