The Switchy-Witchy Stone

by PurpleWonderPower

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"I knew there was something weird about that stone!" exclaimed Twilight, in horror, "We both said we felt like we were being drained of something! That light that switched over must have been our magic!"

As she began to get agitated, sparks of chaos magic fizzed around her mane. There was a flash of light, and a nearby patch of daisies turned into blood-sucking flytraps.

"Come on!" she exclaimed, whipping round and galloping back down the road they had come down, "We have to go back and—"

There was suddenly a flash of light from her horn and the eight of them were suddenly back in the cavern. Twilight smacked face first into the stone wall, then winced. She looked round. They were back in the cavern, and the gem was still sitting on the pedestal, looking exactly the way they had left it.

"Wow," mused Twilight, "That was handy."

Not wasting a second, she galloped over to the pedestal and touched the stone. She waited for her hoof to stick and the stone to light up and zap her with the white light again, but nothing happened. Her eyes widened and she tapped the stone a few times. Nothing happened. Starting to get worried, Twilight grabbed it off the pedestal and examined it for any way to activate it. But nothing happened.

"Discord," said Twilight, "Maybe you need to touch it too."

The draconequus sprinted over and touched the stone too. But nothing happened. They exchanged worried glances.

"It's not working!" exclaimed Twilight, "What do we do!?"

"If the stone switched your magic, then surely it can switch it back," said Fluttershy.

"How exactly did it work?" pressed Rarity.

"I—I don't know!" exclaimed Twilight, turning round, "All I did was touch it! I don't know what activated it or how it works!"

"If only I had my magic, I could switch us back," Discord sighed, "Although if I had my magic, I wouldn't need to, of course."

"You can switch magic?" repeated Pinkie Pie, in surprise.

"Equestria to Pinkie Pie, I'm Discord," answered Discord, giving Pinkie Pie's nose a flick, "I can do anything."

Then his smile disappeared. "Or at least I could," he said, worriedly.

"What do we do, Twilight?" asked Rainbow Dash, worriedly, "Isn't there anything you know about power switching?"

"I've never even heard of power switching before!" exclaimed Twilight, hysterically, "Or anything about this weird stone! I don't know what I did, or how it works, or how to reverse it! Maybe you've gotta cast some kind of—spell—or something—I don't know! Maybe it's not possible to reverse it!"

"A spell!" exclaimed Rarity, "That's it! Twilight, surely you know of a spell that can switch magical abilities?"

Twilight shook her head. "I know a spell that can switch Cutie Marks," she said, "And a spell that alicorns can use to transfer their powers to other alicorns. But I've never heard of a spell that can switch magical abilities."

"That doesn't mean there ain't one," pointed out Applejack, "There are tons o' spellbooks in your library. Maybe we'll find somethin' in there."

"Good idea," said Twilight, shivering and accidentally turning some nearby rocks into gumball machines.

She tried to activate the same teleportation magic she had previously used, and they instantly all vanished. But instead of Ponyville, they all reappeared at the top of a waterfall.

"Sorry!" exclaimed Twilight, but there was suddenly another flash of light, and they reappeared in a snowy scene with huts dotted here and there.

"Yakyakistan!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie, in delight, "I love this pla—"

Before she could finish her sentence, another flash of light teleported them outside a cottage on a floating chunk of grass surrounded by up-flowing rainbow waterfalls, upside-down landmarks and strange creatures of all kind.

"Oh!" exclaimed Discord, "This is my dimensio—"

There was another flash of light and they all disappeared again! One flash of light after the other, and they were all teleported to another dozen places: Maud Pie's home cave, a field in Sweet Apple Acres, the Crystal Empire, Flim and Flam's resort in Las Pegasus, Coco Pommel's fashion shop in Manehattan, the Tree of Harmony, the castle of Griffonstone, Rarity's boutique Rarity For You, Braeburn's rodeo show, Thorax's throne room, Fluttershy's garden, the Wonderbolts Academy, and then finally, after all that, they appeared inside the library of the Castle of Friendship.

Applejack let her breath out! "Never," she panted, "Do that again!"

"Alright, everypony," said Twilight, looking around the library, "Grab every book about magic you can find! I've got a really bad feeling about this!"

She suddenly twitched, and the doors turned into paper-thin wafers.

"Ooh!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie. She took a bite out of one of the doors. "Dee-LISH!"

"Pinkie Pie, stop eating my castle!" scolded Twilight.

"Sorry!" chirped Pinkie Pie, licking her lips and bouncing off.

They spread out, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Spike, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash skimming the shelves and tossing any book that looked like it might be useful into a pile, where Twilight and Rarity started skimming through them. Discord summoned an entire bookshelf of books with Twilight's magic, and began to speed-read. It appeared that unicorn magic enabled one to read entire books in not much more than a few seconds. Not that Discord hadn't been able to do that already, of course, but he was lucky he could still do it.

"I sure hope we can find something," said Twilight, worriedly, flicking through a book, "And soon."

She suddenly twitched, and the chair she was sitting on sprouted wings and fluttered up, dropping Twilight onto the floor.

She sighed. "Something tells me this is going to take a while."

...

"Anypony...found...anythin'?" moaned Applejack, about six hours later, as she searched through the pages of another book, barely able to keep her eyes open.

"I haven't found anything," yawned Fluttershy.

"Me neither," said Rainbow Dash, rubbing her eyes, wearily.

Twilight yawned and took a look round at the others. Applejack was yawning and rubbing her eyes, Fluttershy was asleep with her head on Discord's lap, Rainbow Dash was lying on the side of her head, looking through a book with her eyes half-closed, Rarity was moving at snail's pace, turning pages in a very sluggish manner, Discord's eyes were almost shut, and Spike was sound asleep on top of the pages of a book. The only one who still seemed to be full of energy was Pinkie Pie. But that was expected, after all. Pinkie Pie made Discord look like a calm, quiet, inactive person.

"I think it's about time we call it a night," said Twilight, yawning, "We need our sleep if we're going to figure this out."

"Yup," sighed Applejack, closing the book she was holding and rubbing her eyes sleepily, "Alright, y'all. We'd better go home and hit the sack. I'm plum tuckered."

Everypony agreed and all put down the books they were holding. Then suddenly, as they all headed towards the library exit, Discord realized something.

"HOME!" he exclaimed, clapping his hands to his forehead, "How am I supposed to get home to Chaosville without my magic!? This is a disaster! And not in a good way."

"Relax," soothed Fluttershy, comfortingly, "You're welcome to stay at my cottage until we figure this out."

Discord exhaled. "I was hoping you'd say that," he said, with relief, "Thank you, Fluttershy. You're just too kind."

He snapped his fingers so to disappear and reappear at Fluttershy's cottage, but only succeeded in levitating the piles of books up with pink telekinesis.

"Oh yes, I forgot," he said, dully, snapping his fingers and dropping the books, "No chaos magic. Great. How am I supposed to get to Fluttershy's now!?"

"You can walk," said Twilight, firmly.

"Walk?" exclaimed Discord, in a terrified voice, "All...the way...to Fluttershy's? Ohhhhh..."

His eyes swirled round in their sockets, his knees gave way and he crumpled onto the floor.

"Hah! You call yourself the most powerful being in the universe?" smirked Rainbow Dash, "And the idea of taking a little walk makes you faint! Bwa-ha-ha-ha!"

"Oh, come now, Dashie, that's not nice," scolded Fluttershy, taking Discord's lion paw and helping him to his feet.

"I've just become a little reliant on magic these past few millennia," snapped Discord, scowling at Rainbow Dash as Fluttershy helped him up.

"And who wouldn't, with a magic as amazing as yours?" said Fluttershy, stroking his shoulder compassionately with her hoof, "But we'll figure out how to fix this, we promise. In the meantime," she added, "You willhave to walk."

Discord sighed.

"We'll be right back here early tomorrow mornin', Twilight," said Applejack, as the she and the others headed out the castle library door, "We'll figure out somethin' eventually."

"Bye," said Twilight.

"Why do castles have to have so many stairs?" moaned Discord, as he and the other ponies trudged down the castle staircase, "When is Twilight going to hurry up and install an elevator?"

"She isn't," chirped Rainbow Dash, "Because everypony who comes in here is perfectly capable of using the staircase. Oh, sorry, I mean almost everypony." She smirked at Discord as they reached the bottom of the stairs and headed down the long crystal hallway towards the front door.

"Well, see you tomorrow, y'all," said Applejack, pushing it open and trotting out.

"Toodle-oo!" Pinkie Pie trilled, bouncing out and along the road

"See ya!" said Rainbow Dash, zigzagging through the sky and out of sight.

"Goodnight, everypony," said Rarity, graciously, walking out the castle entrance in a ladylike fashion.

Finally, Fluttershy fluttered out, and Discord staggered after her, his goat-and-lizard legs quivering from the pain of walking. Stepping out onto the road with his last bout of strength, he collapsed in a pile on the ground.

"Carry me?" he whimpered, raising his arms pathetically.

Fluttershy rolled her eyes amusedly. "Oh, come on, Discord, you can do it. It's just a little walk."

"Oh, poo," complained Discord, slithering after her.

...

"There you go, Discord," said Fluttershy, plumping the pillow she had set up on the couch for Discord, "You'll be as snug as a bug in a rug."

"Thank you so much, my dear Fluttershy," said Discord, gratefully, as he settled down onto the couch and Fluttershy pulled the covers over him, "It's just too kind of you to do this for me. Sometimes I don't know what I'd do without you."

"It's no trouble at all," smiled Fluttershy, "Goodnight, Discord."

"Goodnight, Fluttershy," replied Discord, gratefully.

"And don't worry one bit. We're going to get your magic back," said Fluttershy, kindly, putting her hoof on his shoulder, "I'll look through every book in Equestria if I have to. Mmwuh!" She gave Discord a goodnight kiss on the forehead, then turned off the Discord-shaped lamp on her table and fluttered upstairs to her own bed.

"Goodnight, Discord."
"Goodnight, Fluttershy."