The Mountain Dew Experiment

by arglefumph

A Code Red Emergency

"Uaaaah," Spike said. Running away was starting to sound like a good idea, but he wasn't used to running with his new body yet. That, and the two older unicorns appeared too quickly for Spike to have time to escape. They looked even angrier than Spike expected.

"So is he—?" Rarity began to say.

"No," Twilight interrupted. "He's not one of my relatives."

"Heh heh, hi there, Twilight," Spike said. "I know this probably looks bad—"

"Hello, Twilight and Rarity," Fluttershy said. "It's a good thing you came here. Spike is looking for you."

"Spike is inside the library, watching one of my potions," Twilight said. "I'll get back to him once I've finished with this imposter."

Pinkie giggled. "No, Spike is right here!" she said. "Surprise!"

"What?" Rarity asked.

"She's right," Spike said, sighing a bit. "I'm Spike. I fell into your magic potion, and it turned me into a unicorn."

"WHAT?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

"But—but you told me your name was Mike Diamond!" Rarity said, aghast.

"I'm sorry for lying," Spike said. "I thought you wouldn't believe it if I told the truth."

"I don't believe it," Twilight said. "This sounds like a Changeling trick."

Rarity let out an unladylike growl. "If you have hurt my precious Spike, I am going to make you suffer!"

"Waugh!" Spike said. He tried to hide behind Fluttershy, who squealed because a male pony was so close to her. "Help me, Fluttershy!"

"I, um, I think he's Spike," Fluttershy said. "He knew about my last letter to Princess Celestia."

"Perhaps he has committed mail fraud!" Rarity said. "It's clearly not the first time he's used fraud to achieve his ends!"

"Augh!" Spike said, now starting to fear for his life. "Don't do this! It's me, Spike! I'm not lying!"

Fortunately, Twilight's level head came through at this moment. "Wait, hold on, everypony," Twilight said. "I've got a solution. There's a simple spell which reveals a pony's true form. I made sure to look it up after the fiasco with Princess Cadance."

"Great!" Spike said.

It took about two seconds for Twilight to charge the spell. When the spell hit Spike, his normal body—a short, chubby dragon—appeared. After about two seconds, Spike reverted to his unicorn form.

"Oh..." Fluttershy said.

"Sp-Spike?" Rarity asked. "It's you? You're a—a unicorn?"

"Me too!" Pinkie Pie said, pulling her bouncy hair aside to reveal her horn. Rarity almost fainted at the sight of Unicorn Pinkie.

"I don't believe it!" Twilight said. "You—you changed species! HOW?"

"Like I said, I fell into your magic potion!" Spike said.

"Yeah, and then I drank some!" Pinkie Pie said. "I couldn't let Spike have all the turning into a unicorn fun, could I? That unicorn potion is loads of fun! It's...magic!"

Twilight's face lit up. "Of course! It all makes sense now!"

"It makes sense?" Rarity asked. "What makes sense? Please explain!"

"I want to know, too," Fluttershy said softly.

"I've been making a new, extra-powerful version of Mountain Dew," Twilight said. "And I think we just found out why they don't sell Mountain Dew to non-unicorns. The high concentration of magic power clearly has unpredictable side effects."

"Clearly," Rarity said, in a dry voice.

"Um..." Fluttershy said. "I...I don't think it works like that..."

"Huh?" Twilight asked. "Fluttershy, do you know something about this?"

"No!" Fluttershy said. "I mean...maybe? I...no."

Twilight, Rarity and Spike all looked at Fluttershy, who was looking everywhere except at her friends. Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, saw a kitty cat near the bottom of the hill, and she decided to chase it. No one saw her leave, which was a major mistake on their parts.

"Fluttershy, if you know something that can help, you should tell us," Twilight said in a commanding voice.

"Please?" Spike asked. "I don't wanna be a unicorn forever!"

Fluttershy pawed the ground. "Okay, this one time...back at flight camp...Rainbow Dash kinda...sorta...stole a bunch of Mountain Dew and gave it to everypony."

Rarity raised an eyebrow at this information. "Are you saying that you drank Mountain Dew, even though you're not supposed to?"

"NO!" Fluttershy said quickly. "I...I might have taken a mouthful, but I didn't swallow! Honest!"

"Relax, it's not illegal or anything," Twilight said. "So what happened next?"

"Nothing," Fluttershy said. "We felt funny for a while, but...that was it."

"Exactly what I was going to point out," Rarity said. "I've tried magical boosters in the past, and I can assure you that their effects wear off rather quickly. It's just like the spell you used to give me wings, Twilight; it only works for a short time."

"Yes, well, this wasn't your ordinary Mountain Dew," Twilight said. "Like I said, I was trying to make extra-strength Mountain Dew."

"Extra-strength?" Rarity asked. "How much extra strength?"

Twilight bit her lip. "I was aiming for...about ten times stronger than usual," she said. "Now that I think about it, that may have been a bit too much for my first experiment. Heh heh..."

Spike glowered at Twilight, as she chuckled, embarrassed.

"But Rarity's right," Twilight said quickly. "No matter what, this potion should wear off eventually, and you'll automatically turn back to normal. I'd guess that it'll last...two and a half hours, maximum."

"You really think so?" Spike asked, looking hopeful. "All I have to do is wait for two hours, and I'm back to normal?"

"Probably," Twilight Sparkle said. "Maybe I should send a letter to the Princess to see—oh."

"Oh, what?" Fluttershy asked.

Twilight's eyes went wide. "I can't send letters without Spike!" she gasped. "This is a disaster!"

"Hey!" Spike said. "I'm more than just your personal mailpony, you know!"

"I know, I know, it's just—Princess Celestia, she expects me to write at least every week—" Twilight said, stammering as she pictured the horrible possibilities of a world where she could not contact the Sun Princess. "She—I—we have to fix this as soon as possible!"

"Uh oh," Spike said. "She's going crazy again."

"I'm not going crazy!" Twilight said. "I'm just—I'm worried! This is a magical disaster!"

"Mayoushosperimagimore," Fluttershy mumbled.

"What was that, dearie?" Rarity asked.

"Maybe you shouldn't experiment with magic anymore, Twilight," Fluttershy said, a little more loudly. "Whenever you do, things tend to...not work correctly."

"WHAT?" Twilight asked. "Are you saying I'm a klutz?!"

"She has a point, darling," Rarity said. "Remember when you accidentally summoned Rainbow Dash's male twin?"

Twilight looked ashamed. She tried her best not to remember that magical blunder.

---

Two months earlier...

"Woah ho ho!" Rainbow Blitz said, his eyes popping out as he saw Twilight. "I knew Dusk Shine had an older sister, but he didn't say he had a younger sister, too! What a hottie!"

"Ex-CUSE me?" Twilight asked.

"Hey Baby," Rainbow Blitz said, putting his leg over Twilight's neck. "What's say you and I go somewhere private?"

"Ew, NO!" Twilight said, trying to get out of the grip of the larger colt. "I don't—who are you?—let go!"

"When you're with me, you'll be seeing rainbooms," Rainbow Blitz said. "Come on, kiss me!"

---

"I admit that wasn't an ideal situation, but—" Twilight said.

"He tried to seduce everypony in town," Rarity said bluntly.

Fluttershy shuddered. "He said...horrible things to me," she said.

"Okay, so that was a bad situation," Twilight admitted. "But I got rid of him eventually, right? The point is that my magic works just fine."

"Except when it causes me and Pinkie to change species..." Spike muttered.

"Pinkie doesn't seem to—wait, where's Pinkie?" Twilight asked. "She was here a few minutes ago."

The four ponies looked around, but Pinkie Pie was nowhere in the vicinity. It didn't take them long to realize the horrible truth.

"Unicorn Pinkie Pie is on the loose!" Rarity exclaimed.

---

Unicorn Pinkie Pie was indeed on the loose. After chasing the kitty cat, who ended up being a mean kitty cat, Pinkie decided to go back to Ponyville.

Normally, Pinkie Pie would never leave her friends without saying anything—"Only meanie-weenies do things like that!" she always said—but she wasn't sure what they were talking about. Besides, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! How often do Earth ponies get to use magic?

I'll apologize to them later, Pinkie Pie thought. Right now, it's Magic Time! This'll be so much FUN!

Pinkie bounced through the town, saying hello to everyone she met. "Hi Daisy! Hi, Crystal! Hi, Lyra!"

"Hello, Pinkie," Lyra said. Lyra was doing some shopping, and her saddlebag was filled with food.

"I'm a unicorn now!" Pinkie said. "Let me help you with your groceries!"

Lyra stopped cold. "You're a—what?"

Pinkie shot a beam of magic at Lyra's bag. It turned into a guitar.

"My food!" Lyra cried. "It's all gone! How did you—?"

"Whoops!" Pinkie said. "Sorry! I don't know how to control this thing! But guitar, lyre, pretty close, right? Hee hee!"

Lyra sat down, hard. This is a nightmare, she thought. It has to be. There's no way Pinkie Pie just—a guitar? No. No. Pinkie cannot have magic powers, unless...

It took Lyra five minutes to get back up and return to her home, where she locked the doors and windows, before crawling into bed and pulling the blankets over her head.

Pinkie was completely ignorant of Lyra's existential crisis, however, so she continued through the town. As she went through the streets, she began to sing a little song to herself.

My name is Pinkie Pie,
And I'm a unicorn.
If you're ever mean to me,
I'll zap you with my horn! Tee hee!

"Yo, Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash said, landing on the ground. "What's up?"

"Not much!" Pinkie Pie said. "Spike and I are unicorns now! See?"

Rainbow Dash chuckled a bit, when she saw Pinkie Pie's horn. A week or so before, Rainbow Dash had looked through a mail-order magazine which specialized in pranks and gag items. One of things for sale was a fake unicorn horn. Rainbow Dash mistakenly assumed that Pinkie had purchased one.

"So, you bought one of those, huh?" Rainbow Dash asked. "It looks pretty realistic! Can it do anything?"

"Sure!" Pinkie Pie said. She concentrated her magic in her horn, which was something she didn't really know how to do yet. In her opinion, it was like squinting your eyes and trying to give yourself a headache.

Rainbow Dash was impressed, as Pinkie's horn began to glow pink. Wow, it even glows like a real unicorn horn! she thought. That's so cool! I have to get one of—

A humongous pink explosion flew out of Pinkie Pie's horn. Poor Rainbow Dash was standing two feet away from her at the time, so she didn't stand a chance of dodging it.

---

Rarity and Fluttershy exchanged fearful glances. "This is a disaster waiting to happen!" Rarity said.

Twilight faked a laugh. "Look, I'm sure there's nothing to worry about," she said. "Pinkie can be a little overenthusiastic at times, but she'd never hurt anypony, right?"

"Well, not on purpose," Rarity said. "But there have been...accidents. Many, many accidents."

"Like the time she tried to make the world's largest cupcake," Fluttershy said.

"Only it exploded," Rarity said. "It took us months to clean all the gunk off of Ponyville."

"And there was the time she accidentally set the school on fire," Fluttershy said.

"Not to mention the fact that she's the reason the old librarian quit his job and moved to Manehatten," Rarity said. "Add the chaos of a first-time magic user into the mix, and I shudder to think what she's capable of."

Spike shook his head. "But this is Pinkie we're talking about," he said. "She's not a bad pony. There's no way she'd—"

"TWIIIIILIIIIIIGHT!" a voice shouted.

Fluttershy crouched onto the ground and covered her face with her hooves. "It's started already!" she moaned.

"Nothing's—" Twilight began to say, before a pegasus pony crash-landed into her.

"THERE you are!" the pegasus shouted. "You have to save me, pronto!"

"Who...what?" Twilight asked.

"I need to get back to normal!" she said. "You can fix me, right?"

Rarity recognized that voice. "Rainbow Dash?!" she asked.

It was indeed their friend Rainbow Dash, not that you could tell that at first glance. Dash's signature multi-colored mane was now pink. Rainbow's coat had become pink, as well. In fact, it sort of looked like her skin was made up of pink-flavored gumdrops.

"I've been Pinkiefied!" Rainbow Dash said.

It took less than two seconds before Spike burst into laughter. "Ha ha ha ha!" he laughed. "Looks like Rainbow Dash is now...Pinkie Dash!"

"Hey, no one asked your opinion, kid!" Rainbow Dash said hotly. "Who're you, anyway?"

"It's Spike," Twilight said.

"He's a unicorn, too?!" Rainbow Dash asked. "What the hay is going on here?"

"Pinkie Dash!" Spike said, rolling on the ground with laughter. "And here I thought Fluttershy was only the pink-maned pegasus!"

"Spike, be nice," Twilight ordered. "What happened, Rainbow? Did Pinkie Pie do this to you?"

"Uh huh," Rainbow Dash said. "I don't know how, but she's a unicorn now! She turned me and half the town into clones of herself!"

"Told you so," Rarity said in a singsong voice.

"Now I'm pink!" Rainbow Dash said. "Pink! That's a color which isn't even in the rainbow! This is horrible!"

The four friends all gathered around Rainbow and began talking at the same time.

"Have you experienced any side effects?" Twilight asked. "Have you started acting like Pinkie, perhaps?"

"Who else got Pinkiefied?" Fluttershy asked.

"Do you talk faster than normal?" Rarity asked. "Or more than normal?"

Spike reached a hoof out towards Rainbow Dash's poofy mane, and he was surprised to see that it came off at the lightest touch. "Wait, that's not hair!" he realized. "That's cotton candy!"

Rarity gasped. "Pinkie Dash, you could melt in the sun!"

"Everypony, calm down!" Twilight said. "So maybe Pinkie Pie accidentally cast a spell on Rainbow Dash and some other ponies. That doesn't mean she's evil! She's not planning on using her unicorn powers to take over Equestria or something like that!"

"Uh, yeah it does!" Rainbow Dash said. "She made me pink! And besides, look at that!"

Rainbow Dash used one of her forelegs—which Twilight now suspected was made out of real gumdrops—and she pointed at two dark clouds in the sky.

"Um...they're just clouds," Twilight said.

"It's not supposed to rain today," Rainbow Dash said. "I'm a pegasus pony. I know this stuff."

"So you messed up with the weather," Twilight said. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Ugh," Rainbow Dash said. "Be right back."

"Okay..." Twilight said. In her opinion, this was just another weird event, during a very weird day.

Rainbow Dash flew and retrieved one of the clouds. She kicked it, and it started raining chocolate milk. The only other time that happened in Equestria was when Discord had taken over and nearly destroyed the entire world.

"Now do you believe that something bad is happening?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Comments

[Colbalt White]

Mother of god…the day we feared is finally uppon us EVERYONE TAKE COVER INCOMING PINKIE STORM

[WeldedSteel09]

PINKIE DASH?! Now that's hilarious.

[Firefinder]

A unicorn Pinkie Pie. It could be worse she could use the mirror pool like this.
themotivationalposters.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/tactical-retreat-motivational-poster-1355.jpg
static4.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/SHE+S+14+ABANDON+SHIP+_17f87f8f6c5512e5945735e48e887978.gif
static.fjcdn.com/gifs/Abandon_313138_2396202.gif

[Seether00]

Well those were Pinkie's favorite thing about Discord's time. So makes sense.

[Dramaro]

fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/329/6/d/dooooomed__by_johnjoseco-d5m5n3j.jpg

Yep. We're doomed...

[YukoAsho]

Someone put Rainbow Dash in a fridge! Don't want her falling apart before they can put her back together!

While I'm at it, however, the transitions in this episode are horrible. You should make it more clear when you're changing from one scene to another.

[SuperPinkBrony12]

Quick Twilight create a distraction and then when Pinkie Pie isn't looking jump her, tie her down, and wait for the spell to wear off! Do it before some irreversible disaster happens!

[arglefumph]

1697770 Too true. My favorite is when I cut away from a scene with Pinkie and Spike...only to cut back to a scene with Pinkie and Spike. I'll have to make sure to include actual transitions in my next story.

[ManWithThePan]

CHOCOLATE RAIIN! SOME STAY DRY WHILE OTHERS FEEL THE PINK.