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// One Mistake 
// Story: Just one Mistake 
// by sunlightcloud715 
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	"So, what's this new excitin' spell Twilight has gotten so worked up about?" Applejack asked nopony in particular as the five ponies walked down the dirt road of Ponyville towards Twilight's castle, the sun setting behind them. Rainbow Dash, hovering above all of them with her blue Pegasus wings, answered her.
"I don't know. She's been acting like more of an egghead than usual, if that's even possible, about this weird spell thing that she found in her mysterious library. She said a bunch more egghead stuff about how it's 'going to change science forever.'" She made air quotes with her hooves, looking bored. "But I wasn't listening. I had much more important things to do." Rainbow crossed her hooves in a heroic position in front of her chest, tilting her head up.
Applejack chuckled. "Like what 	RD? Making up some new tricks for the Wonderbolts?" She smirked, looking up at Rainbow Dash as the blue coated mare glared back at her.
Rarity, walking on the left side of Applejack, scoffed in a lady-like fashion. "Honestly. Can you two go a day without getting on each other's nerves for once?" Pinkie Pie, bouncing in front of them, suddenly gasped.
"Ooh ooh can they?! It's all up to these two mares, folks! Step right in, who can go the longest without ticking the other pony off? Do they even dare try? Who will win? Who will lose?" Pinkie announced to nopony, jumping from Applejack, then Rainbow Dash, staring at them intently, smiling wide with excitement. A soft voice of a certain quiet natured, yellow coated pegasus suddenly spoke up from behind Pinkie Pie's ramblings.
"Um, Pinkie? Who are you talking to? There's nopony here but us." Fluttershy looked at Pinkie with confused turquoise eyes. The pink mare landed next to Fluttershy and patted her light pink mane with a smile.
"Oh, Fluttershy. Sometimes you can have the most fun when nopony is watching! It makes it more exciting!" Humming to herself, Pinkie bounced back up to the front of the little group of friends. Fluttershy looked up at the darkening sky, the shadows lengthening all around them, a worried expression on her face.
"Girls? Celestia's already lowering the sun. Shouldn't we hurry up if we want to get there before dark?"
Rainbow Dash scowled. "What are you afraid of Fluttershy? It's just the dark. What? Are you scared of the Pony of Shadoooows to come haunt us? It's said that it comes around only at night, when the sky is at its pitchest black." With Rarity's horn lighting up with a blue aura to provide the ponies with some light as the night grew darker, Rainbow Dash flew slowly and creepily until the light hit her face with an angle that made her look like a ghost, waving her hooves around the sides of her face, grinning when Fluttershy squeaked and hid behind Rarity, where the light was brightest. 
Rarity shot an evil glare at Rainbow before turning to the mare cowering behind her. "Don't worry darling. We'll all be in this together. No 'Pony of Shadows' is coming to get you, no matter what ridiculous stories Rainbow Dash gets into your head," she cooed softly to Fluttershy before turning to the attention at hoof, hoping to get to the castle on time. She made some high pitched humming sound at the discovery of finding mud on her hooves. Hoping to get the mud off quicker, she started trotting.
Pinkie turned around. "Hey! Who wants to have a race?! Last one there is a rotten hayburger! One two three go!" With that, Pinkie dashed off, leaving a pink trail behind her as the only indication of where she had gone. Applejack, with a "Yee haw!", bucked up to her hind legs before galloping away after Pinkie, Rainbow Dash quickly following, a rainbow streak in her wake behind her. Furious at being left behind, Rarity started running after them, breathlessly panting as she went. Fluttershy followed as best she could, running while flapping her wings in the air hoping to help her gain some speed, to no avail. All that was left of the five best friends was a lingering sound of laughter on the cool night breeze.

***  
Pinkie Pie waited impatiently at the doorstep of Twilight's castle, waiting for her other friends to show up. She couldn't understand why they were so slow. It was only a mile away from where they were walking before. Finally, Pinkie caught a glimpse of a rainbow maned pegasus racing over to where Pinkie was standing landing with a dramatic entrance as she always tends to do even without realizing it. Pinkie stared at her for a while, then giggled to herself. Soon that giggle turned into an out right laugh, Pinkie falling on the ground with a snort. To Rainbow it seemed that the party pony would never stop laughing. Rolling her eyes, dismissing this outrageous behavior as 'Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie'. The brawny pegasus peered into the blackening night for a certain orange coated farm pony, ready to gloat to her on how faster she was then her. Finally, the other three ponies trotted up, panting hard, with sweat rolling off their cheeks, with Rarity disgusted by this extra liquid on her body called 'sweat'. Applejack carried an exhausted Fluttershy on her back, the yellow mare too tired to go on, she had to enlist the help of the bigger-bodied southern pony. Applejack, her head drooping with exhaustion, gently sliding Fluttershy off her back, then turned to Rainbow Dash.
"Rainbow Dash! What was that all about? You could've at least waited for us. Not everypony is as fast as you with them fancy wings you just love showin' off to everypony around!"
Rainbow Dash looked indignant. "Hey! It's not my fault that-" She was interrupted with a sshh! in the direction of the white coated unicorn, pointing at the door of the castle. The two arguing ponies turned their heads to find Spike was standing there with wide green eyes, having opened the door upon hearing voices outside. Rarity cleared her throat significantly in the direction of Applejack and Rainbow Dash, then turned to Spike with innocence upon her face, and fluttering her eyelashes.
"Oh Spike, darling. Will you please open the door for us? Our dear friend Twilight has called us all over for an important," she put her hoof to her chin, looking lost in thought, "umm meeting! And we mustn't be late!"
Spike snapped out of his shocked state at Rarity's voice, and then he looked as if he just remembered something important. "Oh right! Twilight has been pacing the floor all day, reading this book I've never seen before intently. I haven't seen her do this ever since that 'time' incident with future Twilight." He opened the door wide enough for them all to fit through, pointing in the direction of the throne room. "She's in there." Pinkie launched through the door, bouncing excitedly towards the grand door.
"Oh Twilight! Yoo hoo! You in there?" *GASP!* "Is it a surprise? Oooh I love surprises! Is it, a present? I love presents, especially the big ones!" Pinkie's voice trailed off as she got farther and farther away from the group. With rollings of eyes from both Rainbow Dash and Applejack and a shudder from Fluttershy, they all continued down the large entrance hall towards Pinkie's voice, their hoofsteps echoing softly on the cool floor as the only sound coming from the four ponies and the dragon until the reached the door, where Pinkie was, once again, waiting for them.
Fluttershy spoke up. "So, who's going to open the door?" With a moment of hesitation, even from Rainbow Dash, Rarity quietly lit her horn and used her magic to turn the doorknob and open the door into the large throne room. They all saw Twilight excitedly moving around the room, organizing and re-organizing the room's décor, even though it looked spotless already to the untrained eye. Rarity cleared her throat, loud enough for the purple alicorn to notice them, but not as loud as to break her concentration on whatever she was doing. When Twilight looked up from reading a book intensely on a table in the corner of the circular room and taking notes on a piece of parchment, Applejack stepped up and asked her a question:
"Uh, sugarcube, are you alright? You don't look too good. You look like you've been up all night." At this concerned remark, Twilight put down her ears tiredly and sighed while rubbing her eyes.
"I'm sorry girls. I'm just really excited about this spell and what it could mean in the future of science and friendships all over Equestria!" She pulled out an open purple and black book laying open beside the other book she was just reading. Witch a smile on her face similar to the smile she was wearing before the five ponies standing in front of her interrupted the purple mare's research, she trotted over to where they were standing, confused, the spell book levitating so the the other ponies could see it. Except for Pinkie Pie, who was excitingly bouncing between all the equipment spread out across the room where Twilight was using them. Ignoring her usual crazy antics, the four ponies left crept in close so they could all see the "title" of the spell the page was flipped open to, if they could call it a title:
Versuche immer anders zu sein
The rest of the page was filled with lines of the same, strange language that none of the other ponies had seen before. While five of the ponies were looking on confusion (Pinkie had just joined them, wondering why it was so silent), Twilight explained her thoughts on the matter.
"When I found this book in the library, I quickly realized, with tons of research, that this strange new language is called German, and with that book I learned that this phrase on the top means 'Always try to be different'. Though why in Equestria the author would name a spell that exactly, I have no idea. That's what I was looking at when you girls came in. Also, I was thinking, I've never read this book before, and if I've never read this book before, that means Celestia has never sent it to me. She always sends me new books to read, whenever she finds out about them, and if she hasn't, that means I'm probably the first one to read it! And if I am, I'm the only one to cast its spells! Ooooh I'm so excited!" Through her excited rambling, she unknowingly flew herself the whole 20 feet to her ceiling and hit her head, stopping her tirade of words to rub her head. "Ouch!"
Rainbow Dash giggled not so silently and whispered in Applejack's ear, "Egghead." Then they both started chuckling together, their hooves in front of their mouths, trying to keep quiet. Fluttershy turned around and glared at them.
"Girls! She's your friend, don't make fun of her! She just has different interests than the both of you. Now sshh!" Once their laughter had finally died down enough, she turned her attention back on Twilight, who had started talking again. She had the spell book and the other book she was reading before, which turned out to be a translator book, in front of her face and writing on the same piece of parchment, concentrating as she tried her best at translating the spell. After a minute or two of Twilight checking and re-checking her handiwork, she finally slammed the book shut and put it on the table and sighed with satisfaction. 
"Ok girls. Line up in a neat, orderly line please. And don't move. This has to go perfectly. No mistakes. Got that?" Twilight's friends nodded as they lined up side by side, with Spike waiting anxiously by the door. The purple alicorn breathed in and out, looking over the spell one more time before setting it down next to the translation book. She closed her eyes in determination and focused as a thin stream of purple magic sprouted from her horn and circled around each of the ponies standing, including the alicorn herself. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could feel a tingling sensation in their backs, but were determined to keep their wings still. Pinkie Pie and Applejack could feel that same feeling on the foreheads. It was really hard for the pink party pony to keep still for so long, but she wasn't about to disappoint Twilight. Rarity, on the other hand, could feel the same tingling on both her forehead and her back, thus it was even harder for her to not move. She put her modeling skills to good use and scrunched up her nose tight. Twilight could barely feel the same feeling on her horn. She was sure that that was part of the spell, and so ignored it.
After what seemed like hours to the six friends, but was only a few minutes, the spell was over. Rainbow Dash cautiously opened her eyes, one after the other, and smugly smiled after she realized she was still alive.
"Ha! Is that all Twilight? That didn't seem so hard!" The rainbow haired pony got up from where she lying down on the floor, her muscles stiff as if she'd been electrocuted. She tried to use the familiar muscles in her back to flap her wings proudly, but soon found that she couldn't feel that weight on her back, or the air that usually rustled her fur on her back when she flapped her wings. She checked, puzzled, behind her and promptly screamed like a little filly. Her wings were gone.
"Aaaah! Where are my wings?? What did you do with my wings??" She frantically looked around her at her passed out friends on the floor. Applejack and Pinkie Pie have, HORNS? And Rarity and Twilight were pegasi? And she spotted Fluttershy next to her, also missing her yellow, feathery wings. Rainbow Dash started panicking. This was a dream. This HAD to be a dream! This couldn't happen!
The former blue pegasus fainted on the cold, castle floor.