This Is The Only Chapter
“I’m trying to study, Rainbow Dash,” said Twilight for the eighteenth time that day.
“Yeah, I noticed! But I thought this would help you, you know, concentrate!”
Twilight turned her head, looking directly into Rainbow’s eyes. It was unavoidable given Rainbow was less than an inch away, a smile stretching from ear to ear with inexplicable glee. Rainbow hadn’t even looked this happy when she got accepted into the Wonderbolt Academy. Twilight understood that kind of glee. This? This was a glee that went beyond all comprehension and reached straight into dark territory even a die-hard researcher like her refused to go. Twilight gave her all to make her own expression as flat and unamused as possible. “It’s not helping, Rainbow Dash. It’s really, really not.”
Rainbow’s face fell in a dramatic swoop. Her smile became a pitiful frown, her eyebrows scrunched upwards, and her wings flopped to the floor. “Aw, really? Wait, what if I do it tighter—”
Twilight felt a pair of hooves tug her even closer to Rainbow, which really just made Twilight even more aware of how close they were as Rainbow gently squeezed until it felt like they were melding into a single creature. If personal space was a pony, it was being ruthlessly bucked in the face in a dark alley. Repeatedly. Rainbow Dash even closed the distance between their faces, squishing their cheeks together with a happy grin. Twilight tried to suppress a groan as Rainbow even went so far as to—bleh—nuzzle her cheek. She couldn’t remember a time when she was actively fighting the impulse to use her magic, but Tornado Twister’s ‘Knock ‘Em Dead’ spell was bubbling right up to the surface and she was making a valiant effort to suppress it. “No. Tighter doesn’t help at all.”
Rainbow sighed heavily but didn’t relent her grip, which while as gentle and snuggly as a warm blanket, was also firmly immobile. Her athletic limbs were like cast iron when they didn’t want to be moved. Twilight had tried to move them already. Oh, how she had tried.
“Is it the way I’m hugging you, or is it the position?” Rainbow asked pointedly. “I mean, a lot of ponies like getting hugged from the front, or even behind. I know sideways is always kind of awkward. Here, lemme get up on your back—”
“NO!” Twilight shouted, throwing her hooves out in a vehement exclamation of denial. Or she would have, if Rainbow’s impenetrable hug let her do more than wiggle a few millimeters in any one direction. “I mean stop hugging me!”
Rainbow’s limbs dropped away, curling up over her chest. Twilight grunted in satisfaction and turned back to her book, trying desperately to ignore the little sniffles that were starting to come from right next to her.
“Rainbow, wait,” she said, putting a hoof to her forehead. Every time Rainbow whimpered, she felt a spike in her quickly growing headache. “I didn’t... I didn’t mean it like that—”
“Y-you don’t... like it when I... h-hug you?” Rainbow sputtered. Twilight turned and saw tears quivering in the corners of the pegasus’ eyes, who quickly hid them behind her mane as she rubbed her eyes with her hooves. “I’m just trying my best t-to make you happy, Twilight!” she simpered through her hiccuping sniffles.
Twilight put both hooves over her face, dragging them down her cheeks. “Rainboooow,” she moaned, “please! It’s not like that! Really! It’s not that I don’t like hugs, it’s just... well, you guys have it been doing it so much, and it’s been going on for about a week now, and we all just... just thought...” She trailed off, seeing Rainbow’s eyes watching her expectantly. She nibbled her lip, searching for the right words as she twirled a hoof in the air.
“That you’d all... you know... stop by now?”
Her polychromatic friend was now starting to full on sob, burying her face in her hooves and rambling incoherently.
“You don’t like it when I hug yoooouuuu!” Rainbow wailed, falling over backwards and flailing her limbs in the air. “I knew it! I knew I wasn’t cut out to be a Snuggle Buddy! I tried to tell them and they wouldn’t listen! No wonder Rarity keeps throwing things at me whenever I visit her!”
Twilight regarded Rainbow with a flat, skeptical stare. “I really don’t think that’s the issue, Rainbow. It’s a question of volume, not quality. You and the other pegasi have been hanging on to ponies whether they like it or not. At all hours of the day. In the middle of every conceivable activity.” She blinked. “It’s getting very annoying.”
“No, it’s all true!” Rainbow sobbed, rolling back and forth. “I’m just terrible at hugging! I gotta face facts—Wait!” Rainbow abruptly stopped crying, the tears ceasing like a faucet in her head suddenly sealed itself. “If you’re not satisfied, then I won’t quit! I’m just gonna have to find you a new Snuggle Buddy! I’ll go through every pegasus in town until we get you the most perfect, most cuddly, most soft little—”
“No!” Twilight barked, shoving her face against Rainbow’s, which was pounced on by the pegasus as another chance to hug her. Twilight tried to talk through a face full of Rainbow Dash latched onto her head, shoving desperately with her hooves. “No more snuggling! No more cuddling! I’m trying to research how to stop this insanity, Rainbow, and you’re not helping! I have no idea what is causing this ridiculous behavior with you and all the pegasi, but it! Ends! TODAY!”
Rainbow came off Twilight’s head with an audible pop as Twilight staggered back to her book, wrenching it off the stand with her bare hooves. “I am going to find a nice, quiet place to read and figure out how to stop you all now, Rainbow. Good day.”
She wasn’t even surprised when Rainbow latched onto her back hooves, eyes wide with desperation. She assumed a bored, nonchalant stance as Rainbow babbled.
“Twilight, wait! I can see you’re upset! But I’ll fix it, I promise. Once I find you a better Snuggle Buddy you’ll be the happiest mare in town. Just look at how happy Spike is with Fluttershy!”
She pointed to the kitchen and Twilight grudgingly followed the gesture. Spike stood on a stool next to the stove, fussing over a pot of boiling oatmeal. One claw held a wooden spoon he used to stir the food with, and the other was busy holding Fluttershy back at arm’s length as she fluttered with all her meager and not very considerable might to push forward and give him a hug. Her hooves flailed and waggled in the air pitifully as they reached out for Spike, scrabbling at his shoulders.
“Fluttershy, seriously! I’m trying to make lunch!” Spike barked over his shoulder. “Don’t you have to go and take care of Angel or something?!”
Fluttershy squeaked in fright, but that didn’t dissuade her one bit. “Um, I’m really sorry Spike, but it’s just I’ve been assigned as your Snuggle Buddy for the day, and I really don’t want to disappoint you by abandoning my duties or anything... besides, Blossomforth’s got Angel today. She deals with the scratches better.”
“Arrgh!” Spike cried. He looked up at Twilight, shoulders slumped and nerves clearly fraying. “Twilight!” he moaned. “Haven’t you figured something out yet? I can’t take this anymore!”
“I’m getting close,” Twilight said with conviction, occasionally having to kick Rainbow back whenever she scooted forward to get another quick cuddle in. “I promise. Don’t worry, Spike. This’ll all be over by tomorrow.” That was a lie, but Twilight was getting good at the lying business. She was no closer to solving the mystery than she was when she started.
“I hope so,” Spike grumbled, switching hands to keep Fluttershy back. “My arms can’t take much more of this.”
Twilight trotted to the door, dragging Rainbow behind her as the pegasus kept her hooves wrapped firmly around her waist. “Don’t worry, Twilight!” she said with her usual incorrigibleness. “I’ll find you the best Snuggle Buddy in all of Ponyville. Heck, in all of Equestria! I never leave my friends hanging, no sir. I’ll be back in a tail shake. Hey.” She scrambled to her hooves as Twilight pushed open the door, laying an earnest hoof on the unicorn’s shoulder. “Are you gonna be okay? I promise, it won’t take more than the afternoon. I’ll be back with a Snuggle Buddy, I swear. Then you can be hugged all you want and you’ll never be left alone again.”
Twilight stared blankly. “That’s what worries me,” she said.
Rainbow grinned. “Then I’ll just have to be even faster! Don’t worry Twi, I got this!” With that, she took a running jump and was in the air like a shot.
Twilight let out a whooshing sigh of relief, taking a moment to smooth out her coat where Rainbow’s endless caressing and snuggling and hugging and whatever else she could think of had ruffled it. Hefting a saddlebag onto her back and placing the book inside, she looked out at Ponyville’s streets and saw the scene she’d been seeing all week. It was becoming a dull, miserably consistent reality.
Everywhere she looked the pegasi of Ponyville were latched onto their ground-bound counterparts, hugging them without end. Unicorns and earth ponies went about their daily business, trying to haggle in the market, fly kites, and even just make pleasant conversation while a fully-grown pegasus hung off their bodies at odd angles, cuddling into their fur coats and stroking their manes and generally just being a big, fluffy, feathery nuisance. Twilight didn’t even know how all this started. She’d woken up last Tuesday—why did the weird things always happen on Tuesday?—to a great commotion in the streets of Ponyville, and found the pegasi had, apparently overnight, summoned a great council and announced their intention to make sure that everypony in town got their daily dose of love and friendship. To maintain a steady supply of the intimate friendship that kept Equestrian society glued together, this obviously meant they must simply never, ever leave their charges. Ponyvillians at large were moderately amused or annoyed by having a pegasus follow them everywhere and hug them at first. But a day turned to two. Then three. Then a whole week passed with nothing but ever more enthusiastic cuddling from the pegasi, and all the ground-bound ponies were becoming nervous wrecks.
“Tuesdays. It always happens on Tuesdays,” Twilight grumbled as she went into the street, making sure that every pegasus she saw either already had a “Snuggle Buddy” they had attached to like remora fish, or were busy chasing down their appointed Buddy while the target pony ran for their lives.
“No! Stop it! Get away from me! I’m sick of hugs!” a grey earth stallion shouted as he charged past Twilight, leaping over fences and knocking over signs and as he zig-zagged through Ponyville. Just about everything he passed that wasn’t nailed down, including other unlucky ponies, was picked up and chucked back at the pale blue pegasus mare chasing him with an eerily determined look on her face, and a smile that said she already knew he was done for.
“You can’t run forever, Lucky!” she shouted after him, deftly avoiding every projectile he tossed at her as she screamed down the street. “Besides, didn’t you say you wanted to spend more time together?”
“This isn’t what I meant!” Lucky wailed as he tried to turn a corner with a wild skid of his hooves, but bled too much speed in the attempt. Cloudkicker crashed into his side and the both of them went spinning into a heap.
“Agh! Nooo! Cut it ouuuut!” Lucky caterwauled, pathetically kicking his legs in the air. Cloudkicker didn’t even wait for him to get back up before she started snuggling him mightily with a triumphant grin on her face. The rest of Ponyville’s non-pegasi spared him a pitying look before going back to their daily routines.
Twilight rolled her eyes and ducked under a nearby awning, listening to the perfectly normal voices of Ponyville, every last one of them strained to the limits of their patience. If this kept up she’d have to send a letter to Celestia herself. She was almost at wit’s end. She kept to the side streets as she headed for Ponyville’s market. Staying out of sight and mind was easier than she thought; most of the population was either being hugged, running from being hugged, or hunting for those who had not yet been hugged. As long as she stuck to the shadows, most of the pegasi would be too busy with their charges to notice her. She had no illusions about making a break for Whitetail Wood or the roads leading outside town. The pegasi kept hawk-like patrols up on Ponyville’s outskirts, always on the lookout for ponies who managed to break the town’s inner ring. Really, it was easier to just let it happen. A few ponies had tried running from town already, but it always ended up with the pegasi catching them on the open road and dragging them back to their soft downy fate, insisting that they go about their now “enhanced” daily lives.
She made it to the market without too much difficulty, moving like a mare on a mission as she scuttled between bushes and awnings and even directly under other ponies, who gave her a strange glance before moving on, determined not to let one weird purple unicorn make a strange week even stranger. She looked across the way to see Applejack leaning on her apple stand trying very hard to ignore the two pegasi attached to her back.
Twilight took a deep breath and scuttled across a stretch of open ground, diving into the shadows of a table at a cafe not too far from Applejack. Only a little further until she made it to the road to Sweet Apple Acres—the branches of the orchard was the only place she could find the solace to get a few uninterrupted hours of reading time.
She looked Applejack’s way, waiting until the farmer and her extra pairs of eyes looked away. Twilight crept out into the open, eyes ever on her friend.
Squish.
Twilight’s heart skipped a beat. Under her hoof was a recently-squished apple. Applejack, who could detect harm to produce from a mile away, glanced in her direction. Their eyes met. Realizing her mistake and seeing Twilight not swarmed by pegasi, Applejack averted her gaze.
One of the pegasi on the farmpony’s back, perched like a hawkish lookout, noticed Applejack’s twitchy behavior and glanced the way she had been looking. Twilight slowly began to back out of the bush, eyes darting left and right for a way to escape. The nearest cellar, or another bush, maybe she could teleport into a random building—
“Hey,” the pegasus began to say. “There’s a—”
Twilight burst out of the bushes and ran for it.
“UNLOVED UNICORN AT TWELVE O’CLOCK!” a shrill voice called behind her.
“RUN, TWILIGHT, RUN!” yelled Applejack.
She didn’t look back. She didn’t think about anything but getting back to her room and barricading the door. The pegasi were bad enough when they knew they were assigned to you, but when they thought you were a runner just desperately in need of affection, things got… complicated.
She chanced a glance over her shoulder and saw nothing but blurring feathers as a flock of no less than eight pegasi charged after her, hooves outstretched.
Things were now complicated.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why did I even come outside today? I knew the rest of my friends were being watched!
I just wanted some fresh air after having the smell of Rainbow Dash all over me, okay?!
That’s no excuse! Now they’re going to divebomb you with love and tolerance until Rainbow Dash can get them off your back and then she’s going to snuggle you to death all over again!
She hurtled down another side street, but knew it was no good. Pegasi were already taking to the sky to keep an eye on her from above. She heard their haunting voices calling out to her, an eerie background noise over the pounding of her heart and the thunder of her hooves.
“It’s okay, everypony needs a hug once in a while!”
“We just want to cuddle you and pet your mane! It looks really shiny!”
“Please let me hug you! I’ll be your best friend!”
“Your hooves may run away, but your lonely heart reaches out to us! Don’t fight it!”
She almost vomited mid-gallop.
Darting into an open door she ploughed over another stallion—Caramel by the look of it—with a gaggle of giggling mares clinging to him. Without even thinking she plucked them up and separated them, clutching them all in her magic.
Caramel smiled. “Hey, thanks Twi—aaaaahhh!”
He didn’t get to finish before Twilight shamelessly chucked him and his groupies out the door at her pursuers, causing a traffic jam and buying a few precious seconds.
She burst out the back door of the building and looked left and right, panting heavily. Which way now? A teleport would be too obvious from the noise. Sugarcube Corner was just down the street, but Pinkie Pie was enjoying this of course and kept her building chock full of pegasi for daily hug-fests…
She squealed as a hoof wrapped around hers and pulled her into another nearby house. She gasped as she was tossed through a door that slammed shut behind her.
“Hey, let me go!” she tried to say, but a hoof wrapped around her mouth and she felt a warm body drag her to the wall, just under the windowsill next to the door.
There was an immense flutter of feathers, causing her breath to hitch in her throat.
“Did you see where she went?” a voice called out.
“No,” answered another. “Dang it, we were so close! She looked so lonely running away like that.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll find her. We’ll find all of them and give them the love they deserve. You need a hug?”
“Yeah… yeah, I think I do.”
The hoof on her mouth dragged her over the floor, kicking and squeaking, into what looked like a kitchen. Another door slammed shut and she was finally released, looking up at her captor to see a stern, pink face framed by a purple mane staring down at her.
“Amethyst Star?” Twilight gasped. “You got away!”
“Only for today,” the other unicorn replied, rolling her eyes. “I got assigned Cloudchaser as my… ugh… Snuggle Buddy… but I managed to lose her when she was distracted by one of Pinkie Pie’s hug-fests. I’ve been hiding out in here ever since.”
“Whose house is this?” asked Twilight.
Amethyst shrugged. “Dunno. Owner must be out of town, or they’re a pegasus caught up in the madness out there.”
Twilight glanced around the darkened room. “Are you alone?”
“She is not,” a cultured stallion’s voice answered her. She looked over her shoulder to see Time Turner, Ponyville’s resident clockmaker, walking towards her. “This happened to be my hiding spot when Amethyst came stumbling in, and we’ve been trying to ponder a way out of this predicament ever since. Food supplies will only last so long.”
Twilight gasped. “I was just out trying to read up on this myself! Have you been able to find out anything?”
“Nothing about the nature of the condition itself,” Time Turner said. “We’re hardly scientists, miss Sparkle. There’s little I know about magic, even if I do fancy myself an attentive and empirical pony. Comes with the territory. I’ve given Amethyst a few postulations and hypotheses and she has been clandestinely testing them.”
“I got a horn,” Amethyst said, pointing at said cranial decoration. “It helps with the magic stuff.”
Twilight tapped her chin, suddenly inspired.
“Have you been keeping notes? I’d like to take a look at them.”
Turner smiled. “I can do you one better. The first thing that Amethyst here told me was that she sensed a magical disturbance the very day this started.”
A rock dropped into Twilight’s stomach. She couldn’t be the one unicorn in town—the only one capable of both detecting the source of this problem and deducing its solution—that didn’t feel such a thing the day of the event. She’d never let herself get that distracted. “You mean last Tuesday? But… but that’s impossible! I didn’t notice a thing that day. I never miss anything. All my research was pointing to some kind of potion-based curse that didn’t leave a magical trail behind and my research is never wrong.” She hugged the book she carried to her chest, as if to comfort them.
Amethyst wrinkled her nose. “You know, you aren’t the only smart unicorn around here—”
“Never wrong,” Twilight whispered, still hugging her book.
“Truly?” said Turner. “What were you doing then? You must have been distracted somehow.”
Twilight’s insides churned as she recalled last Tuesday with grim clarity.
------------------------
“Hey, Twilight,” said Spike as he turned around, a stack of books in his arms, “I finished re-shelving the D section, so I think—”
Twilight wasn’t paying attention, her nose buried in a book. On its cover was a demure, curvaceous mare standing on a rock next to a stormy sea at sunset.
“Aw, Twilight,” groaned Spike, “you said you gave those up!”
“Shh shh shh!” she hissed, waving her hoof and stuffing her muzzle so far into the book her face was obscured save for the manic back-and-forth jerking of her pupils over the pages. “This is where Flaxen Flower is about to express her righteous indignation against the gender-normative expectations of classical pony aristocracy!”
“She’s gonna what her what?” Spike asked, but Twilight was busy reading.
“Don’t remind me of my duties!” wailed Flaxen Flower, casting her hoof to the graceful, swan-like curve of her cream-white forehead. A wave crested on the shore behind her and burst into phantasmic mist, scattering the blues and purples and oranges and reds of Celestia’s celestial orb. Her dress billowed in the wind like a flag, proud and marely. “Sir Chisel Cleft loves me for who I am!”
Grandmother Mean Whiskers bristled, her eyes blazing with the deepest fury of Tartarus’ angry gates of evil. “You are a Duchess and the heir to my fortune!” she hissed. “I shall lock you away in the tower again for this impudence!”
Flaxen Flower’s limpid pools of brilliant blue settled on the setting sun, setting like those days of innocence and love she had shared with her handsome, lovely, angular Cleft. “I may be a Duchess, grandmother…”
She turned back and her hooves grasped the front of her dress with one delicate hoof and the pin in her mane with the other. In one fell swoop not unlike an ancient pterodactyl she ripped both from her body, exposing her delicate yet firm milk-white chestflesh as the flaxen mane Flaxen was named for burst free. It caught the wind in its bouncy beautiful curls and swirled in swirly patterns, perfectly framing the elegant circular curves of her face.
“...BUT I AM ALSO A MARE!”
“Yes!” Twilight crowed, pumping her hoof into the air. “Take that, Grandma Meaniewhiskers!”
“Hey, Twi,” said Spike, “there was just some weird light outside, maybe we should check it out.”
“Shhhh!”
------------------
“Shelving,” Twilight muttered, hiding her snout behind her saddlebag. “I was shelving.”
“Oh,” said Turner. “Well, then. You’ll be happy to know that Amethyst here was working with an open mind and happened to catch the disturbance.”
Twilight huffed as Amethyst stepped up and shook out her mane. Open mind indeed! “Yeah, it came from somewhere to the east, still inside Ponyville. Really, it was easy to miss for anypony, especially in all the confusion that came afterwards.”
Twilight remembered last Tuesday well: the sight of every pegasus in the town gathered above Ponyville making their proclamation and then swooping down from the sky like a loveable murder of crows. She still remembered the feathers flying everywhere, the disturbingly huge grins on the faces of the pegasi as they stooped to catch flailing Ponyvillians and drag them into their downy embrace—
“Twilight?” Turner asked, waving a hoof in front of her face. “Are you all right?”
“Oh! Er, yes,” Twilight said, brushing out her mane. “I’m fine. Just trying to make a plan, because I’m good at plans! You know, since other things so easy to miss have passed me by and all.” She grit her teeth and sent a scathing stare at Amethyst.
Turner and Amethyst glanced at each other.
“So,” said Amethyst as she twirled a hoof in the air, “you’ve got a plan now?”
“Well not right this moment, geez!” Twilight huffed, gathering her things and beginning to pace. Pacing always helped her think. “Okay, okay. If it was a spell casting there’d be no point in finding exactly where it came from. We need to find the caster and discern the nature of the spell they used. Amethyst, give me your horn, I have an idea.”
She reached out and snatched Amethyst’s horn, pressing it quickly to hers.
“Now,” Twilight said, “remember what you saw and felt that day, the moment you felt the magic. Concentrate on it!”
Amethyst’s eyes darted back and forth. “Twilight, this is kind of weird—”
“Concentrate!” Twilight snapped. “There’s always a specific resonance unicorns feel whenever they detect a spell, and it remains behind after we pick it up. It’s part of everypony’s sensitivity to magic, just this brand is unique to unicorns. I was distracted, but you actively took it in, studied it, even subconsciously! The echo of what you saw, the mark of that magic on your unique aura, is bound to be there.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that,” Turner started to say, but a glare from Twilight cut him off.
“Well, that’s why I’m the unicorn! Somepony has to figure these things out.”
Amethyst rolled her eyes. “I’m a unicorn too—”
“The smart unicorn. Concentrate!”
Amethyst sighed and closed her eyes. Twilight smiled as she felt her way through Amethyst’s magical signature, searching for the disturbance. It was a week old, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find it. She was Twilight Sparkle. The problem solver. The one everypony went to when they needed something figured out. She did not get distracted, she did not allow conundrums to stump her, and she certainly didn’t let other unicorns show her up!
“Eureka!” Twilight barked, zooming in on a wobbly bit of Amethyst’s otherwise stable aura. There was a loud snap and a spark as an arc of magical energy passed from Amethyst’s horn to Twilight’s, rebounding right back into Amethyst.
“Aack!” the poor unicorn yelped as she convulsed violently and flopped over, where she lay in a twitching, drooling heap on the floor.
Turner looked down at her dubiously. “Did it work?”
“It did!” Twilight declared, digging through her saddlebag and pulling out her best pair of lecturing glasses. They were so professional with their flat rims and purple frames that matched her fur. She placed them on the bridge of her nose, grinning hugely.
“And now I’m going to explain to you exactly how and why it did! Because clearly someponies in this room didn’t have faith in my ability to solve this problem.”
Turner’s eyes glanced around the room. “I’m not really sure how I implied that,” he muttered.
Twilight nodded. “Don’t worry, it was easy to miss.”
Turner blinked.
“Anyway,” said Twilight, talking over Amethyst’s incoherent gargling of her own spittle, “we unicorns have a special way of figuring out spells. All living things have a special magical aura unique to them, which is part of what makes everypony special! When an unknown magic impacts that aura, unicorns feel it. That feeling translates to a disturbance on our aura that is easily detectable for quite some time afterwards, allowing us to feel our way through the unknown magic and discover its purpose and how to counter it if it proves hostile. Call it a vibration. Or a frequency! Anyway, I just tuned in to the frequency of the spell Amethyst here detected and blammo! I know what happened!”
“You do?” Turner said, eagerly stepping forward. “What was it then?”
Twilight paused for effect. “I have no idea. The signal was too garbled. But I did manage to get a general idea of the spell’s nature!”
“Uh...”
“And! Now I know how to track who did it. I just need to home in on that particular magical frequency and we’ll have them in our clutches in no time.”
“Clutches sounds a little extreme, miss Sparkle—”
“Quiet! Concentrating.”
Twilight put her hooves to her temples and breathed in deeply, casting out a magical sensory net all across Ponyville. It was a simple task, but one that demanded attention.
Turner waited, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for Twilight’s word to jump into action.
Amethyst Star gurgled on the floor, twitching occasionally.
Moments later, Twilight’s eyes flew open.
“I don’t believe it,” she whispered.
--------------
The door to the house creaked open. Three pony heads poked out one after the other. Twilight, on the bottom, had a look of furious determination as her horn glowed ominously, flashing every so often as she waved it back and forth across the alley. Turner, just above Twilight, was similarly resolute, though he continually watched the sky. On top was Amethyst, who just looked a little bit out of it and quite grumpy besides.
“Why are we standing on each other’s backs?” she muttered, but nopony answered her.
“All right,” said Twilight in a harsh whisper, “the coast is clear. Let’s move.”
She darted out of cover and ran for the nearest awning, ducking underneath. This caused Turner and Amethyst to fall over with loud yelps.
“Hush!” said Twilight. “We need to keep our cool until we get back to the library… there’s a few things to get before we head for the caster of this spell.”
“And just what are those, that made it so important to fry my brain and then run all the way across pegasus-infested Ponyville instead of heading right for the source?” Amethyst grumped as she and Turner piled up next to Twilight.
“Spike will come in handy; he does wonders as a portable bunsen burner,” Twilight muttered. “Besides, I was wrong on two counts: the spell isn’t just a spell, and it’s not an alchemical curse. It’s both. I need all the ingredients from my lab to brew up a cure, if there is one. It’s all so simple, I don’t know how I could have ever missed it!”
“Could you at least tell us who’s behind the spell?” Turner asked.
“And ruin the dramatic tension?” said Twilight, scurrying to the edge of the street. The library wasn’t far off from here. The marketplace was still full of ponies, and Applejack still stat bored at her booth whilst two pegasi wound themselves around her body, holding tight. Twilight sniffed at all the open ground they had to cover under the wheeling shadows of the patrolling pegasi.
“All right,” she said, “it’s not far from here but it’s completely open ground between us and the library. If we’re gonna get across the street without getting seen, we’re gonna need a distraction.”
“On it,” grumbled Amethyst. Without any hesitation her horn lit up and a magical glow surrounded one of the legs of Applejack’s apple stand. Amethyst gave a little tug and out it popped, sending cartons of cameos and gallons of granny smiths tumbling into the street.
“Nooooooo! My babies!” Applejack wailed, bodily leaping over her stand in a vain attempt to stop them. She watched in horror as her precious livelihood rushed gaily to freedom in the cruel outside world, open to the careless clopping of passing pony hooves. Unfortunate shoppers suddenly found themselves with a great many slippery round things underhoof. There was a yelp, then a gasp, then a scream as more and more apples invaded the streets of the marketplace, tripping up shoppers and sending them into stalls, other ponies, and the ground. The only other thing left to hit were apples, and they suffered terribly. Every fallen body brought another loud crunch and another tear to Applejack’s eye. Attention was drawn. Pegasus wards rushed to the scene, eager to assuage the injured ponies with more hugs. Apple mush littered the streets and coated fallen ponies like some horrible pomaceous apocalypse.
“Excessive,” Twilight whispered, “but effective. If this wasn’t such a crisis I’d reprimand you for making Applejack lose a day’s wages.”
“I bet her productivity is hurt more by the pegasi than a few bruised braeburns,” Amethyst hissed back. “Let’s go before they notice us!”
They made a break for the library door, leaving behind a sobbing Applejack as she held up the remains of a once proud and crisp golden delicious.
“Oh, little Caroline,” she blubbered through a face wet with tears and mashed apple. “I hardly knew ya! All this income! Gone!”
“It’s okay Applejack,” whispered the pegasus clinging to her shoulder. “They’re all safe and happy up in apple heaven, or wherever it is fruit goes when it dies. Need a hug? I’ll give you a hug.”
Applejack cried.
----------------
“I’m just saying I don’t think that was entirely necessary,” Twilight muttered as she gently shut the door to her library.
“Look, I’ve only got a couple more hours before Cloudchaser finds me again,” Amethyst growled under her breath. “If we’re gonna fix this then let’s do it before nightfall.”
“Right,” said Twilight, “you two stay here. I’m going to grab Spike and a few materials, and then we can make a break for it.”
“Just hurry!” Turner whispered over his shoulder. “We don’t know how long we have before they find us out!”
Twilight rushed into the kitchen, where Spike had just finished putting out the dishes for lunch while Fluttershy clung gamely to his head like a giant adorable abscess. Her eyes swung in Twilight’s direction, and they had a disturbing sparkle to them. Of all the pegasi Twilight knew personally, Fluttershy took to the hugging business with the greatest gusto.
“Oh, Twilight!” she gushed, giving her friend a big smile utterly devoid of negativity. Twilight could have sworn she saw some rainbows leak out the side of Fluttershy’s mouth. “You’re just in time for lunch! Spikey-Wikey here just whipped up a fresh batch of—”
“Can’t talk, tying you up,” Twilight said, levitating a length of rope and a bundle of tablecloth.
Fluttershy blinked like a newborn foal, and for the first time in a week her effervescent expression displayed a shadow of doubt. “Um, what?”
“Can’t talk, tying you up!”
Twilight’s utensils charged straight at the timid pegasus. Before Fluttershy could utter more than a single adorable squeak, she was safely tucked away in the tea cupboard.
“Twilight!” Spike cried, jumping on his ward and hugging her about the chest. “That was amazing! You saved me!”
“No time!” Twilight said, peeling Spike off and hurrying back into the main library. She levitated a quill and parchment and scribbled down a list. “We need to fetch some ingredients. I know exactly what to do, I just need the time and space to do it. And that isn’t here. Not while we have Captain Dash the Stupendous Snuggler on my tail. Now grab these things from the basement and quick!”
“This was a mistake,” Amethyst muttered, looking out the window. “We wasted too much time already. We need to get out of here.”
“Nothing that involves the solution to a problem is a mistake,” Twilight said patiently. “Even if something goes wrong in the doing of it.”
“Oh really?” Amethyst said, raising her eyebrow and pointing at the window. “What if things go that wrong?”
Twilight glanced at the window.
Derpy Hooves peered back at her.
“Mail call!” she blared at the top of her lungs.
“Oh dear,” said Twilight, going still as a statue.
Derpy Hooves disappeared from the window. For a brief moment the anticipation hung in the air like a distended pendulum, teetering on the brink of a short, nauseating plunge. Maybe Derpy got the address wrong. Maybe she had seen somepony else who needed hugs more. Maybe she was just being Derpy. The pony trio felt the tension slowly crank down, counting the seconds.
Then there was a knock on the door and everypony panicked.
“This is crazy!” wailed Turner. “Why would she come straight to the door? We made sure nopony saw us!”
Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth. “I—I have no idea! I certainly don’t have any outstanding deliveries to still be made!”
Amethyst fixed her with a glare that could move mountains. “Oh, yeah? You sure you’re not missing any details again, miss smarty-pants?”
Twilight gasped and put a hoof over her chest. “Are you implying that I’m so forgetful I wouldn’t remember a simple thing like a mail order?”
“You sure didn’t notice that super important magical resonant bip-bop thingy or whatever it was you zapped me with!”
“Ladies, please! Get some furniture!” Turner shouted. “Barricade everything!”
“No!” Twilight screeched as Amethyst levitated the nearest bookshelf, spilling priceless volumes all the floor. Her own magical glow wrapped around the shelf and yanked it away from Amethyst. “I had these organized down to chapter and page numbers!”
“You think anypony cares about that?!” Amethyst said, pulling the shelf back to her. “The pegasi are gonna get in!”
“So find something else to defile!” Twilight snapped.
Derpy knocked on the door again. “Mail call!” she said.
“I’ll defile your face, you lavender pedant!” Amethyst shouted over her.
“Don’t call me words only I’m supposed to know the meaning of!” said Twilight.
The two mares spat vinegar at each other as Derpy Hooves kept up her incessant knocking, occasionally yelling that she was still calling about the mail. Meanwhile, the shelf swung tediously between the two unicorns like some giant misshapen pendulum. The slow, inertia-laden way it tumbled around had a surprising air of resignation about it; it certainly couldn’t have been easy being reduced from a venerable bookshelf lording over the rest of the living room to a tug-of-war plaything.
Turner just sweat bullets as he ran around the room in circles, piling up random objects in front of the door that included everything from potted plants to ink jars.
“Hey Twilight,” said Spike as he came back up the stairs with his chubby little arms laden with arcane miscellany, “I got the stuff for the thing!”
He took one look at the chaos enveloping Golden Oaks Library and sighed.
“Tuesday,” he muttered. “This stuff always happens on a Tuesday.”
He gently set down the pile of magical machinery and waddled to the door, passing under the wobbling shelf, ignoring the acrimonious clamor between Twilight and Amethyst, and easily bypassed Turner. He clambered up the pony-high pile Turner had made in front of the door and held up a claw as the stallion made another mad revolution. Turner stopped in his tracks.
Spike gently put his other claw on the door. The tiny scrape it made made all three ponies gasp, hearts seized with wild terror.
“Spike, no!” Twilight shouted, still distracted with trying to wrest the shelf from Amethyst.
“They’ll get in!” Turner pleaded.
“Get away from there!” Amethyst barked.
Spike gave the door a push and it slowly swung outwards.
“Oh,” said Turner, rubbing his hooves. “I, er, forgot it did that.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Let me handle this.” He waddled out the door and shut it behind him as the ponies shuffled their hooves and looked at the ground. They listened to the quietly muffled conversation between Spike and Derpy, interspersed with polite small talk. Perky “thanks yous” and “have a nice days” were exchanged before Spike opened the door again and waddled up and over the pile of junk, holding in his arms a small package.
“Newest novel of Flaxen Flower: Maiden of Manehattan,” he explained, throwing the package onto the nearest table. “You ordered it last week as soon as you finished the last one.”
Amethyst glared at Twilight, who grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her mane.
“Uhh, well!” squeaked Twilight. “I guess that solves that problem! So Derpy didn’t come here to lead a giant murder of marauding feathered demons to our sanctuary?”
“Sure she did, there’s like thirty of ‘em out there,” said Spike, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “We’re pretty much doomed. I just didn’t wanna get snuggled to death before making sure you didn’t miss something.”
“Aw, Spike,” cooed Twilight, resting a hoof over her heart.
Then the door was flung open and a crowd of pegasi tumbled into the room, led by Rainbow Dash.
“Aw, Spike!” Twilight groaned as she picked him up in her magic and fled to the stairs, snatching up the bundle of ingredients along the way.
“Get to the balcony!” Turner shouted as he leaped over a pegasus attempting to tackle him. “We’ll go out the window!”
“Twilight, look!” said Rainbow, kicking and grunting to free herself from the pillowy pile of pegasi. “I did it! I brought you a whole army of Snuggle Buddies! You can try ‘em one at a time or all at once, it’s all the same to us!”
“KEEP AWAY FROM ME!” Twilight screeched over her shoulder as Rainbow popped out of the melee and sped straight towards her, her face set in a twisted mask of ecstatic determination. Twilight slammed her bedroom door shut just as Rainbow gained the stairs, jumping back as the door shivered from the impact.
“That won’t hold long!” Spike whimpered, clinging to Twilight’s neck with a vise grip. “Even if we jump for it they’ll catch us in the street!”
“There’s only one choice,” Turner said, his voice eerily calm. “I’ll have to stay behind and distract them. Even a few seconds could make the difference between freedom and ensnugglement.”
“Turner, you can’t!” Twilight gasped. “There’s a whole flock of them. All those feathers will give you an allergic reaction for sure!”
“I really don’t think that’s the worst that can happen,” said Amethyst, who everypony ignored.
“Go, all of you!” Turner snapped as Twilight’s door cracked and bent inwards. “It’s giving way!”
Twilight, with Spike on her back and Amethyst at her hooves, leaped for the balcony. She swiftly lowered them one by one with her magic. “You’re a good stallion, Turner!” Spike shouted before he vanished.
“It’s not that impressive, he’s just gonna get hugged!” Amethyst complained on the way down.
“Turner,” said Twilight just before she jumped, “I’ll probably forget about this pretty soon. It’s not really the biggest sacrifice anypony’s ever made for me - in fact this whole situation is kind of silly and I’m not sure how it became such a big deal - but it’s definitely worth forgiving all those late fees you’ve accrued, so there’s that!”
Twilight jumped, the image of Turner’s face scrunched up and uncertain whether to be flattered or not burned into her mind for about half a second before she shrugged off his mildly heroic sacrifice.
“Run!” Amethyst shouted, and the three of them took off.
Turner looked back to the door as it burst open. Rainbow Dash stalked into the room at the head of a crowd of pegasi, leering ominously at Turner. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Time Turner finally showing his face! You’ve been on our list for days now. We’ve got so many hugs stored up for you!” she squealed, sparking a wave of grins across the faces of every pegasi in the room.
Turner gulped, trying to stay steady in the face of so many starry-eyed, loving stares focusing entirely on him. “You’ll never get me to enjoy it, none of you. Not in a million years.”
“Oh, a fighter eh? I got just the thing for you.” Rainbow clicked her hoof on the floor, and through the crowd came Fluttershy. Her eyes were brimming with tears and her lower lip quivered something fierce.
“You helped Fluttershy’s Snuggle Buddy get away,” Rainbow said. “I didn’t wanna do this, but if you’re really that desperate for attention, we’re pulling out the big guns. Flutters… give ‘em the Stare.”
“You’ve been a bad little colt, Time Turner,” said Fluttershy, turning the full force of her formidable gaze on the quivering stallion. “Hiding from us and tearing my Snuggle Buddy away from me like that. Well, now we’re just going to have to be as nice to you as we possibly can.” She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a low, eerily calm whisper as her big, shining, painfully innocent eyes peered soulfully at him. “And now we’re going to snuggle you like you have never been snuggled before.”
Back on the street, Twilight looked over her shoulder as a high pitched, girlish shriek reached her ears. Turner appeared on her balcony, flailing his hooves.
“Wait, I changed my mind! Take me with you!”
Rainbow Dash appeared behind him, wrapping her hooves around him like some giant, hug-happy spider, quickly joined by Fluttershy and several others. All of them had grotesquely happy grins on their faces.
“Nooooooo!” Turner screamed, his hooves scraping over the wood as he was pulled back inside and the balcony windows slammed shut.
Amethyst blew some of her mane out of her eyes. “Wow. What an almost horrible way to go.”
“No time to waste,” said Twilight, “we’re close now! Let’s hurry!”
They raced through the streets of Ponyville heedless of the ponies crowding them. The noise of Applejack’s cart being upended and the commotion at the library left most of them too surprised to remember that anypony that didn’t have a pegasi attached to them was out of the ordinary.
But that didn’t last long. Twilight heard shouts behind them, the telltale sound of wings flapping, and desperate cries for her to stop and be loved. She didn’t listen to them. She didn’t listen to Spike yelling in her ears and throwing things from her saddlebag at the pursuing pegasi. She didn’t even listen to Rainbow Dash shouting over the throng, organizing a posse and letting all of Ponyville know that there yet remained two little ponies who needed tender care and affection.
She just concentrated on a door not far ahead, and how nice and big and sturdy it looked.
“So what now, genius?” Amethyst snapped as she kept pace.
Twilight answered with a spell.
The world disappeared in a flash of purple, reshaping all around them a moment later. They stood in a darkened room, woozy and disoriented.
“Teleport on the run! Never a fun thing to do,” Twilight gushed, giddy with adrenaline as she headed for the back of the building, magically locking the door behind her. “But I teleported us in a different direction than where we were running. That should throw the pegasi off for just enough time for me to finish the cure.”
Amethyst took a moment to look around, eyes narrowing. The room was covered in shadows, but there seemed to be pony-shaped silhouettes standing all around them. Rows and rows of dresses and hats and shoes abounded.
“Wait a minute,” she said, “isn’t this—”
“Carousel Boutique!” Spike gasped. “Twilight, please don’t tell me we’re here because Rarity has something to do with this!”
“As a matter of fact,” Twilight intoned with as much ominous pomp as she could fit into her voice, “she has everything to do with it. Amethyst’s magical resonance led me straight here. Whatever happened to the pegasi, this very building is where it originated from. And it’s where we’re going to stop it. We have to do it here because of the magical overlay from several layers of the arcane spectrum—”
“Right, right, blah, blah,” said Amethyst, waving her hoof about. “Let’s just get this over with before Cloudchaser finds me again!”
“Twilight?” Rarity’s voice called from up the stairs. “Is that you, darling? Have you come to visit? You didn’t bring any pegasi with you, did you?”
“Not exactly!” Twilight called back. “Look, Rarity, we need to talk! Come down here!”
The sharp tone in her voice made the hoofsteps stop. The edge of one of Rarity’s hooves was visible on the stairwell.
“Oh,” said Rarity, her voice subdued. “Um… are you sure we must, darling? I’d much prefer to have a nice little chat over some tea—”
“We know you’re behind this, Rarity. It’s time to confess!”
The hooves turned back and started running up the stairs, but not before Twilight closed her eyes and lit her horn. Her magic caught on the flash of violet just before Rarity’s tail, dragging the unfortunate fashionista down the stairs on her belly, squealing and kicking in protest.
“Twilight! Really! This is no way to treat a lady!” she squeaked, landing with an ‘oof!’ on the floor. Twilight loomed over her, glaring down. Spike hung off Twilight’s neck, his eyes big and lip all aquiver.
“Talk!” she said, lighting up her horn and centering a spotlight on Rarity, who cowered on the floor, teeth chattering. “Which spell was it? Want It, Need It? The CMC Love Poison? Lovely Bunch of Coconuts?!”
“Please don’t say it was you, Rarity! I know you’re innocent!” said Spike.
Rarity looked between the two, one pleading and the other furious, and soon enough she broke down. And by breaking down, it meant she got up and threw a hoof to her forehead so she could fling her fainting couch under her and flop onto it.
“Ohhh, Twilight!” she moaned, bitter tears springing to her eyes, “it’s simply terrible! Terrible! You’re right! I am the one responsible for this catastrophe!”
“No!” Spike groaned, throwing his claw to his forehead and falling off Twilight’s back. He crawled towards Rarity’s couch, holding up his hands in supplication. “Say it ain’t so, Rarity! Somepony as pure and wonderful as you couldn’t possibly have done this!”
“While it’s true that I am pure and wonderful,” crooned Rarity as she fluffed her mane, assuming a more comfortable posture, “it is also a desultory truth that I am the one who began this mess.”
“I knew it!” Twilight said, pumping her hoof which she then pointed in Amethyst’s direction. “Who’s the one easily missing things now?”
“I couldn’t help myself!” said Rarity, stretching herself out on the couch as she tried to make her emotional distress as lovely as possible. “I am a victim of passion, a captive of amore! You must understand, Twilight. I had no choice. I was in a bind with nowhere to turn, I—”
“Just tell us what happened already!” Amethyst barked, looking ready to pull out her mane.
Rarity huffed and crossed her forelegs. She tsked and looked away, furrowing her brow. “I was having troubles with my coltfriend.”
There was a short gasp, tight and choked. Everypony looked down at Spike, who had his claws over his heart, his pupils contracted to pinpricks.
“Y… you… You have… You have a…”
Rarity glanced up at Twilight. “You didn’t tell him.”
Twilight shrugged and fiddled nervously with her hooves. “I—I didn’t think he was ready!”
“Really, Twilight?” Rarity grumbled, narrowing her eyes at the other unicorn. “I thought we agreed that you’d say it first and then I’d soothe him afterwards!”
Spike was now hyperventilating, gritting his teeth as he fell backwards. A small, high-pitched whine began to emanate from within his throat. Rarity glanced at him and then leveled a guilt-inducing stare at Twilight. “Frankly, Twilight, I’m disappointed. It’s been weeks. I can’t even imagine the lengths you went to to keep it a secret.”
“You’re the one he has a crush on!”
“You’re the one who raised him!”
“I was nervous! I got busy! I had to wash my mane!” Twilight sputtered over Spike’s growing commotion.
Rarity stared. Spike’s whine got louder until he started to sound like a deflating balloon.
“I had a really dirty mane, okay?” Twilight grumped, crossing all four hooves together. “And anyway, we’re getting off topic. You’re the one who did this, so now you gotta tell me which spell you absconded with so I can reverse it.”
“Hey guys,” said Amethyst, “maybe we should tell the pipsqueak here to keep it down?”
Twilight rounded on Amethyst again. “And you! Don’t you call my little dragon a pipsqueak! I am his guardian and I will decide what’s best for him!”
“Whoa, settle down there bookworm,” said Amethyst, backing away. “I don’t wanna get in the middle of whatever…” She waggled a hoof at the three of them. “This is.”
Twilight rolled her eyes and looked down at Spike, who rolled back and forth on the floor, his cheeks puffed out to a ridiculous degree.
“Really, Spike, I meant to tell you,” she began, but Spike was having none of it. He began to kick his legs in the air, holding his claws over his mouth.
“It’s really not that bad,” Twilight said, holding up her hooves. “I mean, Thunderlane is a great colt and all—”
Spike made a strange noise halfway between a gasp and a choke.
“That’s what I thought,” said Rarity, rolling her eyes. “Apparently the poor dear is having ‘intimacy issues.’” She air-quoted with her hooves and turned over on the couch, huffing. “I was looking for a solution and he’d just been so evasive about it!”
“So you stole one of my spellbooks?” Twilight deadpanned.
“I had no choice! Everypony thought we were so happy and I couldn’t let it become a scandal. I just couldn’t! I thought the spell would help him and me grow closer together, but I got it wrong! I got it so very, very wrong!” Rarity sobbed and buried her face in one of the couch cushions. “I’m so sorry! I just wanted to feel his arms around me again, like the day he saved me at the Academy! But alas, his hooves are filled by the wanton lust of other ponies, and his Snuggle Buddy schedule never involved meeeee!” she wailed, her voice trailing into a high pitched squeal.
“Guys, the dragon,” Amethyst said, pointing at Spike, who looked ready to explode.
Twilight whirled around, throwing her hooves in the air. “Enough about the—oh.”
Spike stopped his rolling and started shaking, little spurts of breath escaping his clenched lips.
“Spike,” Twilight warned him. “Don’t do it.”
Spike shook his head.
“I’m warning you, mister!”
He shook his head harder.
“All right, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and hid it for three weeks! Can we please talk about this later?”
“Nnnnn!” said Spike.
“We’re dead,” said Amethyst.
“NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Spike screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing his arms out and going to his knees as he cried out to the heavens, defying the whims of fate and the cruelty of the universe at large.
As his cry faded out into silence, broken only by the occasional muffled whimper, there came a sound outside the door. The sound of wings flapping.
“Well, that’s it,” Amethyst said, burying her face in her hooves. “We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die suffocating under a giant blanket of love and affection.”
“Get upstairs! Block the doors!” Twilight shouted, upending Rarity’s couch, sending Rarity to the floor with an indignant squeal, and hurled it at the door, which was already thundering with the pounding of hooves. “There! That should hold them for—”
Her breath died in her throat when she saw the cat door.
“Rarity,” she whispered, “why do you have a door for your cat?”
“Hmm?” Rarity asked. “Oh, I put that in there a week ago. Opalescence’s fur was getting musty from getting stuck inside all day, the little darling!”
Cloudchaser’s head poked through the little flap, peering up at them from under the couch.
“Hi!” she chirped, before she glanced over her shoulder. “Hey guys, I found a way in!”
Amethyst shrieked and leapt into Twilight’s hooves as they backed into a wall. “It’s her! It’s my Snuggle Buddy! Don’t let her take me! I won’t go back! I refuse!”
“Nice place you got here…” Cloudchaser said, her eyes roaming until they landed on the group that cowered at the far end of the room. “Oh, Amethyst! I finally found you! I guess I win that game of hide and seek now! Gosh, I missed you. Get over here and give me a hug!”
Amethyst screamed again.
“There’s just this dumb door in the way,” said Cloudchaser, beginning to press her shoulders into the doorframe. Her face showed signs of only the slightest exertion as an ominous cracking filled the Boutique.
“Is… she going to…?” Rarity whimpered, pointing a shaking hoof at the invading pegasus.
Cloudchaser gave a little harrumph and pushed. With a disturbing snap the door came right off its hinges, stuck around Cloudchaser’s shoulders by the frame of the kitty flap. With one more grunt of exertion, Cloudchaser upended the couch and stepped over it, wearing the door on her torso and looking none the worse for it. She lifted her head and tossed her mane, grinning maniacally.
“It’s snuggle time!”
Behind Cloudchaser came a crowd of pegasi, led by none other than Rainbow Dash. Twilight’s eyes widened as she held Amethyst up in front of her like a shield, trying to hide from the sight of her own personal herald of snuggly doom.
“Twilight,” Rainbow announced, putting a hoof on her chest, “I said I’d do it and I’m not going to give up until I do. I got you your Snuggle Buddies, and you will try each and every one of them until you’re satisfied. I even brought one of our best snugglers: Thunderlane!”
“Yo, sup,” said the colt as he fluttered to Rainbow’s side.
Rarity narrowed her eyes at Twilight. “Don’t you dare pick him as your Snuggle Buddy.”
“I’m not picking any Snuggle Buddies!” Twilight snapped. “I just need five minutes to finish the cure and cast the spell! That’s it!”
“I don’t wanna get snuggled!” Amethyst shouted, trying to climb over Twilight and get behind her. “She was trying to hug me when I was going to the bathroom! Sweet Celestia, the bathroom!”
“What’s that Amethyst?” Twilight asked, looking at Amethyst in surprise. “You say you want to stay behind and hold them off for us?”
“I want to what?!” Amethyst squawked.
Twilight looked at Rarity. “You heard her, didn’t you?”
Rarity blinked several times before comprehension dawned. “Um. Why, yes! Yes, I did! How brave of you Amethyst we’ll never forget you now throw her and run!”
“Wait!” Amethyst squealed as Twilight picked her up in her magic, clutching one of the mannequins in a vain attempt to brace herself. “Let’s talk about this!”
“So very brave!” Twilight called as she hurled Amethyst bodily at the pegasi, bowling them over. Cloudchaser caught Amethyst in her hooves and tumbled backwards with a happy little ‘yay!’ which was only barely audible over Amethyst’s sputtering curses. She was quickly muffled by an entire crowd of ponies who leaped on her, cheering like a pack of foals.
“I’ll get you for this, Twilight Sparkle!” Amethyst cried, shaking her hoof in the air as she slowly sank into the doughy pile of hug-happy pegasi.
Twilight paid it no mind, having already picked up Spike and her instruments and rushed the stairs, hearing Rainbow Dash hot on her hooves.
“C’mere!” the pegasus shouted.
“Sweetie, wait!” called Thunderlane. “Let’s talk about this! I really think you could use a hug!”
“How could you even consider taking Twilight as your Snuggle Buddy?!” Rarity snapped over her shoulder as she took the stairs three at a time. “I am your marefriend!”
“Are you really doing this now?” Twilight asked as she pulled her and Spike into Rarity’s bedroom, slamming the door in the faces of the pegasi for the third time that day. “Spike, get the ingredients set up!”
Spike, whose grief had been overtaken by sheer mortal terror, ripped open Twilight’s saddlebag and spilled the equipment within across the floor. “Okay, okay,” he gasped, “decanters, check, pipettes, check, beakers, check, wormglow, check…”
Twilight frantically began prepping a makeshift chemistry table as Rarity tossed furniture in front of her door, stepping away as it shivered and crashed under the weight of multiple pegasi pounding on it.
“It’s not like I want to hug other mares!” Thunderlane called to her. “It’s my duty as a pegasus!”
“But I was supposed to be your special somepony!” Rarity wailed, tears streaming dramatically down her cheeks. “Your one and only! And now… now, because of my own selfishness, we are doomed to forever be in the arms of another!”
“Will you two keep quiet and let me work?” Twilight said as she frantically mixed and matched ingredients, mashing things in mortars and dribbling strange, greenish substances into decanters. She stirred, she baked, she pored over notes and gulped and sweat, until at last she held up a beaker of shimmering purple fluid. “Spike, fire! Fire now!”
“I dunno,” said Spike, twiddling his claws. “I’m still kind of emotionally distressed over losing Rarity and every—auuugh!”
Twilight hefted him up, holding him by the neck and tail, and aimed him at the beaker. With a firm yank on his tail Spike was stretched out from end to end, his eyes bulging. His mouth jerked open and he belched a mighty gout of flame, enveloping the mixture.
“Twilight, let’s talk about this!” Rainbow shouted through the door, which had developed an unhealthy crack down the middle. Rainbow’s eye appeared through the crack, swirling in its socket until it spotted Twilight. “Let me help you!”
“No! I’m the one helping everypony! I can solve this problem!” Twilight snapped, liberally spraying her mixture with Spike’s green fire. “I just need a few more seconds and the antidote is ours!”
“Antidotes are stupid!” said Rainbow.
“You’re stupid!” retorted Twilight.
The door was smashed in as pegasi poured into the room. Rarity screeched and started batting them on the head with a parasol, which did little but delay the inevitable. Rarity, Twilight, and Spike crowded into a corner as the pegasi advanced on them.
Spike cowered underneath his ward. “Do something, Twilight!”
Twilight looked down at the steaming hot mixture, which bubbled and burbled almost malevolently. It was sludgy and a little pale around the edges, full of unsavory bubbles. She shrugged, and looked up into Rainbow’s eyes.
“Hug this,” she said, and poured the contents of the beaker down her throat.
The effects were immediate. Twilight felt pure magical power land in her belly and surge through her veins, making her jerk and twist. The beaker smashed against the ground as the energy stormed through her body, aiming straight for her horn as she summoned a magical blast to cover all of Ponyville. Rainbow Dash leaped, and Twilight’s horn erupted. A great pink wall of pure magical force exploded through the room, out the walls, and rushed through the streets of Ponyville. Wherever it went, ponies stopped what they were doing and slumped to the ground as if in a daze. The pegasi especially halted in their tracks and shook themselves, jerking away from the ponies they’d just been hugging with sheepish grins and holding their hooves behind their backs.
Twilight slowly opened her eyes, and saw Rainbow Dash staring directly at her with a dull expression.
“Rainbow?” she asked. “Are you… all right?”
Rainbow sat back on her haunches, blinking rapidly.
“Uh,” she said.
“Rainbow?” Twilight asked, waving a hoof in front of her face. “Thunderlane? Anypony? What the heck is wrong with you? I did it right! Didn’t I?”
“What exactly did you do?” Spike asked.
“Well, I didn’t know what spell was used exactly,” Twilight said with a nervous shrug, “so I just made my best guess and altered a few of the key arcane structural waypoints!” said Twilight, worrying her lower lip. “Basically, I just turned around their urge to hug and refocused it on what pegasi naturally do! Or… I thought I did. I was under a lot of stress. They won’t have the urge to hug anypony, at least!”
Rainbow Dash blinked again, and turned to Thunderlane, who looked at her.
What they did next made Twilight’s jaw drop and scoot back even further against the wall.
“Wha—!” she gasped, blushing red-hot. “That’s not—I didn’t—ohCelestiawhyaretheydoingthat?!”
“Well,” Spike muttered, transfixed by the view, “they’re definitely not hugging anymore. Or… maybe that’s too much hugging.”
“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity squealed. “Get your hooves off of my stallion, you hussy!”
Twilight quickly covered Spike’s eyes. And ears. And every other part of him she could reach. She looked over the egregious display to the rest of the pegasi in the room, to see if—yes, they were definitely doing it too, with as much worrying enthusiasm as they had the hugging.
Lacking anymore hooves to slap over her face since they were preoccupied trying to keep what remained of Spike’s innocence from dying a fiery death, Twilight settled for a deep sigh and closed her eyes, knocking the back of her head against the wall.
“Tuesday,” she muttered. “Why does this always happen on a Tuesday?”