> Lavender Unicorn Syndrome
>  by Sharaloth
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Part 1: The lavenderen-ing... ing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Lavender Unicorn Syndrome


Rarity awoke with uncharacteristic slowness. Not that she often awoke bright and chipper in the morning; beauty sleep wouldn’t be quite so, well, beautiful if it ended so abruptly. Still, this morning in particular she was finding it hard to open her eyes. 

It had been a mistake to remove her sleeping mask. The sunlight streaming in through the windows was made soft by the delicate curtains that surrounded her bed, but it seemed almost like a spotlight aimed directly in her face every time she cracked an eyelid. She considered just rolling over and going back to sleep, but the duties of the day were already worming their way into her thoughts. She knew that the world would not wait for her to be ready, well, not unless she whined loud enough, and she wasn’t really in the mood for that. 

She spurred her sluggish brain into motion, forcing her thoughts to organize and her will to steel against the necessity of motion. With a groan that she would never have allowed to escape her lips were she with company, she rolled herself out of her bed. Her hooves found her slippers with practiced ease and her magic pulled a robe from her closet to drape over her sleep-mussed coat. Then, with a steadying breath, she opened her eyes.

The curse she let out at the sudden, stabbing pain in her eyes made her glad Sweetie Belle wasn’t staying over. There were certain lectures she would not accept having her mother deliver to her, and a discussion of appropriate language was one of them. Another was proper attire for a young lady, which was why a certain basement storeroom in the boutique was always kept locked. 

Muttering an apology to Celestia under her breath, Rarity shuffled to her bedroom door. On the other side was an irate cat who had taken her claws to the closed door sometime in the night, leaving little wooden shavings all over the hallway. 

“Good morning, Opal,” Rarity said, leaning down to nuzzle her pet. “How’s my precious little dumpling today?” Opalescence let out a growling meow and batted Rarity’s nose. “Yes, I believe that’s going around this morning,” Rarity sighed. “I shall feed you momentarily, dear. I just need a moment to wake up properly.”

Opal responded in the way of cats: by demanding food again in a louder, more piercing tone. Rarity gave the demand the attention it deserved and walked to her bathroom without pause. She shut the door behind her, hearing the dear little bundle of joy start to scratch at it the moment it was closed. 

“Wonderful,” Rarity grumbled, turning on the shower and letting the water warm. The light was still stinging her eyes, so her magic readied her toiletries mostly by memory, a skill that fortunately came easily to her. She stepped into the shower, the hot water cascading over her mane and coat feeling absolutely divine. She luxuriated in the steamy warmth until a furious yowl from the hallway reminded her that she had obligations. With lethargy slowly releasing her from its grip she completed her morning shower, drying quickly and wiping down the mirror to get to the important business of styling her mane into the beautiful curls she had worked so hard to perfect.

What she saw in the mirror made her drop every brush, curler, spray, gel and iron she’d picked up, the sound of them falling like a sudden rainstorm in the bathroom. She barely noticed. She stared at the mirror, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open in shock. She closed her eyes and scrubbed at them with her hooves, hoping that what she had seen was just a remnant of sleep in her eyes. She peered into the looking glass again, and finding it exactly as it had been she snapped out another curse that would have scandalized her if uttered in public. 

The tip of her horn, that beautiful ivory spiral that, while not her best feature, surely ranked in her top ten, had turned purple. Not the purple of her mane, no, and not precisely purple, either, but a shade of violet that on some level she couldn’t help but call: “Lavender!”


***


Rarity’s wide selection of hats was surprisingly short on horn-hiding chapeaus. Of course, that wasn’t a problem for her. She just threw together a fetching ensemble that included a horn-hiding shawl instead. It wasn’t her best work as she was rather rushed, but she took some pride in being able to accomplish the feat at all. Unicorn horns were not exactly easy to conceal. 

But conceal it she must, and so conceal it she did. She simply could not be seen in public with that lavender blotch marring the pristine whiteness of her beautiful horn. Not that lavender was a bad color, of course. Her dear friend and newest Princess of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle, was essentially lavender all over, and she was quite pretty, if lacking in contrast. No, what really annoyed her was that she had built up an image, and the splotch of lavender on her horn was simply not going to mesh with it. 

Also, it could be some sort of disease. Which was somewhere on the scale of horrible beneath bad color coordination but above sloppy shawl work. 

She trotted through the streets, making for the hospital and the hopefully discreet ministrations of the doctors there. She prayed it wouldn’t take too long; her shop couldn’t afford to stay closed for extended periods. 

“Hey, Rarity,” Rainbow Dash said as she dropped out of the sky to Rarity’s side. “How’s it going?”

Rarity cringed a bit at her friend’s sudden arrival, but straightened her neck and smiled brightly. “Oh, just fine, Rainbow dear. It’s quite a lovely and sunny day, isn’t it?”

Dash frowned, scratching a hoof at the back of her head and refusing to meet Rarity’s eyes. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“Sorry? Whatever for?”

“Well, it’s supposed to be overcast today. Showers in the afternoon for an hour or two. Not going to happen now,” Dash said, looking up at the clear sky in annoyance while absently shaking out her wings. Feathers dropped from the limbs with every step, leaving a trail of blue behind as they walked. 

“Oh, yes. I remember that was on the schedule,” Rarity said. She did remember something about it, vaguely. She forced herself to ignore her own troubles and focus on her friend. “What’s gone wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Dash sighed. “It’s like every pegasus in Ponyville’s got the flu or something.”

“You seem okay,” Rarity said.

“Heh, right,” Dash snapped her wings again, sending a flurry of feathers puffing out into the air. “Does this look ‘okay’, Rarity?”

“You’re... moulting?” she ventured.

Dash shook her head. “Not even close. Honestly? I’m lucky I can still fly. A lot of us are completely out of commision until we shake this flu, so no weather patrol. I don’t want to end up grounded, so I was just heading over to the hospital to get checked out. I saw you heading the same way and thought I’d say hi.”

“Yes, well, I’m going there too,” Rarity admitted. “I awoke feeling a tad unwell today, though I daresay I’m not in anywhere near as poor off as you seem to be.”

“Howdy, y’all!” Applejack called out to them from a short way down the street. Her greeting lacked much of the usual warmth and good humor that Applejack always held for her friends. Instead she sounded tired and worried. The farmer was hauling a small wagon with her little sister and, surprisingly, big brother lying down inside. Big Mac looked awful. His coat was darkened with sweat, his eyes were screwed tightly shut, and a bag of half-melted ice rested on his head. Apple Bloom looked over her brother, frowning in worry and wincing at every bump in the road.

“Applejack!” Rarity called back. “Whatever is the matter with Big McIntosh!”

“Yeah, he looks wrecked!” Rainbow Dash added.

“Don’t quite know,” Applejack said, shaking her head as they all continued to the hospital together. “We all woke up with a headache this morning, but Mac’s been hit the worst. Had to drag him outta bed and onto the cart, otherwise he’d still be lyin’ in bed moanin’ about the sunlight.”

“Really?” Rarity mused. “I woke rather sensitive to light myself.”

“Yeah, me too,” Dash said. “Man, I thought this was just a pegasus thing, it looks like everypony’s got this flu!”

“Is it a flu, then?” Applejack asked.

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Rarity told her, narrowing her eyes as a thought occured. “Though so many ponies coming down with it at once? A little too much for coincidence.”

“Yeah, I wonder if it’s only Ponyville,” Dash said. “Anypony seen Fluttershy? She lives far enough outside of town.”

“She has company,” Rarity said. “And no farther than Applejack does.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t come in to town as often as AJ,” Dash pointed out.

“Fair point,” Rarity allowed. “But if she hasn’t caught this, I would prefer if we didn’t needlessly expose her to it.”

“Right,” Applejack said. “If we don’t see her at the hospital, might be because she don’t got it, and if she don’t got it, we shouldn’t give it to her.”

“Thank you, Applejack,” Rarity said, giving Dash a pointed look.

“Hey, I get it, two votes to one. We leave Flutters out of this unless she comes to us,” Dash said, her wings flaring defensively, which only made another storm of feathers that fell to the ground in a blue carpet. “Aw, man. This is so gonna mess with my training.”

“Oh, believe me, we shall all be cursing this horrid illness long before it’s run its course,” Rarity said. “I just have a feeling about it.”


***


The hospital was bedlam. A sizable portion of Ponyville’s population had woken with a plethora of health complaints. Their ills ranged from debilitating headaches and extreme light sensitivity to the pegasus-only problem of rapidly shedding feathers. Many of them had turned to the hospital for help. Thus the hospital had become crowded. So much so that the waiting room had overflowed and there was now a lineup that extended out of the building and into the street. Pinkie Pie bounced over to them as they arrived, her pet alligator curled up in a basket tied to her head.

“Oh! Are you here because of the mysterious mass misery mire?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Mire?” Applejack asked.

“There’s not a lot of words that mean ‘bad situation’ but start with ‘m’,” Pinkie said, grinning. “But I still found one!” She leaned in close, looking at Big Mac. “Oh, poor little Big McIntosh! Don’t worry, I bet I know how to cheer you up!”

“How about no,” Applejack said, pushing the rambunctious pony away from her suffering brother. “He just needs some rest and a lookin’ at by a doctor.”

“Of course he does!” Pinkie squeaked. “Doctor Pinkie!”

“No,” Applejack said. “No Doctor Pinkie. I don’t know where doctor Pinkie got her medical degree, but I’m guessin’ her treatment for splittin’ headache might be puttin’ a trumpet to his ear and blowin’ as loud as she could.”

Pinkie stood blinking at her friend. “And that would be bad?”

“Pinkie!”

“I’m just kidding!” Pinkie Pie laughed. “I wouldn’t do that to Big Mac! Also, I’ve got a super-duper wow-that-hurts headache, so I’m not sure if loud music is really good for me right now.”

Dash’s eyes widened. “Wait, you’ve got it too?”

“Well, duh.” Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Why else would I be here?”

“I, um... don’t know?”

“Be that as it may,” Rarity cut in. “It seems we, and the rest of Ponyville, are all suffering the same malady.”

“Oooh! Malady! That’s a good one!” Pinkie said, eyes lighting up. “But not everypony has it. The Cakes are fine.”

“Hey, that’s good,” Applejack said with a smile. “I’d hate to see those foals hurtin’.”

“Quite,” Rarity agreed. “I suppose this could just be the result of a normal virus,” Rarity shook her head. “But I think it prudent if we were prepared for the possibility that this may be more.”

“You really think this might be somethin’ else?” Applejack asked

Rarity shrugged. “I wouldn’t rule it out.”

The hospital staff was overworked and suffering from the mysterious headaches themselves, so it wasn’t long before Nurse Redheart made her way out to the crowd. She spotted the four friends and pushed through the crowd to them. “I need your cart,” she said without greeting or preamble.

“Hold on, now,” Applejack said. “I’ll be happy to help, but my brother’s got it, whatever it is, bad. He’s not fit to be shifted, so if I’m gonna give you the cart I gotta know why.”

“You see all these ponies?” Redheart gestured to the crowd. “Well, they can’t see me. So shift yourself and help me up.”

“Wow, you’re a grumpy gus!” Pinkie remarked, bouncing uncomfortably close to the nurse. “Come on there! Turn that frown upside-down!” She demonstrated by grabbing her own face between her hooves and pulling down to create an exaggerated, and horrifying, frown. Then she turned upside down, which, considering the ways she had to twist to accomplish it, only made the expression worse.

“One day, Pinkie,” Redheart hissed, leaning towards the inverted party pony. “One day you are going to throw your back out or do some other horrible damage to yourself, and I will laugh, and laugh, and laugh.” Pinkie’s eyes lit up with delight. “But not today, so don’t try it.” Pinkie’s face fell, which, considering she was still pulling on it with her hooves, only intensified the anti-gravity upside-down drooping frown she was making.

Rarity shuddered, carefully not looking at her excitable friend and addressing the nurse. “I assume you have news for all of us?”

“I do,” Redheart said as Pinkie resumed her normal bouncing orientation. “But I’d like to give it to everypony at once, and for that, I need to be seen and heard.” 

“How ya doin’, Big Mac?” Applejack asked her brother. “You okay to get down?”

“Eeyup,” Big McIntosh replied, slowly standing on the wagon. His legs shook as he rose, and Apple Bloom let out a whimper as she saw her big brother in such a state. He took one step off of the wagon and collapsed, falling to the ground in a painful sprawl. His sisters were immediately at his side, helping him into a laying position. He wasn’t hurt, but the fall had settled a shroud of dread on the ponies present. Even Pinkie stopped bouncing and adopted as close to a serious expression as Rarity had ever seen on her. Anything that could take out a pony as strong as Big Mac would eat the rest of them alive. 

Redheart heaved a sigh and clambered up on the cart. “Can I please have everypony’s attention!” She shouted. The crowd quieted and looked to the nurse. “I understand that you’re all hurting! I understand that you’re worried! I’m hurting and worried too! The doctors are working on this, we’ve called in everypony who could possibly help, but they can’t do that and personally look after everypony here! The hospital administration has decided that we are only going to see the worst off, but that doesn’t mean we’re ignoring the rest of you! The best thing for you to do right now is go home, take the day off from whatever work you had, and get plenty of fluids and rest! Once we’ve figured this out, you will all know as soon as possible!”

There was a murmur of assent through the crowd. Redheart answered a few questions, but didn’t really have any information to give. The ponies gathered at the hospital dispersed, soon there were only the few worst off and their escorts left. 

After Big Mac was settled in a hospital bed, his sisters by his side, Dash and Pinkie departed to spread the news to those who hadn’t been here and might think to head to the still-overworked hospital. Rarity, who had not forgotten her own problem, managed to pull aside Redheart for a private talk.

“Is it just me, or are the stallions getting hit worse?” Rarity asked.

“It’s not you, they are,” Redheart replied. “The big ones especially. You should see Snowflake, he’s just awful.”

“I’ll... take your word for it,” Rarity said. “Now, I know about the headaches and the light problems, but are there any other, ah, symptoms that I should be watching for?”

“Well, if you’re a pegasus you start shedding feathers like mad,” Redheart shook her head. “Honestly, Miss Rarity, you shouldn’t be worried. Unicorns seem to be the best off out of all of us.”

“Are they?”

“Oh yes, very few headaches reported. Only the light sensitivity, and that’s more annoying than it is anything else.”

“So no unicorn’s come in with something, ah, different?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, this,” Rarity undid her shawl and pulled it from her head.

Redheart blinked at her. “Your horn.”

“Yes. It was like this when I awoke,” Rarity said, fidgeting with worry. “I know it isn’t much, but I’m certain it isn’t a splotch of ink or other nastiness, so I assume it has something to do with this dreadful illness.”

“Not much? Miss Rarity, your horn has gone completely purple.”

“Lavender,” Rarity corrected, then paused. “Excuse me, did you say completely?”

“I did.”

“No!” Rarity, grabbed a makeup compact from one of her stylishly concealed pockets and pulled out the small mirror to stare  in horror at the fully lavender horn adorning her head. “No! It was just a small bit of lavender at the tip! How could this happen!”

“How long ago was that?” Redheart asked, focusing as Rarity began to hyperventilate.

“Two hours ago!” Rarity shouted. “No! This is absurd! I can’t have a lavender horn!”

“This might be a new symptom. I’ll have to ask you to sit down while I get a doctor,” Redheart said.

Rarity did as she was told, completely shocked at the speed with which the small discoloration had spread. She’d never heard of something like this happening before. Neither, it turned out, had any of the doctors. They spent a good portion of the day poking and prodding at her, but in the end sent her home with nothing new learned. 

The town wasn’t quite panicking yet, but she could feel the tension in the air as she returned to the Carousel Boutique. Ponies were worried, and in Ponyville that meant sooner or later they would turn to Rarity and her friends to solve the issue. It was one of the few pitfalls to being best friends with one of the Princesses. 

When she got home, a surprise was waiting for her. A Sweetie Belle-shaped surprise.

“Surprise!” the surprise said. “Mom said I get to stay with you while Dad is sick! She said she didn’t want to take care of two kids at once again.” 

“Did she?” Rarity said, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. “How wonderful. I’m sorry that I’ve been out most of the day, then. Did I keep you waiting?”

“Only a few hours,” Sweetie Belle replied, ever happy just to spend time with her sister. 

“How are you feeling, Sweetie?”

“Okay,” she answered, frowning. “My eyes really hurt when it’s bright, though.”

“You haven’t noticed any, ah, odd colors on your horn?”

“No? Why would I?”

Rarity let out a sigh of relief. “No reason, dear. Now, let’s go inside and get something to eat.”


> Part 2: Twilight the Everymare
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Rarity awoke feeling well rested and wonderfully normal. She stretched out, pulling off her sleeping mask and looking out at the bright dawning day with eyes that did not hurt. She hopped off the bed and into her slippers, her magic grabbing a robe from her closet. She felt so good she barely noticed Opal’s usual morning demands. 

She was halfway to the door before she noticed something was wrong. She was halfway to the bathroom before she realized that this something that was wrong was lavender. It wasn’t until she looked in the mirror before starting up her shower that she realized that the lavender wrongness was herself. 

The lavender unicorn looked in the mirror, and Twilight Sparkle stared back. “Oh come on!” she shouted at her reflection. “How is this something that happens!?”

A frantic pounding on the front door of the boutique tore her attention away from the mirror. “We’re closed!” she screamed down the hall, hoping that whoever the early bird was would stop bashing down her door long enough to hear her. 

“Rarity!” Sweetie Belle’s voice floated in from the guest room. “I don’t feel so good.”

The lavender unicorn snarled in frustration. She would much rather be having a panic attack and dramatically fainting right now, but her sister took priority. “A moment, Sweetie!” she called. She looked into the mirror again. “Okay, Rarity, this is just another day in your wonderful, bizarre life. You are a lady, and a lady does not allow such little stumbling blocks to prevent her from being as elegant and wonderful as befits a mare of your refinement. Now get in there and comfort your sister.”

“But my mane!” the lavender unicorn in the mirror replied. “It’s... it’s...”

“I know what it is!” the lavender unicorn snapped, stomping a hoof. “Now you listen and you listen good! It doesn’t matter what’s happened to your mane, or your coat, or your eyes, or anything! You are going to be the big sister you promised you’d be! Or else I will eat every tub of ice cream I own, then go out and buy more!”

The lavender unicorn gasped. “You wouldn’t! My flanks!” 

“Will. Get. Fat,” the lavender unicorn growled, narrowing her eyes. “Now are you going to behave, or do I have to get my spoon?”

“No, I’ll do it! I’ll do it!” the lavender unicorn capitulated with a tearful collapse against the sink. “But, can’t I at least give it a brush first?”

“No!”

The lavender unicorn sighed and pulled herself from the mirror, walking the short distance to the guest room and gently nudging the door open. The pounding downstairs had only gotten more insistent, but she ignored it in favor of tending to her family.

Sweetie Belle lay on the bed, a pillow over her head and the covers wrapped tightly around her. “Rarity? Is that you?”

“It’s me, Sweetie,” the lavender unicorn replied. “Are you alright?”

“It hurts, Rarity,” Sweetie said. “Every time I open my eyes, it’s just too bright.”

The lavender unicorn looked to the tightly drawn curtains that threw the room into deep shadows. “Yes, well, I suppose that will happen. Here, dear, let me fetch something for you.” She trotted to her room and grabbed one of her better sleeping masks. She returned quickly, still ignoring the customer-who-wouldn’t-quit, and sat by her sister. “I’ve got something to block out the light, but I’m going to have to move the pillow to put it on you, is that alright?” Sweetie Belle shuddered, but nodded. “Then on three. One. Two. Three!” 

The lavender unicorn pulled the pillow away and floated the sleeping mask onto the face of her sister. She had to tie it tightly, but it stayed and Sweetie let out a sigh of relief. The lavender unicorn stared at her sister with sudden fear. Sweetie’s horn had turned lavender, and the color had spread like tendrils down her face and along her coat. 

“I don’t like being sick, Rarity,” Sweetie Belle said, pathetic and miserable and heartbreaking. 

“Neither do I, dear,” the lavender unicorn said, brushing at her sister’s mane. “But it’ll be okay. This will all be okay.”

“You promise?”

“Pinkie promise,” the lavender unicorn assured her. She nuzzled her sister, gently slipping the pillow under her head. She turned towards the hallway. The pounding at the door had only gotten more insistent, and now the lavender unicorn could make out somepony calling her name. “Will you be alright? I’ve got a very rude customer to make go away.”

“I’ll be okay,” Sweetie Belle said, snuggling deeper into her blankets. “It doesn’t hurt so much anymore. And you Pinkie Promised, so I know it’ll be okay.”

“Yes it will,” The lavender unicorn said, then rose and left the room, softly closing the door behind her. 

The moment she was out of earshot of her sister she broke into a gallop. She stormed down the stairs and to her front door, where the knocking continued unabated. “Knock it off!” the lavender unicorn roared, unlatching the door with her magic and slamming it open. “Just who do you think you aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!” She stopped mid-tirade, staring at the pony in front of her.

It was a lavender pony with an athletic build and a mane that ran through the entire spectrum. She also had a very tiny lavender horn poking out of her head and a look of panic in her eyes. “Twilight!” she cried, grabbing the lavender unicorn in a tight hug. “When did you get back? No, wait, who cares, I am just so glad to see you! We have a problem! A big problem! I huge, mondo-disaster problem!”

“Rainbow Dash?” the lavender unicorn asked, aghast.

“Wait, that’s not Twilight’s voice,” Dash said, falling back. “Rarity?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” the lavender unicorn admitted. “Rainbow Dash, what? I mean, how?”

“Yeah, that’s what I want to know,” Dash said, pacing back and forth in clear agitation. “My wings are gone, Rarity. Gone!”

“I can see that. And you’re growing a horn.”

“What?” Dash put a hoof to her forehead, feeling the little nub of magical bone. “Oh, man! What the hay is going on? Why do you look like Twilight?”

“Questions dear to both our hearts, I would think,” the lavender unicorn sighed. “I take it you’re not the only pegasus to lose their wings?”

“All of us,” Dash confirmed. “We’re all turning purple too.”

“Lavender,” the lavender unicorn corrected. 

“Whatever! I just want it to stop!”

“Have you been to the hospital?”

“Not yet,” Dash said. “I was barely able to get down from my house this morning. I’ve been freaking out, all I could think of was to get to Twilight and figure this out, but she’s in Canterlot, so I came here.”

“And why did you come here?”

“Well, duh, it’s a magic thing, right?” Dash said.

“I’m not a mage, darling, I’m a seamstress,” the lavender unicorn pointed out.

“You’re a unicorn,” Dash countered. “And with Twilight gone you’re the best unicorn in town.”

“I am...” the lavender unicorn paused, thinking about it. There were plenty of other unicorns in Ponyville, true, but most of them hadn’t spent the last few years hanging out with the most powerful mage in millennia. “Really? The best?”

“The absolute, no-doubt, best,” Dash confirmed.

“What about Lyra? She went to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. She has to know quite a bit about magic.”

“Lyra? Seriously? Who has time to find Lyra?” Dash quipped.

“I suppose you’re right,” the lavender unicorn sighed. Then she straightened, holding her head high and proud. “Very well, then! I will be the best unicorn!”

“Great!” Dash said, then grabbed the lavender unicorn again and began shouting in her face. “Now, what the hay is happening to me?”

“Rainbow Dash! Please!” the lavender unicorn pulled away from her friend. “Best unicorn I may be, but I still know next to nothing about what is going on here.”

“Oh. Um. Hospital?”

“Quite.”


***


The hospital was, once again, bedlam. Lavender bedlam. 

“Hey there!” Applejack called out as she saw them approach. Her own coat had splotches of lavender coloring, and a full-sized unicorn horn was jutting out of her forehead. “Boy am I glad to see you two. Okay, three diamond cutie mark. Rarity?”

“Indeed.”

“She’s gone full Twilight,” Dash said. “I’ve got a freaking horn coming out of my head.”

“Been there, done that,” Applejack said, rolling her eyes up to look at the protrusion. “Least my headache’s gone. Light’s still buggin’ me, though.”

“I seem to be beyond that stage,” the lavender unicorn said. “So. I guess we’re all turning into Twilight then.”

“Looks like,” Dash sighed. 

“Eyup,” Applejack agreed.

“So. Who do you think’s responsible for this one?”

“What makes ya think somepony’s responsible?” Applejack asked.

“What else could it be?”

“Poison Joke pollen blowin’ into town,” Applejack replied.

“The Elements of Harmony screwing with us again,” Dash added.

“Okay, so there are options that don’t allow me to whine at somepony with justification,” the lavender unicorn said, tossing her straight mane in a way that would have looked wonderful had it been artfully curled. “I, for one, choose to believe in an ass that I can kick. No offense, of course.”

“None taken,” replied a behorned, half-lavender mule who was passing by. 

“So what do we do?” Dash asked, pawing at her nascent horn.

“Well, first we see to family. Applejack, dear, how are Big Mac and Apple Bloom?”

“Big Mac’s, uh, better,” Applejack said. “Closer to the Twilight end of things than the Big Mac one, though. Apple Bloom’s eyes can’t handle light none right now, but otherwise she’s doin’ okay.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” the lavender unicorn said, frowning. “How about Granny Smith?”

“She’s out of town, visitin’ Uncle Apple Strudel.”

“Thank Celestia for that. My own dear sister is in a similar state to Apple Bloom, and quickly approaching a similar state to myself. I would worry about dear Granny Smith were she going through the same hardship.”

“Man, even the foals!” Dash shook her head. “This is messed up.”

“Not all of them, though,” the lavender unicorn pointed out. “Pinkie said the Cakes were fine. I suppose that might be something to look into, if the youngest of foals and their parents are being spared it might be a clue to what’s happening, or how to stop it.”

“Good idea. I figure the first thing we gotta do is keep the town from panickin’,” Applejack said. “Last thing we need right now is a bunch of scared and hurtin’ ponies runnin’ all over the place.”

“And we must also discover the cause of this... this tragedy!” the lavender unicorn declared with a stomp of her hoof. “The doctors will do their best, I’m sure, but if this is one of our issues then they will be quite out of their depth.”

“Wish Twilight were here,” Applejack said. “For real, I mean. Not just a town full of lookalikes. We need somepony who knows magic.”

“Rarity,” Dash said.

“I said I would be the best unicorn, and so I shall,” the lavender unicorn said, primly sticking her nose in the air. “But I still hold that I am no mage, and we need to actually consult with an actual magical authority. Like Lyra.” Applejack and Dash gave her identical nonplussed looks. “Oh, please, she went to that fancy Canterlot magic school the same as Twilight, and she’s been best friends with an Alicorn Princess for longer than we have.” They continued to stare at her with the flat expressions of ponies who were not having any of that crap. “Fine. How about Zecora? Is there a problem with her?”

“No, Zecora’s fine,” Applejack said. 

“That’s a really good idea, Rarity,” Dash crowed. “I bet she’ll know exactly what’s going on!”

“Yeah! And she can mix up a potion and we’ll all have to drink it, but then it turns out that it wasn’t really Zecora but her eeeeevil twin sister the entire time!” Pinkie Pie said, appearing among them as if she had been there the entire time. She was wearing a pair of baggy, multicolored knit caps that hid her mane and tail. A horn stuck out of her forehead and lavender streaks had spread their way down her body, giving her a bizarre tie-dye appearance. “So the potion is poisoned and then the real Zecora shows up and they fight and we can’t tell the difference between them and we have to figure it out because we have only twenty seconds to live and if we pick the wrong Zecora we’re doomed! So we ask them a question to prove who she is and I haven’t figured out the rest but somewhere in there we have to shoot them both!”

“When did you get here?” Dash asked after a long moment of utter silence.

“Right when Rarity said ‘How about Zecora? Is there a problem with her?’ and then Applejack said–”

“We got it, thanks,” Applejack said.

“No, that’s not it, you said... oh, wait, no, I forgot. But it was definitely about Zecora!” Pinkie said, striking a thoughtful pose. 

“Well,” the lavender unicorn said, shaking off the usual effects of a Pinkie Pie interruption. “I propose we split into two groups, one to go and discover what Zecora might know of this, ah, transformation, and the other to deal with the inevitable chaos that ponyville will descend into.”

“Fair 'nough,” Applejack replied.

“Yeah, I’m down with that,” Dash added.

“What are we doing again?” Pinkie asked.

“Excellent. Since that matter’s settled, I suppose all that’s left is deciding which of us stays to keep the town from panicking onetwothreenotme!”

“Not me!” Dash said, putting her talent with speed to use.

“Not … aw, darn it.” Applejack kicked at the dirt.

“Wait, who’s panicking?” Pinkie asked. “Because I’m really good at that, and I don’t want to be left out of any panic parties!”

“Don’t worry, Pinkie Pie, you won’t be,” Applejack assured her. 

“Well, good!” Pinkie crossed her forelegs in front of her and twisted her expression into an exaggerated pout. “I hate being left out.”

“Speaking of, dear, how are you feeling?” the lavender unicorn asked.

“Oh, you know, turning purple,” Pinkie said, reverting to a casual stance.

“Lavender.”

“Whatever. My headache’s gone, so that’s good. The rest of it’s not-so-fun but I’m keeping my spirits up so that everypony will know that even if you’re hurting and tired and achey and purple, you can still smile. And if you smile then the world will be a bit better, not just for you, but for everypony around you.”

“Wow, Pinkie, that’s awesome!” Dash said.

“Downright inspirin’,” Applejack added.

“Indeed,” the lavender unicorn agreed with a nod. “If you can keep your positive attitude through this ghastly time, then I know it will all work out. By the way, that chapeau is lovely, wherever did you get it?”

“Oh, this?” Pinkie said, fluffing at her mane-concealing hat. “I made it last night.”

“You can knit?” 

“Sometimes. You like it?”

“I do,” the lavender unicorn replied. “I must say, though, I am surprised to see you wearing it, it’s not your usual, ah, style.”

“Well, I figured I’d need it.”

“Whatever for?” Pinkie removed her hat. Rarity screamed. Pinkie replaced her hat. Rarity stopped screaming. “Well, yes. I see how that might be a prudent measure.”

“How does it move like that?” a wide-eyed Applejack asked in a shocked whisper.

“It doesn’t like the new color scheme,” Pinkie said, somewhat apologetically.

“At least it isn’t a talking bucket of turnips,” Dash said, unfazed by the squirming horror she had just witnessed. Applejack and the lavender unicorn shot her a confused look. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.”

“I’ll do that,” Applejack said, looking at Pinkie and visibly forcing herself not to stare at the hat. “Come on, Pinkie, we’ve gotta get the mayor and call a town meetin’ or somethin’ before somepony gets it in their head to start somethin’ stupid.”

“Like an arts degree?”

“Sure, why not? See you two at the town hall when y’all get back. Be careful. Who knows what’s happenin’ in the Everfree right now.”

“Come on, AJ, it’s us,” Dash said with a cocky toss of her mane. “We’ll be fine.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Applejack said, prodding Pinkie into motion as the two set off for the center of Ponyville.

“How long you figure they can hold it together?” Dash asked.

“Eh, a few hours at most,” the lavender unicorn replied with a shrug. “If we hurry we should be able to get back before the real havoc breaks out.”

“You think Zecora will really be able to help us out?”

“Given our options? I think she’s our best bet. Her knowledge of obscure and magical lore is deeper than that of most scholars. At the very least she’ll be a cool head that can help us think it through. I just hope that she hasn’t...”


***



“... turned into Twilight Sparkle just like the rest of us! Drat!”

The lavender unicorn could have been looking in a mirror. Her double stood in the middle of Zecora’s hut, stirring a bubbling potion that smelled of cinnamon and sewage. The only thing that distinguished this double as actually being Zecora were a few fading stripes of black in her mane. From the mess in the hut, and the scattered remains of previous potions, the brew she was stirring was only the latest in a series of attempts. From the frown on the zebra-turned-unicorn’s face, it was likely to turn out no better. 

Zecora stopped her stirring as the two entered, staring in open-mouthed shock at the sight of them. When she finally found her voice, it came out in the same rhyming cadence that they were familiar with. “I thought a great curse had come onto me, that I must now appear as what you can see. But now from Rarity’s voice I can tell, it is not only I who is under this spell. Twilight we seem, but she we are not, and brave Rainbow Dash is nearly as caught! Tell me, my friends of good ponykind, what evil has wrought this lavender bind?”

“This means it got Fluttershy too,” Dash said, hanging her head. “Hey, Zecora, we kinda need your help.”

“That I surmised from how we three look, but I know no answers from sage or from book. My herbs and my powders have not aided me, a fact that is plain for any being to see. Seven times have I brewed, from dawn until now, but to end this affliction? I am stumped on the how.”

“Great,” Dash sighed. “So we came all this way for nothing?”

“Hardly,” the lavender unicorn rebuffed. “Zecora, the whole of Ponyville has caught this same, ah, curse as you. It’s turning everypony into copies of Twilight as we speak, and many of us are worried. My friends and I think it might be caused by some malevolent force–”

“Or the Elements screwing with us again,” Dash interrupted.

“You know what? We have no idea what is going on either,” the lavender unicorn said, giving up on being delicate. “I am, however, quite certain that my darling sister is in pain because of it and I am left with simply nothing to wear! We need your help, Zecora. Please come back to Ponyville with us. I’m sure that if we put all our heads together we can figure out a solution. Before... something worse happens!”

“Well, it’s not really that bad,” Dash said. “I mean, turning into Twilight won’t suck so much, right?”

“I’m sorry, did you forget that your wings are gone?” the lavender unicorn asked, her voice hitting near-whining registers.

“Yeah, and I got over that, like, hours ago. Now I just want this horn to finish growing so I can start doing magic!”

“...What?”

“Yeah! We’re turning into Twilight, right? So we’ll get Twilights’ super-awesome unicorn magic! Then I can teleport wherever I go, and that’ll be, like, twenty percent faster!”

“Twenty percent. Really.”

“It’s my go-to fraction.”

“I am sorry to butt in, but my patience grows thin,” Zecora said, giving them both a hard look that did she did not quite get working with Twilight’s features. “I would be happy to return to Ponyville with you, but that would not be the best thing I could do. My books and my herbs are all gathered here, to find a solution I will need them all near. I would be of no help to you ponies in town, so be on your way, but leave not with a frown. I will be seeking a cure to this curse with my brew, and if I do find one I’ll share it with you. Until then I ask that you be gone from this place, my concentration is ruined, this batch is a waste.”

“Of course, dear,” the lavender unicorn said, but paused before she turned to go. “Though, now that I’ve got a proper color study in front of me, do you mind if I try out a few things? Just a few ideas, nothing elaborate. I mean, I know Twilight is a winter, but I’m sure I could make a darker spring contrast work just as well and I’d like to see it on somepony else before I tried it on myself.”

Zecora’s eyes narrowed.


> Part 3: Insert Traditional Rarity Montage Song
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


“And then she shooed us out with a broom! Like, whoosh-whoosh-whoosh! She is totally wicked with that thing!” Dash told Applejack, acting out the scene with wide, sweeping motions of her hooves. The group of friends stood near the town hall’s stage as ponies shuffled in for the big meeting. All of them, every last one, were practically identical lavender unicorns. “I gotta get her to teach me that. Anyway, on our way back we swung by Fluttershy’s and picked her up. She was freaking out, weren’t you, Flutters?”

“I’m not–”

“Totally panicking. It’s cool, we’re all here now. How’s things been here, by the way? Any new crises or town-destroying riots?”

“Nothin’ interestin’ to report,” Applejack said, stubbornly retying her straight, dark hair in a ponytail for the fourth time since they’d gathered. “Most folks are feelin’ better, though, and that’s helped some. It seems the hurtin’ stops once you, uh, go the full Twilight.”

“I know! I can hardly believe how purple my hooves are!” Pinkie cried, bouncing in place and trying to stare at all four hooves at once. And succeeding. “It’s like I’ve been sniffing magic markers again!”

“Wait, sniffi–?”

“Lavender,” the lavender unicorn said, rolling her eyes at the ponies she had as friends. “Does nopony here know their colors? You see it too, right, Fluttershy dear?”

“I’m not–”

“Who cares what color it is, I just wanna know why I can’t do magic!” Dash said. “I’ve been totally Twilight for, like, half an hour now and I still can’t even get a spark!”

“I don’t think these horns are what you’d call functional,” Applejack said. “I still got my strength and we’ve got ponies usin’ the balloon to rescue pegasi who are stuck in their cloud homes. We’re still what we were, just lookin’ different.”

“Aw, that sucks! This just went from maybe-awesome all the way back to super-lame!”

“Look on the bright side, Dashie,” Pinkie said, bouncing to her friend's side. “You’ve got a handy horn head hanger for all your head hanging needs!”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that one,” Dash said. “So I’m gonna change the subject. The new subject is: what are we gonna tell all these ponies?”

“The truth,” Applejack supplied. “We don’t know what’s goin’ on, but we’re workin’ on it. All they gotta do is sit tight and keep calm and it’ll all go back to normal in no time.”

“That’s the truth?” the lavender unicorn snorted. “It sounds like wishful thinking.”

“Well, one way or another it’ll work out,” Applejack insisted. “Either we figure it out on our own, or word’ll eventually reach the Princesses, then they’ll figure it out for us. I figure no matter what’s goin’ on we’ll be in the clear. A week or two, no more.”

“You know, it kinda sucks that we can’t fix this stuff without Twilight, even when we are Twilight,” Dash said. 

“Skillsets, dear,” the lavender unicorn said. “We all have our strengths, and solving bizarre and impossible magical conundrums is hers.”

The hung their heads in silence for a long moment.

“Um, I’m really not–”

“Citizens of Ponyville, if I could please have your attention!” the lavender unicorn who was the mayor called out from the podium. The room quieted as every set of purple eyes turned towards her. “I understand that you are all worried, but we have our best ponies working on a solution! Here to talk about that solution, our own Miss Rarity!” The mayor stepped aside and cast a hoof towards where the lavender unicorn was staring daggers at Applejack.

“What?” Applejack said with sly innocence. “We needed someone to talk, and when it came time to decide who, I said ‘one-two-three not me’. Ain’t my fault you chimed in last.”

“What about Rainbow Dash?”

“Not me!” Dash said immediately.

“And Fluttershy’s been saying it this whole time!” Pinkie added.

“I’m not–”

“I get it,” the lavender unicorn snapped with an annoyed roll of her eyes. “Very well, if it is my destiny to take the center stage and stand in the limelight of this time of crisis, then I, Rarity, will not shirk.” With a haughty flip of her mane she turned from them and strode up onto the stage, taking her place behind the podium. “Greetings everypony, you all know who I am, of course.”

“Twilight Sparkle?” a lavender joker called out from the crowd.

“Ha-ha. Very funny. Well, just for you, I am Rarity: dressmaker, shopkeeper and, along with my friends, multiple-time saviour of the world. We have faced many strange things in the past few years, and trust me, this is far from being the worst. While we still do not know what the origin of this strange transformation is, we will find a way to reverse it. Now, I will try to answer any questions you may have–”

“Is it Discord again?” a lavender unicorn shouted. The question sent murmers of worry throughout the crowd.

“I doubt it. But if it is, then Fluttershy is going to give him a very stern talking to about inappropriate pranks, won’t you dear?” The indicated lavender mare heaved a deep sigh and just shook her head in exasperation. “See? She’s already disappointed in him.”

“Could it be Changelings?”

“Now, how would that even be possible. We’ve all seen each other turn into... this. That would make everypony in this room a Changeling. And if that were the case, why would we be having this meeting at all?”

“Uh... deep cover assignments?”

The lavender unicorn just shook her head at that. “Any rational questions?”

“How are you going to fix us?” a lavender unicorn with a deep, male voice asked.

“As I said before we don’t know,” the lavender unicorn said. “Rest assured it will happen.”

“When?”

“I don’t know that either. Please, if you will all simply be calm and patient.”

“But for how long?” the demand came from several different ponies at once.

The lavender unicorn shrugged. “Sooner is better, of course, but at most it should only be a couple weeks–”

“Weeks?!” The roar that went up from the gathered lavender unicorns was deafening. Panicked shouts were exchanged, manes were pulled, hooffights broke out. 

The lavender unicorn turned to her friends. “Applejack, if you please?”

Applejack obliged, putting a hoof to her mouth and letting out a piercing whistle that overpowered the din and forced every pony to stop what they were doing and listen. “Simmer down, y’all! Now, y’all know us and y’all trust us, right?” There were some half-hearted murmurs of agreement. “To remind y’all of what Rarity just said: we saved the whole dang world at least twice and Ponyville itself a few more times than that. Now, I'll ask again: do you trust us?” The agreement came louder and more certain this time. “Good. Now stay calm and don’t make a scene, ya hear?”

“Thank you, Applejack,” the lavender unicorn said, then turned back to the audience. “My fellow ponies. These have not been uninteresting times we have lived in. There have been difficulties and dangers plaguing Ponyville for years, but each time such threats have come to our doorstep, we have stepped up and sent them packing! Yes, this affliction is frightening, but I can think of several things off the top of my head that were far worse."

"Dragons!" a lavender unicorn called out from the crowd.

"Parasprites!" another lavender unicorn added.

"Pinkie Pies!" a lavender chorus chimed in.

The lavender unicorn smiled. "Quite so. And in the end have we not always come through?” A sound of agreement. “This distasteful transformation is merely that: distasteful. It has not hurt us beyond a day of headache, it has not taken from us our minds or our cutie marks. It is, as far as we can tell, just very, very annoying. Surely we ponies can manage to live with such annoyance for a few measly weeks? Which is, I’ll remind you, the worst case scenario. Tell me, my little ponies, are we not stronger than that? Better?” The lavender unicorn looked out over her audience and saw that her words were sinking in. “I say we are. What say you?”

The cheer that went up sent a shiver of warmth through the lavender unicorn. She beamed back at them and soaked in the adulation. Finally the noise died down and a hoof was raised. “Yes? What is your question?”

“Um, how are we going to tell each other apart?” a lavender unicorn asked.

“Well, by our cutie marks, of course,” the lavender unicorn replied.

“Um, no offense, but not all of us have unique cutie marks.”

“What do you mean by that?” the lavender unicorn asked. “Your cutie mark is absolutely unique, it shows that you have found what makes you special.”

“Yeah, and it looks like a lot of ponies have what makes me special,” the lavender unicorn replied, turning to show her flank adorned with an image of a golden harp.

“Lyra please,” the lavender unicorn said. “We all know who you are.”

“Obviously not. I’m not Lyra,” the mare replied. A half-dozen other ponies gathered around her and also turned, showing off their almost identical cutie marks. “See?”

The lavender unicorn paused, mouth agape and taken aback. “Oh dear,” she managed to say. She turned to her friends. “Girls, we have a problem.”

"Yes you do! And like I was saying I'm not–"

“Got you covered, sister!” Pinkie Pie said, kicking the wall. An entire section of the town hall wall rotated to display a bank of shelves containing drinks, ice, small sandwiches, five board games, record player with a selection of records, assorted glow sticks, two barrels confetti, five varieties of cookies, a polar bear, ten containers of glitter, four rolls of streamers, a dozen feathered masquerade masks, a set of stackable shot glasses, a banjo adorned with flame decals and finally name tags and markers. Above it all was a banner sign that read: ‘Pinkie’s Emergency Town Hall Surprise Mixer And/Or Rave Party Stash – Ssshh! Don’t Tell!’

“Yes, Pinkie, that will do nicely,” the lavender unicorn said.

“When was that installed?” the mayor asked in incredulous shock. “And why didn’t anypony tell me?”

“Well, duh,” Pinkie said. “It say’s ‘don’t tell’ right there!”

“I’ll need a list of everypony in town, a table and a chair,” the lavender unicorn snapped out. “Everypony else, line up! You’re getting name tags!”


***


"It seems appropriate to start with you," the lavender unicorn said to the first pony in line. "I'm terribly sorry about mistaking you for Lyra."

"That was me!" another lavender unicorn called out from slightly farther back in the line.

The lavender unicorn shot an annoyed look at the line, already unable to tell which harp-flanked lavender unicorn had spoken. "Fine. I suppose you're not Lyra either?" The first pony in line shook her head. "Great. Is anypony here actually Lyra?" the lavender unicorn called out. There were a lot of ponies looking at each other, and no pony speaking up. "Of course," the lavender unicorn sighed, sinking into her chair and throwing up her hooves in exasperation. "Why would I expect anything else?"


***


“Oh, you poor dear,” the lavender unicorn cooed as a blank-flanked pony came up to the desk. She fidgeted and looked around nervously as she approached, and the lavender unicorn’s heart went out to her. “Are your parents around?” The pony shook their head. “Did you come here alone?” A nod. “Are they all right?” A shrug. “Oh, well then. Why don’t you tell me your name and we can find out?” The pony stared blankly at the lavender unicorn. “Can’t you tell me your name, dear?” The pony fidgeted, cheeks reddening in embarrassment as she failed to meet the lavender unicorn’s eyes. “Can you just tell me your name? Pretty please? For me?”

“Iron Will would rather not say.”


***


“There you go, Snowflake. Now so long as you wear that nopony will mistake you for... ah, Heavyweight, Roid Rage or Twinkle-Toes.”

“Yeah!”

“I’m glad too. Next!” 

“Hello, Miss Rarity,” the lavender unicorn with the half-apple cutie mark said.

“Why, Big McIntosh! I’m glad to see you’re mobile again.”

“Eeyup,” the stallion-turned-mare said with a friendly smile.

“You seem to be taking all this admirably well.”

“Nnope.”

“Ah, panicking on the inside, are you?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said without a hint of said panic, then gestured to the three unicorns following him. “Found these three loitering outside. They need some name tags.”

“Hi, Rarity,” one lavender mare said in a very recognizable voice.

“Sweetie, I thought I told you to stay in the boutique?” the lavender unicorn admonished. 

“But I’m feeling fine now! And it’s not like anything dangerous is going on!” Sweetie Belle protested. 

“Wait an hour,” the lavender unicorn grumbled. “Lavender riots, I swear. Anyways, I suppose these two are your little cohorts in calamity?”

“Yeah, this is awesome!” Scootaloo said. “I mean, I’m too big for my scooter right now, but this is still so cool!”

“I can reach the top shelf!” Apple Bloom crowed.

“This opens so many opportunities for us!” Sweetie Belle added.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Twilight Impersonators!” they chanted in unison.

“Wait’ll cousin Babs hears about this!” Apple Bloom said as the three of them pranced around each other in excitement, shouting 'yes!' over and over again.

Big Mac gave the lavender unicorn a pointed look. “Of course," she said, quickly grabbing three tags and a trio of colored markers. "Nametags. Immediately!”


***


“So that’s everypony,” the lavender unicorn sighed. “And every donkey and minotaur too, I guess.”

“Excuse me!” a lavender unicorn with a butterfly cutie mark asked, a little more curtly than the lavender unicorn would have expected.

“What is it, Fluttershy dear?” 

“Could I get a nametag please?”

“Oh, darling, you don’t need a nametag.”

“Um, yes, yes I do.”

“No, dear, you don’t. I’ve checked, there’s no other pony in Ponyville with your cutie mark.”

The lavender unicorn with the butterfly cutie mark sighed. “Take a look at my flank. What do you see?”

"A butterfly, dear, of course."

"How many butterflies?"

"One, but..." the lavender unicorn trailed off. "One butterfly. But Fluttershy has..."

"Three."

“But you’re...” the lavender unicorn paused, a sinking suspicion worming its way through her guts. “I should have learned my lesson with the Lyra clones. You’re not Fluttershy are you?”

“I’m her cousin!” the lavender unicorn who was absolutely not Fluttershy said, stomping a hoof on the desk in anger. “Which I’ve been trying to tell you all afternoon! But you keep talking over me! Do you do this to Fluttershy? Do you not even recognize her cutie mark? Because if that is how much you think of her I can’t believe she’s still friends with you!”

“No, we're usually much better with her,” the lavender unicorn said. “But you were the only one at Fluttershy’s house? Where is she?”

“She went out with some other friend of hers. I was tired after helping her with her animals all morning, so I stayed behind to rest and turned into this! Then you came and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise!”

“Huh. Well, I deeply apologize for the actions of myself and my friends. That was insensitive and boorish of us.”

Fluttershy's lavender unicorn cousin took a deep breath to calm herself and backed off. “Apology accepted.”

“Thank you, I hope we redeem ourselves in your eyes. I shall treat you to a spa visit and we can be introduced properly. Unfortunately it shall have to wait until this crisis has passed, I'm sure you understand." 

"I do, I just hope this is taken care of quickly."

"We all do, dear, we all do." The lavender unicorn sighed, rubbing a hoof against her temple. "Actually, I do have a question for you, if I may."

"Alright."

"This friend of Fluttershy's, the one she left with, who was it?”


***


Well outside of town there was a peculiar picnic going on. The picnic cloth was dancing with the basket, and the food was fighting over who got to be eaten first. Flower petals played tiny instruments as woodland critters wrote their manifestos. The bearer of Kindness and the spirit of Chaos sipped at their tea and talked about all the pleasant things people talk about when on picnics. 

“Fluttershy, I just want to thank you again for believing in me,” Discord said, pouring his tea sideways into a squirrel. “In all the infinite time I’ve been alive I don’t think anyone has ever done that for me before.”

“It wasn’t anything special,” Fluttershy said, squirming in her upside down chair as it tried to hug her. “I’m just glad you were able to see how much better friendship is and turn yourself around.”

“Oh, I know. Even after thousands of years trapped in stone I didn’t get it, but you showed me the way.” Discord wiped a tear from his eye, flinging it into the brawling bushes where it detonated into a cheesepuff monocle. “All that time being evil and alone. I just never realized that what I really needed was a good alibi.”

“A what?”

“Friend. A good friend.”


***


“I’ll destroy him!” the lavender unicorn raged. 

“Whoa there! Ain’t nothin’ we can do about it now,” Applejack said, bodily holding her down. 

“Yeah, we don’t even have any evidence it was Discord who did all this,” Rainbow Dash added.

“Evidence? I need no evidence! I am perfectly willing to do this without it!”

“What’s the fuss, Rarity?” Applejack asked. “I mean, even if it is him, this ain’t no world-endin’ thing. Fluttershy’ll talk to him about it and he won’t do it again. End of story.”

“Oh no! He’s not getting away that easily! Have you seen my mane?”

“Uh, yeah, we all have exactly the same mane now,” Dash said.

“Yes! How am I supposed to come up with a unique and fetching coiffure for all of us? Twilight’s hair does exactly one thing! One! Thing! I don’t have enough dark fabrics and anything bright will clash and I can’t have things clashing, Applejack! I will not have it! This is all his fault! I am going to go insane and that is exactly what he wants!” True to her words a few strands of her mane sprang out in weird haphazard curls. “Oh, and that’s just perfect! Where’s my brush?”

“Uh, guys, I think Rarity’s gone bye-bye,” Dash said.

“Please, Rainbow Dash, I have not gone anywhere,” the lavender unicorn said with a little laugh. “I am simply, finally, able to channel all my hard-hoarded aggression on a single, plausible target. A target that I will hunt down, find, and then kick his teeth in. And force him to wear mango stockings! Then we’ll see how he likes it!”

“Eyup, she’s done,” Applejack said, sitting on the lavender unicorn. “Well, at least the town’s been sorted and we’ve got a likely culprit. I don’t think–”

“Oh! Oh! Let me! Let me!” Pinkie cried, bouncing excitedly. 

“Let you what?” Applejack asked.

“Let me say it!”

Applejack looked at Rainbow Dash, who shrugged, then down at the lavender unicorn, who glared up at her and folded her forelegs under her head. Applejack rolled her eyes at her recalcitrant friend and looked back to Pinkie. “All right, sugarcube. Say whatever it is you want to say.”

Pinkie cleared her throat, then took out a breath-freshening spray and gave her mouth a couple spritzes. Then she stretched out all her legs and her neck, one at a time. Then she jogged on the spot for a bit. Then she started some singing warm-up exercises.

“Get on with it!” Dash demanded.

“Yes, do please get on with it,” the lavender unicorn added. 

“Get on with it!” the lavender crowd shouted.

“Oh, all right,” Pinkie said, then struck a dramatic pose. “I don’t think anything else can go wrong!”

There was a long moment of silence. Then Rainbow Dash dropped her face into her hoof. “Seriously?”


***


“That’s at least ten,” Spike said as he lowered the binoculars. “Most are gathered around the town hall. Different cutie marks on each of them.”

Twilight Sparkle narrowed her eyes, looking out over the town of Ponyville from the crest of a hill. Her wings were spread wide, but her crown felt heavy this day. “I had hoped that it was all over, that the last of this had been taken care of back in Canterlot. But now I see the infection has spread here, to my home and the homes of my friends. As Equestria’s newest princess I cannot let this stand.” She turned to the gathered troops behind her, their armor scored and scorched by magic and battle. “Ponyville is under assault! You’ve seen what this has done to our beloved capital of Canterlot! Now we must save this town!” The soldiers gazed up at her with worried, but determined eyes. “You have been through much, and no doubt there will be more horror to come, but you will prevail! For Ponyville! For the Princesses! For Equestria!”

“Equestria!” came the roaring cheer from the assembled forces.

Twilight turned back to Spike. “Hopefully this will be the last of it.”

“Yeah, until you poke something else shiny,” Spike snarked.

“Look,” Twilight said, exasperated. “I told you I’ve sworn off magic mirrors, pools, shields or any reflective device of any kind! And really, how was I supposed to know?”

“I dunno, the great big carved warning on the wall that you didn’t bother to read first?”

“Shut up and grab your sword, Spike,” Twilight grumbled. “Alright, soldiers! Take out any purple unicorn you find!” 

“Lavender!” a distant cry corrected.

“Whatever,” Twilight replied. She magically hefted a massive sword glowing with eldritch runes. “There can be only one. Charge!”


> Part 4: Everypony Talks Too Much
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Applejack threw herself against the door, slamming it shut and throwing the half-dozen guards trying to push it open away. "Does anypony want to tell me just what in Equestria is goin’ on here?" she asked, wide purple eyes scanning the lavender faces around her for any sign of understanding.

"What is happening," the lavender unicorn said, pulling futilely at her hair. "Is that while we have not gained Twilight's prodigious magic, we have gained her unruly mane! She has anxiety attacks like I have fainting spells! How does she keep this straight?"

"Not exactly what I was referrin' to," Applejack said, bouncing a bit as the door was bucked from the other side. "In case you hadn't noticed, we're kinda under siege here!"

"I can see that, Applejack!" the lavender unicorn snapped. "They're just guards, they probably think we're all changelings or something else horrid. Let them in and we'll sort it out in no time at all."

"Surrender!" an authoritarian stallion called from outside. "We have you surrounded!"

"I don't know, Rarity," Pinkie Pie said, frowning at the door. "They looked pretty grumpy."

"Yeah, and they're mighty insistent on gettin' in here," Applejack said, getting bounced again. The door began to splinter under the impact and Applejack glared at the lavender unicorns milling about. "Any time y'all want to give me a helpin' hoof, I'd really appreciate it." A few abashed ponies moved to put their own efforts into holding the door closed against the assault. "Big Mac! You holdin' out at the back door?"

"Eeyup!" the unseen lavender unicorn called from his place.

"We've locked all the upstairs doors and windows!" Rainbow Dash called as she ran down the stairs from the upper levels. "They're not busting the glass in yet, but once they do we're going to have a lot of armored pegasi dropping on us!"

"Has anyone seen my brush? It's a nice dark wood with a three diamonds in the back and I seem to have mislaid it!"

"Bigger problems, Rarity!" Applejack shouted. "Any actual unicorns, if y'all could reinforce the windows, that'd be dandy!"

"How?" a lavender unicorn who was probably also an actual unicorn asked from the crowd.

"Rarity?" Applejack turned to the lavender unicorn, purple eyes wide and pleading.

The lavender unicorn sighed. "Basic telekinesis should do fine, darlings. Just encompass the whole of the window and hold it in place."

"Alright, get to it!" Applejack commanded. Several lavender unicorns leapt into motion, their horns lighting up and filling the air with a rainbow of colors as they worked their magic. 

"They're pulling back!" the lavender mayor called from her place watching through the window. "It looks like they're getting ready for something!"

"Okay, anything else we need to know?"

"I found Rarity's hairbrush!" a lavender unicorn called out.

"Mine!" the lavender unicorn cried, leaping towards the pony who had spoken and bodychecking him away from her brush. She snatched up the item and began running it through her frazzled mane before turning to the pony she had shoved. "Thank you dear, I'll give you twenty five percent off your next dress."

"I'm not the dress type, miss," the lavender unicorn with an hourglass cutie mark and a nametag that read 'Dr. T. Turner' said with a stallion's voice. "Not this time around, at least. Where did you learn to hit like that?"

"Hoofball, dear," the lavender unicorn replied, pulling knots out of her mane.

"I hadn't figured you for the kind to play rough sports."

"Oh, I'm not," the lavender unicorn assured him. "My father, though..."

"Focus, Rarity!" Applejack called out.

"I am focused!" the lavender unicorn shot back. "I'm telling you, this is all a misunderstanding and it will be fine if you just relax and let the guards in!

"Somepony's coming to the front!" the mayor called. "It's Twilight Sparkle!"

"What else is new?" a snarky lavender unicorn called out.

"No, I mean it's Princess Twilight!" the mayor clarified. "Wings and everything!"

"Well, thank... uh, who are we supposed to be thankin' now?" Applejack asked, frowning as she thought it over.

"Well, Twilight's a princess, but she's not THE princess, right?" Dash asked, stepping up next to Applejack. "Celestia's still, like, in charge of everything, right?"

"I thought she had split control with Luna," the mayor put in, stepping away from the window and allowing another lavender unicorn to take her place. "At least, that's what the official court documents all say."

"What about Cadance?" Pinkie asked, bouncing to the group at the door. "Isn't she a princess too?"

"Yeah, but she's up in the Crystal Empire with Shinin' Armor and all that," Applejack said. "I thought that was its own kingdom or somethin'."

"I thought it was another part of Equestria," Dash said. "Like, Cloudsdale or Manehattan. I mean, it's not much of an empire with just one city, right?"

"She's saying something!" the lavender unicorn who had taken the mayor’s place called out. "I can almost make it out, but there's too much noise in here!"

"That's nice, dear," the lavender unicorn said, also walking to the door and still running the brush through her mane. "Are you arguing over what Twilight's political position is?"

"I thought it was more a religious thing," Applejack replied. 

"They're essentially one and the same," the lavender unicorn said. "Not officially, mind you, but all the manuals on noble etiquette indicate that a princess of Equestria is divinity first and royalty second, but always both."

"Yeah, but how much can we trust a book on etiquette?" Dash asked.

“Not terribly much, I’m afraid,” the lavender unicorn admitted. “That kind of thinking went out of style some time ago, but it is the only place I know of that actually addresses the issue.”

“She’s gesturing with this really, really big sword!” the lavender lookout called. “I really think we should be listening to what she’s saying!”

“In a moment, darling!” the lavender unicorn called back, still vigorously brushing at her mane. “It’s not just us, you know. Everypony’s been a little confused since Luna’s return.”

“Shouldn’t they have figured it out earlier?” Dash asked. “Shouldn’t we, like, have an official list or something? I mean, Cadance has been around for a while, but I’d never even heard of her until the wedding. Now she’s all over the place! What’s up with that?”

“Look, all I want to know is if I should be thankin’ Celestia for Twilight showing up, or thankin’ Twilight herself,” Applejack interjected. “It ain’t that hard.”

“Maybe Celestia sent Twilight,” Pinkie provided. “Then you could thank them both!”

“Unless it was Luna that sent her,” Dash pointed out.

“Oooh, yeah,” Pinkie said, sitting down and tapping a hoof on her chin. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Does it really matter who sent who?” Applejack asked, exasperated. “I just want to know who to give my thanks to!”

“Then it does matter, dear,” the lavender unicorn said, trying vainly to get one last strand of mane to lay flat. “Perhaps we should forgo using the names of any Princess in a religious capacity until we have it sorted out.”

“Fair ‘nough,” Applejack said. “Still, I feel like I got to say somethin’.”

“Well, is there any other quasi-religious exclamation that might be appropriate?” the lavender unicorn asked.

“Holy horseapples!” the lavender lookout screamed, diving for cover. 

“Not quite what I was talking abou–” The lavender unicorn was cut off as a huge sword etched with brilliantly glowing runes was rammed through the door. The blade missed her head by inches, impaling her hairbrush and shattering the expensive wood. The wind from the blade’s passage blew her hair out of its careful arrangement, and the static from the magical runes ensured that it stayed that way.

The sword drew back, sliding out of the door with a grinding screech and leaving a hole wide enough to fit a lavender hoof through. “Did I get anypony?” Twilight called from outside the town hall. “Hello? Some feedback would be nice!”

“Applejack,” the lavender unicorn said, her voice the tightly controlled calm of someone about to do something excessive. “Open the door.”

“Whoa there, nelly,” Applejack said. “No need to get all –”

“If you do not open this door, Applejack, I will go through you before I go through it,” the lavender unicorn said, smiling the pleasant smile of a pony who means exactly what she says.

“Clear the door!” Applejack shouted, prompting the lavender mob to draw as a far back from the town hall’s entrance as they could. 

The lavender unicorn trotted back a ways and turned to face the door squarely, crouching down in a runner’s pose. 

“Uh, Rarity, do you know what you’re doing?” Dash asked stepping up next to her. 

“Of course, dear,” the lavender unicorn said. “Though I could use a good wingpony.”

“You got one,” Dash said, grinning widely and taking up a spot next to the lavender unicorn.

“You’ve got two!” Pinkie said, bouncing up to the other side and dropping into a menacing crouch of her own, growling like an angered dog.

“Welp, this ain’t gonna end well,” Applejack quipped, then grabbed the doors and pulled them open, diving to the side as soon as she could.

“Oh! You’re coming out!” Twilight said. She stood surrounded by guard ponies, blinking in the sunlight as she tried to focus on the relatively darker interior of the town hall. “That was, um, well, easier than I expected. Okay, come on out! I don’t want to hurt you, I just want to hit you with my giant, glowing sword!”

“Dr. Turner!” the lavender unicorn called out. “You were asking about my hoofball interests? Let me show you how to properly sack somepony!”

“That’s my girl!” the lavender unicorn’s equally lavender father whooped.

“This is so awesome,” Dash said. Pinkie interspersed her growls with giggles.

“Twilight!” the lavender unicorn yelled out the open door. “You ruined my mane!”

There was a pause outside. “Wait, Rarity?”

“Hut hut!” 


***


“Ugh, Rarity, did you have to hit me in the horn?” Twilight moaned, dangling upside down from the roof by the rope wrapped securely around her. “I won’t be able to use magic properly for an hour now. I don’t understand how this even happened, I was surrounded by royal guards.”

“Your defensive line had too many gaps, they couldn’t protect the pocket,” the lavender unicorn said, lounging back on her fainting couch with a damp cloth over her eyes. 

“They... what?”

“She means the guards weren’t set up to stop her,” Applejack clarified. 

Twilight absorbed this for a long moment. “I still have no idea how this happened. These are highly trained royal guardsponies. A surprise attack getting to me, that I can understand, we’re all very tired. But the three of you taking out my entire unit? How did this happen?” She gestured with her horn at the rows of tied up ponies who looked back at her with abashed expressions.

“Hey, Twilight, remember the wedding?” Dash said, poking at the massive sword leaning up against the wall and watching it spark. “And how the six of us beat up, like, fifty changelings each?"

“Closer to a dozen, but yes, of course.”

“How about how the guards got taken out with way better odds than that?”

“I... fine.” Twilight shook her head, which made her swing like a pendulum. “We kick more flank than the royal guard. Woo hoo, go us, why are you all purple?!”

“Lavender, dear,” the lavender unicorn corrected, though she couldn’t put any energy into it. “Most of Ponyville has transformed into doubles of you, I’m afraid. We have no idea why.”

“But that’s... I mean...” Twilight sputtered

“What I want to know is why you were attacking us with a sword?” Dash demanded.

“I thought you were alternate-universe versions of me!” Twilight shouted back.

There was a moment of silence before Applejack responded. “What the hay would make you think that?”

“Maybe the fact that I’ve spent the last two days fighting alternate universe versions of me!” Twilight replied, huffing in exasperation. 

“Twilight, darling,” the lavender unicorn began, sitting up. “Are you absolutely sure they were, ah, what you say they were? This all started for us yesterday morning, and if it began in Canterlot...”

“Oh! No. No no no,” Twilight said, eyes going wide. “Whatever’s going on here is not what happened in Canterlot.”

“I’ll say!” Spike said, looking down at them from his right-side-up place next to Twilight. “That was because of this ancient magic mirror, and there was a lot more screaming and spell battles.”

“Spell battles?” Applejack asked.

“It turns out most alternate versions of me are dangerously insane,” Twilight admitted. “Who knew?”

“I’d believe it,” Dash said.

“So you decide to skewer everypony that looks like you?” Applejack asked, frowning.

“What? No!” Twilight said, aghast. “Why would you think that?” Dash just tapped a hoof on the giant sword, sending arcane sparks flaring from its surface. “Okay, so the whole sword thing looks bad.”

“You think?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Twilight said.

“It looks like a sword!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing over to the blade. “Is it supposed to be a knife? Or a surfboard? Because if it is you’ve got the design really wrong.”

“It’s a sword, Pinkie,” Twilight said. “But it doesn’t hurt ponies. It’s a dispelling blade, made to end ongoing magical effects. It cuts magic, not flesh.”

“Oh, I see,” the lavender unicorn said. “So if you hit one of your alternates with it they would be returned to wherever they came from.”

“Precisely,” Twilight confirmed. “It would also cut through whatever protections they had put up. Celestia lent it to me, along with a number of lesser versions, to deal with my clone problem. I was coming to Ponyville to make sure none of them escaped to here, and when I saw all of you, well, I just made an assumption.”

“I guess that’s forgivable,” Applejack said. “Any one of us woulda come to the same conclusion.”

“Yeah, we can’t stay mad at you, Twilight!” Pinkie squeaked, grinning up at the bound princess.

“Quite so,” the lavender unicorn joined in. “However, you still owe me for my brush and messing up my mane!”

“Next spa visit is on me?” Twilight offered. “And I’ll buy you a new brush.”

“All is forgiven!” the lavender unicorn declared. “Though we could use your help in deciphering what has happened to us. Could your alternate universe problem be responsible?”

“I don’t see how,” Twilight said. “But this is still obviously magical in nature. The dispelling blades should be a solution here as well.”

“How do you use this thing?” Dash asked, grasping the sword hilt in her mouth and hefting up the blade.

“Just strike your target soundly,” Twilight said. “But, uh, not too soundly, okay? It doesn’t cut, but it will still hit them. The runes will do the rest, you should see a reaction immediately.”

“Oh! Oh! Me first! Me first!” Pinkie bounced, grinning from ear to ear. 

“All right,” Dash mumbled from around the hilt. “Here goes!” She strained against the weight of the sword, lifting it into the air and swinging it at Pinkie. She missed, the awkward weight of the blade making her lose her balance. She cried out, her hooves clattering in an uncoordinated rhythm on the floor as she tried to keep control of the sword. She spun in a complete circle once, twice, three times before the blade slammed with brutal force into Pinkie.

“Wheeee!” Pinkie cried as she was launched across the town hall and through one of the high windows. Every pony stared at Dash, who dropped the sword from her open mouth, eyes wide. A moment later Pinkie bounced through the front door. “That was fun!” she said, giggling. “Am I pink yet?”

“No, dear,” the lavender unicorn said. “Still quite lavender, I’m afraid.”

“Aw, darn. Well, better try again!”

“No!” Twilight cried. “No, the sword clearly didn’t work, and somepony could get hurt.”

“Eyup,” Applejack agreed. “That thing’s too dangerous to go swingin’ around willy-nilly.”

“Awww,” a dejected Pinkie moaned.

“Twilight, why didn’t your sword work?” the lavender unicorn asked.

“I... I have no idea,” Twilight admitted. “This is clearly a magical effect, it should have been dispelled immediately. The fact that it wasn’t could mean... anything! I need to get to my library!”

“Of course, dear,” the lavender unicorn said. She reached for Twilight with her magic, but was interrupted by a burst of fire from Spike. “Spike! Are you okay?” 

“Oh, wow, that doesn’t feel good,” Spike said, eyes wide and pained. 

“Spike? What’s wrong? Is it a letter from the Princess?” Twilight asked, twisting until she was facing the young dragon.

“I don’t think it’s a letter,” Spike said, his face twisting up as licks of fire curled out from between his teeth. “Oh, man, this is gonna be a big one!” With a grunt of pain Spike’s mouth opened wide, letting loose a gout of green fire. The fire launched nearly six feet from his mouth before curling back, twisting around itself in a spiral of emerald magic before striking the baby dragon.

Ponies gasped, ponies fainted. “Spike!” Twilight cried out. 

The fire faded, Spike coughed a few puffs of smoke out. “I’m alright, I’m okay,” he assured them. Everypony stared at him. “What happened? What is it?” Everypony continued to stare at him. “Come on, guys! What’s wrong?”

“Now, that ain’t right,” Applejack said.

“Guys! Don’t leave me hanging here!” Spike said without a trace of irony. “What happened?” Dash, not one to leave a friend hanging, metaphorically at least, pointed at the dragon’s forehead. Spike’s eyes crossed as he looked up to see the long, lavender horn that now protruded from his brow. Then, with the skill and deliberate intention of someone who has spent years assisting Twilight Sparkle in the most disaster-prone region of Equestria, he proceeded to scream.

“Spike! It’s okay! It’s okay!” Twilight assured him, though she didn’t look confident herself. “I’ll find a way to fix it!”

“Hit me with the sword!” Spike cried to Rainbow Dash.

“What?” Dash asked, still too shocked to process what was being asked of her.

“The sword doesn’t work!” Twilight said.

“Twilight, I love you, but I don’t want to be you!” Spike replied. “The transformation’s just begun, maybe it’ll work on me. It’s a chance I’m willing to take! Now hit me with that sword!”

“I don’t know if I can!” Dash said. “That thing’s really hard to steer!”

“Allow me!” The lavender unicorn rose from her couch, tossing her still-frizzy mane. “If my Spikey-wikey needs to be hit with a sword.” She encompassed the weapon with her magic, lifting it to a ready position beside her. “Then I, Rarity, will not let him down!” She pulled the sword up, ready to swing it, but hesitated. “Oh, but I do hate to see Spike hurt.”

“Got you covered!” Pinkie said. The lavender unicorn looked over to find her friend wearing a large sombrero and holding a blindfold. The record player from the hidden party stash was next to her, the sound of trumpets and guitars playing an upbeat tune floated out of it. 

“Thank you, Pinkie,” the lavender unicorn said, holding still as the blindfold was placed over her eyes. “Yes, this will do. Are you ready, Spike?”

“As I’ll ever be! Thank you, Rarity!”

“Any time, darling! Here we go!” the lavender unicorn swung the sword.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, Twilight.”

> Part 5: How This Is All Going To Get Fixed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	On a hill overlooking Ponyville stood Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings. Her green eyes gazed upon the town with unhidden contempt. Her black lips curled, revealing her sharp, white fangs as she pawed restlessly at the dirt. Others had stood here recently, the taste of fear and bravado still hanging in the air. Her opponent had been here, too. The hated Twilight Sparkle.

“Come to me,” she commanded, her doubled-over voice vibrating with changeling magic. They answered her call, the ones she had gathered, the ones with whom she would gain her revenge. “Come, my champions, my Spirits of Disharmony!”

A griffon dropped from the sky with a screech, landing next to the Changeling Queen and spreading her wings in a proud display. She glared at Chrysalis for a long moment before snorting and turning her attention to the village laid out before them. “Gilda,” Chrysalis named her. “The childhood friend spurned. With swift wings and sharp claws, you are the counter to Rainbow Dash. You are my Element of Betrayal.”

A pair of red-and-white-haired unicorns stepped up behind Gilda; one mustachioed, the other clean shaven. They wore identical blue and white outfits, their heads adorned with blue-banded hats. They shared a questioning look before shrugging in unison and taking their place at the crest of the hill. “Flim and Flam. Hucksters, opportunists, liars. With twisted words and callous avarice, you are the counters to Applejack and Fluttershy. You are my Elements of Deceit and Cruelty.”

A blue unicorn in a tattered purple cloak limped on three legs up to Chrysalis’ side. Her eyes darted nervously around, flicking to the Changeling Queen and away as if she were afraid to to look at Chrysalis for too long. “Trixie Lulamoon,” Chrysalis purred, grinning down at her. “The showmare twice made a fool. With illusory magic and very real determination, you are the counter to Twilight Sparkle herself. You are my Element of Dark Magic.” Trixie cringed at those words, trying to disappear under her cloak.

“You all know me. I am Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings,” she flared her diaphanous wings, her eyes burning with an evil green light. “My lust for the love-energy of Equestria led to my defeat, but I have returned, and I have sworn revenge on the ones who foiled me! I am the counter to Rarity. I will be the Element of Greed.”

“Now, the final member of the Spirits of Disharmony!”

“Raise me up,” a dark voice growled. Trixie sighed and raised her right forehoof. There, covering half her leg, was a black sock with the broken end of a crimson horn poking out of the top. Glued-on googly eyes wiggled haphazardly above a gnashing pair of sewn-in novelty plastic fangs. Trixie reluctantly raised the sock-puppet above her head, where it glared imperiously down at the town. 

“King Sombra,” Chrysalis intoned. “Deposed tyrant, creature of shadow. With undying rage and endless terror, you are the counter to Pinkie Pie. You are my Element of... of... whatever the opposite of Laughter is. Incoherent snarling, maybe?”

“I don’t get this whole ‘spirits of disharmony’ thing,” Gilda spoke up as Chrysalis faltered. “Do we have to go with that hokey stuff?”

“Silence!” Chrysalis commanded. “Of course we do. It’s the whole point.”

“A moment, my dear,” Flim interrupted. “But my brother and I were talking.”

“Discussing, you might say.” Flam elaborated.

“And we decided that we don’t want to be Deceit and Cruelty.” Flim declared.

“Indeed!” Flam exhuberated. “We find them quite offensive!”

“We never lie about our wares!” Flim expanded. “I assure you we control quality quite tightly!”

“What?” Chrysalis said, rounding on the two of them. “I heard your cider had rocks in it. Rocks! How is that quality?”

The brothers shared another look. “A unique circumstance, madam, I assure you,” Flim assured her. 

“I say, a single time occurence,” Flam collaborated. 

“And I suppose by now you’re wondering,” Flim exclaimed, beginning to get into the rolling salespony cadence that served the brothers so well. “Just which spirit we should represent!”

“No,” Chrysalis said, stopping them in their tracks. “You’re Deceit and Cruelty. Live with it.”

“Can we at least talk about Cruelty?” Flam requested.

“No,” Chrysalis refused. “I’m working with what I have here, so you get what you get. Besides, I think neither of you should have a problem with a creature as milquetoast as Fluttershy. Right?”

The brothers looked at each other one last time before taking off their hats and smiling at the towering changeling. “Well, I suppose,” Flam allowed.

“You are paying us enough to overlook this,” Flim capitulated. 

“Wait, you two are getting paid?” Trixie cried out, glaring at the salesponies. 

“You aren’t?” Gilda asked. “Lady, you look like you could use the money.”

“Trixie is perfectly capable of providing for herself, thank you!” Trixie said with a haughty huff. “But this... why?”

There was a long moment of silence as each villain examined their own motivations. Then Sombra spoke: “I invented Dark Magic!”

“Oh, you did not!” Trixie snapped. 

“I should still be the spirit of Dark Magic!” sock-Sombra growled.

“You got beaten by their pet wyrmling,” Chrysalis said, rolling her eyes. “Trixie here actually enslaved the town once. She gets to be Dark Magic. You get... um, what was it again?”

“I enslaved an empire!” 

“You got exploded by a bunch of good feelings,” Gilda snickered. “It was in the paper and everything.”

“Weaponized good feelings!”

“Enough!” Chrysalis commanded. “No one gets to switch spirits! Except maybe King Sombra, whenever I figure out what the opposite of Laughter is.”

“Eeeeeeviiiillllll!” sock-Sombra supplied.

“No!” Chrysalis said, stomping her hoof. “We’re all evil, there will be no spirit of Evil!” 

“I’m not evil,” Gilda said.

“We will admit pettiness,” Flim protested. “Under duress.”

“But never evil, madam,” Flam concurred.

“Trixie is not evil!” Trixie said, then looked sheepishly at the ground. “Um, anymore, that is.”

“Fine! None of us are evil!”

“I am.”

“Most of us aren’t evil,” Chrysalis snapped. “Look, this isn’t that difficult. We are going to go down there and exact our revenge on those we hate: the Elements of Harmony, especially Twilight Sparkle!”

“I don’t actually hate them,” Gilda said, squinting at the town. “I just think they’re all lame. Just like you guys. So. Totally. Lame.”

“Trixie does not hate them either.” Trixie said. “Trixie has made her amends and wishes no further harm on Ponyville.”

“You barely apologised and ran away,” Gilda pointed out. “You got some weird ideas about ‘amends’, sister.”

“Silence!” Chrysalis commanded. “You both hate Ponyville. I have looked into your hearts and I know how much anger you harbor. You, Gilda, towards Pinkie Pie!”

“Well, yeah, I guess. She could use a good smack.”

“And you! Trixie! You hate Twilight Sparkle almost as much as I do!”

“No, Trixie is serious, we’re friends now! Friends!” Trixie desperately asserted.

“I hate all of them!” sock-Sombra snarled, rattling his plastic fangs.

“Yes, we know,” Chrysalis said. “See! Your hatred for them empowers me, and together as the Spirits of Disharmony we shall take our revengeancy!”

“Trixie does not think that is a word.”

“Silence!” Chrysalis eyed the salesponies. “I suppose you’re going to say you don’t hate them either?”

“No, madam, we are not,” Flim contended.

“No pony holds a grudge like a salespony,” Flam detailed.

“Well, good,” Chrysalis said, narrowing her eyes and giving all of them a hard look. “Now, you all remember the plan, right?”

“Wait, there was a plan?” Gilda asked. “I thought I was just supposed to challenge Dash to a race.”

“We each have our own tasks,” Chrysalis said. “The point is to utterly defeat and humiliate them.”

“She’s lying!” Trixie snarled. “She really wants–” Trixie’s mouth snapped shut as Chrysalis’ horn glowed with a sickly green fire. 

“No spoiling your own task,” Chrysalis purred, a vicious smile twisting her face in glee. “Perhaps you need a reminder of how much you really hate Twilight Sparkle.” 

Trixie’s eyes flashed with a green light, and then she was frowning, kicking at the dirt and casting dark looks at Ponyville. “Of course Trixie hates Twilight Sparkle, she ruined Trixie’s life!”

Chrysalis bent down to put her mouth next to Trixie’s ear. “You will do as you’re told, yes?” Trixie nodded. “Good.”

“Delicioussss,” sock-Sombra leered.

Gilda and the brothers watched this with no small amount of worry. “Okay,” Gilda said. “I’m glad I took the cash, then.” The brothers nodded in synchronized agreement.

“There, now, are there any other complaints?” Chrysalis asked. They all shook their heads, Trixie wiggling her hoof for sombra. “Good.” She turned back to the town, the ones she had gathered lining up to either side of her, their target for conquest clear in their sights. She sneered at the homes and businesses of the ponies she hated so much. “Such a peaceful little place,” she commented, then reared up, spreading her wings and letting her magic flare in bursts of green fire all around them. “Prepare yourself Ponyville! For your champions fall this day, to the Spirits of Disharmony!”

A moment later Gilda spoke up. “Hey, is it just me or is it super-bright out today? My eyes are killing me.”

“I am feeling quite the sting,” Flim expounded.

“You as well, brother?” Flam queried. “I thought it was just me.”

“Trixie’s eyes hurt too.”

“I am fine... no, wait, me too.”

“Seriously?” Chrysalis sighed, dropping to all fours. “So it’s a little bright out. Celestia hates me, so what? Let’s just get going.”

“Whatever you say, you’re the boss,” Gilda replied, and they all started down the hill into town.



***



“This is incredible!” Twilight said, poking at Spike’s new horn.

“Twilight, stop that!” Spike complained.

“Oh! I’m sorry, does that hurt?”

“No, it’s just really, really weird.”

“Twilight,” the lavender unicorn asked. “Do you have any idea what could possibly cause this?”

“I have a few ideas,” Twilight said, her eyes still locked on Spike. 

“We think it might have been Discord,” the lavender unicorn said.

Twilight shrugged. “He’s got the power to do something like this, sure, but it’s really not his style. Has he been showing up and taunting you?” There were lavender head shakes all around. “Then it’s probably not him.”

“How about Poison Joke pollen?” Applejack asked.

“Or the Elements messing with us again?” Dash added.

“Poison Joke is usually personalized,” Twilight pointed out. “This isn’t. Look, speculation without evidence isn’t going to help. I need more information. What were the early symptoms again?”

“Light sensitivity, headache, weakness in stallions, massive moulting for pegasi,” the lavender unicorn supplied. “Then you start turning lavender.”

“Spike, were you experiencing any of that?” Twilight asked.

“No! I was fine right up until the worst belch ever!”

“Interesting,” Twilight said, eyes alight with new thought. “This is important. You can feel it, though? When I touch it?”

“Yes, Twilight, I can feel it,” Spike assured her. “Now stop poking me!”

“So it’s integrated into your nervous system,” Twilight said, humming to herself as she mulled it over.

“Do you think you can fix it?” Applejack asked.

“Maybe. This is a very enlightening reaction. Dragons are very magical creatures, and they grow differently from ponies. Remember Spike’s greed-inspired growth?”

“I don’t believe I shall ever forget,” the lavender unicorn replied.

“Yeah, it was kinda... big,” Rainbow Dash added. Spike’s gaze dropped to the ground. “Not that it was your fault,” Dash said quickly. “You’re over all that, right?”

“Yeah,” Spike said, sighing. “I’m over it.”

“I think this,” Twilight pointed at Spike’s new horn. “Is connected to that sudden growth. I think that whatever this is is affecting the draconic mechanism for physical change. That’s why his alterations are coming with bursts of dragonfire and he isn’t experiencing any of the symptoms ponies do.”

“What could that mean?” the lavender unicorn asked. 

“It could mean a lot of things,” Twilight said. “But it gives us a clue to the nature of this... whatever it is. Captain Noisy!”

“Yes, princess?” a unicorn guard responded from where he was being untied by a lavender citizen. He looked over at Twilight, but winced and had to visibly force himself to keep his eyes open.

“Are you experiencing any difficulty with bright light? Be honest.” The guard paused for a moment, as if debating whether to admit the clear truth or not, but finally nodded. 

“A moment, dear,” the lavender unicorn said, then walked over to the guard. A quick inspection confirmed her own suspicions. “His horn has begun to turn lavender. It’s progressing quite quickly. It took all of yesterday morning for my own horn to go completely lavender, and I can already see it seeping down his spiral.”

“It’s an ongoing effect that’s been getting stronger, then,” Twilight mused. “I seem to be unaffected so far, but that could be because I’m an alicorn. Or it could be because whatever this is doesn’t recognize that it has to change me at all.”

“Recognize? Are you sayin’ that this has got some sorta thinkin’ behind it?” Applejack asked.

“Maybe not the effect itself, but the odds of something this bizarre and specific arising by chance are, well, infinitesimal,” Twilight said. 

“That’s very small, right?” Applejack asked.

“Yes,” Twilight confirmed. “Very small.” Her brow furrowed as she thought about it. “Nurse Redheart!” she called out. The lavender nurse stepped out of the lavender crowd. “Do we know who patient zero is?”

Redheart shook her head. “No. However, Rarity was the first case to start turning purple.”

“Lavender,” the lavender unicorn corrected absently. “And so far as I know I was also the first to complete the transformation.”

“Then you’ll do,” Twilight said with a determined nod.

“Do for what, Twilight?”

Twilight didn’t seem to register the question, instead turning to the crowd and raising her voice to be heard. “I don’t know what’s causing this,” she said. “But I promise all of you I will find out, and I will find a way to reverse it. To do that I need to go to the library, where I have equipment and books that can help me. In the meantime, it would really help if you all stayed here. If I haven’t found a cure by tonight then you can go home and sleep, but I’d like it if I could have as many of the affected ponies in one place as possible, to avoid spreading this beyond Ponyville. Captain Noisy, follow the mayor’s direction.”

“Princess, we should be with you,” the captain said, though pain and stress were clear in his voice. He tried to rise, but a lavender hoof held him down.

“Nnope,” Big Mac said, shaking his lavender head. “Trust me, you won’t be good for anything for a while.” The captain turned to Big Mac angrily, but when he opened his eyes to glare he ended up shrinking back from the pain. After that he didn’t protest.

“Alright, girls,” Twilight called to her friends. “To the library.”

They rushed out of the town hall, Spike in his customary place on Twilight’s back. The library wasn’t far away, and soon they were safely within the living building. Twilight dumped Spike on the floor and told him to stay put.

“What do you need us to do, sugarcube?” Applejack asked. 

“I’m going to get a few things from the basement,” Twilight said. “While I’m doing that I need you guys to find these books.” She rattled off a long list of titles.

“We’ll do the best we can,” Applejack promised, grabbing Dash and Pinkie and pulling them to the shelves.

“I’ll help you,” the lavender unicorn said, stepping up beside Twilight. “I have something to ask you, anyway.” Twilight nodded, and the two of them walked down to the basement.

“What did you want to ask?” Twilight inquired as they came to the floor of the spacious basement. “And could you grab that phase transition modulator?”

“The what?”

“The boxy thing with three dials on it,” Twilight clarified.

“Ah. What I wanted to ask was about that ‘patient zero’ thing you were talking about. Why is that important?”

“Well, you know that patient zero is the first confirmed case of a sickness, right?”

“I do.”

“Magical transformations like this are tricky things,” Twilight explained as her magic began sifting through the boxes of wires and machinery that were scattered about the basement. “There’s only a few ways to accomplish it on this scale and on so many different creatures. With how it’s affecting Spike I’m suspecting that it’s following a viral format, changing and mutating to accomplish its purpose, namely to turn everypony into physical copies of me.”

“A magical virus?” the lavender unicorn gasped.

“Not exactly,” Twilight said, grabbing several more items from storage. “But similar enough to count. The one affected earliest will have the most basic version of the, um, ‘virus’.”

“Which means me,” the lavender unicorn reasoned.

“If you really were the first to change, then I think so, yes,” Twilight confirmed. “If I can get a handle on what this thing is, then knowing what it was in its earliest form will help immensely in finding a way to counteract it.”

The lavender unicorn gave a curt nod. “Well then, let’s not delay.”

When they came back up to the main floor of the library there was a small panic going on. “Twilight!” Spike called out, causing them to run into the large main room. Spike was exactly where they had left him, but the transformation had progressed. His claws were gone, replaced with lavender hooves, and pony legs were attached to his still baby-dragon shaped body. He stood awkwardly and looked extremely unhappy. “This is not going well! Not well at all!”

“We got your books, Twilight!” Dash said from beside a stack of heavy volumes. “At least, I think we do. Whoever organizes this place makes some weird shelving decisions.” Both Spike and Twilight glared at Dash. “What?”

Twilight shook her head. “No time. Spike, put this on.” She floated him a hat-like device made of metal. Wires and lights studded the device, giving it a bizarre, cobbled-together appearance.

“I remember that!” Pinkie said, grinning. 

“Yes, well, it should actually work this time,” Twilight grumbled, magically assembling all the items she and the lavender unicorn had brought up from the basement into a machine that blinked and buzzed and began spitting out a ream of paper with lined on it. She attached several wires from the machine to the metal hat as Spike fumbled with with his new hooves at the securing straps. 

“Oh, Spike, let me help you with that,” the lavender unicorn said, reaching out with her magic to take hold of the straps. Immediately Spike’s annoyed look softened. “Don’t worry, dear, this should all be sorted out soon enough.”

“I’m not worried as long as you’re not worried, Rarity,” Spike said, grinning. 

“Okay, we’re set-up,” Twilight said, flicking a switch on the machine that made the lines on the paper begin to come out in smooth sine curves. “Spike, how are you feeling?”

“Really, really clumsy!”

“So what’s this thing gonna tell you?” Dash asked.

“Since Spike’s transformation is happening in bursts of instantaneous change I can get a lot of data on exactly what is causing it,” Twilight said. “This will tell me the magic involved, what focusing method it uses, whether there’s any residual effect or stasis change between before and after a burst–”

“Whoa! Whoa!” Dash said, holding up her forehooves to ward off a lengthy explanation. “I don’t need the technical manual, I just want to know if this is gonna tell you how to fix us or not.”

“It will help,” Twilight said. 

“So what do we do now, sugarcube?” Applejack asked.

“All we can do is wait until Spike experiences the next stage of the transformation,” Twilight said, sighing. “I’m sorry, girls, but there really isn’t anything else for it. I won’t even know which one of these books is important until that happens.”

There was a long moment of dead quiet as the lavender ponies waited for something, anything to happen.

“So,” Applejack said, breaking the silence, but had nothing to follow up with. 

“Yeah,” Dash supplied. “Pinkie?”

Pinkie Pie looked up, looked around, scratched at her mane, then shrugged. “I got nothing.”

The lavender unicorn rolled her eyes and turned to Twilight. “Ahem. A magic mirror? Again?”

“Look, I have a perfectly good explanation!” Twilight protested.

“She got excited and poked it,” Spike said.

“I didn’t know!”

“I want to know where Princess Celestia’s been hiding those swords!” Dash said. “So. Awesome.”

“On that thought, I’m mighty interested in knowin’ exactly who I should be thankin’, in a religious sense,” Applejack said.

“What?” was Twilights response.

“Everypony’s confused,” Pinkie Pie said. “About talking about princesses and their princessing now that there are four princesses instead of one big princess and maybe Cadance somewhere not being talked about.”

“I... don’t know either,” Twilight said, frowning. “The whole princess summit thing was supposed to clear that up, and you all know how that went.”

“You didn’t have your talks afterwards?” the lavender unicorn asked.

Twilight shrugged. “Sort of? It turns out royal schedules aren’t very forgiving of three-day-long delays. We never got to the whole ‘religious implications’ part. Princess Celestia didn’t seem to think it was all that important.”

“Well, next chance you get, I’d appreciate it if you’d ask,” Applejack said.

“And ask if I can get one of those swords!” Dash added.

“No swords!” Twilight said.

“Guys!” Spike said, eyes wide. “I think it’s happening again!”

“Yes!” Twilight cried, turning to the machine. The smooth curves on the paper had turned into a chaotic-looking series of spikes that overlapped each other. “Incredible!” 

“What is it, Twilight?” the lavender unicorn asked. “What’s happening?”

“This is extremely intricate,” Twilight said, her eyes darting all over the scrolling paper. “Whoever made this is a genius! Or a lunatic!”

“Oh, man, here it comes!” Spike groaned. Then he opened his mouth and spat out a gout of fire that split into two streams which curled back along themselves and splashed onto his body. As the fire cleared the gathered ponies saw that Spike’s tail had been replaced with a pony’s, and his head frills had become the long, straight mane of Twilight Sparkle. 

“Spike!” Twilight crowed. “This is amazing!” She flapped part of the paper at them with her magic. “Do you realize what this means?”

“That I’ll have to borrow your shampoo?”

“No! I mean, yes, if it lasts long enough, I guess,” Twilight said, before shaking her head. “No, what it means is that I was right! This is some kind of viral spell. But it’s so much more than that! It integrates with the subject, using their own magic to augment their physical bodies into the spell’s target form!”

“Huh?” Dash said, speaking for all of them.

“The spell that turned all of you into me used your own magic to do it,” Twilight explained. “That’s why the dispelling blades won’t work on it, the runes think the spell is part of your natural magic and don’t activate. It’s why Spike’s changing so differently from the rest of you!”

“Does this tell you how to fix us?” Applejack asked.

“Well, no,” Twilight said, excitement dulling. “But it’s a start. I’ll have to check my books, but I’m sure I’ve seen a description of spells like this before. I can’t remember where, though, so it might take awhile to search through all of these.”

“How about this one?” Pinkie asked, sliding an open book over to Twilight.

“Wha... Yes! This is it. Thank you, Pinkie.”

Applejack gave Pinkie a nonplussed look. “What?” Pinkie asked.

“You know what I’m gonna ask,” Applejack replied.

“It was one of the ones I grabbed, and I got bored waiting for you and Dash to be done so I flipped through it, and that was the page I landed on,” Pinkie said. 

“Eyup,” Applejack said, refusing to give it any more thought as she turned back to Twilight. “What’s it say?”

“Oh, no! This is not good,” Twilight fretted, staring at the page.

“What is it, Twilight?” the lavender unicorn asked. “Are we going to be stuck like this? Don’t tell me there is no cure!”

“No,” Twilight said. “According to this there’s several ways to create a cure to a spell like this, but most of them are very difficult and only work half the time. The other half, well, they make things worse.”

“That’s terrible!” the lavender unicorn cried. “Is there nothing better we can do?”

“Well, yes, there is one thing,” Twilight said. “It works one hundred percent of the time and is absolutely safe.”

“Well, why don’t we do that one, then?” Dash asked. “I mean, duh!”

“It’s not that simple, Dash,” Twilight sighed. “To use this cure we have to have help. We need a special creature that we can use as a pattern to create a counterspell from.”

“What kind of creature?” Applejack asked. “If we manage to track down Fluttershy, I’m sure she’d know where to find one.”

“Not one of these,” Twilight said. “What we need isn’t an animal. We need a Changeling.”

“Oh,” Applejack said, eyes going wide. “Well, that’s a bit out of our range.”

“Yeah, I mean, where are we gonna find a Changeling?” Dash said. “You can’t just whistle Chrysalis up whenever you need her around. Which was, like, never up until today.”

“Maybe if we asked nicely?” Pinkie said. “And offered to throw her a party? A not-invading-Canterlot-and-instead-curing-us-all party?”

“Oh yes, I see that working perfectly,” the lavender unicorn snarked, rolling her eyes. “Why, we could have Spike send her a letter! ‘Dear Queen Chrysalis. We, the ponies who helped thwart your invasion, would very much like it if you came over and let us test spells on you until we figured out how to undo a magical transformation on ourselves. Party to follow. Regards, us’. I’m sure she would just jump at the chance. Why, she’d be bursting down our door moments after such an invitation was sent!”

“Rarity,” Twilight chided. “Your sarcasm isn’t helping anyp–”

The library door rattled from a heavy kick to it. The five ponies and a (mostly) dragon stared at it. A second kick tore the door open, shattering the lock and twisting it off its top hinges. Standing in the open doorway, an evil green light burning in her eyes, stood Queen Chrysalis. Emerald flames surrounded her, licking at the doorway and obscuring the street from view. She reared up with her wings spread and a haughty grin spread across her face.

“Twilight Sparkle!” Chrysalis roared, her doubled voice shaking the loose books on the shelves. “Prepare to meet your – wait why are there five of you?” Chrysalis’ expression rapidly changed from triumph to confusion as she stared at the scene in the library. “What’s going on?” 

There was a long moment of stunned silence before Pinkie Pie let out a low whistle. “Wow, Rarity. You are good!”

> Part 6: Round one: Dash Vs Gilda; Pinkie Vs Sombra
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The lavender unicorn was not one to pass up an opportunity. The world of fashion was always fast moving, and any pony that failed to jump on the newest trend was doomed to be playing catch up forever after. So, shocked at the turn of events as she was, she was still the first to leap up and shout “Get her!” then follow it up with a charge at the Changeling.

Chrysalis, however, was a little slower to shift mental gears, and thus completely unprepared for the oncoming tackle. “What? No!” was all she managed to get out before the lavender unicorn bowled into the Changeling Queen, knocking them both backwards out the door and into the street.

In the street, Gilda, the Flim-Flam brothers, Trixie and sock-Sombra passively watched their nominal leader roll past them in a tangle of black and lavender limbs. Gilda turned to the salespony brothers with a haughty smirk. “Pay up,” she said.

“You’re jumping the gun, my dear,” Flim abjured, holding up a forestalling hoof. He and his brother did not look well, sweating and panting, their faces screwed up in pain. Yet he gamely tried to keep up a jovial tone as he spoke. “Her plan isn’t dead yet.”

“Rarity!” Rainbow Dash cried from inside the library, and then four and a half lavender ponies piled out, stopping in shock as they saw the forces arrayed against them. “What are you guys doing here?” Dash asked.

Trixie’s mouth dropped open as she stared at the lavender unicorns arrayed before her. “Twilight? Wait, Twilight? Who? Why?”

Gilda snorted back a laugh. “There goes Dark Magic girl. Good enough for you two?” The brothers grumbled and each tossed a small bag of bits to the griffon, who caught them easily. “Never bet on stupid or against crazy, boys.”

Momentarily forgotten, Chrysalis and the lavender unicorn struggled against each other, rolling in the dirt and grass. The lavender unicorn had surprise and ferocity on her side, but Chrysalis was no stranger to combat and quickly used her greater size and strength to her advantage, twisting and throwing the attacking unicorn away from her. The Changeling Queen rolled to her hooves and shook the dirt off her carapace. “Enough! You dare lay your hooves on me? I should…” she trailed off as she looked around to discover herself standing in the midst of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, all of whom were giving her disturbingly eager looks. With a very unqueenly squeak she scampered over to where her own forces were doing precisely nothing to help her. “Okay, so, where were we?”

“Chrysalis!” Twilight Sparkle called out, her wings flaring in her excitement.

“Ah, yes,” Chrysalis purred, finding herself on solid footing again. “Good. The hero speech. A little earlier than expected, but that’s fine.”

“We are so glad to see you!” Twilight continued.

Chrysalis blinked. “You what?”

“What the hay is wrong with Spike?” Trixie asked, staring aghast at the mostly-not-a-dragon.

“He seems fine to me,” sock-Sombra provided. “Hold me higher, I want to look down on these peons!”

“Now hold still, this shouldn’t hurt, um, much,” Twilight was saying, her horn lighting up.

A beam of magenta light burst from Equestria’s newest princess, blasting towards Chrysalis, who dodged to the side. “Attacking already? I misjudged you, Twilight.”

Twilight, for her part, was rubbing at her head, a pained expression creasing her face. “Rarity,” she whined. “Did you have to aim for the horn?”

“Work through it, darling,” the lavender unicorn replied, taking her place next to her friends. “A return to stylish curls is in sight! I’m not going to let a little headache stop me now!”

“It’s my headache, Rarity,” Twilight sighed, but composed herself quickly. “Alright girls, looks like we’ve got, uh, hmm,” she regarded their opposition. “Okay, I know who you all are, but why are you all together? And, Trixie, why are you holding up that sock?”

“I am Sombra, King of the Crystal Empire! And I will feast on your misery!” sock-Sombra replied.

The lavender ponies drew back from the snarling sock, save Pinkie, who grinned a manic, sparkling-eyed smile that looked particularly deranged when plastered on Twilight’s features. “I want one,” she whispered.

“Wait, are you guys all Twilight clones, or is there some other stupidity going on here?” Gilda asked.

“Hey, Gilda,” Rainbow Dash said, waving to the griffon. “Nah, we’re all us.”

“Dash?” Gilda shook her head in disbelief, the motion dropping feathers in a snowy flurry. She squinted at Dash, shading her eyes. “You look ridiculous. How did this happen?”

“Magic virus,” Dash nonchalantly replied. “Why are you hanging out with these dweebs? I thought ponies weren’t your scene.”

“Getting paid,” Gilda replied with equal indifference.

“All of you shut up!” Chrysalis snarled. “I don’t care what they look like, these are your targets! Get to it!”

“Stick together, girls!” Twilight said stepping forward, her head held high and defiant. “I don’t know what you want, Chrysalis, but you’re not going to get it!”

“There!” Chrysalis crowed. “Finally you start acting like you’re supposed to!”

“But if you could please put your evil plans on hold for just ten minutes, I really need to get a scan of your biology and how it reacts to an invasive transmutation spell.” Pinkie poked Twilight in the side. “And we’ll throw a party for you afterwards, if you want.” Pinkie nodded in happy agreement.

Chrysalis sighed, squeezing her eyes tightly shut and muttering to herself for a moment before shooting a burning green glare at Twilight. “No,” she said.

Twilight shrugged, looking towards her friends. “Well, I tried.”

“You did your best, sugarcube,” Applejack said, smiling and pawing expectantly at the ground. “But I guess she’s just spoilin’ for a fight.”

“Yeah, too bad you didn’t bring your army this time, Chrysalis!” Dash said, setting herself in a runner’s crouch. “Just taking care of these losers is too easy.”

“Oh, Dash,” Gilda said with a wan grin, flexing her claws. “You know that it’s on now, right?”

“Which one of you is Pinkie Pie?” sock-Sombra asked.

“Oh! Me! That’s me! I’m Pinkie!” Pinkie called, hopping into the air with one hoof raised. Trixie’s hoof whipped forward, flinging sock-Sombra off of her. The sock-puppet tyrant flew through the air, spinning end over end before sliding perfectly onto Pinkie’s upraised hoof. Pinkie brought the hoof down, staring at the black sock that was already showing blotches of lavender coloring. Then her hoof twisted around of its own accord, turning Sombra’s googly-eyed face to hers. She brought her other hoof up just in time to block him as he lunged towards her face, plastic fangs snapping. “Gah!” was all that Pinkie managed to get out as she fell backwards.

“Pinkie!” Twilight called out in alarm.

As this was going on, Chrysalis was studying each of the ponies in turn. “Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and that one’s Rarity. Good. Where’s Fluttershy? No, it doesn’t matter. This will do.” Her crooked horn flared bright green, and whirlpools of flame leapt up under the hooves of nearly every pony, griffon or dragon present.

“She’s teleporting us!” Twilight cried even as she sank into the fire. The others couldn’t even call out before the magic enveloped them. In a moment the street was empty save for Chrysalis and the lavender unicorn.

Chrysalis let her magic fade, her horn steaming from the power she had channeled through it. She was not going to be at her strongest magically for quite some time, but that didn’t matter. She knew she had all the strength she would need to defeat one pampered dressmaker. She grinned at the lavender unicorn, being sure to show her fangs. “Now,” she purred. “Let the game begin.”


***


Rainbow Dash looked around in surprise. A river rushed by only a few feet from where she sat, and gray stone rose up high on either side of it. She recognized this place. She was in Ghastly Gorge. A groan warned her that she was not alone, and she spun to see Gilda leaning against the wall of the gorge, breathing heavily and dropping feathers with every shudder of her wings..

“You okay?” Dash asked, natural concern for her old friend overriding her suspicion at the circumstances.

“Yeah, I’m totally fine,” Gilda lied. “But I’m starting to think I didn’t make a large enough bet.”

“What’s going on, Gilda?” Dash asked, walking up to the griffon and pushing her.

Gilda fell to a sitting position without a fight, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. “You tell me. I feel like someone’s trying to jackhammer my skull off every time I open my eyes. Did Chrysalis mess up her teleport or something?”

Dash sighed. “Yeah, not so much. You’ve got the Twilight virus pretty bad.”

“Seriously?” Gilda scoffed. “I’m not even a pony. I thought we couldn’t catch each other’s  viruses.”

“I don’t think that matters this time,” Dash said. “It just does what it does.”

“Ugh. Lame,” Gilda sighed. “I was supposed to challenge you to a race, you know.”

“Really? I thought you were gonna try to kill me or something.”

“Right, like I’d ever agree to something like that,” Gilda said, but paused, a different type of pain crossing her features. “You really think I’d do something that low?”

Dash shrugged. “Not really. But Chrysalis has some kind of mind-control stuff. I figured maybe she used it on you.”

Gilda slumped. “I’ve seen it,” she said. “I don’t think she got me with it, but with that crap who ever knows, right?”

“Yeah,” Dash agreed, sitting down next to Gilda. “So that was her plan? Just get you to race me?”

Gilda nodded. “That was my part of it. I don’t know what she wanted from everyone else. She was spouting a bunch of stuff about ‘elements of disharmony’ but I wasn’t buying any of it, and neither was anyone else. Including her.”

“Well, you know I’m always up for a race,” Dash said. “But, uh…”

“Yeah, I get it,” Gilda said. “Not like I’m in any shape to do anything either. How long’s this going to take anyway?”

“It took me a day and a half,” Dash replied. “But Twilight said it was getting faster. If you’re going as fast as Spike is, you’ll probably be a Twilight copy in an hour.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted,” Gilda sighed. “Fine. I guess you’re gonna run to your lame-o little pony friends now. They probably need all the help they can get.”

“What’s your problem, anyway?” Dash asked, standing and glaring at the griffon. “You keep treating my friends like dirt. Why? What did they ever do to you?”

“Aside from those party pranks?” Gilda asked, then continued before Dash could say anything. “That I know Pinkie set up just to get me? She might have got you playing along with it, but it was her plan through and through, and don’t try to deny it.”

“Yeah, well, you were pretty mean to her first,” Dash said, kicking at a loose stone.

Gilda didn’t even bother to deny it. “She deserved it.”

“How can you say that? You don’t even know her! You didn’t even try!”

“I don’t have to, I could tell that she’s as uncool as it gets,” Gilda said.

“My friends have saved the entire world!” Dash shouted. “More than once! We’ve saved Equestria and the Crystal Empire and I don’t even know, maybe other places too! Of course they’re cool. They’re heroes, Gilda!”

“They’re pathetic,” she said. “And they made you pathetic.”

“How can you say that?” Dash repeated, shaking her head in frustration.

“Because it’s true,” Gilda replied. “You used to be awesome, Dash. Back at Junior Speedster’s you were everything. You flew higher than anyone and looked down on everyone else. You were going places, you were going to be someone, and only the best got to be your friends. Only the ones who could keep up with you. Now? She’s a sugared-up child in a mare’s body! And your other friends? The pegasus afraid of heights? The farmer who’s never going to leave her orchard? The dress-maker? Come on!”

“You missed the princess.”

“Yeah, she’s the worst of them all,” Gilda snarled. “Celestia’s favourite, the little bookworm princess who’s had everything handed to her on a silver platter. The one who gets set above everyone else just because that’s where people put her, not because she deserves it, and not because she worked her way there!”

“You have no idea who she is,” Dash said coldly.

“But I know who you are,” Gilda said, leaning back against the wall, the heat leaving her voice. “And I knew who you were. You were cool, Dash, but they’ve dragged you down. Your friends aren’t keeping to your pace anymore, you’re keeping to theirs. You’re not flying anymore, Dash, not like you were. That’s what lame is. You were cool, Dash, but you’re not anymore.”

“I am cool!” Dash roared. “I’m awesome! I’m the most awesome there is! I’m Rainbow Dash!”

“Funny,” Gilda said, cracking her eyelids open to reveal the newly-purple eyes beneath. “You look like Twilight Sparkle.”

To that, Dash had no reply.


***


Pinkie Pie found herself in the kitchen of Sugarcube Corner. This wasn’t unusual; she often found herself in the kitchen of Sugarcube Corner, especially if she was working that day, and also a surprising number of times when she wasn’t working at all. She was just a kitchen sort of pony. Finding herself was just the first part of the problem, though. The other part of the problem was the thread-based evil king who was occupying her right foreleg with his nefarious attempt to bite her to death. Or probably just pinch her a lot, since those fangs didn’t look very sharp at all.

“I was just wondering,” she began, rolling onto her stomach and using her left hoof to force her possessed right to the ground. “How did you survive that happiness explosion with the Crystal Heart? It looked pretty big.”

“Hatred cannot be destroyed!”

“Oh! So you’re a spirit of hatred? Like Discord is the spirit of chaos?”

“No,” sock-Sombra said. “I just hate all of you too much to die.”

“Well, that’s a different thing entirely,” Pinkie said. “I guess you were kind of undead-like to begin with, since you were a shadow-pony and all.” She tapped her free hoof on her chin as she thought about it. This, of course, left Sombra free to attack.

He jerked up, slamming his face into her nose. She squeaked and rolled over, once more struggling against her own limb. “I will paint the walls with your blood!” sock-Sombra snarled. “And force your family to labour in the quarries!”


“They probably wouldn’t notice the difference!” Pinkie said. “And blood makes terrible paint!”

They rolled across the kitchen. Sombra repeatedly slammed his face into Pinkie’s and she would respond by punching him with her left hoof. They slammed up against a counter, rattling the dishes stacked atop it. They grabbed at loose plates simultaneously, bringing them down on each other with a crash that shattered both against their respective horns.

“Ow!” Pinkie cried, reeling back. “Wow, these things are way more sensitive than I thought they’d be!”

“What? You didn’t know that?” sock-Sombra asked. “What kind of unicorn are you?”

“Not a unicorn,” Pinkie replied. “I’m an earth pony!” Sombra’s wiggling eyes stared at her incredulously. “Weren’t you listening back there? Magic virus? Everypony is Twilight? Does any of that ring a bell?”

“I wasn’t paying attention,” Sombra admitted. “I didn’t think any of it mattered. You all look the same to me anyway.”

“Yes,” Pinkie said. “Because of a magic virus. Wait, you knew my name but didn’t know I’m an earth pony?”

“The Changeling didn’t mention it,” Sombra said. “Or if she did, I wasn’t paying attention then, either.”

“Wow, and my friends think I’m a scatterbrain,” Pinkie said.

“It doesn’t matter!” Sombra snarled. “All that matters is that you aided in my defeat, and I shall have my revenge!”

“I didn’t really help,” Pinkie said. “I was more just kind of there, being moral support.”

“That still counts!” he cried, launching into another flurry of attacks.

“Yay!” Pinkie crowed between punches. “I helped!”

They rolled along the counter, exchanging blows with every opportunity. Sombra reached for a wooden knife block, but she knocked it away, sending sharp cutlery scattering all over the room. Drawers and cupboards were pulled open, their contents spilled to the floor as the combatants used everything that came to hoof to batter each other. Pinkie hit him with a rolling pin; he socked her in the gut with a colander. She frayed his threads with an eggbeater and he shaved her hoof with a cheesegrater. Each weapon was discarded almost as soon as it was used, and broken plates and fallen utensils made the floor treacherous.

They came to the ovens. She slammed him down on a stove element, turning on the gas. Flames leapt up and he roared in pain before pulling off the stove and reversing their position. Pinkie scrambled to shut the gas off, and managed to stop the fire before her mane was more than singed.

“Have a cupcake!” Sombra growled as he slammed her face with a muffin tray.

“Don’t be silly,” she replied, pulling the oven open with her back hoof and forcing Sombra into the opening. “You’ve got to bake them first!” With a vicious kick she slammed the oven door closed on sock-Sombra’s face. She pulled the oven open. “Oops! Not done yet!” She sing-songed, then slammed the oven closed again. She repeated this a half-dozen more times for good measure.

He waited until she had pulled the door open before snapping out, punching her in the nose again. She jerked back, but he caught her mane with his fangs and pulled forward. Pinkie flipped completely head over hooves, falling on her rear in front of the oven.

He grabbed a pan from atop the oven and brought it down on Pinkie’s head. She wobbled in place, eyes askew and tongue hanging out while little birdies flew around in her sight. He whacked her again, then a third time for good measure, and she slumped to the ground, out cold. He dropped the pan, heaving to get air into his non-existent lungs.

Sombra looked around, his now-purple googly-eyes wobbling with every little motion. Then he spotted a heavy knife on the floor. “Aah, yesss,” he gloated, reaching out for it only to be stopped by the length of Pinkie’s leg. Undaunted he dug his fangs into the floor and pulled, dragging Pinkie’s still form with him as he inched closer to the edged weapon. Closer and closer he came, chuckling to himself at the thought of his victory. Then, just as he neared his goal, Pinkie moved.

She twisted, her head coming up and revealing that she had grabbed a wide, two-tined fork from the utensils that had been scattered across the floor by their fight. With a yell Pinkie slammed the fork down, embedding it in the floor and catching sock-Sombra’s horn between the tines. He snarled, thrashing about, but was unable to free himself. “Oh yeah,” Pinkie gasped out. “That’s right! Who’s laughing now, huh?” She pulled out the electric breadknife they used for particularly tough pumpernickel, the blades whirring to life. “Who’s laughing now? Ahahahahaa!”

“Pinkie!”

Pinkie stopped in the middle of bringing the knife down on her leg. She smiled up at the Cake family as they stood in the doorway. “Hi!” she chirped.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Cake asked, aghast at the devastated scene that was their bakery.

“Fighting King Sombra,” Pinkie replied, revving the knife for emphasis.

“Are you about to cut your own hoof off, young lady?” Mr. Cake asked, giving her a stern look.

“Ye–nooo,” Pinkie replied, quickly hiding the knife behind her. “Of course not.”

“Why are you destroying our kitchen?” Mrs. Cake asked, still surveying the damage.

“It wasn’t me, it was King Sombra!” Pinkie said, nodding towards the trapped sock-tyrant.

“Pinkie,” Mr. Cake said with the air of someone who has had to experience ridiculous things far too often. “That’s a sock.”

“No, he’s an undead shadow-pony-unicorn bent on world domination!” Pinkie protested. Sock-Sombra declined to do anything. “Okay, here.” She pulled the fork out of the floor, freeing Sombra to do his wicked will. “Now, watch, he’ll try to kill me any second now.” They waited, watching the lavender sock for any sign of movement. “Any second.” The tyrant stubbornly refused to murder her. “Okay, that’s just rude mister,” Pinkie admonished the sock. Sombra smugly remained silent.

“Pinkie,” Mrs. Cake sighed. “Just clean it up, please.”

“Will do!” Pinkie said, pulling her hoof out of the sock and saluting her employer. She looked at her free hoof, wiggling it and grinning. She grabbed a broom and was soon sweeping up broken plates and loose cutlery while the Cakes withdrew to their bedroom to have a long talk about ‘Pinkie-proofing’, whatever that was.

“Menial,” sock-Sombra growled from his place on the floor. “Sweeping up suits you. I shall ensure that your bones are made into brooms.” Pinkie giggled at that. Sombra bunched up some of his fabric to mimic frowning eyebrows. “You laugh? My victory is all but complete. Now your employers think you are insane! You are soon to be destitute and homeless!”

Pinkie let out a full-throated laugh. “Oh, silly, if you think that this will make them think I’m crazy, boy do you have another thing coming!” She leaned down to him, grinning. “Also, I know something you don’t know.”

“What? Even if you will not be thrown out like the trash that you are, I have still cost you, and I will not stop until I have destroyed you and all of your friends! What could you possibly know that would make you laugh?”

“I know that if you could move on your own, you would have by now,” Pinkie replied, giggling again. “And I know what the twins do to socks they find lying around.” She looked towards the door. Sombra’s eyes wiggled until they were looking in the same direction, and he saw the pair of foals standing there, staring at him with drooling interest. “Pound? Pumpkin?” Pinkie said, grinning evilly at the helpless dictator. “He’s all yours.”

The giggles of happy children easily drowned out the enraged cries. 

> Part 7: Round Two: Applejack and Spike Vs the Flim-Flam Brothers; Twilight Vs the Everfree Forest and Trixie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Applejack raised her head from the bush she had found herself dropped into by Chrysalis’ teleport. She looked around cautiously, wary of any ambush by the Changeling Queen. What she saw made her spirits raise and brought a frown to her face. She was in the middle of the south orchard of Sweet Apple Acres. 

The trees were growing new fruit, but were several weeks away from being ready for harvest. The Zap Apple orchard was not too far off, barren for now, waiting for the howling of the timberwolves. The Everfree Forest stood dark and forbidding within eyesight. She hadn't been doing more than a cursory walk-through of this field for a while, there could be anything hidden out here. 

She crept out of the bush, hissing as the brambles tore out tufts of lavender coat. She was still a  little disoriented from the teleport, but knew this place like the back of her hoof and it allowed her to quickly get her bearings.

She began to trot back towards the farmhouse, keeping her eyes open and her ears swivelling for any sound. When she heard hoofsteps coming she ducked behind a tree, readying herself to pounce. She waited until the pony was nearly past the tree she was using for cover, then she jumped out with a rodeo yell and landed on the back of a lavender unicorn who let out a surprised yelp.

"Ah! Fruit bat! Get it off, get it off, get it off!" Spike cried, thrashing about.

Applejack rolled off the transformed dragon with a sigh. "Darn it, Spike! You scared the hay out of me, sneakin' up like that!"

Spike relaxed as he saw that he wasn't being attacked by the fruity fauna and gave Applejack an incredulous look, which actually made him look even more like Twilight. "I scared you? You just jumped on me!"

"Thought you were a Changeling or somethin'," Applejack said, getting up and offering Spike a hoof to help him do the same.

He accepted with a grateful nod, still a little uncoordinated on four legs. "Well I'm not. Where are we?"

"South fields," Applejack answered. "That varmint dropped us off right in Sweet Apple Acres."

"Why?"

"Can't say, but I know it can't be good."

A rumble went through the ground, like a small earthquake that shivered up their legs. "Whoa! Did you feel that?" Spike asked, wiggling each leg in turn. "Is that normal?"

"I felt it, and no it ain't," Applejack said, looking around. Another rumble rolled through the earth. A whistle sounded, much like the one on the friendship express, and the air was filled with the sound of squawking birds as they took flight from the trees, fleeing whatever it was making that sound. 

"What do we do?" Spike asked, another shudder making him stumble.

"I think, maybe," Applejack began, and then the trees were pulled aside like curtains and a massive metal beast with a half-dozen grasping, whipping arms reached for them. "WE RUN!"

The two lavender unicorns took off running, and the machine followed. Steam billowed from a dozen tubes rising up from its back, a grill in its chest showed the inferno that powered the massive boiler. It stood on two thick metal legs, stepping forward with an awkward lurching that shook the ground with every step, but covered a surprising amount of ground. On the contraption’s shoulders there were two glass bubbles, each encasing a control station and one of the Flim-Flam brothers. They worked the many levers and buttons of their controls with both hooves and magic, their eyes covered by welding goggles and their bodies already most of the way through transforming into copies of Twilight. 

"A new invention, my dear!" Flim's voice boomed from the machine. 

"A one-of-a-kind prototype!" Flam exclaimed. 

"You have the honor!" Flim regaled.

"The privilege!" Flam expanded.

"The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of seeing the first test drive of the incredible!"

"Impossible!"

"Impenetrable!"

"Flim-Flam Brothers Super-Steamy Apple Picker Two-Thousand!" they finished in unison. 

"And guess who the first apple we've decided to pick is!" Flim added with a sneering laugh.

"Aw, great, they've got a Super-SAP," Spike huffed. "What are we gonna do, Applejack!"

"I got an idea!" Applejack called in reply.

"Great! I'm all ears!"

"Well, you know what they say: the bigger they are!" 

"The flatter they squish you?"

"Darn it, Spike! I'm tryin' to tell you the plan! It's wanderin' around on those two stilts, what do you think happens if we trip it up?"

Spike's purple eyes widened. "Ohh! Yeah! How are we gonna do that?"

"I know where some rope is, we'll grab that and  then we're in business." Applejack whooped in excitement, turning down a row of apples and grinning as she spotted the roped off section that marked out where they had treated some trees for a minor blight. "Grab it as we go!" She told spike, then suited actions to words, snagging the rope with her mouth as she passed, pulling the stakes it had been tied to completely out of the ground. Spike fared a little worse, but he managed not to trip himself on the rope. 

"Alright, on three we turn back around. You go and wrap your end around a tree, then bite down and hold with all your might!" Spike mumbled something in response, the reply too muffled by the rope in his mouth to be audible. "I'll take that as an 'A-OK'," Applejack said. She looked ahead, fixing on a pair of thick, sturdy trees. "One! Two! Three!"

They juked to the side, wrapping the rope around the trees and holding tight. The Super-SAP, too ponderous to change direction or speed easily, stepped right into the rope. Spike cried out as he was dragged into the tree, but managed to hold on. Applejack dug her hooves into the dirt and willed herself to stay put. There was a long moment as the Flim-Flam brothers worked their controls furiously. Then the iron behemoth began the slow topple to the ground. 

Applejack's elation quickly deflated, however, as several of the arms reached out and halted the fall before it had gone halfway down. 

"A fair try, my dear," Flim congratulated.

"But the Flim-Flam brothers Super-Steamy Apple Picker Two-Thousand isn't so easily beaten!" Flam exulted.

"Aw, horseapples," Applejack said, then took off running.

"It didn't work!" Spike cried, coming up next to her.

"I see that, Spike!" Applejack snapped back at him. "But I'm plumb out of ideas! Can you think of anythin'?"

"Find Twilight?"

"Easier said than done, sugarcube! Who knows where that witch sent her!" Applejack shook her head. "No, we gotta get out of this ourselves. Come on, Spike! Help me out here!"

"Uh... I don't know! I've had hooves for less than an hour and I'm running all over the place and my teeth hurt and that thing looks unstoppable! If Twilight and everypony else were here, maybe! But if you think we can take it out on our own, you’re crazy!"

"Crazy... Spike! I got it!" Applejack cried out, changing her heading so that they were angling deeper into the orchard.

"You do?" Spike asked, panting as he fought to keep up with her. "What is it?"

"Well, we can't beat that monster machine. But we can beat the two no-good hucksters runnin' it. All we gotta do is get to 'em!"

"Great! How are we going to do that?"

Applejack saw their destination up ahead. "By exploitin' my little sister's mad genius is how!" She leapt, clearing several times her height and rolling through the open door of the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse. She skid to a stop, already searching the piles of random detritus that the Crusaders had accumulated. 

Spike clambered into the large treehouse after her, panting hard from the run. "So... what... are we looking... for?"

"One of those fillies’ less brilliant ideas," Applejack said, digging through a pile of discarded props for cutie-mark attempts. 

"Like the rocket sled?"

"No, not that."

"How about the hang-gliders?"

"We don't have a tree tall enough to make those work."

"The home-made fireworks?" Spike continued guessing. Which meant he wasn't actually looking for anything, much to Applejack's annoyance. "The full-body exercise machine that ejects weights at high speed? The stuff they made to get rid of tree sap that also melts steel? Oh! How about the jet-powered animal dryer! That one could work!"

"Spike!" Applejack said, quieting him. "None of that. If it ain't ridiculous it's downright dangerous, more to us than the Flim-Flam brothers. I confiscated all of that the moment I heard of it. And I don't even know how to work that dryer, so it's out. No, I'm thinkin' somethin' simple. Somethin' that ain't got as much chance of backfirin' on us as all that." She smiled as she found what she was looking for.

"What could that be?"

Applejack withdrew her find. "Cutie Mark Crusaders pogo warriors."

Spike stared at her, then at the souped-up pogo stick in her hooves. One look was all he needed to see that it was a weapon of war, and it had seen hard use. Its spring squealed with every movement, its glued on spikes drooped, its hoof-grips were bent into awkward angles, and its built-in air-pressure-assist bounce amplifier was covered in heart stickers. To such a magnificent engine of destruction there could be only one response: "If it's all the same to you, Applejack, I'm gonna keep running."

"The hay you will!" Applejack said. "This here contraption put a hole in the barn roof when they used it. It'll make right quick work of those fancy snowglobes the Flim Flam brothers are sittin' in. Now come on! They'll be here any moment!" She tossed the doom-pogo to him and pulled out its slightly less battered twin. 

Spike managed to catch the over-engineered spring, giving it an uneasy look. "I don't know, isn't this just as dangerous as the fireworks."

"Probably," Applejack said with a shrug. "But at least these give us the option to aim." The steam whistle of the Super-SAP announced the arrival of the brothers. "Let's go, Spike! Aim for the glass!"

They rushed out of the treehouse. The Flim-Flam brothers maneuvered their monstrous apple-harvesting device into sight and charged. Applejack pulled the ripcord of her pogo and it let out a growl of power. Then she took a deep breath and leapt from the treehouse porch, putting her hooves into their places on the pogo and letting out the ancient battle-cry of the Apple clan: "YEEE-HAAWW!!"

The pogo hit the ground. The dirt exploded away in a circle of destruction as the pogo's various bounce enhancement systems activated. Then, with a sound akin to a long hollow tube with an irate porcupine stuck inside, it shot Applejack up high above the orchard. Spike and the brothers watched with open-mouthed awe as Applejack flew in a graceful arc, tumbling end over end in the most amazing feat of aerobatics they’d seen an earth pony perform. She twisted and spun seven hundred and twenty degrees on the vertical and many more on the horizontal, managing to keep her hard, purple stare fixed on her target the entire time. As the arc hit its apex Spike was sure that he saw Applejack pose as she hung suspended in the air. Then she was falling, the business-end of the pogo aimed squarely for Flim's seat.

Flim yelled in panic, working his levers furiously, but to no avail. Applejack's fall came to an end right above him, and the ensuing second bounce shattered his protection and threw him completely out of the Super-SAP.

"Brother! No!" Flam bellowed.

"Spike! Get him now!" Applejack yelled as she shot high into the sky, her voice trailing away.

"Whoa," Spike said, staring at the vanishing purple dot that was his friend. Then he looked at the metal giant and set his features into a determined, confident grin. "All right, you're in for it now!" He jumped from the treehouse, hit the ground in a perfect pogo stance, and bounced face-first into the metal chest of the apple-picking monstrosity.

The Super-SAP tilted back and, with Flam unable to work the controls fast enough on his own, it fell to the earth. The crash of the behemoth made trees jump and ripe apples fall for half a mile all around. Then everything was still. The Super-SAP lay on its back, Spike sticking out of its body like a limp lavender lawn dart, held fast by his embedded horn and dazed from the impact. Flam pushed at the controls, but the machine refused to budge, and his window was similarly stuck in place, trapping him in his seat. Flim stood up from where he had been thrown, brushing dirt and twigs from his coat as he surveyed the damage. 

An explosion a little ways off heralded Applejack coming back to the ground again. The pogo shot off sans-rider as she galloped back to where the beast had been slain. She took in all of it with a glance and a smile. "Good work, Spike," she said, tipping her hat to him.

"Gwuaghuhhh..." Spike replied.

"Well, now," Applejack said, stepping around to trap Flim between herself and the metal body of the Super-SAP. "Looks like this SAP's been sapped." She grinned at her humor. Flim just stared at her with a confused expression. "Come on now: 'sapped'," she said, her amused smile turning quickly to a frown. He just shook his head. "Like, you knock a pony out with a quick blow they been... you know what? Forget it. Serves me right for tryin' to be clever.”

“...Huuughwaaa?”

“Why, thank you, Spike,” Applejack said. “At least someone appreciates this here attempt to be high-brow. Now, let’s get down to it. You two are gonna tell me what that no-good snake Chrysalis is up to, and you’re gonna do it right quick.”

“Hold on there, my good mare,” Flim spouted. “The Flim-Flam brothers aren’t done yet!”

“That’s right!” Flam exhuberated, his voice muffled by the intervening glass. “We’ve still got aces up our sleeves!”

“Do ya now?” Applejack asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Seems to me like you got one pony stuck in his own personal fish-bowl, and the other fixin’ to get a hoof to the teeth. Don’t look like aces to me. How ‘bout you, Spike?”

“Aaabluuhh?”

“Right you are. So.” She pawed at the ground, stretching out her hind legs one at a time. “Do you wanna talk to me? Or should I introduce you to Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee?” The brothers shared a long, worried look. Applejack decided to encourage them. “And before you decide, keep in mind that I kick trees hard enough to shake apples out of ‘em. All day, every day.”

Sweat dripped from Flim’s ruler-straight purple mane. “Now, miss, let’s not be hasty,” he supplicated.

“We don’t know anything about Chrysalis’ plan,” Flam abetted. 

“We were just doing this for the money!” Flim elucidated.

“All we were supposed to do was distract you!” Flam appended. 

“Distract me? But why?” Applejack turned in the direction of Ponyville.

“...Aaaooowww.”

“You said it, Spike,” Applejack said, shaking her head. “Whatever it is, it can’t be good.” She turned back to the brothers. “Now, are you two gonna behave, or am I gonna have to get serious?”

They shared another look, shrugging at each other. “I suppose, ma’am, that our job has been done,” Flam conceded. 

“You beat us fair and square,” Flim concurred. “You’ll get no more trouble from us.”

“Well,” Applejack said with a satisfied nod. “That’s that, then. But you still stomped up a good part of my orchard, so it seems to me like you owe me some.” Flim and Flam’s eyes widened in identical lavender alarm. Applejack allowed a sly smile to answer their worries. “But I think I know just how you can repay me. Listen close, boys, here’s what y'all can do…”


***



"–Teleport us! Aw, I hate it when she does that!" Twilight growled as the green flames faded from around her. She stomped a hoof, but resolved to take stock of her situation. She peered around, finding herself in a very dark place. An attempt at a light spell only produced a few sparks and a throbbing headache. "Agh! Rarity! Why, why, why did you have to aim for my horn? You know how much getting hit in the horn messes us up."

The completely unexpected response to her complaint was a low growl and the hot, swampy smell of rotting vegetation. Twilight froze. "Oh, Chrysalis, you didn't." A dull glow began to light up the darkness, but it wasn't a comforting light. No, this was the eerie glow that came from the eyes of a dozen lupine creatures made from sticks and leaves and moss. Timberwolves. A dozen of them, all staring right at her. "I'm going to get you for this, Chrysalis," Twilight promised as the plant creatures began to stalk towards her. "I don't know how, but I swear to Celestia, Luna and, I guess, myself, that I will."

Then with the speed and confidence born of years of experience, she turned and ran screaming. Adrenaline surged through her as her heart pounded, the miracle drug allowing her to focus through the pain enough to force a spell. She teleported blind, emerging from the flash of her magic among the sunlit trees of the Everfree forest. The blast of pain from the effort staggered her for a moment, but she shook it off as the howling of wolves told her she hadn't exactly gone far. 

The wolves burst out of their den, the entrance barely ten feet behind her as Twilight started running again. She galloped across the uneven ground, sparing a glance behind her every now and then to gauge how far she had gotten from the pursuing wolves. Or, as it turned out, how far they had gained on her. 

"Timberwolves are nocturnal!" she shrieked at them. "You shouldn't be this energetic in the middle of the day! Go back to sleep!" They provided a rebuttal in the form of a snap at her tail that pulled a few hairs out. This being a rather effective argument, Twilight decided to concede the debate to them and focus her efforts on escaping further discussion.

They were all around her, snapping at her flanks and forcing her to turn. They were driving her somewhere, and she quickly realized it. She knew that allowing them to do that would be dangerous, but she couldn't see any way to prevent it. Finally she saw what they had been herding her towards: a cliff. The sheer drop was one of the Everfree-standard two-hundred foot falls, the kind that were inexplicably peppered throughout the forest. 

She was trapped. If she stopped, she would be torn apart by timber wolves. If she jumped, she would be smashed into the ground far below. Maybe she would be able to get off a teleport before she hit the ground... maybe. A quick look at the jaws of the wolf pacing her, amber saliva dripping from its wooden jaws, and she decided a chance was better than nothing. She poured on the speed, lowering her head and closing her eyes as she leapt from the precipice and waited for gravity to take hold.

Which it never did. When she opened one eye to check why she wasn't plummeting to her death, she discovered that this was because she was, in fact, an Alicorn princess. Wings and all. "Oh," she chuckled sheepishly. "Right."

She turned back to the timber wolves and smirked in foalish superiority. "Thought you were gonna get me, huh?" She laughed. "Nice try, but as you can see I'm not so easy to --"

The giant bird came out of nowhere, snatching her from the air in silver claws and crying in victory as it carried her away. Twilight grunted in pain as the claws wrenched her wings, twisting them into pained uselessness. She managed to fold them down before they were completely pulled from their sockets, but the pain kept her from taking stock of her new situation for a few minutes. Once the pain had faded enough for her to look around, she ended up staring open mouthed at the enormous gray and blue bird. "A thunderbird," she gasped. "So rare that there's at most five confirmed sightings a year! And it's going to eat me!" That terrifying realization lasted all of thirty seconds before a new fact dawned on her. "Hey! Thunderbirds eat lightning and rain! I'm not your primary food source! Put me down!"

The majestic beast obliged, letting go to spill Twilight down onto a surprisingly soft surface. A cloud. A cloud shaped into a rough bowl. A cloud shaped into a rough bowl that also had a quartet of pony-sized birds with stubby, unfeathered wings. A quartet of pony-sized birds that were eyeing Twilight hungrily.

"Thunderbird chicks, on the other hoof, often supplement their diet with meat until they leave the nest," Twilight said with a sigh. She tried to flap her wings, but a screaming pain made her rethink that idea. So, with few other options left, she took a deep, cleansing breath, shook out her tousled mane, and glared at the baby mythical beasts. 

"Well, okay," she said, setting herself solidly on all four hooves and lowering her horn at the enormous hungry chicks. "I've spent the last two days fighting insane alternate universe versions of myself, only to come home to find out all my friends were also turned into clones of me. I've been beaten up, hung upside down, humiliated and dumped in the Everfree forest with my magic on the fritz. I have been chased in broad daylight by nocturnal predators and been mistaken for baby food by a legendary avian. I have had a bad day." She held her head high, the intensity of her stare making the hungry chicks hesitate. "But you know what? My friends are in danger! And if there is one thing in the world I will not stand, it's my friends being hurt! I'm Twilight Sparkle! Princess of Equestria! I've faced bigger than you, and I've just about run out of patience. So come on! You want to do this? Let's do this!"

She punctuated that last by stomping her hoof on the cloud underneath her. Which did what clouds will do when a pegasus –or Alicorn– kicks them: it broke apart. Right under her. She had just enough time to stare ruefully at the empty air beneath her and snap out an exasperated "Oh you have got to be kidding me" before gravity did its thing and she was once more tumbling down.

She closed her eyes and seethed. It was going to be a long fall.

Fortunately, it had been a low-flying nest that just happened to be above one of the many rivers that flowed through the great forest. Unfortunately…

"Piranhas?! Oh come on! This isn't even remotely the right climate!"

Two waterfalls, some rapids, a whirlpool, innumerable fish bites and one shark-riding bear attack later, and Twilight dragged herself from the river. She fell onto the relatively dry earth with an exhausted thump and gave voice to the one thought that was beginning to define her current predicament: “I hate this forest.”

“Appropriate,” came the unexpected response. “Since it seems to Trixie that this forest hates you.”

Twilight looked up at Trixie. The other mare was nearly a carbon-copy of Twilight from before she had become an Alicorn. She also looked like she'd been through as much trouble as Twilight had. She was missing her hat and her cape was torn and ragged, covered in dirt, twigs and leaves. She grinned triumphantly at Twilight, her eyes split halfway between her natural hue and Twilight’s purple. That split was made exceptionally noticeable by a flare of green changeling magic separating them. "Hi, Trixie,” Twilight said, too tired to muster a more energetic greeting. “Do you think you could give me a moment?”

“The great and powerful Trixie is always willing to face her opponents at their best!” Trixie proclaimed, tossing her mane back in a way that simply did not work with Twilight’s style. The green magic in her eyes flashed and her haughty expression turned to a scowl. “However, this forest is not the only thing that hates you, so Trixie thinks she will make an exception.” She raised a hoof.

“Trixie!” Twilight cried. “Wait!” But it was too late as Trixie’s hoof came down and everything went dark.