The Pinkiemian Rhapsody

by Key Strix

Mind Freak Out

“Oh no! Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Pinkamena pranced in place as her eyes quickly swept over the scene. She was in the middle of the Canterlot throne room with her friend, Twilight, who had passed out in the middle of the floor. Were any guards coming her way to help? No; they were distracted by the show that was going on outside. “Did I just...” Pinkie pondered out loud to the spoon in her left hoof.

“No!” Smarty Spoon interrupted. “No, you didn’t. I’m pretty sure she’s still breathing.”

“Then what did I do?!”

“I dunno! So quit yelling at me! Besides, what did you expect to happen?”

“I thought she would-”

“Uhhhhg...”

Twilight’s groan broke Pinkie away from the argument. “Twilight!” she shouted with glee, putting her snout inches away from her collapsed friend.

“Pinkie?” Her eyes fluttered open. Before she could blink some more to clear her vision, she was swept up into a tight hug.

“Oh, happy day!” She squealed. “You’re okay!” Her grip around the pony tightened as she clenched her own eyes shut. “I thought I ruined your brain! I thought I’d have to push you around in a wheelchair for the rest of your life! I probably would have had to change your diapers and feed you like an overgrown baby because you’d be so helpless due to something that would have been my fault! But, I’d do it all anyways! That is, once I’d escaped from jail and stolen you away to a hiding place where we could live the rest of our lives with me atoning for my GREAT sin!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight choked out.

“Hm?”

“You’re crushing my ribs!”

“Oh!” Pinkie said as she let go, causing Twilight toland roughly on her rear.

Twilight took a moment to compose herself as she breathed deeply, then took some time to absorb her surroundings. Her head twisted left and right and her eyes went wide. “Canterlot Castle?” She spoke like a lost child even as her eyes turned to her nearby friend. “Pinkie, what am I doing here?! And, why do I feel like my head was hit by a train? Don’t tell me you brought some of AJ’s ‘special cider’ to Owlowicious’ party.”

“I did! But, that’s not the issue.” Pinkie said before she remembered the last time she had brought the ‘special cider’ to a party “This time, that is.”

“Then what is?” She sprang to her hooves and her eyes zipped from side to side. “What am I even doing here?! Why is everyone outside?! Celestia is here too?!” Her gasp was caught in her throat right before her focus zeroed in on Pinkie. “I didn’t do anything stupid around her, did I?! So help me Pinkie, I will choke a mare!”

“Wait, you don’t remember anything?” Pinkie’s head tilted to the side. A single ear flopped down and the other contrasted.

“I...” Twilight found herself with her flank planted back down on the ground. She then ponderously placed a hoof to her chin. “I remember starting the party, dozing for a while, drooling on myself a little, looking at cake, a desire to vomit, and then...” her eyes trailed off. “And theeeen...” She squinted, as if trying to peer beyond a veil of fuzzy memories.

Pinkie energetically pounced, tackling the opportunity to take the lead of those stray thoughts as she landed in front of Twilight. “And then HE came in!” said Pinkie as she pointed at the window, directing Twilight’s attention to the stallion that zipped by with fire wings. “He came in and ruined everything!” Once started, Pinkie’s lips just couldn’t stop flapping. “He came in, started telling a bunch of strange stories about your life, making you think your parents were dead, and then I got kicked out of a party! ME! Kicked out of a PARTY! And then I started chatting with my smart side, and then morning came, and then he started-”

“Pinkie.”

“-messing with Fluttershy’s animal friends! Then he started zapping stuff and Derpy and making everything all better! Then he’s like ‘it was nothing’. But then Applejack comes over because she couldn’t handle Big Mac’s apples on her own-”

“Pinkie!”

“-so I was like ‘I’ll help’ and Thornstar was like ‘I’ll help too because I’m deceitfully evil’! So we were rolling along and Applebloom was like ‘Ah’m makin’ a one-time appearance ta tell ya’ll Big Mac is sick’. So then we all get to the farm where I was like ‘this seems to be getting really lengthy and off subject’, but nope! Thornstar comes back in and-”

“PINKIE PIE!” Twilight shouted, putting the brakes on the rant.

“What?”

“I remember now,” she said with a flat stare.

“Wait.” Both ears pressed back against the base of Pinkie’s skull as she peered suspiciously at Twilight. Did her friend really come to her senses, or did Pinkie just dig herself into even more trouble? “What exactly do you remember about your brother?”

“That?” Twilight glanced out the window to the flying unicorn and back. “That isn’t a brother of mine.”

Feeling like she narrowly escaped some sort of death trap, Pinkie sighed heavily.

Twilight’s right forehoof pressed to her own temple as she tried to rub away her apparent headache with circular motions. “I have no idea who that guy really is, or where he came from, so I want you to tell me everything about him that I wasn’t there for.” Pinkie opened her mouth and Twilight was quick to close it with a hoof. “Slowly, and in great detail.” The mare nodded and Twilight retracted her hoof to let Pinkie begin.

Pinkie talked. She talked and talked, all the while waving her arms about as if trying to direct a landing pegasus. She made sure not to skip a single piece of information, save for the talks she had with her kitchen utensil. Any strange details that she mistakenly let slip went unquestioned by Twilight, who patiently waited till the story was finished.

When she was finally done, Twilight responded by looking to the pearl white floor. “This is not good.”

“You’re telling me! I nearly lost all my friends today!”

Twilight slowly looked up as a worried thought struck her. “True, but I think it can get even worse than that.” Her eyes turned to the windows and doors.

“Worse?!” Pinkie could feel her hair stand on end.

Twilight slowly nodded. “They’re all coming in. We should get out of here and talk about this elsewhere.”

“Where elsewhere?”

“Come on,” Twilight spoke as she stood up and turned towards the double door above the staircase. “I think I know where.”

---

A short silence passed between the two mares as they both left the throne room to traverse one of the many hallways of Canterlot Castle. Pinkamena kept right on Twilight trail, still wondering as to where they were heading, although the halls they walked through did seem quite familiar. She opened her mouth, ready to ask, but Twilight quickly stole that chance away.

“Pinkie, do you know what a Gary Stu is?” Twilight said as she carried onwards, not bothering to look back as she talked.

“A... what now?”

“A Gary Stu, or even a Marty Stu. Do you know what any of those are?”

Even though Twilight wasn’t looking, Pinkie shook her head. “Twilight, I’m a baker. I hardly ever make stews.”

Twilight let out an audible sigh. “I’m not talking about food, Pinkie. I’m talking about male versions of Mary Sue type characters in stories.”

Pinkie simply shrugged.

Twilight sighed a second time before she continued. “Mary Sue is a label for certain kinds of bad characters in stories. It’s a bit difficult to accurately describe because there are many types of Mary Sue characters, but most of them can ruin even the best stories through being martyrs while also knowing solutions to just about every problem. Truth is, a lot of them are unknowingly selfish characters in design, who passively bend the focus of every other character in the story to their will through their piles of ‘non-selfish’ actions. On the surface, being the adored solve-all hero sounds like a nice thing, especially to the writer of the Mary Sue. However, due to the writer wanting to give that character more and more attention, almost the entire story and solution to everything will revolve around this Mary Sue, leaving almost no spotlight left for any other characters.”

“So what you’re saying is that Thornstar is a Mary Sue?”

“It’s impossible and it even sounds silly. But, he really does seem like one. You know how he started doing just about everything with ease, right?

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s the Mary Sue trait of being able to resolve everything. You remember how everypony started paying the most attention to him, especially after a resolved issue?”

“Yup.”

“That’s him stealing the spotlight. None of his resolving and spotlight-stealing was a one-time thing. All of it persisted without fail, without anypony else being a part of the solution, other than letting them cheer him on from the background. But things with Thornstar are even worse than all that.”

Pinkie nodded and listened, but the last line really piqued her interest. “How?”

“Those traits can be seen in Mary Sues in published books that normally don’t do well. But, what Thornstar is displaying are traits worse than I’ve seen in Rainbow Dash's fan fiction stories.” Twilight lifted her head up some and flicked her tail.

“Ohhh.” She vaguely recalled skimming the story over. She was never really much for reading books that didn’t have recipes or big colorful pictures. “Well, it had a lot of action and everypony got along.” She shrugged, thinking that she probably should have paid the story more scrupulous attention.

“Thornstar’s hitting massive levels of Mary Sue traits that are mainly created by very inexperienced writers. Ones who tend to be eager to slip themselves, or ‘the coolest character’, in as Mary Sues into an already existing story. They likely do such to impress the cast - much like when Dash inserted a version of herself into her Daring Do writings to impress the main character. Most of such writers don’t even know they’re creating a bad character at all. I don’t know how, but just like those sorts of bad insert characters, Thornstar’s presence has altered existing information and maybe even changed moments in history. It’s like he’s just using whatever power he discovered to make himself the center of attention. However, he didn’t stop there. Going along with making himself a bad character, he gave himself a ridiculous amount of strengths and powers, likely in order to further manipulate the attention of everyone towards him, thus making us forget about...” Twilight’s voice trailed off as she slowly drew to a stop.

“Twilight?” Pinkie came to a stop behind the mare. She tried to peek around to see the Twilight’s face, but was unable to see past that glimmering purple mane.

“Pinkie...” It sounded like her throat softly tightened as she quietly spoke. “I’m so sorry. If I wasn’t as tired as I was...” She paused very briefly, her voice clearly weighed down by a heavy amount of guilt as she continued. “If I wasn’t being such an idiot, maybe I could have seen past all this deceit ahead of time. Maybe I could have prevented all this madness. Maybe I could have stopped myself.”

As soon as Twilight finished, Pinkie placed a reassuring hoof upon her back. “Twilight, it’s o-” her friend suddenly spun out from beneath Pinkie’s hoof to sweep her up into a hug.

Twilight spoke very quietly. “There’s no excuse for the things I’ve said and done to you.” With those forelimbs having pulled her in so tightly and the mare’s head resting against Pinkie’s neck, she was unable to see Twilight’s face. However, Pinkie felt a touch of wetness from the cheek of Twilight's that pressed against her coat.

Pinkie said nothing more. She just sighed into the comfort of Twilight’s tight embrace and let their shared warmth fuel her own inner glow. That true fuzzy glow of happiness that Pinkie thought she’d never feel again.

“When this is all done,” Twilight said as she hugged Pinkie a little tighter, “I’ll make sure to throw you the biggest apology party possible.”

“Thank you, Twi.” She pulled back far enough to look into her friend’s glistening eyes. “But, I don’t need a party.” Her smile was bright as could be. “I just need all my friends back.”

Twilight managed to return a weak smile of her own whilst she rubbed her tears away.

The joyful vibrations of a chuckle softly shook the two. “Come on!” Pinkie said as her voice spiked with energy, her ears perked right up, and her blue eyes glowed with hope. “Let’s get going!” With a delightful hum in her throat and her bright curly locks flowing behind, Pinkie Pie fully parted from Twilight’s welcomed hug. She then cheerfully bounced her way down the hall.

“Pinkie…” The pony halted immediately. “Do you even know where we were heading?” said Twilight as she finished drying her cheeks.

“Oh!” Pinkie looked ahead and then back. “Nope!”

“The Canterlot Archives.” Twilight’s smile widened as she passed by to take the lead.

“You mean that packed library we went to when you were all worried about the time paradox stuff?”

“Don’t remind me. My head hurts just thinking about that.”

“But I just reminded you. Maybe you can go back in time and stop me from reminding you! Oh! Maybe you can go back in time and tell yourself about Thornstar!”

“That is a plan, sure, but I’d rather not mess with time again. I think I have a better idea anyway. Besides, the time spell is in the Starswirl the Bearded Wing. This time, we’re going to a different wing.”

Twilight had turned about and retaken her position as path leader. But Pinkie didn’t immediately follow. Instead, she looked to her spoon companion.

“Well, looks like we’ve got him now.” The reflection gave her a bright smile.

“Yeah,” Pinkie nodded. “Now that Twilight is back, I have a feeling that everything will be okay!”

Twilight's voice then cut between the two. “Who are you talking to?”

Pinkie looked up from her spoon, seeing that she was caught in the act. “Oh! I... was just cleaning off my spoon!” She smiled awkwardly.

“Pinkie…” Twilight’s eyes sharpened slightly. “There is no spoon.”

“W-what?” Pinkie looked down from her friend to her empty hoof. “Huh.”

“Are you okay?”

Pinkie firmly planted her hoof upon the tile as her lips curved upward. “Yup! Juuust fine!”

Twilight turned away with a flat tone. “I’ll believe those words once they come from your therapist.”

---

Pinkie Pie continued to follow Twilight Sparkle. They passed several wings until they finally found their destination.

“Here we are,” Twilight announced with a panning foreleg just as a guard opened the way for the two. “The Military Wing!”

Pinkie gasped. “The Military Wing?! Twilight, I know you wanna get back at the guy, but doesn’t attacking Thornstar seem a little extreme?”

Twilight shook her head as she traversed the halls with her eyes scanning the nearest shelf, which was almost overflowing with books and scrolls. “That would be illogical, Pinkie. Besides, judging by all the stuff Thornstar has been able to pull off, we need to approach this differently. I’m certain he’s powerful enough to easily deflect most spells I can think of off hoof.”

Pinkie was not far behind as she followed Twilight. “So why don’t we just tell everyone he’s a Mary Sue? I’m sure they’ll all believe you.”

Twilight paused before spinning around to face her friend. “Weren’t you paying attention? I thought I was pretty clear about this. I never said he actually is a Mary Sue. That would be absurd! He just has a staggering amount of Mary Sue traits. He is probably, like you first suspected, some sort of powerful wizard, using some sort of powerful magic to keep us under his control. Or, maybe, we’ve been trapped in some sort of contraption that’s making us view an alternate reality where everything is bent to his favor. We could have also been drugged. But, I’m leaning towards the wizard idea.”

“So what do we do?”

“During my recent studies of the Lunar Rebellion, I came across a couple stories about wizards that could use undetectable magic. Magic that was powerful, but had auras that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. They could be used for setting traps, placing protection wards, and even mind control. I don’t know how, but this Thornstar stallion could have picked up on those magics and is using it to manipulate us.” She looked back to Pinkie, who was bouncing high too peek at the upper shelves. “I’m a bit curious though. I now understand how you broke the spell on me; you overloaded my senses with questions, forcing me to find logic where there is none. Clever. But how did you first see past his control?”

Mid-bounce, Pinkie found the time to shrug.

“Well, anyways,” Twilight’s eyes looked back to the shelves as she went into ‘lecture mode’ once again, “there was a counterspell created to detect those nearly invisible magical auras and even the tethers to all types of magics.

“Tethers?”

Twilight levitated a random scroll before Pinkie’s eyes. “You see the colored aura around this scroll and my horn, correct?”

Pinkie nodded.

“Well, with that counterspell you’d be able to see the magical rope that is tied between the aura around my horn and that scroll. That rope is also called a tether. If anypony was using invisible auras, you’d be able to see them, as well as the tethers between them. Not only did such a counterspell help soldiers avoid potential traps, following the tethers from those traps helped lead soldiers to the enemies that laid them. All in all, the counterspell is a really powerful spell for perception enhancing. One could potentially multiply all of his or her senses to an astounding degree, that is, depending on how powerful of a spell caster one is.”

“Ooooo…” Pinkie’s eyes went wide with wonder. “Maybe it could amplify my Pinkie Senses! I could end up seeing danger months... wait, no! Years in advance! Wouldn’t that be great?”

“First off, I doubt that you’d be able to see that far. Secondly, no. That’d be horrifying. Do you have any idea how many bad things can happen in the time span of a single year? Your body probably wouldn’t even be able to handle such a massive amount of constant information and you’d likely twitch yourself into a coma, that is, if the spell even affects those others kinds of senses.”

“Oh. Nevermind then.”

With her ‘lecture mode’ finally deactivated, Twilight placed the demonstration scroll aside. “Now, once we find this spell, we can use it to see if he’s the wizard I think he is. Some of the Canterlot Sentries still use that spell to this day, so it shouldn’t take us long to find the right document.”

One hour, forty-two minutes, and thirty-three seconds later...

“Found it!” shouted Pinkie as she popped out of a towering pile of literature.

Twilight freed the brown covered book from Pinkie’s hooves with a magical grip as she passed by the massive pile. “Very good!” She happily commented before looking over the mess. “We’ll... have to fix this later.”

“Cast it!” Pinkie cheered Twilight while bouncing out of her mountain of mess. “Cast it, cast it, cast it!”

The cheering mainly went ignored. Twilight took her time to focus on each line of text with great scrutiny. Only when she was ready to put her new knowledge to the test did she look up. “Okay,” Her head bobbed very slightly. “Let’s do this.” She closed her eyes, lowered her head, and then tossed it back. A purple aura suddenly consumed the two.

When the spell was done working its magic, Pinkie opened her eyes to witness as the world exploded with light and color. “Whoa!” She swept her gaze across the entire room in wonder.

Either she just gained binocular vision, or the room just got ten times smaller. The pearl tiles and pillars shimmered brightly. She could see every crack in the bookcases. The smell of paper with a hint of wood is what mostly filled her nostrils. What secondly filled her nostrils was the smell of a certain somepony who apparently became so infatuated with her imposter-brother and her books that she forgot to bathe.

After a quick moment of looking about, Pinkie stood on a single hind hoof and spun in several circles. “The colors! The colors!” Pinkie laughed rather maniacally as she watched the world around her spin like she was inside a disco ball. “This is sooo cool!” It seemed all of her senses were heightened save for her sense of balance, as she quickly toppled over.

“Ow ow ow!” Pinkie shouted in response to her fall and was quick to writhe in far more pain than expected. “I didn’t know these floors were made out of Applejack’s kicks!” she groaned as she rubbed her bruised rump. However, it wasn’t just the pain that surprised her, but the fact that her Pinkie Senses gave her no warning whatsoever.

“I didn’t know Celestia trapped this room,” said Twilight as she scanned the magnificently shiny metal front door.

Once Pinkie regained some composure, she stumbled over to the side of the blue and purple mass to look at the steel door that had her friend so enthralled. The shimmering metal surface was coated with an orange aura that shifted about like wild fire. Without putting too much thought into her motions, Pinkie placed a hoof right on the door.

“Pinkie,” said Twilight as she watched nothing happen in reaction, “I’m pretty sure that would have gone off a long time ago if we were not allowed in here. But, we know I did at least part of the spell ri-”

“You didn’t eat any of the cake, did you?” Pinkie looked way too deep into Twilight’s eyes, able to see the red veins and the fluid that kept her eye from drying out with each blink.

“What?”

“My chocolate cake,” Pinkie sniffed and sniffed, nearly shoving her nose into Twilight’s maw, forcing the mare to look away. “You didn’t have any of it.”

“Pinkie, focus here!” She used a single hoof to slide Pinkie back to a more comfortable distance. “And no, I didn’t have any because I was uncharacteristically mad at you at the time. That, and I wasn’t very hungry after witnessing that special cake. Anyways! Back on topic! I... think... I did this spell right.”

“You think?”

“I’m preeetty sure my mouth isn’t supposed to taste like a pillow and that my fur coat used to be a light mulberry, not a dark putrid green.”

“That does sound like a problem.”

“As we can see, the spell is doing what we really need it to do, so that’s a problem that we’ll have to solve later. Come along, Pinkie! Time to confront my so-called brother.”

---

With a worried look in Pinkie Pie’s eyes, she stared forth at a rather unforeseen and even daunting challenge.

The menacing staircase of Celestia’s throne room.

Below, on the other side, about twenty Applejack kicks away, was Twilight Sparkle, whom softly glared.

“Pinkie, get down here.”

“Nu-uh! No way!”

“Stop worrying! I’ll catch you.”

“Just like you caught me with the last five falls?!”

“Well, it’s a little harder to focus like this than I thought.”

“Just unspell me then!”

“Dispel, and I don’t even know how to dispel this sort of thing! Plus, even if I knew, I don’t yet have the energy or focus to do so.”

“So you probably don’t have the energy stuff to magic grab me! Why did you even cast this on me in the first place?!”

“I thought it would be better to have a witness with me! Just come down, Pinkie! You’ll be fine! I think.”

“You promise?”

“Yes. And once this is done, we’ll get the Princess and she can-”

The doors suddenly flung open, letting a familiar tall goddess slide into Pinkie’s view. Her coat was a blinding white and her bright mane shone with enough color that it looked almost twice its normal size and seemed almost afro shaped. “I can what?”

Pinkie could see Twilight’s backfur stand on end as the Princess’s voice crawled up her spine. “Well,” Twilight suddenly spun around, likely holding an awkward smile for her mentor, “I, uh, you see...” she fumbled her words while Pinkie examined them from afar.

Beyond Celestia’s eye-straining glow of colors, Pinkie could see many streams of magic that had phazed through the walls, with that same orange fire-esque glow, converge onto the Princess’ very position. Those must be the magic tether thingies Twilight was talking about. Celestia must be linked to hundreds of magics around the castle. Then, she spotted the thickest string of fire-like magic. The one that shot straight up from the tip of the goddess’s horn and phased through the ceiling of the room.

The very rope to the sun shone before Pinkie’s aching eyes. As amazed as she was by the glorious thread of magic, it wasn’t the time to gawk.

In Celestia’s path, the four others followed behind Thornstar. Each mare was an overflow of color, though not carrying the brightness the princess hauled about. The only figure that didn’t stress her eyes so much was Thornstar’s. His black fur coat gave off the most subtle of glows. But upon staring at him, Pinkie realised... there was not a single tether connected to him, nor any hint of magic whatsoever.

Twilight fumbled with her words for a short while longer before she turned her back to the others to face Pinkie. “I was-uh... just helping Pinkie SEE some of the THINGS,” her eyes constantly darted off to the side, obviously trying to guide Pinkie to look Thornstar’s way, “that I’ve been examining.”

Pinkie looked back to Thornstar as directed and even squinted. Still nothing. She then took a quick glance at Twilight’s rather panicked expression. She obviously didn’t see anything either. What was intended to be another short examination of Thornstar soon had almost all of Pinkie’s attention. It took a few moments of staring at the stallion, but finally she noticed his black coat seemed to be subtly... oozing? No. Not exactly. There was more of a shape to what was shifting around him. It looked like...

“Are you two okay?” Celestia’s concerned tone snapped Pinkie back to examine over each horribly detailed face that looked upon her.

“Oh! Yes, I’m fine, I just-uh...” Pinkie’s eyes zipped between those faces. She felt like something was keeping her tongue caught between her teeth, but what? She spotted a great oddity about Thornstar, but this time… There’s something I can do here! But what? Ohhh, think, think, think! That she did. Her thoughts flooded with a mess of memories that bombarded her like a vicious rain storm, each one making her head hurt more and more.

All other ponies watched in awkward silence as Pinkie, with eyes closed, sat on top of the staircase and slammed her left forehoof repeatedly against the side of her head.

Pinkie found herself staring at a pile of memories with one big question that popped in her mind. How would Twilight figure this out?! Or... She looked over some of her most recent memories of her friend in mind.

A smile crept across Pinkie’s lips.

Acting as if her previous manners were completely normal, Pinkie turned a rather peculiar calm smile and tone to Celestia. “Twilight was just showing me to the Canterlot Archive. She wanted to do some quick studying up before her scheduled session with you and I figured she could use some help. Please, forgive Twilight and I for our absence, Princess.”

Twilight remained completely silent as she looked to Pinkie with a bewildered expression.

“Huh,” Celestia took a moment to stare off to the side. “Strange, I completely forgot about our session.” She then looked from Pinkie to the back of Twilight’s head. “I see no harm in using the archive at your leisure, and you know that. There’s no need to act so strange about it. Perhaps you can tell me a little of what you’ve learned so far while we’re here.” She glanced over her shoulder to the group behind her and back. “I think it’ll be wonderful for all my faithful subjects to be listening as well.”

There was not a single argument from the rather quiet group.

“Well,” Pinkie interjected, “there’s a bit of a small problem. Twilight messed up on casting some mystery spell we found during our research.”

Almost instantly Twilight looked to her mentor with a face full of blush and a timid smile.

“The spell messed up our senses. We were hoping you might be able to dispel it for us.”

“That... sounds simple enough,” said Celestia with curiosity still ringing in her tone. But, without further question, the princess lifted her head and the tip of her horn pulsed with even more magical essence. Pinkie preparatively closed her eyes to shield them from the inevitably bright light that would fill the room. For only a moment did her body go numb. Once that feeling passed, her eyes reopened. Everything was back to normal.

In a rather victorious manner did Pinkie gleefully bounce down those steps to Twilight’s side.

The two kept their eyes locked upon Celestia as she spoke. “Well, now that that’s fixed, Twilight, please infor-”

“Actually!” Pinkie dared to interrupt the goddess for a second time, “Twilight and I have something to show everypony!”

Twilight’s brow wrinkled. “We d-?” She was instantly hushed by Pinkie putting a hoof to her lips, while keeping her gaze fixed on Princess Celestia.

“Just give us a real quick moment, Princess.” Pinkie beamed the brightest smile she could. “We’ll be back in a jiffy!” Using that same hoof, Pinkie forced Twilight to traverse out of the room with her, leaving everyone else in confusion.

---

“Pinkie!” shouted Twilight Sparkle as she was forcefully shoved back into the Military Wing of the Canterlot Archives.

“I told you Twilight, there’s no time to explain!” said Pinkie Pie as she marched on ahead with her eyes scanning the mess the two left behind.

“There was plenty of time to explain! You could have explained during the five minutes it took to get here!” Her friend just kept scanning about the room. “Pinkie? Hello?” No response. “Equestria to Pinkie, are you still on this planet?”

“Here it is!” Pinkie fished out the very same staircase-nightmare-inducing brown colored spell book.

Twilight was not amused. “You know that didn’t help us, right? I mean, did you see any magical auras and tethers coming from him? I sure didn’t.”

“Nooope~!” Pinkie hummed delightfully as she opened the book and scanned through several pages. “I saw something else.”

“Something else? Pinkie, there was nothing else! We were wrong on this one! He must be using some sort of chemical. We'll have to go to my laboratory and...” her voice drowned out as she watched Pinkie grip a page with her teeth.

RIP.

Horrified beyond words, Twilight watched in a short moment of silence with a hanging jaw as half a page from the spellbook hung from Pinkie’s teeth. The very sound alone was obviously worse to Twilight than a thousand hooves scraping chalk boards. Her lips subtly quivered. “That book... was over a thousand years old.” Twilight suddenly lost strength in her hind legs. “Y-you just tore it.” Her voice became weak and her throat went dry. “Thousand year old book…” She was unable to pry her eyes away from the crime against historical literature. “And you just... just...” Her torso swayed very lightly as the inner tips of her brows rose. “I think I’m gonna be sick,” she whimpered. “Pinkie, please explain yourself before I find a way to get a restraining order put between you and every possible piece of writing I can.”

Pinkie’s brilliant paper-holding smile was soon planted before Twilight’s face. “In stories, what kind of character can do everything better than everypony else?”

“A Mary Sue?”

“Bingo!”

“So,” Twilight spoke as her gaze shifted between Pinkie, the torn page, and the abused book, “you tore the same spell I just used out of a thousand-year-old-plus spell book in hopes of getting this obviously overpowered Thornstar to cast the same spell without letting him know what it does, correct?”

“Can’t be too careful about that! Also, I’ll need you to convince him to do it.”

“And what makes you think I’ll try to convince him to attempt to complete a plan that didn’t work in the first place?”

“Because if you don’t, then the desecration of a thousand year old book just happened for no reason.”

Twilight lowered her left brow while the right reached its peak. “When did you become such a devious planner?”

Pinkie giggled and bounced rather delightfully. “I thought of all this once I realised…” She paused. Her eyes shifted side to side before focusing back on Twilight. She leaned in and lowly whispered her great secret. “I was the spoon the whole time.”

Twilight slightly shifted her own head back and looked right into Pinkie’s eyes. She went completely mute and blinked only once. With her magical grip, Twilight pulled the paper from the mare’s teeth. She then pushed herself up, took a couple slow steps back, turned around, and left.

---

“Oh, dearest brother,” said Twilight as she batted her eyes at Thornstar, “If anypony can show me how to do a nameless spell that has no description, it’s you.”

“I-I don’t know,” he said, an ounce of suspicion in his tone. “It couldn’t hurt anypony, could it?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, not at all! I mean, the spell could have when I-” she grimaced slightly and lowered her voice, “-cast it wrong. But you,” her voice picked back up as she circled around the stallion, “You can cast anything. I mean, you are my brother, right? The brother of mine that can do magic better than...” she winced, “I can, correct?”

“Well…” His eyes drifted to everyone else around the throne room.

Celestia stepped forth. “I will stand by if anything goes wrong. I trust that Twilight has her mind in the right place.” She looked to her student, who stood before the stallion. “Though, that spell does seem quite familiar.” her view was suddenly taken up by a happily bouncing Pinkie Pie.

“It’s decided!” she said before snatching the piece of paper from Twilight’s magical grip. Pinkie then shoved it right into the stallion’s nose. “Just cast it already!”

He plucked the paper from her grip with a bubble of magic before rubbing his nose. “O-okay then.” He stammered as his eyes focused on the text before him.

“Oh!” Pinkie suddenly yanked his head to his right, forcing him to look from the paper and only to her. “Cast it on Twilight AND me!”

He nodded and went back to squinting at the paper.

“Oh!” His head was yanked again. “Cast it on Twilight, me, and every other pony!” She pointed a hoof to the other oddly silent four that still stood several paces behind him.

“Okay then!” He managed to form a rather annoyed glare before going back to focusin-

“Oh!” Those two pink hooves wiped his head off to the side once again, forcing him to stare into those two wide sky-blue eyes. “And make sure to cast it as beeeest as you can. I mean, really put a lot of magical mumbo jumbo into it.”

“Okay!” He glared for a short moment. “Can I focus now?” Pinkie responded with only a nod, letting him finally face the paper in peace.

Pinkie then grabbed Twilight and forced her to stand with the other four ponies.

Twilight didn’t fight it. She just stood side by side with Pinkie and spoke very quietly so that only she may hear her. “Next Monday, Pinkie, you will be seeing a therapist. And, if that doesn’t work, a mental institution.”

“Don’t worry, Twilight. Everything is going to be just fine,” said Pinkie with a confident smile. Her eyes were locked to the stallion as his horn started to glow. Celestia stood off to the side, obviously ready to cast her own counter spells if anything were to go wrong. “I just know it.”

Thornstar’s horn glowed bright as a light bulb. Just as he lifted his head, that bright light intensified and forced each pony to shield their eyes.

Time was lost to Pinkie as she sat there, eyes closed and right foreleg providing further protection.

After a while, she could hear one of the others shifting about.

“What in Tartarus?”