> Feeding Problems
>  by ferret
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Rainbow Dash Fails to Adopt Scootaloo
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adopting Scootaloo wasn’t going to be as easy as it looked. Rainbow Dash’s first thought had been to try the orphanage. I mean, duh. That’s where Scootaloo kept all her stuff! Of course she’d be an orphan! That’s the first place you’d try, right? Just because she never actually said  that she was one, didn’t mean anything, right? Scootaloo just hadn’t thought to mention it!

So one day, fresh out of flight school, Rainbow landed lightly at the very door of the orphanage in Ponyville. She walked inside, to find what you’d expect in an orphanage. Hallways going in other directions, spartan decorations, foal drawings on the wall, some done without permission, and the occasional sight of a harried mare or stallion chasing down some rambunctious tykes gallopping with abandon. There was a conservative looking mare in a grey bun sitting at a desk in the front, while some foals ran behind her in the background with some sort of ribbon on a stick. She seemed like the go-to pony for this sort of place.

“Hey, how can I adopt Scootaloo?” Rainbow asked, leaning on the desk all professional-like.

“...excuse me?” the mare said, staring at Dash with a flabbergasted look on her face.

“Oh you must not know, with all the—” Rainbow was interrupted, as two giggling colts scurried under her hooves, “All these foals here,” she continued. “Scootaloo is one of your foals, and I’m gonna adopt her!”

The grey mare paused again, before looking down her glasses at Rainbow Dash, saying, “If I am to understand there is a... particular  foal at our orphanage that you wish to adopt?”

“Yeah, Scootaloo! You know, about this high, orange and purple, always buzzing around with a scooter?”

The mare didn’t seem inclined to closely examine the hoof Rainbow Dash had helpfully held out at Scootaloo’s approximate height, plus an inch or two to grow into.

“Do you have any... qualifications?” she instead asked skeptically.

“Qualifications?” Rainbow Dash asked right back.

“Yes you know,” the mare waved a hoof, “Your place of employment, your marital status, your approximate income, a budget to accomodate a foal, a—”

“Hold that thought!” Rainbow Dash announced, zooming out the door and taking to the sky. She was back in what seemed like moments, with a cardboard box balanced on her hindquarters.

“Alright, whatcha need?” she said unceremoniously dumping the box to the floor.

The mare looked at the box, then looked at Rainbow Dash, then said, “...excuse me?”

“What qualifications  do you need?” Rainbow Dash qualified, rolling her eyes.

“You mean to say, you are interested in adopting a foal from our orphanage?”

“We went over this already!” Rainbow said exasperatedly.

“Miss, I really don’t think—”

“Just tell me what you need, and you’ll get it!” Rainbow interrupted. She was starting to get irritated with this mare.

“What’s in the box?” the mare asked, a bit at a loss for how to approach this rainbow headed mare.

“My qualifications,” Rainbow said opening the box and pulling various items out of it, “Look, see? Here’s my last paycheck, and here’s the one before, oh no that’s the one from three months ago. And here’s my cloud bill, and... I think this is a grocery receipt never mind. Oh, here’s my diploma!” Rainbow Dash popped out from rooting around in the box, with a manilla folder held in her mouth, a community college’s address written on the upper left, “I’ve been looking for this forever!” she said after tossing it aside, turning back to what she was sitting in. “I wonder what else is in here...”

“Miss!” the mare said loudly, as if she’d been repeating herself trying to get Rainbow’s attention for some time. A lot of ponies acted like that around Rainbow, for some reason. Rainbow Dash really didn’t know why. She stuck her head out of the box again, and turned to look at the deskmare inquisitively.

“You’re going to have to be a bit more organized if you want to even think about adopting a foal!” the grey mare admonished Dash, holding out a sheaf of papers. “You are free nonetheless to apply for consideration as a foster parent.”

“So, how do I do that?” Dash said from her box, looking curiously at the sheaf of papers the deskmare was waving at her. Why did she keep doing that?

The mare stood up and walked around her desk, shoving the papers against Rainbow Dash’s chest so she had to take them in hoof. “Just... fill out these forms,” the mare said, “When you are considered for foster status, you will receive a letter in the mail. Do not call us, we will call you.” With that she walked back to her desk, and sat down again, adjusting her glasses.

Dash climbed out of her box, looking at the impressive pile of paper left on the floor. There had to be at least twelve  pages! “And, if I fill out these forms I can adopt Scootaloo?” she called across the room uncertainly.

“You will be considered  for foster parent status,” the mare corrected her. “You may allow two to ten weeks for your application to be processed and then‒”

“Ten weeks?!” Dash exclaimed.

“And then you may apply for‒”

“I can’t wait ten weeks!” Dash protested, flying up in agitation. “I wanna adopt Scootaloo while she’s still a filly, you know!”

“If you cannot wait ten weeks, then you should not be adopting a foal ” the mare said glaring at Dash heatedly.

“Why not?!” Dash whined protested calmly and rationally.

“Because if you cannot wait ten weeks for a foal, then you cannot wait for that foal to complete a school day,” the mare said in a stern tone, “And then he or she will be left alone for hours, waiting for you to pick them up with no one there, because you were off doing something else, and let it slip your mind!”

“I would never‒” Dash started, but this time she  got interrupted.

“If you cannot wait ten weeks, then when your foal needs healthy food to eat you will be too impatient to prepare it, and will sicken them on pre-packaged dinners!”

“I, uh...” Dash really wanted to protest that she would never do that, she really did.

“Your foal will need diligence and care, and if you cannot display even the slightest smidgen of dignity, patience, or respect for others, then you will ruin not only your life, but the foal’s future as well!” the mare shouted, “If that is, you don’t reject her in a week, once you find that raising a foal is too difficult for your liking, and leave us to pick up the pieces of her shattered ego!

“Well screw you!” Dash shouted back, “I don’t need to prove anything to you!”

The mare closed her eyes and collected herself, pressing a hoof to her chest, then exhaling again. “Yes,” she said, “You do.”

“That’s all horseradish,” Dash asserted, “Nopony would do any  of that to a foal!”

The mare looked at her somberly, then said, “How old are you?”

“I’m 110,” Dash said, “I mean‒ 103, but I’m supposed to say 110. Because you know, uh, yeah.”

“You really don’t know, do you?” she sighed.

“Know what?” Rainbow huffed. “It’s old enough! I looked at the law! I mean, my friend did. But she’s smart! I mean, I’m smart too.”

Rainbow Dash paused, adding, “I’m smart,” again one more time for emphasis. She looked around self consciously. “What’re you  looking at?” Rainbow Dash said laconically to an eleven year old foal who was giving her the most disappointed frown of disapproval. The foal just turned and ran off out into the play yard. Stupid foals, being all smug and stuff.

“Miss, please ,” the mare urged, attracting her attention. “Ask your... friend to research the Happy Valley Orphanage. It was disestablished in QDC AD, and set a precedent for much of current case law. After that, you may return, and fill out these forms.”

“Rainbow Dash !” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed, charging into the orphanage through the double doors behind Rainbow. “You can’t just run off and adopt Scootaloo in an afternoon! I wasn’t even finished telling you about the qualifications!”

“Your friend, I presume?” the grey mare said regarding the purple unicorn in the room.

“Oh so now both  of you are on my case?” Dash said in a hurt tone, hunching her shoulders. “I’d be a great parent!”

“You would Rainbow,” Twilight assured her, “But you have to be more... less... uggh.”

“Excuse me, miss...” the grey mare said to Twilight.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle. Sorry about this. May I have your name?” the unicorn asked politely, and Paper Heart thanked Celestia for that.

“Ms. Paper Heart, thank you,” the mare said. “Miss Twilight, if I may, your friend needs to know about a historic landmark known as the Happy Valley Orphanage.”

“Euw,” Twilight visibly cringed. She clearly had run across it sometime before.

“Miss... Rainbow Dash seems to think, that no parent would forget to pick up their child from school,” Paper Heart explained, “It is my opinion that she would benefit from some experience in that regard.”

“What’re you guys talking about?” Rainbow Dash sighed. Stupid eggheads ruining everything.

A shadow seemed to creep over Paper Heart’s features as she darkly said, “Spare her no details.”

One montage across town, and one helpful recitation of relevant reading material later, and Rainbow Dash was hiding underneath the oak wood reading desk on the first floor of the Ponyville library, which many know fondly as the Golden Oaks. The library not the desk. Curled up in a ball, with her hooves held over her ears.

“Come out of there, Rainbow!” Twilight shouted to get past Rainbow’s impromptu hearing protection. That and she was pissed off.

“No!” Rainbow shouted back desperately, “No more!”

“You need to hear this!”

“It never happened!” she protested, “It’s a lie!!”

“Rainbow,” Twilight said dangerously... then sighed and said in a more relaxed tone, “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. Any other pony of your level of immaturity could believe what I said wasn’t true... except for you.” She was quiet then, just looking at Rainbow Dash expectantly.

Rainbow Dash creeped out from under the desk, whimpering quietly, “What about... what about Cherry Drop? D-did she...”

“She survived with two broken legs and a skull fracture,” Twilight said, glancing at the book with a shudder and added, “Her testimony was instrumental in ending the activities of the Happy Crime Family in...” but by then Twilight was speaking to empty air. Twilight looked around, but there was nothing there but her open swinging front door. Rainbow Dash had just fled the library entirely. Twilight would have followed, but she knew Dash was probably a mile away by now. And Twilight had a hunch that Dash wouldn’t stay away for long.

Later that day, Twilight put off taking inventory of the west wing to take a nap, and she was glad she did, because sure enough that very moonlit night, deep into the witching hour, Luna’s glow being the only light bathing across her blankets in the darkness, Twilight Sparkle was laying there in her bed unable to sleep. She lay there looking up at the ceiling with her ever thoughtful violet eyes, a sober expression on her face.

“Are ponies really that bad?” came Rainbow Dash’s voice, from underneath her bed.

“It’s a bell curve,” Twilight answered. Then qualified with, “A very few ponies are very bad, but almost everypony is pretty neutral.”

“How did they win then?” Rainbow said again, from her safe place.

“They didn’t, Rainbow,” Twilight explained, rolling over onto her side. “They lost all their power, QFWJ years ago. They don’t even exist anymore.”

“But what about all those foals?”

“Most of them survived...” Twilight said reluctantly.

“Even the ones in the crystal mines?”

“M‒ n‒ well...”

“The inpony experiments?”

“They survived, well, physically at least.”

“The fillies who died in childbirth?”

Twilight sighed, “Yes, the fillies who died, died.”

“Why did it happen ?” Dash exclaimed, sounding on the verge of tears... again.

Twilight pursed her lips, wanting to give a quick answer but... a quick answer wouldn’t get Dash out from under her bed.

“I said almost everypony is pretty neutral,” she admitted to her pegasus friend, “But when things are really bad—and things were really  bad—then even ponies who aren’t bad can be pretty easily... fooled into allowing terrible things to happen.”

“Could it... happen again?” Dash whimpered.

“It will never ever happen again,” Twilight said confidently. “That was a strange and dark time, and ponies have since learned their lesson. We know how to prevent it, and how to stop it now.”

“Okay, Twilight,” Dash conceded quietly. She didn’t sound satisfied, and she didn’t leave, but she didn’t say anything further, so at last Twilight started to drift off to sleep.

Ten minutes later, Twilight was holding her pillow over her face and mumbling something about nasal strips, as the roaring noise of a dying moose under her bed filtered through to her ears.

The next morning, Ms. Paper was again working her shift behind the reception desk, when Miss Dash burst in again in a storm of motion and color.

“Alright I read it!” the rainbow mare said puffing her chest proudly, “Now gimme that paperwork!”

She spent the next hour filling it out, taking a surprising amount of time to do so for just twelve pages. Surprising to Paper at least. It didn’t help that Rainbow Dash’s record keeping was apparantly to “throw stuff in a box,” and while most of the forms were simple information like name, address and cutie mark, some of the questions really had the young mare chewing her pencil.

“Hey, Paper!” that mare yelled out across the room, “What substance are they talking about?”

“What substance?” Paper asked back, startling when she realized what a senseless question she’d asked. Was that mare’s stupidity contagious?

“Under History of Substance use?” Miss Dash repeated, “What substance?”

About 10 seconds earlier, Rainbow Dash was busy chewing on her pencil, trying to figure out what the buck these forms were asking her about. “What substance?” she asked for a second time, or a third time if you counted the time when Paper asked.

Dash didn’t look up, but there was an exasperated sigh, when Paper finally answered. “Salt. Hard liquor. Midnight oil.” The deskmare had a quiet tone of voice, that nonetheless carried across the room. Paper went right back to ignoring her, after having mentioned some “substances,” only two of which Rainbow Dash was even familiar with. So Rainbow went right back to diligently filling out these—wait did weather patrol count as civil service?

“Yes,” Paper Heart groaned, in response to the very valid and reasonable question that was perfectly reasonable to ask. Paper Heart didn’t seem to like any of the rest of the questions Rainbow Dash had, either. Dash just had to guess she was one of those ponies who didn’t like questions.

Thankfully for both of them, Rainbow Dash had only one more question before she handed the papers in. “I didn’t see a spot to put Scootaloo’s name down,” she said, “Where should I put it?”

“You—” Paper Heart rubbed her temples, “This is only to consider you for foster parenting in general . If approved, then you can begin the proceedings to adopt any one of the foals living here, not only... Scootaloo alone.”

“Well that’s OK I only want Scootaloo,” Rainbow said helpfully. “So you can just put her name down already.”

“When approved,” Paper said disapprovingly, “You might consider that any of these foals is just as deserving of a home as the one you ... already picked out.”

“Huh,” Rainbow Dash said, looking outside at some foals playing jump rope. “I guess they are, aren’t they?” Paper gave her a look like did you honestly not realize that. “I can’t adopt them all  though,” Dash continued, “How are they going to get adopted?”

“You aren’t the only foster parent in Ponyville,” Paper suggested.

“Guess that makes sense,” Dash said with a weak smile.

She watched as Paper opened up a drawer that looked full of applications and dumped hers on top, saying, “You will let me know, right? I don’t want another pony to adopt Scootaloo first!”

“Your application will be processed in two to ten weeks,” Paper repeated, slamming the drawer closed with finality. Too much finality for Rainbow Dash’s sake.

Paper tried to appear disinterested as Rainbow gave Paper a leery look. Then the rainbow mare turned to leave, then looked back, then walked a few steps, then looked back again, then at last she ran out the door. Paper let out a breath she hadn’t noticed she had been holding then. As much of a headache as this Rainbow Dash filly was, she was more than glad to get that troublesome mare out of the way. Maybe now things would start calming down.

A mint green unicorn burst in through the door ran right up to her shouting, “I need a filly right away!”

Paper hated working the reception desk.

As the day wore on and slightly more reasonable ponies than those two  came to the front desk for various reasons, Paper Heart couldn’t stop ruminating on that peculiar rainbow mare. She had been so foalishly intent on getting what she wanted, and the simplest concepts seemed to not even be part of her understanding of the world. If Paper had thought that mare was capable of lying, she would have sworn she had lied about her age, like one of those apprentices coming in to try some kind of prank involving foal adoption services.

Perhaps it was her recklessly colored mane that kept her in mind. Paper didn’t know anypony in back in Baltimare that had three colors in their mane, never mind twelve brightly distinct ones. She hadn’t been in Ponyville very long, but a prismatic mane definitely didn’t seem to be something any of the orphan foals carried, nor any of her coworkers or other ponies she’d seen on the streets. It was probably a dye job. Well, considering the mare’s level of organization, it was probably a dye job involving falling into a vat of fresh rainbow. She had been a pegasus too, so it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.

Paper supposed it was that mare’s ability to get a rise out of her that made her stand out from the others Paper had met that day. Paper had always been a rather well mannered filly, and she didn’t usually lose her temper like that. But that mare’s ignorance had been insufferable! Didn’t they teach about this sort of thing in school at all? Not just her ignorance, but her immediate expectation of the best possible outcome. Most ponies had to be convinced that they were  qualified to adopt, assuming the worst when they walked in the door.

Whatever it was, as Paper was leaving for the day to her little duplex she’d managed to acquire at a steal, thanks to Ponyville’s unusually low real estate values, she passed the filing cabinet, in which she’d unceremoniously dumped the poor pegasus’s application for foster status. The janitors emptied that cabinet out every now and again once it got too full.

Paper looked over her hip at that glorified garbage can, her eyes softening just a tad. There was no way a pony like that would ever  qualify for adoption, but... Paper just didn’t have the heart to leave her without answers, like that. At least Paper could get the process going, so that Miss Rainbow Dash would be let down in a clear and upfront manner, instead of just lost in the shuffle of prospective parents clamoring for attention.

She pulled out the sheaf of papers, with Dash’s mostly legible mouthwriting all over them, and tucked them under her shoulder, walking to the proper place to file them and placing them in the box marked In. She wasn’t supposed to let illegitimate applications clutter up the next level of bureaucracy, but surely this one time couldn’t hurt?

Paper Heart was surprised two weeks later, when Choice Sum came to her desk. Paper Heart had reception duty on a biweekly basis, a lot less fun than chasing foals around and cleaning up their messes, but a necessary evil. The pale pink and yellow mare, who also happened to be her boss, came to the desk on Paper’s first day back at it, saying “Was it you took this application?” throwing Miss Rainbow Dash’s hastily filled out application on the desk surface.

Paper felt the guilt of a filly with her hoof in the cookie jar saying, “Is there a problem, ma’am?” in a controlled tone, looking at the application in front of her. Why hadn’t Paper just round filed the damn thing?

“Is Rainbow Dash really adopting a foal?” Choice said, her words coming out entirely too vivaciously. Paper looked up surprised, and found Choice was smiling. Not the gentle smile while watching the foals sleeping in their bunks, but a bright eyed spread winged foal-in-a-candy-shop smile.

“Y-yes...?” Paper stuttered uncertainly. “It was a sky colored mare, with a mane dyed with rainbow. Very disorganized. Is that the Rainbow Dash to whom you refer?”

Choice just gaped at her, saying “You don’t know who Rainbow Dash is? Any foal would give their back right leg to be adopted by her! She’s incredible! She’s a town hero! You know she once saved the world?”

“W-what?!” Paper exclaimed.

“She defeated Nightmare Moon!”

Paper just stared blankly. “The... holiday?”

“No, the real  one. Don’t you remember the night that never ended? Nightmare Moon came back and attacked Ponyville! And she even stole Princess Celestia’s powers over night and day! Rainbow Dash is one of the mares who went into the heart of the Everfree and defeated her!”

“That  was her ?” Paper exclaimed again, “She was all over the news in Baltimare, she and eleven others. I thought it was... I don’t pay much mind to the news.”

“You remember the Royal Wedding last year?”

“Yes, that’s the reason I don’t pay much mind to the news,” Paper said flat faced and disgusted. Most overhyped event of the century. It had coincided with some incredibly foolish attack on Canterlot of course. She didn’t need to check the news to know how something like that  concluded.

“Rainbow Dash was the one who got the Elements of Harmony and held off the Changeling queen until the princesses had recovered their strength!”

Paper shook her head, “I can’t believe that that  mare would be... I suppose she was the one who pulled our foal out of the well last week?”

“The very one!”

“I suppose... it must just not require any intelligence to be a hero. I still can’t—”

“Did you look  at her application?” Choice said aghast. Paper blinked, and glanced down at it, then looked over it with a bit more care than just a passing glance.

“Hmm, impressive,” Paper murmured, “Already a weather manager? She’s certainly got a drive to succeed.”

“Look under curriculum vitae,” Choice prompted. Paper looked down the list, asking with a raised eyebrow,

“The Cloudfront Community College?”

“Keep looking.”

There was another college beneath that one in chronological order of course. But that would mean Rainbow Dash had entered college at age 101 at least! Paper looked beneath, and promptly spat out, “The Wonderbolts Academy?!”

Somewhere far across Ponyville, Rainbow Dash was sure of two things. In promising herself to adopt Scootaloo, she was totally ready for it. In promising Scootaloo flying lessons, she’d gotten herself way over her head. That orphanage might have looked like a decent place, but there was no way they were feeding this kid enough. Certainly not to sustain a high intensity workout!

The two of them were in a small restauraunt/cottage, a design common around Ponyville. This one’s front had broad glass windows, and a bar installed on the inside with stools in front. The smell of fruits and hearty things above a tinge of refreshing icyness wafted over the occupants of those stools.

The juice bar around them had walls painted in saturated green, giving the whole place a natural if unnatural atmosphere. Scoots and Rainbow Dash weren’t the only ponies in there, seated on the plush stools that lined the juice bar, but the place certainly did not attract the persistent crowd you find in a certain bakery. Rainbow chalked it up to the bar being relatively new, and to the tendancy for most ponies to have a bit more of a sweet tooth.

Dash smirked sliding the glass over to squirt saying, “Let me introduce you to something they call protein shakes!”

Dash watched Scootaloo look at the giant glass of foamy milky goodness with trepidation. Scootaloo looked with trepidation, not Dash. Granted, it was about the size of Scootaloo’s entire head, but pegasi burned a lot of energy in workouts, you know? Plus Dash had some... other concerns.

“You mean milkshakes?” Scootaloo asked, poking the side of the glass with her hoof.

“No, they’re totally different,” Dash explained with an arm around the filly and a hoof held out for demonstration. “Milkshakes are bad for you, whereas protein shakes are good for you. This’ll give you what you need to build up your bipectoral muscles so you can really  get some wing speed!”

“O-oh right. Those,” the little pegasus lied through her teeth. Man, she didn’t even know about basic anatomy? It was a good thing Scootaloo was only second year, or Dash would be having some words with Cheerilee. This really was  an earth pony town.

Rainbow Dash pulled back her raised hoof and laid it against a particular spot on Scootaloo’s tiny chest, in which her heart was beating rapidly. “Those are your bipectorals,” Dash said softly, “They’re what give your wings the power on their downstroke. The more you build them up the faster you can gain altitude. And the more protein you eat, the more you can build them up.”

Scootaloo silently nodded in understanding. She really was a smart little filly, but she sure didn’t know some basic things. Rainbow wondered how young she had been when she got to the orphanage. She didn’t want to get Scootaloo all sad about her troubled past though, because Scootaloo had to be majorly hyped up for the workout that Rainbow had planned for her. There was a lot to catch up on for the filly.

When Dash’s own milksh– protein shake arrived, she couldn’t help but notice Scootaloo whimper when Dash pulled her hoof away. Rainbow Dash was just going to slide the glass towards her own hungry mouth, but she noticed the filly’s disappointed reaction nonetheless. Scoots was trying to make like it was nothing and looking any direction but at her, so Dash didn’t say anything about it, but dear sweet Celestia did that filly need a mom. “Bottoms up!” Dash said to snap Scootaloo out of her funk, and the filly gave a guilty smile, before mimicking Dash’s movements to suck at the swirly straw.

“It’s sweet,” Scootaloo grimaced.

“You can burn off all that sugar in the workout,” Dash assured her. The filly reluctantly continued to sip at it. That itself was really weird. What kind of filly didn’t love to eat sugar?

Dash made sure Scootaloo finished every drop of that shake, not just for the workout, but this was an earth pony town. It never ceased to amaze Dash how different it was living here, something always seemed to surprise her. She wouldn’t be surprised if the orphanage was just feeding their foals hay and oats, and not even so much as a sardine. Not the sort of thing any self respecting pegasus should be living on. So Scootaloo needed her protein, and vitamins, to tide her over until the next time they managed to have a workout session. 

Rainbow Dash was no dummy; she knew that Scootaloo wasn’t going to be a great flyer. She promised Scootaloo flying lessons, not the fast track to the racing circuits after all. She welcomed the challenge, really. Learning how Scootaloo could best take advantage of her underdeveloped wings and build their strength was helping Dash herself learn more about flying. Being a speedster you could miss a lot of the fundamentals, but Scootaloo really made Dash stop and think about them, which in turn made Dash a better flyer. The best way to learn is to teach, right?

Still it was  a challenge as the workouts went on. Scootaloo had such a weird flying style. Her wings didn’t flap so much as buzz. It helped compensate for their flimsiness and smaller size, but it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing that would get you sliding through the air like greased lightning. Dash swore it was going to take an act of Celestia to teach Scootaloo how to just hold her wings still and glide.

Dash didn’t want to tell Scootaloo that she herself was barely even tired, when the filly started to get stressed and sweaty and worn out. There was nothing wrong  with it, just Scootaloo needed more stamina. Plus Dash was like twice as big as her, so it made sense Scootaloo could only go half as long. So it made sense if Scootaloo quickly got worn out and uneasy and... kind of nauseous?

Scootaloo sure gave it her all, trying to follow Dash’s advice and plot a straight course through the air, instead of jittering around erratically like some kind of bug. But no matter how many workouts, or how many shakes Dash shoved down her throat, it was only after Scootaloo touched the earth, that she could propel herself forward like a bullet.

Dash didn’t remember much from Breeding 101, but she was pretty sure pegasus and earth pony genes couldn’t combine half way. It always went one way or the other. But she had to wonder about Scootaloo. This was an earth pony town after all, and the filly seemed more at home on the ground than in the sky. There was no way to bring up her birth parents without it getting totally awkward though, so Dash just had to speculate that she had a lot of earth pony in her, or something.

“Alright squirt, time to call it quits!” Rainbow shouted one day, after the workout. Scootaloo ceased her exercise of trying to glide from a flat cloud, then ascending with difficulty back to it in order to try again. She fluttered to the ground together with Dash, where Dash put her hoof on the filly’s hair and ruffled that boyish curl.

“You did good,” Dash said, “Great effort!”

Scootaloo looked up at Rainbow Dash, with a queasy look on her face. “Thanks Rainbow Dash,” she said in a grateful tone.

“We’re going to work on stabilizing you more the next lesson,” Rainbow Dash continued, “So you can go in a straight line without losing altitude.”

Scootaloo smiled brightly at that. “So glad there’s a next lesson!” she cheered excitedly.

“What, you don’t think I’m ever gonna leave you hanging?” Rainbow Dash laughed, striking a pose, “When I said you’re gonna be a great flyer I meant it! I think we’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on.” She had to fight not to just shout out that she was gonna take Scootaloo home with her one of these days.

Scootaloo actually hugged her then, just ran up and wrapped her hooves around Rainbow Dash’s chest. It made Rainbow’s heart swell to see such affection from the filly, who was so skittish before. “Oh thank you thank you Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo gushed, and then her hooves stiffened oddly. She pulled away from Rainbow Dash with that queasy look on her face again.

“You O.K. squirt?” Dash asked concernedly.

“Oh I’m fine I’m fine,” Scootaloo said with a fake smile, “I’m just feeling a little um, full.” She wasn’t lying, but Dash got the impression she wasn’t exactly telling the truth.

“That protein shake really hit you hard, huh?” Dash said consolingly. “You must be used to earth pony food all the time. Don’t worry you just need to give your body time to adjust.”

“Yeah. Adjust.” Scootaloo said in a surprisingly bitter tone, looking away from Dash and refusing to qualify herself more.

“Something you want to tell me, squirt?” Dash tried. She knew what Scootaloo’s reaction would be though, and sure enough Scootaloo said in a tense tone, fidgeting in place,

“Hey, you know, I really have got to get to a.. thing with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. So I’ll be seeing you later. OK Rainbow Dash?”

“OK squirt,” Dash said evenly. She didn’t want Scootaloo to know, but Rainbow could tell the pegasus filly wasn’t going to see Apple Bloom. The earth filly friend of Scootaloo’s would be hip deep in farm work this time of day, and Dash had seen Sweetie getting on a carriage today on flyby so she was probably visiting her grandparents in Colton.

Scootaloo jumped on her scooter with little fanfare, and revved up her wings, buzzing off down the hill and zipping into Ponyville proper. Dash watched her go and sighed. “Soon, Scoots,” she promised. “Soon.”

Rainbow was soon cruising over the skies of Ponyville by herself, quietly plotting her next move. It had been a bit of a wrench in her plans to find out Scootaloo was an orphan. She had been planning to give the filly flight lessons one of these days, but Dash had thought it could wait until after she graduated from the academy. So she went her entire first year without realizing that filly wasn’t getting wing training, and now Scoots was even further behind on flying.

Now it was Rainbow Dash’s top priority, as well as getting that filly somepony to watch over her. But if the stories about ancient child sellers weren’t enough of a shock, now there were a ton of foals who needed somepony in their life! Twilight assured her that evil stuff was all in the past, but how could ponies be making foals and then just abandoning them?

Everypony knew there was an orphanage here, but the implications of it just hadn’t hit Rainbow Dash until she really thought about it. She wondered if there was something she could do about it. The only idea that occurred to her was to beat up the parents until they took their foals back. That probably wouldn’t end well though, because her hooves would be way too tired after that  many parents. Maybe Twilight would have an idea. That egghead always did. Rainbow Dash angled her course to drift towards the Golden Oaks Library, a silly smile creeping onto her face.

Meanwhile, somewhere all alone by herself in the shadows, Scootaloo coughed wetly as her sides heaved from throwing up everything she’d eaten before. “Why do I have to be this way,” she asked herself, tears trailing down her cheeks, “Why can’t I just be a normal pony, like Rainbow Dash?” There was nopony to answer though besides herself. There couldn’t be anypony else because she was so ashamed of what she was, that she didn’t want any other ponies to know about it. She didn’t want other ponies to hate her for what she was. When she looked at her reflection, her face was full of concern, but it... it wasn’t the face anypony knew her by. It was the face of a stranger.

“You could try a charitable donation?” Twilight Sparkle suggested to Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, in the brightly lit sunny interior of the tree library’s main lobby.

“How does a charitable donation stop parents from abandoning their own foals?” Rainbow protested. They were standing in the library, as usual for Twilight, right next to the elements in their display case just waiting for somepony to run off with them and never be seen again. The ten weeks of terrible waiting for application approval were only about halfway through, and Dash was looking a little feathery from the stress of it. Not that she was taking it out on Twilight but, no she was pretty much totally taking it out on Twilight.

“It won’t,” Twilight said bluntly, “But foals need to eat too, and they need blankets just like any other pony.”

“They wouldn’t need  me to donate anything if their parents weren’t just dumping them!” Dash asserted heatedly.

“Their parents are... ugh, look Rainbow Dash, there are many perfectly valid reasons to put a foal up for adoption. It’s very rare that a parent just... dumps their foal on an orphanage.” The unicorn continued to grumble, “You really shouldn’t be talking to me about this, Rainbow,” looking up at a scroll sent to her by the princess with some sort of spell on it. Twilight had that scroll mounted on the wall, next to some notes and diagrams. She’d had that scroll for a really long time in fact, at least since Dash got back from the academy. It was starting to look really frayed on the edges.

“I have my own studying to do,” Twilight said, “And I’ve pretty much told you all I know about orphanages. Reasons for abandonment are discussed in chapter 13 book V of Orville’s Only Orphanage Omnibus, but as for you I would really recommend you just go ask Rarity. She has a lot more experience than I do in orphanages.”

“Rarity?” Rainbow Dash winced, “Why her? She’s not an orphan she has parents!”

“Actually...” Twilight trailed off, stomped the floor and said, “No, no it’s not for me to say. Ask her about it, and I’m sure she’ll tell you. One cannot simply say no to Rainbow Dash. I will tell you that she does regularly donate to the Ponyville orphanage though, so you can ask her what her reasoning is behind that.”

“Well I really can’t tell you my reasoning behind it,” Rarity said later, “It is an act of the heart, not the mind. But it is something for me to do to make the world a better place.”

The two of them were sitting at a powder blue table in Sugarcube Corner. Specifically, Dash was only half sitting, having zipped in to talk to Rarity as soon as she saw the unicorn in the window. It had taken Rainbow Dash several days to track Rarity down. Well, to track Rarity down in a time when Dash was off the weather patrol and when Rarity was not at her boutique. Rainbow wanted to catch her out of her element, because Rarity in her element is a rather scary experience. Just about every time Rainbow Dash walked into that boutique, she came out with another gigantic hat on, with no idea how she agreed that it was any way in style.

The bakery’s cheery atmosphere was the subject of a number of quiet conversations and ponies laughing to each other while consuming pasteries and sweet drinks. Pinkie’s place was always a good place to meet, even if they served milkshakes here not protein drinks. They didn’t have seats here either, so you could just stand while you ate, not as pretty but lots more convenient when you just wanted to run in and out.

“One enjoys especially bringing in significant donations such as toys or prepared food, that the foals can directly appreciate,” Rarity continued. “It’s simply more fulfilling than just putting all my earnings back into the shop.”

“So, you just do it because it feels good?” Rainbow Dash queried uncertainly. That didn’t sound like something her friend would do at all. Not that anypony didn’t like feeling good, but Rarity was always putting herself out for the good of others. It was kind of painful to watch sometimes.

“I do it because it does  good,” Rarity asserted. “It really does help those foals, and they need all the help they can get. Their caretakers too. And really it’s nice to give something back, now that I am able to.”

“Twilight was saying you could tell me why parents are abandoning their foals like that,” Rainbow cut straight to the point. Rarity stopped, and faced toward Rainbow Dash with an expression between worry and disapproval.

“Mmm, yes I would say some parents are unable to care for their foals,” Rarity said carefully, sipping at her sparkling wintergreen tea. “I would say abandoning  is a bit overzealous though.”

“Well, why else would they be leaving them at the orphanage?” Rainbow protested.

Rarity gave Dash a long look, just like Paper Heart and countless ponies had in Rainbow Dash’s life.

“You know my old friend Redheart?” she said at last.

“Um...” Rainbow Dash blushed, scuffing the floorboards.

“Well,” Rarity waved a hoof, “One of my old Baltimare friends was orphaned at a young age, and her parents didn’t abandon her. They died!” Dash’s mouth dropped open. It seemed for once Rarity’s attention to dramatic affect was having an effect on Rainbow Dash, leaving her quite affected.

“What?!” squeaked Rainbow.

“It was terrible!” Rarity swooned, rearing up dramatically. “The fire consumed the city! There was no stopping an enraged wyrm! He laid waste to the land!”

“Then what happened??” Pinkie asked, causing Rarity to shriek and tumble backward. It might have had something to do with Pinkie Pie sneaking up undetected previously, then sticking her head right in Rarity’s face. Rainbow Dash had to chuckle at that, and that was terrible, because she was supposed to be majorly bummed! 

Rarity meanwhile picked herself up carefully, saying, “Hello, Pinkie,” in an unenthusiastic voice. 

“Hey, Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash said in a little bit of a reluctant tone, not sure if she wanted to talk to her about heavy stuff like this either. The pink pony didn’t respond, looking at Rarity expectantly.

“Then,” Rarity began again uneasily, “He calmed down. Or was calmed down. Flew away before any reparations could be demanded. There was a scandal in court of course, and the blacklist on his—”

“No, no, the foals !” Pinkie corrected, “What happened to the foals?”

“They were... sent to the orphanage?” Rarity answered confused. She recovered her wits though, adding, “A lot of foals were orphaned that day. And that is why orphans do not necessarily have parents who abandoned them.”

“Phew!” said Pinkie in a relieved, if inappropriate reaction, bouncing off with her pastries somehow remaining on her serving tray, to attend to the other customers.

“All those foals at the orphanage have parents who died? That’s so sad...” Rainbow said sadly. She really didn’t know what to think about that.

“Erm... no,” Rarity corrected, “Thankfully most orphans are not so unlucky as for their parents to die. Even with that tragedy, it was quite a minority.”

Rainbow Dash groaned exasperatedly, throwing up her hooves, “Well, then, if the parents aren’t dead, then why did they abandon their foals?!”

Rarity paused to sip at her tea, before addressing Rainbow Dash in a serious tone. “Mares will have foals. Sometimes they simply aren’t prepared to care for those foals. They may have education to complete, such as an award at a particular academy of flight perhaps. They may not have the finances to support a foal. They may lack the maturity to treat a foal fairly, and nopony wants their child to be hurt by their own pigheaded immaturity, not even the pigheaded. Or perhaps one’s lack of free time due to training exercises in addition to one’s weather controlling occupation makes it too difficult to raise a foal.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, saying “If you’re not gonna take me seriously I don’t know why I bothered asking. If anypony had problems like that, then they could just not have  a foal in the first place.”

“Well, they‒” Rarity waved a hoof saying, “It’s rather hard not  to have a foal. Many ponies lack the will to resist those urges. It’s quite compulsory.”

“How is it in any way compulsory?” Rainbow asked even more irritatedly.

“Ooooh I know this one!” Pinkie shouted, suddenly beside both of them again, “Let me answer, Rarity!” she said excitedly to Rarity’s face, then zipped up close to Dash elbowing her in the side saying slyly, “You don’t worry let Auntie Pinkie tell you all about it,” as an appropriate soundtrack began to play.

One day you’ll feel a tingle in your tummy that you need
A nice and horny stallion to give you all his 

“I know what sex is!! ” Rainbow Dash shouted at the top of her lungs, banishing Pinkie’s somewhat disturbing impromptu props with frantic hoof waving. Dash realized she was reared up on her hind legs then, and everypony in the bakery was looking at her. “Ah, heh heh,” she said with a blush, settling back down to all fours. Pinkie just smiled and bounced back into the kitchen, ever diligent in the task of delivering baked goods to pony mouths.

“Well then,” Rarity said, glancing around with not a small amount of agitation. “Surely you understand why a mare might have a foal that she is not ready to care for?”

“Nope,” Rainbow said dully, “Still not clear.”

“Surely you realize that,” Rarity said, leaning forward over the table and saying in a quiet conspiratorial tone, “Sex makes babies?”

Rainbow Dash let her head hit the table. “Yes,” she said from down there. “I know that sex makes babies.”

“And surely you’ve been ...overcome by your sexual urges before? You’re not that  young,” Rarity asserted.

“Yeah yeah,” Rainbow waved a hoof. “About once a week maybe, more after Wrapup.”

“Then how is it not clear?” Rarity said frustrated, “You have a compulsion for sex, you have ponies who are not ready to raise a foal, thus you have foals who are orphaned. It seems fairly straightforward to me.”

“Haven’t they ever heard of birth control?” Rainbow Dash declared.

Rarity’s silence prompted Rainbow Dash to lift her forehead off the table, and look at the unicorn warily. Rarity looked like she had swallowed a fly.

“I...” she said mouthing silently, then “I had not ...considered that.”

Rainbow looked back, still warily, saying, “So, there’s this great thing called an IUD, it’s a little weird but once you get it in there you’re pretty much set. There’s also the PZP shot but it doesn’t last as long and kinda sucks. You should talk to Doctor Stable about it unless you’re thinking about making a foal. Wait... you aren’t thinking about having a foal are you??”

“I have an IUD,” Rarity growled through clenched teeth.

“Oh, so you do know about that stuff!” Rainbow clarified. “So, you get it right? Parents that orphan their foals have no excuse! If everypony was using birth control until they were ready, all the orphanages would be empty!”

“Sometimes you feel like you could wait to be ready your whole life,” Rarity said wistfully, “And only know it after the deed has been done.”

Rainbow Dash just looked at her blankly.

“You know what, Rainbow Dash?” Rarity said lifting a hoof, “I’m done. I have had enough of this. I just need some time  to reevaluate my entire life . Thank you for chatting, and good day.”

“But why doesn’t everypony‒”

“Why don’t you ask Twilight?” Rarity said sweetly. “I’m sure she  could frame it in a way that you can understand.”

“But—”

“No, thank you.”

Then Rarity just trotted out the door without another word. Rainbow watched her go, then turned her eyes down a little gloomily, troubled by her own thoughts now, as Pinkie Pie’s head stretched closer and closer to her table.

“You gonna buuuuy anything?” Pinkie asked.

“Ehp‒” Rainbow Dash looked up surprised, then looked at Pinkie. “Yeah I guess a cinnamon bun couldn’t hurt.”

One hot, buttery, melty cinnamon delight later, and Rainbow Dash was flying off towards Twilight’s library again. She drifted into the lobby through the front door, left open in the unseasonably warm weather, which was sort of Dash’s fault, but she was totally going to get that fixed soon. Twilight was in there doing some dusting, so Dash just asked her right away,

“Hey I had a question and Rarity said you might know the answer to it.”

Twilight stopped in her dusting, turned and gave Rainbow Dash a long look.

“Didn’t I just  tell you to ask Rarity?!” Twilight exclaimed.

Twilight appeared to be a bit miffed. Maybe she was still sore about the... bed thing that night, but that had totally been her fault. “I did ask Rarity,” Rainbow Dash calmly and rationally explained, “And she told me to ask you.”

“Do you not see the tautology here?” Twilight snapped, pacing in front of a sketch easel with some diagrams and complicated unicorn stuff. The only thing Dash could make out was the part that went “swap ⇒ friendship ⇒ ???”

“Nuh, uh,” Rainbow Dash declared, “It’s not a tauto-thingy. It makes perfect sense.”

“Very well,” Twilight said shortly, “I suggest you ask Rarity. Go ahead, go ask her!”

“But I already asked  Rarity!” Dash said unhappily.

“And you already asked me  so the circle is complete!”

“I asked you a different question, though!”

“I can’t answer a‒ what?” Twilight stopped pacing, and turned slightly in Dash’s direction.

“I’m not asking about why foals are abandoned anymore.”

Twilight paused, then walked up to Rainbow and laid a hoof across her forehead. “Hmm,” she muttered, “Your temperature seems normal. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m fine Twilight,” Rainbow said in a confused flutter, “Why would I not be?”

“Well it’s just for a moment there you started making sense. It’s not like you.”

It only took Rainbow Dash a second or three before she swept Twilight’s hoof off her forehead going, “Ha ha, very funny.”

“Very well Rainbow,” Twilight said smiling cheerfully with that cute close eyed smile of hers. “As it appears Rarity suggested you clarify something further with me, go ahead and ask away and I will do my best to illuminate you with knowledge!” The only sad thing is, she wasn’t being sarcastic. Those weird words like eloominate, she honestly thought were going to mean something to Rainbow Dash. Dash managed to get the gist of it at least.

“Yeah... right...” Rainbow responded in a less than confident tone, but segued into her question quickly. “Twilight, why aren't mares using birth control, if they’re just gonna send their foals to the orphanage?”

Twilight’s expression went flat. “This is gonna take a while,” she muttered.

It was Pinkie, of all ponies, who finally managed to get through to Dash. She came gayly dancing into the library without a care in the world to find Rainbow Dash attempting to glean something from a What’s Happening To My Body Book for Fillies, which was next to a larger pile of rejected books that looked much brainier and less Dashier than Rainbow Dash would normally read. Twilight was standing by glaring at the foal’s literature held in Dash’s hooves with the disgust only a bibliophile could portray. It was all very serious and grave.

“Hey Dashie!” Pinkie chirped out, whereupon Rainbow Dash leapt up, rushed up to her and said,

“Pinkie you gotta help me out! Twilight says I need to read all these mare psychology books and all I wanted was to know why they weren’t using birth control and I’ve been here for almost an hour, nothing makes sense, mares are crazy  and I want to fix the adoptions now!”

“Oh Dashie, it’s simple,” Pinkie said, ignoring the way the panicked pegasus had ahold of her front torso, “You’re a mare, so you can understand you!”

“But I’m not—this!” Rainbow waved at the literature full of disturbed mares and psychological examinations, and vague half truths intended to keep fillies from feeling bad about themselves without actually telling them anything they needed to know.

“Weeellll,” Pinkie said looking aside and rocking on her hooves testily, “What happens to a mare’s tummy when she gets pregnant?”

“It gets... big and round?” Rainbow Dash guessed uncertainly, walked back to her books, “accidentally” kicking that big one, about mares with abstract cutie mark something or another, out of the way.

“Rainbow—!” Twilight shouted, diving for the book.

“Ssh, let Pinkie finish!” Rainbow said smoothly, turning to the pink pony with the impossibly poofy hair.

“That’s right!” Pinkie said brightly, “It gets big and round! Because of the foal in there! Now what happens when she takes birth control?”

“It... doesn’t get big and round?”

“Right again!” Pinkie cheered. Rainbow wanted to feel insulted, but the pony was honestly happy for Dash’s understanding, and Dash knew it was just how Pinkie expressed herself. “Now, you  don’t have a big round tummy, Dashie. You have a nice sleek one. Does it feel good to have a nice slim athletic figure?”

“Buck yeah it does, I am smoking hot!” Dash said, lifting her wings and striking a pose. She looked over to to Twilight before she could protest, saying, “Come on Twilight, you know you would hit this.”

“Aaaalmost there,” Pinkie cautioned, coming right up next to Dash. “Now I want you to imagine that you have a biiig round tummy, all full and heavy, with a little foal curled up in there.” She demonstrated as she spoke the ostensible gravidity Dash would display, by waving her hoof in a curved path underneath Rainbow’s flank. The thought of being pregnant was making Rainbow Dash blush, and Pinkie was making it really easy to think about, with the way she described it. No way Rainbow could ruin her athletic career but... you know... just thinking about it.

“Got it?” Pinkie said pleasantly, hopping in place with anticipation.

“Y-yeah,” Dash admitted, sticking her nose into a wing nervously, “So... what?”

“Does it feel good to think about a foal inside you, swinging there between your legs like a cradle?”

“Um–mm–uh,” Now both Dashie–Rainbow Dash and Twilight were blushing, and Dash really didn’t have words for how she was torn, by how weird that thought was, and how self evident it was.

“No matter how much you want to feel like that, you can’t, not as long as you’re using birth control,” Pinkie concluded, “Aaaand that’s  why ponies don’t use birth control, when they should!”

Pinkie skipped out of the library then humming to herself a very inappropriate song, and it took the other two a while before either of them noticed that Pinkie hadn’t even checked out a book.

Dash spoke at length, rubbing a hoof under her chin and saying, “Huh... so... there are orphans because mares want to get pregnant, even when they can’t support a foal?”

“That’s... not the only  reason,” Twilight said with a wince, “But probably the predominate one, yes. In the twenty-one hundredth century, there was a movement where ponies started falsely claiming birth control was dangerous to a mare’s health, and that put a heavy strain on orphanages from unintended foaling, but the princess put an end to that. These days mares who are avoiding birth control for fear of health complications are pretty rare, and the only other source of orphans besides avoiding birth control is... deceased parents.”

“Just to feel  pregnant though?” Dash exclaimed, recovering some of her wits. “That’s stupid! It doesn’t sound that  good. Plus they also have to feel the foal coming out , and I heard that hurts a lot!”

Twilight shook her head. “Not just  to feel pregnant, though that is certainly  a psychological influence, but to have a foal, Rainbow Dash!” She gave Dash a pleading look, as if she might please, please, please quit this line of questioning.

But Dash just was so confused. “Why would anypony want to have a foal, if they’re just gonna throw it away!” she exclaimed. Twilight facehooved.

“Just because not many ponies are evil, doesn’t mean not many ponies are stupid,” Twilight said. “Mares make mistakes, and as Pinkie demonstrated it’s really easy to make them. Nopony wants their foals to go to an orphanage, but when they y’know, make them, ponies often make unrealistic assumptions about the idyllic life in their future. That’s why we need orphanages, to fix the mistakes and make the world a better place again, if for no other reason than the sake of the foals.”

“I just wanna adopt Scootaloo,” Rainbow Dash moaned, “I don’t want Pinkie Pie trying to get me knocked up. I don’t want to learn about disturbed mares or how foals were sold like turnips in ancient times. Is all this really necessary? I even have a permanent residence!”

“Well it is  hard for her to get up there,” Twilight pointed out.

“The flying lessons will fix that,” Rainbow said confidently. “She’ll be clearing the top of a thunderhead before I’m done with her!”

“Speaking of which, didn’t you have a lesson scheduled with her after school today?”

Rainbow’s eyes widened, “Oh shoot , what time is it?!”

“it’s 3 past noon,” Twilight offered helpfully.

“Gotta go!” said Dash gallopping for the door.

“Wait!” Twilight said, “School doesn’t let out until 10 past noon at least!”

“I know, I gotta get the course ready!”

And with that, Rainbow Dash was away, to spend another afternoon with the filly everypony in town knew as her biggest fan.
> Rainbow Dash Uncovers the Truth
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash looked away from the letter. It was laying there unopened, suspended on the clouds which made up her desk. They wouldn’t turn her down, right? Sure she hadn’t finished her academy degree, but she could still do that, and raise Scootaloo, couldn’t she?

She flitted back to the letter, looking down at the return address with “Ponyville Foal Services” written on the upper left corner, in neat penmanship. Sure she wasn’t the most organized pony, but Rainbow would never forget to feed Scootaloo, right? Heck she was already practically managing the filly’s nutrition regime already, albeit irregularly in large quantities to account for lost time. She went back to her window, and thought about going out for a quick soar. But she’d already done that, and she’d already done her morning calisthenics, and the loop de whorls, and the cloud catching.

She had to go to work soon, but she didn’t want to have to be moving weather all day with this letter hanging over her head. What if they thought she was too busy to raise Scootaloo? It didn’t take a lot of time, but between her sports training, and the off season academy work, it didn’t leave Dash with a lot of time for a foal. But it wasn’t any different than now, right? It just made it official, and she got to give Scootaloo a bed, and sing her to sleep every night just like dad– well, maybe not that, but, you know, something like that, but cooler. There wasn’t any special thing Dash had to do, just to make a filly’s life better, right?

What if Scootaloo got adopted already? What if it was in another city?? They could be all like, “Oh Rainbow Dash sorry but Scootaloo is gone forever but here you can have this one instead!” and Dash won’t want that one instead, even though that foal’s parents abandoned her too, and died and she really needs a... ugggh.

Dash zipped back to the letter and lifted it in a hoof, unceremoniously ripping the end of the envelope off to reveal the letter inside, with some kind of formal certificate accompanying it. She wasn’t trembling or anything when she pulled it out; she was all calm and collected about it, and stoic as heck. “Dear Rainbow M. Dash” it began. She dropped it on the desk and flew over to the window again. Then she crept back, like she was stalking a mouse, and lifted her head above her desk, reading the letter laying there.



Dear Rainbow M. Dash,
Your application for foster parent status has been processed and evaluated.
Congratulations! You have qualified for provisionary foster parent status!




“Yes!!” Rainbow Dash shouted looping in the air. She continued to hover there reading the rest of the letter.




Attached is your certification of merit. You may display it in a prominent location. Should you choose to adopt a foal, you may be required to provide it for any foal services coordinators or inspections. Under no circumstances should you ever just throw it in a cardboard box and conclude that sufficient record keeping. Following is a recommended furniture supplier who can provide a suitable cabinet and file folders.
- P. Heart, MDDS



Quills and Sofas
PVY South Market St.
Ponyville, KEQ



That was all that was written on it. She checked the back but nothing was written there either. “That’s it?” she said shaking the letter to reveal its secrets. “They didn’t say anything about Scootaloo.”

A sudden thought occurred to her. “Oh no!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, “They must have adopted her already! I gotta hurry!” She took the certificate, hastily threw the rest of the contents of the envelope in a cardboard box, and flew out the window, blasting off across town.





“Hello and welcome to the Ponyville Children’s Home. How may I–”

“Scootaloo!”

“What?”

“Scootaloo!”

Sweet Joy ignored the slight techno beat that started up in the background, saying “Is that the name of a filly?”

“Yeah, Scootaloo!” Rainbow Dash repeated. “I gotta adopt her before they ship her to Vanhoover!”

Sweet smiled and toyed with one of her curly pink tresses with a well groomed lavender furred hoof. “Do you have any qualifications?” she asked congenially.

“Bam!” certificate of merit, in her face. Boo yah. “That means I can adopt her!” Rainbow Dash said confidently.

“Oh you must be the mare with the dyed mane Paper was talking about!” Sweet announced.

“Dyed mane?” Rainbow Dash asked with a head tilt, “You mean the colors? That’s just my hair.”

“Sure, sure,” Sweet assured her dismissively, “Now hold on just a second miss...” she glanced down at the certificate, “Rainbow Dash?” Her eyes lit up with realization, “Oh, I know you!”

“Yeah?” Rainbow Dash said striking a pose. “Well I’m kind of a big deal.”

“You’re Daring Do’s biggest fan!” Sweet gushed, “She put you in one of her books, where you annoyed her the whole time but helped save the day in the end. Did you read it? It’s called—”

“Yeah, I read it,” Rainbow Dash said flatly.

“What did you think of it?”

“The lawsuit is pending.”

“Oh.”

The silence extended and Sweet spoke up again saying, “So you are interested in adopting a foal?”

“Yes,” Rainbow Dash said, “A foal named Scootaloo. She’s a pumpkin orange pegasus with purple hair about yea high.”

“Would you like to set up an appointment for an interview?”

“No, I want to adopt Scootaloo.” Rainbow Dash said enunciating very clearly this time.

“You have to set up an interview with a potential foal if you wish to adopt her,” Sweet smiled, “It is very illegal to sell you a foal you have never even met before.”

“Sell me a– I’m not a forepony for the crystal mines!!” Rainbow Dash finished her sentence with a confused and outraged yelp. Sweet stared at her for a while before saying,

“Paper told you to read about Happy Valley, I take it.”

Rainbow Dash shuddered.

“The only ponies in this day and age who try to get foals without an interview, are ones who simply want to use the foals for temporary labor,” the purple and pink caretaker known as Sweet Joy explained, “In harvesting seasonal crops for instance. They have to fill out a different contract, which assures them strict penalties should they have a poor working environment in which a foal cannot grow and prosper, or prevent anypony from knowing whether the foal is in one or not. And they have to interview the foals too. But nopony is even trying to put foals in dangerous situations.”

Rainbow blinked, trying to absorb the explanation Sweet Joy just spat out. It didn’t help that she talked a mile a minute. She was almost as bad as Apple Bloom.

“Would you like to set up an interview?” Sweet smiled.

Dash’s wings drooped down from where they’d sprung up mid-flap. “Yeah,” she said. “Just give me the paperwork...”

At least this time, there was a spot to put Scootaloo’s name down.

“How long is this gonna take?” Rainbow Dash said apprehensively, hoofing the filled out form to Sweet Joy.

“Oh, not long I think,” Sweet said scanning over the form. “Are you free this afternoon?”

“Uh, yeah after work I have my training exercises, but I should be free around 10 or so.”

“Come by then,” Sweet said, “Your foal should be back from school by then, and we can interview her with you.”

“Oh right, school,” Dash scratched the back of her head, “Yeah I can be back by then. Will you be here?”

“I’m afraid a different mare works the reception desk for this afternoon,” Sweet said sweetly.

Rainbow Dash cringed, saying, “She won’t be like... you know...”

Sweet Joy looked up thoughtfully for a moment, then suggested, “Bring peanuts.”

“Peanuts?”

“Mares on the afternoon shift tend to be pretty hungry.”

“Oh OK...” Rainbow said uneasily, “...peanuts.” Sweet Joy smiled at her pleasantly. Dash turned to leave, then looked back, then walked a few steps, then looked back again. Still smiling. “Ugh,” Rainbow grimaced, throwing herself out the door and immediately taking to the sky.

“Glad that’s over with,” Rainbow Dash thought as she glided along gracefully. “Now I’ve just got to get to shit shit shit buck buck buck I forgot about work!”

There was the familiar sound of a jet engine overhead, as a certain rainbow colored pegasus undecitupled her speed after a harsh quarter degree turn, making like a rocket for a distant pocket of untended seed clouds and some irritated looking pegasi.

Rainbow Dash couldn’t wait for that afternoon to come soon enough. Her coworkers were mad at her for being a half hour late, even though she totally made up for it. It wasn’t a good day though. The weather wanted to storm too enthusiastically, so they had to fight it down instead of building it up as was planned. Then it ended up flopping entirely, meaning that they would have to double it up the next day, and no pony on the ground was going to appreciate that.

Even the afternoon training session with Scootaloo was unsettling, because Scoots just wasn’t interested in eating. Dash wondered if Rarity had been giving Scootaloo fashion pointers or something, because it was a lot like Scootaloo was trying to restrict her calories. Scootaloo wasn’t thin or anything, but she just didn’t seem to get that you need to eat to gain more than just fat.

It also made Dash nervous, because she didn’t want to let slip what she was going to do this afternoon. Things were finally coming together. Soon, Scoots could sleep over at her cloud house cuddled up together alone at night, and mares would stop giving Dash dirty looks for weeks afterwards when they did that. Seriously, what was up with that?

Anyway, so Dash wanted it to be a surprise, and she was so terrible with surprises. She was sure Scootaloo suspected something. It was obvious Scootaloo was in the know, because after practice, the filly let Rainbow Dash get away far too easily, without following her like a really cute puppy. Scootaloo must have been expecting that Dash could ‘surprise’ her at the orphanage. Rainbow resolved not to disappoint Scootaloo’s expectations.

There she was, Rainbow Dash, after the school had let out, after workout, and standing there at the Ponyville Child something or another, with a bag of peanuts. She walked in just casually chewing on a few and said, “Pardon me ma’am, but I think I have an appointment!”

The aqua green pegasus looked at Dash hungrily, so Dash stuck out the bag in her hoof saying, “Want some?”

“Sweet set you up to this, didn’t she?” The mare responded in an unimpressed tone.

“Who?”

“Sweet Joy, the morning receptionist?”

“Oh I didn’t get her name,” Dash said nervously. The mare tapped on the desk, where a triangular name plate was resting that said Packing Peanut. Dash looked at the name plate, then up at the mare, then there and back again.

“Oh, your name is Packing Peanut!” Dash said triumphantly. “I didn’t realize you had name plates.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Packy said, “Now give me those,” and she snatched the whole bag of peanuts out of Dash’s grasp.

A mouthful of peanuts later and Dash said, “Uh...”

“Sorry,” Packy said in a tone indicating she wasn’t. “I missed lunch... Sweet always seems to know when I’m going to do that.”

“I kinda know how she feels,” Rainbow said, thinking about Scootaloo’s dietary issues. Maybe she was allergic to soy? “Anyway,” Dash said, “Let’s go uh ‘interview’ Scootaloo now. Not that I need to. We’re already like, best buddies.”

“You interviewed her already?” Packy said in confusion.

“No, she follows me around after school,” Dash said, “I been giving her flight lessons and stuff.”

“Oh, well that’s nice of you,” Packy said sounding surprised, “We don’t have a flight instructor for the orphanage, though it’s rare that pegasi don’t end up at a Cloudsdale orphanage. In fact, you listed her as a pegasus, but you meant earth pony right?”

Dash blinked, “No, I’m pretty sure Scoots has got wings on her back.”

Packy frowned, “Because well, there really aren’t many pegasus foals on the ground orphanages here. And well...”

“She needs flight lessons,” Rainbow Dash explained, “She must have been grounded at an early age. It’s rare but it happens. I’ll get her up to condition to reach Cloudsdale don’t you worry.”

“Well it’s just—” Packy cut off, looking at a paper on her desk, then looking back at Dash helplessly.

“Just what?” Dash asked, “Spit it out already!”

“I have a note here on your application, that says there’s never been a foal in the Ponyville orphanage named Scootaloo in the last ten years.”





Rainbow Dash stomped through the orphanage, saying “I know she lives here. I even know what room she’s in. You’ll see, just wait and see.”

“She’d better,” said a nervous pink and yellow pegasus that Packy had called over in a panic, when Dash demanded to show her Scootaloo’s room. “This is highly irregular.”

Dash opened up Scootaloo’s door, saying, “See? Here’s her Wonderbolts poster. Here’s her spare scooter. Here’s her purple Hornets flag. Here’s her me flag. Here’s her... oh, hey there.”

There was a purple earth pony filly in the room with a green mane, sitting on the bed and smiling awkwardly at the three adults, who just— well, one adult who just barged in through her door. The other two were standing outside, looking very testy at the one adult.

“You Scootaloo’s uh, roommate?” Rainbow asked hesitantly.

The filly looked up at her and exclaimed, “You’re Rainbow Dash!”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out, heh heh,” Rainbow said puffing her chest out like, super suavely.

“You saved my life once!” the filly cheered standing up on her bed.

“Oh I did?” Dash said, looking closer at the filly. “Hey, you’re Aura aren’t you?” she realized. “You were the filly in that well!” She heard a delighted gasp behind her, then Aura said,

“Yes! You were the one who flew in and saved me before all those other ponies right nearby could have done the same thing.”

Dash’s smile went flat and she glared at one of the walls for some reason, then said, “Just... you’re Scootaloo’s roommate, right?”

“Ohhh! Scootaloo!” the filly said rolling her eyes in dramatic overtones to look the other way, sitting on the edge of her bed and rocking, and concluding by saying, “Yes, no she doesn’t live here.”

Rainbow Dash stared blankly.  “...what?”

“No, she just asked me if I could watch her stuff for a while,” Aura clarified in that dopey sort of familiar voice of hers, “See, that’s her Wonderbolts poster and that’s her—”

“She doesn’t live here?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, the wheels in her head spinning like quasars. “Then where does she live?!”

“Um... I don’t know...” Aura whimpered, “Can you please not yell at me?”

Dash blinked, and then shook her head, leaning against the wall casually, “Don’t worry kid,” she said, “I wasn’t yelling at you I was just yelling near you.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Dash reiterated, “Scootaloo keeps her stuff here all this time, and doesn’t live here?” She tossed her mane harshly, saying “I can’t believe she doesn’t live here!” to nopony in particular.

“Are you suggesting there is a filly out there who is homeless right now?” Choice Sum exclaimed, looking between Aura and Dash incredulously.

“She’s not!” Dash insisted, “She lives... here! I must have got the wrong room!”

“I assure you there is no Scootaloo in any other room,” Choice shot back.

“I told her she’d get in trouble...” Aura said under her breath.

“Listen Aura,” Dash said, taking the filly in two hooves, “You have to tell me, where does Scootaloo live?”

“I don’t know!” she said with alarm, “She just came up at school and she was really cool and helped me with some bullies so I let her keep her stuff here. Please don’t get her in trouble!”

“Do you have any idea where she is?” Dash asked tightly.

“I... I... um... well usually after school and her lessons, she comes here to drop off...” Aura trailed off, her eyes widening in panic, “Oh no!” she exclamed looking out the door.

“There she is!” the green Packy announced, pointing a hoof down the hall from outside the room.

“You there, filly!” Choice said, then ran out of sight shouting, “Get back here!”

Packy chased right after Choice and just sort of left Rainbow Dash and Aura in the room. Dash poked her head out into the hall curiously, but the ponies had already run off out of sight.

“Does she have a house?” Dash’s thoughts belatedly chose to voice themselves out loud. “Does she have a family? Why would she need a place to keep her stuff then? Is she trying to hide her real house? Does she have a bad family?”

“I’m sorry,” Aura said, tugging at Dash’s wing, “Please don’t–”

“Don’t worry kid, she’s not in trouble,” Dash said to Aura, “Not with me at least. But if you see her could you please, please find out where she lives? It’s really important to me.”

With that Dash just blasted out the door, running down the hallway and catching wing before she even reached the stairs.

There was nothing doing. By the time Dash got outside the other two were already there, blistering about how the child just took off at abnormal speeds, and when the pegasi took to the air to find her, Scootaloo had already found some place to hide under, because she was nowhere to be seen. Dash tried searching the ground, but you can only look behind so many garbage cans before you find an angry cat. Every foal she saw in her periphery just wasn’t that distinctive orange purple that Scootaloo wore so well. Mare, Mare, blue, Mare, Stallion, off white, Mare, Mare, pink and blue, that sort of thing.

Rainbow ended up back at her home, just sort of in shock. The other tenants didn’t even complain about her loud music that night, because Dash somehow wasn’t in the mood to rock out. She just lay in her bed trying to wrap around her head that Scootaloo was just... gone. What happened to make the filly run away? Why wasn’t she living at the orphanage? Would Rainbow Dash ever see her again?

Dash was still wondering the same things after work, which distracted her so bad that the intended cloudburst, well, burst. They were going to need a huge storm at this rate. The plants were starting to dry out already. Even her coworkers seemed concerned, if for no other reason than Dash was the best cloud bucker on their team. To have her make a pressure inversion like that was pretty much unheard of. After work, Dash was trying to distract herself from distracting herself, with her regular exercise routine, when she heard a familiar voice calling her from the ground.

“Rainbow Daaaaash!”

Dash swooped down and impacted the ground, a rush of wind blowing around her. “Squirt!” she said eagerly to the little orange and purple filly who was just there for her, “Where have you been?!”

“School?” Scootaloo said, with an irate look on her cute little orange face. “Where have you been? We were supposed to have a lesson today!”

“Uh, yeah heh heh,” Rainbow Dash said nervously, “I just got a little distracted, okay? I been thinking about you all day.”

“About me?” Scootaloo said sounding surprised.

“Yeah it’s just I was...” Celestia’s teats, why couldn’t Rainbow Dash have been the Element of Ninja? She didn’t want to say it, but what else could she say? “...I was sort of,” Dash said, coming up with a blank and just awkwardly saying “Thinking about maybe adopting you, squirt.”

Scootaloo got real quiet then. It was kind of scary. Dash realized then that Scootaloo probably hadn’t even seen her at the orphanage before running away. That’s why she didn’t run away from Rainbow Dash just now. And now that Rainbow spilled the beans, Scootaloo was just going to take off again, and run away, if Rainbow didn’t appease the filly’s fears right away.

“But you know, no hurry or anything,” Dash said quickly, nudging the filly enough to make her stumble. “I was just thinking maybe some day for the future, you know? If you ever need a lift I mean.”

Scootaloo hugged her.

Just sort of, wrapped her teeny little forehooves around Dash’s front. “I would love to have a sister like you, Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo said in a quavering voice.

Rainbow didn’t know what to do. She looked down at the filly and raised a hoof, and she couldn’t just push her away. This was weird. Why was Scootaloo acting so upset?

“So uh, about that lesson,” Dash said hesitantly, “Mind if it’s a little late?”

“You bet, Rainbow– I mean, no way Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo said looking up at her hero with the biggest smile.

Rainbow Dash had Scootaloo flying on her own power by now, if with effort. That was pretty good for an armful of week’s training, right? That filly was going to be just fine. For flying at least. All that other stuff though... something was seriously wrong. After the lesson, Dash took Scootaloo right to the pizzeria. Which Scootaloo seemed reluctant to even walk into.

“Don’t worry about the cost,” Dash said, “You earned this a long time ago. Now what’s your favorite topping?”

“I uh... I uh... mushroom,” Scootaloo admitted, a little gleam of desire in her eye. Or was that dread? Dash could never tell with that filly. So they both pigged out on pizza. Scootaloo didn’t want to eat another slice, but Dash convinced her saying, “You don’t eat enough as-is, and your workout’s done so it’ll be a lot easier on your stomach.”

“R-right,” Scootaloo said, taking another slice of pizza. She tried to act like she wasn’t hungry but she practically put the whole thing in her mouth before catching herself and taking little bites. At any rate, that was a happily fed filly by the end of the afternoon, when Scootaloo said she had to go.

“Going back to the orphanage?” Dash asked carefully.

“I’m yeah I’m, I’m totally going back to the orphanage,” Scootaloo said. “Because I had a... long day and, need my rest!”

“Hey, how about I walk you there?”

“Uh, no that’s okay Dash!” Scootaloo said quickly, walking away from her entirely too hastily. “I can get there on my own don’t worry and it’d be kind of uncool and lame if some adult was taking me home and all the other foals would laugh so I...” her composure just cracked a little at that moment, “I can’t,” she bit out, and just charged away.

“Scoots, come on!” Dash yelled, running after her. “This is weird! Where are you going?”

“Just it doesn’t matter!” Scootaloo said, only speeding up, “Same time tomorrow I promise just let me go back to the orphanage by myself!”

“I wonder if you’re even going back to the orphanage!” Dash yelled angrily, using her own wings to try to give herself a boost. It was too tricky to accelerate on the ground though, with all these obstacles in the way. Unless you had tiny freaking wings that let you turn on a dime that is. Fortunately Dash and dimes were intimately familiar, and she was a better flyer than any pegasus you would meet. But it was still tricky trying to keep up with Scootaloo, who picked the oldest, dumpiest most twisty neighborhood in Ponyville to lose her in. The one that the sewers went through. Lots of ponies started here, but very few stayed, and they left their old bones behind, sagging buildings waiting for the next sap with nothing to lose.

But hey, if eleven ponies couldn’t evade her in this neighborhood, then one little filly sure couldn’t.

Dash zipped into an alleyway and it was a dead end, nothing here but empty garbage cans and discarded papers flying around. She knew Scootaloo had come this way. She looked left and right trying to find any hiding spots. Her ears twitched at a thump behind one of the doors in these empty shops. Pushing the door knob, Dash found it was locked.

“It’s OK squirt, I’m not angry!” she shouted through the door, “I just want you to talk to me!”

Scoots didn’t answer. There was just a scuffling sound. And uh, somepony coughing?

“Buck this,” Dash said, spinning and bucking this. The door broke off with two good kicks and flew into the darkness of the old shop. She peered into the dim light trying to make out any movement in there. Then a filly just charged out past her, running off into the street.

“Wha–” Dash said, turning and looking after the filly. It was that all blue pegasus that Dash had seen around town here and there. She had a longer tail than Scootaloo, and the same rough cut uncombed hair that would look appropriate on a homeless filly’s head. How many homeless fillies were out here? Was there something evil at that orphanage?

“I’m coming in!” Rainbow announced, walking into the shop. It was a curio shop at one point. There were a lot of curio shops in Ponyville. Ponyville was also home to some of the least curious ponies Dash knew of. Curio shops didn’t typically do well here. She stepped around the broken door, keeping an eye out for any more fillies waiting to dart out from the shadows. One of them was sure to be Scootaloo. But this was all starting to get way over Dash’s head. Should she send the pony police in here, if there were fillies running around? What if the breeders were back?? No no Twilight said that could never ever happen again.

As her eyes adjusted, Dash was shocked to discover buck all of nothing. She turned the tables over, and looked in all the emptied out cabinets, and there wasn’t a single filly hiding in here. Thinking back on it, Dash remembered seeing that blue filly in her periphery when she was chasing after Scootaloo. Like many pegasi, Dash had a way of remembering things in her periphery better than stuff right out in front of her. And Scoots had gone around–no the blue filly had gone—

“They pulled a bait and switch!” Dash exclaimed, more shocked than angry. She’d been had! There wasn’t a whole nest of fillies here. There was just Scootaloo and her little accomplice. Dash crept out of the shop, looking rather guiltily at the fallen door, and propped it up. It didn’t exactly fit back on its old hinges, so she just sort of left it leaning there.

But Scootaloo and even that blue filly were both long gone. And she had no idea where they would be, or what to do if she found them. That left Dash with nothing to do but live her life, go on with her day, and wait. She had no choice but to trust in that filly to come to her senses, and be true to her promise to return the next day.

Scootaloo was true to her word, even though she lied about the orphanage, and was there right on time the next day for her lesson.

“Just please please please don’t follow me,” she begged, “I just don’t like being uh, followed. And don’t worry about me. I’m ...fine.”

Almost nothing that came out of the filly’s mouth these days was the truth; it was sad. The one thing that was true was when she said “I really really want to learn to fly like you!” So Dash gave it her all, as much as a few weeks plus a day could give a filly. She asked if Scootaloo wanted something healthy like a Hayburger or something, but Scootaloo turned that down too, just taking her leave after the lesson, saying she’s eaten plenty. Dash just didn’t know what to do about her.

But the next day was a weekend, and that gave Rainbow Dash a chance to be ...crafty.

One day on the weekend, Rainbow Dash snuck tippie toe into Sugarcube Corner. She wasn’t hiding or really needing to be quiet; she was just in a sneaky mood.

“Is Pinkie Pie around?” Rainbow Dash whispered to Mrs. Cake.

“Right in the back dear,” the portly pony said in her friendly tone. In the back, Rainbow Dash found her infrequent partner in crime busy baking corn cakes. It looked like some of them weren’t making it to the serving tray.

“Hey, Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash said urgently.

“Eff!” Pinkie squeaked surprised, then swallowed what mysterious thing she had in her mouth, and said, “Oh hey Dashie! What’s up?”

“I need something that will really tempt a filly to eat,” Dash said. “Like, even more than pizza.”

“Hmm, that’s a hard sell...” Pinkie pondered, rubbing her chin, “Especially since sweettart root is so hard to find this season. Plus different fillies like different things, so it’s really hard to say!”

“No, just one filly,” Dash said, “I’m talking about Scootaloo.”

“Ooooo, Scootaloo?” Pinkie jumped up to all fours. “Are you sure you want to feed her?” she said with a sideways grin (literally sideways because Pinkie had her head tilted sideways to the ground from the way she was leering at Dash). “She might follow you home!”

“She doesn’t eat enough as-is,” Rainbow Dash said ignoring Pinkie’s flippancy for once, “And I think she might be homeless.”

Pinkie’s smile faltered at that, and she said, “Oh no! But I thought Scootaloo was living at the orphanage!”

Dash shook her head, “Turns out she had us all fooled there. She just got a filly that was living at the orphanage to put up her stuff.”

“Maybe she has a host family?” Pinkie Pie said hopefully. Dash shook her head though,

“She wouldn’t need to use the orphanage at all then. Plus she keeps avoiding me when I try to walk her home. I think she might be living out of a cardboard box!”

Pinkie shook her head sadly, saying “That’s terrible. I never knew she was living out of a cardboard box! What does she do when it rains?”

“Well I haven’t–” Dash paused looking aside, “I haven’t exactly tracked down where she lives, yet. I was just speculating.”

“Well remember Dashie, you can’t spell speculate without u and a,”

“You can’t...” Dash laughed, “What?”

Pinkie smiled then, and touched Dashie where her chest had just shook with laughter. Dash blushed, and looked aside again.

“Don’t worry,” Pinkie said hopefully, “I’m sure we can work something out with Scootaloo. Now what was that about a cake?”

“I need something that she’ll actually eat,” Dash said hopelessly. “I don’t want her to starve to death just because I... messed up her life trying to adopt her. You’re the best pony I know when it comes to food stuff, so I was hoping you had an idea. She’s still coming to lessons with me and apparantly showing up for school, but she can’t even go back to the orphanage anymore. I might be the only meal she has left! And plus,” Dash leaned a little closer whispering, “If I can get her guard down with some tasty food, then maybe I can follow her home.”

“You must know Scootaloo really well,” Pinkie said, “I’m sure she’d go right home if she ate something super tasty!” She lay a hoof on Dash’s flank congenially, saying “It’s so great that somepony is finally helping her. I hope you... like being her mommy.”

Dash blushed at that and was going to deny something so incredibly uncool, but Pinkie segued right into saying, “Don’t worry Auntie Pinkie will take care of it. I know just the thing. There’s a special cake that I don’t make very often called the Marshmallow Mulberry Moon Pie, or as I prefer, the “mmmp.”

“mmmp?”

“It’s not a very popular dish.”

“So why...”

“Don’t worry your head Dashie,” Pinkie said cheerily, “Just leave the baking up to me!” as appropriate music began to play.

Cup by cup mixing the ingredients~
Scootaloo feeding up the filly sip by sip

“Excuse me has anyone seen my macrame?!” Rarity shouted, bursting into the bakery.

“W—” Dash said.

“Oh, never mind there it is!” Rarity said lifting a piece of lace that had been discarded on one of the tables. “Carry on!” She pranced out.

Dash turned to Pinkie, who just shrugged. “Anyway, you were singing?” Dash prompted Pinkie.

“Nah I already have all the ingredients prepared,” Pinkie answered casually, sweeping a hoof to indicate the spread over the counter.

“Wow, you are fast!” Dash said admiringly looking over them. “Wait... mulberry leaves? But those taste terrible!”

“It’s more of an overall flavor to the dish than individual ingredients,” Pinkie instructed, “Just crumble those right up into the flour to give it a lovely color!”

“You mean... green?”

“You catch on quick, Dashie!”

“Shouldn’t we use you know, mulberries? Not the leaves?”

“Who is the baker here, you or I?!” Pinkie said hotly right up in Dash’s face. Then she skipped across the room humming to herself while tossing ingredients together.

“I don’t know about this, Pinkie,” Dash said later, looking uneasily at the sandwichy marshmallowy cake thing. “Why a cake?”

“Well didn’t you know, Dashie?” Pinkie said in surprise, “Tomorrow is Scootaloo’s birthday!”

Dash laughed. “Pinkie there is no way a coincidence like that could happen.” Then she stopped laughing, remembering who she was with. “...is it really?”

“Yupperoonie!”

Dash took another uneasy look at the cake, saying “Isn’t it a little big for just one filly?”

“It’s just the right size,” Pinkie assured Dash. “Now we just pop it in the oven!” She pulled open the oven door with her teeth and slid the cake pan in. Then Pinkie Pie took the oboe off the counter and—wait what?

Dash stared as Pinkie Pie began playing the oboe in an aimless rambly tune at... the cake in the oven.

“Pinkie, what are you doing?” Dash asked warily. Pinkie didn’t respond in the slightest, only continued playing that haunting melody.

“I’ll just... let you do your thing then,” Dash said, making herself scarce.

The cake actually didn’t look half bad, especially after Pinkie drizzled a smooth coating of chocolate over the weird looking green pastry and puffy white marshmallow. Pinkie Pie mmmped taking in the aroma with delight. It didn’t smell half good to Dash, but it didn’t look half bad. Rainbow Dash just hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

Even flying towards the picnic area, she looked at the cake on her back skeptically, trying to think back if Pinkie had ever pulled a prank like this. But eh, what’s the harm right? If it’s a prank, you just show it to Scootaloo, she takes one look at it and goes,

“What is that?”

Dash’s face fell in astonishment. After the workout, she said she had a special treat for the squirt, and presented her with the cake all formal like and stuff, at a picnic table out of town with lots of privacy and space. They had to be quick, because Dash finally got that rainstorm going, and it was starting to cover the sky. But there was still plenty of time for this in the last few minutes of sunset. Just to find out what Scootaloo’s reaction would be, you know? And sure enough Scootaloo said “What is that?” just like Rainbow Dash had thought she would, but the tone in which she said it?

“You uh... like it, huh?” said Rainbow Dash, chuckling nervously at Scootaloo who couldn’t take her eyes off of the mmmp, seemingly drawn to it like a moth to the flame.

“Well I shouldn’t– I mean I just– It smells–I’m not really that hu– I mean can I– can I really um...” Scoots really seemed like she was fighting to hold back. The poor kid was so hungry she was actually trembling. Rainbow was starting to have second thoughts about this. Had Pinkie made some kind of evil cake that hypnotized fillies, again?

“Sure you can,” Rainbow Dash said with a wary smile, ready to jump on the filly if her pupils started to switch themselves with cakes. “It’s uh... not really my thing, so it’s all yours. Happy birthday, Scoots.”

It was probably just that all the last half week of nothing to eat had caught up to the poor filly. Scootaloo looked so hungry that she wanted to eat the darn thing whole. Which would have been an impressive feat even for Pinkie Pie, at least given the filly’s size proportionally. But Scoots stopped herself from attempting the impossible at the last minute, laughing nervously and reaching for the plastic fork and knife Dash had provided.

Still, this was exactly what Scootaloo needed. She ate ravenously once she got started. A slice of cake disappeared, and then another, and then another, and with a majority of the cake gone Rainbow Dash was amazed to think that the filly just might eat the whole thing after all. Scootaloo didn’t even look up until she had cleared the cake plate. She even cleaned off the crumbs with her tongue. If Dash had been scared about how little Scoots ate before, now she was starting to get scared about how much she was eating. Wasn’t there something bad about starving foals pigging out or something?

“Are... you going to be okay eating all that Scoots?” she said, as the filly patted her very full belly with a dreamy satisfaction. That seemed to snap Scooataloo out of it. When she remembered she wasn’t alone, fear started to color her features. She had a look in her eyes. Just a little bit, like she was trying to hide it, but it was there. As if Rainbow Dash were so dangerous, that Scootaloo couldn’t even let herself show fear.

“Oh I’m fine! I’m... woah, fine!” Scootaloo said, standing up from the picnic table. Her belly was almost touching the ground, not that that was hard with those stubby little filly legs of hers. She started to waddle off, a tone of panic in her voice when she said, “I have to go um... do a thing with my friends and, things so um... don’t follow me it’s okay I’m I I I gotta go,” and then she just bolted for the town as fast as her legs could carry her.

It actually took Rainbow a second to recover from that. Just being looked at like that hurt in a way she couldn’t describe. She stood up from the picnic table as well, but unlike Scoots, she shot straight up in the air, taking a holding pattern once she was at the bottom edge of the clouds. Some would say Rainbow Dash’s coat and mane stuck out like a sore thumb, but from below she was little more than a blue swatch in the sky, a blue that merged pretty seamlessly with the grey in the clouds, and was totally invisible before a clear sky. 

Scootaloo on the other hand was a tiny little bright orange dot down there, with a tiny little purple swirl on her head. It was pitifully easy to track the strongly colored filly from the air, as long as Scootaloo didn’t go under anything, or try to hide.

But she wouldn’t this time, because she didn’t even know Dash was following her. Dash didn’t really understand what Pinkie’s logic was at first, but it made sense now. Of course Scootaloo was going home. Scoots had an eating problem, and she was going to go straight for her source of comfort. Whatever she called a home. 

Dash was surprised to see Scootaloo veer away from the neighborhood she led Dash into last time, going straight across town to the southeastern edge, where Fluttershy’s cottage was. Dash smirked at that, impressed with the kid’s ingenuity. Not only could she coordinate flawlessly with other fillies, Scootaloo was savvy enough to lead Dash away from her home, not towards it. Then Rainbow Dash started to put the pieces together.

“Wait a minute...” Dash said to herself, “Eats like a bird, bad at flying, night terrors, anxiety issues... if you lower the saturation, you get... woah.”

She was highly relieved, when Scootaloo continued on right past Fluttershy’s cottage, heading instead toward the ones that had gotten abandoned in the creeper vine hysteria a number of years ago. Not a particularly notable story, if a pretty dramatic one. Ponies panic easily, the Everfree was right nearby. Go figure.

It made sense that a homeless filly would come here—in fact—because it was hard to keep these cottages occupied. Fluttershy only managed it, because she was more in love with the forest than afraid of it, but even she was afraid of it. There were things in that forest. Plus this district wasn’t pervaded with the unpleasant scent of sewage treatment, and if Rainbow were a homeless filly, she’d take a few timber wolves over a sewage treatment plant any day.

Scootaloo’s path was pretty much a beeline for a particular cottage at this point, so Rainbow Dash turned her glide into a descent, circling the anticipated destination as she slid through the air like a hot knife. She wondered if she would find a lot of foals hiding out here. If there were a gang of abandoned foals here, it would be natural for them to sleep in the same spot for safety. She wondered what she was going to do about that. Nothing? Report them? Ask them why they weren’t staying at the orphanage?

Dash’s features darkened as she recalled the sordid tales Twilight had regaled her with. If there was something wrong with that orphanage, Dash wasn’t going to let the legions of Tartarus stop her from uncovering it, much less a few nervous fillies. They’d understand if she uncovered their secret, if she helped get them a decent place to sleep, along with who knows how many foals that were imprisoned in the orphanage against their will. No matter how scared the fillies were of discovery, it never helped to try to keep bad things hidden, even if it put your friends in danger. Dash learned that out the hard way, not too long ago.

The thickening clouds were offering convenient darkness, as Dash swooped up to land on the cottage roof, touching down as light as a feather and awaiting Scootaloo’s arrival. The cottage didn’t have a green roof like Fluttershy’s did, but Fluttershy grew that herself so it wasn’t a surprise. The building had seen better days though. A lot of the straw was crumbling and rotted after having gone a few years without maintenance. The roof probably leaked. Rainbow winced as she remembered the storm she and her fellow pegasi had wrought in the sky, wondering how many fillies thought they would have to huddle in here tonight with no one to comfort them. There was a lightning flash overhead. It illuminated Scootaloo.

Dash ducked down but the filly wasn’t looking anywhere but straight forward. She’d gotten her scooter at some point so at least she didn’t have to run that fast on a heavy stomach. A heavy stomach that Dash gave her. Stupid Pinkie. Stupid Dash! Pinkie was just trying to help; she did exactly what Rainbow Dash asked for. Why hadn’t Rainbow just stopped the kid after the first slice! Now she had a stomach ache and it was all Rainbow’s fault.

Scootaloo vanished inside with hardly a pause to toss her scooter away. With a feline grace, if cats had wings, Dash glided down and into the building after Scootaloo, not even bothering to touch down, so her hooves didn’t make noise on the creaky floorboards.

The cottage had a single main room like most of them here, with an upstairs bedroom, a separate bath and kitchen. Rainbow landed lightly at the threshold to the main room, listening to the filly’s heavy breathing. Dash couldn’t say anything, because her heart caught in the throat when she realized the kid wasn’t just out of breath, she was sobbing. With the storm and the small windows, it was as dark in here as that abandoned store, bringing uncomfortable memories back for a moment, until Scootaloo bit the knob on a gas lantern, twisting it to lend an ironically cheery light to the room. The pattering of raindrops started to hit the roof, reminding Dash of this filly’s so very tenuous existence.

There was a lot of stuff here. It looked like the former occupants had left in a hurry, because there were still moving boxes piled everywhere. The furniture was sparse, but at least there was furniture. A really ratty looking couch. Dash couldn’t help but notice that there were already posters on every inch of exposed wall that wasn’t molding, but only below the level that a filly could reach. A filly who couldn’t fly, that is. And they weren’t all Wonderbolts either. There was the Sisterhooves Social poster, colored like—Celestia damn it. There was the ... Pansy Festival? Since when did Scootaloo like pansies?

And in the center of it all, where the most space was cleared out, was a little filly, sobbing out incoherent half words around her tears. Scootaloo was stumbling forward trying to curse herself out, but couldn’t even get a full word out. What was wrong with that filly? She looked a lot more distraught than some filly who had only had too much cake to eat.

Dash was so scared. She wanted to say something, she needed to say something, but Scootaloo looked so scared. Rainbow didn’t dare move a muscle. She wanted to leave the room and give Scootaloo what remained of her dignity, but there was no way Rainbow could now without being seen. The filly was still facing away from her, bracing her hooves firmly on the floor, but they were in a cheerfully lit room in warm earth tones. That was the opposite of the situation in which Rainbow Dash could camoflage herself and Scootaloo could be seen. Rainbow wasn’t that stealthy. So she had to say something. But what could she say, that wouldn’t shatter this kid’s heart?

Scootaloo’s entire body shivered, and then her abdomen contracted sharply. Her mouth dropped open, and her eyes bugged out as a gigantic blue glop erupted from her distending throat, practically the size of the filly herself, flying halfway across the room, to land with a disgusting plop. It happened so fast, Dash could have missed it, if she ever again regained the ability to blink. That wasn’t cake. That wasn’t cake at all! Still facing that... thing she just puked up, Scootaloo just went right back to sniffling, whimpering in less distressed tones. Then it moved.

“What the bucking hell?” Rainbow Dash shouted.



The rain overhead turned into a roar.
> Scootaloo’s Secret
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What the bucking hell?” Rainbow Dash shouted.

“Don't look!!” Scootaloo screamed, blindly charging forward and hurling herself onto her own vomit. The room seemed to shrink around Dash, as she had to watch Scootaloo struggling there, trying to somehow shield that weird blue ball of puke with her own body, and it kept writhing underneath the filly, struggling back against her. The pattering of rain overhead turned into a quiet roar as the clouds outside really began to open up, and the puke thing managed to stick a hoof out and said,

“What's going on?!” in a softer voice, like a filly’s voice.

“What?” Dash said, stepping forward, then stepping back again. “What?”

A little blue filly with a darker blue mane lifted her head to see over Scootaloo, her pupils narrowing when she saw ...her.

“Rainbow Dash? Oh no!” she shrieked in alarm.

“What?” Dash said dumbly. It wasn’t weird puke that Scootaloo was tangling with at all. It was another filly. It was that other filly. The very same one. How did she know Rainbow Dash’s name? How did—what?

“Let me back in!” the other filly begged struggling underneath Scootaloo, her eyes starting to run with tears too.

“I can’t I’m too full!” Scootaloo replied, sobbing uncontrollably.

“What,” Dash said dumbly.

“What do we do?!” the filly said to Scootaloo terrified.

“I don’t know!” Scootaloo cried back.

“What,” Dash said dumbly.

Dash was busy imitating a statue, so the two untangled themselves eventually, and both turned to stand side by side, looking up at Dash while trembling from head to hoof. The blue filly was a younger, no, smaller pegasus than Scootaloo, just a bit. They both were smaller than when Scootaloo had run into this empty cottage, even before Scootaloo had eaten that entire weird cake thing today. They looked... they looked normal! They looked... what was that? What?!

“H-hey... Rainbow Dash...” Scootaloo said in a quavering voice, sucking in high pitched breaths.

A gasp drew Rainbow Dash’s attention, where off to the side another filly, lemon yellow with a pale blue mane, was staring out from behind the boxes fearfully.

“Scatter!” the blue on blue filly screamed, and she and Scootaloo immediately ran in opposite directions.

“Oh no you don’t!” Rainbow Dash shouted, diving into action. She swooped like a hawk, hooking both Scootaloo and that... that blue thing by their tails, careening around in a circle and dragging the two struggling fillies right out of the cottage into the sky. The rain hit Rainbow Dash like a wall, but she pumped her wings powerfully and drove herself into it. She couldn’t think. She had to get help. She had to get help!

Both fillies stopped struggling once Dash had gotten some height, and just hung there, defeated. Rainbow Dash was holding onto them with a white knuckled death grip, and they were so light. It wasn’t any harder than that time she’d given Scootaloo a wing ride. It wasn’t any heavier than the times she’d given Scootaloo a wing ride... plus the weight of a certain baked goods product. The rain was soaking through all their fur, but Dash didn’t dare try to fight her way through the angry, dark cloud layer above. She just poured on her speed underneath the downpour, willing her wings to take her faster. A peal of thunder rumbled overhead.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t going to take them to Pinkie. There was just no way this was a pink party pony prank. There was just no way. Even if Pinkie could, she would never do something like this. And if she somehow did, how could she possibly be expected to help with the situation?! No, there was only one pony who could help her now. Only one pony who could help all of them now.

A bright young unicorn mare by the name of Twilight Sparkle was glad to hear the rain finally start coming down. It had been so dry lately, and she agreed a little shower would do them all good. In this early evening she, like many ponies, had all her business outside taken care of, and could just enjoy the soft sussuration of rain on the leaves of her library, as well as the pleasure of a good book. There was thunder in the distance, too quiet in the sheltered library to awaken her baby dragon. 

Spike was taking a nap there on the ground floor. Twilight didn’t mind though, because she was sitting on the floor too, curled around the little ball of scaly heat, using him as an impromptu book stand and pony warmer. A page turned in her magenta colored magic, also enwreathing a ceramic cup filled with hot cocoa and marshmallows. She brought it to her lips and took a delicate sip.

One of the upper windows exploded inwards in shattered glass and twisted filagree as a soaking wet Rainbow Dash plummeted through the window hind hooves first, shielding the fillies in her grasp and screaming, “Twilight!!” She landed heedlessly with a thoom of recklessly released mana. She was dripping from nose to tail, and so were the fillies she carried with her, dangling in her hooves. One was semi-conscious and the other who appeared to be Scootaloo was coughing wetly and rubbing the water out of her eyes.

Twilight gently set down the empty ceramic cup, her face stinging from the hot chocolate that dripped down the edges of her mane, giving Rainbow Dash a look that was slightly less than welcoming and perhaps not the sort of look that you should be giving your true, true friend.

“Twilight, why do I smell like choc—” her trusty assistant said, cut off immediately by Dash’s panicked reaction.

Dangling the fillies in front of her right in Twilight’s face, Rainbow Dash screamed, “Fix it!!” in complete and utter terror.

“What?” Twilight said in a note of alarm. Scootaloo was giving her a guilty look while the other filly, wasn’t her name Archer? She was just looking at Twilight wide eyed and with not a little sense of trepidation. Had Scootaloo done something bad?

“Fix it!!” Rainbow Dash repeated pushing the fillies against Twilight, as if she should take them or something. Twilight just stood up and backed away. Her frightened dragon scurried out from under Rainbow Dash’s hovering hooves. The fillies looked fine though, if soaking wet, and perhaps having endured extreme velocities.

“Fix ...what?” Twilight said, looking over the fillies at Rainbow Dash concernedly.

“This!” Rainbow Dash said, shaking the fillies as if in demonstration, as if that would tell her something that she didn’t already know.

“Is there something wrong with these two fillies?” Twilight asked hesitantly.

“These are not two fillies!” Rainbow exclaimed cryptically.

“Rainbow Dash, calm down,” Twilight said.

“I need your help!!” Rainbow yelled back, eyes wide under her sopping rainbow mane.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight said feeling concerned, but agitated. The window Rainbow Dash had busted in was merrily raining into the library, quite possibly putting a number of precious books at risk. Twilight looked at the fillies, Dash, and her ruined window into which the rain was dripping, then to Spike who was standing off to the side looking very uncomfortable with the situation.

“Scootaloo threw up!” Rainbow said with a lot more alarm than that statement should ever be said. “She threw up her!”

“She threw up on Archer?” Twilight said, the blue filly raising her head blindly at the sound of her name.

“No she threw up her!” Rainbow Dash insisted.

Twilight pulled up a chair. Well, one of the plush chairs animated in her magic at least and rushed forward to knock Rainbow Dash into it. “Sit down!” Twilight commanded, “Just, relax! You are not going to solve anything by panicking!!” her cutting voice seemed to get through to Rainbow Dash, who stopped flapping fearfully at least.

With that, Twilight Sparkle went to find her supply of towels and replacement windows.

Rainbow Dash whispered apologies to the fillies, holding them tight and curling up miserably on the chair. She should have been repulsed by this blue... thing, but but it was just a filly! No different than any other filly! It wasn’t goopy or slimy it was soft and warm and just as soaked as she was and she could swear she’d seen this filly before!

“Spike!” shouted Twilight in the background, “I need the gold nails!”

“I’m sorry Rainbow Dash...” Scootaloo said in a voice dripping with honest dread. And also water. They were all pretty wet. Dash didn’t say anything, just closed her eyes and held them tighter. To keep them from getting away, of course. Could never be too careful about that sort of thing. They stayed like that, until a big fluffy towel landed on Dash’s head. She stuck her nose out from under the towel, and Twilight Sparkle was standing there facing her. She still looked mad.

While Dash had huddled with the fillies, Twilight busied herself hastily cobbling together a new window. She couldn’t use putty because of the rain, and Rainbow Dash had even managed to destroy the hinges, but with a few carefully placed nails in the new hingeplates she managed to at least cut off the rain streaming in. It would never open or close properly, but she could open the other windows for ventilation if it got hot, and even then there was rarely a need to open the windows anyway as the tree naturally kept itself pretty cool.

Spike provided the mop and bucket, but Twilight sent him to find some towels instead, and raised up the mop herself, using it to soak up the majority of the water threatening to warp the wooden shelves. She plucked a dry sponge from inside the bucket before magically wringing out the mop, taking out the books one by one and brushing them lightly with the sponge to try to absorb any water that had fallen on them. Thank Celestia there weren’t any wrinkled pages, but Rainbow Dash had better have a very good reason for doing this at this hour.

When Spike approached with the towels, you wouldn’t be able to tell it was a dragon at first glance, because he was completely covered by the tower of towels he was carrying, like some kind of dragon footed towelbeast. Thanking him for his diligence, Twilight levitated two towels and tossed them respectively on the damp floor and on Rainbow Dash, who still had some kind of death grip on those two fillies. Twilight strode up with confidence as Dash poked her nose out from the towel, looking at her mournfully.

“Now,” Twilight resumed her instruction, “Put those fillies down, and tell me what happened, and we can work this out calmly and rationally.”

Dash lifted the fillies to her face looking at them and saying, “Promise you won’t run away?” They just stared at her silently. “Come on,” she pleaded, “Twilight is my best friend! She would never hurt you. I would never hurt you! I just—just trust me, okay?”

It was the blue filly who turned aside from Dash’s honest entreaty, and said in a defeated voice, “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late anyway.” Twilight’s heart skipped at that. Perhaps this was something serious, after all...

Rainbow Dash was very reluctant to let the fillies go, and to Twilight’s surprise, they did sprint a few ponylengths immediately upon being released, but then restrained themselves, with an impressive sympathetic coordination. Then they walked forward to embrace each other on the floor between Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Twilight was taken aback by the seriousness of the situation. Hugging each other for comfort, but for what? Wasn’t this about a filly getting thrown up upon?

Spike returned from pouring out the bucket water, standing by her side and looking at the somber fillies with a leery hesitation.

“So Pinkie uh... they threw up uh a–,” Rainbow Dash started, stopping when she couldn’t figure out what to say next. She gave Spike an uneasy glance.

“Spike, could you uh... go ‘organize’ the comics section on the second floor?” Twilight offered immediately, “I think it would be better if this stayed between us.”

“Whew,” Spike said relievedly, then straightened up and said, “I mean, yes Twilight! On it!” Then he charged out of the room and skittered up the stairs before these ponies could make things even crazier. Or whatever his reasoning usually was.

“So Pinkie Pie baked a cake,” Rainbow Dash said, trying again. Twilight’s ears dropped. Celestia buck that crazy mare. What had she done this time? “No no I know what you’re thinking Twilight,” Rainbow said, waving her hooves to dismiss the specters of Pinkie driving everypony crazy yet again, “But it was totally my fault. I asked her to do it.”

Dash bit her lower lip, and squirmed on the chair, saying, “I couldn’t get Scootaloo to eat.” Scootaloo tensed at that, looking at Twilight fearfully over Archer’s shoulder. Why would she look fearfully at Twilight fearfully though? It was Rainbow Dash who was upset here.

“I couldn’t get Scootaloo to eat,” Rainbow Dash repeated, “And I bucked up trying to adopt her. It turns out she was just pretending to be at the orphanage, and I went and exposed her, and ruined her only meal ticket. She was just starving on the streets. Well, starving in a shack at least. I–I only thought maybe she was homeless at the time but didn’t know for sure, but there was no way she was getting regular meals.” Dash thumped her hooves between her legs on the chair, saying in a louder voice, “And she still wouldn’t eat anything!”

“Oh Scootaloo, I’m so sorry...” Twilight said looking at Scootaloo with worry. The two pegasi fillies had separated during Dash’s explanation, and Scootaloo looked down embarassedly and said, “N-no it’s okay she’s... right. I– I couldn’t eat enough.”

“You do realize that a pony has to come slowly off a starvation diet, right Dash?” Twilight suggested wanly.

“I remember that now,” Dash clarified, “But before I did, I went to Pinkie Pie. She knows all about getting ponies to eat. So I asked her to cook up something for Scootaloo since I couldn’t figure out what the squirt liked eating, and she made this weird mulberry thing. There was way too much of it too! I shouldn’t have given it all to Scootaloo. I just... I thought if she was getting sick I could follow her and find her... her house.”

“You made a filly deliberately nauseous just to follow her home when she became ill?!” Twilight said alarmedly.

“No!” Dash protested. “...maybe,” she admitted, “But Scoots always ran away when I tried to find where she lived, and I didn’t try to make her sick, it just did. She ate the whole freakin thing and she was fine, but but there was something wrong with the cake!”

Twilight settled on her haunches, pulling Scootaloo against her comfortingly. The filly didn’t put up much resistence at all.

“Scoots was shacked up in one of those old abandoned cottages by the Everfree it turns out,” Dash said, “And she was actually doing pretty good I mean, the roof leaked a little, but she had a couch and a lamp to light things up and... sorry. So I followed her to her... house, and then Scootaloo started getting sick!”

Scootaloo and Archer were exchanging glances but neither of them did anything. Hesitantly Twilight held a hoof out and Archer practically dove into her side, the two little fillies clinging to her like a life preserver. Heedlessly Rainbow Dash continued.

“I know I know I shouldn’t have made her sick but this wasn’t just... this was... this was something way more... she threw up a pony!” Dash threw up her own hooves as if in demonstration of that.

Twilight sighed, poor Scootaloo had been starving after all it seems. “She threw up the entire cake, didn’t she?” Twilight said with a look of slight disapproval at Rainbow Dash.

“No,” Rainbow Dash said looking at Twilight with wide eyes, “She threw up a pony!”

Twilight stared blankly for a few seconds before smiling. “Same old Rainbow Dash,” she said chuckling at her friend. “Could you rephrase that? You’re making it sound like a pony came out of her mouth, but what you mean is–”

“A pony came out of her mouth,” Rainbow Dash cut in completely and totally seriously.

Twilight paused again, then laughed nervously saying, “I-Is this some kind of prank? You’re making it really obvious.”

Rainbow Dash sighed, putting a blue hoof under the front of her beautifully polychromatic and drenched bangs. She casually flipping them over her head, saying, “Twilight, have I ever lied to you?”

“Well, yes of course!” Twilight said confusedly, “Everypony... I mean, there was that one time you... um... no that wasn’t exactly a lie... well just the last... no that was just incoherent screaming...”

There were times where it was really disturbing to have an eidedic memory. Twilight filtered through her memories as fast as she could, but it took a long time with all of them in there. It sort of helped if she organized them into various interesting moments or “episodes” and the dividing of it into metaphorical “seasons” worked well too, but as organized as she was, Twilight just couldn’t bring to mind any time Rainbow Dash had actually lied to her.

“Alright, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said preparing herself, “This is me lying, okay? I’m... not... blue.” It looked like Rainbow had to physically fight out those words. Her whole body tensed up, and she had this completely unconvincing smile on her face, like she was trying to convince everypony that Twilight was a good dancer.

“Well, technically you are a shade of azure,” Twilight speculated, “Which is a combination of blue and green, but since the sky has a similar shade it is what ponies know in common vernacular as ‘blue’”.

“Argh, okay okay!” Dash said in frustration. “I’m a... pony! I mean, a gryphon! I mean... I’m not lying to you, Twilight.”

She gave Scootaloo a long look and repeated after a resigned sigh, “Scootaloo threw up a pony.”

“That’s patently ridiculous,” Twilight admonished shaking her head, “If Scootaloo threw up a ...pony, then where is this ‘pony’ she threw up?”

Dash didn’t answer. She just blinked and stared at Twilight incredulously. She lifted a hoof and pointed it at Twilight’s left side where Archer was curled. The little blue filly was too scared to meet Twilight’s eyes, looking every other direction but up. She–wait.

Twilight looked at Dash, then looked at Archer, then looked at Dash and pulled her left front arm out, pointing a hoof at the filly in question. Dash nodded.

“Archer,” Twilight prompted. Archer looked up in recognition saying, “Huh?”

“Rainbow Dash, this is Archer,” Twilight said with a scolding sigh. “She just started school recently. Her parents just moved to Ponyville. She’s in Scootaloo’s class, haven’t you seen her before?”

“I know what I saw,” Rainbow Dash insisted darkly. “There is no way that pony is Archer.”

“N-n-no I am... Archer,” Archer said not so much protesting as admitting it.

“What are you–” Scootaloo hissed at her.

“I am Archer,” she insisted, looking Dash in the eye. “I’ve always been Archer. And I don’t... have parents.”

Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash for confirmation. She would be able to tell if Archer–if this pony was lying. Dash had a twelfth sense for that sort of thing. And sure enough Rainbow was... just staring at Archer with an unbelieving look of shock on her face.

“See Dash?” Twilight prompted helpfully, “This is just Archer. You sure you weren’t just–”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes rolled up in the back of her head and she collapsed into the chair in a dead faint.

Scootaloo’s life was over. Scootaloo’s life was over. The only pony who ever cared about her, the pony she loved most of all, she knew. She knew about Scootaloo’s horrible... thing that she had to do. Scootaloo was pushed aside as Twilight stood up and ran over to her fallen friend. Her real friend, not a fake one like Scootaloo. Scootaloo hated Archer for confirming it for Dash. She knew Archer hated herself too. That’s why she wanted to be Scootaloo most of the time and tried not to be Archer. Scootaloo had Rainbow Dash and two good friends who looked out for each other, and Archer just had... nopony would make friends with her. She didn’t want to join Scootaloo with the CMC either because it would have been way too confusing, and Scootaloo would surely have let something slip if she forgot which one of them she was at the time.

It didn’t stop her from going to Archer for comfort now though. It was Scootaloo who had bucked up, and ruined everything for both of them, no for all of them. Thanks to Scootaloo just forgetting and being a big pig, now they had Dizzie to deal with and Bee. It seemed like every time she finally started getting herself together that something made one of them eat, and then another filly came out of her mouth. But that would have been fine if she could have just kept it a secret! Archer had just added fuel to this fallout, but it was Scootaloo’s stupid mouth that had started it. She hadn’t wanted to in a while, only doing it because she had to, but now she just wanted to crawl in there and just, be Archer for a while, and not have to worry about Scootaloo or Rainbow Dash or anything. But she couldn’t, because she was too bucking full!

“Alright, this is getting way out of hand,” Twilight the purple said, standing up with a frazzled look in her hair. “Rainbow Dash is insensate. My window is ruined. The orphanage is no doubt in an uproar. The police probably think Rainbow Dash is a foalnapper.” She turned to look at the fillies with a pleading grin, saying “Don’t you girls think this has gone far enough? A joke’s a joke, but let’s be real here. What’s really going on? How did you scare Rainbow Dash like that? You were just playing pretend, right? This is all a game, right?”

Scootaloo felt a light of hope flicker in her eyes when she realized Twilight still believed in her lies. “O-oh yeah yeah, sorry,” she said smiling totally convincingly, “We were just... trying to prank Rainbow Dash and it... heh heh uh...” She looked at Rainbow Dash lying there passed out, and... there was no hope. She already knew, and even if Rainbow Dash couldn’t convince Twilight then what did it matter? Rainbow Dash still hated her.

“Buck it,” she said quietly.

“Excuse me young filly?” Twilight said in an admonishing tone.

“Rainbow Dash is right,” Scootaloo said looking down. “About everything.”

Twilight stared quietly, with her lips tightly closed. Then Scootaloo noticed her horn was lighting up brightly. Scootaloo tried to shield herself with her hooves, scrambling to stand up or run away or something. Twilight Sparkle winked out in a pink flash of light, like she was never there in the first place.

After a few seconds, Scootaloo peeked out behind her hooves. “...what?” she said, looking where Twilight was.

“She disappeared!” Archer said in an awestruck tone.

“Oh, she just teleported,” Scootaloo realized. “Twilight does that all the time, remember?”

Archer looked confused but then her eyes lit up and she blushed with embarassment saying, “O-oh yeah. I haven’t been around her much.”

They had a few more moment’s peace, before a painful squealing began to come from outside, coming closer and closer to the library.

“...ow ow ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow Ow!”

Twilight Sparkle came bursting into the library, shaking her coat off with little ceremony. Behind her she was dragging a familiar pink pony by the ear with her magic, literally dragging her leaving furrows in the ground.”

“What is this?” Twilight demanded, shoving Pinkie in Archer’s face.

“What do you mean, Twilight?” Pinkie asked shrilly, “Don’t you mean Scootaloo over there?”

“This!” Twilight declared, waving a hoof at Archer demonstrably. The blue pony shrunk from the attention nervously. “How did you bake a cake that turned into this!”

“What?!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I baked a cake for Scootaloo! What are you talking about?”

“Did you bake this filly into a cake?” Twilight demanded inches away from Pinkie’s face. She snapped her head to face Archer. “Did she bake you into a cake?!” Twilight demanded, shrilly.

“I promise it was just mulberry leaves and marshmallow!” Pinkie protested, wiggling against her earstraint. “The perfect meal for a hungry–”

“Did it teleport her?” Twilight interrogated Pinkie again, practically throttling her. “How could your cake teleport a filly into Scootaloo’s digestive tract? How could she survive that? How did you do it Pinkie?! Why did you do it??” No, actually she was literally throttling her.

“Twi...light,” Pinkie grunted pushing against the unicorn who was trying to drag her up into her face again. “Can’t we just sit down and... talk about...”

“She didn’t do it!!” yelled Scootaloo, standing on all four hooves and staring at Twilight angrily, “I did it!”

Twilight looked at Scootaloo blankly, then dropped Pinkie letting her land heavily behind her. “What are you saying, Scootaloo?” she quavered laughing nervously. “You couldn’t do that! That doesn’t make any–”

“I’m a freak!” Scootaloo screamed. She was vaguely aware of Archer running up and trying to pull her back, but she didn’t even care.

“We’re a freak,” Archer said consolingly, “It’s not just you anymore. It’s OK Scootaloo, it’s OK...”

“How is it okay?” Scootaloo snapped, a sob escaping her, but she didn’t fight against Archer anymore, just sitting there shaking. When she was calm enough, Archer released her, and Scootaloo looked up at the others, still defiant even in despair. Pinkie was the one looking at her with adoring respect though, not Twilight who just looked in shock, or Dash who was starting to snore.

“Oh Scootaloo,” Pinkie said, “I’m so so so so so so sorry for scaring you. I just wanted you to have something you could eat.” She put a hoof on her heart saying, “I knew all along that you weren’t like other ponies, but that’s OK because you’re you and you’re a wonderful little filly, even if you can’t eat the same thing as other ponies.”

“You don’t have to hide anymore,” Pinkie continued honestly, “You don’t have to be alone in this. We can help you. I won’t ever reject you for what you are, and neither will Twilight and neither will Rainbow Dash.”

“Re–really?” Scootaloo asked, desperately wanting to believe her.

“Really really,” Pinkie nodded. “Now drop that silly disguise so that we can finally get a good look at you!”

Scootaloo stared uncomprehendingly. “...what disguise?”

“I told you you don’t have to lie anymore,” said Pinkie, “So do your green magic thing. I don’t care if you’re an icky bug pony. That doesn’t matter to me at all!”

Scootaloo blinked, then looked at Twilight.

“She’s not a changeling, Pinkie,” Twilight said flatly.

“What?!” Pinkie shrieked, “Sure she is! Why else would she like my delicious mmmp?”

“Your delicious what?”

“It’s a cake for bugs!” Pinkie said cheerfully.





“Uwehh, who turned out the lights?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, sitting up quickly as the damp cloth fell off her forehead revealing her eyes again.

Twilight ignored her, fixing Pinkie’s gaze saying, “Changelings are not just bugs. They’re cursed fairies, and that curse is that they can only eat love.”

“But I put plenty of love into that cake!” Pinkie Pie said, “I even played the oboe for it!”

“Yeah, why did you do that?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously, hopping down from the chair.

Pinkie shrugged, “It just seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“No, they can’t eat any food,” Twilight corrected, “That’s why changelings never disguise themselves for long, because any pony can see through it by the fact that the pony in question cannot ...eat ...food.”

Twilight actually looked at Scootaloo suspiciously before saying, “Hold that thought,” and running to the kitchen closet. She came back almost immediately with a bright red apple following behind in her magic.

“Eat it,” she commanded, pushing it into Scootaloo’s hooves.

Scootaloo balked, looking at the apple unhappily, “I don’t really want I mean I shouldn’t I don’t want to—”

“Eat it or I will remove your disguise myself!” Twilight snapped angrily, “And I will make it as painful as possible,” she seethed.

Scootaloo took a terrified bite of the apple. She chewed it slowly, savoring the juicy sweetness on her tongue despite how scared she felt.

“Swallow it!” Twilight commanded. Scootaloo swallowed. Whimpering, she took another bite of the delicious apple, chewing and holding it up to Twilight as if it would stop the unicorn from lasering a hole through her.

“There, you see?” Twilight said in a light pleased tone, in a completely different direction than Scootaloo, turning back to Pinkie Pie. “Not a changeling.”

“But I saw her!” Pinkie exclaimed, “I saw her change her disguise! She went into a building all alone, and a different blue filly came out, and when I went into the building nopony was there!”

“You mean that blue filly over there?” Rainbow Dash said pointing a hoof at Archer.

“Yes! That blue filly over—” Pinkie stopped and gaped, looked confusedly between Archer and Scootaloo. “But– but how can you be different– but—”

“I-It’s something we do when we’re not too um... full,” Archer said hesitantly trying to help. “I come out, and then she goes in, so it looks like only one... filly...”

“We won’t do it anymore, I promise!” Scootaloo said to Pinkie, “It w-was only good for hiding anyway and it’s too late for that now! We’re not a changeling, I promise!”

“What do you mean we’re?” Pinkie asked squinting at Scootaloo.

“Oh, um, me and Archer,” Scootaloo clarified, “And... two others... but just until they can fit back inside me again.”

“What is she talking about, Twilight?” Pinkie Pie complained, her pained grimace looking almost like actual contemplation.

“A... contortion act, I think?” Twilight said desperately trying to find some rational anchor in this crazy evening.

“Ohh, no,” Rainbow Dash denied her, standing up straighter, “That was no contortion act! Let me lay it out for you plain and simple, Twilight. Scootaloo was just fine. No Archer, no contortion act. Then I fed her Pinkie’s magic changeling cake. Then she runs away on a full stomach, let me tell you that kid was round. Then she throws it up, except that Pinkie’s cake changed into Archer, somehow.”

“That’s the one thing that doesn’t make sense,” Twilight said, “Why would Pinkie’s cake specifically be enchanted to cause that to happen? What was so special about it?”

Scootaloo ventured to speak up, saying “Iiit’s... it wasn’t special.”

She looked at Twilight again, standing in front of Archer a bit defensively, saying “Pinkie’s cake wasn’t any more special than any other food.”

“It was really really tasty though,” Archer added.

Scootaloo nodded, “But, it doesn’t matter if it’s a cake or... any other food. It’s just... when I eat too much food at once, I get all weird feeling... and...”

“And then I barf up a filly,” Archer finished her sentence, sticking out her tongue disgustedly. “I don’t know why I’m that way...”

“It’s crazy!” Scootaloo added, “It doesn’t make sense! But it keeps happening.”

“It’s bad, right?” Archer asked plaintively, “It’s so disgusting, it means I’m sick, right?”

“I’m a freak!” they both yelled together, their ears going down in shame.

The silence felt like the tolling of a funeral bell.

“Y-you don’t have to give me flying lessons anymore,” Scootaloo said, looking up to Rainbow Dash, expecting a look of pure unadultrated horror.

But when she saw Rainbow Dash, her idol didn’t look horrified at all. She saw a look of sorrow, and sympathy and a tremendous love. It almost looked like Dash was about to cry. Twilight Sparkle had a look of confused fascination, not horrified but captivated like she was about to erupt into questions. Twilight was probably about to erupt into questions. And Pinkie Pie the nicest of them all had a look of pure unadultrated horror. Wait.

“You– you can’t be real!” Pinkie Pie said shrilly, backing up until her hindquarters hit the bookshelf, and then rearing up on her hind legs as the irregular lightning illuminated her. “You were supposed to be a myth!!” she yelled in terrified accusation.

“Pinkie, calm down,” Twilight said gently, turning to address her friend. “Let’s just talk this out like calm rational—”

“THEY’LL KILL US ALL!!” shrieked Pinkie, the overhead light flickering as her voice pierced the library. Everypony was struck dumb by the sheer force of Pinkie Pie’s emotion. Thunder rolled in the distance.

Pinkie was the one who cut the silence, shouting “I have to get ready!” Then she bolted out the door like the legions of Tartarus were on her heels.

Twilight was the next to react, running through the open doorway and circling the library, but Pinkie Pie was long gone, run off into the darkness, the sheeting rain impossible to see through.

“We’ll have to track her down later,” Twilight muttered seriously. She turned and came carefully inside, shaking off casually then avoiding the slick wet floor that all these panicky wet fillies and mares were creating, herself now included.

Rainbow Dash was the third to react as Twilight ran outside, blinking at a thought and asking Scootaloo in a bemused tone, “That happens to you like, all the time?”

Scootaloo blushed, looking at the ground and trying to formulate her response without sounding totally horrid. “O-only when I eat too much,” she said, “That’s why I couldn’t eat your milkshak–I mean, your shake things.”

Dash stuck her tongue out with a grimace saying, “What you did was like, the grossest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“It sucks,” Scootaloo agreed sorrowfully.

“Oh I don’t know,” Dash said. Then she swept Scootaloo up in her hoof to whisper like she had a secret to share into Scootaloo’s ear. “I thought it was kind of awesome,” she whispered.

“Awesome?!” Scootaloo squeaked, at a loss to comprehend Dash’s reaction to that, and out of sorts with being warmly hugged by her too. “What do you mean?”

“It was like the grossest thing I’ve ever seen?” Dash said as if it were obvious. “How could that not be awesome?” she said, smushing up Scootaloo’s hair with her hoof.

“Dash! Cut it out~” Scootaloo protested, laughing despite herself. Dash winged Scootaloo up on her back, and took a look at Archer, who was watching them both with an unreadable expression.

“Hey come on,” Dash said, “You too.” She stuck her hoof out at Archer who backed up a step in surprise. Scootaloo’s heart stopped. Archer walked up to Rainbow Dash slowly, looking sideways at her warily.

“Gotcha!” the older pegasus said, sweeping Archer up in her hoof and tossing her back onto the impromptu wing slide where she joined Scootaloo sitting on Rainbow Dash’s back. Scoots couldn’t believe what she was feeling. She never thought she would ever get a pony ride before, with herself!

“Now I just have to figure out how I’m gonna adopt you both,” Dash said with a toss of her mane.

“You mean you still—!” Scootaloo’s shock bubbled into excitement.

“Dash, what are you doing?!” came Twilight’s alarmed cry, whereupon Scootaloo found herself and Archer both unceremoniously torn off of Dash’s flank by a powerful pink magic field. There was a pop, and the field turned into a spherical barrier in which Scootaloo was now floating weightlessly. She could see through it, over to a separate one for Archer, with just enough room to contain each of them.

“What are you doing, Twilight?!” Dash shouted from outside the bubbles, “Let them go!”

“Didn’t you hear what Pinkie said?!” Twilight snapped back, “They’re dangerous!”

“Let,” Dash said rushing at Twilight, “Them” she said smacking the unicorn’s horn with a hoof, “Go!” and the barriers around Scootaloo and Archers disappeared with another pop.

Before Archer could hit the ground, there was a fourth pop. Now the pink sphere was huge, encompassing Archer, Scootaloo, a piece of the end table, and Rainbow Dash herself.

“Let me out, Twilight!” Scootaloo’s brave defender said, hurling herself at the barrier at pitiful speeds. Twilight had her trapped though, it looked like. Without room to build up speed, a pegasus in a force bubble was just as disadvantaged as a unicorn would be, trying to fight in close quarters with an earth pony who had a pointy stick. Scootaloo in comparison was pretty much just disadvantaged, period.

“Let her go!” Twilight shouted, not at Rainbow Dash, but at ...her? Why was Twilight shouting at Scootaloo?

“What do you mean, Twilight?” Scootaloo whimpered, hanging limply there at the top of the bubble.

“You must have enchanted her!” Twilight asserted to the filly, “Just like the changeling queen!”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened. How was she going to– how could she ever prove to Twilight that she didn’t enchant Rainbow Dash? She didn’t! She didn’t, right? She looked at Rainbow Dash worriedly, who was still snorting and steaming mad.

“D-d-dash uh, don’t uh, hurt... Miss Twilight?” Scootaloo tried saying, having no idea what to do, “I mean... wake up? Be okay? Snap out of it!”

“I’m not enchanted!” snapped Dash, kicking the barrier, which of course just sent her careening to the other side of it, instead of putting any force on the barrier itself. “Seriously, Twilight,” Rainbow said mockingly, “You know me, don’t you? I wouldn’t let you hurt them, even if I wasn’t enchanted!”

“Which I’m not!” Rainbow Dash added hotly, crossing her forelegs while rotated upside down.

“I wasn’t going to hurt them,” Twilight said sounding miffed, “It’s just a necessary precaution. You heard what Pinkie said.”

“Pinkie says a lot of things!” Dash countered, “It’s just not true! Why can’t you just see these are just a couple of fillies?”

“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said accusingly, “This is a big. Deal. Ponies could die.”

“But just look at them!” Dash yelled, gesturing up at the helpless fillies hanging there in the air, buzzing their wings to stay upright. Scootaloo didn’t even want to think about how pitiful she looked.

“Pinkie said the K-word” Twilight declared, “You know what that means?!”

“But it’s Pinkie!” Dash protested. She was flailing to stay upright in the zero gravity. It was easy for Scootaloo and Archer to stay upright, since their wings didn’t need any space at all. They could just buzz to correct any listing or rotation. Though Archer didn’t have enough wingpower to hold up her own weight, in this bubble there wasn’t any weight at all. Though if Twilight stopped casting it... worriedly, Scootaloo hooked her hoof around Archer’s and held her aloft so she wouldn’t fall again.

Outside, Twilight blushed, and said “I know it’s... Pinkie, but even though her ways are strange, I still trust her judgement! When has she ever led us into disaster?”

“Uh,” Dash looked at Twilight like she was stupid. “Remember the chocolate rain?”

Twilight’s lips firmed. “Fine,” she said, “But that was one time, and that was an evil god! Every other time Pinkie has–”

“Except the Gala,”

“That was all our faults!”

“Remember how long it took you to disenchant the Cake twins?”

“Uh,”

“And Princess Luna’s first Nightmare Night,”

“Yeah that–”

“Remember Appleoosa?”

Twilight’s eye twitched.

“Fine!” she shouted, turning around and cancelling the spell. Dash remained in the air while Archer dragged Scootaloo down in a controlled fall. “Let’s just ignore everything Pinkie says,” Twilight sneered, “That surely won’t have any consequences, whatsoever! What’s a few dead ponies!”

“Twilight, come on...” Dash said, fluttering down to her. Twilight closed her eyes and sighed, managing to relax just a little bit.

“I’m sorry, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said, turning to look at Rainbow with a consternated face, “But... I mean...” Twilight let the bit of mane in her mouth she was chewing on drop out, exclaiming, “She threw up a pony!”

Dash was unmoved.

“I’ve never seen Pinkie so upset,” Twilight said softly, “She wasn’t joking, you could tell that!”

“I uh, yeah...” Dash admitted, “I don’t know what Pinkie’s problem is. These are just a couple of hurt fillies. What could possibly go wrong?”

“I don’t know, Dash...” Twilight trailed off thoughtfully, “...but maybe they do.”

And then she was towering over Scootaloo, to whom Archer was clinging, saying in a less than friendly voice, “Why would Pinkie Pie think you are going to kill us all?”

“We would never” Scootaloo started, but Twilight interrupted saying,

“I don’t want to know if you would. I want to know how you could...” Twilight said, trailing off again in thought.

“I don’t, uh,” Scootaloo really couldn’t think of any way that she could kill a pony. What was she supposed to do, diet them to death?

“Maybe like changelings?” Archer suggested. “We weren’t I mean, we were just doing it to hide, but we could trick ponies into thinking we were other... fillies... maybe?”

Twilight got a distant look in her eyes, and then shook her head, “No, no that’s a terrible idea.”

“I’m sorry,” said Archer disappointedly.

Twilight looked down saying, “Oh, not you Archer I meant... never mind.”

“In the absence of a way to test your good intentions, I can only think of one thing to do,” Twilight instructed, pacing over to the door to the basement. Flinging it open she said excitedly, “Examine you!” with a huge smile on her face.

“Uggh,” Rainbow Dash pulled her face down as Twilight ushered the fillies eagerly into her basement. Dash followed after, resignedly. She figured it was important for her to be there, so that if it got too boring she could probably knock Twilight unconscious and escape with the fillies before they all died of boredom.

Twilight’s private underground laboratory was well stocked with beakers, phials, tubes full of strange colored liquids and bubbling crucibles. Something was making sparks travel up two wires noisily. Scootaloo was utterly fascinated with the mysterious apparati. Twilight then lit up her horn and quickly dismantled everything, stoppering all flasks, extinguishing all crucibles, turning off the Jacob’s Ladder and packing all chemicals dangerous or otherwise securely into individual locked drawers, leaving... a basement. With a countertop table.

“Alright, up you go!” Twilight said brightly, patting the tabletop. Scootaloo couldn’t help but feel disappointed for some reason. She and Archer jumped up on the table, but Twilight fluttered Archer back to the floor saying, “No no, not you yet. I just want to look at the mother first.”

“That’s not quite, uh...” Archer said, but not loud enough for Twilight to take notice. So Scootaloo had to stand there awkwardly by herself, while Twilight paced around the table, squinting and peering at Scootaloo from all angles.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm...?”

“Uh...” Scootaloo said uncomfortably, especially with where Twilight was looking right now. “Am I uh...?”

“Could you lift your tail, Scootaloo?” she asked politely. For some reason, the comment made Rainbow Dash’s whole face blush, which Scootaloo didn’t understand at all. Rainbow Dash wasn’t the one getting examined here!

“Uh, adults are not supposed to touch us there,” Scootaloo said uncertainly, doubly uncertainly because she really didn’t mind being touched there. But it was something adults were usually really serious about.

“Don’t worry, it’s for science,” Twilight mumbled distractedly, trying to peer under Scootaloo’s tail already. “Just really quick?”

“Sure, no problem,” Scootaloo said bravely, eyeing Dash uncertainly and hiking her tail up in the air, then presenting her rear.

Twilight looked under Scootaloo’s tail, but didn’t seem satisfied, so she poked Scootaloo’s butt with a hoof, making Scootaloo giggle.

Twilight’s magic lightly lifted Scootaloo’s entire rump into the air, spreading her buttcheeks wide as Twilight poked and prodded in there.

“That’s very inappropriate, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said loudly and angrily, stepping forward. Twilight’s magic quickly left Scootaloo’s butt and Twilight lifted Scootaloo up in a hoof, by her own raised tail, waving Scootaloo butt first in front of Dash and saying,

“No! Look!”

There was a pause whereupon Rainbow Dash said warily from behind Scootaloo, “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“What do you see?” insisted Twilight.

Archer was looking up at Scootaloo dangling there by her tail mouthing the words, “What are they doing?” Scootaloo just shrugged and smiled awkwardly.

“I don’t see anything, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said in an irritated tone. “Are you some kind of perv—”

“Exactly!” Twilight declared, setting Scootaloo on the table again. Scootaloo clutched her tail in her front hooves, looking at the two adults uneasily. “There’s nothing there!” the purple unicorn concluded.

Scootaloo looked from Twilight to Dash, who was going from irritated, to puzzled, to starting to awaken with realization right there.

“What? Really??” Dash asked astonishedly, then unexpectedly trotted forward and yanked up Scootaloo’s tail again peering between her legs. Was there something wrong with Scootaloo’s butt?!

“You gotta be kidding me...” Dash said, trailing off in disbelief. She released Scootaloo’s tail, looking at her face to face and saying, “How did you ever pass a physical?”

“I-is there something wrong with my butt?” Scootaloo asked. “The adults aren’t allowed to touch me down there,” she added somewhat accusingly, getting guilty looks from Twilight and Dash, “So they can’t exactly look.”

“Yeah, but your gynecological exam?” Dash queried pushily, “How did–oh right, your parents are supposed to schedule those.”

“gyneco-what?” Scootaloo said confusedly.

“Gynecological,” Twilight prompted, “It refers to the ancient sheep term gynh which was originally used to refer to a ewe back in the days of Baathens. That’s a female sheep, by the way. Gynecology is the study of that which is specific to female creatures, and since very little differs in basic structure between male and female beyond the reproductive organs, it often refers specifically to reproductive organs alone. As such, a gynecological exam will be to examine the health of your reproductive organs.”

“Reproductive organs?” Scootaloo asked testily. “You mean like my stomach?”

Twilight smiled and opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Then she closed it again. Then she opened her eyes, looking at nothing and blinking confusedly. Then she looked at Scootaloo with sudden realization gleaming in her eyes. Rushing back to the table Scootaloo was on, Twilight hastily ordered out, “Open your mouth!”

That did make Scootaloo blush, and she crossed a hoof, looking sideways at Twilight saying “Uh- uh I dunno it—”

“This is important!” Twilight explained urgently.

“Y-you really need to look in there?” Scootaloo mumbled.

“Of course,” Twilight said looming up intently, brandishing in her magic a round mirror on a silver stick, a glowing light at the end of another stick, and a rod with a sort of metal hook on the end of it. Scootaloo just... barely cracked her mouth open and Twilight paused saying,

“No I need you to open wide. I can’t see in there.”

Scootaloo bit her lip, then sighed, opening her mouth wide to let Twilight see in there. “Woah!” she heard Rainbow Dash’s startled shout. She couldn’t see Dash though. It was hard to see around her mouth, when it was open like this. Scootaloo shivered in anticipation, expecting Twilight’s instruments to... to manipulate her in there, but she wasn’t feeling anything. She could see the round mirror at the edge of her vision still hovering there forgotten in Twilight’s magic.

“What the buck am I looking at?” Twilight uttered blankly.
> Twilight Learns the Facts of Life
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“This is amazing!” Twilight said running across the lab with a clipboard levitating behind her. She was gone before Scootaloo could respond, from still sitting there up on the impromptu examination table. Rainbow Dash was still staring at Scootaloo with a shocked detachment, that was making her feel very uncomfortable. Was her mouth good, or bad? 

“So... my mouth looks... good?” Scootaloo asked. She asked Rainbow Dash, since Twilight was way too busy to respond to anything. Archer wasn’t saying anything at all, just hiding behind Rainbow Dash’s legs from Twilight’s rapid movements.

“I dunno, kid,” Rainbow Dash said, still looking a little lightheaded from what she saw earlier, “It’s I mean, it’s a mouth.”

“This is revolutionary!” Twilight added, running the other direction and carting a bulky boxlike black machine.

“Oh um, OK...” Scootaloo said, too self conscious to ask further.

“Do you even have a throat?” Dash asked anyway.

“Um... sometimes?” Scootaloo shrugged.

“Please stand in front of the scanner,” Twilight said, pulling Scootaloo over to the black box machine. Scootaloo looked curiously over the edge as a projection screen on the side showed an outline of her with her bones highlighted in bright white.

“Fascinating...” Twilight said, then pulled the machine and ran off with it back to where she wheeled it out from.

“I don’t know many ponies who can open their mouth that big,” said Rainbow Dash trying to sound casual about it.

“It kind of has to, to get the filly out,” Scootaloo said in kind of a daze. She was still in shock about all this.

“Does it hurt when that happens?” Dash asked wincing a bit.

Scootaloo looked up thoughtfully, hesitantly saying, “Well it—”

“Bite down on this,” Twilight said sticking a thermometer in Scootaloo’s mouth. Scootaloo slid the end of it under her tongue, like any good filly would.

“Ith doesnth rearry—” Scootaloo started but Twilight cut in again, while scribbling down some notes.

“Don’t talk or it’ll mess up the temperature reading.”

A minute later, Twilight said “OK you can talk again!” pulled out the thermometer and looked at it, jotting down the temperature and wandering away mumbling to herself.

“It’s really gross and s-scary, but it doesn’t really hurt,” Scootaloo clarified, adding “You’ve eaten so much that you threw up before, right?”

“I was a filly once too, ya know,” Dash said.

“So, it’s like that, you know?” Scootaloo said hopefully.

Rainbow Dash shook her head. Twilight rolled Scootaloo onto her back, then grabbed Scootaloo’s front left hoof and started wrapping a blood pressure cuff around it. What, did she raid the hospital or something? Where does she get all this stuff?

Archer climbed up on Dash’s back again. She was clearly appreciating the novelty of having an older pony to do that with. Dash didn’t so much as twitch, much less shove her down like most ponies would. No, Dash just kept her cool, saying to Scootaloo, “Yeah, but you practically folded in half when you made Archer here. She flew like three feet! Isn’t your diaphragm sore?”

Scootaloo blushed, laying a hoof on her round orange belly. “I guess I’m just used to it?” She lifted her hoof so Twilight could take off the blood pressure cuff, making blood pump through the hoof strongly to catch up. Before Scootaloo could roll onto her hooves again, Twilight pinned her down and stuck a cold stethoscope against her chest. She flailed a little despite herself, but settled down to let Twilight listen to her heart.

Archer was still watching Scootaloo being examined, from Rainbow Dash’s back, when Dash turned her head and started talking at her instead of Scootaloo.

“What about you, Archer?” Dash asked, turning her head to the little blue pony. “You got awfully quiet all of a sudden.”

Archer shrunk back a little. “I... I don’t really need to talk when Scootaloo can just say everything,” she said shyly.

“So what?” Dash said challengingly, “You’re your own pony, aren’t you?” A beat. “You are your own pony, aren’t you?”

“I don’t... know?” Archer said, shivering uncomfortably at the attention. “What do you mean?”

“Well it’s like,” Dash frowned, “I mean—” she said, then looked down thoughtfully. “You’re a real pony, right?”

“No,” Archer said sadly. “Real ponies don’t throw each other up. I’m just a fake pony.”

“That’s... not what I meant,” Dash said, holding a hoof to her forehead. Then she looked at the hoof and glanced back at Archer.

Rainbow Dash let the pastern of her foreleg hang down, pointing the hoof at her own face. “Looks like a nose, doesn’t it?” She said idly to the filly sitting up on her rump. The hoof turned to face Archer.

Archer had no idea, just staring at the hoof from Dash’s back, wondering what she was doing. Then Rainbow Dash started to waggle the hoof in the air, saying in a really funny voice, “Hi I’m Hoofy the hoof! I look like I’m really talking!” waggling once for each syllable. Archer stared as Dash’s hoof continued to waggle at Dash’s face while Dash said in that weird voice, “Who is this pretty filly? Why don’t you introduce me?”

“Archer!” Dash said in her normal voice, “This is Hoofy the hoof.” Then in her weird voice as the hoof waggled, “Hi I’m Hoofy. Nice to meet you, Archer!”

“Why are you—” Archer started to say, but then she realized she was asking the hoof. That made her giggle. It did look like it was talking.

“What was that Hoofy?” Dash asked, and she wiggled the hoof next to her ear. “Hoofy wants to know if you think she’s a real pony!”

“Nooo,” Archer said grinning and turning her chin down, “She’s just a hoof!”

“But I sound like a real pony!” waggled Hoofy.

“That’s just Rainbow Dash making funny voices!” Archer giggled.

“But my nose wiggles, just like a real pony!” waggled Hoofy.

“That’s not a nose it’s a hoof!” Archer crowed accusingly.

“No, no Hoofy,” Dash said in her normal voice addressing her own hoof. “The reason you’re not a real pony is because I can make you do... this!” and she started waving her hoof around crazily while saying in her ‘Hoofy’ voice,

“Aaaarghbobobblbl I cannot stop spinning around because I am just a hoof and I say whatever Rainbow Dash wants! Take all my money! Rainbow Dash is best pony! Arrrglbobblbl!”

It was about then that Rainbow Dash noticed that Twilight had Scootaloo hooked up to some kind of full body testing frame, with her four hooves clamped securely on spring loaded weight measures. Twilight wasn’t measuring Scootaloo’s muscle strength anymore though, because she was too busy staring at Rainbow Dash in shock. It was a good thing Scootaloo was restrained too, because the little orange filly was laughing her head off.

“Uh,” Dash relaxed her hoof, “Heh,” and blushing, set it firmly on the ground. “Aaaanyway, what I mean is you’re always a real pony if you can do something yourself, without another pony making you do it.” She cast Twilight a calm look, and noticed Twilight hadn’t stopped gaping yet.

“Shut up, it worked when I was a filly!” Dash huffed at Twilight angrily, blushing harder and then looked away pointedly.

Twilight’s gape turned into an eyebrow raised smile as she said, “Whatever you say, Rainbow Dash,” in a low drawl. Twilight turned back to Scootaloo, trying to calm her hiccupping laughter down enough to get a reliable reading. Archer just wanted to know what was so funny. Would she really laugh that hard, if she were Scootaloo? Maybe it looked different from the table, than when you’re on Rainbow Dash’s back? And why was it making her feel better about herself?

“OK Archer, your turn!” Twilight said brightly, tapping the table while Scootaloo jumped down and scampered away, with a white stick poking out of her mouth. Archer immediately stopped feeling better about herself and shrank back, clutching Rainbow Dash defensively.

“Aww, c’mon Twilight,” Dash whined, “This is boring! Can’t you speed up the process at all?”

“We’ve only been here for a half hour, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said in a hurt tone, “And besides, now that I have a test battery established it should go fairly quickly the second time.”

“Well, you heard her Archer,” Rainbow said, walking over and giving a hip shake that tried to toss Archer right onto the table. “Alley-oop?” Of course Archer wasn’t leaving Rainbow Dash’s hindquarters come love nor money. She clung to Rainbow’s butt tenaciously. She didn’t want to be the center of attention. She didn’t even know what Twilight was doing. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? She wanted to stay with Rainbow Dash!

“Twilight, she won’t get off,” Dash whined.

“Come on Archer, it’s alright,” Twilight cooed at Rainbow Dash’s butt. “I just have to take your temperature and some things. There’s nothing to worry about!

“...what things?” Archer said quietly.

Twilight paused to digest that, then leaned forward again and said, “Look, why don’t I walk you through it? I’ll carefully explain each step for you and make sure you’re okay with it.”

“Uggggh,” Dash complained rolling her eyes.

“Hush,” said Twilight snippily, looking at Archer for confirmation.

“You promise?” Archer said standing up.

“I promise,” Twilight confirmed.

Uneasily Archer left Rainbow Dash’s back, hopping the short distance to the table.

“This is a Nuclear Magical Scanner,” Twilight said rolling up the black box device. “It uses pulses of vim to take pictures of your insides. See? The default setting is density, and here you can see that the most dense part of my hoof is my bones.”

“Wow,” Archer said in a captivated tone, looking over the edge of the machine, and waving her own hoof in the scanning area.

“I can’t believe that worked,” grumbled Rainbow Dash.

“Worked for me as a filly,” Twilight said chirpily with her nose in the air, cantering the cart around to aim the device at Archer’s side squarely. “Now this is the musculature viewer,” she continued to explain, turning dials on the machine while Archer watched her own insides in rapt fascination, while Dash just felt kind of annoyed by all this.

But it wasn’t until Twilight got her exam completed that she got really annoying.

Dash was just resting her eyes a little, when she snorted awake as Twilight exclaimed “And your olmeric elacium levels are geopartial indicating severential tartaric noeprene parameters!”

Rainbow saw the two fillies were both on the table now, as Twilight addressed them with a presentation pointer moving animatedly around her easel, at an angle facing away from Dash. The pegasus mare couldn’t see whatever was on it, not that that would have helped to have been able to see what was on it, knowing Twilight.

“The tartaric noeprene parameter or TNP correlates positively with your genetic propensity for endochital osteoblastosis which confirms my theory of protoequinal differential eschatology...” Twilight continued as Archer stared uncomprehendingly, her hoof coming over her drooping mouth as she fought back a yawn. Scootaloo’s eyes were sliding shut, but she forced them open every few seconds, sitting on her haunches with her head hanging low.

Somewhere in the middle of “aripolethial misculantarangeal telosympathified margarblathiony—” Rainbow Dash wrapped her hoof around Twilight’s shoulder, jerking her away from the fillies and whispering harshly to her, 

“Stop using big words.” 

Scootaloo and Archer both immediately heaved huge sighs of relief.

Twilight whined, “But how else can I precipiate calamnial alugorathonica—”

“Twilight!”

“But—”

“What are you even doing?” Dash said, holding the purple pony’s shoulders at arm’s length.

“I’m... presenting my findings...” Twilight said, in a tone like Dash just took away her favorite dolly and replaced it with an eviction notice, her lower lip quivering.

“Well do it with smaller words!” Dash said, letting Twilight go, “These are uh...” She looked at Scoots and Archer. “How old are you fillies, again?”

“10,” Scootaloo said looking at Dash hopefully.

“2,” Archer said, adding, “...almost,” after a pause.

“What? No way! You are not!” Dash said, striding around Twilight to face the fillies. “You’ve both got to be at least 21 years old. These are 21 year old fillies, Twilight. Use smaller words.”

Twilight shook with effort before snapping out, “...fine! The multico- the... the many box h-holding surange su sweet box touch inside holds nice fine cold eat build many moon watch go fall red to pink three scissors cow beep moo...”

Where did you even get those crazy numbers?” Dash asked the fillies while Twilight continued her monosyllabic speech, the agitated unicorn not really addressing the fillies at all anymore, as her eyes slowly started to drift in different directions.

“Numbers?” Archer said cluelessly.

“Yeah, you can’t be telling ponies that you’re only 2,” Rainbow said. “And 10? How could you possibly be 10?” she said to Scootaloo. “Do you just... you were never a baby or something?”

Scoots looked back, with a flash of fear and shame, saying “Oh, right, uh... I was... I mean I was a baby I... think. I mean I’m older than 10, but I was different ponies before. It took a lot of um... throwing up,” she gulped, “Before I came out.”

“Wait, so how many of you are there?” Dash asked unthinkingly. She then blushed and said, “I mean, if you’re okay with talking about it, that is I don’t want to uh, how many times have you uh, puked up a filly?”

Scootaloo started tapping her hoof on the ground. Was she... counting? At that point Rainbow started to notice that Twilight was getting sort of... agitated... or... something?

“... hard bonk loud choo choo mouse eat boo happy cow ball fat SING WHEEP NI BONG–”

“Twilight!” Dash yelled, wrapping a hoof around her shoulder and jerking her off to the side again. “This is even worse!” 

Twilight looked at her frantically. 

“Stop using small words,” Dash hissed to her.

“Oh thank Celestia,” Twilight said her, eyes rolling up in relief.

Behind them, Archer spoke up, saying “What comes after 33?”

“A hundred,” Scoots answered offhoovedly and Archer kept on counting but then Dash spun from Twilight’s side and dashed over, interrupting them in a panicked tone saying, 

“There are a hundred of you out there?!”

“Oh, no no!” Archer corrected with big eyes. “Not ever that many!”

“Don’t worry Dash,” Scootaloo assured her, “I’ve been really careful! There are only 10 of us right now.”

“Where did the other 30 go?” Twilight asked butting up beside Dash, as if asking a filly where her 30 mouth babies went was the most ordinary question in the world. It was honestly really freaking amazing Twilight just trusted Rainbow that all this stuff had happened. Dash would have never believed Twilight if she came up raving about a filly popping out of another filly’s mouth. Dash and Twilight had both seen a lot of strange things in their life, but this was really something else.

Scootaloo looked at Archer, who looked at Scootaloo and shrugged, then Scootaloo faced Twilight shrugging herself with an awkward smile saying, “They went... back in?”

“Back in where?” Rainbow asked, only to be bowled over by Twilight who stuck her face right up to Scootaloo’s exclaiming,

“You can resorb?!”

Scootaloo looked left and right frantically, saying, “re-what??”

“Reincorporate? Karyosynthesize? Deproduce? Merge?” Twilight shot like bullets.

“Yeah yeah, that last one!” Scootaloo said, sliding back at the force of Twilight’s intensity. Twilight just grabbed her and Archer in her hooves and pushed their rumps together like she could smoosh them together like play dough.

“Show me,” she said hungrily.

Archer squeaked at the nonconsensual rump bumping, and Scootaloo just flailed saying, “No–wait, no I can’t, wait!”

After Dash had defused yet another Twilight situation, Scootaloo explained, “I can’t do it if I’m too full. That apple really tided me over, sorry. I can probably show you in... the morning...” she punctuated her last sentence with a hearty yawn. Archer meanwhile jumped off the table and walked to the corner of the room, just standing there gazing off into the middle distance with an unreadable, but somehow familiar expression on her face.

“How long have we been down here anyway, Twilight?” Dash asked, looking up at the ceiling as if the artifical indoor light up there would give her a clue.

“Oh, it’s only been a couple hours,” Twilight said, walking around to look at Archer, “So come over here and I can tell you about my–”

Dash realized with a shock, “What time is it, Twilight?!” she asked fluttering up alarmedly.

Twilight winced, saying in a guilty tone, “Oh, I guess, I dunno maybe a few hours until midnight?”

“Alright,” said Dash, hovering there with a hoof to face. Now she recognized that expression Archer wore. “It is way too late to be talking about this stuff. We need to get these fillies to bed.”

Twilight dropped her head and sighed. “You’re right,” she said, “I need to check on Spike, make sure he’s not drooling on the comic books again. Then I can get out the spare bed for you ...three.”

“You don’t need to do that for me. I could take them to my house instead?” Dash suggested, landing lightly and swinging a hoof jauntily.

“Oh don’t worry about it Dash, I love helping my friends out!” Twilight smiled, “And besides,” she pointed her hoof upward several times. “The weather out there is really bad for travelling.”

“Eh heh,” Dash looked aside, “Sorry about that. Well I guess we’re going to have a sleepover then, eh Scoots? Arch...er?” It was going to be a Tartarus bucking nightmare to come up with a cute nickname for a name like Archer. Where had they picked that one up anyway? There was Archie, but that had a strange sense of indescribable horror to it, and besides it was the same number of syllables anyway.

“No,” Scootaloo said, firming up her lip. “I can’t.”

“Scootaloo, there is nothing wrong with you,” Dash sighed to the filly. “Yeah it’s weird and... strange and all, but you’re a good pony! You don’t have to push us away. We’re your friends!”

Scootaloo’s pupils softened at that, and she gave an internal shudder, but said, “No it’s... it’s not that.”

“There are two other fillies,” Scootaloo explained, her confident stance faltering when she added, “L-like me. I mean... I sort of made them, on accident.”

“They’re going to be so scared...” came Archer’s voice from below.

Scootaloo actually gave Rainbow an angry glare when she said, “You just... grabbed us like that. They probably don’t think we’re ever coming back.” Dash remembered she did see a third filly who looked just terrified, and felt her ears go down.

“I’m sorry, squirt I just—”

“N-no it’s okay,” Scootaloo said emotionally, “I’m I’m glad you ...did.” She wiped at her eyes, saying, “I just need to go find them, and let them know we’re ...okay.” She didn’t look happy at all when she said, “I have to go stay with them, so I c-can’t stay with... you.”

“Can’t it wait until the morning?” Rainbow demanded, “You know how hard it’s coming down out there!” As if to emphasize her point, thunder rumbled overhead again. Scootaloo shook her head.

It was Archer’s voice who said, “They can’t take care of themselves,” down there right up against Rainbow Dash’s legs. “They need us.”

“Well, why don’t I go instead?” Dash said, extending her wings. “I can get there in 30 seconds flat!”

“But you were the one who grabbed us,” Scootaloo said in a hurt tone, “When you come back alone, and we’re still gone, what are they going to think?”

“This is so bucked up,” Dash said, sniffling despite herself. “You can’t just go out into the rain... back to that, that shack.” Her temper flared up hotly when she heard Twilight start... chuckling.

“What are you laughing at?” Dash said glaring angrily and disbelievingly at Twilight, “You think this is funny?!”

“Well, it’s just, ya know, you can be really clueless sometimes Rainbow Dash,” she said with a slight smirk.

“And you can be a jerk, Twilight,” Rainbow said hotly, wiping at her eyes with a wingfront.

“Seriously Dash,” Twilight said admonishingly, reaching up and tapping her horn with a hoof, as if she didn’t care at all about the well-being of oh.

“...oh.” Rainbow Dash said dumbly, a blank look on her face. She spun around, turning her back to Twilight and closing her eyes, then said, “Twilight could you give Scootaloo a lift back to her place?” With a little lash of her tail.

“I would be happy to, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said sweetly, as she headed immediately across the floor, for the stairs out of the basement. “Let me just check on Spike, and then get my umbrella.” She trotted up the stairs before Scootaloo could ask,

“Why does she have to walk me...?”

“Twilight Sparkle is a unicorn,” Rainbow Dash said to Scootaloo, who was still sitting on the examination table behind her. “She can teleport, remember?”

“...oh yeah.”

The lights were out in Fluttershy’s cottage. The sheeting rainfall of the night covered it in muted colors of blue and grey. The creek travelling past it burbled eagerly as the rivulets of water fed it higher. The forest could dimly be seen in the distance to the right, with the other cottages further away and to the left. Not a creature stirred outside the cottage, all curled up in their burrows, dens and houses, giving the land a timeless quality, like the painting of a frozen moment. It seemed out of place that a sphere of rain would elide itself from existence and a purple unicorn and a small pegasus foal would appear in it with a flash of indescribable light. The two remained dry as the rain immediately struck the surface of a hip mounted umbrella on the unicorn’s body. The soft mossy loam compressed underneath their hooves.

Twilight’s first impulse was to trot forward confidently, but the little orange pegasus next to her swayed uneasily and stumbled a few steps, saying

“Can we not... ever do that... again?”

Twilight huffed a quiet breath, and said to Scootaloo, “You get used to it.” That didn’t nearly describe the complexities behind teleportation of course. Line of sight or long distance, known or unknown destinations, moving every bit of matter aside to make room, the cosmo field about as easy to ride as a bucking bull. Teleportation wasn’t just a spell, it was an art. Twilight had been honing her abilities for years now, since having mastered the spell unexpectedly that one day facing down an angry mob. She was certainly the most skilled teleporter in Ponyville, and possibly all of Equestria, with the possible exception of Twinkleshine the Moon Dancer, but even Twilight couldn’t seem to make it a pleasant experience for anypony who hadn’t developed a tolerance for it.

Twilight waited until Scootaloo had found her legs again, nudging her gently to get her attention. Scootaloo looked up at Twilight and nodded, then started walking forward. She led Twilight into the vaguely populated neighborhood of loners, rejects and apparantly fillies who had the strange ability to reproduce by mouth.

Twilight had so many questions about that, but she was in no position to ask them. Not only was this something of a crisis situation, but Rainbow had beaten it into her head more than once tonight that Twilight was running on fumes and hadn’t been thinking clearly. Too much studying of that blasted spell, too little progress. It made reference to a nonexistent magic field, well, nonexistent to current models at least, and to make a long story short Twilight was going to practically have to cast the thing blind before she could make heads or tails of it.

“Sorry about earlier,” Twilight said to Scootaloo as the filly led her along the path. “It’s just I’m so excited at the possibilities.”

“It’s okay, Miss Twilight,” Scootaloo said. The filly chose not to continue that line of conversation apparantly, letting things descend to the silence of the rainfall again.

“It’s just hard to believe,” Twilight started again, “Even with what I’ve seen, that you can just make a filly on the spot, just like that,”

“I’ve never shown it to anypony before,” Scootaloo said a bit more quietly and less confidently. “It’s really gross. Um... I’m sorry for not showing it to you, Miss Twilight.”

“You know... there once was a pony who was different from everypony else,” Twilight said thoughtfully, “Everyone in Ponyville ran away when she came into town. Everypony hated her without even knowing her. You know what that difference was?”

“What was it?” Scootaloo asked,

“Stripes.”

“Stripes?” Scootaloo paused on her way, looking back at Twilight, the lightning illuminating her features, “You mean Zecora?”

“Oh, you know her?” Twilight asked, surprised.

“Well it’s just Apple Bloom told me about a zebra she met before,” Scootaloo said, walking and talking, “She sounds pretty cool, actually.”

“Actually, Apple Bloom was the only pony who saw past those differences,” Twilight continued, “Even I got fooled into thinking Zecora was dangerous. But Apple Bloom showed us that even with her differences, she was still just a pony like any one of us. That filly taught us all a lesson that day.” Thunder rolled dramatically.

Twilight hesitated, then said “You should consider telling Apple Bloom, Scootaloo. I think she could be more accepting than you might think.” Twilight shouldn’t have said that. She was trying to caution Scootaloo not lead her along. Twilight’s thoughts were going in a direction she wasn’t happy with, imagining Scootaloo trying to show everypony this... strange phenomenon. 

Twilight had to stop this time. Scootaloo kept walking a few steps until she passed the umbrella’s  sheltering radius and felt the rain start to hit her, then backed up and turned her head.

“That being said,” Twilight clarified carefully, giving Scootaloo the gravest look she could muster, “Every other pony in Ponyville was afraid of Zecora because she had stripes. Stripes. There was nothing wrong with you hiding this from me or from Rainbow Dash. You had no way to know how we would react. You were a very smart filly to do so, considering how some ponies react. I’m just glad I have a chance to prove my trust to you now, but there is nothing wrong with being afraid of ponies being afraid.”

Scootaloo’s eyes were narrowing with fear and, sadly, familiarity at Twilight’s words. Twilight waited for her to say anything, then just bent down and nudged Scootaloo with her nose, until Scootaloo started walking again. Once the filly had begun, Twilight continued in a less foreboding and softer tone, saying, 

“The premeditated fear no longer accompanies Zecora every time she comes into town. When ponies learned the truth about her, they didn’t need to be afraid. It was ultimately what ponies didn’t know about her that fueled their fear, rather than what they did. Hiding that truth made ponies fear and hate her, and when she stopped hiding, she found herself no longer feared, or hated.”

“We’re here,” Scootaloo announced dully, interrupting Twilight. They stood before a ramshackle and dilapidated structure, whose contents would have been dark and foreboding were it not for the cheery light of a lantern within. “I should go in first,” Scootaloo said, holding a hoof up as if to stay Twilight’s progress. “When I found them I’ll call you in, so they know it’s safe.”

As Scootaloo trotted in, wiping her hooves off on a scrap of discarded wool, Twilight shook her head at the situation, where fillies have to be so afraid of others that they can’t even trust each other at their own word, and need a physically ritualized method of approach. She walked in enough to fold up her umbrella and wipe her own hooves off on the... impromptu doormat which had clearly seen better days as a sweater, but waited there for Scootaloo’s O.K.  As the minutes ticked on, she began to fear irrationally that perhaps there would be no O.K. and Scootaloo had just vanished into thin air.

“O.K. Miss Twilight, you can come in now!” came Scootaloo’s high pitched voice from within the main room. Relieved, Twilight walked in. The layout was just like Fluttershy’s cottage, which should come as no surprise considering where they were located in town. She saw the two fillies and Scootaloo standing together in the centermost part by the light of a gas lantern.

Twilight came into the room as slowly and quietly as possible, but the other two fillies still cowered behind Scootaloo fearfully, who stood in their symbolic defense. At least Twilight hoped it was symbolic. One filly was lemon yellow with a pale blue mane far longer than Scootaloo’s but hopelessly tangled in knots and debris. The other was tomato red with a yellow mane that seemed naturally shorter than Scootaloo’s while still having the characteristic curl. They both had frayed twiggy tails and matted flanks, and needed some serious grooming and care. Scootaloo was, well, more composed and groomed, but the others were just... dissheveled.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said to them in a friendly tone, smiling at the fillies comfortingly as she could manage, “I’m not here to hurt you.”

The one’s expression softened a bit, while the other continued to stare in uncomprehending fear. Scootaloo looked back and forth, standing in between them and Twilight, and suggested, “Why don’t you try picking me up?” She faced Twilight, sitting down and reaching out her front hooves. “That should help convince them,” she said anxiously.

“Well alright, Scootaloo, if you say so,” Twilight agreed cautiously, reaching out with her magic to levitate the filly.

The other fillies scampered back with frightened squeals when Twilight lifted Scootaloo in her magic, so Twilight hurriedly canceled her horn after placing the orange pegasus firmly on her rump. Twilight had forgotten how rare it was that somepony of her ability came around; seems even after all these years, she still had the tendancy to frighten foals without meaning to. Moving unnaturally slowly, Twilight turned her side to the two on the floor so they could see Scootaloo sitting up there, then remained still. They didn’t run away, but they didn’t seem convinced or trusting.

“What are your names?” Twilight asked hopefully.

“That one’s Dizzie, and that one is Bee,” Scootaloo said, pointing at the yellow and red ones respectively. They both softened as Scootaloo spoke, and stood up warily but not fearfully.

“I’m here to learn more about you,” Twilight said addressing the two fillies on the ground, Dizzie and Bee apparently. “How long have you been ex–um, how long have you been out of Scootaloo?”

“A few weeks,” Scootaloo said immediately. The two fillies didn’t bother clarifying. “Dizzie is the oldest,” Scootaloo continued, “And Bee is just a few days... because of Rainbow Dash’s milk um... protein shake caught me without Archer.”

“Do you like milkshakes, Bee?” Twilight asked trying to get a response from the filly.

“She probably does,” said Scootaloo, “We all do, but sometimes it’s different flavors.”

“I was asking Bee, Scootaloo,” Twilight admonished quietly, turning to Bee expectantly.

“Oh, they don’t talk yet,” Scootaloo clarified, making Twilight’s brain go yerrk.

“It takes about a year before they’re ready to be somepony,” Scootaloo continued flippantly. “I never let it get that far though, except with Archer because I was um, lonely and... wanted somepony to talk to.”

“So they’re like babies, in a 21 year old body?” Twilight said, the wheels in her head spinning rapidly as the foals on the floor in front of her continued to silently stare.

“No, they’re like,” Scootaloo paused, wiggling uncertainly against Twilight, “Like a library, with nopony in it,” she decided, “So like, all 21 years are in there, but there’s nopony to check out books. At least that’s what I remember...” she trailed off somewhat reservedly.

“You have their memories?” Twilight asked.

“No,” Scootaloo said fussily, “Yes I mean, yes every time they go in, but what I meant was we were all like that at first.” She paused before adding, “I was like that once,” in a quiet voice.

Twilight had so many questions. So. Many. But now was simply not the time to be asking them. There were 3, no 10 exhausted fillies on her hooves now, and she had left the care of her library in the sole responsibility of Rainbow Dash. Something had to be done. So she just asked, “Can you get them to come close to me?”

“Uh, probably,” Scootaloo said, “Why?”

“I want to try teleporting us all back to the library.”

“Uggh,” Scootaloo grimaced, “That was even worse than nausea. I thought you said you weren’t going to do that again!”

“No, you said I wasn’t going to do that again,” Twilight corrected. “And it’s the best solution I can come up with that doesn’t leave you sleeping on... on that,”

Twilight pointed a hoof at the couch. A spring popped out of it at that moment, vibrating at a skewed angle. That wasn’t the only reason they couldn’t stay here though. When the lightning flashed a second time, Twilight noticed that Scootaloo didn’t even flinch, but the other two fillies looked around fearfully. They were just operating on pure instinct. It would have been fascinating if– and when the thunder rolled they both cried out as one, running for cover in different directions.

If it wasn’t scaring them so badly.

“Please, Scootaloo,” Twilight said, “I’ll be as careful as I can, I promise.”

“Fiiine,” Scootaloo said in unconvincing disgust, jumping down from Twilight and disappearing between the boxes. When she came with Dizzie, pushing her rump to guide her movements, Dizzie looked up fearfully at Twilight first, but then like a switch, was hiding underneath Twilight’s legs. It was a very bizarre experience, but then this whole evening was a very bizarre experience.

Scootaloo was pushing Bee over, who displayed even less fear or recognition than Dizzie. “C’mon Miss Twilight,” Scootaloo said in a harried and somewhat rushed voice, “Just hurry and do it before—” Lightning flashed, making the filly underneath Twilight quiver like a newborn. Scootaloo didn’t clarify, but Twilight thought she had a good idea what she was referring to.

Before the thunder could crash, igniting her horn, Twilight winked them all out. The storm, the rain, the rundown cottage, and even her own body were all gone in a flash, and she was there once again riding the cosmo like a raging serpent, bearing her precious cargo, hurtling toward the idea of her destination. It was the sort of experience she lived for, and had to fight herself as much as the cosmo to keep from diving into it and tapping into the exhilirating depths, just concentrating on keeping herself steady for the timeless time it took to travel these ways.

Twilight couldn’t help but see the result as adorable when they arrived, but she never would admit that out loud, since she had at least a shred of compassion and decency in her. Between the teleportation sickness and the sudden bright light of the library’s interior, Dizzie was stumbling around like a, well a newborn foal, and the ketchup and mustard Bee just fell on her side when she tried to walk, and lay there moving her legs, whining distressedly. Scootaloo seemed better off, hardly wobbling at all, so Twilight had to assume that she nailed the teleport this time, and those fillies were just... really sensitive. They probably had nothing in the sense of mental defenses.

“I’m sorry Scootaloo,” she said to the orange filly, “I did my best, honest. It’s over now. No more teleporting.”

Scootaloo didn’t answer her or look her way, just went over and helped Bee up onto her hooves.

Twilight started for the storage/guest room, looking back and asking Scootaloo, “You can um, watch these two, please? Get them settled? The thunder shouldn’t be as bad in here.”

“Yeah I got it, Miss Twilight,” Scootaloo said with half her attention. The other two weren’t exploring or looking around curiously. Dizzie was just sitting there looking stunned, and Bee just... standing there.

“Good,” said Twilight, “Thank you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go rescue Rainbow Dash.”





To Rainbow Dash’s credit, she did get the bed out successfully. Sure that one final shove had gotten Dash’s posterior firmly wedged into the drawer the bed came out of, with her hind hooves up by her ears, but she did get it out! Currently she and Archer were playing a little game called get me out of this bucking thing, where Archer took Rainbow Dash’s hooves in her own, and Rainbow said, “On three! One, two, three!” Then Archer pulled with all her might, and if she had been just a little bit stronger she might have been able to bend cardboard. Then Dash started wiggling again, only getting herself further ensconced as the door to the drawer had hooked up against her tail base. It was a really fun game that they were playing just for fun because it did buck all to get her out of there.

“Okay, Rainbow Dash,” came Twilight’s voice from the other room as she trotted into the guest room. “What did you do this—”

“...”

“...”

“...yo.”

SheisyourbestfrienddonotkillherSheisyourbestfrienddonotkillherSheisyourbestfrienddonotkillher. “Twilight, could you please stop laughing for a minute, and get me out of here? No? OK I’m just gonna sit here then, just chilling around. This is just the sort of thing I like to do, you know? Just sitting here with my butt stuck in your Nightmare damned monster drawer. Twilight, come on! Twilight!”

Eventually, way, way longer than any real friend would have taken, Twilight managed to stand on her hooves stably enough to walk over to Rainbow Dash. Dash figured this was going to take some serious magic to get her out. No way she could be teleported with her butt stuck like this, without taking a piece of the building with her. Some sort of lubrication spell maybe, like the kind Rainbow read about in that one magazine. Maybe Twilight was going to wave her horn and make her tail disappear? Just bucking do something!

So after taking a look, Twilight apparantly noticed that since the door was a flap that hinged inside and down, she could reach in there and push on it with her hoof to lift it above Rainbow Dash’s tail base. Then Archer suddenly gained super strength that she totally had been holding back this whole time and easily slid Rainbow Dash out of the narrow, vaguely bed sized cavity.

With that moment never spoken of again for the rest of time, Rainbow Dash was ready to appraise the situation.

“So, where’s Scootaloo?” she asked, casually rubbing at her sore tail base, trying not to sound too worried. “You didn’t leave her there, did you? What about the other mouth uh, mouth fillies?”

“Oh they’re amazing!” Twilight said brightly, “They’re a near tabula rasa, if not for yet another of Scootaloo’s somewhat troubling revelations I would never have known they weren’t. It’s fascinating to see fillies in such a state. I wonder what their symbolic processing capabilities are? I wonder if they can learn!” She was rubbing her hooves together entirely too gleefully for Rainbow Dash’s sake.

“Right...” Dash said, “Uh, so they are here, right?”

“Yes they’re just in the other room,” Twilight answered, levitating several bedsheets, pillows and pillowcases and thick blankets around her in a silent storm of bedmaking. “Why don’t you and Archer go check on them?”

Archer immediately perked up at the news and cantered towards the front of the library. “Hey wait up, kid,” Dash said to the blue filly, walking with Archer through the library proper.

There was a lot of room in here. The main library separated the guest room from the lobby, with the actual bedroom being upstairs. There were a couple of side passages that led to more obscure books that ponies rarely looked up, or that’s as near as Rainbow could tell that those wings contained, according to Twilight Sparkle’s weird shelving system. Twilight couldn’t just put it in alphabetical order, oh no, but to her credit Twilight was always willing to dig something out, if a pony couldn’t find it so Rainbow had to admit it wasn’t that bad. Dash supposed it would have been a pain if Twilight had gone with alphabetical order and put the books under D off in the west wing, instead of keeping them right up front for Rainbow Dash to snatch up as soon as the newest one arrived.

Archer walked with Rainbow, the filly’s hooves tapping a lot faster on the wood floor to keep up with Rainbow’s more sedate pace. Well, as sedate as Rainbow Dash ever got. She sure wasn’t going to linger here long. She had a squirt to catch, and apparantly two new fillies to meet. That was sort of worrying Rainbow Dash into hesitating though, because she wasn’t kidding about not being able to adopt the whole orphanage. Scootaloo was one thing, but a second filly would totally bust her budget, and four? Maybe uh... she didn’t want to say it, but maybe the orphanage could work something out. That’d mean the rest of the town knowing, though, and Rainbow Dash didn’t want to see a repeat of the Cutie Pox scare.

The lobby of the library was a lot brighter than the dim lighting of the guest room in the back. It gave Rainbow Dash a good look at the three fillies who sat there, only one of them familiar. The fillies weren’t running around or hyperactive or anything, just laying together. This evening even had Rainbow Dash feeling tuckered out, so she could only imagine what a couple fillies were going through. She would have thought they were asleep, cuddled together in the middle of the lobby floor, but she could tell that Scootaloo clearly wasn’t asleep.

With Scootaloo’s back turned, Rainbow couldn’t see her face, but she could see that of the other two fillies. Scootaloo was cradling the other two one on either side, in her hooves and in her lap. Their eyes were closed, and their breathing slow. Looking at little Scootaloo, it struck Dash how much Scootaloo had to go through just to get a semi-normal life. These were her fillies. They really did look kind of like her babies, the way she was holding them, even if they were the same size as her. How do you feel normal, when you’re dealing with that? What really struck Dash though was something she had never seen Scootaloo do before. Scootaloo was singing to them.

No, not singing. Every pony had seen Scoots trying to sing before, back at that disaster of a talent show. Here she wasn’t singing with words, though. She just held the two of them close to her chest and sang a soft wordless melody. Her normal raspy voice, so like Dash’s, had slid into a rounder more vibrant tone. Just a melodic crooning that didn’t seem to have any direction or meter. It was mesmerizing, and hauntingly beautiful in a way. It—

It didn’t sound like a pony.
> Taking the Plunge
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hey, Scootaloo.”

Rainbow Dash’s voice startled Scootaloo out of her... whatever that was. Singing her two... whatever they were, to sleep. There were probably words for all of this stuff, but Scootaloo just didn’t know them. Didn’t need them either, until today. These two didn’t talk, and Archer already knew that singing with the... underneath voice on those long lonely nights, always seemed to calm everypony down and make it easier to sleep. You used words for scary, frustrating, alien things, like homework and crashes and bullies, but this stuff was just self evident.

Or, it used to be self evident. But tonight she was sitting with Dizzie and Bee held against her like she was their mom when she wasn’t, and how could she explain what she meant by that? 

Rainbow Dash was behind her going, “Hey, Scootaloo,” when Scootaloo was singing with that weird voice that wasn’t hers, that every one of them shared, and how could she explain that? Scootaloo didn’t even want to turn around or even acknowledge the pegasus, not because Rainbow Dash didn’t deserve to know, or wasn’t totally awesome, but because Scootaloo would have to explain herself. She couldn’t hide any of this anymore, and not being able to hide it made her think about how to explain it, and that just drove home how difficult it was to put the simplest things into words.

“Hey, Scootaloo what’s that weird noise coming out of your throat?” Dash would say. “Hey, Scootaloo why do you leave them outside so long, and not take them in right away?” Dash would say. “Hey Scootaloo I thought you were cool, but you’re too weird to be my sister, because of those two stupid weird freaks who can’t even talk—”

“Hey, Scootaloo,” Dash said, “Twilight is setting up the bed in back, so c’mon, you don’t want to fall asleep out there on the floor.”

Scootaloo turned to look behind her at Rainbow Dash, while the other two shifted restlessly against her. Scootaloo must have looked a sight, if she looked anything like how weary she felt. Rainbow Dash was standing there, trying to look nonchalant about the situation, but her smile was tense and her wings were loose and ready to fly. Next to her was the short blue Archer, with a harried look on her face, mouthing silent apologies at Scootaloo.

Scootaloo stood up from the library floor, pushing at the other two one at a time with both her front hooves murmuring, “Hey get up girls, we need to follow Rainbow Dash.” They roused sluggishly, not because of her words of course, but she said them anyway just in case it made her look more normal.

“Oh uh, I can leave if you... you know, since I kind of ...scared them that one time,” Rainbow Dash said in a guilty tone, raising a hoof to turn away.

“Don’t worry Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo said, walking forward towards Rainbow Dash and looking back at the other two. “They don’t really remember stuff yet, either.” Once Scootaloo’s other two saw Scootaloo, they started to trot forward amiably, and sure enough, didn’t display any sign of fear or reservation towards Rainbow Dash. Far the contrary. As soon as they saw past Scootaloo to Rainbow Dash, the two ended up outpacing Scootaloo and flanking Dash, Dizzie on the left and Bee on the right.

Dizzie was looking up at Dash with her unblinking gaze, and Bee was bumping up against Dash trying to stay close to her as possible as they walked. And Scootaloo was about ready to die from embarassment. “Heh, they really like me huh?” Rainbow Dash said a little nervously.

“They like whatever I like,” Scootaloo mumbled, looking away from the impromptu filly parade to try to find some absolutely fascinating titles in the warmly lit bookshelves. “They just don’t know how to be all... cool about it. Sorry, Dash.”

“Hey it’s no problem,” Rainbow Dash, letting a wing rest on Bee’s flank. “I was worried they’d run off when they saw me, after the way I went and charged in like that.” Scootaloo didn’t really feel like trying to explain why they wouldn’t do that. She just kind of wanted to be quiet and stare off dazedly into the distance, or something. She just couldn’t... something...

“What about you, Archer?” Rainbow said turning to her right side, where Archer was walking, “You guys all like the same things?”

“N-no,” came Archer’s soft voice, “I’ve started liking my own things recently. They just um...” She gave a tired yawn.

Rainbow Dash yawned loudly, “I dunno about you guys,” she said, “But I am going to murder that bed I’m gonna sleep so hard tonight. It won’t know what hit it when my butt gets in there. Total bedicide.” Scootaloo laughed at that.

Wait, she laughed! Scootaloo hadn’t even noticed she was feeling better, it happened so fast. Rainbow Dash just said a few magic words, and it calmed Scootaloo’s fears and made her feel inspired, even hopeful. Dash didn’t even have to do anything she just... didn’t reject Scootaloo, and it was the most amazing thing. It was... the most... uh...

Scootaloo stumbled as she entered the guest room. Rubbing her eyes blearily, she looked up and saw the bed all made, with Twilight next to it looking pleased with herself. Oh Celestia, Scootaloo was going to sleep in a bed tonight. It was practically calling to her. She could already imagine every ache and tension draining out of her. She hadn’t had a bed to sleep in since the sleepover with Sweetie last week. And the others hadn’t had a bed in... like... ever.

As Dash flipped up onto the bed from between them, Scootaloo spared a very guilty look at Archer who was looking up at the bed fearfully, clearly shuffling through her disjoint memories trying to figure out how to deal with this. Scootaloo laid a hoof on her shoulder and smiled at her confidently when Archer looked her way. Then she leapt up onto the bed and reached down, taking Archer’s hoof in hers and helping her up.

“Aren’t Dezzie and um...” Dash said searching for their names.

“Bee,” Scootaloo offered.

“Aren’t Dezzie and Bee coming up too?”

The two were standing at the bedside, but weren’t jumping in, or really giving any indication that they even knew it was a bed they were looking at. “Get tucked in,” said Scootaloo, “They’ll figure it out um... in not too long.” Hopefully not too long at least.

It was only a minute or so before Dezzie leapt onto the bed and Bee immediately followed her example. They walked confidently to the head of the bed and slid themselves under the sheets, right on either side of Rainbow Dash, snuggling up to her shamelessly with little smiles on their faces.

“Wow, they um... really like me, Scootaloo,” Rainbow Dash said, giving Scootaloo a somewhat wide eyed and questionable look. Scootaloo couldn’t answer though, because she was too busy having all the blood in her body pumped directly into her face. She just rolled over and closed her eyes, the weariness outpacing everything else. The bed was so soft and warm, and it had sheets!

“...g’night, Scootaloo,” Rainbow Dash said quietly, then on an afterthought, “g’night Archer.”

In the quiet night broken only by Rainbow Dash’s powerful snoring, the four fillies slept like the dead.

Twilight Sparkle would have slept until noon. She typically did so after her late night studying binges, a bad habit she’d picked up from the fate of the world depending on her. She typically, however, didn’t have to deal with four rambunctious but exhausted fillies, eleven if you counted Rainbow Dash. But unaware of this, far away from the guest room, Twilight just lay in her bed in a peaceful dreamless sleep, the soft mattress and covers hugging her body gently as she dozed the morning away.

She would have slept until noon, but a crashing noise awoke her, coming from downstairs. Some pony or rather, some filly was getting into the pots it seemed. Twilight thought about going back to sleep, letting somepony else take care of a problem for once, just pretending she had heard nothing. She took stock in how many ponies or dragons she could count on to take care of a problem. There was another clatter.

Groaning, Twilight swung her hooves out of bed, sliding out from under the covers reluctantly and looking out her window with bloodshot eyes. At least it was morning, and the sun had risen above the horizon. It couldn’t have been later than 20 or 21 though. She looked over at Spike’s basket, but it was curiously empty. The dragon did like to get up before her to prepare a breakfast for the both of them, but even he knew how late she slept and skipping out on some extra nap time was definitely not his style.

The purple unicorn smacked her lips dryly, walking down the stairs with a practiced ease. She looked at the archway into the kitchen area resignedly, figuring as long as she was up she might as well find out what Scootaloo and Archer and... those other two were doing. She picked up the pace a bit when she heard Spike in there too though. He sounded alarmed.

For a moment, Twilight was sure she was still asleep, because her best assistant in the world was wearing a collander on his head, and the way the potholders had fallen across his shoulders sort of looked like barding, not in their effectiveness but in the way he was wielding a spatula like a weapon, swinging the spatula in front of him and shouting, “Back! Get back!”

His attacker was a pair of fillies, one just staring at Spike curiously before moving forward, only to be driven back again, and the other one bouncing around the kitchen like a hyperactive jelly bean. Assuming jelly beans could be hyperactive, that is.

The one skirting around Spike’s spatula radius cautiously was the yellow and red pony who Twilight knew as Bee, but the other filly, Twilight had never seen before in her life. Her wavy shoulder length mane was a lighter orange than her body color, which contrasted sharply with her striking blue eyes. She was currently jumping on the counter trying to pull more pots off their hooks, but quickly tired of that to jump circles around Bee herding her away from Spike, then cheerfully leaving Bee to her dragon quest and kicking a roll of paper towels, chasing after as it unrolled before her like the other two rolls she’d managed to tear out from the cabinet.

When she jumped to her next activity, Twilight lit up her horn, plucking the orange filly out of the air by her tail. “What is going on here?” she demanded. “Don’t you know this section of the library is off limits?” she said to the little filly in her grasp, leaving Spike to deal with...whatever Bee was doing.

“Well?” Twilight demanded. The filly just strained to escape Twilight’s magical grasp, buzzing her little wings furiously trying to pull herself loose.

“Twilight!” the beleagured and frightened Spike shouted, “Keep them away from the food!”

Twilight looked at Spike, noting that what he was defending was their grain pantry, chock full of bread and cereals. She also noted that the refrigerator door was hanging open and completely empty of fresh vegetables, even the beets. She took another look at the filly in her grasp who was just hanging there wiggling her feet like she could run, not saying a single actual word, just protesting in high pitched, distressed noises, with those odd looking... wings on her back.

“Spike, get Scootaloo,” Twilight said urgently.

“Twilight these aren’t fillies!” he shouted alarmedly, “They are some kind of monster! They ate all the food and then—”

“Get. Scootaloo,” Twilight repeated.

“But–” he said pushing back at Bee.

“I’ll deal with these two,” Twilight said tensely, “Just get her, and hurry!”

Spike abandoned his defensive front, and ran out the door, heading immediately for the rear library and guest room. Amusingly as soon as he did, Bee turned and walked away from the pantry, continuing to follow the dragon, showing a complete disinterest in what he was guarding. Twilight snagged her too, pulling both fillies to her and setting them firmly on her back. “Stay there!” she ordered, and to her surprise even the orange one stopped struggling and they both sat there obediently, looking at Twilight with those expressive respectively blue and pale green eyes.

All three of them turned to look at the entryway, when Spike came running back with Scootaloo. He didn’t actually wake her up is the thing, just lifted the curled up pegasus filly over his head and started running, so Scootaloo was still lifting her head and going, “Huh? Wha..?” when Spike ran into the kitchen.

As the disoriented Scootaloo climbed off of Spike, and stood on her own, Twilight levitated the new, darker orange filly off her back, over the top of her head, and then dangled her in front of Scootaloo, saying, “And do you happen to know who this is?”

Scootaloo rubbed her eyes and looked up at the dangling filly, who looked back silently. “Should I?” said Scootaloo in an uncertain tone, “I don’t think I’ve seen her at school. Why is she at the—wait.”

Scootaloo leaned over looking sideways up at Twilight’s hindquarters. Her face fell when she saw Bee, and she slumped to her hindquarters, saying, “Oh no.”

“Scootaloo this is a serious enough matter as-is!” Twilight said admonishingly. “You can’t keep... making... expelling fillies out your mouth hole! We already talked about this. You were going to demonstrate incorporation this morning, not make another one!”

“What are you talking about, Twilight?” Spike said angrily, “Stop yelling at Scootaloo! It’s that thing on your back that’s a filly spitting monster, not Scootaloo!”

“Bee!” Scootaloo shouted, rearing up and putting her hooves on Twilight’s flank, saying angrily to the pony sitting above her, “You weren’t supposed to eat!” Bee looked back at her unconcernedly.

“Please Miss Twilight, she doesn’t understand it’s not safe yet,” Scootaloo said turning to Twilight, flicking her tail in frustration. “Don’t get mad at her it’s my fault!”

There are giant colossi roaming an unending dark plane of rubble, debris, various and sundry. Now and then they mature, the light fails in their massive single eye and they too fall, collapsing to pieces as they descend heavily to the ground. Occasionally a small creature scampering about the ruins manages to rescue their darkened core. They may fight over it jealously ruining it as it shatters to pieces, or one might escape the rabble, descending through a nightmare machine that fills their journey with deadly traps and impassible barriers. But somehow one will make it through and descend to the room of the keystone, with its walls glowing in what might be arcane runes or incredibly complex technical components. If the final guardian can not destroy the creature before it slots the eye into place making, it and the room light up with information and awareness, then a pony will have an inspiration.

Looking from Scootaloo to Bee to the new filly, Twilight paled noticeably as she said, “Scootaloo, how long does it take your... kind to mature enough to give birth to a new filly?”

Scootaloo was having a hard time answering, saying, “But I’m not grown up I’m just a filly. What do you mean mature?”

“I mean mature!” Twilight said, “Sexually potent! Fully capable of childbirth! How old did you have to get before you could make more... you?”

“Well, I mean I don’t remember that part very clearly,” Scootaloo said, rubbing her chin with a hoof, “I think maybe... a few weeks? It took me a long time before I could find enough food.”

“You said Bee was a few days old, though,” Twilight asserted. “Now you’re saying weeks?”

Scootaloo laughed. What? “No no, Miss Twilight a couple of weeks to find food. Bee must have found some today.”

“So how long before she can—!” Twilight exclaimed tightly, pointing at and shaking the orange filly like a leaf.

“I dunno,” Scootaloo answered honestly, “How fast can you feed her?”

The eleven of them, Twilight, Spike, Scootaloo, Bee and the mysterious orange filly left the kitchen immediately, with applied aid of Twilight’s telekinesis if necessary. She dropped Scootaloo and the orange filly out of her magical grasp and turned to the kitchen focusing her magic stores and channelling. A pink barrier popped into existence in front of the door as the entire kitchen was encased in a shield spell. Twilight reached deep into the earth and tied it to the generator crystal she had installed down there, activating it with a noticeable hum. Moments later the already established pink spherical shield (with gravity) encased the entire library.

She then canceled her horn and said as evenly as possible, “Get the others up. Nopony is going anywhere until we figure out how to fix this!”

Scootaloo backed up a step in alarm, and then ran off fast, with her tail tight against her legs.





“Alright Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said irritably, flying in the room ahead of the others who were coming, and throwing her hooves down in front of the unicorn, “I thought we talked about this!”

“More like interrupted my horn than talked!” Twilight said with an acidic glare.

“What the buck is this?” Rainbow accused, pointing one baby blue hoof at the glowing pink barrier that currently encased them in the library. It was easily visible from the ground level windows in the lobby. “Who the buck is that?” she accused, pointing a baby blue hoof at the orange filly, who was up on the table walking in circles around the wooden equibust statue, looking at every inch of it to determine its secrets. Twilight shot a worried look at the new filly, desperately hoping she hadn’t gotten into something else. It had been hard enough to get “blue eyes” there to stop climbing the bookcases. Attempting to shoo her away with the broom just made her afraid of the broom. Scootaloo was minding her, or trying to.

“I know I like Roanance!” Scootaloo yawped, trying to wave the filly off the table to no effect. “Give it a break, already!”

Rainbow Dash’s angry grimace dropped into a wide eyed frown, as she zoomed over to the two orange fillies, looking at the deep blue eyed one with a greater clarity.

“Did you make another filly?” Rainbow asked Scootaloo in a very worried tone.

“I-I didn’t I mean, I’m sorry Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo said miserably, bowing her head before the pegasus humbly. Meanwhile blue eyes was already across the room, trying to climb the reading lamp to reach the pull cord. Archer, Dizzie and Bee came in from the back of the library then, accompanied by Spike.

“It’s worse than that, Rainbow,” Twilight warned, stablizing the base of the wobbling lamp with a hefty gravity spell, while she walked up to Dash. “She is only Scootaloo’s progeny!”

“Proge-what?” Scootaloo and Rainbow said in unison. Twilight groaned.

“Offspring. You know, Scootaloo’s children?”

“They’re not my children,” Scootaloo suddenly insisted, “They’re my um... something!”

“I just said she made another filly,” Rainbow Dash said landing and scraping, “How is that not her children?”

“We’re the same,” Scootaloo tried to explain, “We’re like... I’m not a– I’m not a mom!”

“Progeny,” Twilight repeated, “Is a superset of the term children or offspring. Progeny refers to any direct descendent, such as grandchildren or great-grandchildren.”

Scootaloo actually hovered there, buzzing angry and blushing shouting, “I’m not a grandma!!”

“I’m confused,” Rainbow Dash said shaking her head. She didn’t qualify that, but then she didn’t really need to qualify that. The whole situation was just flat out exactly what she said: confused.

Twilight took in a breath, then shouted, “HEY, don’t—!” as she saw the nameless filly out of the corner of her eye started scooping dirt out from her plant pot.

“Scootaloo, please I need to—with Dash...” Twilight said exasperatedly, waving a hoof at the new blue eyed filly urgently. Scootaloo just nodded, and rushed over to the filly, grabbing her hoof and holding her still to brush the dirt off of it.

Twilight turned back to Rainbow Dash, took in another breath and... nothing disastrous happened. Good. “You remember Bee, right?” Twilight said, pointing at the red filly, who was chewing on a book much more sedately than— “Hold on one second,” Twilight snapped, charging over to Bee and yanking the book out of her mouth. “Stop that!” she said.

Bee began to cry.

Twilight whimpered, looking at Bee sitting there bawling abruptly, and looking at the book in her magic all slimy with Bee’s saliva. “11th edition...” she said in an unimpressed tone, then she unhappily floated the book back over to Bee who grabbed it and started sucking on it immediately. She didn’t look happy, but she couldn’t exactly cry with a book in her mouth.

Returning to Rainbow Dash Twilight said, “Rainbow Dash, I—”

“Dizzie ran outside!” Scootaloo shouted, running out the door after her.

Twilight groaned. She just grabbed Rainbow Dash’s head and said, “Ask Spike what happened.” Then Twilight rushed over to blue eyes, trying to stop her from getting into trouble while Scootaloo was busy with Dizzie.

While Twilight went to chase after that rambunctious looking uh, Scootafilly, Rainbow Dash gave the whole scene a puzzled look, then looked down and to her left. The magic purple dragon who seemed just as flabbergasted as she was then looked to his right, and up. The two of them shared a glance.

“So, uh...” Rainbow Dash prompted hesitantly.

Spike jumped right into it, throwing up his arms saying, “That red filly with the yellow mane is a monster! She woke me up snooping around the kitchen this morning, and I thought she was just hungry! When I started taking out the food though, she just ate it like that! She cleaned out the whole freaking refrigerator, and let me tell you she was round, and then her mouth just opens up and this this thing pops out of it and—”

“Oh yeah, they do that,” Rainbow Dash said with an awkward smile. “Didn’t Twilight tell you?”

“No!” Spike shouted outraged, “And then there were two of them! The new one just went crazy making a mess and dropping all the potholders on me, then the first one starts going for the pantry! It was all I could do to fend it off!”

“Alright, so what do we need to do?” Dash asked, taking an active look at the scene. Bee had actually managed to get the book open and was hoofing through its pages with limited success. Scootaloo came in with Dizzie, and Archer also came in behind them. Twilight had that new filly stuck in her magic again while the filly squealed and thrashed around like a newborn. Which she technically was. And Spike was just shrugging his shoulders.

Dash smiled smugly, crouching saying, “Don’t worry Spike, I know exactly what to do.”

She then darted up to Twilight, and started hopping on her hooves going, “Twilight what do we dooo?”

“Get everypony to the center of the lobby,” Twilight instructed. “We need to all calm down and think of a solution to this huge disaster.”

“Huge disaster?”

“Just, help me round them up, O.K.?”

Rainbow Dash managed to capture the attention of the new filly, mostly by literally capturing her in her hooves and holding on. The filly calmed down, but now she wouldn’t stop licking Rainbow. It was embarassing really, the sort of thing a filly doesn’t do with anyone but her mom, and certainly not a complete stranger like Rainbow Dash. Rainbow tolerated it though, because it seemed like the only way to keep that filly’s attention, and she honestly didn’t mind the damp chest fur too much. 

Archer and Scootaloo both had an easy time reining in Dizzie and Bee respectively. Spike was going to clean up the library, but Twilight insisted that he hear this, considering what a disaster it was when she had forgotten to tell him last night.

So before anypony could speak, Rainbow raised her hoof. Twilight gave her a look but didn’t call on her, so Rainbow waved it around to make sure Twilight knew about it. “What is it, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight said tiredly.

“I know this is weird, but a disaster?” she asked, “I mean, it’s just a filly. We already got eleven of them!”

“That’s actually a good place for me to start!” Twilight said brightening up and going into... oh boy, lecture mode.

“While I can’t hope to begin to understand Scootaloo’s unique morphology in a single afternoon, one thing has come to my attention that is very serious, and possibly precipitates a disastrous situation. I had thought that despite her age and appearance that Scootaloo was a mature example of her particular kind. It turns out I was correct but still underestimating the gravity of the situation. You see, Scootaloo’s... pony kind let’s say, does not mature in just a few years, and according to Scootaloo not even in a few days, but in just a few seconds I suspect, if Rainbow Dash’s representation of events is accurate. So in other words, every filly in this room is germinal!”

Silence reigned.

“Like... germs?” Scootaloo asked hesitantly.

“Why yes!” Twilight said cheerfully, then at everyone’s flattening ears corrected herself, “Er, yes and no. You see ‘germ’ tend to refers to certain dark magic enchantments that can only piggyback on existing reproductive mechanisms in order to spread, but the origin of the word refers to any unrealized multiplication unit whether parasitic or not, such as a seed or an egg, or an idea.”

Rainbow Dash raised a hoof.

“Yes Rainbow?” Twilight prompted pleasantly.

“Could you please get to the point, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked exasperatedly.

Twilight glared at her, but did say, “My point is, that every filly in this room can produce another filly.”

“Yeah?” Dash said holding up the blue eyed orange filly. “Thus Licky Loo here?” She even got a snicker out of Scootaloo with that name.

“This is serious, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight exclaimed. “How are you not getting this? Every filly in this room can produce another filly. And those fillies can produce another filly. How many fillies do there have to be before you figure it out!”

Twilight didn’t have to be so mean though, because Rainbow Dash totally already figured it all out. She just sort of pretended to have a growing look of shock and dread as the implications finally started to hit her. Just to make Twilight feel like Rainbow was too dumb to figure it out on her own. All part of the coolness plan, labeled Plan Cool. Yup.

“How old did you say you were, Scootaloo?” Rainbow squeaked, looking down at the filly.

“10 but... I mean, there were me’s before. I just... it’s hard to remember them all that clearly. I think maybe... 3 winters? 13? 20?”

“Biologically she is 21, give or take a few months,” Twilight pointed out. “Though I suspect the same would be said for the newborn filly you hold in your hooves.”

“21, okay,” Dash said calmly and not hyperventilating, “And how often do you uh... this?” she held up the filly before Scootaloo, who blushed and said,

“I try not to, so... um... I mean it’s easy to mess up though because I get hungry, and there’s all of us and stuff, so I guess... a few times a month? Hopefully less?”

Placing Licky on her back, Rainbow Dash started counting with her hooves. She looked up at Twilight and said, “Say uh, do you have an a-abacus? I just you know, just curious.”

Curious herself, Twilight opened a drawer and fumbled through it, pulling out a standard 10 cell abacus, offering it to Rainbow Dash, who started ticking the beads with her nose while shifting her hooves. First the upper right cell, then moving to the upper left, then the lower left, and even the lower right. As might be expected, Rainbow Dash was multiplying by two. She ran out of beads, and stared at the abacus.

Twilight raised a hoof, “Rainbow, do you—”

“How are we still alive?!” she yelled, her head shooting up to stare at Twilight questioningly.

Twilight blinked. Come on, it was a simple question. “Come on, you know?” Rainbow Dash said to Twilight, pointing at Scootaloo, “This?” and then to the filly on her back, “Then this? How are we not completely buried in fillies by now?”

“I... don’t...” Twilight furrowed her brow, “I... don’t know...” She looked at Scootaloo an uncomfortably long time.

“Well?” Twilight asked demandingly.

“Well what?” Scootaloo said in understandable confusion.

“Why aren’t we buried in your progeny?”

The light dawned in Scootaloo’s eyes and she was like, “Ohhh. Remember, I was going to show you this morning?”

Twilight’s mental ‘abacus’ ticked and she blurted, “The remergence, of course!” Then she ran off leaping down the stairs to the basement, leaving the rest of them standing there without another word.

Scootaloo looked at Rainbow Dash in the quiet, asking, “...should we wait?”

“Well if I know Twilight then yeah,” Dash said, “But uh... don’t make any more fillies until she comes back okay?” Scootaloo blushed and nodded acceptingly.

Twilight was thankfully back post-haste, before any fillies could get worked up enough to start ricocheting about the library. She shouted from down the stairs, “Everything is fully prepared! Everypony down into the laboratory!”

So once again they entered the artificially lit depths beneath Twilight’s tree library.

Things looked a little less uninteresting this time around. Instead of just an examination table, Twilight had her fancy scanner machine all set up. Her brain activity monitor was on the other side of the table with its brightly blinking lights, the needle still over its continuously feeding paper reel. There was a wand with a knob on it delivering a pink lit wall of light that swept back and forth across the table.

“Alright, hop up you two!” Twilight addressed the fillies. Archer actually threw Bee up onto the table, though Bee didn’t protest as such, just landing softly up there. Twilight picked up Archer and put her on the table. The two winced as the beam crossed them, the light dancing in their eyes. Twilight started fitting those brightly lit brain caps on both their heads. Clearly she was intending to measure every single inch of this... whatever this is. Scootaloo tried to pull Dizzie up on her own merit, but she just didn’t have the wingpower, so Dash helpfully lifted Dizzie onto the table while Scootaloo took her place beside her.

There was something bothering Rainbow Dash about this whole thing but she couldn’t put her hoof on it. Just a vaguely creeping unsettling feeling. The spooky atmosphere didn’t help much either. Licky on her back didn’t seem to mind. Seemed she’d exhausted herself this morning, and was now pretty konked out back there.

“We’re both going to do it,” Scootaloo said when Twilight looked at her questioningly. “Me and Archer I mean. I’ve been, I mean, Dizzie has been outside too long already, and I was meaning to do it anyway. It’s just a good time right now, so might as well. That way we can get Bee with Archer and Dizzie and me, so two less fillies.”

“I suppose that’s reasonable,” Twilight said agreeably, “Whatever you’re most comfortable with!”

Scootaloo actually smiled at that, saying “Thanks Miss Twilight! I was hoping Dizzie would have a chance to be me soon.”

“Wait,”Rainbow Dash asked fidgeting uncomfortably, “After this are you going to be Dizzie or are you going to be Scootaloo?” 

“Oh, I’ll stay me Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo assured her, “Dizzie is the only one who’s going away.”

That was it. That was what was bothering Rainbow Dash. “S-so Dizzie is going to like, die? I mean, you’re going to just... kill her?”

Scootaloo took a long time to answer that. Rainbow’s heart was practically in her throat when the squirt answered, “No, I’m not going to kill her. She’s just going inside. I mean she can come out again later,” Scootaloo looked away and added, “...probably.”

“Please Scootaloo,” Twilight said in a hurt tone, “You’re even confusing me now. You aren’t going to fuse into a combined filly? Or, incorporate Dizzie somehow? Or, what is it that you do even?”

Scootaloo gave Archer, who was hugging Bee tightly, a scared look on Archer’s muzzle. The pink glowing beam of light continued to pass over the four of them repeatedly.

“Twilight, could you stop that... light thing?” Rainbow Dash said, waving her hoof in the wand’s path.

“Well it is a bit unorthodox and there probably won’t be any thaumaturgical transference I suppose, but, I really want to get as complete a measurement of this process as I can,” Twilight said hesitating hoofily, but finally she lit up her horn and zapped the wand, which turned from a scanning beam to just a steady pink glow. “There, that should be better,” Twilight said. “I don’t know why I thought sweep mode would give more accurate readings. These are living fillies not thaumatic crystals.”

“Actually the light isn’t so bad,” Archer piped up, “But could we um... remove this head... thing from Bee? I can’t do it if it’s on her; that would go pretty badly.”

Twilight frowned, but unbuckled Bee’s flashy head cap, asking Archer, “And what about your encephalomometer?” At the blank stare, Twilight gritted her teeth and added, “Your head thing.”

Archer made her head thing rattle shaking her head no, saying “No it should be fine. It’s just Bee that needs to be um... not have things.”

“What about you, Scootaloo?” Twilight said brandishing the encephalothingy with her magic. Scootaloo nodded, saying, “I could wear that too. It records my thoughts, right?”

“Your brain activity, specifically,” Twilight said, “Concrete thoughts take a good deal of decoding and guesswork though. Everypony’s brain is different after all.” She lifted a sheaf of paper showing some skitchy lines in it, holding it before Scootaloo saying, “But this for instance is what it measured from Archer when you climbed on the table, and, Archer look at Scootaloo please.” Twilight waited another moment and held up a similar set of skitch lines, saying, “See how they’re similar? That is Archer’s mental activity when recognizing you, her ‘picture’ of you in her head so to speak.”

“Wow,” Archer said looking at the skitches with wide eyes. “So that’s what I’m thinking?”

“Yeah yeah, okay Twilight you can put it on me,” Scootaloo said, waving a hoof to shush Archer’s curiosity and presenting her ragged purple mop for Twilight. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Twilight looked at Archer sympathetically, but Archer rested her head on Bee’s shoulder and sighed, “She’s right, let’s do this,” she said determinedly.

“I’m still not okay with this,” Rainbow complained as Twilight fastened the enc-head thingy on Scootaloo. “You can’t just make a filly go away like that. It isn’t right. What about her hopes and dreams?”

“We don’t have hopes and dreams,” Archer said, horrifyingly plainly, “Until being out for a while. It’s kind of feels bad actually at first, like you’re not really someone.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until she uh, has them then?” Dash said, her tail flicking with worry.

“But I thought you didn’t want to destroy her hopes and dreams?” Scootaloo protested confusedly. “Why make them if you’re just going to go back in again?”

“I guess you’re right,” Rainbow admitted, shrinking back a little despite herself. “Just... I mean... won’t they be scared?” she said in too little a voice for the coolest pegasus south of Cloudsdale. 

Scootaloo laughed.

Like, caught off guard laughing. Actual genuine humor in what Dash said. While Rainbow fretted, and Twilight was on the other side of the room adjusting some knobs and dials, Scootaloo hugged Dizzie to her, who in turn nuzzled Scootaloo affectionately, and Scootaloo laughed.

“Are you kidding?” Scoots said to Rainbow, “It’s the opposite of scared! Sometimes we go in just to feel better, um... I mean if I have a lot of stress and stuff... on my mind, you know.” Scootaloo blushed heavily. It made Dash feel a little bad for pushing the question.

“It’s okay to be scared,” Rainbow Dash said, putting a hoof on Scootaloo’s shoulder, looking at her and Dizzie. Dash swallowed then, and puffed out her powder blue chest, saying, “If it really honestly helps you, then I can’t say I have a problem with it, and...”

“...I’m scared too sometimes,” Dash continued, turning aside since saying that made a blush hit her own face. “It’s I mean... it’s just kind of weird. I’m not used to freaky stuff like... I mean...” every word she said just seemed to crush Scootaloo a little more, no matter how hard she wanted to comfort the filly. “I mean, never mind! I’m totally cool with it, don’t worry,” she said, wondering why she even had to open her fat mouth. “Shutting up now,” she mumbled, closely checking her hooves for scuff marks.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, Scootaloo,” Twilight said softly coming up to the table again. The flashy blinking lights seemed to accentuate her features making her look just a bit terrifying. But her tone of voice wasn’t. It was accepting and gentle, not judging the filly or ragging on her decision one way or the other. It would really be easy for the squirt just to say, “Okay I won’t.”

“No, I do,” Scootaloo said. Or that.

“Don’t worry I do this all the time,” Scoots clarified, “It’s not exactly the sort of thing I can skip out on. I either do it now, or ...later, when nopony is watching. You actually sound like you want to watch though, so I’ll ...try to be brave.” Scoots was fighting hard to hold back a quaver in her voice, Rainbow could tell, but... it wouldn’t have been honest with Scootaloo, to deny her desire to put on a brave face. Sometimes the truth isn’t so much what’s said out loud, as expressing what you feel inside.

“I would really appreciate it, Scootaloo,” Twilight said with a hint of eagerness she didn’t even try to hide. “Finding out what makes ponies tick is something I love to do, because it means I might be able to help you in the future, and I’ll have the knowledge needed to make the right decision.”

“Alright then, Archer?” Archer looked at Scootaloo. “You ready?” Scootaloo said. Archer nodded silently, turning to Bee and wuffling her messy yellow curls. Twilight hurried over to the scanner, checking it and adjusting it, attaching it to some sort of a pulsing crystal thing and staying there watching its measurement and display of the insides of those four fillies.

“Let’s do it together,” Scootaloo said, “On three, okay?” Archer nodded again and smiled in almost what looked like relief.

“One, two, three!”

Rainbow Dash woke up screaming from yet another nightmare of what she saw that night.

No, no not really. It was really really weird though, and Dash may have had her empty stomach lurch unsettlingly at the sight, but that wasn’t because she found it indescribably horrifically disturbing, but it was just because she missed breakfast. That’s all. There was a Twishield blocking the door to the kitchen! It was only natural to have some digestive complaintoh Celestia that is bucking... oughh

Fillies are, after all, mostly head, which made what happened especially hard to swallow. The first thing Scootaloo and Archer did was open their mouths ginormously like that one time, and they actually managed to bring them down around Dizzie and Bee’s heads, engulfing them entirely. Then Scoots and Archer’s heads jerked up sharply in a practiced, no a reflexive motion, lifting the other fillies right off their hooves, bodily into the air above them, both their eyes losing focus as they did so.

The fillies didn’t even struggle at all. Dizzie just sunk down into Scootaloo’s maw, her torso descending into the bizarrely distending filly underneath her, and likewise Bee to Archer. Scootaloo’s and Archer’s mouths closed almost simultaneously—the whole thing had happened within a few seconds—leaving only the powder blue and yellow tails limply hanging out of their mouths. Scootaloo looked at Dash immediately after she closed her mouth, in a desperate pleading fashion. Both their bulging throats and bellies started to shrink to their old proportions, the fillies gaining far too little in size for the amount that their guts were contracting. 

Rainbow Dash was frantically trying to withhold her urge to throw up, because Scootaloo was looking at her and she couldn’t do that to the the filly... the whatever she was. But when Scootaloo slurped up that tail into her like a mouthful of spaghetti Dash had to cover her mouth as her stomach convulsed and she hurked, the awful taste of bile rising up in her throat. She forced herself to swallow and brought her hoof down, trying to smile at the fillies, the two fillies that were just four a minute ago. It was too late to save face though; Scootaloo’s eyes shone with hurt and turned away from Dash, the filly wrapping a hoof around her own belly as if to compress it down faster.

It wasn’t until after it was all the way done that Scootaloo started to cry though.

Twilight Sparkle actually leapt back in shock when the fillies closed their mouths on the other fillies. Her head was spinning too fast for her to really take in what was happening. These fillies weren’t merging they were consuming. This was impossible. This was ridiculous! This was

Incredibly fascinating.

The musculature changes she observed in her scans were so much more believable to see them in action. The fillies seemed to be destroying the mass somehow as the other fillies digested within them at a visible speed. You could see their features immediately lose definition from within the distended bodies of Scootaloo and Archer, even before their torsoes were ingested. Of course they would be ingested. She had thought they would just merge together by close skin contact, but that wasn’t how they were created. They didn’t reproduce by budding, so why would they deproduce by merging? It made perfect sense in the same way that lightning being trapped inside an electrical wire made perfect sense, which is to say it didn’t make any sense at all, and yet there it was happening in front of her, completely self evident.

She almost forgot to look at the scanner, she was so fascinated with this bizarre ingestion process. By the time she did examine the scanner, there were barely more than two fillies at all. The others had completely lost any bone density or muscle definition, and were already just shapeless masses that diminished inside Scootaloo and Archer’s digestive cavity as if it were vanishing into thin air. The process halted then, before the other fillies were gone entirely, but the two remaining fillies had their normal proportions again, and what remained was nothing more than enough amorphous material to fill their stomachs on the scanner. She noticed also that the fillies had stomachs again, or at least some organ which held the appearance of one. Those and the throat had seemed to mesh together into a single compartment during the process, at least phylogenically.

It was maddeningly frustrating that she didn’t get to see the first crucial moments of their dissolution in the scanner, but well, that’s why she had the recording crystal hooked to its auxiliary line. She looked from the recovering fillies to the scanner, back to the fillies again. Scootaloo seemed to recover more quickly than Archer, though neither seemed inclined to stand up. Twilight’s ear turned toward wretching noises, and she quickly glanced over to see where Rainbow Dash was standing... barely standing. Dash didn’t look so good.

Twilight couldn’t spare a moment for thought on that though, as her attention was fixated on the two fillies who might yet display some unique property characteristic of their feeding cycle. Even as it seemed to be completed there could still be internal physiological reactions found in no other ponykind. And sure enough, Scootaloo began becoming emotional, crying softly and slumping down. It wasn’t exactly a unique reaction, but it was one a pony would not normally display after disintegrating a filly inside her gullet.

It was then that Twilight realized that Scootaloo was crying on the examination table. Twilight’s eyes softened then deepened with worry as she looked from Scootaloo to her notes on “spontaneous emotional expression”. She let her clipboard drop and looked at Scootaloo again, walking a step forward. Why was Scootaloo so upset? And why hadn’t Twilight even noticed?

Before she could say anything to comfort the filly though, Twilight was struck by an observation about herself. About the unassuming looking purple unicorn in the corner. Her observation was that this unicorn had just observed two fillies disintegrating in front of her and hadn’t even batted an eye. That this unicorn had in her ignorance encouraged it, and somehow not found it upsetting. Twilight began to shake as she realized that this unicorn had been so absorbed with the implications and the discoveries she could make that she had forgotten entirely that these were real living fillies involved, and now they were if not dead, certainly no longer alive. A strange unicorn indeed who couldn’t even understand why Scootaloo might be crying.

“Scootaloo, are you—” Dash said hoarsely.

“I’M FINE!” Twilight shouted. She looked at Dash. She couldn’t meet Dash’s eyes. Those soulful expressive eyes that looked right into you, the very color of Twilight’s magic. “I’ll be right back!” Twilight shot out, then galloped up the stairs. She didn’t stop to gasp for breath until she had left the library entirely and collapsed on the grass outside, the merry morning sunlight shining down tinted by the color of her very own meticulously constructed shield spell.

Meanwhile down in the Twicave, Rainbow Dash was feeling seriously apprehensive. As if Scootaloo ever crying at all wasn’t odd enough, as if Twilight’s sudden departure wasn’t odd enough, Rainbow Dash found it really odd how Twilight’s fleeing actually made Scootaloo cry less. Scootaloo watched the fleeing mare, sniffling and rubbing at her nose and quieting down, yet looking even gloomier somehow. Archer seemed sad enough as-is, but Scootaloo, Dash just didn’t know what to think about.

Ignoring her apprehension and nervous hooves Rainbow Dash walked up to the examination table saying, “Hey, Scootaloo. It’s okay to be upset I don’t mind, really. That was... yeah I can’t even... I mean, if you want to talk about how you feel, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

Scootaloo smiled somehow and laughed through her own tears. “I-it’s silly really,” she sniffed, “It’s just that Dizzie, she...” and then Scootaloo got this haunted look on her face looking up at Rainbow. “S-she really did think we were never coming back again,” Scootaloo said choking back a sob as she finished the sentence, just struggling there to retain her composure in front of her idol. That’s who Dash was to Scootaloo, even after all this.

Rainbow Dash didn’t know what to do, so she just went with what she wanted to do. She lifted a foreleg towards Scootaloo invitingly saying, “Hey squirt, uh, if you promise not to eat my head, you kinda look like you could maybe use a hug.”

Scootaloo didn’t even make it standing, just staggered forward and fell onto Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. It quickly grew damp again despite having been out of the rain for an entire half day, just mysterious water appearing from nowhere, no doubt. Dash looked at Archer who just shook her head and stayed put. Then she lay one of her hooves across Scootaloo’s back and just held her softly while the pegasus quietly cried her eyes out. There was only one coherent thing Scootaloo managed to whisper,

“She was so scared...”
> Regrets
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Three of them. There were three of them now. One of them was Scootaloo, one was Archer and the third had finally worn herself out again, and had fallen asleep right in the middle of the day, upstairs on the second floor of the library. Twilight was sitting right up next to the very orange sleeping filly, worrying now about where Scootaloo and Archer were.

Scootaloo and Archer had gone to... school, if that were even conceivable. But they’d gone to school every other day of their lives living like this, so why not today? Scootaloo swore up and down that this new filly had no supernatural ability to get past locks, chains, magical wards, or any sort of deterrant, and that she must simply not be given food, if not expected to multiply, so all Twilight had to do is watch her and put a lock on the cabinet. It was almost too easy.

Rainbow Dash had gone to work, after a short trip to the orphanage to let them know that Scootaloo was safe, and that she and Twilight had had a good long talk with Scootaloo’s “family” about doing this sort of thing. That statement was literally true, despite the confusion in addressing Archer as the closest thing Scootaloo had to a sister, or, the closest thing she had to a daughter. By extension, Scootaloo would be a grandma, since despite her daughter/sister having consumed her daughter/sister, her daughter/sister’s daughter/sister still remained alive. Which by extension should have disqualified her for adoption due to being a 1001 year old adult mare, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth. And, by extension this was starting to give Twilight Sparkle a headache.

She had the new filly under close supervision right now. Twilight was curled protectively around her on the floor, not willing to attempt to get the filly to bed for fear of waking her up again. This filly was very rambunctious and active, much like Scootaloo, but with a more mischevious streak to her, which made her even more trouble to deal with. Twilight wondered whether they were all born like this, or whether the filly was already displaying distinctive personality traits. One more experiment to go on Twilight’s docket. Not that she was going to experiment on this filly. No more of that. No more of that ever again.

Licky awoke eventually, and yes the name stuck, and lifted her head. Licky then startled Twilight out of her wits by immediately murmuring sleepily, “Where...?”

“You’re talking, Licky!” Twilight exclaimed in astonishment.

Licky looked at Twilight as if she was crazy and said, “I’m not...” and then... the light just died in her eyes. Her face contorted in confusion and she struggled to her hooves, backing up from Twilight and looking up at her warily. “Uhh?” she said inarticulately, in a completely different voice.

Twilight snapped out of her horrified daze and said as gently as she could, “It’s okay. I’m Twilight Sparkle. You’re safe here, but please don’t eat anything.”

It was the thirteenth time Twilight had said that phrase today, but Licky had never spoken before. She wasn’t supposed to be able to speak, even though she was supposed to be able to speak. The filly immediately cantered off, and Twilight grimaced ruefully, trying to remember where she kept the paracetamol. Twilight was honestly surprised that she wasn’t hallucinating, seeing Licky as being simultaneously blue and green, with how that filly just seemed to defy all logic and reason, but thankfully the retreating orange-tailed butt was most certainly and mundanely orange colored.

Scootaloo had tried to explain what Twilight was up against, ‘what’ being a 21 year newborn infant with full control over her musculature and access to all of Scootaloo’s memories, barring those after a few days ago when Scootaloo ...emitted Bee. Yet somehow, Licky was to have no inclination or impetus to use those memories, and a near complete inability to retain new ones. At least that’s what Twilight was inferring from her observations, and from Scootaloo’s casual observation that “They don’t really remember stuff yet.” She wasn’t convinced that Scootaloo was even fully aware of her own nature though, because some things just weren’t adding up.

Unfortunately, this thrilling learning experience was entirely preventing Twilight Sparkle from leaving the library. She did, in fact, occasionally have very important reasons to depart from this giant treelike book fort, and one of those reasons today was Pinkie Pie. The earth pony hadn’t come back to the library since that evening, and Twilight was pretty much absolutely certain that, left unchecked, Pinkie Pie would do something over the top and drastic at the worst possible moment. It was Pinkie Pie, after all. Twilight told Rainbow Dash to put the school on Pink alert, and to find Pinkie Pie at all costs, but that wasn’t Twilight Sparkle out there looking for the elusive party pony. Twilight felt guilty for not being able to help there, especially considering she accidentally brought Pinkie into the loop in the first place. Rainbow Dash could be halfway across Ponyville in two shakes of a tail, but Pinkie consistently seemed to be able to get the drop on her somehow. Twilight wasn’t sure if anypony alone could find Pinkie Pie, when she didn’t want to be found.

Nevertheless, being bound to a severely retarded filly didn’t mean Twilight was entirely helpless. She made good use of all the powers of arcane sorcery at her command, summoning every book in the library on ancient history, arthropology, equitology, ponypology and comparative anatomy to read through them searching for some clue to the origin of Scootaloo’s, and now this Licky filly’s bizarre anatomical differences from an ordinary pegasus. Twilight knew she wouldn’t find anything. There were so many gaps in the pre-Discordian records that Scootaloo was sure to fall squarely in the middle of one of them. But that was a good thing, because it meant Twilight had discovered something nopony knew before, and could help everypony if she could just understand where it lay in the grand scheme of things.

She and her floating entourage of books followed Licky downstairs, finding the filly walking in circles on the table around the equibust, looking at it with interest again. Licky seemed to want to do that every time she entered the lobby. Twilight hadn’t the slightest idea why. There were a lot of repetitive yet complex behaviors that the filly engaged in seemingly without rhyme or reason. It was possible Licky was attempting to integrate the memories of Scootaloo, but she certainly wasn’t succeeding. The best thing Twilight could think to do for somepony like this is just to let the orange filly run around on her own and explore, hoping maybe something will stick, and making sure she didn’t get into anything dangerous, or damage any books. For the most part, Twilight was succeeding.

Spike was already jealous of Licky, that much was obvious. Thankfully Twilight had managed to coax him into leaving the library, instead of getting exasperated at him continuing to try to recreate his own infancy to make himself a more attractive target than Licky. She couldn’t just tell him to leave of course, because that in his mind meant that she was placing him below Licky in the dragon hierarchy. But Twilight had plenty of experience with a dragon’s thought process, and all it took was a slight suggestion that a certain snow white friend of hers would appreciate his company, and he could go over and help her if he was a really good boy, and now Spike was Rarity’s problem.

Licky was tiring out more quickly this time. She sauntered from library wing to library wing, gallopping forward but then shuffling her hooves sluggishly. Twilight didn’t let her run outside freely, as she was worried about losing track of the filly, and worried about Licky’s inability to process information. Any ponies who tried to talk to Licky, or significantly interact with her would immediately become suspicious. Twilight was really curious how Scootaloo had dealt with that for so long. One more question to go on the mental checklist.

The library was still closed, and some ponies kept coming in to complain. Twilight quickly hurried them back out, and there had been no dangerous close calls so far. Twilight eventually hung the “CAUTION: IMPORTANT MAGICAL EXPERIMENT” sign by the door, after which no ponies came to complain, or came willingly within 300 meters of the tree. Twilight wasn’t totally heartless about those denied library goers; she felt very guilty about it, and resolved once more to get her own separate research complex for experimentation, and to get this town a real librarian. All Twilight had to do was find somepony as organized as she was, to manage the library. Yup, any day now.

Licky stopped running again, and her stomach growled loudly enough for Twilight to hear from ten steps away. The filly plopped her butt on the floor and looked down at her own stomach in confusion, holding a hoof around it. Then she started to hiccup, then cry. Twilight dropped her books and rushed forward, settling down to pull the filly into a hug telling her again, “I’m sorry Licky, but no eating remember?”

Licky quieted at that and sniffled, but then she started to cry harder, a thin wail of resigned despair. This filly knew she couldn’t eat, but couldn’t understand why. No, that wasn’t quite it. This filly understood why she couldn’t eat, but couldn’t know it. It was a completely alien experience that Twilight could hardly even imagine what it was like to go through. Twilight tried to comfort Licky with words and hugs, but it was just no use.

In all this, Twilight Sparkle was desperately trying not to ponypomorphize. She had no idea what the dietary requirements of this tribe were, only that “too much” meant spontaneous instantaneous reproduction. But how much was too much? Twilight couldn’t feed her anything without knowing that! The only pony who knew what was happening with Licky’s appetite and how to fix it was Scootaloo, and she wasn’t coming back until late in the afternoon. If only there was some way to get some word to Scootaloo. Some sort of messenger. Of course!

“Spike!” Twilight called out brightly. “Spiiiike?” Then her ears went flat. Of course. She just had to go and do that, didn’t she. And now Spike was a quarter of the way across town with Rarity. It’d be totally thoughtless of Twilight though, to tear him away, just so she could keep an eye on Licky while using him as a messenger boy. Twilight sighed indecisively, and nuzzled the whimpering filly. Licky’s hair was so soft, in long bouncy curls not anything like Scootaloo’s. Her skin was baby smooth. She really had been created just this morning. Being so close to Licky really drove that home for Twilight. Licky stopped crying and got up again eventually, and walked away from Twilight, but just ...listlessly in a downtrodden daze.

Scootaloo or no Scootaloo, this filly needed to eat. Every filly needed to eat something at some point, and this filly had eaten nothing at any point. Since her ill timed conception she had been gallopping around constantly, only stopping long enough to fall asleep. She was running on fumes now; a filly just can’t stay that active and not eat any breakfast or lunch.

Twilight firmed her resolve. This simply could not stand. She curtly levitated Licky onto her back, and carried the wiggly filly down back towards the kitchen area, a giddy smile trying to fight its way onto Twilight’s composed face. It was time to experiment. As soon as the kitchen came into sight, Licky jumped off of Twilight’s back and ran in the other direction.

Wait, what?

Twilight chased after Licky, who had only gone around the corner before slumping down again. Twilight again tried to carry the filly into the kitchen, but Licky gave a distressed sound and jumped off, running away again, making Twilight about face and follow after the filly again.

“Come... on!” Twilight griped, sliding Licky bodily towards the kitchen, just pushing the filly with her blunt tipped forehead. Licky started crying again as she saw the kitchen, resisting every move towards it. “I’m trying... to feed you!” Twilight exclaimed, and then Licky jumped up and ran around her, going into the other room again. Twilight just stopped, turned her head and looked where Licky went, attempting in vain to understand what was going on in that filly’s head. Twilight looked toward the kitchen area, the shield ward having been since dispelled, but the food securely locked away through more mundane means. Nothing Licky could get into, but surely Licky would want to go in there? She hesitated uncertainly.

Then Twilight darted into the kitchen alone. She immediately went to the pantry, fumbling with the lock until it clicked open, then peering inside. She grabbed a bag of quackers, hesitating and then setting the hefty bag down, undoing its tie and pulling it open. With her magic she levitated out precisely one half dozen quackers, stacking the thin grassy wafers neatly in midair, then tied up the bag again and stuck it back in the pantry. She made sure the lock clicked closed securely, then turned to see if Licky had followed her.

Licky, as it turns out, had followed her to the entrance to the kitchen, but was merely peering at her fearfully around the edge of the archway. As soon as Twilight met the filly’s gaze, Licky ducked out of the way and her hoofsteps could be heard clattering away. With her magically levitated food package in tow, Twilight followed the blue eyed pegasus to where she’d run back into the main lobby.

Licky was sitting in there with her back to Twilight, and Twilight said, “Licky! Licky? Licky Loo?” but of course Licky didn’t know her own name. It was just what Twilight was calling her for now, after Dash thought it up. Which really was all that a name was, when you think about it. Twilight circled carefully around to where she could look Licky face to face.

“Look, see?” Twilight demonstrated waving one in front of her. “Quackers!” Licky was captivated by the floating wafer, so Twilight placed it on the ground in front of her. “You can eat it, see?” Twilight explained. Licky carefully put her front right hoof down on the fallen wafer. Then she pushed it away. Then she looked at it hungrily, and started crying again, then tore her eyes away again.

“Please, Licky,” Twilight begged sliding the quacker back towards her. “You’re miserable! You need to eat something!”

Licky just shied away from it giving Twilight a fearful look.

Twilight was grasping at straws at this point. Did you have to say something to get them to eat? “I promise I won’t feed you too much, Licky,” she said to the filly. “Just a little, not too much!”

Licky stared at the quacker, and then at Twilight, and then at last she picked up the quacker in both hooves and started nibbling at it. Once she finished, Twilight levitated another quacker towards her, to which Licky shied back looking fearfully at Twilight.

How in Equestria had Spike managed to feed one of these a whole head of lettuce?

“It’s not too much,” Twilight said, “Look, there were only twelve, see? It won’t make you fructify.”

Hesitantly, Licky lifted the second quacker, and started munching on it in the exact same practiced motion as before. She ate a third quacker more readily. Twilight was almost totally sure that there wasn’t a fraction of the biomass you would need to construct a filly from whole cloth in a light snack like this. So she started hovering the fourth quacker over, right when the front door to the library opened behind her, and she heard Scootaloo’s voice call out admonishingly,

“Miss Twilight!”

Twilight Sparkle winced, dropping the quacker guiltily. “Oh hello Scootaloo,” she said in a forced cheerful voice, turning to look over her shoulder where Scootaloo had just walked in. “What are you doing here so earl—”

Twilight’s heart stopped.

School was a drag, but it sure beat sitting around doing nothing all the time. Contrary to popular belief, Scootaloo did hunger to learn stuff about the world. Plus it was only at school that Scootaloo could find her friends, her real friends that really cared about her, not just her... others. Scootaloo loved them all, but there was something to be said for a foal who would be your friend by choice, instead of as a matter of instinct and necessity.

Scootaloo was feeling lots better this morning having finally taken Dizzie inside and been let inside. That embarassing bit of crying was sort of cathartic. It was so much better being Scootaloo, and not being some nobody filly who doesn’t even know what’s going on. When the rainbow eagle horse stole Scootaloo away, and left her with Bee all alone with the big lightning and thunder crashing overhead, she was sure that was it. That was the last she’d ever see Scootaloo again. She was going to have to start all over.

But then Scootaloo came back! And it turned out that the rainbow eagle horse was none other than the amazing Rainbow Dash that Scootaloo loved so much. Dizzie loved her so much that she got to even sleep with her in a real bed for the very first time again, with the sounds of Rainbow Dash’s heartbeat lulling her to sleep, and then the sounds of Rainbow Dash’s snoring lulling her away from sleep. Luckily Dizzie figured out that if you sat on Rainbow Dash’s chest and stuck your head under her chin, it made her a lot quieter. She honestly wondered if she would ever have had the guts to do something like that as Scootaloo.

So even though Dizzie had been so scared, it was still a relief to be Scootaloo again. She felt more like herself that way, more like she was somepony. And her greatest most amazing sister in the whole world knew about her secret, and didn’t hate it! Scootaloo had dreaded that moment for so long, but now it was just, well, it was all going to be O.K!

Probably the best thing about it was that Scootaloo was so very full now. Scootaloo was usually pretty full, but Dizzie always had had to be hungry all the time, because she didn’t want to make too many. And at last, that gnawing hunger was a thing of the past, because she was safely Scootaloo once again, and Scootaloo could actually eat when she got hungry.

Scootaloo wasn’t sure if it was Dizzie’s bubbly personality rubbing off on her or just her general good mood from what happened yesterday, but even when she trotted into class late, from having to have spent the morning being studied by Twilight and swallowing fillies, she just apologized sincerely, and sat down at her desk with a big dreamy smile on her face.

“Well... O.K.” Cheerilee said to Scootaloo, fiddling with the chalk stick in her lips. “But you can’t keep coming in late. You’ll miss the lesson, and it’s not fair to disrupt the rest of the class.”

“Sorry, Miss Cheerilee,” Scootaloo said abashedly. “I was uh, studying with Twilight. It took a little too long.”

Cheerilee raised an eyebrow, and Scootaloo blurted out, “I was! You can just ask her!”

“Yes well,” Cheerilee turned to the chalkboard, “As I was saying, the reduction of esters will produce ether subgroups, much like the oxidation of ethers will produce esters. Do you know what catalyzes ester reduction...”

Yeah, suffice to say the lesson was kind of boring. And it was really more Apple Bloom’s thing anyway. It was kind of weird too, because instead of being fascinated with how to use apples to distill oranges, Apple Bloom spent the whole class just looking at Scootaloo. Not all at once, but every time she thought Scootaloo wasn’t watching she kept sneaking glances. It couldn’t have been the... the throwing up thing, though, because Apple Bloom wasn’t looking at Archer at all only Scootaloo, And anyway, the only ones who knew were Rainbow Dash, Twilight and... oh yeah, Pinkie Pie.

Scootaloo swallowed nervously. She didn’t know how good Pinkie Pie was at keeping secrets, but she sure was mad at Scootaloo. Now that Scootaloo thought on it, it was incredible there hadn’t been an angry mob waiting outside the library with Pinkie at the front of it. How could Pinkie even think something like that though? Scootaloo would never k-k–do anything bad to somepony. Was Pinkie just being Pinkie? Maybe her reaction was supposed to be a joke? Scootaloo was having a hard time finding it at all funny though. It had to have been a joke though. Intolerance was one thing, but ignoring your friends and jumping to conclusions like that was something a comic book villain would do. And there was no way Pinkie Pie was one of those. Right?

Scootaloo tried to pay attention to the lesson. Something about molecule chains, something something. Her scooter didn’t even have chains. That’s what made it so robust. Carbon chains were different though, sort of more like monofilament nanotubes but a lot less cool, or useful. So instead of the lesson, she was thinking about Apple Bloom.

What if Pinkie had told her? Like just her? Maybe that’s why Apple Bloom was acting so weird? It was a scary thought that they might know and Scootaloo never got to tell them herself. What if somepony else told Apple Bloom, or Sweetie Belle? Then Scootaloo would never be able to earn their trust, because it was too late for her to tell them and they’d just think she was a big liar. Scootaloo remembered what Twilight said about Apple Bloom, her heart warming at the story of bravery and open mindedness, of her best friend, and...

Yeah, she was going to do it. She was going to tell both of them today. It was happening so fast yesterday, that she knew she had to tell them now. If she didn’t, then Scootaloo would just blink one day, and the opportunity to tell them would be gone forever. They were her friends, they deserved to know and, and she wasn’t going to hide from them like a baby.

Plus, opening up to Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle would mean that they could be friends with Archer now, too! That’d make Archer even happier about being outside and playing with Scootaloo. And maybe they could help Archer earn her cutie mark! Archer would probably want it in something sissy like flowers or something, but, maybe Sweetie Belle could help her out with that. So it wasn’t only Scootaloo who needed them to know, but Archer as well. She was sure they could keep it a secret if they Pink—if they promised, and since those two were her best friends, Scootaloo wasn’t going to keep it from them anymore.

Scootaloo was about ready to explode from anxious anticipation, when the recess bell finally rang. As the class cleared out, she zipped over to Archer in the blink of an eye. They didn’t normally hang out together or interact at school because... well, uncomfortable questions, and different friends, and stuff, so Archer was understandably nervous when Scootaloo came right up to her.

“I’m gonna do it, Archer!” Scootaloo whispered tensely to the blue pony. “I’m gonna tell Apple Bloom!”

“Wh-why?!” Archer whispered back frightfully.

“So you can be friends with them too!” Scootaloo said, “You heard about Apple Bloom and that zebra, right?”

“...no?”

Scootaloo blinked. “Oh, right. Uh, fill you in on that later, but Apple Bloom is like, super cool about it.”

“What about Sweetie Belle?” Archer said with a light blush.

“I... I don’t know, but I’m gonna tell both of them! This time I mean it!” Scootaloo asserted confidently.

Archer scraped a hoof self consciously saying, “You don’t... you don’t have to, just for...”

“Archer, I know how much you want friends,” Scootaloo said sympathetically, laying a hoof across her shoulders, “And they’re the best friends you could ever have. We gotta tell them!”

“We?!” Archer said in a quiet squeak.

Scootaloo backed up and rubbed her mane, looking aside saying, “Yeah, I could tell them myself, I guess, but I don’t know. It’s kind of important for you to be there to back me up. Plus I want to finally introduce you!”

Archer was blushing hard now and her head was tilted down totally concealing her eyes beneath her rough cut, bouncy unkempt bangs. “Uh... um...” she mumbled, almost inaudibly saying, “.......ok....”

“Great!” Scootaloo cheered, snagging Archer by the hoof, and bodily dragging her out of the classroom. If Archer squeaked in protest, the brash, purple orange filly didn’t even notice in her excitement.

Cheerilee, who had been watching the quiet exchange with interest, crossed her hoof under her chin and said, “I wonder what that was all about.” She looked out the window, where Scootaloo was buzzing away on her scooter, with Archer spooned in front of her holding onto the scooter handles, as if this were a familiar sort of thing they did all the time.

Cheerilee really didn’t know what to make of her students sometimes.





“Looks like they’re headed for the clubhouse,” Scootaloo said, catching quickly up to her two friends who were trotting through the apple orchard at a decent pace. “You know,” she repeated to the blue pony against her front, “The clubhouse that I go to sometimes?”

“Um... oh, yeah, I know where you’re talking about,” Archer responded. Her own wings were flittering unsteadily, trapped between them, as Scootaloo’s provided the power to push them along. It was kind of making Scootaloo’s chest fur tickle.

“We should catch them before they get in there,” Scootaloo decided, “I kind of need to ask their permission before letting you, you know. It’s official Crusader headquarters.”

Archer stiffened slightly, saying “Do you think I could be...”

“Well, that’s the plan!” Scootaloo said with a grin.

They skidded to a halt right as the others got to the clearing the clubhouse was in. Scootaloo jumped right off, and Archer climbed off a little more carefully, if just because she wasn’t often on scooter rides.

“Hey Apple Bloom! Sweetie Belle!” Scootaloo announced as she came around the trees to the picnic area in front of the clubhouse.

Apple Bloom actually jumped when Scootaloo said that, but she just shook her head and calmed down right away. The two of them turned to face Scootaloo, Apple Bloom saying, “Oh, hey, Scootaloo...” Sweetie just smiled nervously.

“Anyway...” Scootaloo started, crossing a hoof awkwardly, “So there’s kind of something I need to tell you. I talked with Miss Twilight about it and, well, I really need to share this with you.” She looked back, where Archer was still hiding out of sight anxiously, then looked at her two best friends. “I sort of... um...” Scootaloo was having trouble looking them in the eyes as she tried to figure out how to say it.

“Sorry, this is harder than I thought,” she said. “I kind of, well I’m not really... I mean,”

“Spit it out, Scootaloo!” Sweetie Belle said with a petulant whimper.

Scootaloo laughed at that, just a bit. “Heh heh, funny you should mention that. So I’m not... like other ...fillies.” Darn it why was she blushing so much? “Like, I’m really really weird. I um, when I eat too much it uh... well you know that one time, that pony named Archer came to school?”

Scootaloo sighed, looking over her shoulder, “You can come out already, Archer!” Reluctantly, Archer walked out to stand next to her. Scootaloo looked at Archer and said, “This is Archer. You’ve never talked to her but she knows you two. She really wants to be friends with you. Sorry, she’s kind of shy still.”

Scootaloo visibly gulped forcing herself to face forward, if only to see her friend’s hooves. “She knows you, because she knows everything I do sort of, because I sort of... I made her. She came out of me. Out of my ...mouth.”

Dragging her eyes up to their faces was probably the most difficult thing Scootaloo ever had to do. “So, pretty weird huh?” she laughed nervously. Archer was just shivering. Sweetie Belle didn’t look like she understood, or really believed Scootaloo. Her face was torn between curiosity and that anticipation of betrayal you show when you think somepony is pranking you. It could have been worse though. Scootaloo had said it, and the worst part was over. At least Apple Bloom the more grounded pony of their group had a look of pure, unadultrated horror. Wait.

“Get back!!” Apple Bloom screamed, rearing up and viciously kicking Scootaloo in the side of her head, knocking her right into Archer, the two of them going down in a heap.

“What the buck, Apple Bloom?!” Scootaloo explained, her head throbbing as she dragged herself to her feet. Apple Bloom was backing up from them, pushing Sweetie Belle with her rear. Archer took the opportunity to turn tail, while Scootaloo just stared at Apple Bloom in complete shock.

“Don’t you say mah name!!” Apple Bloom shouted angrily, planting her hooves and grounding protectively in front of a now completely terrified Sweetie Belle who had just fallen to her side with a squeak. “You ain’t gonna touch us!” She said it so intently, but even standing there Apple Bloom was shaking like a leaf.

“I’m not gonna touch you,” Scootaloo said approaching full of anger and betrayal, “I’m just gonna—”

“You cain’t!!” Apple Bloom shouted shrilly, rearing up again. Scootaloo backed up hastily, as Apple Bloom’s hooves returned to the ground. “I’ll kill you first!!” she accused with a furious snort. It hit Scootaloo like a freight train. Just the power of her words drove Scootaloo back like a spear of ice right through her heart. This can’t be happening!

“Apple Bloom,” she said furious with outrage, trying to be furious with outrage but she couldn’t keep her own voice steady, and why were her cheeks getting wet? “Why?!”

“You should die,” Apple Bloom said bitterly, spitting on the ground. “Horrible ugly awful nasty monsters like you don’t even deserve to live! Not after you—” Scootaloo just leapt at her in a blind rage, the only thought left in her head to shut up that stupid Whinneapolis mouth.

She managed to connect, smacking Apple Bloom’s face with her hoof, but that left her wide open as Apple Bloom reared up again connecting solidly with Scootaloo’s chest, the crushing blow to her rib cage knocking her back skidding against the grass. Scootaloo rushed forward again and this time Apple Bloom did too, the two of them rearing up and tangling hooves, struggling to push each other over to stomp on. Apple Bloom bit down hard on Scootaloo’s shoulder making an angry scream rip out of her as she frantically elbowed Apple Bloom hitting her in the eye to make her let go.

When they spun apart, it gave Scootaloo the opportunity to buck Apple Bloom in the flank hard enough to knock her over, but Apple Bloom just kept rolling and shot up frantically like her life depended on it. She ran at Scootaloo kicking and biting anything she could reach, as Scootaloo tried to just hurt this thing that looked like her friend. The strength and fury of the earth pony had Scootaloo at a disadvantage though, and she had to keep backing up until her hind legs were knee deep in the bushes. Apple Bloom’s eye was swelling shut, and both of them had traded a cut ear, and were developing bruises on their chest and shoulders. Scootaloo just felt hot pain in her chest, but she didn’t even care, but AGH that was her knee! Her tears burned on the bloody bite on her cheek and her shoulder felt like it was on fire. She couldn’t keep this up she had to get away!

Somehow Scootaloo found the sheer adrenalin to buck Apple Bloom in the chest shoving her back, and that was enough for Scootaloo to start running. She felt teeth clack right on the tip of her tail, and she yanked forward hard, clenching her teeth to avoid screaming in pain at the hairs ripping out in her determination to get away. “Give her back!” Apple Bloom screamed behind her as Scootaloo fled hobbling into the forest, jumping on her scooter and engaging her wings frantically.

Scootaloo buzzed away from the clearing as fast as she could go. “Give her back!!” Apple Bloom shrieked one more time, and then just collapsed, sobbing.

Scootaloo couldn’t even bear to look back.

Scootaloo had gotten into fights with Apple Bloom before, but never like that. She felt like every part of her was hurting, inside and out. She was heading to the school at first but— she couldn’t go back there. They’d see and they’d know a-and they’d ask and then... she couldn’t go there. Only Twilight already knew. Twilight would know what to do. Scootaloo slumped against her own scooter like a lifeline, angling her course more southerly towards the library, navigating the streets and avoiding obstacles for once. She couldn’t jump or do tricks, she just wanted to crawl into a hole and...

Twilight would know what to do.

The treebrary took all too long for Scootaloo’s tastes to come into view. She pulled up to it wearily, wincing with a hiss as she couldn’t put down the leg that Apple Bloom had kicked. She walked on three hooves, having to push the knob on the door with her forehead to get it open. Inside the library there was what looked like an idyllic scene, with Twilight and that new Licky Loo seated on the sun dappled floor, Twilight dedicatedly floating quackers over for Licky to eat.

“Miss Twilight!” Scootaloo shouted in an admonishing, outraged, terrified, hurt, betrayed, angry, furious, scared, unimpressed, worried, pained tone. It came out sounding just admonishing though.

“Oh hello Scootaloo,” Twilight said turning and giving her a nervous look. “What are you doing here so earl—”

There was a silence.

“Scootaloo?!” Twilight belted out at the beleagured filly, scrambling to her hooves fast as she could. She couldn’t run over fast enough, but then she pulled up short, unable to tell whether she should touch the filly. Scootaloo had abrasions and deep bruises on her chest and flank. Her left shoulder was a mass of bloody matted fur, and her right cheek had a bite mark in it so severe that the skin was hanging loose. One of her front legs wasn’t bent right; the knee was crooked and swelling up. Scootaloo had trailed blood into the library from where the torn tip of her tail dragged listlessly along the ground. “What happened?!”

“Miss Twilight,” Scootaloo said weakly taking shallow, pained breaths, “You gotta help! There’s something wrong with Apple Bloom!”

“Apple Bloom?!” Twilight exclaimed, lighting up her horn. “Where is she? Is she conscious? What did you three do?!” Not even the trebuchet disaster had been as bad as this. She readied herself to teleport immediately, the very instant Scootaloo told her where they’d all gotten hurt so badly.

“She’s fine!” Scootaloo protested contrarily, “But there’s something wrong with her! You said she would be fine! But she wasn’t!”

“Scootaloo please, calm down,” Twilight begged earnestly, “Where is she, and what is wrong with Apple Bloom? Is she O.K.?”

“She hates me!!” Scootaloo screamed, cutting off with a rough coughing that kept getting mixed up with despairing sobs. The light in Twilight’s horn died. She reached forward to touch Scootaloo’s un-bitten cheek as carefully as she could to hold the filly’s attention, looking her in those violet eyes.

“Scootaloo, what happened to you?”

“M-m–m–” Scootaloo stuttered, sniffled and buried her nose in the fur on her good shoulder, then said, “I was at recess and I told her, just like you said! And now she hates me, and I don’t know why and you were wrong, Miss Twilight!” she tried to shout, despite having such a hard time breathing.

“No, you’re hurt, Scootaloo!” Twilight corrected her, “What happened to you?”

“I t-told you,” Scootaloo said shaking, “Apple Bloom hates me!”

“No, I mean how did you get hurt?” Twilight clarified in confusion.

“I told you,” Scootaloo replied giving Twilight an angry glare, “Apple Bloom hates me!”

Twilight’s hoof dropped limply to her side.

“No,” Twilight said unbelievingly, “It can’t be. Apple Bloom did this to you?!”

Scootaloo sniffled again, and it was clear it was a bloody nose and not just a runny one. “W-we got in a fight,” she said miserably, looking to the side.

“This isn’t just a fight, Scootaloo,” Twilight chastised her, “You need to go to the hospital!”

“No!” Scootaloo actually scrambled back at that, yelping in pain as her bad hoof hit the wooden floor. “I–I can’t they would find out and then everypony would know! Then they do this to me.”

“I know you want to keep it secret, Scootaloo,” Twilight said lighting up her horn, “But this is important! Your life could be in danger! The ponies at the hospital are good people. They won’t hurt you, even if they know. Now be ready to tele—”

“Tha’s what you said about Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo shouted, her bottom sinking to the ground and her chest heaving ever so shallowly. She looked at the floor as if she was just trying to deal with the sheer amount of pain she was feeling.

Twilight’s horn died again. She backed up in shock and denial, saying “Apple... Apple Bloom? Really? Apple Bloom did this to you because you– just because you produce fillies out of your mouth?!”

Scootaloo just nodded, and her silence was telling.

“Scootaloo, we have to do something,” Twilight pressed forward again, “You can’t even put weight on your right front leg. Do you know what that does to a pony if left untreated?!”

Scootaloo breathed shallowly for a few more seconds before quietly rasping, “A-archer.”

“What?” Twilight blinked.

“Archer,” Scootaloo repeated, lifting her head to look Twilight in the eyes, with a frightening confidence given the state of her body. “You need to get Archer. She can help me better than a hospital.”

“I don’t—” Twilight exhaled exasperatedly and didn’t even try to demand an explanation. “Where is Archer?” she asked evenly.

Scootaloo shrank from the question saying, “I–I don’t know.”

“Scootaloo, please, do you have any idea where she might be, or any idea of anything?” Twilight retorted at her wit’s end.

“I don’t—” Scootaloo started, then looked forward evenly for a moment, and said, “If she isn’t coming here she’d be going to the school, so she’s at the school, Miss Twilight.”

Twilight slammed the door closed leading out of the library, magically sealing it shut. “Okay Scootaloo,” Twilight said to the injured filly, “I’m going to get Archer and I’m not going to ask why because you need help right now. I need you not to move and stay very still so you don’t get hurt worse. Please don’t try to stop Licky Loo even if she,” There was a crash in the other room. “...that.”

“O-okay, Miss Twilight,” Scootaloo said, settling to a half up seated position except with her hurt leg held up. Swaying a bit, but seeming steady for now. Hopefully fetching Archer would only take Twilight a small increment of time. Without a thought, Twilight teleported ending up a short distance away outside the library. She started gallopping then, relay teleporting for efficiency since she wasn’t accompanied by somepony this time. The bookstore, the quill store, Sugarcube corner, the lower hill residences, the hillside and then the school, where Twilight burst into existence right in the middle of a busy recess.

The distant shrill din of happy foals running around the play yard filled her ears as she scanned over the scene, foals were helping each other over the monkey bars jumping rope together, crowding in a bunch to climb the ladder to the slide. No Archer in sight. Twilight strode into the school house, but the only pony in there was not Archer, or even Cheerilee, but just a green filly with bountifully wavy blue hair over by the window, who she didn’t recognize. “Do you know where Miss Cheerilee is?” Twilight asked the filly.

The filly nodded and said in a bright voice, “She just went out with Archer. There was a fight.”

Twilight dropped her head in disgust. Of course this couldn’t be easy. “Please,” she implored, “Did Miss Cheerilee say where the fight was?” Twilight smiled at the filly hopefully.

The filly paused, and said, “She just said the clubhouse. I don’t know where that—”

“Thank you so much!” Twilight said giving her a big hug because this was the first pony in all of today who’d proven themselves helpful. Then she winked out of existence before the filly could even react.

“I know they were here, Miss Cheerilee!” Archer called upward, looking up at the clubhouse where the dark magenta mare was looking around the windows and doors, trying to see if there were any fillies hiding in it. Archer was standing on the forest floor, not really comfortable with entering the clubhouse herself. Not that she ever would be allowed into it ever... but she had to think of Scootaloo first.

Cheerilee walked down the ramp and stood before the filly saying, “It’s clear there was a fight here, from the way the ground is scuffed like this, so I believe you are being honest with me. It must have ended before we got here.” She smiled wanly at Archer saying, “But thank you for bringing this to my attention! Just tell me the names of the ponies involved and I can be sure they receive proper discipline.”

Archer could say the names of the others, but probably shouldn’t say Scootaloo. But who would they be fighting against then? But she didn’t want to get Scootaloo in trouble. She looked up at Cheerilee and said, “W–”

Twilight appeared in a burst of pink magic right next to them, looking very frazzled and a bit wall eyed. “Sorry, I have to borrow her for a sec,” she said to Cheerilee and then enveloped herself and Archer in her magic, and before Archer could say anything her world turned sideways and inside out.

Completely alone now, in the clearing where the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse faced a small picnic table, Cheerilee stomped a hoof, shouting, “What is going on here?” As she was in fact, completely alone, she didn’t get any satisfactory answer.

Teleportation was the most bizarre experience for just about anypony. Archer felt like she wasn’t even there, but “there” was anywhere. It was like she didn’t have a body, but was still moving somehow, but wasn’t moving in any direction she was familiar with. It was a palpable shock when she suddenly found herself herself once again, with breathing lungs, a beating heart, and blood pumping through her veins.

They were in the library again, the library lobby which was more brightly lit from the sun than other rooms in the library. The caesar carving, the bookshelves lining the walls, made to look like the inside of a, well, tree trunk. Twilight’s magic had brought Archer all the way over here, in just a few seconds!

“Woah...” Archer said, her eyes readjusting dizzily, wobbling on her hooves at the unexpected feel of a whole planet underneath the four of them. “That was kind of...”

“Archer, please this is an emergency,” Twilight said, immediately catching her attention. Archer looked at where the unicorn stood, then gasped because next to her was Scootaloo sitting there looking beaten and bloody. Licky was sitting next to Scootaloo on her other side just licking her cuts worriedly. The fight had gotten that bad? Archer should have never run. They both should have run! Archer knew Scootaloo wouldn’t ever run from that though, not after the last time.

“Oh no, Scootaloo are you okay?” Archer cried, trotting over and reaching hesitantly, trying to find a spot on Scootaloo that she could hug that wasn’t bruised or bloody.

“Been better,” Scootaloo said tensely, smiling with half of her face.

“Archer,” Twilight said in a frustrated tone and stood up, her tall purple hooves coming to stand before her. “Could you please tell Scootaloo that her injuries are serious and possibly life threatening, you don’t have some kind of miracle curative ability, and she needs to go to the hospital?”

“Oh,” Archer said looking up at her with steady eyes, “...no. We can’t go to the hospital or they’ll find out.”

“Finding out is better than dying!” Twilight exclaimed to her.

“Also I have a miracle curative ability,” Archer added.

Twilight immediately strode away stiffly, shouting, “I give up!” shouting at the ceiling going, “I give up! I give up. I have had it. I give up. I’m not even going to try. These ponies make no sense. That they exist makes no sense. That they are not widely known makes no sense. I. Give. Up!”

She calmly walked back to Archer and said to her in a sweet voice, “Are you the only one with mystical healing powers or is it every one of you?”

“No, it’s all of us,” Archer said, crouching nervously, “I mean it’s nothing special.”

“NOTHING SP–” Twilight closed her eyes, put her hoof on her chest and took a deep breath. “How praytell,” she asked again in that sweet tone of voice, “Does your miraculous healing ability work?”

Archer’s ears went down. Twilight may have been upset, but Archer felt like Twilight was making fun of her, and that wasn’t fair. “It’s simple,” Archer replied petulantly. “I just eat her.”

Twilight’s response held too much of that look of horror Archer was repeatedly familiar with.
> In Which Scootaloo is Sort of Like Jesus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scootaloo’s heart soared as she heard Archer’s words. She hadn’t been able to go inside in so long, it had been at least a week now. And even then it was just for a precious few minutes, before she had to swap out again. Everything about her was hurting. Her hooves hurt, her leg hurt, her shoulder hurt, her face felt just terrible. Not in the sense you could ignore, but in the sense that it wasn’t going to get better again for a long time. And Apple Bloom hated her. How could Apple Bloom hate her? She hadn’t even throw up in front of them, so how could Apple Bloom hate her? Apple Bloom wouldn’t do something like that. How could she have said that to Scootaloo? How could she have... how could she have just been exactly like Golden? He had... he was just bad but Apple Bloom couldn’t be bad too, could she?

Scootaloo’s heart soared because that meant she wouldn’t have to be this... thing anymore. She felt beaten, broken, messed up, just crying inside like a baby. And outside. Maybe she could even stay in, just, not being Scootaloo, letting her disappear quietly from everypony’s memory. They wouldn’t look for her all that long. And then she could... in another town... maybe...

“You can’t eat her!” Twilight exclaimed threateningly, throwing herself between Scootaloo and Archer, standing over Scootaloo defensively... protectively?

“Why not?” Archer whined in protest. “She’s hurt. You can’t just leave her like that!”

“Hurt is better than dead!” Twilight shouted. “Do you fillies... does your kind even understand death? When you consume a pony, they’re gone! It doesn’t matter if you can make more, because they’ll be new ponies and the pony you ingested will be gone forever! Do you understand what you’ve been doing to yourself– yourselves?!”

“I don’t...” Archer shrunk back, “No, I don’t understand... what are you talking about”

“Twilight, please—” Scootaloo tried to protest, but she had another coughing fit. Every cough felt like she was getting kicked there all over again. “Please Twilight,” she said in a weaker tone. “I need to go in her.”

Twilight looked back at the filly she was defending with wild eyes, saying, “You just don’t understand! You don’t even know that you’ll die!”

“What is she talking about?” Archer whined a second time looking at Scootaloo.

“Twilight, please,” Scootaloo said as loud as she dared, “Twilight, Twilight, Twilight,” until the frightened unicorn was calmed down enough to pay attention to her.

Scootaloo looked at Twilight Sparkle and said, “I’m not going away forever.”

“Scootaloo, you consumed Dizzie,” Twilight reiterated, “Remember Dizzie? There is no Dizzie anymore. Just Scootaloo and a full belly. That means she’s dead. You can’t make Dizzie suddenly be here again, because there is no more Dizzie to do that with!”

“Yes I can,” Scootaloo retorted offendedly. “...kind of. Maybe.”

“See you even admit it yourself that you don’t know!” Twilight pointed at her. “No matter how many fillies come out of your mouth, you will never—”

“Only because she’s not a person yet!” Scootaloo snapped, her chest burning with the need to cough again. She was really having a hard time breathing now and it was making her dizzy. “I’ve been out long enough to be a person,” she said, “So I always come out again.” She couldn’t help but feel a bitter tone creep into her voice at that last part.

Twilight just had this blank look on her face. Couldn’t she see Scootaloo was having a hard time here? Scootaloo wanted to kick her too, but didn’t think she was really up to standing up again. “Please Twilight,” she said adopting as pitiful a look as her pride would allow. “It hurts so much!” she said with a lip quiver, “I think something in my chest is broken it—every time I breathe—” she couldn’t hold it any more and Scootaloo just started coughing helplessly again.

“You don’t understand what you’re doing—you—you just don’t understand!” Twilight protested ineffectually, rearing up and curling back her front hooves in sheer revolted denial before clopping to the floor again. Twilight looked like she was trying to explain but she just couldn’t get the words out, just an exasperated exclamation. “Ugggh!”

Good grief did Scootaloo feel terrible. She hardly had to act to look convincing. Twilight didn’t have to know that it wasn’t the first time Scootaloo had broken a rib, or that she could breathe fine as long as she didn’t try to talk, but beyond that all Scootaloo had to do is honestly express the kind of pain she felt and the unicorn would fold like a leaf. It wasn’t even Scootaloo’s injuries that hurt the most, but that terrible look in Apple Bloom’s eyes as she uttered those words. Scootaloo couldn’t stop seeing it. Surely Twilight wouldn’t be so cruel to leave her like this? 

“Miss Twilight,” Archer said quietly behind Twilight Sparkle. “I understand what death is.”

Twilight turned away from Scootaloo to look at Archer, still not saying anything just, all worked up beyond the point of speaking. Archer continued right away though, sounding more confident as she did so.

“It used to be that sometimes when we throw up fillies, they don’t come back,” Archer said with a heavy sadness in her voice. “S-sometimes we find their bodies. There’s nopony left in there. It’s like they’re just empty... and that’s what death really is. If they fell, or... or if somepony killed them. Everything that was them is gone, and they can never exist again. T-there was one called Moon Cherry who we.. we only remember her name and everything else is just mixed up and lost, because she died before Scootaloo could... eat her. S-she liked ribbons. Scootaloo had a whole collection she had to get rid of because none of us could remember why she... what she liked about them.”

Archer looked away nervously, just saying, “So that’s what death is,” and going quiet again.

Twilight sank to her knees, exclaiming wearily, “Then how can you eat ponies and not call that death?”

“Because they come out again,” Archer answered readily.

“Come out again?” queried the beleagured unicorn.

“Yes, when we... when I throw up.” Archer said, “Scootaloo will come out again.” She tried to walk past Twilight, and this time the unicorn didn’t stop her from reaching Scootaloo. It was so nice that Archer could do the talking when Scootaloo wasn’t feeling up to doing anything but working on breathing. Archer sure was a great friend. Scootaloo looked at her with unbearable hope, and Archer smiled back nervously.

“I promise Miss Twilight,” Archer said to Twilight, “I would never put Scootaloo in me if I didn’t know she was coming out again.”

“Just...” Twilight shook her head, “I don’t even...” She scrunched her muzzle and waved a hoof, “Just do it before I change my mind.”

Scootaloo took a deep breath and said, “Don’t worry Twilight, I go inside Archer all the timehhh” and that was about all she could say in one breath. This was going to be so nice. Twilight just looked at Scootaloo with hope, and dread.

Scootaloo turned to Archer who was finally standing before her, all ready to go. “Sorry about this,” Scootaloo said in a whisper to Archer.

Archer understood what she was referring to, and smiled back at her, saying, “Don’t worry I can handle it if it’s only a memory of pain.”

Scootaloo smiled back gratefully.

Archer opened her mouth all the way, and moved forward as if to hug Scootaloo with her hooves, instead shoving Scootaloo’s head into her gaping cavernous maw. Scootaloo stuck her head in, soon wrapped in a warm, fleshy blackness, Archer’s insides hugging her from all directions. It was definitely going to happen now. Scootaloo exhaled in relief, for the last time. She felt Archer heave strongly, yanking Scootaloo right up off her hooves to dangle upside down in the air, and then it started.

A familiar fluid flooded into her mouth and she inhaled it eagerly. Her battered lungs didn’t hurt when she did so though, and she kept on in one long continuous inhale. A soothing tingle penetrated her deeply, washing away the sting of all her cuts, and easing the pressure on her swollen temple, as everything about her head softened. Scootaloo couldn’t even feel the bite on her cheek anymore. The more she ‘inhaled’, the further she felt her torso and hooves sink down against her collapsing head, enveloped bit by bit by Archer’s searching lips, pulled down by eager swallows of her throat. Scootaloo’s broken bones melted into her flesh with a satisfying crackle, and her burning lungs were smoothed out by the excitement of that tickling sensation rippling through her evenly at an increasing pace.

Scootaloo was giddy with anticipation as her hooves dropped closer and closer to inside. Finally, the last of her was in and Archer’s mouth shut closed behind her. She did it. She was safe! Nothing could get Scootaloo now, because Archer was all around her, with no openings to expose Scootaloo to danger. Even as the sweeping ticklish ripples threatened to overwhelm her, Scootaloo dallied in that sheltering cavity a few moments, just curling up inside Archer’s gullet comfortably, pressing her out like a balloon. Scootaloo enjoyed the most how Archer kept squeezing down on her reflexively, like being hugged but so much more tender and moist. But every loving squeeze increased the undeniable tingles until she couldn’t hold back anymore, and Scootaloo felt an immense wave of satisfaction fill her to bursting, making her feel like she was sparkling. As it swept over her, she twitched one last time, and began to collapse.

It felt like she was falling when that happened, or spreading out. Like she was stretching, waking up from a good nap, except with that thrill you get from going muzzle first, down the waterslide on your belly. Her solidity diffused into nothing, leaving her floating in place with a pleasant buzz running through her head. Scootaloo never got tired of this feeling as sensation started to return to her limbs. It was just so nice and filling. She was vaguely aware of sitting there on her back, like waking up from a dream, with a satisfied smile and her hooves wrapped around her full belly.

“Oh Celestia,” she laughed joyously, “And to think I was worried this was going to hurt!”

Her full belly,  she was remembering filling it just now by swallowing herself, along with being swallowed, sort of like as if from two pairs of eyes. She often reminisced in these moments, such as the peculiar memory of watching herself leap at Apple Bloom in rage, before tearing out to the school as fast as her hooves could take her to get help from Cheerilee. She knew now why she’d done that, but it seemed so stupid in hindsight. She could have, Archer, stayed and fought or, Scootaloo, not stayed and fought, though currently she felt like she’d just run every time, because it just seemed silly to always fight about these things.

“What do you mean?” came Twilight Sparkle’s voice to the side of her, looking down at the filly’s supine form sideways, with unease and trepidation.

“Well, it’s just...” she answered, “I forgot that when you stop hurting, that it’s so relieving. So even though I was seriously beat up and couldn’t even breathe, now that I can, it’s nicer than I felt before I ate. Instead of feeling like it still hurts.”

Twilight paused, “...Scootaloo?” she asked in a probing tone.

“No, I’m still Archer again,” was the reflexive response.

The deep blue filly, named Archer for lack of a better literary technique, scrunched her muzzle up at the silliness of that statement. “I’m still Archer,” she settled on eventually, though both ways felt right to say. Gosh, she had gotten up to so much the past day. Did she really save Dizzie and that—that other one from the thunder? And oh my gosh Rainbow Dash was—”

...

Twilight was probably wondering why Archer was rolling on the floor laughing out loud. “Ehehthe the hoof... Hoofy the hoof!” Archer tried to explain, dissolving into giggles again enough her feet kicked in the air.

Twilight cleared her throat. Archer stopped giggling, feeling a bit worried. She hadn’t thought she’d been offending Twilight, after all. She looked up at the unicorn, a few giggles still settling in her chest but otherwise attentive.

With a speculative look, Twilight continued, “It’s just, you said you were beat up and couldn’t even breathe, and now you can. But it was Scootaloo who was beaten up.”

Archer rolled over and sat up, nodding and saying “Yes I was Scootaloo just a little while ago.”

“So... you changed from Scootaloo, to Archer?”

“That’s a good way to put it, Miss Twilight!” Archer agreed brightly.

“Then who was swallowing you?” Twilight declared with a gotcha look on her face.

Archer blinked at that, thinking furiously, trying to figure out what Twilight was trying to catch her with. Was there something unfeasible about her current situation? What was going through Twilight’s head?

“...I was?” she suggested hesitantly.

“But you said you were Scootaloo back then,” Twilight countered, “Not Archer!”

Archer shook her head, “No, I only said I was Scootaloo back then. You are the one who is saying I wasn’t Archer.”

“I– d–ugh,” Twilight flipped her tail in frustration. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. Are you Archer, or are you Scootaloo pretending to be Archer?

“Well, um, I’m all blue, as you can see,” Archer said looking at a hoof and waving it before her in demonstration, “So I’m definitely Archer,” She thought about Twilight’s question, still trying to imagine Twilight’s perspective why she would ask it. She was a normal pony, so she’d never ever gone inside before, but what was that like? It must be awfully lonely.

“Yes but,” Twilight paused searching for small enough words, “Without your body, which one of those would you be?”

“Um...” Archer sat forward, fiddling with her hooves nervously stalling while she tried to figure out a satisfactory answer. “Um, without my body, I don’t really see... the... difference?”

“The difference,” Twilight explained, “Is that right now either you are Archer, or you are Scootaloo pretending to be Archer. Or some mish-mash of both.”

“Oh I’m definitely Archer,” Archer replied, “It’s just I can’t tell the difference between being Archer and pretending to be Archer.”

“When you’re pretending,” Twilight said fussily, “You can stop pretending!”

“But when I’m not pretending, then I can start pretending,” Archer pointed out. “It’s the same thing.”

Twilight frogmouthed silently, before squinting at her and exclaiming, “When did you get so smart anyway?”

Archer blushed and said, “Um... I’ve always been pretty smart, but... you never asked me much before.”

“Well yeah that’s because Sc—” Twilight stopped in the middle of her sentence, staring off. “Oh wow, I’m doing it too,” she said in a note of realization.

“It’s okay, Twilight I understand,” Archer said, walking forward and patting her hoof. “It’s confusing for me too. Scootaloo is more there than Dizzie or Bee were, or even me, so it’s not as simple as just remembering. I maybe won’t act like Archer sometimes. Sorry...”

Twilight smiled and shook her head, “Don’t worry about that, Archer. Just act as you normally would and that will enable me to get the most unbiased samp– to understand you the best.”

Archer smiled back brightly and said, “Rainbow Dash was right. You have to be the nicest pony I’ve ever known!”

Twilight blushed at that, saying, “Oh well, clearly you’ve never met my friend Fluttershy. I think you would like her.”

“So you’re studying us?” Archer said crouching in excitement. “What have you found out so far?”

“Well,” Twilight said smugly, and then she stopped, “No, before we get into that we should see about getting Scootaloo back.”

“Oh,” Archer said, looking aside nervously.

“I’m just so excited,” Twilight said eagerly, “I’ve never been able to see it before! As soon as you do it, we can go over my research findings.”

Archer paused, tilting back on her hooves, then said, “Say, wouldn’t you rather measure it with your um, instruments or something?”

Twilight gasped, “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that! Wait right there I’ll go prepare the laboratory!”

Twilight skipped stairs going down, setting up the quartz light and the encephalomometer and her brand new scanner, and dragging out the good old endoscope. Then she looked over her research notes on the consumption process, mentally kicking herself for not having looked over the scanner recording before coming to rash conclusions about the capabilities of these beings. She carried the crystal upstairs to where she had a slide projector that she could probably jury rig to play back the images. The slide projector had the wrong kind of refractor though so she’d have to go take a trip to the

Wait, where was Archer?

Wait, what was she doing?! Scootaloo! Twilight dropped—grabbed the crystal, then carefully placed it next to the projector. She stuck her head out of the projection room, but Archer wasn’t in the main lobby anymore. How long had Twilight been at this anyway? She checked the owlclock, less than ten minutes not too bad. But Archer sure wasn’t waiting where she had been anymore.

“Archer?” Twilight called out, checking the kitchen, looking around the back rooms. Nothing. For that matter where was Licky? She wandered through the dimly lit bookshelves keeping an eye out for either of them. “Archer?” she called out again.

There was the sound of hooves scuffling behind her.

Twilight spun around, but they were already in the other wing. Was Licky playing hide and seek? Twilight didn’t have time for this. She had to find Archer in order to get Scootaloo, in order to not be an accessory to completely horrible foal murder. But in the quiet, Twilight almost felt like she was alone in the library. If not for those hoofsteps. Archer would keep Licky from running outside, but where was Archer already?

Twilight paced into the other library wing after the hoofsteps, where she found Licky sitting alone in the center of the room, looking up at her with big eyes. “Hello Licky,” Twilight said deliberately to her. “I wish you could tell me what Archer is—” the retreating sound of hooves caught Twilight’s ear. “Hold that thought,” she told the orange popsicle pony, turning around and charging out after... nopony was out here in the hallway.

“Archer, this isn’t funny!” Twilight said exasperatedly. Of course there was no answer. She tracked around like a detective trying to see or smell where Archer had gone, but she was no earth pony and she was not ready to rely on magic just yet. Though it wouldn’t be long at this rate. Why was that filly hiding from her?

She finally tracked down Archer during an exhaustive search of the west wing, making sure this time to search the shelves in a calculated order, such that no enterprising filly could sneak out past her again. There she found Archer utterly engrossed in reading... volume 13 of the tax code for the year ZDP. Upside down.

“Oh, hello Twilight I didn’t see you there!” Archer loudly declared, looking up from her book.

“I don’t know what game you’re trying to play, Archer,” Twilight said acidly, “But you’re going to cough up Scootaloo right now. You promised!”

Archer fidgeted saying, “I will Miss Twilight. I just... I mean, you know, your instruments?”

“Very well,” Twilight rolled her eyes. “No more stalling though. Let’s get down to the lab.”

Archer looked at her blankly, and then said, “O-oh you can go first, I have to um... put this book awa–”

“Let’s go together,” Twilight insisted. Reluctantly the little blue filly stood on her hooves and walked alongside Twilight. The way her shoulders were slumped it was like Twilight was leading her to the gallows! But it was just to restore Scootaloo to working order, right?

It occurred to Twilight with a twisted sort of relief, that if they have been lying this whole time, it therefore would not be the murder of an innocent. The very way that Scootaloo reached for her own end was just... ugh. But whether it was a truly unforgivable act or not, Twilight had to at least try to see whether they could completely reverse the process. She’d never get the chance to see it, if she just turned this pony over to Creature Control. If only Archer would stop displaying this bizarre avoidance,, then Twilight could alleviate her suspicions and everything would be just fine. But Twilight couldn’t shake the chilling thought: why else would Archer be acting this way, if she didn’t know that—put to the test—she would be unable to perform as promised?

Licky actually tried to protect Archer, suggesting some form of nonverbal communication actually was possible between the two, but the protection’s effectiveness left a lot to be desired. Twilight left Licky up there pounding furiously on her rump, while Archer just laughed nervously and pretended Licky wasn’t even doing that.

Archer tried to misdirect her one more time, but Twilight stopped her before she could get even one word out saying, “No. More. Talking until we are in the lab.” So at last Archer was down in her brightly lit basement, up on the examination table with a glum look on her face. Twilight affixed the encephalomometer helmet on top of Archer’s tangled mane, and adjusted the scanner to cover Archer’s abdomen set on wide spectrum. She looked at the endoscope thoughtfully before setting it aside silently, deciding against trying that until she better knew what she was dealing with.

“Alright Archer,” Twilight said in a forced pleasantness, “As you promised earlier, make Scootaloo come out again!”

Archer looked at her and gulped, and said, “I um... I... I can do it I promise but I’m kind of ...hungry now so I need to eat more before I can do it.”

“Oh, hungry are you?” Twilight said with a sweet smile, “Well then, let’s just get you into the kitchen for something to eat!”

“T-that’s okay I’ll just wait here,” Archer said fiddling with the helmet on her head.

“Oh no,” Twilight said drawing up to Archer and using her magic to undo the straps and lift off the helmet. “We’re going together just in case you might you know, get distracted and run off while I’m busy preparing something.”

It was with great reluctance that Archer followed her into the kitchen. Twilight’s mind was screaming alarm bells at this behavior. She had to hurry. Twilight didn’t actually stop to prepare anything, but simply went with what worked before. That is to say, her bag of quackers. “Here you go Archer,” Twilight said hovering the open bag before Archer, “Eat as many as you want, until you’re ready to make good on your promise!” Licky was there too, but Twilight pulled her underneath her so that she couldn’t reach the quackers to get into them.

Archer looked at the bag like it was a snake. She slowly drew out one quacker staring at it and then unexpectedly burst into tears. “Please Twilight,” she dropped the quacker and begged, “I don’t want to be Scootaloo again!”

“You promised!” Twilight shouted at her. What was so upsetting? Archer’s panicked despair was making fear rise in Twilight’s breast. She didn’t know how to deal with creatures like this. Was this what Pinkie warned about? Why wouldn’t they eat?

“I will!” Archer shouted back, her voice cracking, “Just j-just maybe later when I’m ready to—”

“No!” Twilight snapped, levitating the quacker Archer had dropped, “Not later! Now! You are going to produce Scootaloo, and you are going to prove your innocence to me, and you are going to like it!”

Archer’s response was to run full tilt out of the kitchen. Twilight tried to snag her telekinetically, but while doing so, Twilight tripped over Licky, or rather Licky’s efforts managed to make her stumble. “Ugh, Licky don’t—Licky!” Twilight shouted at the puzzlingly furious mute filly, while Archer vanished around a corner. Twilight opened a closet in the main hallway, where some winter wear was hung, and threw Licky in there saying, “Stay there! I’ll be right back!” shutting the door and running off to keep Archer from going to the expansive rear section of the library. Oh but no, Archer wasn’t heading there. She was heading out the front door!

“Archer!” Twilight shouted at the fleeing pony, “If you leave this library and don’t produce Scootaloo, then I am going to have to call the authorities, and I am going to have to tell them you killed Scootaloo!”

That was enough to make Archer freeze in her tracks. She turned to face Twilight tearfully, saying “But, but b-but...”

Cheerilee gallopped back to the classroom as fast as she could, but of course the crazy librarian hadn’t taken Archer there. Twilight and Archer were nowhere to be seen among her foals reaching the end of recess. There was still no sign of Scootaloo either, and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had probably headed further into the orchard instead of returning to the playground. Whether the three of them would be in trouble for fighting as well as truancy remained solidly in their hooves.

After thoroughly searching the school house with no sign of either the blue or purple pony, Cheerilee looked out down the hill and across the river, where that unusually large oak tree was growing up out on the edge of town. Cheerilee gazed back at her students here, who might need her help, but they seemed fine, running about their recess without a care in the world. Some were even singing a pleasant tune today, well humming it anyway, incorporating it into their hopscotch games. So, with a reluctant last look, Cheerilee went gallopping down the hill, making a beeline for the library.

Once Cheerilee burst in through the front door, the situation was shocking to say the least. Archer was crouched there on the floor with a harried looking Twilight approaching her aggressively, hovering what appeared to be a bag of quackers. “Twilight Sparkle!” Cheerilee shouted accusingly, “What are you doing with that filly?”

“Oh, this?” Twilight said in a disturbingly practical tone of voice moving the quacker in the air for demonstration, “I’m just giving Archer a little snack. Nothing she can’t handle.”

At that point, Twilight Sparkle began attempting to force feed quackers to Archer. Cheerilee just ran forward and shoved the unicorn away, but there was already a spell blooming on her horn and Cheerilee found herself knocked off her hooves by an equally powerful burst of arcane sorcery. “You don’t understand!” Twilight bit out to Cheerilee, “She needs to eat these quackers or she won’t make Scootaloo again! I’m saving her life!!”

Archer whimpered out, “Twilight, please!”

“Eat it!” Twilight shouted incoherently, leaping at Archer just as she got to her hooves and tried to flee.

Cheerilee ran at Twilight shouting, “You can’t do that to her!” but her cries were ignored. Twilight then attempted to catch her in a force bubble but she managed to stomp out of it dodging quickly as out of the corner of her eye, Archer ran deeper into the library. Twilight turned her head too, and ignored Cheerilee to immediately give pursuit. “Twilight, I swear!” Cheerilee screamed frustratedly, charging after the unicorn.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t having a good day. First off, she had to work, and second off, her mind was totally too blown to concentrate on work. Twilight said she’d take care of the three fillies, and that was great because Rainbow had no idea how she would possibly keep that many kids under control. There had been another one that morning! And that one could’ve made another one! And that was getting to be way too many fillies. Were all the fillies at the orphanage because of that? That couldn’t be right though because Scootaloo was afraid to go to the orphanage, so that meant the orphanage didn’t—the cloud Rainbow was working on burst into wispy fragments as she kicked it too hard.

“Meadow muffins,” Rainbow Dash swore. She turned a sworl to pressurize the missing cloud causing it to form together again, but that’d set her behind a whole 20 seconds. Plus Cloudchaser was looking at her worriedly.

“Everything alright, Rainbow Dash?” the sea haired lavender pony asked her.

“Oh you know,” Dash said fussing around with the vapor pressure, “I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. All this time I thought it was just adopting Scootaloo, but then she wasn’t even an orphan!”

“Oh, that filly has parents?” Cloudchaser said interestedly, “I haven’t ever seen them before. What are they like?”

“Well! Um,” Dash looked around frantically, saying, “Oh hey look at that a real important cloud break there! Sorry I gotta go, thanks, bye” zipping over to the completely unimportant, but more importantly distant cloud break.

Most of Rainbow’s work day went something like that. There was nothing she hated more than keeping secrets, and that was exactly what Scootaloo needed her to do. This was such a lame situation. If Pinkie Pie hadn’t screwed it up, everything would be fine. Speak of the devil, Rainbow managed to spot her no less than a dozen times during that morning, and every time she descended to where she saw her Pinkie was gone again. Maybe with Twilight’s help she’d be able to find her, but Rainbow Dash didn’t think any pony alone could find that hot pink ninja when she didn’t want to be found.

Rainbow usually got her work done in the morning, but she was fluffing up so much she’d have to take an afternoon shift, and that meant less time to work on her routine, and that makes Dash a sad pegasus. Before that started that though, she had some free time, so she decided to check on Twilight, make sure those fillies hadn’t run rampant on her or something. Dash pulled her wings up, descending from the sky and landing lightly with a practiced precision in front of the treebrary. The door was hanging open, which was kind of odd, even for a public library. Walking in, there was nopony in the main lobby. Not a single filly to be seen.

Rainbow’s ear perked at a crash in the back room and she turned her head gladly, then stupefied to see that blue filly called Archer come running out of the back of the library like a bat out of Tartarus. She had crumbs all over her face and was bawling like an infant. Rainbow didn’t even have time to react as Archer veered away from where Rainbow Dash was standing in the doorway, when behind Archer came Twilight Sparkle running full tilt, and levitating a bag of quackers like it was a battle axe.

“Bring back Scootaloo!” Twilight shouted at Archer, too out of it to even notice Dash standing there looking on with a shocked expression. Then, the schoolteacher, Cheerilee ran out of the back and threw herself at Twilight saying, “No more quackers!” Rainbow couldn’t believe what she was watching. There was her best friend, assaulting Archer with a bag of quackers while Cheerilee was wailing on Twilight like it was a capitol offense. Then Licky came running out of the back, the blue eyed orange filly going full tilt to throw herself at Cheerilee. Licky was squealing excitedly, prancing after the teacher, who was chasing Twilight ...who was chasing Archer.

Rainbow Dash quietly let herself into the library and turned around, carefully pulling the door closed with her wing until it clicked securely. Then she exploded into motion, shouting authoritatively “Twilight!” zooming right into Twilight’s face making the unicorn pull up short and rear back. Which in turn made Cheerilee slide out, and crash into a bookshelf. Which made Licky hop lightly onto the books that descended down upon the schoolteacher. Twilight was standing there before Rainbow Dash like a cornered animal with her legs braced apart and her breath coming hard, and that bag levitated in her magic, along with one quacker that she had been attacking Archer’s mouth with.

“Drop the quacker.” Rainbow told Twilight giving her a serious intense stare.

“You don’t understand!” Twilight said to her shrilly, “I have to–”

“Twilight!” Dash shouted interrupting her with precision. When the unicorn fell silent, Rainbow continued, “You’re doing it again.”

“I’m not—” Twilight uttered in desperate frustration.

“Twilight, look at yourself,” Dash deadpanned, “You’re chasing Archer with quackers. You’ve got Cheerilee buried in books. You are doing it again.”

Twilight fidgeted and fussed, but her excitement was beginning to crack. She looked at Cheerilee who had righted herself and stomped over to where she and Dash were at a standstill, then at the quackers, then at Dash and said, “But—”

“No,” Rainbow said angrily. “Put down the quackers.”

Twilight gently set the bag of quackers on a table in the library. The bag lay there flaccidly, looked like it was almost empty. Then she collapsed into a boneless heap.

“How... did you...” Cheerilee asked, looking at Rainbow Dash astonishedly. “Just like that?”

Dash would have answered, but Twilight was beside herself there, saying, “I’m sorry Rainbow I’m so so sorry Rainbow Dash I couldn’t,” she was actually shaking with sobs when she said, “I screwed up everything! I’m sorry! I couldn’t... I couldn’t save her. I should never have... I’m so sorry R-rainbow please don’t”

Well it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that Rainbow Dash was completely bucking terrified right about now. But she held herself as firmly as possible, and sat down next to Twilight, laying a wing over her back and saying, “Hey now, we’ll figure something out, but what’s wrong? Why were you feeding Archer...” Archer herself had crept from the back of the library at the sound of Twilight’s sobs with a haunted visage. The little blue pony didn’t look so good. “...quackers?” Dash finished at last.

“Buh–” Twilight sniveled, pointing a hoof towards Archer, “Bec-cause Archer a-ate—”

Archer urked, her throat bulged, and a gigantic orange and purple blob erupted from her mouth, splatting messily onto the library floor.

Now, Dash was totally cool with this you have to know. Been there done that. It’s just that a teeny little piece got on her hoof oh buck getitoffgetitoff! While Rainbow Dash danced around frantically waving her hoof, Twilight wasn’t nearly as reserved, climbing to her hooves and running directly over to the uh, forming? filly? Rainbow really hadn’t got a good look since she was getting her hoof clean all casual-like, but when she did get a good look, Scootaloo was there climbing to her hooves reluctantly. Archer had already recovered and was sitting on the floor looking down at her own hooves with what looked like immense relief.

“Please tell me you’re Scootaloo,” Twilight said to the orange and purple filly, in the most aggravated and desperate tone. 

Scoots just glowered at her and lay back onto the floor curling up in a little ball, saying “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Pff, yeah that’s Scootaloo alright,” Rainbow Dash said with a laugh sauntering over to the filly. That really got Scootaloo to her hooves. “Rainbow—sis! You’re back!” she exclaimed. “You would not believe what happened at school today!” she muttered with a careless toss of her mane. Scootaloo probably thought she was being cool, but you can’t go from excited to cool that fast, and still call it cool. Fortunately Rainbow didn’t have to lecture Scootaloo on the principles of coolness, as Twilight decided to spontaneously hug the filly.

Twilight swept Scootaloo up into a bone crushing hug. Well, as “bone crushing” as that pansy of a librarian could manage, hugging Scootaloo tightly and ignoring the filly’s immediate protests. Twilight was actually crying now, going, “Oh my goodness I was so worried, Scootaloo I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you oh my goodness I’m glad you’re okay I can’t believe it this is incredible I’m so sorry!” She went on like that for a while.

“...school, huh?” Rainbow Dash said to Scootaloo unsympathetically. “I suppose that’s why Miss Cheerilee is here?” She tilted a wing over to Cheerilee, who was looking unusually statuesque for a schoolteacher. “You bett–” Rainbow Dash started to say, then she took another look at Cheerilee.

“You did tell her, right Scootaloo?” Rainbow asked the newborn orange filly. “She knows about it, right?”

Rainbow felt a nervousness bubble up in her, as she suspected it may have maybe slipped the filly’s mind... fillies’s minds that Cheerilee didn’t know, judging by the look of pure unadultrated horror creeping onto the faces of both Scootaloo and Archer.

“Why did you do that?!” Scootaloo exclaimed at Archer over Twilight’s shoulder.

“She wasn’t going to stop feeding me if I didn’t!” Archer said back in a panicked anger.

“You couldn’t do it in the other room?!” Scootaloo fumed at her shaking her hooves from Twilight’s embrace.

“I—” Archer’s voice cracked, “I was just trying to show Twilight. I forgot—I I just forgot ok?!”

Scootaloo looked like she was going to shout back, but just went limp then, just saying dully, “Yeah, yeah you did...”

“Psst, Twilight,” Dash leaned over to Twilight in the meantime, who was still hugging Scootaloo. Dash pointed a hoof at the library door. “Make sure she can’t leave,” she mouthed as quietly as she could. Twilight looked at Rainbow then Cheerilee, then her eyes widened in realization and she lit up her horn. The library door glowed with Twilight’s magic and then sealed... somehow. Unicorns.

Dash then sauntered over to Cheerilee saying, “OK OK I know what you’re thinking, no wait I don’t really know what you’re thinking but it’s really important that you not freak out, and that you not run away screaming. Nopony is killing anypony, and we’re all going to just talk this out.”

“Run away screaming?” Cheerilee said distantly, focusing on Rainbow Dash for the first time. Her eyes snapped to clarity then and she shouted, “What in the blue blazes is going on here?!” Cheerilee covered her mouth with both front hooves then, looking at the foals worriedly, saying “Oh I’m sorry! I didn’t mean... I shouldn’t have said that! What– what is— what?!”

“You want to tell her or should I tell her?” Rainbow asked Twilight. Twilight shrugged, hooves held up protectively, allowing Scootaloo to escape. The filly zipped over to Archer and Licky to hover in front of them, while Twilight said,

“Might as well be you,” Twilight said in a jaded tone, “You, I admit, have a way with words, when it comes to saying things precipitatively.”

“Did Scootaloo just erupt from Archer’s mouth?!” Cheerilee exclaimed in utter astonishment. Scootaloo’s response was to lift up a seat cushion holding it in front of her defensively like a shield and wincing.

“Yes,” Rainbow Dash answered, but before she could continue Cheerilee erupted again.

“Are you experimenting on these fillies?!” she accused Twilight.

“No,” Rainbow Dash answered, but again Cheerilee shouted.

“How could you—” whereupon Rainbow Dash interrupted her shouting,

“Hey!”

Cheerilee stopped shouting, and stared forward at Twilight with narrowed eyes, before turning her head to look at Rainbow Dash. Scootaloo was busy with something behind Rainbow, but Rainbow didn’t dare look away from Cheerilee. This might be Rainbow Dash’s only chance to explain, as hard as would be to explain all ...this. She hoped Cheerilee would have the patience to listen to her all the way through. With Cheerilee’s attention focused on her and not Twilight, Rainbow Dash cleared her throat, and began her lengthy explanation.

“Scootaloo is a special kind of filly who can make new fillies come out of her mouth whenever she eats too much. So, yeah.”

...maybe it wasn’t the most complicated thing to explain after all.

Cheerilee gave Rainbow Dash ‘the look’ and said, “That... makes no sense at all! Archer was the one who– who created Scootaloo, just now!”

“Yeah, Archer can do it too,” Dash admitted, scratching her ear.

Staring through the oak grained wall in the direction of the school fearfully, Cheerilee murmured “How many fillies can...?”

“Just those three right now,” Dash said, tilting her head behind her to indicate the fillies.

“But what about their parents?!” Cheerilee said giving a flabbergasted look over Rainbow Dash’s shoulder.

“They don’t have parents,” Rainbow explained uncertainly, “They’re like, each other’s parents, or something.”

“But the permission slips...” Cheerilee said hopelessly, staring forward fixedly enough that Dash had to look over her shoulder to see what had caught her eye.

Scootaloo piped up from deep within her impromptu pillow fort that she had... erected sometime just now, “I’m good at signatures. I’m sorry Miss Cheerilee I didn’t think ...”

Cheerilee seemed at a loss. “I... I... are you sure Miss Twilight didn’t do this to you?”

“Uh huh,” Scootaloo said. “I was this way before she even came here. Sorry I didn’t say...”

“I don’t believe this,” Cheerilee said, sitting on her haunches and putting a hoof on her forehead. “What are you?”

There was a pause, before Scootaloo’s voice came from the fort again saying, “I don’t know, Miss Cheerilee.”

“Is this why you were fighting with Apple Bloom?”

There was a longer pause. “I... I tried to tell her Miss Cheerilee. She didn’t like it.” There was a shuddering breath, and Scootaloo said “She hates me now.”

“Alright, enough of this,” Rainbow Dash interjected kicking the pillows out from atop the chairs Scootaloo had strategically placed. “You can’t sit in there moping all by yourself...ves... so come sit with me and we can talk about how Apple Bloom,” air quotes, “Hates you.”

Dash shoved the chair out of the way and at least Scootaloo wasn’t resisting coming to sit with her. Archer and Licky didn’t come out though, just looking at Scootaloo worriedly and blankly respectively. “Come on, Scoots,” Rainbow said, but Scootaloo just stayed quiet and wouldn’t look her in the eye.

“Can anypony at least tell me what the heck was going on just now?” Rainbow Dash uttered in frustration.

“I would like to—” Cheerilee and Twilight said at the same time, then looked at each other. Then Twilight looked back and said, “I would like to know that myself.”

“But you were the one chasing Archer around!” Cheerilee exclaimed at Twilight, “How could you not know what was going on?”

“Archer was being strangely difficult,” Twilight said crossly, “And scaring me half to death. After she promised very clearly that she would be able to get Scootaloo back out, she—”

“Back out of her mouth,” Cheerilee interrupted questioningly.

Twilight nodded, “Yes, and I still don’t understand why she was so reluctant to do so.”

“How did Scootaloo get in Archer’s mouth in the first place?!” Cheerilee exclaimed.

“Oh, I ate her,” Archer spoke up, then seemed to regret doing so.

“You... ate her?” Cheerilee said to Archer at the border of horror and disbelief.

“Yes, I can... do that,” Archer said nervously.

“It’s okay Miss Cheerilee,” Scootaloo said, “I wanted to get inside Archer.”

Cheerilee shook her head violently, but Scootaloo didn’t disappear or turn into a hallucination of an ice cream cone. It was clear Cheerilee wanted something like that to happen.

“I was hurt real bad,” Scootaloo clarified, “And Archer needed to make me again, so that I wouldn’t be hurt.”

“Oh, that’s what was up with the quackers,” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. She called over to Archer, “You seriously made Scootaloo out of just that?” Archer smiled sheepishly and shrugged. Dash looked down to Scootaloo cradled under her forelegs and said,“So what’s it like being made out of quackgrass?”

Didn’t take the squirt long to figure out what she meant, and Scootaloo moaned, “All I know is I never want to see another quacker again.”

“Please, Archer,” Twilight said, carefully approaching the ruined pillow fort. “I’m sorry for my reaction, but you have to understand I can’t trust you if you run away like that. Why weren’t you producing Scootaloo? I was so scared, you know that right?”

“I–I know, Miss Twilight I just...” Archer stood up, walking over the pillow to stand in front of the librarian. “I’m sorry...” she said guiltily, “I just... really didn’t want...”

“It’s not Archer’s fault,” Scootaloo cut in bitterly, rubbing her nose on her fetlock. “She just didn’t want to be me again. Nopony would.”

“C’mon Scootaloo, that’s not true!” Rainbow admonished her, “You got so much going for you, lots of fillies would love to be you!”

“In particular not many fillies can heal broken bones instantaneously through total body regeneration,” Twilight helpfully pointed out.

“Plus you get to be sisters with me,” Dash said with a wink. “What filly wouldn’t want a that?”

Scootaloo looked up at her and tried to smile, but her smile just kind of wavered and fell, and Scootaloo had to look away again. “It hurts so much!” she cried in a sudden burst of frustration and despair, shuddering under Dash’s hooves, looking so alone no matter how much Rainbow tried to comfort her.

Twilight was hovering over both of them before you could say tiddly winks saying, “You aren’t still hurt, are you?” she said with eyes widening in realization, “Oh of course! I didn’t even think it would take time to heal injuries, because of the full body dissolution! Is your leg still broken?”

Scootaloo shook her head, putting her hoof on her chest saying, “No, I mean it hurts in here.”

“Still trouble breathing?” Twilight asked uncertainly. Rainbow Dash gave the unicorn an insipid glare, hugging Scootaloo against herself. Sometimes Twilight Sparkle could just be so clueless, sometimes. No really.

Scootaloo gave a nervous laugh saying, “I-I-I can breathe just fine. It worked Miss Twilight just like I said.” She looked directly at Twilight her voice growing spiteful as she said, “I just can’t make any friends no matter how hard I try to.”

Cheerilee was walking over to Rainbow Dash’s other side opposite from Twilight, saying, “It’s wrong of you to fight, Scootaloo, but friends will get in a fight sometimes and that doesn’t mean they’ll stop being your friends.”

“This wasn’t just a fight,” Twilight quietly said to Cheerilee, “Scootaloo was very, very injured when she came to me.”

“How injured?” Cheerilee asked skeptically. Dash’s ears sort of went askew as it occurred to her that these mares were literally talking over her head. Nevertheless, Twilight’s summary of what injuries she observed was very accurate and um... vivid, and Cheerilee’s mouth was open in either horror or disbelief by the time Twilight got to the part about a broken leg. Dash wasn’t horrified, just... stunned that this would have happened.

“Apple Bloom said I should die,” Scootaloo said dully, “She said I was a-awful and nasty and a monster. It was just like where I used to—”

When Archer gasped and turned her head around, this unfortunately gave Licky the opportunity to escape, as apparantly the only thing keeping that other orange filly from more mayhem was Archer’s hold on her tail. Scootaloo looked up at that gasp and met Archer’s eyes, but continued resolutely,

“No, no I might as well. I’m a... I used to live in Whinneapolis. I had to leave after my friends did what Apple Bloom... did. I won’t go back.”

“Alright, Scootaloo,” Twilight said very carefully, “I want you to tell me exactly what happened when you met Apple Bloom today.”

One explanation partially doubled by Archer’s testimony later, and Twilight was still shaking her head. “She just started yelling at you, and attacked you completely unprovoked?” Twilight said exasperatedly.

Scootaloo started to nod, but then crossed a hoof and said, “Heh heh, I may have tried to punch her, a little.”

Twilight’s face went flat.

“She was telling me to die!” Scootaloo protested, waving her hooves from where she curled defensively against Rainbow Dash’s chest. “I wasn’t going to hurt her I just wanted her to stop talking like my... old friends.”

“And what did she do when you punched her?” Twilight asked with an unapproving glare.

Scootaloo wilted before that glare, saying uncertainly, “...she broke my ribs.”

In the dead silence that followed, Scootaloo spoke up again in protest, “I didn’t keep fighting. She wouldn’t let me get away!”

“So you punched her once, and she broke your ribs just like that,” Rainbow Dash spoke up with a less than trusting tone to her voice.

“Yeah,” Scootaloo said honestly, “It was like she thought I was going to kill her!”

“Alright,” Twilight spoke up, “We’re going to go have a talk with Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo’s ears went flat. “I don’t wanna—” she started.

“We,” Twilight interrupted, “Are going to go have a talk with Apple Bloom, and that’s final. I’ll be there with you, Scootaloo. I won’t let her do that to you, and she can explain just why she did calmly and rationally.”

“It’s obvious why she said that,” Scootaloo said morosely, “It’s because she hates ponies like me.”

“No, listen–” Twilight sighed, “Scootaloo...”

Rainbow Dash thought of something, saying down to the squirt, “You’ve known Apple Bloom more than I have. Do you really think Apple Bloom would hate a pony just for doing... that stuff you do?”

Scootaloo was silent.

“Therefore—” Twilight started, but Cheerilee cut her off quickly.

“Scootaloo,” Cheerilee said, “When a pony has been hurt, sometimes she’ll see the worst answer as the only answer. It really does seem like something else is going on here. I understand if you feel like hatred is the only way, but... at least keep in mind that other possibilities do exist, even if you can’t see them right now.”

Scootaloo actually shivered against Dash’s chest when Cheerilee said that. “So, Apple Bloom doesn’t hate me?” Scootaloo suggested to Cheerilee with a faint flicker of hope in her voice.

“I can say with almost total and absolute certainty that Apple Bloom does not hate you Scootaloo,” Twilight said seriously despite not being addressed. “I actually have been considering that Apple Bloom may have been possessed, or replaced by a changeling. As unlikely as either of those two scenarios may be, they are far more likely than Apple Bloom hating somepony for being different.”


“That’s why we are going to find her, Scootaloo,” Twilight continued with a swish into a stately pace before them, “Because it is most certainly a simple misunderstanding, with a very tiny chance that Apple Bloom is in trouble and needs our help right away, and either way there is only one thing to do.”

“Won’t it be dangerous?” Scootaloo asked fearfully.

Twilight raised an eyebrow.

Scootaloo blushed, and looked aside saying, “Yeah, yeah you got me.”

“Don’t worry, squirt,” Rainbow called over to the reluctant filly, “With Twilight around it’ll be no problem!”

“Alright,” Twilight said addressing everypony, “Rainbow Dash can you watch Archer and Licky Loo?”

Dash snickered and said, “You’re really going with that name?”

“It’s a good name!” Twilight said blushing in outrage.

“Yeah I can watch them,” Rainbow Dash said, “And the library too. But hurry it up because I need to eat lunch and get in an afternoon shift today.”

“Help yourself to whatever’s left in the pantry,” Twilight offered cheerfully. Score!

“Thanks, Twilight!” Dash said brightly.

“Nothing for Lick–uh,” Twilight paused in thought, “Ask Archer for feeding instructions. Now, is there anything else?”

“Yes, actually,” Cheerilee said. “I’m coming along with you.”

“Um, don’t you have a class to attend to?” Twilight said skeptically.

Cheerilee rolled her eyes, “Yes we’ll have to stop by there so that I can tell them where I am and assign a worksheet, but,” she got a serious look to her and finished with, “I’m not letting you out of my sight around these fillies.”

Twilight hung her head, “I guess you would be reasonable in expecting that. Anyway I could use your help, in case Apple Bloom can’t be made to see reason, or... something else goes wrong. I’m really sorry to be such a burden on you.”

“Oh it’s alright, Twilight,” Cheerilee said easily, “Being a teacher isn’t just about teaching, you also have to be ready to protect, and discipline, and mediate if necessary.”

Scootaloo stood up from Rainbow Dash all on her own, which was a relief in Rainbow’s mind. “Scuse Miss Twilight, there’s something I wanted to ask too,” Scootaloo said walking up to “purple” and “less purple”. Both of them looked down at her, and the squirt just gave this face and said, “Can we please not teleport?”

Twilight laughed lightly, “Of course, Scootaloo. You think I teleport every time I want to get around? There’s no hurry, and it’ll give Apple Bloom some time to cool down too. Anyway, I think I should conserve my strength in case there is something serious involved like changelings.”

“Um,” Scootaloo looked uncertain with how to word it but she spat out after a pause, “Then, you need to un-magic your door.”

Twilight looked at her sealed door, and laughed again, a bolt of magic erupting from her horn and shattering the seal in a burst of magenta sparkles. The door swung open seemingly of its own will.

At that, “Alright then, let’s go!” Scootaloo chirped, marching ahead of them smartly. Then she paused mid-step and turned back saying, “Uh, I don’t know where Apple Bloom is.”

“Let’s start at Sweet Apple Acres,” Cheerilee suggested, walking past Scootaloo and taking the lead, “If Apple Bloom isn’t there, then perhaps her family will know of her whereabouts, assuming she’s not hiding out in the bushes somewhere to get out of trouble. In any case, her pare–her family needs to be informed of this.”

Scootaloo followed after her, and Twilight followed Scootaloo out, and that left Rainbow Dash all by herself, alone in the library. Wait, weren’t there supposed to be two other fillies? There was a clatter in the back as something fell over.

“Ugh,” Dash grumbled slumping her shoulders and charging smoothly into the back of the library. “This better be worth it, Twilight!”

The two fillies weren’t all that hard to deal with. There was Licky’s whole not talking thing and never stopping running around, but Archer was practically a filly angel in comparison, and helped keep Licky in line. Twilight had been gone a while so they raided her pantry for cookies. She forgot to lock it again thankfully, because Rainbow Dash didn’t want to get in trouble again for breaking it to get at the food, assuming there was anything good in there.

Eventually Dash managed to snuffle around until she found something, and came out with a box of cookies in her mouth. Archer said it was alright to eat a little, as long as they didn’t get too full, but it really was surprising how little “a little” was. Archer said she was satisfied after just 2 cookies, and sure they were peanut butter chocolate oat, and a filly is kind of tiny, but that still wasn’t a lot of food. Dash was starting to feel guilty now, not of underfeeding Scootaloo but of shoving food down her throat all this time. Archer made sure Licky got exactly the same amount, then sort of somehow appraised her, saying Licky didn’t look like she was going to make a filly after that. Which would have been way crazy since that’d mean Scootaloo made a filly who made a filly who made a filly.

But while Dash was thinking, and sweeping the cookie crumbs off the floor, Scootaloo’s direct filly uh, progeny, Archer’s ears perked at something. “Do you hear that?” she said squinting and angling her ears at the door. Dash put down the dust brush and lifted her head, listening too.

“Huh,” Rainbow Dash said, “Something on the other side of the square. Sounds like a marching band.”
> Ophelia's Nightmare
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight Sparkle was glad to have things working out without any complications for once. Scootaloo, though reluctant to follow her initially, was not trying to flee or find excuses to separate to avoid confrontation with Apple Bloom. Far from it as they approached the Acres, Scootaloo stayed closer  to Twilight, looking around nervously when she thought neither of them was watching. Twilight suspected Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were best  friends, if the mere suggestion of reconciliation was enough to firm Scootaloo’s resolve. That, and Rainbow Dash’s telling her it would be fine, practically put a spring in Scootaloo’s step. It was a bit unnerving how much that filly trusted Rainbow, especially with how Rainbow... was. But whatever it was, Scootaloo was taken care of for now.

Cheerilee was already part of Twilight’s mental checklist, the schoolteacher an invaluable source of support and care. She earned her students’ trust several times over and surely Apple Bloom was no exception. Her presence alone should calm the filly, and keep her from doing something rash or folding her ears to the evidence right in front of her nose, or saying something that might make Scootaloo not want to reconcile their friendship.

Plus Twilight considered Cheerilee a true friend; not only was she a fellow bibliophile, but she was quite possibly the sanest pony in this crazy town. Twilight didn’t like to admit it, but Cheerilee was right in chaperoning her. This hadn’t been the first time Twilight had seen no way in which this could possibly go wrong, and then woken up in a trough in Saddledale with a lampshade over her head and a new tattoo, with no recollection of the past two days. If not for her school duties, Cheerilee could practically have been an Element of Harmony, a thirteenth element if you will, perhaps the Element of Sanity. But of course, there was nothing sane about the Elements of Harmony.

Nothing. Sane.

They were walking down the road that led to Sweet Apple Acres, the family farm house that served as command central for the whole Apple Family operation. The day was still bright and sunny, and the apple trees’ leaves were tinged with gold as they started to turn for the fall. There was a frost scheduled soon that would send the trees into full glorious color, but for now just a bit of the summer was hanging on. While Twilight listened passively, Cheerilee and Scootaloo were having an... interesting conversation.

“Scootaloo, fighting is wrong,” Cheerilee admonished, “You shouldn’t be proud of that.”

“Oh yeah totally,” Scootaloo agreed, “But you should have seen it! I was like pow, and Apple Bloom was like bam, and then she just flipped onto her feet and it was crazy!”

“I’m sure you’ll apologize to Apple Bloom when you see her,” Cheerilee suggested encouragingly giving Scootaloo a queasy smile.

“Yeah I will,” said Scootaloo inattentively, “I didn’t think I was gonna walk away from that. I jumped on my scooter, and she totally took part of my tail off!”

“Oh?” Cheerilee said with a wince. She steeled herself to glance back, but said in a surprised note, “Your tail seems fine, though.”

Scootaloo puffed her chest as she walked saying, “Heh, it was no problem. I’m too tough to let it get to me. Sort of like Supermare! Or maybe Wolverine.”

“So, your leg was broken too?” Cheerilee said uneasily, “And you just got better from that?”

Scootaloo nodded, adding, “I couldn’t even walk on it, and the knee was all swollen, but one trip through Archer and I was fine again!”

“And I broke a rib,” Scootaloo added cheekily, “And Apple Bloom tore the blue blazes out of my shoulder.”

Cheerilee stumbled at that point, having to catch up a few steps to them. She looked with a guilty concern at Scootaloo, before saying, “...please don’t use that language, I beg of you.”

Scootaloo just gave a toothy grin.

As for the matter of Apple Bloom, Twilight wasn’t too worried about that filly’s reaction. She would surely never have a chance to do... that  to Scootaloo again. Twilight was pretty sure she could handle anything a filly could dish out, even a panicked one. The only complication might be Apple Bloom’s family, which is to say a large, threatening and terribly strong earth pony, and Big Macintosh too, who might prevent reconciliation in a misguided attempt to protect their sister. Granny Smith could be reasoned with, or at least fooled, but Twilight really didn’t want to butt heads with Applejack. She wanted at the very least to save Applejack the remorse, when Applejack realizes that her stubborn tendency to refuse to accept new evidence from what she’s already known, has harmed her sister’s friendship.

So imagine her delight, when Twilight found that neither Big Macintosh nor Applejack, nor Granny Smith was in the farm house! To be fair, she wasn’t initially delighted since she thought the farm house was entirely empty, but when she got the key from under the doormat to unlock the front door, calling out inside for anypony who might be around, Twilight heard a shifting and a thump upstairs. 

And then  Twilight was pretty delighted. Not inappropriately so but, well, you know.

“Hello?” Twilight said walking into the living room, “Granny Smith? Applejack? Big Macintosh? Oh, what’s that?” Her ear turned up the stairs at the thump. Since Cheerilee had stayed outside with Scootaloo for now, the indoors was quiet enough to hear the clatter of hooves moving around upstairs. Twilight called up there, “Is anypony home?” but there was no response. A guilty Apple Bloom perhaps? That would be just perfect. Twilight ventured up the stairs cautiously. She really did hate intruding on Apple Bloom like this, but a friendship was at stake here! Twilight was sure things would work out somehow, if they could just get these two to really talk things out.

It was obvious which room belonged to Apple Bloom, by the big chest full of plush animals oh no wait that was Big Macintosh’s room, whoops. The room at the end of the hall was Apple Bloom’s though, judging by the filly sized bed. There was a partially melted bag of ice fallen over on the floor beside the bed, and the blankets were dissheveled and tossed aside. The sheets were entirely missing. It didn’t look like Apple Bloom was here, and Twilight made to go check the bathroom, but then she noticed where the sheets had gone. One of the sheets was tied by its corner to the bedpost nearest the open window, twisted like a rope and stretching tensely toward the window, outside and down.

Twilight dashed to the window, sticking her head out to find a rather bruised looking Apple Bloom already halfway down the wall, looking up at her in terror. “Ohh, no.” Twilight said right at the moment Apple Bloom shrieked “Oh no!” Twilight grabbed the bedsheet in her magic, reeling it in saying, “You’re not getting out of this , little filly!” In response, Apple Bloom jumped.

Apple Bloom jumped. Twilight’s heart stopped.

She caught the filly entirely  in her magic. You don’t lift ponies like that in your magic, it just does not work. You grab a hoof or a tail or an ear and you don’t try to hold them high off the ground, but Twilight panicked and now she had Apple Bloom in a slippery unstable cushion of aura far away from the solid earth, and nothing else. It was like trying to hold a cork underwater from ten feet away with only a pole in your mouth to push it down with. A cork that was struggling. “What are you doing Apple Bloom?! You’ll fall!” Twilight shouted when Apple Bloom fought against her unnatural grasp, losing the filly who plummeted, before Twilight caught her again.

“Falling is better than dying !” Apple Bloom shouted at Twilight in a strangely familiar tone. Twilight was losing her again! The filly could break her leg at this height, or worse! Twilight didn’t have the time or concentration to summon a pillow or increase her air resistance, and she just didn’t have the reflexes to grab Apple Bloom’s thrashing tail while the filly was falling . 

There would be only a split second to protect her from—protect! That’s it! Twilight lost Apple Bloom, who plummeted again, but with a practiced twist, Twilight turned her aura into a force bubble which popped into existence around the falling filly, right at the moment that Cheerilee and Scootaloo ran around the corner of the farm house. Then, Apple Bloom dropped like a stone.

Then Apple Bloom bounced.

Twilight watched with a peculiar sense of detachment, from the second story window as the other two chased after Apple Bloom. She hadn’t thought that the force bubble spell would be so ...elastic. It sure had a lot of momentum going. Sensible since it appeared during freefall, where a filly’s velocity increases very, very quickly. Twilight made a mental note that force bubbles apparantly only remain geosynchronized when created at zero velocity. Not very much friction either, or attenuation. She couldn’t exactly cancel it without the filly getting more hurt, and she certainly couldn’t control its rapid motions. It was too far away for conventional telekinesis, as Twilight’s horn was already in use, and she only had limited success with layering spells post-casting. Surely there was a spell that could help this situation though. Twilight just had to think.

Cheerilee solved the situation the earth pony way, by jumping bodily on the force bubble, and rolling with it to drag it to a halt. At the sight of that, Twilight left her horn running but retreated immediately from the window, and jumped down the stairs. She charged out of the farm house like a madmare, running around the corner to where the three of them were clustered beneath Apple Bloom’s window.

“What do you mean, ‘not me too’?” Cheerilee asked the bubbled Apple Bloom suspiciously.

“Please Miss Cheerilee!” Apple Bloom shouted from within the force bubble, “You gotta help me! Twilight is gonna kill me!”

“If I was going to kill you,” Twilight said as she calmly walked up to the three of them, “Then why would I save  you from falling to your death?”

There was a peculiar whitish blob floating in the force bubble with Apple Bloom, one that the filly was avoiding touching at all costs. It almost looked like... oh. Ew. But that aside, Apple Bloom manuvered herself to look at Twilight with pleading eyes and said, “Please you gotta fight it! Don’t let it get you in its thrall!”

“Let– ...what?” Twilight asked the alarmed filly, feeling somewhat alarmed herself at such an extreme reaction. Why was Apple Bloom afraid for her ? Apple Bloom was supposed to be disgusted at Scootaloo, but nothing more serious than that!

“Ah mean Scoota—that!” Apple Bloom said pointing an accusing hoof at Scootaloo.

“Why does everypony  think I can hypnotize ponies?” Scootaloo complained exasperatedly.

“Because that’s what you do!” Apple Bloom shouted, “Nopony would let you live if they weren’t enchanted!”

“Scootaloo tells me you told her she should ...die,” Cheerilee cut in. “Why would you say such a thing? What happened between you two?”

Apple Bloom’s face twisted in anger and grief, and she said very emphatically, “That ain’t  Scootaloo.”

There was a silence.

The wind whispered through the trees.

“That thing ate  Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom said in a broken voice, “An’ it ate Archer! An’ now it’s gonna eat me !”

Scootaloo fell back on her haunches unseeing, muttering, “That can’t be... I can’t... could I? That’s the stupidest... that’s the craziest thing I ever heard...”

Apple Bloom saw Scootaloo’s doubt and that she caught the adult’s attention, so she continued to entreaty them. “It’s just pretending  to be Scootaloo to get your guard down. It stole her memories and now you cain’t even tell! But I can see the signs! Just like Pinkie said!”

Twilight’s ears went flat.

Both Twilight and Cheerilee turned to look at Scootaloo with varying reactions, and Scootaloo looked back at them with a horrified recognition in her eyes, like she was familiar with being looked at like this. Twilight couldn’t help her disgust from softening at the sadness in that filly’s face. “I-I didn’t,” Scootaloo sniffled, “I didn’t do anything! It’s a lie!” her voice growing shrill.

“Alright, I think I know what to do here,” Twilight said shortly. She used her trick of summoning the magic in her horn before cancelling the spell to eliminate the warm-up time, thus the moment that Apple Bloom’s desynchronized force bubble faded, another one popped up around Scootaloo. A kinetic tap ensured the vomit plummeted harmlessly away from Apple Bloom to the ground, and when Apple Bloom landed, she immediately started to run away. Scootaloo’s face was a war of rage and denial, what looked like the bitterest tears rising in her eyes as she slumped there defeated. Ignoring her completely, Twilight called out to Apple Bloom.

“Apple Bloom!” Twilight shouted. “Scootaloo cannot  escape this force bubble! I promise  she can’t hurt you as long as I’m here! Please don’t run away!” She was about to whisper to Cheerilee, to ask if she would give chase, but Apple Bloom did stop running mid-step, and her hoof wavered in the air. “I need to know the signs!” Twilight continued to shout to her entreatingly, “I need to know what Pinkie Pie told you! Please Apple Bloom this is very important!”

Apple Bloom approached them sideways, never coming any closer than a couple strides. Now that Apple Bloom was outside of the bubble’s pink glow, it was plain to see how much she was beat up. Her eye was swollen shut and she was limping, if not badly, on one leg. Her chest and side looked pretty badly bruised. One of her ears was entirely wrapped against her head in a bandage.

“I-if you were in its thrall, then I’d already be eatin’ already, so I’m trusting you,” she said in a tense voice keeping her distance, “But ah just wanna be careful, so”

“It’s perfectly alright, Apple Bloom,” Cheerilee said encouragingly. Twilight nodded weakly. The filly remained standing that far away not a step closer. It would have to do.

“So Pi–”  “What did–” the filly and Twilight both began at once. Twilight blushed, and said, “Go ahead.”

Apple Bloom nodded. “Pinkie Pie didn’t exactly tell me specific, but ah know what ah overheard,” Apple Bloom said resolutely. “She was bein’ real loud so even though she was talkin’ to Applejack there weren’t no way I could mishear, so ah know she really did said it.”

Twilight nodded eagerly, “And?” Cheerilee shushed her.

“And ah thought she was bein’ crazy like usual,” Apple Bloom continued, “She said there was a monster called the Fillysprite, and that it ate Scootaloo and she was gone forever. And Applejack laughed at that sayin’ she seen Scootaloo just the other day, but Pinkie said it was like a parasprite except that it didn’t turn food into parasprites, it turned foals  by devouring them and spitting out a copy, like a parasprite. It replaces the foals one after another until there aren’t no more foals left in town. And she had to stop it with the uh, Apple Family banjo.”

Apple Bloom blushed and added hastily, “A-ah didn’t believe her ah mean, it was a crazy ghost story! And neither did Applejack, until Pinkie said that you could tell when a foal had got replaced, because of the signs. They started bein’ friends with strangers for no reason, stopped eating as much and they got wings that didn’t work and that they enchanted adults into thinking it was okay to eat foals, and Rainbow Dash saw  it happen for real  but the Fillysprite had her in its thrall, so Rainbow Dash just got all weird and started tryin’ to adopt it.”

Apple Bloom shuddered. “Ah still  didn’t believe her, and neither did nopony, so Pinkie ran off all angry sayin’ we’d regret it. A-and Scootaloo was actin’ all weird at school that day and I kept tellin’ mahself it was a lie but before I could tell Sweetie Belle about it, Scoot–the thing snuck up on us when we were all alone, and... and then that Archer filly ganged up on us too, and they were acting like they were best friends all of a sudden, just like Pinkie said. And Scootaloo, she was talking like bein’ swallowed up an’ spit out was no big thing and she was gonna do it to us a-and ah knew... Pinkie had to be right...”

“Is this true , Scootaloo?” Cheerilee asked incredulously, looking at the despondent filly still trapped in Twilight’s handy pink foal trap.

“I-it–” Scootaloo stammered, shouting, “No, it’s not true!”

“You liar!” Apple Bloom accused angrily.

“No, Apple Bloom, it,” Scootaloo’s wings buzzed in agitation, “It is  true but it’s not what you think it just... it just sounds really bad!”

“See?” Apple Bloom said looking at the adults pleadingly, “It’s tryin to make it sound alright to get eaten!”

“Wow!” Twilight exclaimed, coming out of her shock induced trance with a bang. “Wow, Apple Bloom,” she repeated in a stunned voice, “It, wow. You, you have every right to think that Scootaloo is an evil monster bent on wiping out Ponyville’s foal population.”

“I’m not!” protested Scootaloo, kicking hopelessly at the bubble’s edge.

“So... you believe  me?” Apple Bloom asked hesitantly.

“Well, that’s just it,” Twilight said, letting the idle lock of hair fall out of her mouth, waving a hoof as she explained, “You have every right to think that, because your emotional state ensures that you won’t be able to see the subtle flaws in your own argument, that make everything you said totally and completely wrong.”

“Ah know what ah saw!” Apple Bloom said hotly.

“Just like the wedding!” Twilight exclaimed excitedly, “You knew without a doubt that it was the real Cadance getting married, even though you were totally wrong!”

Apple Bloom’s pupils narrowed a bit as she said, “I– what?”

“Scootaloo hasn’t been deceiving us all this time,” Twilight announced, “Pinkie Pie  has!”

While everyone stared in amazement, “Pinkie Pie,” Twilight continued in a triumphant tone, “Carefully worded her story so that everything that was true about Scootaloo would seem evil!”

“What?” exclaimed the three ponies to her with varying degrees of confusion and disbelief.

“Scootaloo,” Twilight continued undaunted, facing the imprisoned filly, “Why did you bring Archer to see Apple Bloom?”

Scootaloo blinked then said disappointedly, “I wanted my friends to be friends with Archer because she doesn’t have any, and I thought we could be ...friends.”

“And why didn’t you do that months ago? Or last year?”

“Because I could have slipped up,” Scootaloo answered readily enough, “And said something only Archer would have known, and then our secret would be out.”

“Why did you stop keeping it secret this morning?” Twilight pressed. “Why change things and tell Apple Bloom now?”

Scootaloo looked at Twilight directly saying, “Everypony was finding out so I didn’t want my friends to find out before I could tell them!”

“But was there somepony specific who may have I dunno, recommended  you speak with Apple Bloom?”

“You did, Miss Twilight!” Scootaloo said stomping hotly. “What were you think—”

“You’re right, Scootaloo!” Twilight cheered, “As recall, I told you that Apple Bloom was the only pony who saw Zecora for the pony she is, when everypony else thought she was a monster.”

“Yeah well,” Apple Bloom fussed. Oh, Twilight noticed that Cheerilee went to sit with her. Good idea, in hindsight. “Zecora didn’t eat mah friends!” the fussy filly protested.

“So Scootaloo,” Twilight continued ignoring Apple Bloom’s statement, “You were being friendly with Archer at school.” Twilight began to pace sedately alongside the farm house as she spoke, “Because you no longer had a secret to keep, not  because you had been suddenly replaced by an evil monster.”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo protested woundedly.

Twilight had to chuckle when she asked, “Are you a, heh, a parasprite  Scootaloo?”

“No!” Scootaloo protested ardently.

“She’s just lyin’!” Apple Bloom said stubbornly, “Why should ah trust anything that comes out of her mouth?”

“Apple Bloom,” Twilight said now addressing the yellow filly, who startled at the sudden intense attention despite asking for it, “You’ve known Scootaloo for what, 2 years?”

“Y-yeah,” Apple Bloom said hesitantly, “Almost two.”

“Did she have normal pegasus wings when you first met her?”

“Course not!” Apple Bloom said, “How else could she have pulled us around on that scooter of hers?”

“Wasn’t that one of the signs?” Twilight asked leadingly, “Having ‘wings that don’t work’?”

“They worked!” Apple Bloom said defensively, “Ah mean her scooter, and—”

“And she wasn’t using her scooter all of a sudden today?”

Apple Bloom frowned. Yes, got her! Twilight tried not to outwardly dance with glee, simply moving onto the next checkpoint. “What were the other signs?” Twilight asked, “Something about the monster eating less than other fillies?”

“B-because it ate fillies so it didn’t need to eat!” Apple Bloom said in a desperately speculative tone.

“And has Scootaloo ever eaten what you’d call a full meal for a filly?”

“She eats like a freakin’ bird,” Apple Bloom said reflexively. Then stopped herself looking contemplative.

Twilight pawed the ground eagerly, saying “Did she ever eat too much and then, I don’t know, have to leave suddenly? Maybe at a party?”

“Well there was the party where we met, but...” Apple Bloom stopped cold again.

“Just how long has Scootaloo been this way?” Twilight asked whimsically. “And all that time she never had a single chance to devour you and replace you with an evil clone?”

Apple Bloom looked up and there were tears in her eyes. Twilight hoped they were the good tears. “B-b-b-but P-pinkie,” she whimpered thickly.

“It’s Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said flatly.

Apple Bloom looked like she wanted to cry, but she was silent. Composing herself she stood on her hooves and walked over to the magenta bubble in which Scootaloo and part of the ground was encased. Scootaloo was crouched defensively looking up at Apple Bloom, using her wings to keep herself from drifting off the ground, but Apple Bloom just looked at her with her good eye, and touched the force bubble with a hoof. “Scootaloo?” she said in a tiny voice.

Twilight canceled her horn at that moment, and the force bubble faded out with a slight hum. Now or never. Apple Bloom leapt at Scootaloo and tackled her in a choking hug saying, “Oh Scootaloo, ah thought you were gone forever! Pinkie Pie said you were dead!” Scootaloo backpedalled, but didn’t fight back too hard, gasping out, “Apple Bloom...!”

“Ah’m so sorry,” Apple Bloom wept, “Ah don’t ever want you to be dead, ever!” Scootaloo stopped struggling when she said that, and got this haunted look  on her face. She hesitantly extended her hooves around Apple Bloom’s back and hugged her, then hugged her tighter. It wasn’t long before Scootaloo was crying harder than Apple Bloom holding onto her like a drowning mare.

“Um...” came Apple Bloom’s voice eventually. “Can you leggo Scootaloo? This actually really  hurts.”

Scootaloo separated hurriedly, wiping at her eyes and stuttering, “O-oh sorry I-I really didn’t think, wow Apple Bloom you look like cra...” she glanced at Cheerilee, “...really bad.”

Apple Bloom half grinned, “It’s mostly just ugly,” she said. “Ah should put some ice on it but, ain’t anything like what I did to you .” She seemed guilty about it, but confused at the same time, saying “But... you’re all better now! How did you recover so fast?”

“Same way I always do,” Scootaloo said easily. “Went inside Archer for a while, and when I came out I was good as new!”

Apple Bloom gave her a confused look. “Went inside Archer?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Yeah, you know,” Scootaloo hinted, “She uh, de-voured me and spit me out?”

Apple Bloom was silent, took back a step, then shouted, “You just  said that was a lie!”

Scootaloo shook her head frantically saying, “No I didn’t! When did I say that?”

“You did!” exclaimed Apple Bloom backing up further, “Ah don’t want you to eat me!” Uh oh. Twilight lit her horn at the two, undecided who was most dangerous or in the most danger at this point.

“I’m not going to!” Scootaloo shouted back at Apple Bloom. “Why would I ever eat  you?”

“Because Archer ate you!” Apple Bloom shouted matter-of-factly. A very peculiar way to shout, but she managed it somehow.

“No, it’s not—” Scootaloo shoved a hoof against her own brow. “It’s only because Archer is the same as me!” she declared.

“Well yeah,” Apple Bloom said leadingly, “After  she ate you, and replaced you with a copy of herself!”

“I’ve always been this way!” Scootaloo said staring at Apple Bloom challengingly.

Apple Bloom just huffed, sneering, “How could you have been this way before Archer devoured you an’ made you one of them?!”

“Because I made Archer!” Scootaloo explained pleadingly, at her wit’s end.

“Then how did—wait,” Apple Bloom stopped her retort and looked down, touching a fetlock to her mouth.

“Okay, okay,” Scootaloo waved her hoof, “This is how it is. I was eating um, something. Normal food . And then I had to throw up, and Archer came out. And I was just keeping her around as a backup, but then I kind of started to like her. So I kept her out until she was ready to go to school, and... and it didn’t work out so well. But we were both  going to school, and then I got hurt, and then Archer ate me, and spitted me out again.”

Scootaloo enunciated very clearly when she said, “I’ve N E V E R been any different than this, and N O T H I N G changed me into a... a me .”

“Fillysprite,” Apple Bloom prompted.

“That sounds stupid,” Scootaloo grumbled. It looked like things were still simmering below a boil so Twilight released the grasp on her magic. Twilight was starting to get the impression that these two really butted heads together a lot.

“So I’ve never ...eaten  another filly,” Scootaloo said struggling with her words, “Just a filly....... sprite, and only just regular food besides that. I don’t even know what would happ...I don’t even know how  I’d eat a filly!”

Apple Bloom heaved a shuddering sigh, and still looked askance at Scootaloo saying, “This is a lot  to take in. All this time, you never even... ah mean we never even... ah mean, what’s that even like ?”

“It’s um...... filling,” Scootaloo said looking away, “And kind of scary I mean not that I’m scared  or anything but I just can’t move when I’m all stretched out like that, so it’s kinda dangerous.”

“Stretched out?”

Scootaloo laughed dryly, “Yeah, what do you think I shrink  the fillies first?”

Apple Bloom’s eyes crossed and her tail went down. “Buh...” she said dumbly, “How do they fit ?”

“It’s really not that hard,” Scootaloo said scratching at her nape with a nervous hoof. “I just go like this.”

Twilight jumped up as fast as she could and said “I really don’t think—” but Scootaloo had already unhinged her jaw and expanded her mouth cavity, yawning like a gateway into fleshy oblivion. As soon as she spread open like ...that, Scootaloo closed her mouth, returning to her original proportions with a practiced ease.

“...and they just get in,” Scootaloo concluded. Apple Bloom had in the meantime skittered backwards so fast she fell on her rear end, hyperventilating on the spot. Scootaloo seemed to perceive that she’d made a ...social faux pas, and winced, rubbing her foreleg. “I mean, it’s nothing special,” she backpedalled verbally, “I mean, s-sorry it’s weird I know I just I mean it isn’t that  bad is it?”

“For future reference Scootaloo,” Cheerilee said in a detached tone, “It’s considered rude to open your mouth in front of another pony without their permission.”

Scootaloo’s ear twitched irritably, “Oh so this is like that tail lifting thing,” she said grumpily.

“Scootaloo... you aren’t living at the orphanage, right?” Cheerilee asked in a slightly stronger voice.

“Yeah I... I was faking that...” Scootaloo mumbled, casting her gaze downward. “They’d find out, if I was.”

“Do you have any parental figures in your life at all?”

“Well I–” Scootaloo frowned saying somewhat defensively, “I have Rainbow Dash now! She’s my new sister!”

“As of when?” Cheerilee asked with a note of vexation.

“As of...” Scootaloo hesitated before proudly claiming, “As of last month!”

Cheerilee facehooved. “I’m beginning to understand why you’ve been so difficult to discipline,” she mumbled darkly.

“I never knew you were so ...stretchy,” came Apple Bloom’s quiet voice. She was still sitting where she’d fallen but her breath had reduced to a normal rate.

“Yeah I guess I am pretty stretchy,” Scootaloo said looking at her own hoof and pulling on it sort of like a rubber band. “Sorry I really didn’t know it would spook you so bad... I just never had somepony to show before. I mean, you can understand why I wouldn’t show anypony.” Her ears went down a bit as she muttered, “I never asked to be like this; it just happens.”

Apple Bloom looked at her silently one more moment then said, “Ah meant it when I said ah don’t want you to die. If you really have been this way all this time... ah thought something killed you and took your place an’ it was gonna get me next, and then Sweetie Belle.”

“If something like that ever  exists,” Scootaloo said dryly, “I hope you kill it before  it gets me.”

“Land Sakes Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom laughed, “You know I would!” And that seemed to do it.

Twilight felt her heart swell with joy as the two fillies touched noses. Apple Bloom a bit hesitant at that, but only from the remnants of a bloody nose. Twilight had been so worried when Apple Bloom was acting so strangely, that something had happened to her or something sinister was going on, and now it all was starting to make sense. Everything was starting to make sense, except why  Pinkie was deceiving them. It was just too much to attribute that to Pinkie being Pinkie.

“Ah’m just glad ya came all the way out here to see me Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said encouragingly. “Mah sister’s gonna be awful mad when she finds out though!”

“What, because we were fighting again?” Scootaloo said with an eye roll.

Apple Bloom shook her head. “No, because after ah came home all beat up, Applejack went with Pinkie to the library to ‘destroy the monster.’ Ah’d be real worried if you were still there!”

Twilight teleported so hard that her ears popped.

She appeared in the library foyer to the terrible sound of perfect silence. “Archer?” she shouted. “Rainbow Dash?” The front door was hanging open. She ran outside, casting her gaze around frantically. Her “CAUTION: IMPORTANT MAGICAL EXPERIMENT sign was gone, and in fact the entire wooden engraved signpost was gone, broken off at the base and thrown to the ground. And what had broken it off was...





“Huh,” Rainbow Dash said her ears focused at the sounds outside the library, “Something on the other side of the square. Sounds like a marching band.”

“A marching band?!”  Archer exclaimed excitedly jumping up and running to the door, “Oh can we see it? Can we go see it?”

Rainbow Dash winced, saying, “I dunno, it’s I mean, you’re not supposed to leave the library and all, so we’d better not–” Archer had already opened the door and walked outside.

“Hey, kid! Come back!” Rainbow Dash ran outside the tree house after the eager filly. That’s why Dash didn’t see it until the movement out of the corner of her eye contacted with her side, knocking her over so hard that she broke the library sign as she crashed against it. Rainbow Dash tried to confront, or even face  her attacker, but her body was just not responding to her demands. “Wh...?” she slurred numbly. She even didn’t have to turn her face though, because a familiar voice sounded in her ears.

“Ah’m sorry, sugarcube, but we’ll have you fixed up once you’re yourself again.”





“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight shouted, running up to the fallen pony. Rainbow lay there on top of the broken sign in a boneless pile of fur and feathers, one wing splayed up in the air with the other limp and caught underneath her. The worst part is, Rainbow appeared to be fully conscious , and was trying to lurch around to face Twilight. “Twilligh!” Dash shouted out in a drunken slur.

“What happened, Rainbow Dash?!” Twilight asked drawing up in alarm as Rainbow Dash flapped her only good wing. The pegasus didn’t have any apparant bruises or abrasions, and her face showed alarm, but no pain.

“’jack did something!” she said with difficulty one eye heavily dilated and unseeing. “Can’t... move!”

“Ohh, stay there Rainbow Dash I’ll be right back!” Twilight exclaimed worriedly. She ran into the library and summoned out a host of books. Everypony’s Enigmatic Enervations had what looked like the right disorder, but implied that it was viral so she had to check Curing Curious Clinical Conditions to suggest an alternative treatment option—

“Archer!” shouted Rainbow Dash. She’d somehow managed to pull herself by one hoof half through the doorway to get Twilight’s attention.

“Archer!” Twilight repeated dropping her books heedlessly. “Where is she?” she asked bending over Dash. “Is she okay?!”

“Followed...” Dash bit out in a grimace of concentration, “Pinkie!”

“Where? Where did they go?” Twilight asked shrilly.

“Dnghtnphbt,” Rainbow Dash said slumping in defeat. She paused at that, then lay her head on the ground and carefully spat out, “Don’t... know.”

Twilight paced back and forth saying, “Why aren’t they here ? Where is the angry mob? Where would they go? Why would Archer follow  them?”

“Mghrbl,” Rainbow Dash said informatively.

Twilight cradled Dash’s head in her hooves saying, “What? What is it, Rainbow Dash?”

“MMm,” Dash said flapping her wing again, “Marching... band.”

“Pinkie was  collecting instruments,” Twilight admitted, “But why would Archer ...”

There are giant colossi roaming an unending dark plane of rubble, debris, various and sundry. Now and then they mature, the light fails in their massive single eye and they too fall, collapsing to pieces as they descend heavily to the ground. Occasionally a small creature scampering about the ruins manages to rescue their darkened core. They may fight over it jealously ruining it as it shatters to pieces, or one might escape the rabble, descending through a nightmare machine that fills their journey with deadly traps and impassible barriers. But somehow one will make it through and descend to the room of the keystone, with its walls glowing in what might be arcane runes or incredibly complex technical components. If the final guardian can not destroy the creature before it slots the eye into place, making it and the room light up with information and awareness, then a pony will have an inspiration.

Twilight leapt to her hooves shouting, “Holy bucking shit they are  parasprites!”

Rainbow Dash’s head hit the floor with a clunk and an inarticulate curse.

“Wait here, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said hurriedly lighting up her horn, “I think I know where they are!”

Twilight’s triumphant cry was followed by her horrified  one, “I think I know where they are !”

As fast as she could, Twilight winked out again, appearing at a familiar entrance to the boundary of the Everfree forest. She was sorely tempted to teleport into  the Everfree forest, but nopony ever  did that if they didn’t want to end up deconstructed, divised or spliced. She didn’t hesitate from galloping into the murky forest though, leaving her home behind for this lawless expanse. If Pinkie passed by the library, then this would be the quickest river access outside of pony territory. This is where Pinkie went last time. Twilight could only hope she wasn’t too late!

Fortunately by the sound of a marching band ahead, Twilight could tell she wasn’t too late. She could see the river already, though! Why had she never asked Pinkie how she knew that song, or why it had such power? How could Twilight have not have seen this coming? She redoubled her pace, her legs burning as she caught up with the thankfully small retinue travelling at a thankfully stately pace. Applejack and Granny Smith were reluctantly following along at the rear. Ahead of them were Twilight’s neighbors, the three probably just there for the spectacle as usual. Next was Licky, then Archer who were just hopping along without a care in the world, big smiles on their faces. Taking the lead was Pinkie Pie already standing on the river bank wrapped in 12 different instruments and somehow playing them all at once.

Cursing herself for not having practiced a sound cancellation spell, Twilight instead used her element of surprise to catch Applejack in the strongest force bubble she could come up with. That should hold her for a while. “Pinkie, stop this!!” Twilight cried out. Granny Smith stopped short at the pink barrier appearing around her daughter and Applejack immediately hurled herself against it hooves coming down with a wavering thunk.

“They’re controlling you, Twilight!” Applejack shouted earnestly, “These ain’t real fillies!”

“They’re not controlling me!” Twilight shouted, “You can’t kill them, Pinkie! What you’re doing is wrong!” Archer was already splashing into the river without hesitation. Pinkie didn’t even miss a beat though, the bouncy pleasant song she was playing contrasting sharply with the grim expression on her harmonica entrenched face. Twilight was quickly losing control of the situation. Even the flower trio were looking at Twilight with a grim certainty, surrounding her in a semicircle and blocking her against the river.

“These things eat fillies, Twilight!” Applejack shouted, “Look at them, they’re bucking parasprites !”

“That’s not—” Twilight stomped looking between her friends in a wide eyed panic, “You’re wrong , Applejack! Pinkie is deceiving you!” Archer’s head disappered under the water.

Several things happened very quickly at that point. As the energy peeled off the barrier surrounding Applejack, and directed itself into a lethal bolt of arcane force heading straight for Pinkie Pie, Applejack’s hooves struck again, the thinned barrier shattering like candy glass, sending her face forward in the dirt. The flower trio were screaming their heads off and charging Twilight, as accompanying Pinkie Pie’s stunned expression, there was a huge smoking hole going right through her accordion. And Twilight threw herself bodily into the river.

There was the sound of an accordion deflating.

The river was murky and swift, easy to lose your hooves on the slippery muck of the bottom. Twilight lit up her horn just using its glow to sweep around seeking out Archer. She didn’t know if Archer was just staying under, or if she was getting swept away with the current or if she was compelled to inhale  or anything about this. She hadn’t even thought about Pinkie’s way of dealing with parasprites. It didn’t matter  how it happened; it was supposed to be just... destroying a bunch of parasprites! Twilight had to find Archer and fast. She couldn’t lose hope! She—she found Archer.

The dim silouette of the filly came into her vision. Archer was rocking slowly there under the water, like she was going to sleep. Twilight grabbed around her waist and pulled as hard as she could, forcing Archer to the surface. Twilight surfaced shortly thereafter, scrambling for the river bank and swiftly finding out how hard it is to swim with a filly in your hoof. Archer wasn’t struggling, just moving weakly against Twilight in a peculiar rhythm. Twilight felt her gut drop out when she realized that Archer was still  dancing.

With Archer held in her forelimb, Twilight’s other hooves caught on the slippery dirt and pulled herself up the riverbank, bit by bit. She was far downstream from where they’d jumped in, but the ponies had followed Twilight down the bank, to stand over her sodden figure. Twilight looked defeat in the eye, as Applejack loomed over her, hoof upraised.

“Please Applejack, just listen!” Twilight spluttered water dripping down her face. “Just listen! Please!” Applejack didn’t answer, so Twilight forced herself out of the water heedlessly, pulling the still twitching Archer to safety. The blow to spiraling unconsciousness never came, so Twilight assumed that Applejack was giving her a chance. 

Archer stopped moving, thankfully and worryingly,  once out of the water. As soon as Twilight had her footing, she snagged Archer’s tail, pulling her up into the air through sheer force of will (literally because she’s a magic unicorn). Water poured out of Archer’s mouth then, as she went completely limp.

Only after Twilight had deposited Archer on the riverbank did she spare a glance at Applejack. Applejack didn’t look angry or furious though. She looked terrified! “What have they done to ya, Twilight?” she asked in muted horror.

“Nothing has done anything ,” Twilight asserted. “There are no enchantments, no compulsions, no possessions, tricks, deceptions, suggestions or pony snatchers!”

“A likely story!” shouted Pinkie Pie butting up beside Applejack. “They’ve had you in their eyeballs for days!” she accused Twilight giving her the old Pinkie eyeballing.

Archer started to cough, and Pinkie shouted, “No!” diving frantically at the little filly and dragging her back into the water before anypony could react.

“Pinkie, no!” Twilight cried, yanking Archer back with her magic.

“I’ll put it in the water myself!!” Pinkie shouted back resolutely.

Pinkie pulled and Twilight pulled harder, and as the earth pony’s natural connection to the land was currently a slimy watery sludge under her hooves, there was just no way Pinkie was going to get even one hair on Archer’s head in the water again.

“Something ain’t right here,” Granny said making her contribution to the situation count hobbling up behind them.

“You bet there isn’t!” Twilight shouted. Archer had her eyes open now and was staring at Twilight in abject terror, her tiny wings buzzing frantically but uselessly. “If you would all just slow down and listen to me!”

“Hold on a sec, Pinkie,” Applejack said a lot calmer than she looked. “Granny’s right. Something ain’t right here!”

“No!” Pinkie shouted and, and there were actually tears running down her eyes, “If I hold on a sec it’ll get me! And then all the foals will die! And nothing will ever be happy again!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight snapped, “Why are you lying to everypony?! How could you say those things? Do you even understand the consequences of what you’re doing?!”

“I’m  lying?” Pinkie shouted shrilly, “I’m  lying??”

Applejack tipped her hat down and charged Pinkie butting her forehead into her chest, making Archer fly forward freely in Twilight’s magic for a hair raising instant. Then Archer slipped out of Twilight’s aura again, and fell to the shallows where Twilight was standing. Twilight bent down and pulled Archer back to the shore. Archer was shivering now, staring forward blankly, mumbling to herself, “I... I just... I almost...”

“There was a pony who told me to slow down and listen to her when the parasprites invaded,” Applejack said, putting herself in between them and the quivering Pinkie Pie. “Ah didn’t listen to her, and we almost lost the farm. We almost lost Ponyville to a terrible famine.”

Pinkie couldn’t possibly have gotten any more pale. “T-t-they’ve got you all!” she protested in sheer denial, “They’ll kill us! They’ll take all the foals away! P-parents will— it’s not worth living without them!” Her hoof sank deeper into the muck as she backed up from the four ponies. There just didn’t seem to be any consoling her!

“Pinkie...” Twilight started, but Pinkie shouted “No!” again and turned, leaping entirely  across the river, splashing up the bank on the other side. Pinkie only turned back once to shout, “She was a hero!!” before charging into the forest with abandon.

“Ah’ll go get her,” Applejack said bleakly, readying herself but Twilight said, “No, let her go. She... we need  to find out what’s wrong with Pinkie Pie, but the ponies most in danger of her are right here. We need to protect Archer, and... um...”

Twilight looked around at the four ponies, Applejack, Archer, Granny Smith and herself. The Flower Trio were long gone, of course. Twilight’s heart plummeted again, and she looked at the river’s deceptively smooth surface in horror and said, “Where’s... where’s the other filly?!”
















“She ran off as soon as the music stopped,” Applejack said casually
> Twilight's Findings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Okay! Okay, don’t panic!” Twilight announced, sweeping her gaze around the dank, dark forbidding Everfree forest in which she, Applejack, Granny Smith, and Archer remained. “It’s just a dank, dark forbidding forest,” Twilight champed out nervously, “How much trouble could a filly get into?” The frazzled purple unicorn busily zipped to and fro, checking under bushes, and behind trees, and under rocks, but there was no Licky Loo to be found.

“Beggin’ your pardon, Twilight,” Applejack interrupted her frantic search, pulling Twilight up straight and poking her in the chest with a no-nonsense expression. “Ah believe you were going to explain why we should care about the affairs of a filly eatin’ monster in any way besides how to get it twelve feet under and how fast to get it there?”

“Which way did she go??” Twilight shouted at Applejack, looming at her urgently.

“We’ll track her down later,” Applejack responded irritably, “I need ya to explain. Now.”

“She could be in terrible danger!” Twilight said in a fuss, “We can’t just sit here idly while a filly is in trouble! Maybe she followed the river! Maybe she ran back up the path. Ohh how could this–” Applejack clapped her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders, holding the unicorn steady. Her firm physical touch bore just a hint of a threat to it as she looked the unicorn eye to eye.

“Twilight, ah just asked you to explain.”

“I-I will, just–”

“No Twilight,” Applejack said gravely. “If you were enchanted by a monster to protect it at all costs, then you wouldn’t explain. If you ain’t enchanted, then you’re Twilight bucking Sparkle, an’ you wouldn’t pass up a chance to explain anything. So which is it, friend?”

Twilight blinked three times before realizing just what Applejack was getting at. She was breathing quickly and her heart was beating fast, and she was genuinely worried for Licky. How much of that was natural and how much of it was... designed? The fillies didn’t know about it of course; that would ruin the effect, but maybe it was just in their nature?

(”These creatures are adorable!”)

“Okay,” Twilight said, taking a deep breath. “Alright, I’ll explain.”

She backed up to separate from Applejack who let her go reluctantly, and she added with a wry grin, “But remember, you asked for it!”

“Make it quick, Twilight” Applejack said in response, not smiling at all.

Twilight’s grin faltered. She glanced down at Archer who was currently hiding under her legs, wings tight against her little blue body. The two of them were still sopping wet from the river. Twilight looked at Granny, who was watching both her and Applejack in a steady stare, and Applejack who... was absolutely right. “Alright, I’ll try,” Twilight sighed, head drooping.

“Scootaloo is, I think,” Twilight began less than confidently, “Some kind of evolutionary throwback. She had at one point, I suspect, perfectly normal pony parents, and they ...likely abandoned her when the mutation that unlocked her ancient nature rendered her so dramatically different from a normal infant. Such an occurrence is exceedingly rare, but it is possible! She claims she had no parents, but she may simply not remember them, however far back her memories go. She is not a parasprite, and she is a real pony in every sense of the word.”

Twilight paused, looking at Applejack pensively. “How much do you know about prehistoric pony history?” Twilight implored of the orange pony.

Applejack seemed taken aback at that, either because she didn’t know, or because she wasn’t used to Twilight doing anything but talk at other ponies. Twilight really was that bad at interacting with other ponies and she knew it, but she made a mental note to work on fixing that soon as possible. It went off into the pile with all the dozens of identical mental notes before it.

“I don’t rightly know, Twilight,” Applejack said uncertainly, “Ah had schoolin’ but ah weren’t payin’ much attention to history. You mean like the three tribes and such?”

Twilight shook her head, “No, I mean the evolutionary history of ponies, so a lot longer ago than even that. We don’t have written records of course, as ponies and pre-pony ancestors lacked the harmonic awareness necessary to form civilization, but there are many fossil records especially from the Badlands which can piece together a basic timeline of how ponies came to be.”

“Okay fine,” Applejack said, “And your point is?”

“Well, there’s a theory... not well substantiated of course... considered a bit of a crackpot theory despite some compelling arguments, because there just are too many gaps in the fossil record to make strong conclusions. Many generations of ponies who produced no fossils at all, with each generation much different from the last.”

Applejack sighed.

“A-and the theory is that um...” Twilight hated to do this but she just couldn’t expect them to believe her if she just blurted it out. They would have to understand themselves if they were going to believe her. “You know how parasprites come in so many bright colors?” she asked looking at Applejack pleadingly.

“Sure as rain, Twilight,” Applejack answered placatingly, “But what are you getting at?”

“Parasprites are very rudimentary organisms,” Twilight explained, “With a basic grasp of the aero, but mostly they just specialize in anima, reproducing as fast as possible in order to escape threats by out-breeding them. They have a similar diet to ponykind, certain botched enchantments nonwithstanding, which makes them a serious threat to any towns they invade. They have a certain... aesthetic appeal to ponies, not shared by say, gryphons or diamond dogs. And they come in many bright colors, in an identical spectrum to that which you would find in a pony.”

“Yep, that’s why they are such a menace,” Applejack stated. “Because they done change themselves to be all cute and stuff to keep ponies from gettin’ suspicious until it’s too late.” Applejack glared down at Archer adding, “Just like that thing under your hooves there!”

“Well that’s the thing though!” Twilight said shifting her hooves to hide Archer nervously, “Evolutionary record and genetic analysis have indicated that parasprites have changed very little in evolutionary history. Fitting their niche perfectly, they have no reason to change their own natures. It’s not a widely known fact outside of scholarly circles. I didn’t even know they existed! But the general consensus is that parasprites are a very, very old kind, who haven’t changed for well... longer than ponies have been around!”

“Ain’t no way no pony’s gonna change to likin’ parasprites,” Granny cut in. “That’s just foolery! Why would ponies become susceptible to parasprites, if the parasprites weren’t the ones doin’ it?”

“They wouldn’t!” Twilight exclaimed. “That’s why this theory is so compelling, despite lack of evidence backing it up. Of course ponies wouldn’t change to become similar to parasprites, because the theory is that ponies have been similar to parasprites all along!”

“That still don’t add up. Why were they similar in the first place then?” Applejack said skeptically.

“That’s what I believe in Archer here, and in Scootaloo lies the answer,” Twilight said earnestly. “You think I was protecting her because I was enchanted? I don’t need to be enchanted to want to protect such valuable discoveries to the scientific community!”

“What sort of discovery are these things, Twilight?” Applejack asked agitatedly. “What are you getting at?”

Twilight scrunched her muzzle up indecisively, then just cast her dice and said it, “The theory originally proposed by professor Cracked Pot in VXT is that the modern pony and the parasprite share a common ancestor.”

Applejack just... sort of slowly leered back from Twilight, her lip pulling into a curl before she exclaimed, “How the hay would that happen? You’re sayin’ some ancient pony and a parasprite did the dirty? How would that even... that don’t make sense!”

Twilight sighed, closing her eyes wearily. “It’s not like that,” she explained, “Imagine if two groups of parasprites became isolated from one another, and only one of the groups found harmony. The others remained normal parasprites. Harmony gave the isolated group the earth, making it advantageous to have legs, so if any happened to be spat out with legs or leg-like protrusions, they survived better. Similarly Harmony gave them access to the aether and the cosmo, while hindering their tendancy to destroy others to survive. Not all parasprites, just this one specific group!”

Applejack adjusted her hat, saying a bit confusedly, “So you’re sayin’ that Scootaloo and Archer here are some kinda highly evolved parasprite?”

“No,” Twilight shook her head, “I’m saying that all of us are highly evolved parasprites!”

Granny Smith collapsed to the ground laughing her head off.

Everypony turned to Granny, with looks of confusion for various reasons at her belly laughs and bony legs wiggling up in the air. “Applejack!” she crowed eventually, “Dearest daughter you gotta teach your friend Twilight about a little thing between her legs, because ah don’t think she knows what it’s fer!” and she was laughing again. Twilight’s ears went flat as her facial expression.

Applejack snorted at it herself, and turned to Twilight holding back a giggle saying, “Granny has a point Twilight. Ain’t you ever heard about the birds and the uh” Applejack didn’t finish that sentence then, putting a hoof under her chin thoughtfully. Well good, it’s time somebody besides Twilight Sparkle had to think for once in their life.

“It is well known,” Twilight grumbled, “That vaginal birth is a relatively, in an evolutionary sense meaning a very very long time, recent phenomenon. There are even existing fragments of pony artifacts recovered, for ancient festivals in times of plenty dedicated to some kind of fertility goddess called Wishing Star that directly state that ponies neither carry a foal nor give birth to it. And as you just pointed out to yourself, bees reproduce by mouth, as do many forms of fish, and several smaller magical amphibians, some of which you may have already encountered in the Everfree.”

“It’s laughable to think that a complex organism like a pony could reproduce as easily as those lesser animals,” Twilight added contrarily, “But these amazing creatures seem to have done just that. Something of which no record exists, meaning that it can only occur in the places where we have no fossil record. And you almost ruined perfectly good evidence that could explain how under the Sun and Moon a pony could have developed from a parasprite. Something buried in the pony nature that has never emerged until today.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, concluding in acerbic tone, “Considering his sense of humor I wouldn’t be surprised if Discord was the one who gave ponies their reproductive organs, just for his own amusement. The most reliable records of non-virginal vaginal birth exist only after the period of his reign, after all. But then again the most reliable records of anything at all exist only after the period of his reign, so perhaps I’m just falsely accusing the rat bastard of messing with pony biology.”

Twilight felt like she was finally getting through to them. Granny had stopped laughing and was looking at Twilight with concern, and Applejack was looking at her with wide-eyed narrow-pupilled bugged out (no pun intended) eyes saying, “Oh Celery stalks, you’re serious,” in the most dumbfounded voice she could have said it in.

“It makes sense, though, doesn’t it?” Twilight said. “You’ve seen the anatomical similarities in infant foals. Fetuses don’t even grow their lower body until late in gestational development.”

“It makes sense Twilight,” Applejack said in a defensive tone, “Just like any of them crackpot theories out there. You don’t really–”

“I have checked and double checked, and exhaustively expended my library’s admittedly limited collection of ponypology journals,” Twilight countered angrily, “And I can assure you that I’m not just pulling this out of my very existent ass. If it sounds like I am, that’s because you asked for the executive summary, and a rigorous proof would require a lengthy dissertation, reviewed by my scholarly peers and, with any luck, approved, revolutionizing our understanding of the mysterious inception of ponykind, and that is why you can’t harm Archer here, or anypony like her, because she is the evidence I need to prove this! A genuine proto-pony! A pre-pony creature that fills the severe gap in the fossil records. She’s the missing link! You’re trying to kill the missing link!!”

Twilight lit up her horn, and Applejack sank firmly to the ground saying, “Now Twilight, don’t do anything stupid now,” in an admittedly worried tone. But Twilight wasn’t stupid. She had this all under control!

But then, wait why was Archer crying now?

Twilight’s horn flickered and died, and she looked down to see Archer not even trying to hide underneath her anymore, just sitting on the river bank and attempting, but failing to contain bitter sobs coming up in her chest. “Archer, what’s wrong??” she exclaimed aghast.

“N-nothing Miss Twilight,” Archer managed to say, “I-it’s silly I’m sor...sorry...”

Twilight lowered, gathering her legs under her, putting one against Archer’s chest as gently as she could manage considering her already frayed nerves. “Please Archer,” she said, “Why are you crying? I’m trying to protect you! Applejack doesn’t hate you, she’ll see reason!”

“It’s just...” Archer seemed to have as much trouble putting it to words as saying the words. “I thought you were protecting me because... I, I never had a... I mean you were kind of acting like a mom would and I thought... I just for a minute I though... you... I mean it’s silly I really do want you to prove it... I just thought you.....”

“I’m sorry I almost ruined your evidence,” Archer hissed out in a tight throated whisper.

To say Twilight just wanted to hug the filly until there was no tomorrow was an understatement. Was this natural attraction though, or just part of the manipulation? Was there any manipulation? She had to think clearly if Twilight didn’t want to make a horrible mistake. After what she’d seen these fillies do, she just couldn’t tell herself that what she was doing out of affection was any more of a mistake than what Pinkie was doing. It was madness to kill a filly, pony, or even a creature, based on something it never did, but was it sane to love such a thing? Was there some more moderate action Twilight should be taking that she couldn’t see because of what she was feeling right now?

It made it worse that Archer was trying so hard to not manipulate her. The filly could barely keep her composure and yet she was still trying to do it. It was worse because that kind of compassion made Twilight’s heart ache even more than the thought of her suffering. Was it compassion and consideration holding back Archer’s cries, or was it just a staged mimickry of compassion designed to delude ponies into trusting, and loving such a thing?

If Archer was a normal filly, she’d be breaking down from how close she came to death just now, from how she was manipulated into killing herself. A normal filly who was homeless and alone for so long would have an extreme reaction to the slightest sign of affection from an older pony. Twilight had been displaying those signs in spades, not considering the consequences of doing what just came naturally, so it was understandable if Archer had latched onto the concept of her as a parental figure. And Twilight had just... And then Twilight had gone and said... A-and...

To say Applejack was feeling pretty terrible right now would be an understatement. But that was nothing compared to what she felt next. She had to turn her hat down and look away when her bookish friend went and hugged Archer like there weren’t no tomorrow. It just hurt too much to see that happening. Why did she always have to choose? Either one friend was betraying her, or another was, and what Applejack could see now with her own two eyes made her feel like she’d gotten dangerously close to the wrong side.

They were parasprites. It was so easy: they danced right along to the parasprite song, hopping after Pinkie Pie like the mindless creatures they should have been. They looked like cute little fillies but they just looked that way and underneath they were the devoured remains of Archer and Scootaloo, and... almost Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. If Apple Bloom hadn’t put two and two together and defended herself she might have been... it had been so easy. So easy to just watch those things obediently drowning themselves just like parasprites, and then Twilight had to go and show up.

Her librarian friend was acting so weird, but Twilight was acting like a pony who had been put through the ringer lately, not like a pony who had been hypnotized or enchanted. And then, when Twilight pulled the first one out of the river, it... it just came to life, coughing and choking and crying and hiding and talking just like a– just like a real filly. And while that little filly went and drowned herself, Applejack had stared at it like it was a thing. 

“Ah’m so sorry, Twilight,” Granny Smith said beside the stony faced Applejack, walking slowly up to where Twilight was huddled with Archer in a tight embrace, walking over to where Applejack could only hear what was going on, because she was afraid to look and see it.

“We shoulda known somethin’ was up,” Granny continued. “Ah remember when Pinkie was just a young’n comin’ into town and makin’ so many waves. She turned the town upside down with her first shindig. She was always doin’ something crazy or another. Ah shoulda known she was just bein’ Pinkie again.”

There was a long pause full of wordless vocalizations from the filly Applejack would rather deny the existence of, when Granny added in a hollow voice, “Ah would never’a thought she was crazy enough to bring a pony to harm.”

Applejack tried to look at Twilight but just ended up looking down at the ground. “What’re we gonna do, Twilight?” she asked, torn in more ways than she could think of. “Ah cain’t believe Pinkie would... she cain’t be that bad. There’s gotta be some kind of reason. She was so angry an’ scared. Pinkie ain’t a killer she’s like family to us. She’d never... but then why did she?” It was so hard to look Twilight in the eyes, but Applejack managed because she had to know. “How are we gonna bring her back, Twilight? How are we gonna fix this?”

“I’m sorry Applejack,” Twilight said looking sorrowfully back at her. “I can’t... I don’t always have the solution to everything. There’s so much I could do, I haven’t had time. If I could find something about this, some source of where Pinkie Pie learned what she did, then I could debunk it for her... she’s just such a mysterious pony sometimes for how she knows what she knows.”

Twilight gave a hollow laugh and said, “Maybe I should check the bookshelves for more secret compartments.” Applejack just tilted her head at that, but her curiosity went unanswered.

“Well is there anythin’ we can do for you then?” Granny asked hopefully. “Since you’re gonna be the good mare this time around.”

“I’m not a—there are no good mares and bad mares!” Twilight insisted, “I’m sure this is all just some sort of huge misunderstanding and when we work it out we’ll all be best friends again.”

“That’d be real nice, Twilight,” Applejack said admiringly, looking down at her scuffing hoof, “So, what do we–”

“What we need to do now,” Twilight interrupted, “Is protect these fillies. Not,” she emphasized tightening her grip on Archer, “Just because they are valuable evidence to the scientific community, but because they are Archer, and Scootaloo, and any others, wonderful little ponies who make all our lives a better place, who deserve to live just as much as any other pony, and who need our help.”

“If we can get these fillies to safety, and avoid any rash actions with permanent consequences,” Twilight continued, “Then that might give me enough time to find a solution to all our problems. If I can just get Pinkie to tell me where she got her crazy ideas, then it should be easy to show her how it doesn’t apply or that she’s getting all upset over what amounts to an old mare’s tale.”

Twilight’s uncertain pause at saying that particular phrase gave Applejack enough confidence to look at her again, that poor bedraggled mess of a unicorn who ain’t even got a chance to shake off all that mud and river water. Made it hard to tell where Twilight ended and Archer began. Which, despite her friend’s well reasoned argument, still made Applejack feel suspicious down in her gut.

“Alright, ah’ll do what you say,” she said reservedly, “But first ah want to see you lift your tail for me.” Twilight looked at her in astonishment.

Oh Celestia, that sounded, that was what you said when you wanted to—Applejack’s face flushed and she added hastily, “J-just to verify that you ain’t a parasprite an’ all ya know, the third sign.”

“O-oh, yes,” Twilight said nervously, “Of course that’s what you meant. Excuse me a moment, Archer,” she said setting the filly down on her own hooves. Archer started shaking off right away. She seemed confused but certainly not as upset as she had been a minute ago. With her out of the way, Twilight turned around agreeably and

...

Yup, definitely not a parasprite.

“Okay fine, Twilight,” Applejack said, a little too eager to get Twilight to put her tail down, “What do you need me to do?”

“Well first off,” Twilight said snarkily lowering her tail and turning back to face Applejack with a disapproving expression, “It would be nice if you fixed whatever you did to Rainbow Dash.”

“Heh heh,” Applejack said turning a hoof nervously, “Oh that.”

“Did you really have to disable her like that?”

“Ah thought she was enchanted!” Applejack countered, “Besides it didn’t hurt her none!”

“Whatever,” Twilight said putting a hoof to her forehead. “Just, undo whatever you did, and document it so that I can refer to it in case of future emergency.”

“Well I cain’t undo it,” Applejack admitted, which caused Twilight’s eyes to bug out, but before the unicorn could explode Applejack added hastily, “B-but ah know who can! Ah just learned how to knock ‘em out, not get ‘em back in place. A professional can fix her right up though.”

Twilight looked at her querulously, “So... the hospital?”

“What, no!” Applejack exclaimed. “She ain’t hurt ah just meant like a professional masseuse.”

“A masseuse.”

Applejack nodded.

“She just needs a massage.”

“That’s about right,” Applejack said agreeably.

Twilight went and facehoofed again groaning, “Rainbow Dash is not going to like that.”

Applejack imagined Rainbow trying to escape the spa twins, smirked slightly and said, “Ah don’t think she’s in a real position to complain though.”

“Alright, that’s going to take more time than I thought,” Twilight said, “So Rainbow Dash can wait for now. Our top priority is finding the third filly, before something out here makes a meal out of her.”

“Uh, no offense Twilight but why wouldn’t she run back to town?” Applejack asked uncertainly. That’s why the flower trio went back after all, to head the fillysprite off at the pass so to speak. They were gonna be peeved if she went in another direction and made them wait for nothing, not that anything didn’t peeve those three.

“She... it’s...” Twilight sighed frustratedly. “It’s hard to explain, but she is what you might call severely autistic. I don’t know if she understands that the town is a safe place to run to.”

“Is it a safe place to run to?” Archer piped up to Twilight, giving her a frightened yet jaded look.

Twilight smiled grimly down at Archer and said, “Compared to the Everfree, yes. A lone foal won’t last long out here, certainly not after night falls.”

“Why’s she all wrong in the head, Twilight?” Applejack asked.

“She’s not exactly wrong in the head, Applejack,” Twilight said, “She just... she’s what you would think of as a newborn. She’s very limited in her ability to separate the gestalt.”

“Separate the what?”

“...separate what she perceives into discernible objects,” Twilight summarized inaccurately, grumbling. “She can’t speak either. She might understand words, but her reaction to them is certainly not predictable.”

“Well alright, Twilight,” Applejack said uncertainly, “Let’s get on after her then, before she gets any further lost.” Applejack then hopped down to the riverbank, walking along it to where the filly had darted away when the music died, giggling so oddly. Giving Twilight enough space to shake off herself, the others followed along behind Applejack with varying degrees of uncertainty. 

Then Applejack lifted a hoof and pointed with a triumphant, “Aha!” at the place where the riverbank got kicked up from the filly running up onto land. “She left a trail wide as an ursa,” Applejack explained, following it up and into where the filly had crashed heedlessly through the bushes.

It took some time to follow the filly’s rather meandering course, from bushes to old dead logs to bug’s nests to a colony of some kind of three eyed mutated frogs, and unfortunately that time gave Applejack the chance to ruminate. 

“So she’s a ...newborn?” Applejack asked as she tracked along, trying to wrap her head around what Twilight was saying here.

“Yes,” Twilight answered readily, “She was born early this morning.”

Applejack furrowed her brow, “So wait, they are converting fillies into them?” she said in alarm.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Twilight said consolingly, “They give birth to totally new ones, whenever they’ve eaten enough.”

Applejack looked at Archer in something of a new light, saying, “You gave birth this morning?”

Archer looked up and opened her mouth, then closed it again, looking down in thought, then looked up and said, “No, but sort of yes.”

“Bee didn’t mean to, by the way,” Archer said enigmatically aside to Twilight, who equally enigmatically seemed to understand. “I remember she was excited because she never got to eat much before, and she just wasn’t thinking about what would happen, only that she was safe from the storm. Throwing up totally surprised her because she forgot it was a thing that happens. It’s pretty scary your first time.”

“What are you goin’ on about?” Applejack asked Archer distractedly.

“Oh, of course!” Twilight exclaimed over any reply Archer would have made, “I forgot to tell you the reason for the myth that they devoured fillies. You see they don’t devour fillies at all, but they have the ability to reverse the birthing process by um... devouring each other. But non-destructively! It’s all very fascinating.”

“I took Bee inside,” Archer explained, “I–I mean I ‘ate’ her, and before that she threw up Licky, so she was the one who did birth, even though she’s me now. I don’t know if that means I did it or not.”

Applejack was starting to get a headache from trying to tell who did what where with the story these two were telling. So she just turned away and said, “...ah think the filly went left here,” at some broken twigs, and continued to press on, around thick gnarled trees and even once down a short cliff the filly had leapt off of.

Applejack finally lost the trail once they reached a clearing, walking into it and wrinkling her nose unhappily. “Aw shucks,” she said, “Looks like this filly was playin’ around here for a while. All the grass is tramped down, an’ her scent is everywhere. She was just here; you sure you can’t call her, Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head. “They don’t respond to names until having been born for at least a year.”

“Too bad we don’t have Pinkie’s song to lure her out,” Granny lamented, walking the edge of the clearing looking for some sign of her or movement. Though movement could be a nest of scrog squirrels just as well as it could be a lost little filly.

“Maybe I could try singing it?” Archer suggested uncertainly.

“If you could just sing it, then why would Pinkie need to gather all those instruments?” Twilight spoke out irritably, looking worriedly at the angle of the sun. They were just at the very border of the forest so it should be safe but...

“Well but, um, Pinkie isn’t um... special like I am,” Archer said, “I don’t know if normal ponies can do the thing.”

“The thing?” Applejack prompted looking sideways at the filly warily.

“Yeah, I mean,” Archer said, and then whistled, loud and high. Then said, “That thing.”

“Lots of ponies can whistle, Archer,” Applejack said pointing at Granny who agreeably whistled out a little sweet bird song melody.

“It’s not exactly whistling,” Archer said uncertainly, “It’s um... singing with one... thing we all um.... Different from my voice. But Pinkie’s instruments... pile sounded sort of like there was a fillysprite singing, in the music. I could try to sing that, I mean. What I heard.”

Twilight practically bowled Applejack over to get in Archer’s face saying excitedly, “I don’t care if it works or not this I have got to hear!” Applejack yanked Twilight away, and Twilight drew up a hoof to her chest blushing abruptly, saying, “Oh, sorry I just... go ahead Archer try and call your friend.”

So everypony got real quiet and Archer tried out her thing, and she was right it wasn’t exactly whistling. It was more of a whiney chirping sound really, but longer and more sonorous. It had sort of a hypnotic quality to it, reminded Applejack of those warm summer nights where the frogs and the crickets sung their lullaby for you. Twilight seemed astounded that that noise was coming out of Archer’s throat, but golly if that wasn’t natural then what about all the other stuff that supposedly had to do with that little blue pony’s maw? Applejack didn’t find it too freaky at any rate, and the thought of a cricket who was smart enough to perform on demand was more heartwarming than it was disturbing. And brought to mind time, and a square for some odd reason.

The bushes rustled as something approached, and what fluttered out of it was the all orange filly they sought, muddy and filthy from the chest down where she’d been waterlogged and with grass stains all over her coat, her bountiful wavy mane all stuck full of twigs. She would be a miserable sight if she didn’t have such a giddy mild grin on her face, hopping right up to Archer, who stopped her song once the filly reached her, and nuzzled her nose in happy relief.

Before they could all rejoice though, something else approached. As eagerly as the orange filly had, an honest to gosh, cute little ball of doom parasprite was busily fluttering down toward Archer from above, dark purple with bright green segmented eyes. Applejack didn’t know what to do, staying rooted on the spot. They couldn’t lead that thing to town, but being fast enough to catch one of those things was... difficult enough, you’d wait for Pinkie Pie to come with her one pony band instead. Archer wasn’t nearly as worried though, and she seemed even happier when she saw the thing fluttering up to her all friendly-like. Then Archer went and snapped it right out of the air.

Well, now Applejack was rooted on the spot for an entirely different reason.

Archer swallowed with a satisfied smile. “It worked, everypony! Licky is here!” she called out then, looking around at the other three brightly. Her ears twitched down a bit at their expressions. “...what?” she said self consciously.

Twilight was one to speak before regaining her own wits, saying “D-did did you just eat that?”

“What?” Archer asserted to her with a nervous irritation. “Those things are good!”

“They’re hard to find too,” Archer added with a cute little frown of disappointment. The other filly reared up and put her hooves over Archer’s back, rocking back and forth and flittering her little wings in the air, giggling softly. Archer blushed, seemed embarassed at being used as an impromptu saw horse more than the fact that she just ate a bucking parasprite.

“How many kinds of creature do you eat?” Twilight asked uneasily.

“That’s not a,” Archer said in objection, but then stopped and thought about it. “I guess those are creatures,” she said bemusedly. “I just thought they were... I mean they’re like big flying gumballs.” She started to relax, but then tensed up looking at them all worriedly and hastily said, “Just those!”

“Just those what?” Twilight prompted.

“I only ever eat those,” Archer said, “A-and nothing else that could be a creature unless wait what about eggs?”

“Eggs are unfertilized,” Twilight said informatively, “And they don’t move on their own, so no. Those are not creatures.”

“What about clover?” Archer asked then, butting Licky off her back and pulling her into an idle hug.

Twilight blinked, saying, “What about clover?”

“Well, I mean not white clover, but red clover moves on its own,” Archer said. “Every time it shoots seeds all over the place.”

“That’s not–” Twilight grimaced trying to pull out the words. Applejack had to guess Twilight couldn’t find easy enough words for a filly to grasp, nor likely for a grown mare to grasp neither. Applejack jumped in therefore, before Twilight burst a blood vessel.

“Creatures have eyeballs, Archer,” Applejack explained. “Anything with an eyeball, or two, or more, is a creature.”

“What about–”

“And anything that used to have an eyeball, too,” Applejack added definitely.

“But the eyeballs are the best part!” Archer complained.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

“If yer not a foal eatin’ monster,” Granny piped up, jabbing Archer with her walking cane that she got from... somewhere, “Then wha do ye wanna eat mah eyeballs?”

“No, I don’t want to eat your eyeballs!” Archer exclaimed clutching Licky defensively, “Just the flying gumball things!”

“Parasprites,” Twilight muttered, her face buried in her hooves.

“Those are parasprites?” Archer said surprisedly.

“Where were you when the parasprites attacked?!” Applejack demanded, “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice!”

“There was a field trip that day!” Archer protested.

“How do you know mah eyeballs are any different?” Granny continued, “If’n you ain’t never ate one before!”

“I don’t... what?” Archer squeaked totally nonplussed.

“How did you remain hidden before this?” Twilight shouted throwing her hooves down in sheer frustration. “You vomit conspicuously at the drop of a hat, you eat parasprites right out of the air, you have no evident family, no social skills, you have no visible genitals, you sound like a mosquito crossed with a cricket, how has nopony noticed this before?”

Archer was too self conscious at this point to do anything besides whimper.

“Look–” Twilight sighed fitfully. “I don’t think you’re a bad pony. In fact you’ve given me reason to think that if you were a bad pony, then Ponyville would be in considerably more trouble than it is now. You just don’t... make any sense whatsoever. I need to get you both to the library where I can protect you, and then I can maybe try to figure out what on earth is going on. So let’s get out of this stupid forest so we can...”

Everypony’s head turned to the other side of the clearing.

“I hope I’m the only one who hears that,” Twilight said anxiously.

“Anypony got a pot and kettle?” Granny asked with the apprehension that showed she knew everypony most certainly did not.

“Get the foals, Granny,” Applejack said facing the foul structures head-on, her bravado a poor shell for her unease and dread. “We’ll make a hole for ya.”

“Soon as I run...” Granny whispered quietly.

“Yeah, ah know,” Applejack said to behind her, not daring to look away.

Many ponies think that the Everfree forest hates ponies, and because it hates ponies it does whatever it has to do to drive them away. Those on the Ponyville fringe know a different story though. It’s not that the forest doesn’t hate ponies with all its heart, but the forest doesn’t drive ponies away. No, the forest does its best to make sure ponies can never leave. Whatever happened here between the princesses, the land itself felt betrayed by what was done, and in a land where friendship is magic, betrayal is a very powerful force indeed.

Now Applejack wasn’t so good at the supernatural jiggery pokery, but she knew that the land here couldn’t be reasoned with or soothed, and the answer to somepony, or something like that is plain and simple: a big rock to the head. The land didn’t exactly have a head, but it was like a vicious dog that had been treated wrong so it never trusted ponies again. Vicious dogs had heads ...and so did wolves. Thankfully, the land had some sort of self hating insecurity complex going on, so there was plenty of uneven terrain and rocks to kick around. And for most ponies, charging these things head on would be suicide, but Applejack was not most ponies, and Twilight even less so.

The two of them were met with long, jagged, dead wood claws, and creaking jaws full of splintery teeth dripping with poisoned sap. Twilight brought a shield up though it crackled unstably in the wild magic of the woods, and that’s the last Applejack saw before leaping into action.

Applejack jumped above the teeth and claws just by a hair and landed squarely on the thing’s back. It tried to draw her into its woody tangles but its fellows were not nearly patient enough for that to take effect, nor did they care for each other’s well being. So two others tackled her from each side roaring as they reached for the unwanted yet coveted invader with only the fury that long dead trees can display. But Applejack was not there anymore, having leapt up again three ponylengths into the air. In their madness the things were tearing apart the one she jumped on trying to get her, and the moment of air time gave Applejack the chance to count. Twelve that she could see... eleven now. Hoo boy.

Her arc of descent landed her on the other side of the blockade entirely where sure enough she found the rubble of something or another, maybe a building maybe a rock formation. She used that to knock out the weaker forelegs of the closest one to the middle, shouting “Twilight, get that one!” Then she was charging around the remaining two in a broad circle shouting loudly, “Alright you curdling tree farts get somma this you leaf piles piecea junk horse apple stew can’t even” (it didn’t matter what she said as long as she said it loudly and angrily) “fight a rake you mongreloid basket weaving rejects why don’t you go run off a cliff and blow up halfway—” and the moment she was at the halfway point around, Applejack went quiet and dove behind a tree, scrambling up its rough bark face opposite the direction they could see. Sure enough they went double teaming after her on either side of the tree, and smashed into each other head-on. The woody collision disrupted them enough to give Applejack precious seconds while they shook their disjointed heads as if in confusion. Thankfully it wasn’t a hard enough hit to make them merge.

Applejack leapt down from the trees branches, running the moment her hooves touched ground back to Twilight. She’d got the one down that Applejack had crippled, but the one Applejack got first was starting to reform. Applejack bucked it into sawdust. The two on Twilight’s side were snapping at her ferociously but she didn’t even seem phased, and soon as one of them leapt at her a bubble winked into the air around it. It wasn’t like Twilight’s normal Shining Armor Special though, because it kept on moving instead of staying fixed in space, and when Twilight bucked it the bubble went rocketing off into the forest like it was the weight of a feather. The other attacked once her horn was engaged, but she just sent a shining bolt of force through it, driving it back, her aura doubling up as she did so.

Applejack had to turn her back to Twilight then and face off the other two monstrosities shouting, “Go Granny, go go!” and with Twilight on one side and Applejack on the other, there was a neat corridor down which Granny rocketed, the fillies clinging to her back. The rotten things had tried to cut the ponies off from reaching the forest’s edge of course. That was how you could tell which way to run when you were under attack on the border of the Everfree. You run directly at whatever’s attacking you, because there is no other way out. The two mares backed up smoothly towards each other now, as the attackers pressed their advantage closing the gap and putting the ponies into a defensive retreat.

Twilight’s butt smacked up against Applejack’s and the two of them turned side by side, on the side that they wanted to be with a free shot straight to Ponyville. They had successfully closed the book. No really that was the name of the maneuver. Twilight had some kind of flat force field that she could only hold long enough for one of them to smack against it, but that was long enough. Applejack risked bucking another one in the chin, its steaming jaws clacking shut as it reared up falling over on its back. Another one was snapping after her hooves as she did though. You did not want to get even scratched by those things. Twilight was stressed too, you could feel the heat from her horn from a pace away.

“That’s enough a head start!” Applejack shouted to Twilight.

“On 3 we go!” she shouted back, punctuating each of her numbers with a twig shattering force bolt, “One, two, three!”

And then the two of them were running like a bat out of Tartarus.

Applejack could’ve outrun them herself, but Twilight they could out-pace, so she ran ahead of Twilight breaking off a piece of a cliff face with her hoof and sending it spiraling through the air, knocking the nearest one off its feet wherupon it impacted the ground into splinters. Applejack winced at that, hoping they could get out of here before too many of them fell totally apart. They always came back bigger the second time. Twilight leapt on Applejack’s back, and then up onto the ledge of the cliff, then Applejack jumped the entire the way herself, just as another one smashed itself apart on the rocky face she had been a moment before. Then they were running again. You don’t pause in the Everfree when you think you are winning. Winning just meant that you were attracting the attention of other, bigger things.

Even at Twilight’s pace, they should have caught up to Granny by now. Applejack hadn’t seen Granny fall. She couldn’t have fallen! She wouldn’t have! Not with foals to take care of. Or, sort of foals, or whatever those things were. Applejack just kept on going, scanning the tree line for any sign of Granny ahead of them, and playing defense for Twilight whenever Applejack could manage to run ahead.

Meanwhile far, far ahead of them, Granny Smith was shouting, “Holey buuuuuuuuuuuuuuck” the two fillies on her back buzzing their wings as hard as they possibly could, sending her literally rocketing forward faster than her legs could carry her, like some kind of Granny shaped rocket with twin boosters.

When Applejack finally emerged from the trees, she was relieved to see the distant mountains of Canterlot clear as rain, and more relieved to see two fillies standing on either side of a dizzy and confused Granny Smith, looking at her with concern as Granny’s eyes seemed to be rolling around in different directions at once. Twilight was close behind, and immediately spun around after breaking out of the trees. 

The things followed them right out of the forest. How could they not? They were just that enraged. But here Twilight was a lot more useful than a pot and kettle, easily blasting the things destructively up in the air and shooting them in a distant arc back over into the woods. Applejack totally coulda done that too, but that would mean she had to touch the things. Twilight was able to easily uh, ‘deter’ them without danger of poison or infection though, and the few left just slunk back into the bushes and creeped out of sight.

Applejack trotted up to Twilight first, checking to see if she was okay. It might seem she had her priorities messed up but, well, keeping Twilight on her hooves was the best way to protect Granny right now, no matter what state Applejack’s dearest grandmother was in. Twilight was breathing hard, her sides heaving from running, and her horn was flickering unsettlingly, but for the most part she seemed uninjured. Applejack put a hoof on her shoulder supportively, and Twilight seemed to perk up from that, or calm down whichever it was. “You okay, Twi?” she asked the little purple unicorn.

“Bucking...” Twilight’s answer came slowly because she was breathing hard. “Hate... Timber Ferrets...”
> The Legend of the Fillysprite
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Late last night, before all this mess went down, the little yellow pony known as Apple Bloom was just drifting off to sleep when she heard a clatter downstairs. The intruder quickly revealed itself as just her sister Applejack all along, when Applejack’s voice started floating up from the floorboards. But then it wasn’t just  Applejack. Apple Bloom heard Applejack downstairs yelling the name what sounded like Pinkie Pie.

Apple Bloom jumped down out of bed, landing on four sturdy yellow hooves. She cautiously walked out of her room, down the hall and over to the stairwell. She could hear Applejack’s words then, saying, “Why do you have to borrow the Hereditary Apple Family Banjo? You planning a shindig at three hours past sunset?”

Still out of earshot, Pinkie Pie whined out an unintelligible response, so Apple Bloom crept down a flight of stairs where she could peer out the stairwell slats at both of them downstairs. “... .. ...save Ponyville from disaster, again!” was what Apple Bloom caught. The two ponies were down in the kitchen, with the room lantern lit brightly, filling the lower floor with a soft warm glow.

“The parasprites aren’t back, are they?!” Applejack said to Pinkie in clear alarm. Apple Bloom herself didn’t know the terror of facing down a creeping devouring swarm of voracious pests, on account of the field trip, but she did know about the hardship it had been on her return. She had come back from the Baltimare Aquarium, finding the farm house she lived in nothing but ruins and rubble.

Worst part is that was the good  news. Apparantly the local librarian who was Applejack’s friend had managed to magic up some kind of hex that kept the parasprites from eating the apples. So, even though they had to erect a new house, board by board, they didn’t go hungry that year. Apple Bloom didn’t know what she’d do if she couldn’t find any food to eat for a whole year , and as far as she knew that’s how long it would take to grow everything all over again.

Thus, she was markedly concerned when Pinkie Pie said, “No, it’s even worse !”

“Apple Bloom,” came Big Mac’s voice behind her.

“Oh, hey Big Mac,” Apple Bloom said, turning to look at the stout brother of hers.

“What’re you doin’?” he asked firmly.

“Pinkie Pie is downstairs!” Apple Bloom said worriedly, “And she says a terrible disaster is coming!”

“Ah’ll check,” he said neutrally, passing by the little filly on his way down the stairs.

“Worse?!” Applejack was exclaiming. “There won’t be any Ponyville left  if it was worse!”

“No Ponyville worth living in,” Pinkie Pie agreed in a surprisingly glum tone.

“Listen,” Applejack said hurriedly, “Ah’m gonna listen to you and we’ll do whatever we have to this time to save our home, but it’s Granny you need to talk to. She’s the one who bears the keys to the banjo chamber.

“Applejack,” Big Mac greeted his sister.

“Oh, hey Big Mac,” Applejack said turning back to her brother giving him a wordless look.

“Ah’ll get Granny,” he said, turning an about face and going back up the stairs.

Apple Bloom knew better than to ask questions at a time like this, because the answer to a little filly was always, “It’s late get back to bed,” or “You don’t need to worry about it we’ll keep you safe,” so she just tip toed downstairs quietly without saying a word, peering around the doorjam at Pinkie and her sister Applejack, with silent seeking eyes. When Applejack didn’t send her away, Apple Bloom crept in, sitting off to the side inconspicuously. Big Mac came down next with a yawning Granny Smith and Pinkie Pie launched into quite a tale.

“In our very village, lurks the terrible  Fillysprite!” Pinkie said spookily to the ponies gathered around, and also Apple Bloom. “Nopony knows if it was created or born, but one day a parasprite, who was once like any other parasprite, got itself a taste for foals . It wouldn’t eat normal food anymore, only foal flesh could satisfy its twisted hunger. And when it ate a foal’s ears, another parasprite was born just like it, but with foal’s ears . When that one ate a foal’s wings, another was born with the wings from that foal’s back. One was born after another, until every part of a foal had been eaten, and the fillysprite was complete. But it didn’t stop there.”

“Nopony knows how the fillysprite could have taken those foals. Perhaps they were fed to it piece  by piece . But once the fillysprite was complete, it became unstoppable . Its hunger for foals never lessened, and now it could walk among them unseen and unsuspected. A filly just like any other, that only a careful eye can see. But even that is not the end of its spooky  powers! You thought parasprites could sneak in under your noses, with their illusion of innocence and beauty, but the fillysprite  can make you love it just like it was a filly. It can confuse your senses, and rob you of your will, until you think that the fillysprite is your very own filly. If you fall into its trance you will defend it with your life, even as your own foals are eaten, one after another.

“How could you not notice your own foals disappearing without a trace, you ask?” Pinkie said in a leading tone of voice.

“How could we—...yeah,” Applejack asked wide-eyed, then muttered disgruntledly.

“Because the fillysprite is a parasprite ,” Pinkie emphasized, leaning over the lantern, which cast shadows up from under her chin. “And parasprites who feed always create more of their own . Your foals will be there one day, loving and living, and then... they’ll start acting strange. Not telling you where they are going, forgetting who they are supposed to be, concealing their shoulders from you with clothing . When that happens, your foals have already been devoured. The fillysprite eats them whole. consumes them, and then... spits out another  fillysprite who looks exactly  like the foal who was consumed. The fillysprite can assume the appearance of any foal it consumes, even use their stolen memories to fool you into thinking it’s your own foal.

Pinkie Pie slammed her hoof on the dinner table. “Then, it leaves your family, and goes to the next, and the next, and for every foal consumed there is another fillysprite, hungry to consume more . A town that was full of happiness and hope becomes a town that is full of sadness and infection , with no foals left alive, only shallow puppets of them pretending to be foals merely to seek their next victim. And when there are no foals left to sate its hunger... the fillysprite swarms .

She looked unconcernedly at the back of her hoof saying, “Nopony has ever survived a fillysprite swarm. The only towns who survive are the ones who end  it. The fillysprite can still be stopped. It takes every ounce of courage you have, but if we act now, we can save Ponyville and destroy the thing before it consumes any more! To defeat a fillysprite you have to know the ten signs, the wings, the tail, the creepy jeepers, and the special song of the parasprite, that they cannot not follow.

“First,” Pinkie held up a hoof, “A fillysprite is a parasprite. It always has wings, and they’re strange  wings you’d never see on a real filly’s back. They can’t fly, only flutter around like the bugs they are.”

“Second,” Pinkie held up another hoof, “A fillysprite is a parasprite. The same song passed on through many generations of those who fight parasprites, can draw the fillysprite out of hiding and bend it to your will.”

“Third,” Pinkie held up another hoof, “A fillysprite is a parasprite. It is a creature of only hunger, never love, so only uses its mouth. Foals go in, fillysprites come out. You can always tell a fillysprite, or even one masquerading as a full grown pony by looking under their tail, because they have nothing besides their mouth .”

“Fourth,” Pinkie held up another hoof, “A fillysprite is a parasprite. They only love other fillysprites, and they always love other fillysprites. Two enemies will become friends, not for any reason, but only because the fillysprite who devoured them both will not fight with itself. If strange foals are starting to love each other and know each other without ever having met, then the fillysprite may have gotten them.”

Pinkie Pie fell down then, because the pony had uh... all ten hooves in the air. Apple Bloom was glad she didn’t have boots on, because she would be shaking in them right now if she did. Something like that  was in Ponyville? Was it gonna get her?  Was it coming after her even now ? The shadows seemed to leap at Apple Bloom in the lantern light.

Pinkie picked herself up, and Applejack said placatingly, “That’s uh... quite a ghost story you got there.”

“It’s not  just a ghost story!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, “I saw them today! With my own eyes !”

“Where did ya even hear about this stuff?” Big Mac spoke up uncharacteristically.

Pinkie Pie didn’t answer at first. When she did, she was uncharacteristically quiet, saying “It came to my town when I was a filly, and it would have eaten us all but my Granny defeated it, and saved... the ones who were left. She taught me everything. I’m sure other towns weren’t so lucky  to have somepony like her.”

“Gosh Pinkie, ah never knew...” Applejack said with a heavy heart in her voice.

“Well don’t jes’ stand there,” Granny snapped, clopping a front hoof on the ground, “Let’s get this banjo and get ridda this thing! You said yer saw it with your own eyes?”

“Mmm-hmm!” Pinkie nodded. “I saw it in the library yesterday. It already ate Scootaloo, and then enchanted Rainbow Dash into adopting it. And then it enchanted Twilight too!”

Granny made to rush off, but Applejack held up a hoof saying, “Hold on now, you’re saying it enchanted Twilight ?”

Pinkie nodded. “She was all lovey and stuff even though she isn’t supposed to be.”

“Then how did it not enchant you? You seem fine,” Applejack said insistently.

“I um,” Pinkie paused, “I got lucky and got out of there soon enough before it could... ensnare me.”

“Wait a sec, Scootaloo ?” Granny Smith uttered turning to face Pinkie. “Ain’t she always  had strange wings? Ah know from dodgin’ her antics on a daily basis! How long ago did she get et?”

“I don’t know, but it couldn’t have been that  long ago,” Pinkie said, “The fillysprite just got here a few days ago. I thought it was a changeling, but actually it was something far worse.”

“How would you know it was a fillysprite that did it to a town, if nopony survived?” Big Mac pointed out.

“You wouldn’t!” Pinkie announced triumphantly. Then she corrected herself and announced triumphantly, “I mean you would!”

“You mean to tell me you’re gonna take our  banjo and go drown a bunch of parasprites,” Applejack said uncontendedly, “And they’re identical to fillies in every way, except that you  think they’re parasprites?”

“Did ye actually see the things doin’ their parasprite thing?” Granny put in.

“How do ya know you’re  not the one who’s enchanted?” Big Mac added.

Pinkie shrunk back at each of their statements, and then shouted hotly, “You’re just like—you don’t even realize how much danger you’re in!” She pointed at Apple Bloom angrily saying, “You want them to kill her? You want Apple Bloom to die?!”

Big Mac stepped in-between Pinkie and Apple Bloom, looking sternly down at the pink pony. “Ah think you need to leave,” he said dangerously.

“I’m trying to save you all!” Pinkie shouted hopping up to be seen on the other side of him.

“You’re trying to scare  us all,” Applejack said turning her head resentfully, “Well it ain’t funny anymore. You always push things too far, Pinkie. Don’t you think somepony might actually believe  you? Ah don’t think Apple Bloom will get any sleep after a scary story like that!”

“But–” Pinkie tried to cut in edgewise.

Applejack didn’t let her though, holding up a hoof and saying “Ah know it’s fun sometimes to be scared, but you’re taking things too far, and this is not a good time.”

“You’re making a huge mistake!” Pinkie protested, “All the foals will—”

“Nope,” Big Mac said gruffly, pushing Pinkie back out same the door in from which she burst earlier.

At least  Pinkie Pie didn’t try to stay, and ran off then, but she still shouted as she galloped away, “I’ll be back! You’ll see! You’ll wish  you had just listened to me! I’ll get you all on my side, and your little banjo too!” She was pretty far away by that point. Land sakes did that pink pony’s voice carry a long way.

In the silence, Applejack walked up to Apple Bloom who was standing there petrified, and said, “Ah’m sorry you had to hear that. You alright?”

“Y-yeah!” Apple Bloom said jerking her eyes to her sister, “Couldn’t be better! Nothing like a good ghost story!”

Applejack responded by hugging her tightly. It would have been embarassing enough if Apple Bloom wasn’t trembling so hard. She calmed down in her sister’s blessedly loving warm embrace though. “That’s right,” Applejack said rocking Apple Bloom against her slowly, “Just a big old ghost story, nothing real about it. Pinkie just thought you’d like to hear one, and didn’t know when it was too much.”

“You know how upset Pinkie Pie can be when she don’t get things goin’ just exactly as she expects,” Granny said to Apple Bloom, patting her on the shoulder and then joining in with the hug.

“Eyup,” agreed Big Macintosh, wrapping his broad forehooves almost around all of them. Apple Bloom felt like she could go to sleep just like this so surrounded by their love. “...eroonie,” he muttered under his breath almost too quietly to hear. Applejack snorted at that, and that made Granny snicker, and soon they were all just laughing down in the farm house in the lamp lit night. It made Apple Bloom feel so much better to let the tension out like that.

...didn’t mean she could sleep in her own bed, though. Wasn’t until Apple Bloom haunted her way over to Applejack’s room that she managed to get any sleep. She tried not to make a habit of this, because she was a big pony who could sleep in her own room now, but tonight had really shaken her. The frightening demons of the Fillysprite were still terrifying when you were all alone at night, even if they weren’t real. But cuddled in her sister’s loving embrace, Apple Bloom found she could pretty much sleep through just about anything without nightmares or fear.

Apple Bloom was totally over it in the morning. Certainly wasn’t thinking about it over her oatmeal. Nor was Apple Bloom noticing Pinkie Pie camped outside the farmhouse next to an “OCCUPY BANJO” protest sign. Well, her tent at least. Pinkie Pie was elsewhere, probably looking for more instruments, and just left the tent there as a statement of intent. And Apple Bloom certainly wasn’t observing Scootaloo coming to school late like she was trying to avoid Apple Bloom, and sitting there smiling all creepily like she had some secret knowledge that only a filly eating body snatcher would know. And it’s not like Scootaloo kept looking at Apple Bloom hungrily  every time she thought Apple Bloom wasn’t watching.

Apple Bloom was so  not spooked that she completely missed the lesson that day, and as soon as the bell went off she practically shoved Sweetie Belle out of the classroom, sparing a glance at Scootaloo who was busy talking with some other pony, and thankfully didn’t see them leave.

“What’s the deal , Apple Bloom?” Sweetie Belle said irritably once they were outside. “Why are you in such a hurry?”

“Ah just want to tell you somethin’ ah heard about,” Apple Bloom said uneasily, “It’s about Scootaloo so we gotta get away before she sees us.”

“What’s wrong with Scootaloo?” Sweetie asked in fright.

“Nothin’!” Apple Bloom said, shaking her head dismissively, “Probably nothin’ but ah wanna tell you just in case. Maybe you’ll know what to do about it.”

“What is it then?” Sweetie Belle asked, looking more confused than frightened now.

“Not here!” Apple Bloom hissed at her, putting a hoof on her chest, “Scootaloo will see us! Let’s go to the clubhouse where we can have some privacy.”

And so the morning proceeded as you may have known, with Scootaloo surprising the both of them out in the Apple Acres, all alone, far from help, and then the other filly, the not-Scootaloo standing right beside her and practically moving in sync, and then all that stuff about how great it is to get eaten and how she already got Archer and we were next and those stubby little wings and and—

And the morning proceeded as you may have known it did.

The sudden wind tore through Apple Bloom’s mane, as Twilight Sparkle vanished from where they stood behind the farm house at Sweet Apple Acres, with less of a pop and more of a bang . Apple Bloom looked at the empty space incredulously. What’d she done said  just now? She looked up at Cheerilee, who looked as confused as she was. Twilight didn’t need to go save anypony. Scootaloo was right here, wasn’t she?

“What was that  all about?” Cheerilee said abrasively. She was looking considerably more stressed out than healthy.

“Scootaloo’s right here, isn’t she?” Apple Bloom said confusedly, “Twilight was acting like she was still at the library!”

“Archer!” Scootaloo exclaimed, jumping up to her hooves. “Archer is at the library! And one other named Licky!”

“Archer is... like Scootaloo,” Cheerilee explained to Apple Bloom as uncertain of her understanding as the schoolteacher clearly was.

“Ohh,” Apple Bloom said in aghast realization, “So Scootaloo has like a clone, who looks just like her, and they’ll mistake them?”

Cheerilee frowned, shaking her head slightly saying, “No, Archer does  look somewhat similar to Scootaloo, but she’s double blue and she has rounder eyes. You know, your new classmate?”

Apple Bloom remembered a blue filly alright. She gulped down her feelings of guilt and dread and said, “...oh?”

“You remember Archer, Apple Bloom.” Scootaloo asserted, “She was the pony I tried to... introduce you to.” The cheer drained out of her voice with that last part.

“I wish ah didn’t remember,” Apple Bloom moaned, burying her face in her hooves. “Ah am such an idiot!”

She really didn’t want to remember, but... she did.

Apple Bloom staggered to a halt as the Fillysprite fled on Scootaloo’s stolen scooter, too fast to be caught, even if she hadn’t  just almost killed Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom spat out the tail hair disgustedly, and where it landed on the soil of the orchard she could see the base of the purple hairs were dotted with bright red. It hadn’t even flinched when it ripped its own tail out to escape. It really was  a monster!

She screamed at it. Scootaloo couldn’t just be gone! She wanted her friend back! How could a monster like this win? How could it steal Scootaloo away like that?! Had Scootaloo fought it? Had Scootaloo been so scared when she couldn’t get away? Had she cried out for help and there was nopony there to hear her?

“Apple Bloom!” Sweetie Belle shouted, piling into Apple Bloom from behind, like a battering ram made out of cotton candy. “Stop, you’re hurting her!!” Sweetie continued to yell, doing what she probably thought was supposed to be a sleeper hold.

“It’s too late,” Apple Bloom said emptily sinking down to her haunches. “Scootaloo can’t be hurt no more. She’s... she’s gone.”

“Yes she is,” Sweetie Belle stated fiercely, “And I won’t let you hurt her again, if she ever  comes back after what you did!”

“No y-you don’t understand Sweetie,” Apple Bloom said pulling the unicorn around to hold her by the shoulders. “That wasn’t Scootaloo. It was a monster pretending to be her, so it could eat us! We just,” she found herself breathing harder, “We almost died  just now!”

“What...?” Sweetie Belle said in horror, “How do you know?”

“Pinkie Pie has been hunting it,” Apple Bloom explained. She blinked as the cut on her ear dripped across her eye. The adrenalin was fading and she was really starting to feel how beat up she’d got. “Pinkie t-tried to warn us and we didn’t listen, but it’s really true! There’s a monster in Ponyville and it’s going around and eating foals, and it took on Scootaloo’s appearance. Ah know because... y-you heard it didn’t you? It was talking about eating Archer an’ spitting her out an’ making her just another copy of itself. And we didn’t listen... and now another filly is... i-is... gone...”

Apple Bloom wanted to sag all the way to the ground but her beaten flesh and bleeding cuts hurt too much to rest against. Sweetie Belle just sat there limply, pristine and unblemished as the day she was born, but her eyes had a hollow look to them. “Then...” Sweetie said slowly in a tiny voice, “Where’s Scootaloo?”

“Ah’m sorry, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom said brokenly. The tears from her eyes were stinging the cut on her face, but it wouldn’t do no good to wipe them away. Nothing would do no good anymore.

“That’s...” Sweetie murmured. “That can’t be true!” Sweetie said. “You’re lying!!” Sweetie shrieked at her. Apple Bloom just didn’t know what to say to her, sniffling and prodding painfully at her bloodied nose.

“Scootaloo is... Scootaloo is fine! That can’t be true!” Sweetie continued to assert shrilly and desperately. “She was just playing with us! It was it was just a joke. She just attacked you because she... because... you’re lying...”

“Ah wish ah was, Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom sighed spiritlessly. “Ah wish it was so.”

“What do we do ?” Sweetie said in a quavering voice.

Apple Bloom swallowed to gather her voice and keep herself steady. “Now, you’re gonna come with me,” she said as authoritatively as she can, “We’re gonna find mah folks and warn them, and they’ll be able to keep us safe then, an’ we’ll be able to stop the fillysprite from hurtin’ any more ponies.”

“What about Scootaloo ?” Sweetie insisted her voice thick with denial.

Apple Bloom closed her eyes briefly. One eye didn’t open right, felt sore and swollen. “Just follow me,” she said gruffly, and paced a few steps, looking back to make sure Sweetie was with her. “And stay close!” she added urgently.

“Granny!” Apple Bloom called out once she got into the farm house, Sweetie Belle practically riding her from behind. “Are ya here? Ah need you!”

“Eh, what is it?” Granny poked her head out from the kitchen. Her eyes widened when she saw Apple Bloom and she came running, saying, “Land sakes what happened to ye, child? You’re more torn up than a three year old sock!”

“It’s Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom said urgently. “She... well it started this morning! It was like what Pinkie Pie said! And she was acting all weird and she cornered us when we were alone. And she had another strange filly with her. It was like they were the same filly! It was the Fillysprite!”

“Now Apple Bloom, you’re letting your fears get ahead of you here,” Granny said gently, coming up with a bucket of steaming hot water and a wet washcloth. She administered to Apple Bloom’s scrapes as gently as she could, rinsing them of dirt and grit.

“But then Scootaloo let it slip ,” Apple Bloom said insistently, relaxing despite herself at Granny’s soothing minstrations. “She wasn’t a normal pony. There was something wrong  with her. You know how funny her wings are. She was acting all happy when she s-said she spat the other filly out of her mouth, after devouring her. Ah swear it’s true! And the other filly was saying it happened, too! And she had wings just like Scootaloo! They were trying to get us to do it too, and sayin’ like it wasn’t any big deal and coming closer and...”

“And then it attacked!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed with a squeak. “And Apple Bloom had to fight it away!”

“Ah’m sorry Granny,” Apple Bloom said mournfully to her shocked grandmother. “But Pinkie was right all along. The fillysprite is real, and the fillysprite is here !”

“But Scootaloo...” Granny said in quiet dismay.

Sweetie Belle whimpered sinking down, and started to cry.

“Sc– Scoot–” Apple Bloom couldn’t talk because she was starting to cry too. “Ah’m sorry Granny,” she wept, pressing her face painfully into Granny’s bony shoulder.

Granny pretty much knew where Applejack and Big Mac were scheduled to be. And Pinkie Pie, she knew where everypony  was scheduled to be. The Apples were all barricaded in the farm house, with Apple Bloom lying in bed with an ice pack on her swollen ribs, and Sweetie downstairs huddled against the wall with a cup of cocoa, when pink horse came charging down the road covered in instruments, shouting that she got an ear flop, belly rumble, tail jerk, hoof pinch, which meant that somepony in the Apple family household was hurt. Apparantly she had a specific Pinkie sense just for that. She may actually have just been trying to get the banjo again, but when she found out Apple Bloom was genuinely  hurt she was immensely ...relieved.

“Oh I am so  glad to hear that!” Pinkie had said to Applejack. “Your sister is so  brave! She saved both their lives!”

“You’re glad  ah’m beat up?” Apple Bloom had croaked at the ponies standing in the hall outside her room.

“Mmmhmm,” said Pinkie Pie to her in a cheery voice, “Because if you weren’t beaten up then you would be eaten up!”

Apple Bloom really couldn’t argue with that logic.

And so the banjo chamber was unsealed and the great power of the southern twang once again lay in Pinkie Pie’s hooves. But no seriously it was just a banjo Granny found at a yard sale and she kept it in her room under the bed. But Pinkie Pie took that holy relic and began her strange song, marching up and down the stairs, walking around the farm house. And at last Pinkie concluded that the area was fillysprite, and parasprite free.

Apple Bloom was in no state to march with them through town, so they battened up the hatches and securely locked the doors. Then they all headed out, but with her stuck in bed.

“Ah promise we’ll be back as soon  as we can,” Big Macintosh told Apple Bloom earnestly. He’d lifted Sweetie and lay her delicate frame against his back where she clung there gazing at Apple Bloom vacantly.

“Ah don’t want the fillysprite to get me...” Apple Bloom whimpered miserably.

“Don’t you worry, filly,” Pinkie Pie said earnestly, “We’ll lure any fillysprites out of here and we’ll go around the whole  town to make sure there aren’t any hiding away.”

“The hearth will keep you safe,” Applejack assured her. “Our home has strong roots.”

“That didn’t stop the parasprites the last  time,” Apple Bloom grumbled.

“The last time it was the parasprites, plus  the magic of Twilight Sparkle,” Applejack said with a disgusted sigh. “And she helped with the repairs! Trust me, there is no place safer than where you are right now.”

“Pff, yeah and she’s going to be after us  not you,” Pinkie Pie said sassily, “If she really is in the fillysprite’s thrall.”

“If Twilight starts attacking us it’ll be a huge problem,” Applejack said worriedly.

“We’ll save her for last,” Pinkie Pie explained. The ten of them plus Sweetie walked down the stairs with Pinkie still explaining, “Between you and some friends of mine we should be able to...”

Pinkie’s perky voice continued through the floorboards even as the front door opened, closed and locked, and her music started up as the entourage started straight away towards the biggest danger right now, the schoolhouse. And then Apple Bloom was left in silence. Normal boring old terrifying  silence.

Every whisper of wind or floorboard creak was a fillysprite clinging to the ceiling just waiting for her to let her guard down and leap onto her head from above. Which is silly because Apple Bloom’s bed had a poster bed, and the tester on top of it would stop any marauding monsters from jumping down on her. But that made it worse in a way, because as the saying goes, the scariest things are what you can’t see or hear, not the ones you can see that you aren’t protected from.

Apple Bloom was seriously questioning the validity of that saying, when the even more terrifying  sound of Twilight Sparkle hollering for anypony drifted up from downstairs. The door rattled and–and it didn’t hold! The Apple family was no match for Twilight’s powers of arcane sorcery. She unlocked that door and let herself right in. Apple Bloom wanted to scream but she dared not make a sound. She had to get away somehow! Twilight was going to deliver her to the fillysprite! Apple Bloom could fight that thing, but not a unicorn who was controlled by it!

She threw the ice off her chest in a panic. Her muscles screamed in pain from knotting up where she lay there after having been injured but she barely even noticed in her urgency. Yanking the sheets off her bed Apple Bloom twisted them so they were long and thin and tied them together end-to-end, and to her bed. She almost made it too! She just had to get to the ground and, and hide in the bushes or, or something, and then Twilight Sparkle’s head had extended out from the window to Apple Bloom’s room, looking down straight at her .

And the morning proceeded as you may have known it did.

“Stupid! Stupid!” Apple Bloom said face down, punctuating each of her words with further injury to her head and hooves.

“Stop hitting yourself, Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo shouted exasperatedly.

“Ah caint believe ah fell  for it,” Apple Bloom exclaimed, “All ah had to do was listen for one second an’ we never woulda fought and none of this would have happened!”

“Apple Bloom, please!” Cheerilee said lifting Apple Bloom to her hooves and leaning her forcefully against the schoolteacher. “You need to calm down. You’re hurt!”

“Ah’m fine,” snapped Apple Bloom. “But what about the other ponies? Pinkie Pie is a menace! An’ it’s all mah fault!”

“No it’s my  fault,” said Scootaloo standing apart from them with a look of angry desolation, “It’s my fault for getting caught, and it’s my fault for telling Twilight, and it’s my fault for telling you and it’s my fault for being born !”

“Scootaloo, you couldn’t help being born,” Apple Bloom said weakly.

“And you could help what you  did?” Scootaloo countered, her tail clinging tightly to her hindquarters. “You were so scared! You had every right to—”

“It’s nopony’s  fault, Scootaloo!” Cheerilee interjected in a hurt tone. Apple Bloom could feel Cheerilee quivering as she said it. Cheerilee firmed up though, and said in a controlled voice, “Scootaloo, come here.”

Scootaloo just looked away resentfully. “Scootaloo,” Cheerilee commanded more strongly, “Come. Here.”

Scootaloo sulked over the few paces to Cheerilee and Apple Bloom. She didn’t even look up or even frame it as a question when she said, “What.”

Cheerilee sat back on her haunches then and wrapped her arm around Apple Bloom... and Scootaloo. Scootaloo resisted even as Cheerilee pulled her into her embrace but there was no escape from the hug. “It’s going to be okay,” Cheerilee reassured them soothingly. “It’s not your fault.” Scootaloo tried to protest that, but Cheerilee just repeated herself and wouldn’t let the fillies get a word in edgewise. Apple Bloom broke down first, shoving her head underneath Scootaloo’s chin, ignoring the pain of her bandaged ear as she voiced her distress. It would be lying to say Scootaloo didn’t cry too.

And that’s why they were completely surprised when Cheerilee shoved Apple Bloom away, lifted Scootaloo up and bodily hurled her into the bushes down the hill.



“Alright so,” Twilight Sparkle said in a splay legged crouch facing Ponyville’s perimiter from where she and Applejack had just escaped from the Everfree forest, “The flower trio are gone, and that means they’ve gone to warn the entire town. Because that’s what they do. Warn the entire town making everypony panic . We’re all exhausted. My horn is enertheric. Nopony knows where Pinkie is. Scootaloo is off in the heart of Sweet Apple Acres. And between me and my library is a whole town of ponies who will likely arrest me on sight to say nothing of what they will do to Archer or Licky. Spike is with Rarity, and equally inaccessible. Suggestions?”

“Beggin’ your pardon, Twilight,” Applejack said hesitantly.

“Excellent suggestion, Applejack!” Twilight interrupted. “You can probably travel within Ponyville without attracting too much suspicion now, and unfortunately you lack the necessary magic to activate the library shield plus we lack a hay wagon for you to pull, that the fillies could hide in.”

“Ah’m not exhausted act’chly,” Granny Smith pointed out, having been helped to her feet by the literally more sensible of the two fillies who carried her out of the forest.

“Good idea, Ms. Smith!” Twilight said waving her hooves exaggeratedly, “So you can provide a distraction while Applejack smuggles the fillies in using the wagon she doesn’t have and activates the shield using her nonexistent horn!”

“Beggin your pardon , Twilight,” Applejack repeated more assertively to the anxious unicorn.

Twilight looked at her with a disoriented, “Huh?”

“Ain’t there anywhere you could hide besides the library?” Applejack said patiently.

Twilight brightened at that saying, “Of course! That abandoned house these fillies were hiding in is far on the edge of town. It’s right next to Fluttershy’s! We could probably reach it from here without too many river crossings.”

“Actually ah was thinkin’ the east orchard,” Applejack said, “There’s a barn out there you could use. We just store hay and pinkfluff in it anyway. It’s over by Goldie’s plot.”

“Alright, let’s just get there and see how secure it is,” Twilight grumbled agreeably. “Maybe I can figure out what to do in the meantime.”

The white barn, as it turns out, was about as secure as a barn would be. The security was limited to a big wooden cross beam that held the double doors in front closed. Archer and Licky darted right inside as the doors opened, Licky more because she was just parrotting anything Archer did at the moment. Archer turned her head back, as Twilight walked in looking around critically, followed by Applejack and Granny Smith. Licky wasn’t turning to look at them, but she was standing still for once, staring at a bound up bushel of pinkfluff with big eyes.

Twilight sighed, blinking tiredly and declared, “Well I suppose it will do, for a place to hide in at least.” She paced in a circle, looking critically at the sun filtering in through the cracks, and the rafters overhead loaded up with bales and bushels. “Now,” she started in a lecturing tone, “We can get two things done at once so I need you, Granny, to go and inform Rarity of the situation. Spike can at least be of some help protecting the library until we can reach it. And Applejack I need you to go directly to the library and get Rainbow Dash to the spa. We need her in full working order ASAP.”

“Cheerilee should still be at your farm house with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom,” Twilight continued as she marked down the issues in her head, “But she may have returned to the school as I didn’t exactly have time to explain to her, so if either of you see her please inform her of the situation and make sure she doesn’t expose Scootaloo to any inadvertant danger unknowingly.”

“Oh dear,” Granny said worriedly in response, rubbing her chin.

“Oh dear?” Twilight shouted to her shortly her interest piqued, “What’s oh dear?!”

“Well it’s jus’,” Granny paused formulating her words, and said, “After we got to the library, Big Mac went to drop off Sweetie Belle with her sister on account of the situation could’ve gotten ugly and she didn’t need to be there to see it.”

“And after that, he was going to head straight back to check on Apple Bloom.”



“Oh, hello Big Macintosh!” Cheerilee said with an overemphasized smile, “Fancy seeing you here!” She was standing beside the Apple Family farm house where Big Macintosh lived, addressing the big red pony. He had run up in terror at the sight of the front door to the farm house left swinging open, just when Cheerilee charged around the corner to greet him amiably.

“Where’s Apple Bloom?” he asked her, and he really really wasn’t asking. He was telling .

“J-j-ust around the back,” Cheerilee said torn between anxiety and embarassment. “She was trying to climb out her window the poor dear—” but he was already gone, charging around the corner. Cheerilee ran after him, where to her alarm he grabbed Apple Bloom’s tail and roughly hoisted her upside down into the air.

“Big Mac! Stop it!!” Apple Bloom squawked in fright and outrage. He didn’t answer her, but he did drop her to the ground. Then he started poking Apple Bloom in the small of her back.

“What are you doing, Big Macintosh!” Cheerilee shouted admonishingly, rushing up to him to stop him from... whatever he was doing. But then he turned on her with steely cold eyes that stopped her short. Keeping himself between Cheerilee and Apple Bloom, Big Macintosh strolled up to Cheerilee, looking into her eyes so intensely she felt like she was going to drop on the spot. And then he turned around behind her and hooked the base of her tail, and heaved.

“B-b-b-bi-bi-bi-bi-b-M-m-ma-ma-m-m” Cheerilee was really having trouble getting past the first syllable in what she wanted to say, what with him yanking up her tail like a schoolcolt and practically sort of metaphorically almost not really sticking his nose in between her legs. She tried to pull away frantically, and he almost immediately let her go, making her stumble in surprise at the sudden freedom. Her tail went straight  down against her hindquarters. His response to that reaction was to ...start poking Cheerilee in the flank, up around her shoulder blades.

Finding her wits somehow, Cheerilee skittered away from him sideways saying, “Big Macintosh, w-w-what is the meaning of this?!” She spared a worried glance at Apple Bloom wondering if she could reach the filly before this crazy demented stallion does who knows what else to her. But that made him look at Apple Bloom too, and as soon as he did he lunged for her. It was no use; he was just too close to the filly. Cheerilee leaped for Apple Bloom, but Big Macintosh was quicker, sweeping up his sister in an iron grasp leaving Cheerilee face down in the dirt. She scrambled up as fast as she could but he... wasn’t doing anything more to Apple Bloom. He just... held her tightly, rocking back and forth as he did.

Cheerilee started to comprehend what she was looking at when Big Macintosh held his little sister out at arm’s length and said angrily, “What were you thinkin’  opening up and unlocking the door and scarin’ me half to death! Ah thought the fillysprite had got ya!”

Cheerilee felt her breathing evening out as Big Macintosh went to hug his incoherently babbling sister again. Cheerilee looked at the bushes but Scootaloo had not emerged from them. Good, the filly was smart enough to realize this was a ...delicate situation. Either that or Scootaloo was knocked unconscious. Cheerilee hoped it was the former. Either way, time was of the essence. She collected herself, and took a deep breath, then said,

“Big Macintosh, I’m ashamed of you!”



“This is terrible!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed pacing the barn floor agitatedly. “What if he sees Scootaloo with Apple Bloom? He could hurt them! He could hurt Cheerilee! What if she tries to defend them? What if everypony panics? Oh why didn’t I think to hide them!”

“Calm down, Twilight!” Applejack said forcing her to stop pacing by pushing up against her brusquely. “Big Mac is a good pony and a gentlecolt,” Applejack continued, “He won’t do anythin’ rash, not without a good reason for it.”

“Maybe I could just, maybe I could just,” Twilight said lighting up, or trying to light up her horn at any rate. She grimaced and clutched her head. “Thrice damned disaster zone they call a forest...” she swore angrily.

“Twilight, you need to rest ,” Applejack entreated her. “You been using more hocus foolery the past two days than you do in a week!”

“You’re right, Applejack,” Twilight admitted, “But still!”

“No buts, you relax here as best you can,” Applejack insisted. “Ah’ll go on to the farm to make sure everything’s okay with Big Macintosh. Granny can get Rainbow Dash to the spa instead, and then go fetch Spike from Rarity’s.”

“What’s so important about some fancy spa?” Granny said butting her head into their conversation irritably.

Applejack blushed at that and tapped her hooves together saying, “Ah may have gone and crimped a few of her nerve clusters.”

“Ye did what?!” Granny hollered at Applejack. Twilight shushed her desperately.

“We’re trying not to draw attention here,” Twilight urged the aged pony.

“Don’t ye know that ain’t healthy?” Granny accused Applejack in a quieter tone. “You coulda hurt the filly!”

“If you know of a safer way to keep Rainbow Dash from coming after us, I am all ears Granny,” Applejack hissed back at her. “It’s just her third vertebrae, and her hip joints... and the one behind the spleen, and the two in her altshoulders. She’ll be fine after a good rubdown.”

“Well,” Granny vacillated, “She’d better, for your sake! You fool filly an’ now ah gotta go clean up your  mess.”

“Ah’m sorry, Granny,” Applejack said pausing in the doorway on her way out, “But Twilight’s right. Ah gotta find Big Mac and fast . Don’t want none of us to do anything we regret!”

“I’m as fast as ah ever was young’n!” Granny shouted running much more slowly after Applejack who charged out of there on the way to Sweet Apple Acres. “Ah didn’t get that new hip fer nothin’! You just wait you’ll see I ... ... .....” Granny’s voice continued to float through the air, diminishing in the distance as the two of them crested the hill and returned to the main road into town. Twilight watched them go, then looked at her surroundings nervously, and pulled the barn doors closed. She lifted the crossbeam, wincing at the flash of pain in her horn. Her magic array was just so very disarrayed right now. But the crossbeam went into place easily enough, and she sank on her hooves in relief, as they were now secure and hidden in the dim light of the barn.

Turning around, Twilight saw that Licky had discovered how much fun pinkfluff was to bounce on. It made her smile wistfully, wishing she had such simple pleasures to play with as a filly. Not too  wistfully though, because Twilight would have had a terrible childhood if she hadn’t had the grand library of Canterlot to grow up in, and not living on a farm was a welcome sacrifice to pay for that. Archer was watching Licky too, somewhat wistfully, so Twilight leaned down to her and said,

“Could you watch over Licky for a while? I need to spend some time resting so I can work up a strong enough cosmo connection to teleport us to the library. She looks like she could use some help over there.”

“Okay, Twilight!” Archer said to her spryly, and ran over to where Licky was, her little wings buzzing as Archer jumped up the bushel to give Licky some assistance in climbing it. It would have been more adorable if the lighting wasn’t so dim and gloomy. But dim light was just what Twilight needed right now. She leaned against the barn door listening for any signs of movement out there, then closed her eyes and focused on her thoughts, letting the swirling miasma that was her second tier spell matrix crash upon her mind unconcernedly like the ocean upon the seashore. The storm would end in time, and she was at peace with that awareness.

Something many unicorns never have to deal with is meditation. A corroded spell matrix is not something that comes from simple acts of levitation. Twilight Sparkle never regretted her decisions in what life to lead, but her magical potency did come with its drawbacks. The completely overhyped predisposition for insanity aside, Twilight had to learn mental calming techniques for when she overexerted herself. Indeed her most powerful spells were only possible with those techniques. The gains one can achieve through raw power is multiplied by an order of magnitude if you remain focused and in harmony enough to use that power to its maximum utility. As the saying goes, the weak unicorn at peace can overcome the strong, conflicted.

It was also a good opportunity to catch up on sleep. Even after last night’s rest, the Licky debacle had once again robbed Twilight of the sleep she needed. So as she fiddled with her mental gears making sure everything was streamlined smooth and well oiled Twilight Sparkle found herself growing sleepy. And with Archer keeping Licky busy, and no books, customers, angry villagers, or impossible assignments to capture her attention, Twilight found she no trouble in drifting off on the spot.

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash was still  having a really bad day.




> Rainbow Dash's Good Day
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash was not having a good day.

“Hello?”

It might even be said that she was having a very  bad day.

“Excuse me?”

After Twilight Sparkle had summarily vanished, it had been eating Rainbow Dash up inside that she couldn’t do anything to help. It was eating her up inside that she couldn’t do anything at all ! She couldn’t feel like, half her body, and her muscles responded sluggishly, not at all, or in the wrong order. She had  to move, she couldn’t sit still but all she could do  was flop around uselessly! Knocking her out would have been merciful compared to this! 

She couldn’t believe she let Applejack sucker kick her like that! She couldn’t help but recall the old pegasus coaching, never engage an earth pony in CQC at anything lower than the speed of sound. (Which was thought impossible to break before Rainbow Dash was around.) The reality wasn’t as dire, but Rainbow hadn’t even seen it coming . It was just one kick! Why was every part of her all beat up from it? Why hadn’t Applejack even so much as listened  to her? It was like Applejack expected  Rainbow Dash to attack her on sight.

So Dash had to sit there, not even able to lift her head, while Archer and Licky just ignored her like nothing had happened at all, hopping along blithely after Pinkie Pie who was all dressed up in a one pony band ensemble. Of course  it wasn’t a marching band it was Pinkie Pie all along, but why were those fillies just following her? Did they not  notice Rainbow Dash had gotten laid to waste by her own best friend? Archer knew Pinkie Pie was bad news, didn’t she? But there she was smiling and dancing along behind her, like Pinkie was her mom or something!

When Twilight bamfed into existence at a gallop, running into the library before Dash could direct her attention to the real problem, by that time Rainbow Dash had at least managed to work feeling into her neck again. One of her wings cracked into motion finally , but the other was totally unresponsive still, and her lower body was next to useless. She had to throw herself like a fish to get in the library, after that insufferable bookworm tried to solve the problem the only way she knew how, reading books. 

Dash managed to crawl in, to holler at Twilight to focus on the imperative task at hand, and save Archer and Licky . But that, of course, left Rainbow Dash up a creek without a paddle. And without Twilight. And any upper body coordination to hold a paddle. One useless wing, her tongue all getting in the way of speaking, feeling like she’s talking in slow motion, and her back feeling so freaking tied up that she needed  to pop it out. No amount of writhing or stretching seemed to get it!

Rainbow had finally just slumped to a library bench, exhausted, when a snowy blue stallion with a wavy dark purple mane poked his head into the library.

“Hello?” he said in a round voice. “Is the library open?”

“Nnrgahg!” Rainbow Dash said, attempting to tell him no, and “go away.” All that did was attract attention to her though. He brightened and trotted over to Rainbow saying, “I need a book on souffles. Do you know where I could find something like that?”

“Lmngl!” she said telling him to leave her alone.

He just stared at her. “...okay?” he said at last, “I guess I can find it myself then...”

Go figure he  would be able to figure out Twilight’s crazy book sorting scheme, and before Dash could revive her useless limbs to flop to a hiding place he was back with a book saying, “Alright I’m ready to check out!”

From her position with her head fallen to the floor and her upper torso slumped thereafter, with her bottom staying behind up there on the bench, Rainbow Dash had a rather embarassing view of the stallion. She might even have appreciated it if she wasn’t so totally humiliated right now. It might have been because her head was lower than the rest of her body, but Rainbow Dash was blushy as hell right now.

“You are the librarian, right?” he said pleasantly, looking down at her with not a shred of sympathy.

She didn’t want to tell him no because it was sure to come out as “mlgn” or something. She shook her head, but upside down as she was it wasn’t really effective.

“Hello?” he said to her a bit irritatedly. Dash crossed a hoof across her chest and looked away furiously.

“Excuse me?” he said undauntedly.

“I’mngtthlbrlbln!” she shouted, pushing herself off the bench with a wing. All that did was crumple her forward with her lower torso flopped over backwards onto her head.

“Are you drunk ?” he asked in an aghast tone. Rainbow didn’t even bother to answer, trying to will her torso off her head so she could start thinking about standing up.

“Well, I never!” the stallion announced, throwing the book down where it slid up and hit her in the nose. “What kind of library has an intoxicated librarian? Never mind about the book, and I will be having words with town hall over this!”

On his way out he shouted, “I had heard such good things about this place, too!”

Rainbow Dash tried to catch up to him in order to beat the smug out of his smug face but of course she wasn’t doing more than scoot along the ground slowly with her hind legs around her ears. She had to get that door closed, or more ponies were going to come in thinking the library was open! 

Rainbow Dash managed to roll onto her side, get her tail out of her eyes and... sort out her butt. She had to drag herself to the door with one hoof. Her one good wing would help her get there faster, so she contorted around with her lower body facing down, and her upper body facing up, braced against that wing. The other wing wouldn’t even stay against her side and flopped uselessly against the floor hindering her movements. When Rainbow Dash got her hooves on that Applejack...!

Dash had finally lunged the last hooflength, pushing the front door to the library closed with a sigh of relief when it swung open again and smacked into her face, bowling her over into yet another unrecognizable ball of tangled legs and wings.

“Excuse me,” said a timid sounding yellow, purple maned mare with a peapod cutie mark looking around beyond Rainbow Dash, not seeing her on the floor there sort of crumpled in a very weird looking pile of pegasus parts, “Hello. Are the d-d-dangerous magical experiments over?”

“Narghl!” Rainbow Dash snapped at her in frustration. The mare glanced down at her then, and kept staring, her eyes growing wider and wider while her pupils shrunk down to pricks.

“MONSTER! ,” she shrieked at earsplitting volumes, charging out the door again. “Monster in the library!” her voice called out more distantly as she gallopped away. Well that was just insulting. Still, it got her out of the library, so Dash only had to close the door again and barricade it with something... just as soon as she managed to unwrap her own hindlegs from her wings.

Alas, by the time Rainbow Dash had flopped out flat again, the mare had decided instead of running away as prudent, to go get a bunch of her friends. Dash covered her face with a hoof as no less than half a dozen ponies stampeded up to the library entrance, stopping short and looking with shock at the fallen pegasus when they did so.

“That’s no monster!” a short cream colored blue haired mare declared vexedly.

“I–I guess it’s just a filly?” the original purple maned mare said shrinking back uncomfortably. Well she ain’t the most uncomfortable one here, sister!

“Rainbow Dash?” said Bluebell incredulously. Oh no.

Bluebell was a light purple, blonde maned pegasus mare with a cloud bursting cutie mark, and also a member of the very same—

“Why aren’t you at work?!” she exclaimed admonishingly.

...weather team as Rainbow Dash.

“Do you know how behind  we are?” Bluebell told Rainbow, dancing on her hooves, “Come on we need your help, you gotta fix this!”

“Ican’glarbl,” Rainbow tried to tell Bluebell, but it was difficult with her chin shoved up against the library floorboards by her stupid benumbed body. She flapped her only good wing by itself, as if that would demonstrate her reason for being late for work.

“Ohh,” Bluebell said in a whimper, “Just come on!!”

Then she bit down on Rainbow Dash’s tail and took off into the sky.

“Nnnnnnnooooooooohhhh!” Dash yelled out as the library rapidly diminished below her. Bluebell wasn’t even slowing down though. Dash tried to escape, but all she managed to do is get her own wing to smack her in the face, and soon they were way  too high for Dash to do anything but dangle there in Bluebell’s strong clutches. Dash wasn’t worried about Bluebell having any trouble of course. She was a weather pony, and that meant she could lift at least three times her weight. But what was Rainbow Dash supposed to do about bucking clouds, when she couldn’t even buck?!

Ponyville really was beautiful from high up above like this. As a pegasus, Rainbow Dash had no sense of vertigo to speak of. She probably should have. The little ponies of color were striding about on the curving roadways weaving the buildings of Ponyville together organically. It wasn’t ugly and square like Manehatten. The roads curved semi-radially from Town Hall conforming to rivers and hills as they did. The straw cottages that comprised a bulk of the buildings looked like a bunch of little dollhouses nestled in beds of dark green trees, all laid out over a beautiful green canvas.

You could see Sweet Apple Acres from the west side of town like this. They were headed in that direction, no doubt to prepare some rain for those thirsty apple trees. The orchard wasn’t laid out in neat rows. Each tree was individually planted in the best location that it could grow. The only place without trees was the big farm house with the white picket fence going around its clear area in a broad circle. Cheerilee, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were there doing something. Rainbow Dash tried calling their attention, but they were just too far away. Plus her words made so little sense that Bluebell just told her to stop whining and get her act together.

Bluebell stopped in mid air with the other 101 weather ponies Dash was supposed to manage. And yes Rainbow Dash always had the best ideas and was great at planning out what everypony should do, but not only were they all  older than her, but now they got to see her being literally  dragged to work. How the heck was she going to manage anypony who saw her like this?!

“Fhee?” Bluebell said mouthfully, “Vuh phtratus won’t lay flaf!” Rainbow Dash couldn’t exactly crane around to look with all the blood in her head, but as she slowly rotated around hanging by her tail she saw a bunch of stratus clouds that were... sideways. Dammit. They were flat as pancakes, but they were tilted on their side flat vertically instead of horizontally.

“Okay, we need two ponies reinforcing them from behind, while one pony bucks them, which should send them into a rotation instead of clearing them, and then everypony can get underneath them to make sure they spread out flat this time, instead of tipping over,” was what Dash wanted to say. “Okthmlp,” was as far as she got, before she scrunched in frustration attempting, and failing to cross her arms.

“Come on, fly onf your own!” Bluebell said irately, and she jerked her head up, lightly tossing Rainbow Dash in a gentle arc. Dash’s reaction to this was immediate and dramatic. “Acklmph!” she shouted in alarm, her wings flapping desperately to hold herself up and... and she could only flap one wing, so that immediately sent her into a tailspin. Her tail snapped to pull her out of it as she plummeted to the ground, but that just sent her into loop-the-loops.

“Quit screwing around, boss!” Drizzle shouted after her, and Rainbow Dash would have offered a sensible, rational response, but she was currently too busy hurtling towards the town like a pony seeking missile, in an uncontrolled dive. So she just glared at Drizzle and held up one hoof, with the other crossed over behind it. Distantly, she could see one of her weather team members get agitated and buck the cloud in frustration, which of course just toppled it onto their heads. Some of them were following Dash, but not very enthusiastically. Then Rainbow Dash grimaced, and stretched out her wing trying to pull herself out from this disastrous rocket dive. Her wing creaked as her forward motion was thrown into another rapid spin, aileron rolling so fast she couldn’t even see which way was up or down anymore.

Her tail managed to correct her spin, but it was slow going with that much torque involved, and now she was spinning head-over-heels. Her stomach lurched and what was left of her bran muffin this morning shot out of her mouth uncontrollably. “Uh.. guh...ggh...bluh!” Rainbow Dash whimpered, wiping her tongue on her pastern, as the unmentionable blob descended toward some unlucky pony in town. She briefly wondered if that’s what it was like for Scootaloo, but nah, focus on getting to the ground, focus on getting to the library. Had she been thinking more rationally, she might have gone to her cloud house, but instead she banked around on her one good wing, and attempted to make a controlled descent.

Then she promptly went into a tailspin.

She pulled out of it, skimming the tops of the trees of the shit shit shit she was over the Everfree! Rainbow Dash bucked the air to peel herself around, but then an updraft slammed into her and sent her spinning. She did not  want to land in the forest. She was good as dead if she landed in the forest like this ! She straightened out she—she was... 

She was looking up at a monstrous tendril, raising from the forest high into the sky. Rainbow tried to flap higher, to get over it, but a downdraft grabbed her then, and she hurled headfirst into the wiggling gray vaguely conical ...thing.

It had the texture of rubber when she plowed into it, which ultimately saved her life, because her momentum slowed and stopped. Then the tension snapped back, and at the same time the structure/monster/thing whipped forward, hurling her back the way she came. Rainbow Dash was soon above Ponyville again, but everything was whipping past, too fast for her to see the individual buildings. She took a chance, and stuck out her wing again, bracing hard against the incredible tension, as the air resistance tore her around in dizzy circles.

Rainbow Dash was pretty sure she slowed herself enough not to die on impact, but she couldn’t really tell what was going on, from how she was spinning around like a frisbee. She tried to stop the spin, but she was just too out of it. She couldn’t even think from how dizzy she was. It was the Dizzitron disaster all over again! Rainbow just closed her eyes, and braced for impact, descending rapidly from the sky.

Pots and kettles blasted outward like an explosion from her landing. A sharp cry of pain belted out of Rainbow Dash, as she touched down in some bizarre parallel dimension where the air was luminum cookware. The pots came tumbling down, clanging against the walls and clattering on the dirt, and collapsing in a pile over her head. Even after Rainbow Dash was still as the grave, the clanging continued outside the pile of rubble she was buried under, for a few seconds as everything finished falling to the ground. Then there was silence.

“You okay, Rainbow Dash ?”

Oh no .

Rainbow Dash stuck a trembling hoof out of the pile of kettles she was in, as a token effort to escape, but there was just no way, and her hoof fell limply on the pile even as it stuck out. This had to be a hundred pounds worth of cookware, thankfully not all  on top of her. A hundred pounds of cookware, and Derpy Hooves.

“Let me help you!” the grey and gold bubble butt herself said, hurling pot after pot over her shoulder to un-bury Rainbow Dash. Cries of alarm filled the streets as each and every pot managed to land squarely on somepony’s head.

“Drplngg!” Rainbow Dash shouted, biting her lip and saying very carefully, “Jus... pull... mh... out.” Derpy wasn’t listening though. She was too busy trying to clean up her mess, by intercepting the running ponies and pulling the pots off their heads. Then a pot landed on Derpy’s head somehow, and she flew blindly through a wall, where subsequently a pony in a bathtub fell out of the collapsing structure.

The bathtub crashed down into the cart full of pots, mere inches away from Dash’s nose, and when it did, Rainbow Dash heard the brakes in the cart snap underneath her. The cart, full of heavy pots, pans, Rainbow Dash, and a screaming pony in a bathtub, started rolling forward faster and faster.

With ponies running out of the way, and other carts getting smashed left and right as this one barrelled its way down the steep hill that of course  they were on, Rainbow Dash frantically tried to lever herself over the edge of the side of the cart, with a big heavy piece of cookware in her mouth, to slam on the wheel, either stopping it or ripping it off, either of which would have accomplished what she needed to do, which is to stop. It wasn’t until they went over the ledge that Rainbow Dash really started to panic.

As the cart flew through the air, Rainbow Dash was screaming her head off, and the mare in the bathtub was screaming her head off and Rainbow Dash was screaming her head off and the mare in the bathtub was screaming her head off and both their screams started to die off, as Rainbow Dash started to realize that the cart wasn’t moving anymore. 

Dash finally burst her head out of the pots, to come face to face with who else but that insufferable groundwing. That insufferable groundwing, who had apparantly saved her life, because Derpy was hovering there with strong wingbeats, having dove right into the cart harness, even as it was falling. Derpy ended up in it backwards, thus the reason she was facing Rainbow Dash right now, but she still managed to hold it up in the air.

“My bad,” the walleyed pegasus said with a guilty smile. Dash just gaped at her wordlessly. Displaying a disturbing amount of skill at this, Derpy started navigating the cart butt-first, finding a market square to descend into. Rainbow Dash braced herself for the next disaster to befall that walking trouble magnet. The cart touched gently down and Derpy wiggled her way out of the harness, finally  taking the hint and pulling Rainbow Dash out instead of throwing more pots over her shoulder. Rainbow Dash never got a good look at the bathtub pony, because the instant the cart was grounded, she was gone, away down the street at a dead gallop. She’d hopefully be back for her bathtub. Amazingly enough, as soon as Derpy yanked on Rainbow Dash’s arms to pull her out, there was an audible pop in Dash’s neck and sensation flooded back into her tongue in painful tingles.

That was all the good it did though, and Rainbow Dash flopped onto the dirt uselessly outside the cart for all to see when Derpy helped her out. Derpy stood over her saying, “You don’t look so good, Rainbow Dash!”

“I’m ffine” Rainbow said, somewhat surprised that she could speak clearly.

“Don’t say that!” Derpy said upsetly, “Those pots must have hurt you!”

“Thlh... they didn’t hurt me!” Dash protested frantically. “You can jus’ leeave me alone an’ I’ll”

“How could you forgive me?” the grey pony said dancing around Dash’s fallen figure skittishly. “I know!” she exclaimed, “You can rest at my house!” The sentence seemed such a novelty to Derpy, Rainbow Dash wondered just how long she had even had  a house.

“Have t’ go backt’ the library,” Dash slurred, shaking her head and wincing wishing that she didn’t.

“Why?” Derpy asked crouching down to look her in the... in an eye.

“Because the—” Rainbow Dash stopped, and looked at herself unhappily. She wasn’t going to be any  use like this. She had to get that kink out of her back, or, or something ! There wasn’t anypony at the library anyway, just a bunch of (ugh) customers ready to make an even bigger fool of her. Or worse, her workmates!

“You don’t have to come with me, Rainbow Dash,” Derpy said morosely, looking at Rainbow with big sad eyes... a big sad eye. Two big sad eyes, one of which was looking at her. The other one was watching a pegasus fly overhead.

“Rainbow Daaash!” called out Drizzle overhead. Oh shazbot. Now they’d really  have it in for her.

“Okkay fine,” Rainbow said grumpily, if a little hastily. “How are—” Derpy grabbed Rainbow’s tail in her mouth and happily pranced off, dragging Rainbow Dash behind her, cavemare style. Rainbow Dash’s left arm was still numb, but she managed to cross them nevertheless, a disgusted expression on her face as she was dragged down the street like sack of potatoes.

Derpy’s house was a ranch style cottage, with flimsy stucco walls and a straw roof... just like the other 20 houses around it. There was a planter in the window filled with daisies, and a watering can out by the doorway... just like the other 20 houses around it. One thing ponies weren’t, and that was imaginative. It was a little less “zoning board” on the inside. There was a painting on the wall, of Derpy in a golden hayfield, that matched her hair perfectly. It didn’t even look unicorn made, but mouthpainted instead, pretty classy. The walls were covered in a cream colored wallpaper, with dark brown vertical patterns inked into it.

Rainbow Dash found herself increasingly uneasy as she was brought within Derpy’s house. If not from an impending disaster, it was also because Rainbow Dash really wasn’t... used  to being in other ponies’ houses. She was barely used to having her own  sublet, much less having her peers or, older peers who were going through all the hassle of keeping one of these  places. Paying for it, maintaining it, defending it against rampaging horrors from the Everfree, it was a lot less practical than a cloud house, but it was also kind of ...intimidating. Did Derpy  really own this whole place? It was like a doll house, except you could live in it!

There was a little table in the front dining room, on which Rainbow Dash saw some sort of topographical map whose corner was peeking over the edge as she got dragged by on the floor underneath. There was a blue couch in the back room, in what should have been a storage room more decorated to look like a leisure room with sunlight peeking in through a tiny window on the south wall. Once in the room, Derpy unceremoniously hurled Dash onto the couch. Rainbow Dash probably would have protested more, if the couch wasn’t so plush and soft. She sank into it with a muffled groan.

“Anything I can get you, Rainbow Dash?” Derpy said eagerly, “Tea? Biscuit? Hay bagel?”

“Thanks,” Dash said reluctantly, “Already had a muffin this morning.” Sort of.

Derpy gave her a queasy look and Dash waved her good hoof saying, “Sorry! Forgot about... that. Some water would be cool. ...maybe a bagel.”

She might be less eager to accept food that Derpy cooked, but Rainbow Dash really hadn’t eaten since that morning and she really  needed something to clear out the taste of that muffin from her mouth. The minutes passed as Derpy happily prepared it for Rainbow Dash, in her kitchen, while Dash squirmed in place trying to work out that kink in her upper back. Her thighs were all knotted up too, little funny-bone nerve tingles drifting through them when she’d try to flex them.

She looked in Derpy’s direction, and there was some sort of crayon drawing on the refrigerator box in there. She also saw a ...uh... a foal. Standing there. Little purple unicorn filly, standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking at Rainbow Dash. Uh. Just... looking at her.

The unicorn filly slowly slinked into the other room, out of sight. “Mom?” came a high fluting, unconfident, and slightly disapproving voice, “Is that Rainbow Dash  on our couch?”

Oh. Great, she must be in that club. Rainbow Dash knew all about that club. It was so adorable seeing kids finding something they loved, and getting all obsessive about it. Even if it turned out it was really  hard to live up to their expectations. Dash started to feel very insecure, laying here on the couch. Was she going to horribly traumatize a filly, when that filly found out the great Rainbow Dash managed to throw out her own back like an old granny? That wasn’t a thing that happens, right?

There was some whispering in the kitchen, and the foal peeked her head around the doorway, looking at Dash with big golden eyes. They weren’t crooked like her mother’s. “Hey... kid,” Dash said all cooly, “Don’t mind me just ...crashing at your mom’s, because I had a... maneuver that uh, went ...bad and smashed up a bunch of her pots.” Yeah that sounded safe enough.

“Are you injured?” the filly asked worriedly. Crap. Dash felt like she was under a spotlight. Thankfully, it got stolen away, when there was a clatter in the kitchen, as Derpy dropped whatever she had and charged out into the hallway. Both pairs of regular eyes were drawn to the pegasus, who announced,

“Pots!!”

Then, she additionally announced, “Oh my gosh I forgot I’m still at work!!”

Derpy stuck her nose down to the filly’s level, and said to her earnestly, “I need you to get Rainbow Dash her bagel. Mommy has to go deliver some pots. And other things. Can you do that for me?” The little unicorn nodded silently. Derpy ran out the door then calling out, “Sorry! Sorry! I’ll be back, sorry!”

Thus began the great stareoff between Rainbow Dash and Derpy’s stray foal.

Thus ended the great stareoff between Rainbow Dash and Derpy’s stray foal.

“Your mom is pretty cool, letting me chill here and all,” Rainbow Dash said trying to act like she intended  to be lazing around on their couch.

“Are you really  friends with my mom?” the filly asked disbelievingly.

“Friends with her?” Dash said curiously, “I hardly even know her! Why would I be friends with that clutz?”

Rainbow Dash felt like she died a little bit inside, when the filly’s eyes shone with hurt and she turned away. What was the big deal? Did this filly not know  about Derpy? It was obvious that pony was a clutz! Everypony knew that!

“Oh, I see,” the filly said halfheartedly.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Rainbow asked distressedly. “I didn’t mean anything by it!”

“Nothing’s wrong, Rainbow Dash!” the filly said hurriedly. “She was just trying to impress me. You can’t be friends with just anypony  after all...”

“Is that a challenge?” Dash asked boldly with a half smile.

The filly’s eyes widened and she yelped, “N-no! I didn’t mean! I mean!”

Rainbow Dash blinked at her, very confused now. “You want to be friends with me?” she tried tentatively.

“No I– yes  I–...” the filly’s lavender ears twitched over as there was a dink in the other room. “...that’s the toaster,” she said. “I better get that.”

Dash lay back on the couch, as the little unicorn clopped off. It really was nice how Derpy went and gave Rainbow Dash a place to hide out, just like that. All the other ponies in town either didn’t give a crap about Rainbow, or gave her the look , or wanted something from her, except maybe her friends ...and Derpy. 

It’s not like Derpy could have just left Dash on the street  though, while she flew off all by herself to clean up her mess, a mess that... Rainbow Dash had helped make. The filly approached Rainbow Dash calmly, with a plate clenched in her teeth on which a steaming, buttery bagel was sitting. Dash looked at it with a wary unease. Was it really okay for her to take this? The filly responded to that by depositing the plate unceremoniously on Rainbow Dash’s belly.

“There was also a glass of water on the counter,” the filly said uncertainly, “Did you want that too?”

“Oh! Uh, sure thanks kid!” Dash said, looking from her, to the bagel and back.

It was weird how Derpy had a unicorn for a filly. Was that even a thing you could do? Rainbow Dash never heard of a pegasus giving birth to a unicorn. They’d just fall straight through the cloud layer! What was the deal with this  filly then? Is this why Derpy was such a groundwing? Dash was pretty sure it was because when she was on weather patrol, Derpy destroyed e v e r y t h i n g , but maybe that wasn’t the only reason?

The filly brought over the glass of water, placing it on the plate on Dash’s belly so that Rainbow could balance it with her hoof. Rainbow Dash just necked down to eat the bagel, taking satisfying bites out of it. It was clearly  a day-old, but she wasn’t picky. That bagel, and the water, fixed her mouth’s... vomit problem, except for the actual vomit of course. But that was somepony else’s problem now. All Rainbow Dash had to worry about herself was staying on the ground until she could move both wings again... and avoiding the Apple family.

The filly returned one more time, to pick up Rainbow Dash’s plates. Rainbow Dash would have cleaned them up herself, but well... she wasn’t leaving this couch of her own free will, that’s for sure. “Hey, what’s your name?” Rainbow Dash asked the helpful girl, on her way out. The filly turned and stared at Dash, then said roughly around the plate in her mouth,

“’inky,”

“Inky, huh? Cool name!” Rainbow Dash said smiling approvingly. Inky just blushed, ears down, and hurried into the kitchen. There was the klink of a plate. Inky then cobbled upstairs then without a word after having dropped off the plates, and Rainbow Dash relaxed back again, wondering why she was feeling so guilty about how the filly was acting around her.

After a while, Inky came back downstairs, with a poster in her mouth. It was a Wonderbolts poster, except it had Rainbow Dash’s awesome cutie mark prominently displayed on it, and some relevant statistics written out. Rainbow Dash snorted awake when Inky dumped it on her belly, and the filly went to get a quill and ink well. It looked like Derpy went the sensible path and saved her discarded pinions for use as quills, but this one was really chewed up and tattered. That mare needed to go buy some goose quills if she or Inky here was going to be doing a lot of writing with them. You don’t lose pinions that  often.

“Can you sign this?” Inky asked hopefully, holding up the well in her hoof for easy dipping convenience. Dash took the quill and was ready to write, when Inky stuttered out, “C-can you write ‘Find your Rainbow D-dinky’?” The filly paused, and added, “My name is Dinky.”

Rainbow Dash blushed hotly at “Dinky’s” words. “Sorry, uh, ‘inky’s a gool name ‘oo,” Rainbow Dash failed to say correctly around the quill. Then Rainbow... shut the fluff up, and signed the poster, spitting out the worn out quill, and clarified, “Dinky is a cool name too.”

Dinky smiled brightly at her, then looked at the poster and smiled even more brightly at her. “Thank you so much, Rainbow Dash!” she said excitedly. “I can’t believe you’re here!” Her smile caught a bit as she added, “I-in Ponyville I mean. You’re like our own town’s special superhe–”

“Hey, I ain’t no superhero, kid. Dinky.” Dash interrupted. “Last time I tried to do that, a runaway cart full of ponies almost flew right off of Lookout Ridge.”

“Really?” Dinky said sitting down by the couch and looking at Rainbow Dash with fascination. “What happened?”

Rainbow laughed a little and said, “Well, it all started with this baby carriage. If I stopped that then, hey, why not a whole cart full of ponies?” She continued her familiar story, and Dinky ate it all up, so Rainbow Dash embellished a little at the end saying, “And you know what happened to me just today? I totally crashed into a cart that was going right off the ridge .” Dinky didn’t need to know it wasn’t Lookout Ridge, after all. It was still pretty freaking dangerous. “And you know who stopped it this time?”

Dinky gaped saying, “The Mysterious Mare Do Well is back?!”

Dash blinked, then groaned and shook her head, leaning over as much as she could, “No, it was–”

“Rainbow Dash!” the voice of Derpy came, her front door swinging open from across the house, the pegasus clomping in.

Dash said to Dinky in a hasty whisper, “It was your mom!”

“No it wasn’t!” Dinky hissed back.

“It totally was!” Rainbow Dash said in a more normal tone, “I swear she did!”

“You’re lying!” Dinky whispered.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?!” Dash demanded irately.

“What are we talking about?” Derpy whispered.

Rainbow Dash reared back at Derpy, who had decided to join them in an unplanned little huddle. Dash found herself falling back against the couch, saying, “Nothing, nothing! I was only talking with Dinky, here!”

“But what were you saying to her?” Derpy asked, “Because it sounded like–”

“Mom!” Dinky interrupted sticking her hooves against Derpy’s chest. She went and pushed Derpy all the way back into the kitchen. It was clear Dinky was trying to be discreet but she said it a bit too loudly.

“Why did you lie to me?” Dinky whined.

“What?” her mother answered honestly clueless.

“You ...” and then  Dinky remembered to whisper. Dash craned her ears but she couldn’t quite make out what the filly was saying. Turns out she didn’t have to though, because Derpy immediately swung around the doorway, looking very shocked and loudly exclaiming at Dash,

“We’re not friends?!”

“Uh,” Rainbow Dash said intelligently, her mind blanking out.

“You’re my friend, right?” Derpy said smiling weakly. “Please? We don’t have to be best friends!”

“Yeah, you’re...” Dash stared at her hoof, waving it saying, “We’re not... not  friends?”

Derpy stood there looking at her... looking somewhere at any rate. “You mean like the double negative, right?” she said hopefully.

“Uh... yyyyyeah?” Dash agreed cluelessly. What was Derpy even talking  about?

Derpy turned to her extremely blushing daughter saying, “See, I told  you we were friends!”

“Please mommy—mom,” Dinky said pushing at Derpy again, “You don’t have to be friends with her, for me to love– you’re still cool to me!”

“Rainbow Dash is a hero!” the little Dinky urged her mother chidingly, “She doesn’t need friends!”

“Hey!” Dash protested, “I do so need friends! Everypony needs friends!”

She partially sat up on the couch as much as she could, and declared, “My friends have saved my tail more times than I can count! Don’t even joke about that!”

Dinky stared at Rainbow Dash like a deer in headlights. Whatever headlights are. Dinky forgot all about accosting her mother, which might not have been a good idea. Derpy herself turned her head away from both of them and, she said very quietly,

“I need friends too.”

But it was very loud in the sudden silence.

“Why do you even want me to be your friend?” Rainbow asked in a perplexed tone. “I mean yeah we went to the same school, but we work in different ...places. I don’t even see you very often!”

“Oh that’s okay, Rainbow Dash,” Derpy said eagerly. “I really don’t mind even if we don’t see each other very often.”

“But wouldn’t you want to be friends with somepony you, you know... meet?”

“We met today!” Derpy protested petulantly. Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but notice Dinky was gone, retreated upstairs again.

Rainbow hemmed, “Yeah but, like, what about the ponies you work with?”

“No, they don’t like me at all,” Derpy said easily.

“What about your neighbors?” Dash tried weakly.

Derpy shook her head, “They think I’m too dangerous. I just try not to bother them.” She paused and added thoughtfully, “What about the ponies you work with? Are those your friends? Because you were running away from them.”

Dash snickered, “Yeah, they’re great and all, but I don’t think I could exactly call them friends. We just work together, you know?”

Derpy paused again, and said, “So, your neighbors are your friends?”

Rainbow made to answer, then stopped. She actually... didn’t know her neighbors. She’d only been there a year, after all, and tenants came and went a lot. Nothing wrong with it but...

“I...guess I don’t have any friends from my neighbors or... work,” Dash said feeling a blush creeping on her face. “Just, you know, my... friends...”

Derpy just looked at her uncomprehendingly.

“I’ll be your friend, Derpy,” Rainbow Dash said in a subdued tone. “Just–don’t tell anypony or they’ll—”

“OH, thank you Rainbow Dash!” Derpy cheered, sweeping Rainbow off the couch and twirling with her in the middle of the room like a giant pony doll. “I won’t let you regret it, I promise!”

“Augkh... my... back...” Dash managed to gasp out to the eager pegasus. Derpy gasped and dropped Rainbow Dash, who crumpled to the floor with a clud. Then she picked Dash up again saying, “Oops!”

“Just... please be careful...” Rainbow Dash said, “You know  Applejack messed me up pretty bad. I think I might–”

“Oh that reminds me,” Derpy said, awkwardly setting Rainbow down into a limp sitting position, which Dash couldn’t hold up herself, so she slumped over onto her side like a sack of potatoes. Derpy hovered over her awkwardly, then patted the fallen Rainbow Dash in a satisfied sense and continued, “I saw Granny Apple just now.”

Dash bristled there on the floor. “You didn’t tell her I was here, did you?” she asked, “She’ll kick my tail! I don’t even know why they attacked me!”

Derpy started to shake her head, but smiled apologetically saying, “I maybe told her that I didn’t not see you. I think she knew though. It was really hard to lie about you.”

“Boy I know that feeling,” Dash grumbled, rubbing her head. “She’s not here, is she?”

“Oh no she’s not,” Derpy assured Rainbow. “I made sure to lose her before I came home. But she’s a very hard pony to give the slip.”

“Yer darn right ah am!” Granny Smith shouted not two feet from Rainbow Dash’s ear.

Rainbow jumped 20 meters into the air, or, more like flopped around uselessly saying, “No more! You got me! Don’t hurt me! I’ll never mooch apples again!”

“Y’already don’t mooch for apples ye silly pony,” Granny said to her grumpily, biting down on Rainbow Dash’s tail and dragging her away from the blessed sanctuary of that soft couch. “Come on! Ah’m gonna get you all fixed up!” she grunted out of the corner of her mouth.

Rainbow Dash blinked. “You mean you’re not going to... you’re going to fix that thing that Applejack... did?”

“Yer darn tootin,” Granny said, pushing Derpy’s front door open with her butt. “Land sakes filly,” Granny complained to Rainbow Dash, who she was dragging, “Did you eat a bowl full of rocks when you woke up this mornin?”

“Well stop dragging me around and fix me then!” Rainbow Dash said irritably. “I feel like my legs are on backwards!”

“Ah caint fix ye any more’n Applejack can,” Granny said grumpily, “Ah know an old folk remedy but it ain’t essactly... ah’m gonna take ye to the professionals!”

“Fine,” Dash said rolling her eyes, allowing Granny Smith to drag her out of what was the second most awkward social interaction in her entire life. “Bye, Derpy! See you uh, later!”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head upside down to look backwards. Inside her house, Derpy was just standing there looking away from them as they left the building, saying to herself “How did she get in my closet...”

After some time, Dash lifted her head saying, “Uh, Granny this isn’t the way to the hospital. You have to turn left at the redirector tower.” Rainbow Dash had long since resigned herself to her fate of being yet again forever humiliated, by everypony who could see Granny Smith dragging her around like a freaking invalid. Truly her day couldn’t possibly get any worse than this.

“Hospital?” Granny mummled, “Don’t be silly. We’re goin’ to the Ponyville Day Spa to get you a full body makeover!”

A number of ponies who hadn’t been paying attention to their surroundings, would then find themselves drawn to a peculiar spectacle. The resident daredevil of Ponyville was flat on her back, loudly yelling and blubbering something about being too cool for this, and let her go, and anything but that, while the elderly matron of the Apple Family dragged her along by the tail. Though the rainbow colored mare dug her one good hoof in the dirt, it only left a long trench in the earth, as she was pulled inexorably toward her doom.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t crying. She was calm! Totally calm! She didn’t want them to put ribbons in her hair! They were going to use perfumed shampoo she hated perfumed shampoo! She was a laughing stock! They were going to paint her hooves she knew it! She didn’t want  them to touch her hooves! This was all a dirty trick to get her to take a bath! Well, she didn’t need a bath! And she didn’t want eye shadow  and lipstick . That was stupid girly stuff, that only stallions liked, and was a pain in the tail to clean off!

Alas, her reasoned and composed objections were cruelly ignored, and Granny Smith dragged Rainbow Dash into the waiting room of the Spa, and heaved her right up onto a froufy velvet purple bench. Rainbow Dash was trapped there beyond redemption, in that pink and lavender waste of space, that the disreputable ponies of the town liked to say was the place you went to to get the special treatment, complete with happy ending. In short, it was the last place Rainbow Dash wanted to be caught dead  in. Rainbow Dash gave up on her tantrum though, and just flopped her head back despairingly.

“Yep,” she heard Granny say, “Her thoracic ganglia are all cramped up, the third one got a slipped disc, an’ ah don’t know the specifics but her hip clusters an’ somethin’ about her altshoulders, so she pretty much needs the whole mulligan.” Granny was speaking wisely, to someone whom Rainbow Dash refused to look at, or otherwise recognize the existence of.

“Oh mai,” came Lotus Blossom’s voice, her hoof poking testingly at the unresponsive shoulder of a grumbling Rainbow Dash, who was clearly ignoring her. “How did... did you say her third  vertebrae? Can she even walk?”

“Ah reckon not,” Granny said musing dangerously, “Ah reckon... she ain’t gonna be able to do much of anything, no matter what ye wanna do to her.”

There was a long pause, after which the spa pony said in a tone of voice that you’d expect a fly to hear from the spider who had it in its web, “I vill call our best  ponies.”

They said  it would take time to fix, that they had to work it out slowly to reseal the shock absorber and knit the microfractures, and that they were just completely covering Rainbow Dash in perfumed shampoo coincidentally, just as long as she was here. It was just a coincidence that they were brushing her mane and tail with long stiff combs and scrubbing out her coat with... oh that actually... that felt good .

In their gentle minstrations, the spa ponies lured Rainbow Dash into their clever deceit. She could resist though! She was enjoying the steamy warmth soothing her sinuses and the little shockwaves their touches delivered throughout her body and the relief of an itchy tightness in her skin she didn’t even know she had, but that didn’t mean she had to enjoy it!

She had completely forgot about protesting pretty soon, and was just dozing deliriously with a warm cloth across her face that smelled beautiful. A pony walked up and Rainbow lifted the cloth off her eyes to find Lotus’s twin, Aloe or something, looking down at Rainbow Dash with a heady anticipation. “Ve are ready to fix your back,” she said simply.

As she brought her hooves down upon Rainbow Dash’s shoulders it was very obvious they were earth pony hooves. Aloe effortlessly relaxed, no more like dissolved  Rainbow Dash’s muscles into a weak quivering puddle, expertly honing in on that tense tightness that was in her upper back. Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but give a groan of approval. Aloe was putting more pressure there though, her face a mask of concentration. Rainbow Dash started to get alarmed as the pressure kept ramping up and she was pinned down solidly by those hooves.

She couldn’t even breathe as Aloe’s hind legs left the ground and to Dash’s shock and horror the pony executed a perfect forestand on her back . The pressure was unbearable and Rainbow tried to struggle but she was so relaxed she could barely even twitch. Then Aloe lifted her third  hoof up into the air.

A flock of birds roosting on the roof of the day spa, were startled into the air by a loud crack that sounded like the building was coming down. Every pony in the nearest 20 meters of the spa found themselves instinctively cringing in sympathy, for what they knew not. The white hot pain was the greatest thing Rainbow Dash had ever felt in her life. She never wanted to do it again.

“Und now your hips,” Aloe purred, her velvet hooves caressing the muscles and bone above Rainbow Dash’s tail and in her thighs.
> Cheerilee Takes Scootaloo Home
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Apple family’s farm house was a lively place on account of a filly, a schoolteacher, and a stallion making a ruckus out back behind Apple Bloom’s room. The second filly was nowhere to be seen, having been forcibly hidden in the bushes earlier. The first filly being Apple Bloom was somewhere to be seen, and that somewhere was the arms of Big Macintosh who seemed overjoyed to find that she was alright. And the schoolteacher, a mare known as Cheerilee, was tapping Big Macintosh with her hoof in the side admonishingly, while chiding him in strident tones.

Cheerilee put her hoof on the broad side of Big Macintosh and said in a challenging tone, “You are not an impressionable little filly. You are a grown stallion! You should know better than to fall for a scary story like that! You could have genuinely hurt somepony! Instead of a healthy skepticism, you worked yourself all into a lather over something that isn’t true at all!”

Big Mac gave Cheerilee a surprised look and mumbled, “Ah don’t follow.”

Apple Bloom, who was still dangling from her brother’s arms wrapped around her, said, “Sorry Big Macintosh, but ah was wrong. The fillysprite ain’t real after all...”

He didn’t react to that, just set her down where Apple Bloom backed up guiltily while her brother stood towering over her saying, “You lied about that?”

“Ah didn’t lie!” Apple Bloom pleaded desperately, “Ah just got a bit... confused is all! Scootaloo wasn’t the fillysprite after all. She was just... something... um...”

“There are no fillies being devoured,” Cheerilee spoke up. “There are no parasprites disguising themselves as fillies. Scootaloo is still alive, there is nothing wrong with her, and she is just like the way she’s always been... and there is nothing wrong with that!”

“Why’d she attack you then?” Big Macintosh said, looking from Cheerilee to Apple Bloom uncertainly.

Apple Bloom blushed harder, shrinking to the ground saying, “Ah may have been yellin’ at her some awful mean things. I didn’t know ah thought... ah was just scared it was real! She only went after me ‘cause I was callin’ her the Fillysprite, and ah was wrong!”

“Y’serious?” Big Mac asked in an astonished tone. Apple Bloom nodded and he knitted his brows, adding hotly, “You realize how much trouble you caused?”

“Before we start throwing around blame again,” Cheerilee interrupted before Apple Bloom could look too crushed, “I would like to remind you who started this story about a filly parasprite.”

“Pinkie Pie,” Big Macintosh recalled with a note of disgust.

“Ah shouldn’t have believed her though,” Apple Bloom said in admonishment of herself.

“Ah shouldn’t have believed her,” Big Macintosh said before the filly could continue. He looked down at Apple Bloom this time in sorrow saying, “Can’t believe she’d do that. Can’t believe she’d use a little filly to get at us...”

“There is something seriously wrong with Pinkie Pie,” Cheerilee said levelly. “Something far worse than any of us ever suspected. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but her lies are putting fillies’ lives in danger.”

“We gotta stop her!” piped up Apple Bloom enthusiastically.

“We certainly will,” Cheerilee said soothingly to Apple Bloom, adding, “We’ll notify the authorities right away, and tomorrow I can put the school on Pink alert. We won’t be losing any fillies or colts to that mare’s craziness.”

She paused glancing at the bushes, then stared into space putting a hoof on her chin, thinking aloud, “For that matter I wonder why Rainbow Dash never warned me there was a Pink alert when she dropped you off this morning.”

Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh weren’t going to be able to solve her mysteries for her, so Cheerilee continued presently saying, “I’m just glad you didn’t do anything rash, Big Macintosh. You are a true gentlecolt.” She smiled at him and said, “I forgive you for being upset about Scootaloo. Any pony could have been fooled by what happened. You’re a good brother for caring about your sister so much—and trusting her, even if she doesn’t always get it right.”

Cheerilee hesitated before continuing, glancing at the bushes again. No sign of Scootaloo showing. Cheerilee swore that Scootaloo had better be alright, or she’d have to strangle the author of this story. “Now, can I trust you, Big Macintosh?” she asked the stallion warningly, “You truly won’t do anything rash that might hurt a filly, even if she’s not exactly the same as other fillies? You’ll at least hear her out, right?”

Big Macintosh looked at Cheerilee unreadably, then said, “Eyup, let’s go.”

He started to run off then, and Cheerilee was like, “Wait! Where are you going?”

“The library?” Big Mac said, pausing and looking over his shoulder. But why would he go to the library to see Scootaloo? Oh wait...

“Oh, Big Macintosh,” Cheerilee laughed mirthfully, “Scootaloo isn’t at the library. She came here while Apple Bloom was all alone at the farm, trying to find her.”

Big Macintosh shivered once before he turned around, but didn’t indicate why. “That so?” he said in a light jovial tone, walking back to Cheerilee and Apple Bloom. He stood really close to Apple Bloom and asked, “She still here?”

Cheerilee paused feeling very uncertain about this for some reason. But he did say... eyup. That meant something, right? He promised he would hear her out.

“You... can come out now, Scootaloo,” Cheerilee called out, watching Big Macintosh uneasily. “Big Macintosh wants to apologize to you,” she emphasized, “For his behavior.”

At first Cheerilee was starting to think that Scootaloo had gotten hurt somehow, but the filly slowly crept out of the foliage, approaching the three of them, hunched down and wingspread.

“Sorry little filly,” Big Macintosh said to her in the gentlest voice. “Ah was gettin’ all worked up over nothin’.”

“You’re really sorry?” Scootaloo said with a leery sideways glance. “You’re not just pretending?”

“Ah wouldn’t do that,” Big Macintosh said offended. “Ah think you’re alright.”

“You’re not gonna hurt me?” Scootaloo asked warily.

“Nope,” Big Macintosh answered.

“You’re not mad at me? You’re not gonna yell at me?”

“Nope.”

Scootaloo was looking up at the greater red pony, while Cheerilee watched the nervous filly anxiously. Scootaloo seemed to come to a decision then, relaxing and turning her head down with a relieved smile saying, “Man, and I thought I was gonna” Quick as a whip Big Macintosh snagged her tail in his hoof and hoisted Scootaloo screaming up into the air.

“What is wrong with you?!” Cheerilee screamed as he totally ignored her holding Scootaloo to force her still while peering critically between her legs.

“Look at this!” she heard him shout back, but Cheerilee wasn’t facing him anymore because she had to turn around to buck his side as hard as she could. Big Macintosh went sprawling. Scootaloo buzzed out of his grasp to rocket behind Cheerilee hiding underneath her in terror. Apple Bloom was yelling at Big Mac to stop but he roared up and rushed forward, butting Apple Bloom out of the way, and standing between her and Cheerilee.

“Thought you could lure me away, did ya?!” he shouted at Cheerilee.

“Why would I lure you away?!” she shouted back at him.

“So she can devour Apple Bloom!” he said accusingly.

“She’s not going to devour anypony!” Cheerilee snapped back.

“The fillysprite has you fooled!” Mac declared to Cheerilee.

“She’s not the fillysprite!” Cheerilee responded shrilly.

“That ain’t a filly!” Big Macintosh declared, “That’s the third sign! The wings, the tail and the creepy jeepers!”

“What the hay are you talking about?!” Cheerilee uttered desperately trying not to boggle at the sheer senselessness of this stallion before her.

“She–” Big Mac stared at Cheerilee furiously, looking down at the trembling Scootaloo, then back to Cheerilee. “She–” he just couldn’t get the words out he looked so betrayed and frustrated. At last he just bellowed out “She ain’t got a cooter!!”

Cheerilee shouted “She–” but now she was the one flummoxed. “Is... that true, Scootaloo?” she asked looking at the filly clinging to her front hooves.

“What the buck is a cooter?” Scootaloo moaned. Cheerilee blushed horribly. Oh no.

“Big Macintosh!” she shouted forward, hardly seeing him through the blush on her face, “Language!”

Surprisingly the angry stallion pulled up short with an embarassed, “Whoops.” Cheerilee squinted at him dangerously. “...my bad,” he said crossing a hoof.

Cheerilee sighed exasperatedly, and turned down to Scootaloo saying, “We’re talking about the special place in between your legs, but you should never use that word or there will be big trouble.”

“I swear there’s nothing weird between my legs,” Scootaloo said sourly, “Why does everypony keep saying there is?!”

Cheerilee smiled desperately, saying, “So, you don’t have a...?”

“A...?” Scootaloo prompted looking up at her crossly.

“You don’t have... anything?” Cheerilee squeaked out.

“I have a... thigh?” Scootaloo said, lifting one of her legs which Cheerilee couldn’t see from that defensible position of the filly’s.

There was no diplomatic way to do this. Cheerilee sighed long and hard and said, “Scootaloo, I’m going to have to ask you to... raise your tail for me.”

“Nuh!” Scootaloo protested, dropping her bottom to the floor. “I did that for Twilight and she thought it was all weird! And Rainbow Dash did too! It’s embarassing. I swear there’s nothing there that’s weird! There’s nothing there at all!”

“I... alright, I think I can take your word on that,” Cheerilee said unsteadily. “And Big Macintosh’s,” she added. “And Twilight’s,” she further added.

She turned to Big Macintosh saying, “Neither I nor anypony here will debate that some things about Scootaloo are... strange. But there is no fillysprite. Pinkie Pie for whatever reason is bound and determined to get this little filly killed, and when Pinkie learned all about this filly’s ...uniqueness, she used that to craft her story.”

Cheerilee felt her resolve firming as the truth started to shine through in her head. “Maybe Scootaloo doesn’t have a... well, you know,” Cheerilee waved a hoof dismissively, “But she doesn’t devour fillies. Pinkie Pie just took her lack of... parts, and told you that anypony like that was an evil monster, and you believed her!”

“You knew Scootaloo had wings that were not... like other ponies, and yet you allowed Pinkie Pie to convince you that meant she was a killer, without any reason to think so other than that pink pony’s word, by the mere assumption that Pinkie Pie could never do anything so heinous as to craft such a lie!”

Cheerilee was stomping mad now, jeering, “Oh hey, let’s learn about the legend of the ...evil thing. It wrecks your house and makes your hooves fall off! You can tell because it has an orange mane. So any time you see an orange mane, you better just assume that it’s the evil creature, and it’s going to make your hooves fall off! It’s not like I just made that up off the top of my head!!”

Her sides heaving, Cheerilee stared savagely at Big Macintosh who, wasn’t exactly cowering like a foal but you could see the fear in his eyes. ...at least he wasn’t acting afraid of Scootaloo anymore. Cheerilee tried to calm down and even out her breathing. Apple Bloom was the one who spoke up though.

“Scootaloo ain’t gonna eat me Big Mac,” her flutey voice broke the silence. “She’s mah friend! Plus she had plenty of chances to eat me, and she didn’t. So she ain’t gonna!”

“Sorry, ah–” Big Macintosh gulped out, but Cheerilee snapped at him.

“No. You know what? I’m done. This has gone far too long.” Cheerilee grabbed Scootaloo’s mane in her mouth, depositing the filly unceremoniously on her back. “I missed an entire day of school for this, and if you haven’t noticed it’s starting to get late in the afternoon. You can protect Apple Bloom all you want, but I want you to think about what I have said. These fillies do not need to see us fighting like this, and Scootaloo needs to go home, where she can be safe.”

Scootaloo stiffened on Cheerilee’s back, and Cheerilee turned to her uncertainly saying, “You’re uh... you’re staying with Miss Twilight, correct?”

Scootaloo had an odd look in her eyes when she said distantly, “Yeah... I... I guess I am. I mean I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Excellent!” Cheerilee said brightly, “Let’s get going then, before some ponies decide they’re going to be irrational again!” She started to clip off, Big Macintosh saying,

“But–”

But Cheerilee just shouted back at him, “I am not in the mood to argue! You can talk with me later, after we have both calmed down.”

“But–” he repeated.

“Later!” she repeated until she had finally gotten out of earshot of that infuriating stallion.

Big Macintosh watched her go and sighed, dipping his head to cup Apple Bloom neck under his. “Ah hope she’ll be alright,” he rumbled softly.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Apple Bloom asked, butting kindly up against him from underneath. Wincing as the pain in her eye throbbed.

Scootaloo decided to walk on her own relatively quickly. Cheerilee didn’t mind, as long as Scootaloo stayed close to her. The Apple Acres diminished behind them as Cheerilee clopped and Scootaloo clipclopped along, travelling south past the schoolhouse way up on the hill, now empty of students for the day. They continued down to Ponyville proper, with the quaint straw roofed hamlets, their windows starting to glow as the shadows lengthened in the late afternoon sun. There was a cool breeze blowing that ruffled her fur chillily, but the air was crystal clear.

“Cheerilee, wait!” Scootaloo said suddenly, stopping just at the edge of town, before the open countryside turned into village squares, roads and alleyways.

“Did you forget something?” Cheerilee asked Scootaloo curiously.

“No I just...” Scootaloo looked down embarassedly saying, “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

“Why not?” Cheerilee asked, crouching down to the filly’s level. “What’s wrong?”

Scootaloo scraped her hoof, saying “Nothing’s wrong! It’s just... I’m... scared to go into town. What if ponies come after me?”

“The only pony after you right now is Pinkie Pie,” Cheerilee assured Scootaloo, “And Twilight Sparkle herself is there to rein that filly in. Besides, I could totally take her on.” She flexed a forehoof jokingly.

“Well, alright,” Scootaloo said, starting to move, but she jerked to a stop again with a frightened expression, saying, “But what if it’s not? What if something happened to Twilight?” in a tense voice. “It doesn’t... something just doesn’t feel right about this!”

“Scootaloo, you are one of the bravest fillies I know,” Cheerilee assured her. “There’s nothing wrong with being scared, but you can’t let your fears control you! Ponyville isn’t any more dangerous than it was yesterday, or the day before, and you did fine then! Come on, let’s face forward, and take this thing head on. We’ll be at the library before you know it, and I bet Twilight knows where to find some marshmallows and hot cocoa!”

Scootaloo almost visibly brightened at that, giving Cheerilee a grateful smile. “You’re the best teacher ever, did you know?” she said adoringly.

Cheerilee just rolled her eyes and said, “Come along,” walking sedately into town. Scootaloo followed afterwards, and sure enough as they got further into town, nothing attacked them, and there were no ponies around to even give them a hard time. If Cheerilee had looked back she would have seen Scootaloo turning over her shoulder uneasily at the long shadows, a skittishness otherwise unheard of for the bold filly, who must have been frightened terribly by the distressing events of today.

No, in fact it wasn’t until they got all the way past Sugarcube Square that something attacked them and there were a lot of ponies around to give them a hard time.

“What?” Cheerilee said stopping short. “What’s this?!” What looked like one pony rounded the building in front of her, a dozen or more ponies of all colors shapes and sizes, and all with grim looks on their faces. Grim looks that flashed to shocked recognition as soon as they laid eyes on Scootaloo.

“There she is!” a mare cried out at the front.

“It’s the fillysprite!” the stallion next to her said tremblingly, waving his torch before him warily. Did they... they did. Many of the ponies had torches, and... seriously?

Pitchforks? Cheeriously?

“Get her!” shouted another stallion angrily within the crowd. They started to surge forward and Cheerilee stepped in the way shouting desperately,

“She’s not the fillysprite! It’s just a story! It’s not real!”

“She’s been possessed!” a familiar sounding mare with a golden mane cried out in the mess of ponies looking at Cheerilee in horror.

“Hexed!” cried another sympathetically.

“Enchanted!” cried a third. Oh no.

“Now let’s not do anything rash,” Cheerilee said uneasily, slowly backing up as the crowd approached. “There’s a very good explanation for—” Then Cheerilee flung her hoof out, pointing behind the crowd wide eyed, and screamed, “Oh no, it’s the Fillysprite!!”

Everypony looked over their shoulder. She scruffed Scootaloo, and charged off toward the edge of town.

Scootaloo buzzed her wings to pull loose from Cheerilee’s grasp but easily kept up with the earth pony, shouting, “Where do we go?!”

“School house!” Cheerilee shouted frantically, galloping across the bridge not even thinking to look back at how close the ponies were behind her. Cheerilee didn’t like to brag that she was the fastest pony in Ponyville because well, she wasn’t. She always got participant place in the Running of the Leaves, which is to say further ahead than average but not exemplary. She didn’t even want to contemplate what would happen if any of the faster ponies managed to catch her though, and that gave her an adrenalin fueled burst of speed.

The Ponyville schoolhouse was always a pleasant place to learn and grow. The house itself was a cherry red, with clear glass paneled windows to let the sun shine through. There was a play yard next to it that, during school hours, was covered with rambunctious foals awaiting their turn in class, with jump ropes, hurdles and a tether ball. Nothing too fancy, but Ponyville wasn’t known for being fancy.

Nestled in the embrace of trees, from the forest north of the Apple family’s west orchard, the property was atop a hill overlooking the town of Ponyville with many straw rooftops receding into the distance down below, and beyond them the endless valley that led to the broad jutting mountains, atop which Canterlot rested gleaming gold and pearl in the afternoon sun. It was up that hill that a hotly pursued mare and a very odd filly were running for their lives, with but one goal in mind: defenses.

Without even slowing, Cheerilee slammed through the door into the schoolhouse shouting, “Windows! Get the windows!” Scootaloo sped off past her, locking them one after the other. Cheerilee kicked the door closed, then hurled a few desks to brace against the doorknob, and then her own desk for good measure. “Attic!” she belted out, climbing the ladder to the trap door leading to the maintenance access, and making sure the door bolt on it was solidly locked shut.

Cheerilee then sank down the ladder, and sank to the ground, in some measure of relief, letting out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She then shot her head up at a polite knocking at the door. Cheerilee rushed to the hasty barricade, checking its stability before saying uncertainly, “Who is it?”

“Um, could you please come out Miss Cheerilee?” a young mare’s voice came muffled through the door.

“That’s not what you tell her!” whispered another one.

“Come on out,” a third mare said, “Or we are going to have to get difficult!”

“I’m not letting you have Scootaloo!” Cheerilee said loudly enough to be heard across the door.

“You’re not yourself, Miss Cheerilee!” a former student by the name of Sea Swirl announced from behind the door, but unfortunately she was not famous enough for anypony to acknowledge.

“We just have to take care of the monster!” an irate mare called out beyond the barrier.

“You harm one hair on that filly and I’ll make you sorry!” Cheerilee shouted back.

There was a strong kick at the door, but it held closed firmly. “Somepony check the windows!” another one said, and sounds of the group spreading out could be heard.

“You’re being fooled!” Cheerilee shouted, “Just leave us alone!” but nopony answered her. It seemed negotiations were over. Cheerilee backed to the center of the room, almost jumping out of her skin when Scootaloo too backed right up against her.

“Did you secure the perimeter?” Cheerilee asked Scootaloo curtly.

“Yes ma’m,” Scootaloo said, “All windows are locked and loaded.”

“We need to increase our OpSec,” Cheerilee worried, starting to pull the tops off of some of the desks in the room. “There should be a hammer in my desk.”

Cheerilee looked over at her desk and winced. Oh right. The huge solid oak thing was toppled over heedlessly against the door. Its drawers were spilled out all over onto the floor.

“Or somewhere around there,” she clarified.

The sound of enthusiastic hammering filled the schoolhouse as somehow the two of them managed to keep one step ahead of any ponies who thought it a bright idea to jimmy the window latches from outside. Especially those darned cheating unicorns. Some time later, Scootaloo stuck her head up, having placed a bucket on top of it as a makeshift helmet.

“Barricades in position!” Scootaloo announced saluting and pointing a hoof at the boards that were haphazardly nailed across the windows. They rattled, but held for now. Outside you could hear ponies, trying to get in chanting, “Fillysprite, fillysprite, fillysprite!”

“Good job, private!” Cheerilee said patting the bucket on Scootaloo’s head. Cheerilee adjusted her own head bucket so it stopped obscuring her eyes, but it kept falling back to shade them no matter what she did. “That should keep the enemy forces at bay,” she assured the filly.

“But how long can we hold out?” Scootaloo asked skittishly.

Cheerilee gave a dour frown, pacing before the filly before champing out, “Let’s just hope we’re not in this for the long haul.”

Ten minutes later, Cheerilee was huddled against the desk barrier to the door, with a little notebook in hoof. Her chalk stained cheeks were shadowed as she wiggled her pencil around in her mouth to write. Omnipresent sounds of banging and rattling in the distance filled the air.

“Supply lines have been cut off,” the schoolteacher wrote, “Not sure I can make it. The enemy grows bolder every minute. At DSK they tried storming the attic. Sliding bolt held, for now. Hear noises in the darkness. The enemy may be digging a tunnel.”

“What are you writing, Miss Cheerilee?”

Cheerilee looked up to see Scootaloo standing there, with chalk smudged across her own cheeks, and her bucket helmet resting slightly askew on her bouncy mane. The filly had a chalkboard pointer slung over her shoulder as a makeshift bludgeon and/or unicorn poker.

“You know, I’m... not entirely sure,” Cheerilee answered the filly, looking at her own notes quizzically. “But what else can I do?” she said in a fearful tone, “We’re in more trouble than when Daring Do fought the Equalists!”

“You read that one?” Scootaloo asked amazed.

“I read all of them!” Cheerilee said with a quick laugh. “She’s so heroic and adventuresome!” the schoolteacher said, happily able to ignore her own title with just a thought of the far more glamorous and exciting adventurer.

“So does Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo exclaimed excitedly. “She’s just like Daring Do too, except more normal colored!”

“Rainbow Dash’s colors may be normal,” Cheerilee said encouragingly to Scootaloo, “But she has a lot more than any other pony. I’d say nothing about Rainbow Dash is normal!”

“She’s only got one fur color though,” Scootaloo insisted. “That’s pretty normal.”

“Who cares how normal she is?” Cheerilee said crossing her hooves stubbornly, “It’s what makes her weird that everypony likes! Like that rainbow circle thing she can do, the Rainbow Boom or something.”

“Sonic Rainboom,” Scootaloo whispered back.

“No other pony can do that,” Cheerilee said considerately. “It’s pretty weird, but it’s also pretty—I don’t know, super!”

“Awesome!” Scootaloo cheered.

“Thank you,” Cheerilee said with a smile.

“No, the proper term is awesome,” Scootaloo clarified. “It has to have less sass before it qualifies as super.”

“I see...” Cheerilee murmured uncomprehendingly.

Something heavy banged against the door. Cheerilee rushed over and leaned on the desks, holding them in place as whatever makeshift battering ram the ponies were using battered at her makeshift defenses.

“We’ve got to get out of here...” Scootaloo whimpered worriedly.

“Where would we go?” Cheerilee said unhappily. “They’d catch us before we took two steps towards the library!”

“I hate being stuck here!” Scootaloo said stomping in frustration.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Cheerilee said morosely sitting with her back against the barrier, scuffling her hooves to keep it stayed. “We’ll just have to wait here until Twilight comes to rescue us.”

“I hope she comes soon,” Scootaloo said in a miserable tone, curling down and hugging her legs to herself.

Cheerilee’s heart went out to the filly. A little filly shouldn’t have to face something like this. She should be at home with a warm meal in her belly all wrapped up in a cuddly blanket. Well... at least Scootaloo wouldn’t have to face it alone. Cheerilee reached her hooves over and pulled Scootaloo into a warm hug. Cheerilee didn’t know how much longer she had before her ertsaz barrier would fall apart. The relentless battering was getting more and more persistent.

“Me too, filly,” Cheerilee whispered, “Me too.”

Outside there was a crashing sound as ponies started to cry out in alarm. Flashes of light came from the cracks between the boards in the window. Some sort of pitched battle going on out there. Had Twilight finally arrived? There was a hearty whinny as the force against the door increased markably. The next crash on the door finally burst it open, Cheerilee and Scootaloo crying out in alarm as desks went flying left and right. Ready to face their fate they regarded the glowing smoke enshrouded doorway, and instead of their doom, they saw the only pony who could bring them to salvation.

“Big Macintosh?!” Scootaloo and Cheerilee exclaimed at once.

“C’mon,” he said calmly, despite the cut underneath his eye from a stray hoof. “We’re goin’ to the library.”

Big Macintosh and Cheerilee faced off the mob of distraught ponies outside the schoolhouse with Scootaloo sandwiched in between them. The ponies were angry and vengeful, but also frightened and hesitant. They knew what they had to do, but on some level they knew that they shouldn’t do it. Cheerilee carefully leaned down to Scootaloo and whispered,

“Get ready to run for the library. We’re going to make a hole.”

She straightened up and glared at the ponies strong enough to make them all take a collective step back. “I think it’s time to close the book on these ponies,” she remarked meaningfully to Big Macintosh at her side, bracing herself for the final push.

The bulk of the ponies in this mob were off away surrounding the school. Only a small amount were actually at the front blocking their escape. At the commotion in front, the others abandoned their kicking on the windows and perches on the roof but it took them time to come around the school to where the pony they feared was being defended by a school teacher and an apple farmer. Time that those two could use to their advantage.

Cheerilee and Big Macintosh charged the line as one. Cheerilee faced left and Big Macintosh faced right. She couldn’t see who he was facing up against, but in her grill were a number of very potentially dangerous ponies. If Blossomforth managed to grapple her it would be the end. Blossomforth was easy to confuse though, her agility betraying her as Cheerilee took a deliberate hit from Ambrosia, the strongly suppressing kick heavily winding the schoolteacher but getting the construction pony hopelessly tangled up in Blossomforth’s mistimed attack.

Bon-bon was a heavy brawler ever since she was a filly, and Cheerilee was well familiar with this, but Roseluck on the other hoof was not so much of a fighter, so Cheerilee faced her directly. Putting Rose between her and Bonnie, Cheerilee shoved the former into the latter, further pushing back the line and distracting them with making sure Rose was okay. Caramel was easy enough to intimidate by just staring him down, but Cheerilee was also forced to engage him, in order to use him as a shield before Helia could take her down in a bullet dive. He nearly passed out as the breath blew out of him when Helia bounced right off. Behind him, Berry Punch was a menace on four hooves, not just to Cheerilee but anyone around her, so Cheerilee leaned into her shoulder and threw Caramel into the belligerant pony before Berry could give anypony else a shiner.

And then, they broke through. The line was clear! “Go Scootaloo, go!” Cheerilee shouted. The little filly needed no encouragement. Scootaloo avoided the seeking hooves and scooping pitchforks, shooting through the lane in the mob like a library seeking missile. A number of ponies on the fringe of the crowd cried out in alarm and they all started to converge on the fleeing Scootaloo like a giant pincer. “No!” Cheerilee shouted, abandoning her defense of the lane to charge after the ponies who were breaking away. This proved to be a nonfatal error.

Cheerilee had barely taken a pace before she came face to hoof with a solid left hook from officer Linky, which sent her reeling dizzily back against the crowd. There was a crash as Big Macintosh went down and Cheerilee kicked back blindly when an unknown pony landed on her back, headbutting the back of her skull. Stars exploded in her vision and Cheerilee couldn’t keep her balance. She went down too and it was all over. The book closed on them, with ponies piling on top of each other to hold the two of them down.

“Scootaloo, ru–!” Big Macintosh shouted out before getting the wind kicked out of him. The last thing Cheerilee saw before her vision faded to blackness was the swiftly diminishing and  featureless orange rear end of the pony she was trying to save. 

Cheerilee lost track of herself in unconsciousness for an untold amount of time, but finally struggled awake thanks to a ...splitting headache, making her hiss and press on her temples as soon as she came to awareness.

“G’mornin’ Sleepin’ Beauty,” came Big Macintosh’s voice through the darkness of her closed eyes. Cheerilee cracked her eyes open to see the farm pony smiling at her sadly. The mob was gone, as was the schoolhouse and the open air, and, if what was behind Big Macintosh over his shoulder was any indication...! Crawling to her hooves, Cheerilee looked around with dismay at her surroundings.

“Oh for Pete’s sake!” Cheerilee cried out from the Ponyville Jail, within a small cell crafted of thick stone, with one wall made of bars, and a small window peeking out to the cool morning sunlight, also barred. Cheerilee winced again, as the force of her words brought to bear her headache, pressing a hoof against her head in pain. Big Mac was bumping something against her nose then, and Cheerilee opened her eyes again to see a tin cup full of water. She bit it gratefully, sipping at it and then gulping it down.

“How long was I out?” Cheerilee asked grimly, once Mac took the cup back.

“Overnight,” Big Macintosh said, refilling the cup from the spigot in the small sink in the room.

“Is Scootaloo alright?” she asked nervously.

“Don’t know,” he said glumly.

“Did she make it to the library?”

“Don’t know.”

Cheerilee sighed pressing her sore head against the cool bars of the jail cell. “I just want this to all be a bad dream. Hasn’t anypony come to check on us?”

“Eyup,” he said stretching up to look thoughtfully out the window.

“Did you ask them what happened to Scootaloo?” Cheerilee prompted.

“Nope,” he said guiltily.

“Why not?!” Cheerilee exclaimed.

“Afraid it’d be bad,” he said nose pointed down at his feet.

“Well we’ve got to find out!” Cheerilee said, turning to the hallway beyond their cell shouting out, “GUA–” then clutching her head. “Guard!” she shouted more quietly in a barely raised tone of voice. There was no answer.

“Y’alright, miss?” Big Macintosh said, looking Cheerilee over concernedly.

“Oh yes, I’m fine. It’s just that it seems like everypony in town saw fit to hit me in the head,” Cheerilee said grumpily. “What I need is an ice pack, a nice quiet dinner and a Sinatra record.”

Big Macintosh shrugged and passed her the cup again. Cheerilee sighed but took the cup, sipping at the water again. She peered down at the clear fluid thoughtfully, her face reflecting poorly in its rippling translucent surface. “Right, then,” she decided downing the last of the cup and taking it by the handle in her mouth to the door of the cell. She started sliding the cup back and forth on the bars, her ears flattening back at the unbearable racket that it made.

“Alright! Alright! Hold your horses!” someone shouted from beyond the hall, “What the buck is that noise back here?!” A rose colored mare with a yellow mane came stomping into the hallway, an ill fitting police cap near engulfing her head, were it not for her bouncy curls holding it at bay.

Cheerilee dropped the cup shouting, “Scootaloo! The filly, is she okay??” She looked pleadingly at the police officer.

The policemare blinked at her and answered, “Wow, you really are enchanted. I’m sorry lady, but Scootaloo got devoured by the Fillysprite days ago! You were harboring a lookalike the whole time.”

“The Fillysprite isn’t real!” Cheerilee protested hotly with a disgusted sneer. “It’s all a setup by Pinkie Pie to scare you into hurting her! They’re fillies, not parasprites!”

“Oh is that so, miss not-enchanted?” the police pony said to her in a disparaging tone, “It just so happens that unlike you, Pinkie Pie has hard evidence to support herself. You know the parasprite song, the one that Pinkie used the last time, that all the parasprites just brainlessly followed, with her whole one man band gig?”

“Um... not personally...” Cheerilee said reluctantly. “There was a field trip, you see, but I’m familiar with it. I’m sure Big Macintosh has heard it.”

“Eyup,” Big Macintosh said, spinning his hoof regretfully on the jail cell floor.

“That’s it!” Cheerilee exclaimed excitedly. “Those fillies aren’t parasprites and I can prove it! Just have Pinkie Pie play that song of hers. These aren’t mindless creatures like parasprites; these are fillies, so they won’t follow her!”

Cheerilee smiled triumphantly at the police pony who just looked back at her evenly.

“But that’s exactly what happened,” the pony said to Cheerilee. “Several corroborating sources agree that several creatures appearing to be fillies did follow the parasprite song. That’s why Pinkie Pie has been marching around town all day playing it! She rounded them up and they followed her right down to the ‘free river. Because they are parasprites.”

Cheerilee laughed in disbelief, “D-don’t be silly, they wouldn’t follow her into the the river. They could just turn around and go the other way any time they wanted. They know Pinkie is trouble. They know better!”

The other mare sighed and turned her back saying, “Just get some rest and take it easy for a while. You’ll be let out once the danger of possible enchantment has passed.” She started to walk away, as the light of realization dawned in Cheerilee’s eyes.

“I wasn’t the one enchanted,” Cheerilee said quietly. “I wasn’t the one enchanted!” she repeated a bit louder to the retreating policemare, leaning against the bars of her cell and wrapping her hooves around them. “The fillies were enchanted! You have to save them!” Cheerilee called out to the unresponsive mare. The guard’s shoulders hunched, but she didn’t turn around, or slow.

“Where is Scootaloo?” Cheerilee yelled at her. “What have you done to Scootaloo?” she screamed, “What have you done?!” The mare broke into a run, leaving the hallway and slamming the door behind her.

“What have you done?!” Cheerilee shrieked with pure unadultrated horror into the lonely empty hall. “Oh Celestia, what have you done,” she moaned sinking bonelessly against the bars. She felt the hot sting of tears on her cheeks. Pinkie Pie was a monster! How could a monster like that win? How could she steal a little filly’s life away just like that?! Had Scootaloo fought it? Had Scootaloo been so scared when she couldn’t get away? Had she cried out for help and there was nopony who would hear her?

She felt a warmth on the back of her neck.

Big Macintosh hugged her gently. He led Cheerilee away from the bars, sitting down next to her against the stone wall.

“Scoo–” he said his voice catching. He trembled against her and said in a reassuring voice, “Scootaloo is fine.”

Cheerilee leered away, saying, “How can you know that?” She wanted to thank him just for being here, but she was just too worried and desperate for some sort of lifeline to hold onto. She wanted him to be right. She didn’t want the ponies in this town to be that crazy.

“Policemare looked away,” he said simply, “When you said Scootaloo wouldn’t follow.” Had the mare done so? Cheerilee couldn’t recall when that guard pony had started walking away.

“You’re sure about that?” she asked Big Macintosh, beside herself with worry.

“Nope,” he shook his head.

“Big Macintosh, you are infuriating!” Cheerilee shouted, standing up and snapping him with her tail as she walked off. Yet Cheerilee couldn’t help but be aware that she wouldn’t have been composed enough to even walk, if he hadn’t been with her just now. But she was too busy being angry at him to thank him.

“She was nervous about somethin’” Big Mac said continuing to sit there ignoring Cheerilee’s jab and squinting suspiciously at the hallway. “Plus they ain’t let us go.”

Cheerilee sighed saying, “I suppose...”

“We did the best we could do,” Big Macintosh assured her. “If she made it to the library, she’ll be safe with Twilight.”

Cheerilee shook her head sadly saying, “I just can’t help but think if something happened to her...”

“She’s fine,” Big Macintosh reiterated to Cheerilee forcefully, standing up as he did so. “She has to be!” His voice caught again, and he turned his head in shame. Any anger Cheerilee may have yet held, evaporated at that. Cheerilee was starting to understand what Big Macintosh must be going through, with Scootaloo and the fear Pinkie’s tale seemed uniquely able to inspire, and how worried he was for Apple Bloom that he turned into a madstallion about it. And what he must think about himself now.

“Scootaloo is fine,” he repeated turning to Cheerilee composedly, a placid look on his blocky muzzle. “We’ll be alright,” he continued, “We did everything we could, just have to wait here for help to arrive. She had every chance to get to the library. She had to make it.”

Big Macintosh smiled down at her kindly saying, “So you don’t need to worry Miss Cheerilee.”

Cheerilee hated this. She felt like her heart was breaking watching this stallion. She knew what she had to say, but she didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to know what it would do to him. It was what she would tell any foal in distress, what he needed to know, but she hated that she had to be the one to tell him. Big Macintosh was trying so hard to be strong for her, and Cheerilee had to say the four words that would break him. She swallowed a lump in her throat.

“It’s not your fault,” Cheerilee said faintly.

The sounds of crying echoed from the jail cell for a good long time.

Big Macintosh had settled down eventually, resting his large head in Cheerilee’s lap, and lap she would explain means the location nestled in-between your forehooves and chest when you sit normally, like a normal pony. And Lyra would just roll her eyes and ignore her. But looking down at the worn out stallion, Cheerilee felt a tender warmth in her heart and, despite the frazzled look the both of them had, a small smile fought its way valiantly onto her snout.

This moment was interrupted by the odd sound of struggle from the other room, and the dull smack of something heavy hitting the floor. Big Macintosh raised his head, and he and Cheerilee both craned their ears forward, to see if the guard was coming back again. No guard came into the back of the jail though, and the two ponies both scrambled to their hooves in panicked apprehension when the hallway door opened, and somepony very unexpected wandered in, stopping before the only occupied cell to face within. That is to say, the very cell occupied by Big Macintosh and Cheerilee right now. They both stared out of it in guarded shock, through the silvery bars, until Cheerilee found her voice, shouting,

“Pinkie Pie what are you doing here?!”

The pony in question regarded them brightly. Her eyes twinkled and her lips spread into a broad smile.
> Twilight Takes Charge of the Situation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight snorted awake. What was that loud cracking sound, just now? Is the barn coming down?! She lifted her head from where her body had sank to the straw strewn floor of the barn, her ears turning left and right but no further sounds issued forth. She had to suppose it must just have been the old boards creaking and settling overhead in the cooling late evening. Though it did sound like it was coming from a distance, from the general direction of Ponyville proper.

Something stirred against her, and Twilight looked down unconcernedly. It seemed like the fillies had tired themselves out already. Not just Archer, but Licky as well were both sleeping soundly, curled up in the curve of Twilight’s belly. Twilight shivered in the chilly evening air. At least her belly was warm. The three of them were all piled together, where Twilight had fallen asleep leaning against the door. Twilight recalled falling asleep on her feet, though she clearly hadn’t managed to remain standing (as she sometimes did). She worked a pinned front hoof out from under herself, stretching it stiffly.

Twilight then checked her horn. The fluctuations had stopped, thankfully, allowing her to start rebuilding her third tier. The second one was stuck rotating freely though, so she worked on anchoring it first, and reducing the angular velocity bit-by-bit. She could probably manage a basic teleport, as/is. Though, with two fillies in tow, Twilight didn’t want to take any chances. They could get separated from her if she botched it, and then they’d fall right back through the veil without an opening to reduce the friction. Not a pleasant experience certainly, and then, who knows where they would be? Nowhere safe, that’s for sure.

It was safe enough at this point, for Twilight to summon a light ball though. She normally liked to second tier that one, in order to make it safely self sustaining, but for now she just needed a look around. So she lit up her horn and called her aether, letting its soft aura engulf her. Out of it, she built a simple source kernel, igniting it to the task of illumination. Or, to describe it in a less abstract manner... a ball of soft, inconspicuous white light formed at the tip of her horn, and floated up into the air in front of her.

Twilight took a second look at the fillies, noticing the patchy bits of pinkfluff stuck to them. That stuff got really staticky. Her eyes, and her light ball followed the trail of shaken-off fluff the fillies had trailed behind them, before reaching the bushel they’d managed to get untied somehow, which was now falling open loosely. Rolling her eyes, Twilight reached out reflexively to tie it back up, then hesitated. She left the light ball dying out over there, and relaxed her horn again, taking another critical look at her matrices and foundation. It wouldn’t do anypony any good if Twilight pulled a magic muscle hauling around pinkfluff, after she had just so recently tried to fight in the Everfree.

Archer stirred when Twilight tried brushing the fluff off her, so Twilight settled still and just let her sleep. It was kind of inconvenient really, not being able to move without waking anypony up. But without blankets, that’s just how their night was going to have to go. There were plenty of blankets back at the library though. And central heating. And a library sized force field with a fully charged mana battery the size of a football backing it. So, rather than spend the night hidden in a barn, Twilight just tried to drift off for a cat nap, and recover her strength while staring idly at the dying sunlight, through the cracks in the barn.

She was the one who heard it before they did, but only because they were still soundly asleep. It was a terrifying sound. One Twilight hoped, or at least wished she would never hear again. The sound of an accordion. Among other instruments. It seemed like it would be okay at first, but there was no escape. The fillies couldn’t stay asleep. Twilight grew more and more alarmed as they twisted and mumbled their brows knitting and heads lifting. The music was getting louder, but it was still too distant and quiet to possibly hope to rouse a sleeping filly. Unfortunately these were not ordinary sleeping fillies, and that was no ordinary song.

Archer was the first to awaken, her gentle lavender eyes opening wide with an open mouthed expression of shock and wonder as she exclaimed, “The song! She’s playing the song again!” She jumped up as Twilight hissed,

“Archer, don’t listen to it!”

“You’re funny, Miss Twilight!” Archer said giggling, knocking over Licky Loo onto the ground, and climbing up Twilight’s laid down side like a ramp.

“Archer what are you doing?!” Twilight exclaimed, twisting underneath the filly as Archer immediately braced herself on the crossbeam holding the barn door closed. Even as her support from underneath vanished, Archer still fluttered in place, still trying to lift it. Twilight scrambled to her hooves and bit down on Archer’s tail anxiously.

“Help me lift this!” Archer exclaimed struggling, “I want to follow it!”

“No you don’t!” Twilight bit out, “Don’t listen to it! You have to fight it!”

“I am fighting it! But the door won’t move!” Archer answered, grunting from the strain. That’s when Licky once again displayed an unnerving level of competence, buoying up Archer on her back so the filly could effectively lift the cross beam.

Twilight yanked Archer off of Licky immediately, sending the blue filly flying into the increasingly mixed up bushel of pinkfluff. “Not the door, the song!” Twilight snapped irritably but also with a perfidious curiosity surging within her. “You are smarter than this! Can’t you fight the song?”

Archer stuck her head out of the pinkfluff running towards the door again putting her hooves on it and not looking at Twilight exclaiming over her shoulder “Why would I fight the song?” in a genuinely incredulous tone.

Licky was trying to squeeze out the door without moving the crossbeam, not having much luck at it. Archer tried to jump on Licky’s back but Twilight pulled her away again, Archer’s tail firmly wreathed in Twilight’s aura. “Remember the river, Archer?” Twilight whispered harshly. “She’ll put you in there and you’ll drown!”

Archer paused just a moment, then said “Maybe there’s another way out.” She turned to run up the ladder to the upper loft, not remembering her tail was caught by Twilight’s magic, and just running in place looking very confused.

“Drowning will kill you! Aren’t you scared?” Twilight inquired of the addled filly.

“That’s not important,” Archer said with a note of irritation. “Let me go,” she asserted, yanking heartlessly on her own tail. “I want to follow it!” Archer exclaimed, not angrily, but excitedly like a kid in a candy store.

“Why?!” Twilight insisted, also restraining Licky who had the bright idea to run up to the loft looking for another way out. “What could be more important than dying?” she interrogated the blue filly, pulling Archer up face-to-face with Twilight.

“That song!” Archer exclaimed urgently with a happy and carefree smile, “That incredible amazing song!”

She thrashed against Twilight’s magic then, and what she said actually made Twilight lose her grasp in shock. Archer was running as soon as she landed, making it halfway up to the landing, before the stunned unicorn grabbed her again and dragged her back down. Then Licky broke free, but Twilight was already going up the ladder herself, looking around for any—aha, a window! Twilight hastily burned through the ties in a hay bale with tight bursts of aether, then levitated the hay across casting a modified basket spell to weave the strands together too fast to see with the naked eye, until the window was entirely sealed off and roughly impenetrable. Twilight spun around then, saying, “There! How do you–” but there were no fillies up here trying to jostle their way out of the barn. Because they were...

Lifting the crossbeam!!

Twilight propelled what was left of the hay bale down like a battering ram, smacking away one of the fillies in their impromptu filly tower, not even checking which one it was before rushing down the ladder. The crossbeam thudded to the ground and Archer was pulling the door open, when Twilight snagged her again, and Licky too for good measure. Twilight backed against the door to close it, as the two struggled against her magic as fiercely as a filly possibly could, while still having the most placid expressions on their faces. Twilight finally released them and they immediately ran over to try and get around her and pull the door open, but Twilight was already lifting the crossbeam and situating it firmly in place. She threw a seal on the door for good measure.

Twilight spent the next several minutes holding the struggling fillies in her arms, ignoring Archer’s plaintive and increasingly repetitive pleas of “Let me go! I want to follow it!” Instead, Twilight craned her ears to track the music, a sharply analytical expression on her face as she gauged the distance and trajectory of Pinkie Pie. Not coming this way anymore... passed by the turn-off to the barn, still travelling away from town, probably going back to the Everfree to try to catch any fillies lurking at its periphery. Wait, how in Equestria had Pinkie gotten a new accordion on such short notice?!

Twilight blanched as she remembered just who had been following Pinkie, when Twilight came to rescue these two fillies. It was the flower trio. Of course it was them. Twilight knew all too well what her neighbors could do to a town full of already paranoid ponies. Of course Pinkie had an accordion now. She probably had access to every instrument in all of Ponyville by now. Twilight had to get back to town, to set everypony straight right away. At this rate, every foal was in danger of a pony making a stupid mistake, not just these strange fillies!

Twilight was so busy formulating a simple plan, that she almost didn’t notice the fillies stop struggling. Pivoting her ears again, Twilight came to the understanding that Pinkie’s music had finally gotten out of earshot. For how long it would stay that way, who knows? Twilight certainly had to admire the range of this technique of Pinkie Pie’s. There was no way any filly could escape something with as expansive an area of effect as that, not for long at least. And when used against real parasprites, it sure caused a lot less property damage than Rainbow Dash’s solution for everything (a tornado). Twilight Sparkle almost didn’t notice the fillies growing still in her arms. She did take note, however, when one of the fillies began to cry.

“Oh, Archer...” Twilight said, with a guilty surge of compassion, laying her head across behind the blue filly’s own.

“How could she?” Archer blubbered half coherently, “How could she sing that song? I couldn’t even... I couldn’t even see anything wrong. I knew it was, but I couldn’t and I knew but, but I was going to die, and I didn’t even care!”

Licky was whimpering too, petting at Archer’s cheek with a hoof, but showed no other especially traumatized reaction.

“I don’t know why a parasprite enchantment works on you, Archer,” Twilight said firmly, “But I know we can figure this out. You will find a way to resist it. And we will stop Pinkie Pie from whatever she’s doing, even if we can’t... even if Pinkie Pie has to go away for a long time.” Archer stopped crying at least, and just sniffled and clung to her more tightly. Twilight wondered how much she was trying to reassure Archer, and how much she was trying to reassure herself.

She looked in the direction of the Everfree, nervously. Twilight didn’t know how much time she had left. The daylight was gone, and the stars were surely out by now. Twilight didn’t feel ready for a big, long-distance, mass teleport yet. But if she waited, and Pinkie returned, and the fillies were struggling, it would be so much more difficult. Plus, with them held closely in her arms, that was pretty much like teleporting one pony, right? Yeah, Twilight wasn’t going to kid herself about that.

It’s not that Twilight Sparkle’s reserves were in any danger of running out, but it was a bit of a gamble whether Twilight would scramble her horn again, trying to do something like this. She could end up fine, or she could end up on fire, or with a headache the size of Fluttershy’s insecurity complex. Twilight charged her horn up slowly and carefully, triple layering her aura just to be sure. The second tier was holding well, so Twilight wove her spell through it, finding a path that would land all three of them in the proper spot. She picked a very familiar spot in her library, one she wasn’t likely to mistake or misjudge.

Archer had stopped whimpering entirely to look up at Twilight with wide eyes, yet a relaxed demeanor, her deep blue body illuminated in the only source of light now: Twilight’s hornglow. Twilight glanced down at the captivated filly, and explained, “I’m going to try to teleport us to the library. It might be a little rough, so I want you to hold on tight.”

“Ooh,” Archer said, engrossedly. She nodded and held on tight, and Licky... didn’t, but it didn’t really matter anyway. Twilight only said that to buoy Archer’s confidence, and keep her attention. In reality, Twilight had a tight bead on all three of them, and was ready to teleport them even if they were three feet away from her. So, closing her eyes, and trying to tell herself that the sound of an approaching marching band was just a product of her own anxiety, Twilight winked the three of them out.

Sure enough, the cosmo was irritated, or whatever passed for irritation in a subenergy field. It immediately smacked Twilight on entry, and she had to correct her course as it thrashed against her presence. Her will alone could pull it into a straight slender highway, down which they could slide, if Twilight could just ignore the soundless howling, and keep her wits about her. Thankfully if there was one thing Twilight was good at, it was keeping her wits about her! Stop laughing.

She, Archer and Licky successfully winked into existence, in a poof of sparkly magic, right in the middle of a heated battle. Literally. Twilight’s mane immediately lit on fire, from the gout of flame erupting directly behind her.

“Stay back!” Spike yelled shrilly back there. “You can’t come in here this is a—Twilight!!”

Twilight was too busy being on fire to answer, but her equine scream of pain seemed to drive back Spike’s attackers. She dropped the fillies and bodily hurled herself at her own bed, shoving her head into the sheets and rolling up in the blanket.

“Hothothothot!” she screamed. Again, laughing at this would be very inappropriate as it genuinely helps you ignore the pain to yell something out loud, however stupid it sounds. Any more comments on Twilight’s obvious experience with being set on fire on a regular basis will be summarily round filed. She stuck her head out of the smoking blankets, just as Spike poured the glass of water Twilight always kept by her bedside all over her head with a steamy hiss.

“What. Was that?!” Twilight immediately exclaimed, glaring at Spike.

“I’m sorry!” the baby dragon exclaimed, on his knees, “I was just trying to get their pitchforks!”

“Pitchforks?!” Twilight exclaimed right back to him.

Archer called out to Twilight, “What’s going on??” The little blue pony had moved from where she landed, and was sitting there holding up Licky, who had fallen over with swirls in her eyes.

“They attacked the library!” Spike shouted, grabbing Twilight by the withers and shaking her, “They’re after Scootaloo!”

“Someone’s coming!” shouted Archer, looking at the swinging lights coming up the stairs from below.

“Under the bed! Under the bed!” Twilight spouted urgently. Archer tried to drag Licky, but Twilight’s magic mitigated the process, sliding them along the floor like it were a playground slide, shoving them under and yanking the damaged comforter down so it concealed the underside of the bed. Twilight was pleased to note that not only had she not botched the teleport, but her magic array had not been driven even slightly awry from it. Dodged the bullet there. Well good, she was going to need it.

“...summoned a demon with his fiery breath!” came an older mare’s voice from below, as a group of strange townsponies burst up the stairs into Twilight’s bedroom and private reading room, many of them wielding... you guessed it. Torches and pitchforks.

“Is Scootaloo here?” Twilight asked Spike in a demanding whisper.

Spike nodded, “I told her to hide, but they’re going to find her!”

“That’s all I needed to know,” Twilight said in a relieved drawl, allowing for precisely one half of a smile. She lit up her horn.

There were even a couple of stallions in the crowded group of 21 very nervous ponies marching through Twilight’s bedroom. Several of their former weapons of scooping and poking were now melted nubs. Twilight hoped this was more than half of their forces, considering they were coming up here after a “demon” after all. Twilight didn’t want to have to throw the entire town’s population out of her library tonight, no matter how much fun it would be to do so. Two times 21 ponies would be quite enough.

Twilight began by casting two spells in rapid succession, a simple lubrication spell on the stairs, and one of her favorites: a flame-be-gone spell. A spell made slightly more useful when other things are burning, and not yourself. Before the spells even took effect, Twilight prepared an old trick she learned from her studies with the shamans of the distant zebra tribes—well, no just kidding it was from her friend Zecora last Nightmare Night.

By drawing out the integra from the sculpted stone, Twilight crumbled the horn on her bedside equibust into a fine powder, temporarily rendering old Starfall the Enigmatic an earth pony. At the same time, ponies below cried out in alarm and sudden darkness as Twilight’s spells took effect. None of the attackers had, apparantly, thought that they would need to turn on the lights, what with all those brightly flaming torches they were swinging around a library full of books. None of all of this was actually part of the trick, of course. Twilight just needed some darkness, and some dust.

She blew the dust off her hoof into the room, and her magic swiftly followed, a shaped pattern spell in the spatial arrangement Twilight desired, solidifying within the dust cloud, just in time for her to cast a dark blue tinted light spell on it. The townsponies could sure see now! Nightmare Moon herself loomed before them, glowing in its own eerie light. The sound of a pitchfork hitting the ground could be heard.

Twilight stuck her tongue out in concentration, adjusting the pattern so the construct would bear its pointed fangs. That did the trick, with everypony screaming incoherently and fighting against each other to retreat as fast as they could. For the coup de grace Twilight had it leap at them, transforming it into nothing more than a distorted, slavering, gaping maw full of jagged carnivorous teeth leaping at them. She wished she could say she was the one who thought up this trick.

Whenever the ponies hit the stairs, they went down like sacks of potatoes, but the ones remaining upstairs didn’t even notice, continuing to plummet down the stairs until Twilight’s bedroom was empty. Twilight herself then casually walked down from her bed to the level of the stairwell, canceled her dust illusion, and her lubrication spell, and finally flicked the switch on the wall, filling the room with cheery brightness.

“Spike!” Twilight shouted curtly. He was by her side in an instant.

“I need you to protect this room with your life,” Twilight told her assistant in all seriousness. “Archer and Licky’s lives depend on you right now. If any pony gets in here and finds them...” She really didn’t want to say what was going through her mind about that.

“You got it, Twilight!” Spike said, saluting smartly.

“I’ll clear out the rest in the meantime,” Twilight concluded with a relieved smile, heading on down the stairs and leaving Spike to his own devices. At the bottom, there were twenty-one ponies in various states of injury and disrepair, as well as several others paying various degrees of attention to the injured ponies. It looked like one pony had somehow managed to fall on his own pitchfork, groaning suspended up in the air as the pointy tines underneath him dimpled his skin.

A nurse pony had rushed to one, whose leg was bent at an odd angle, currently in the process of setting it with a stiff crack. The nurse looked a bit gobsmacked, no doubt because she hadn’t expected an unruly mob to actually suffer injuries instead of causing them without consequence. There were a few other ponies looking at the scattered unconscious and fallen, but not participating.

It was easy to see everypony down here, because someone had remembered to turn the lights on downstairs, so nopony was going to get lost in the dark should their torches mysteriously fail. Drat. That was only the bad news though. The good news is only a few ponies were paying attention to their fallen, because the great majority of them downstairs were busy fighting, or rather, being hurled around like toy dolls, by none other than Applejack and Rainbow Dash.

The nurse pony before Twilight was clearly identifiable by her healing cutie mark, a paramedic probably as she was a pegasus. She lifted her peach colored head with its two toned yellow and orange mane to look at and recognize Twilight Sparkle, with terrified and strikingly deep blue eyes. This pony could have been Licky’s own mother, if Licky wasn’t, uh... that.

“Help me get these ponies outside,” Twilight instructed the nurse, in a level but firm tone, grabbing the tail of two in her magic and dragging them toward the library’s entrance. She returned and the nurse was still staring at her in shock. “Please,” Twilight said looking her in the eyes. “We need to get everypony out of here. It’s very important.”

“Y-you’re supposed to be enchanted! What gives?!” the nurse exclaimed.

Twilight sighed and dumped a pair of ponies on the nurse’s back. “I’ll tell you when everypony is outside.”

That seemed to convince the nurse, or at least confuse her into obeying, and she began walking those ponies on her back, out of the library. Hoping for the best, Twilight left any fallen ponies to the paramedic, and sidestepped lithely past the ones who had noticed her, trying to jump her and take her down. Landing on a reading table in the middle of the room, Twilight shouted out, “Everypony out of the library right now!!” making sure to magically amplify her voice when she did so, and levitating a chair in case—yep, somepony decided to be a hero. Their hurled pitchfork embedded itself in Twilight’s chair.

“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash and Applejack both shouted out, “Scootaloo! They(s’gonna/ wanna)—”

“I know!” Twilight shouted back, oops forgot the amplification. She canceled that and shouted normally, “We need to get everypony out of the library!”

To their credit, many of the townsponies followed Twilight’s magically amplified advice without any hesitation, but probably more because they didn’t like their odds against three of these ponies. Those who had enough smarts, were walking or running out the door, in various states of grudging resentfulness and terror, respectively.

Twilight firstly used her chair/pitchfork combination to tangle up a pony in front of her, not sure who it was, and she hit the next with a leg lock charm, and the one after that, she overrode their horn, making the pitchfork they had in their magic go flying end over end to make yet another set of marks, by embedding itself in the library wall. Twilight was honestly shocked by all this. She didn’t even know Ponyville had this many pitchforks!

“We need to clear the back, Applejack,” Twilight said, when at last she was side-to-side with the earth pony. It looked like the ponies trying to get past Applejack, had begun to realize why she was one of the few in town who could round up the cattle and sheep at the end of the day. Because they were utterly failing to get past her, and kept getting turned around without so much as disturbing a hair on her flank.

“I’ll start at the guest room,” Twilight told Applejack, force pushing a charging pony in the shin so they fell, and cartwheeled past the two of them like a pinwheel. “Then I’ll go onto the east wing. You start with the west wing then meet me there.”

With that, Twilight distracted a few ponies with a proximity-to-the-library attenuated itching spell, and galloped right between them as they writhed around to scratch that little itch on your back that you just. Can’t. Reach. Twilight charged through the hallway back there, straight into the guest room. There were a handful of ponies in it, snooping around, a far more level headed bunch than the ones in the front. Level headed meaning dangerous, but also more easily reasoned with. With a doubly brightly glowing horn, Twilight must have been quite the attention getter.

“Any pony in here in the next two hundred seconds is going to lose every hair on their tail,” Twilight annouced calmly. An earth pony looked like he was going to start poking her, so she incinerated his pitchfork to ash, including the metal head. “Any questions?” she asked. “110 seconds left!”

“You’re encha–” a pegasus mare started to say, Twilight interrupting with,

“Outside. We can talk about it outside the library.”

When they didn’t move, Twilight stared them down, gesturing at the open way out, saying, “30 seconds. Going to string a lot of bows from this. Maybe I should heat treat the follicles so they don’t grow–”

“Dangblastit!” a stallion shouted, running out of the guest room. The others followed suit, with Twilight counting “eleven, ten, 3, 2, 1!” She didn’t actually get to try her defoliating spell, but she still burnt off the tip of the tail of the last mare out, just the few centimeters of hair that had not yet passed the threshold of the doorway. Twilight gave a sigh of relief, then walked herself out the door to the guest room, heading now into the east wing of the library, where a number of ponies could be heard within.

An army of books flew off the shelves to accompany her, as Twilight strode through the entryway into the west wing. Very thick, hardbound books, all 3rd edition or later. A grim smile teased onto her face and she ran swinging into her beloved hall of bookshelves. Every pony began to cry out in alarm as Twilight hunted them down, smacking them with books shouting, “Out! Out of the library! Out! Library is closed! Out of the library!” Considering that they were getting air time, from being smacked with literature, it didn’t take very much to convince them.

Applejack was quicker to clear out her wing, running up to Twilight in the middle of the book beating, saying, “They’re headin’ for the hills! Now what?”

“Make sure this wing is empty,” Twilight answered, “I’m going to check the kitchen.” She ran out of the wing, shelving the books back in place as she did. Once in the kitchen, Twilight looked around at the refrigerator, and the pantry, and the countertop cutting board, the sink... she checked under the sink, and there was no pony there. Not that any pony other than a foal would fit under there, except Blossomforth. Twilight pulled open the pantry door where, aha! A cyan/blueberry mare was pressing herself up against the shelves inconspicuously.

“Out!” Twilight ordered.

“Aww,” the mare said unhappily, dropping to fours and walking out of the kitchen.

“You too,” Twilight said to the unicorn stallion, wedged in between her refrigerator and the wall.

“Fine!” he grumbled, unfolding himself and walking out after the other pony.

Twilight was going to run to the front, but she hesitated at a thought. When Applejack came from the west wing, with a host of ponies running ahead of her who were all completely unable to turn around or slow... somehow, Twilight shouted, “Applejack!”

Her orange friend stopped, while the others continued to thunder forward into the front of the library in utter confusion, and her friend regarded her with a questioning look.

“Can you check if there are any more hiding in the guest room?” Twilight said. “I really do need every pony except us and the fillies out of this library.”

“You got it, Twilight,” Applejack said, running into the guest room. Twilight ran to the front of the library herself, the lobby still brightly lit, and much emptier than it once was. At least, emptier of conscious ponies. Rainbow Dash was in there fighting like a hellion. Knocked out bodies were scattered around the pegasus as she spun and blasted through whole swaths of ponies at once.

Considering that the amount ponies left was about one single swath, Twilight exclaimed, “Rainbow, hold on!”

“I gotcha covered, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said enthusiastically, boxing the air that she hovered in. “These ponies ain’t gettin’ past Daisy and Duke here.”

Twilight blinked, then gave Rainbow Dash a look. “You named your hooves?” Twilight said disgustedly.

“Well—Applejack did!” Rainbow protested, blushing hotly.

“Everypony out of the library!” Twilight re-announced, ignoring Dash for now. “Nopony left behind!”

“Eh, what about...” Daisy (the pony, not the hoof) trailed off, pointing at the knocked out ponies scattered in a star pattern around Twilight’s rainbow colored friend.

“Rainbow Dash will help them out,” Twilight explained sweetly to Daisy. “Just go, go, go, I don’t care how!”

Any will the townsponies had left was more than totally broken. One tried to say, “You’re making a mistake,” but Twilight interrupted them saying,

“Ap! Ap! Ap! Wait until everypony is outside!”

Twilight tried not to glare at Rainbow Dash too much, for how many beaten up ponies Twilight had to help drag outside, thanks to her hotheaded friend’s unstoppable hooves. Rainbow didn’t make it any easier to avoid glaring at her, crowing the whole time about her accomplishment along the lines of,

“I feel like a new mare! I could take on twenty, no a hundred ponies! Even royal guards wouldn’t stand a chance! I showed ‘em what for Twilight! They try to mess with Scoots they go through me! Why are they so heavy Twilight? This is hard Twilight! Are we done yet Twilight?”

Twilight Sparkle found it was best to just let Rainbow Dash let off steam without comment. That being said, Twilight still felt like she’d eye rolled a critical fail by the time they had cleared out all the unconscious ponies. The mob outside was a lot smaller than it started at, though some new ponies had joined once this forceful clearing out of the library had attracted them. It was fine if they did, as long as they stayed outside of the library’s walls. Twilight stared at the group warily from the front door, until Applejack ran up from behind declaring, “Ah think the library is clear.”

“Just you, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Scootaloo, Archer and Licky, correct?” Twilight said ticking off allowable ponies in her head. Applejack nodded.

“Well, for their sake, I hope these ponies have all left,” Twilight said, then focused her horn on the curry-cast shield spell woven next to the mana battery, adjusting its filters and setting it on expansion mode. “Because this is going to hurt anypony who hasn’t.”

Amplifying her voice once again, “Anypony left?! Final warning!” Twilight shouted out.

“Wait, don’t hurt me I need to get out still!” Scootaloo shouted, running from the back of the library.

“Not you Scootaloo,” Twilight snapped at the filly, with a curious dissonance of excitement and relief in her chest at the sight of Scootaloo, after so much uncertainty that this day had brought. “It only gets the ponies who aren’t allowed.”

It didn’t appear that any other pony was going to come out of the woodwork, so Twilight released the shield spell. Not exactly what you’d call a force bubble, but it was something similar to that. It had formed her brother’s graduate thesis, and, on one occasion, almost not failed to save Canterlot. On another occasion, it had most certainly succeeded in not failing to save... well, that’s a tale for another time, and way too much categorical logic.

The shield spell activated and a magenta bubble swept out from the epicenter of the library, shoving back any ponies who were too close when it was cast. Thankfully for their continued health, the spell didn’t make any new pony shaped holes through the library as it did so. Looked like Applejack hadn’t missed any ponies after all. The spell passed harmlessly through her friends, and the fillies, and of course her dragon assistant. A lesser pony might have forgotten someone vital, but Twilight Sparkle had something they didn’t have, years of hard work honing her ability to complete a checklist rigorously and comprehensively.

Once the shield was fully extended, Twilight added something unorthodox to the technique, adjusting it further so that only she, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Spike could pass through it. She didn’t have time to run the numbers to ensure that the method wouldn’t weaken the shield, but the chances were pretty remote. It was just an extension of what the guards had already done in Canterlot, to allow the train through specially while still repelling other ...things.

Then, the shield was in place, stable and sustained. An army couldn’t break their way into here now. Twilight canceled her horn triumphantly, blowing on it to cool it off. Then she swayed on her feet, and sank to her belly right there on the floor, her chin touching down with a scratchy wavering moan coming out of her.

“Hey Twilight,” Applejack said, leaning over her, as Twilight rolled herself onto her back. “Y’alright?”

Twilight looked up at Applejack, Scootaloo, and Rainbow Dash, and Spike apparantly, who were surrounding her with concern. “I’m fine...” Twilight said unconvincingly. “Just... not used to unexpected battles, out of nowhere, in the library, after teleporting three ponies, all the way across town, with an enertheric horn.”

“They chased me in here, sorry,” Scootaloo said in explanation. “You weren’t here, so I had to hide. I didn’t think they were going to tear the place apart looking for me!”

“I’m just glad you picked such a good hiding spot!” Twilight said climbing to her hooves, a bit astonished at the thought. “Where did you hide, anyway?”

Scootaloo beamed at that, saying, “The place where the guest bed goes doesn’t even look like a door, unless you push on it. And I leaned on it too, in case they tried it.”

“Great,” Rainbow Dash said equally unconvincingly, rolling her eyes. “Glad that thing worked out alright for somepony!”

Both Scootaloo and Twilight tried to hold back a laugh. They failed not to fail to do so.

“Alright,” Twilight said after she stopped laughing, “So here’s what we’re going to do to fix this.”

A short huddle later, Twilight set everyone to preparing themselves and herself for the task at hand. After a small amount of time, she strode out of the library, to address the ponies surrounding the border of her shield sphere, the magical librarian accompanied at her side by a small, orange and purple filly. Twilight shouted, “Attention everypony! You may be wondering why I have engaged in such extreme measures to keep you out of the library. You may be thinking I have been enchanted to protect a creature more foul than a pony’s worst nightmare. I understand your feelings, but I’m happy to inform you that the creature you fear remains nothing more than a false story, a fairy tale, and a hoax.”

“What I’ve found instead,” Twilight continued, “Is something stranger, and more wonderful than any ghost story. I would like to share with you all what I have found, and then let you ponies decide whether it’s true or not. If you can say it is nothing but an enchanted delusion once I am finished, then I will submit myself to the proper authorities, so that the fillies can be dealt with calmly and reasonably. But I am confident that my argument is sound and well founded.”

She went on to describe the ponypological evidence leading to a possible connection between ancient pre-tribe proto-pony forms, until Rainbow Dash zipped up and tapped her on the withers, whispering, “Get to the point; you’re losing them.”

“My point is,” Twilight said loudly enough for everypony to hear, “That while these fillies resemble parasprites, it is only because we all resemble parasprites, and their family has simply changed less over the ages than your average pony. These are not parasprites, and the parasprite song is more dangerous than you may think, in that... well alright, here comes my first demonstration.”

Sure enough, the sound of Pinkie Pie’s marching band was approaching.

“I don’t have to resist it after all, Twilight,” Scootaloo hurriedly assured her, pushing away from Twilight. “I really do want to follow it!” And, of course, Scootaloo then went bouncing dutifully after Pinkie Pie. Twilight had told Scootaloo that she had to resist the music, or she’d die, but Twilight wasn’t really worried. That was just to get a baseline, for how long Scootaloo could hold out. Which was apparantly 1.3 seconds. The filly got about three paces from the library, before smacking into the shield harmlessly. Then Scootaloo did so again. And again.

“Here you see Scootaloo acting just like a parasprite,” Twilight explained to the horrified and disgusted crowd. “But is she a parasprite? Scootaloo, are you a parasprite?”

“No!” Scootaloo shouted back distractedly. “I really like that song!” she added, then ran into the shield wall again. “Why can’t I follow it?!” she said in a confused tone.

“Scootaloo is different from all of us, but she is as much of a person as any other pony,” Twilight explained paying careful attention to how close Pinkie’s approach was. “This song you hear has been specifically designed not to enthrall some ponies, but that doesn’t mean all ponies. There is no reason that with some adjustment, you all could be forced to drown yourself in the river, just like this filly, and you would do so, as happily and eagerly as you see her right now. Pinkie said it only affects parasprites, but...” and as Pinkie Pie came around the street corner, making a beeline for the magenta glowing library, Twilight concluded, “Pinkie Pie has been lying to you.”

Twilight walked up to Scootaloo with a mask of concern on her face. Scootaloo failed to so much as recognize her presence, continuing to try to find ways outside the featureless shield bubble. Twilight hoped Dash and Applejack could keep the other two fillies under wraps, to keep her message from getting confused. “Poor Scootaloo here,” Twilight said sympathetically, while still addressing the ponies beyond the shield. “She can’t be reasoned with. This is not an act. She and I certainly have had no time to rehearse this. But Scootaloo, do you really want to die?”

“No,” Scootaloo said distractedly, bouncing into the barrier again.

“Do you want to drown in the river?”

“Miss Twilight!” Scootaloo protested. “I want to—”

“Do you want to drown?”

“No, I want to follow the song!”

“Do you care if you die,” Twilight asked, “If you get to follow the song?”

“No!” Scootaloo shouted exasperatedly. “I’ll die or drown or whatever. Just let me out!”

“I couldn’t talk with a parasprite like this,” Twilight addressed the crowd. “But I could talk with an enchanted filly. It might seem impossible that Scootaloo would get so totally enthralled like this, that this could be a real filly not an inpony monster, but it is indeed the truth.

“I’m going to ask her a question now, that many of you will surely be familiar with. And I apologize for that.”

“Scootaloo,” Twilight leaned down, saying, “I want you to think about following the song. Do you want to do that?”

“I want it,” Scootaloo agreed distantly.

“Do you need it?”

“I need it!” Scootaloo gushed passionately. She bounced off the barrier again. Twilight let her do so, trying to appear passive and objective, despite something in her chest twisting, as she watched the filly trapped in an enchantment Twilight could not free her from, just as helpless as she had been to watch before. Twilight hated seeing ponies like this. She wanted this damned crowd to understand, so she could end this presentation of horror. She risked a look at the crowd, and it was hard to read their faces, but Twilight thought she could see what might have been a glint of, if not sympathy for Scootaloo, at least recognition, and guilty remembrance.

Twilight asked the crowd, “Can some—” her voice caught.

“Can somepony stop Pinkie Pie from playing music?” she said more steadily, as evenly as she could. “I would stop her myself, but right now I’m afraid that I might hurt her, to get her to stop.”

The crowd was silent, so Twilight said, “Please, it’s the only way to prove this to you. Just... take her accordion. You can give it back once I’ve said my peace.”

Pinkie Pie actually spoke up then. Well, sort of.

“The fillysprite is,” Pinkie Pie shouted, then played on her harmonica some more, then said, “Enchanting you” then back to playing on her harmonica, “All don’t listen” back the harmonica, “To her!”

“Why isn’t the Fillysprite enchanting you, Pinkie?” Twilight asked wanly. “You’re here along with the rest of us. Why would it enchant them, but not you?”

It was actually that nurse pony who managed to hover low enough in the air to snag Pinkie’s rising and falling accordion. Pinkie held onto it fiercely, but she had to stop playing to fight for it back. Twilight never thought she would feel this relieved at the cessation of song.

As the music stopped, Scootaloo immediately stilled and stared blankly forward for a moment. “Scootaloo,” Twilight prompted, nudging her in the flank. Scootaloo shook her head and blinked. She backed up from the shield a few paces, then looked up at Twilight, with a face full of fear.

“I didn’t think it would be that bad,” Scootaloo said worriedly. “I couldn’t even try to resist!”

“A likely story!” shouted Pinkie Pie.

“Shut up, Pinkie,” Twilight said on pure reflex. She shook her head too and said, loud enough for the crowd to hear, “Scootaloo, I changed my mind. Follow the song to the river.”

Scootaloo’s eyes widened. “N-no! What? You don’t want me to!” she stammered, “I’ll die!”

“Scootaloo, you follow that song right now,” Twilight commanded frowning furiously at the little filly. “You won’t die. Who said that?”

“You did!” Scootaloo shouted, pretty much completely terrified of Twilight now, “You didn’t say you were going to do this, Miss Twilight! You’re lying! Please don’t make me follow that horrible, awful song!”

Twilight’s disapproving glower immediately flipped into a small, relieved, somewhat triumphant smile. “And that is proof,” Twilight declared to the crowd, “That there is nothing wrong with this filly, only with that song.”

“It’s not a horribleawful song!” Pinkie Pie shouted out suddenly and forcefully, “It’s an incredible, amazing song that saved every foal in my town from being devoured by that thing!” She thrust a hoof at Scootaloo.

“My Granny was a hero!” Pinkie Pie continued ardently. “She saved everypony, and they just told her she was crazy, and just making up stories! Well that’s not a story!” she pointed at Scootaloo again, “And I’m not going to let it get so bad like it did the last time!”

“Pinkie, I get that you’re being irrational, but why are you spreading such hateful lies?” Twilight implored of the pink pony. “There was no last time! Scootaloo here is a once in a lifetime discovery. Yet you keep making up stories saying she’s going to kill ponies, or—or eat their foals! Nopony’s foals are in danger, but you keep lying about it. Why are you trying so hard to hurt Scootaloo?”

“Lying???” Pinkie squealed, aghast. “I’m lying??? I’m not—wait! No!” To Pinkie’s apparent horror, some ponies were already starting to wander off. Twilight wished she didn’t have to be the bad guy here, but the power of truth would reach these ponies no matter what was wrong with Pinkie Pie. “Come back!” Pinkie shouted after them, “Your foals are in danger!”

In response, a sore looking magenta pony with a fruity cutie mark peeled away from the crowd saying, “It is too bucking late for this shit,” not even sparing Pinkie half a glance.

“The fillysprite isn’t going to escape from that shield,” a carrot colored mare assured Pinkie Pie. “Creature Control can take care of it from here.”

“It’ll just enchant Twilight to lower the shield,” Pinkie insisted. “As soon as our backs are turned!”

“Why hasn’t it enchanted us then?” asked a brownish stallion with messy hair. Pinkie sputtered for an answer that she couldn’t have, because there was no answer, because there simply was no truth behind her convictions. Before she could answer, another mare who Twilight recognized as Junebug said to Pinkie hesitantly in her scratchy voice,

“Uh, everypony will be fine. I... trust your friends. ...don’t you?”

“All your children are going to die,” Pinkie spat bitterly, “And nopony here will ever smile again. They’ll be gone forever! If you would just listen to me! But you won’t, and you’ll be sorry when it’s too late, but then it’s too late! We have to kill them now, before they spread!”

“I–I’m single!” Junebug cried out, cringing away from Pinkie Pie who was looming at her angrily. “I–I have a pot on the forgot, sorry I have to–”

To Twilight’s immense satisfaction, one of the local police ponies stepped in-between them, saying, “I think you need to cool down, Miss Pie.”

There were a number of police ponies among this mob, in fact, and with its fervor drained, they began escorting ponies away and splitting up the crowd. One approached Twilight, a cream mare with pink and blue curls, announcing herself as,

“I’m Chief  Drops of the Ponyville Police. I’d like to ask you to turn off your shield thingy.”

Twilight looked at her skeptically saying, “Do you have a warrant?”

“No,” said Chief Drops, taking a pencil in her mouth to write in a little notebook, “But it never hurts to ask.”

Anything else the chief could say was drowned out by Pinkie screaming out, “I can play the song if I want to! You can’t stop me—I know my rights! I earned these instruments fair and square! Let me go! Put me down! Stop it, stop! The foals! The foals!”

It took three officers to take her down, which wasn’t a large number considering the all and everything, but Pinkie Pie wasn’t the strongest among Twilight’s circle either. That honor would go to Applejack. Pinkie was so active all the time that she was incredibly fit, but she wasn’t very strong or especially healthy, certainly not with the amount of sugar in her diet. They did manage to drag an incoherently screaming Pinkie away, but Twilight felt a chill go down her back, when the last thing Pinkie shouted before going out of earshot was an apology. To her.

“I’m sorry Twilight!” Pinkie shouted, “Please don’t hate yourself, no matter what hap—stop! Please no don’t” and then Twilight couldn’t make her words out anymore.

“Sorry about that,” Chief Drops stated uncomfortably, pulling Twilight back to the moment at hand. “I would like you to speak with the Ponyville Creature Control. I’m sure you have lots to say to them. I’d ask if you didn’t mind, but it doesn’t look like you have a choice, unless you’re going to be stepping off that Celestial property any time soon. So without further ado, Captain Fluttershy, this is Twilight Spark–”

“We know each other,” Twilight said, flat-eared. She hadn’t even noticed Fluttershy approaching. Along with a blonde-on-brown scruffy looking earth stallion,  and... Junebug, yes. “Wait, you’re on Creature Control?” Twilight asked Fluttershy in amazement, then went flat-eared again, “Yes, of course you are.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Fluttershy said softly. “If this is a bad time...”

“A bad time? Two before midnight?” Twilight said in mock astonishment, “Why no, how could that ever be a bad time?”

“Oh,” Fluttershy said disappointedly. “We’ll just go, then.”

“Nonsense,” Twilight said cheerfully, zapping the barrier with her horn to temporarily admit several more ponies in an oval region, leading Fluttershy through the distorted zone on the barrier, “Why don’t we all come in and get comfortable and talk things out like good rational ponies, and I can prove to you once and for all that these fillies pose little to no danger to the town.”

The Creature Control, and two police officers plus the chief followed Fluttershy in, though they all had a look on their faces like they were entering a spider’s web, or a wolf den.

“Why did you kick everypony out,” Chief Drops asked suspiciously, “If you were just going to invite ponies back in?”

“Just a safety precaution,” Twilight said politely beckoning them in through the door. “If the shield spell went up with ponies in the library, they would have gone through the walls.” Twilight smiled congenially, hoping she was properly conveying the implication that the ponies so affected would not teleport or become insubstantial during this process.

That had to have been the messiest wedding in history.
> Captive Audience
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The treebrary was soon pleasantly lit on the inside. Spike was off in the kitchen, brewing up a nice big pot of tea. One of the reading tables had been cleared out in the front room near the door. That left a broad space for Twilight to set up an easel with some pre-prepared flip charts on them, hastily diagramed in cursive quill but it was pretty short notice. Seated at the table were the Creature Control team. The police officers had chosen to remain standing, no doubt as an attempt to deliver an atmosphere of authority. In a similar manner, Rainbow Dash and Applejack hovered near Twilight protectively, one of them literally. The fillies were staying hidden for now, just out of sight in the darkness of the stairwell to Twilight’s bedroom.

“I would like to address four issues tonight,” Twilight said to the crew, levitating her pointer to the issues itemized for their convenience. “One,” Twilight listed off, “The claim that Scootaloo is capable of enchanting anypony. Two, the accusation that Scootaloo or ponies like Scootaloo are eating foals. Three. The ability of ponies like Scootaloo to impersonate other ponies. And four, the claim that Scootaloo is a parasprite.”

Spike came out with a set of porcelain tea cups on a luminum tray, and laid one out for each of the ponies at the table. The police ponies waved a hoof at his offer, preferring to remain standing back at the time, as did Applejack and Rainbow Dash, who Twilight supposed sort of counted as her own symbolic ‘police’ as it were. With the ponies situated and some nice calming tea in their hooves, Twilight began her case for the continued well-being of Scootaloo and the others.

“Now on the first point, Scootaloo is incapable of enchanting anypony. I would like to remind you all that enchantment of ponies is a dangerous and forbidden magic, so I will not be demonstrating it for you today. However, I have dabbled in it at times and, um, you know...” Twilight tried to untie her tongue to keep the lecture going smoothly, but it was just so embarassing, bringing up old mistakes like that. “During the ...Smarty Pants incident,” Twilight forced herself to continue, “I learned very well how dangerous enchantment could be. And during that incident, many ponies got a taste of the... less than comfortable experience of being enchanted. So, you should be familiar with enchantment’s distinctive properties.” Without waiting for potentially embarassing comment, Twilight turned to the next sheet, turning her pointer at the drawing of a confused looking pony with swirly eyes.

“In particular, enchanted ponies, or other intelligent creatures, lose the ability to reason. It sometimes only affects very specific thought processes, but you can always find a contradiction in their reasoning. Too often that contradiction is that the pony both does, and does not want to die. Additionally, enchanted ponies begin engaging in more repetitive actions than their normal behavior, a natural side effect of warping any creature’s will. Give a creature an unnatural compulsion, and they will begin repeating themselves in all their words and actions, as a consequence of being forced to obey the compulsion. Finally, enchanted ponies can break their enchantment through clear thinking and self awareness, so enchantments must therefore enforce difficulty thinking clearly, and lack of self awareness.”

“There is only one group of ponies being enchanted here,” Twilight claimed, “And it’s neither you, nor I. Scootaloo, can you come forward?”

The filly came creeping out of the doorway, head down and eyes up. Twilight smiled at her, but Scootaloo didn’t seem consoled even by that. Even Twilight could tell that Scootaloo was scared stiff, yet trying to be brave. “Scootaloo,” Twilight said as gently as she could, “I need you to tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us who you are and what you like to do.”

“About the mouth... thing?” Scootaloo asked with a look of dread.

Twilight shook her head, saying, “About anything. What do you like? Who you are.”

Scootaloo hesitated and Twilight was almost afraid she wouldn’t be able to say anything, but Scootaloo straightened up and looked at the other ponies saying, “I’m Scootaloo I uh... I like riding around and tricks, and Rainbow Dash is my sister and the best pony in the whole world. I want to be just like her some day. Uh, my favorite color is purple? Not like my hair, but like my favorite helmet and my eyes. Is everypony’s favorite color the same as their eyes?”

Twilight prompted Scootaloo back on track, saying, “Where do you go to school?”

“Ponyville Schoolhouse?” Scootaloo said in a querelous tone, looking up at Twilight uncertainly.

“Do you enjoy school?” Twilight asked, continuing to verbally prod the filly as gently as she could.

“Not... really,” Scootaloo said, blushing a bit and looking down, “It’s really hard and I don’t do so well, but Miss Cheerilee is the best teacher ever and she’s really nice, and I like when I get to see my friends my...” she paused uncertainly there. “My friends,” she said more firmly, “Yeah. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle... and Archer, and Bolt, and um... that’s it.”

Twilight turned to the quiet crowd saying, “As you can see, this is not an enchanted filly.” She turned back to Scootaloo saying, “Now I want you to tell me, did you feel like you could answer any of those questions while Pinkie Pie’s song was playing?”

“No!” Scootaloo exclaimed right away, her head snapping up to Twilight. She blushed then and waffled more saying, “I don’t... I mean I don’t know I couldn’t think or anything, so maybe I could, but I don’t think I could think about anything besides... following it.”

“Thank you Scootaloo. You can go,” Twilight said, letting Scootaloo scamper off zipping back out of sight to where her other... versions were crouched.

“Some enchantments are not so blatantly obvious as the parasprite song,” Twilight said, addressing the crowd again, “But it remains an excellent example of a powerful mental enchantment. As I exhibit no such behaviors, I am most likely not enchanted. You might not be able to tell if I were enchanted, but it would have to be such a subtle and not blatant enchantment, that those would be able to weave such a complex and nuanced spell are unimaginably rare. You would thus be much safer, assuming I am not enchanted until proven wrong, rather than assuming I am enchanted, until proven wrong.”

“Unless being adorable is arcane sorcery,” Twilight added wryly, “It’s safe to say Scootaloo is enchanting nopony, never has, and hopefully never will.”

Fluttershy was pulling her hoof down from having raised it for an imperceptible amount of time. Twilight called on her anyway, saying, “Yes Fluttershy? Questions?”

“Um, well,” the pegasus said in the quiet room. “I’d like to know if the kind of creature Scootaloo is um, has become, um...”

“Issue one point two!” Twilight exclaimed intently, “Scootaloo has always had wings like this. She has always lived like this. There is no evidence that anything has happened to her recently to change her to be this way. She simply hadn’t been noticed yet, until recently.”

There was silence. Twilight let out a breath and said, “Sorry Fluttershy, please continue.”

“The only creatures I know of with powers of enchantment are native to the ocean,” Fluttershy said carefully. “Is that where this cr–where Scootaloo is from?”

“I... I’m not sure, to be honest with you Fluttershy,” Twilight said hesitantly, “But if what she says is correct, I think she was born in Whinneapolis. ...does the Great Lake count?”

Fluttershy shook her head.

“Then I’m afraid not,” said Twilight with a sympathetic smile.

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy smiled back. “It doesn’t seem like Scootaloo can enchant anypony then.”

The stallion cut in with an easy voice, saying alertly, “A lot of critters are taken from the ocean as pets. A lot of times when those pets become too high maintenance they get—you know—they get rid of them. Let the city sewer system take care of it. Could this Scootaloo be something like that?”

“I believe Scootaloo is an evolutionary throwback,” Twilight answered, “That she had perfectly normal pegasus parents, who had both been carriers for an ancient precursor line to ponykind as we know it. I would need to find her parents to confirm this though, so I can’t say for sure. Anything else, you’ll have to ask her directly. While she’s been very honest with me, she is a very young filly and, her earlier memories are not very reliable to say the least.”

“Scootaloo,” Twilight called out over her shoulder, “Could you come back for a little bit? It’s not the demonstration yet, but these ponies would like to know more about your history.”

Surprisingly, Scootaloo didn’t come out, but just shouted from the doorway, “They don’t need to know anything! Ponies beat me up, so I moved. Nothing more to say about it.”

“Not about that, Scootaloo,” Twilight called over with irritation, “This is Creature Control, not Foal Services. They want to know where you came from, not what happened to you.” She paused and said, “It’ll be fine. Just come out, please? You don’t have to answer any questions you feel uncomfortable about.”

“Fine...” Scootaloo grumbled resignedly, skulking out from the doorway back to Twilight’s side. “I don’t really remember being a... ugh, a pet though.”

“Do you have any memories of living in a tank, full of water?” Fluttershy asked Scootaloo eagerly. “Do you remember anypony feeding you fish flakes?”

Scootaloo shook her head, and Twilight leaned toward the filly mentioning to her out of the side of her mouth, “She’s asking about what your other ‘yous’ remember too, if you can remember them.”

Junebug looked like she wanted to cut in, but Twilight waved a hoof at her in a quaffing motion, and looked down at Scootaloo, who was still thinking. Hopefully the filly would come up with something.

“My memories before... me aren’t good, because I was the last one too soon,” Scootaloo said uncertainly to Twilight. “So I had to... never mind,” She turned her head away in something that might have resembled shame, or sorrow.

“Scootaloo, you don’t have to...” Twilight said unhappily. “They just want to... if you aren’t comfortable you can—” But Scootaloo shook her head solidly, and did continue.

“The earliest thing I remember is before we could read,” Scootaloo said. “I might remember other things, but I don’t know if they were earlier than that. But I know we didn’t learn to read, until we were 11. I remember my fr–somepony I used to know, who was showing one of us the letters on a birthday cake. They couldn’t read the letters, but their friend was bragging about knowing all the letters. Um, I remember, because they ate too much cake and... they almost couldn’t hide, before somepony came out of them.”

“I remember a storm,” Scootaloo added, “Which feels like it was earlier, but it was still just in Whinneapolis. I don’t even know what the ocean looks like! I don’t think any of us have ever been to the ocean before.”

“So,” the cheeky stallion said, “You don’t remember ever being in the ocean?”

Scootaloo nodded.

“Are you able to breathe water?” Fluttershy asked innocently.

Scootaloo frowned thoughtfully, seriously considering her question. The filly said “No, I don’t think so, but I never tried to—” before she was interrupted by Twilight, who felt noticeably ill in snapping out the words,

“No. They cannot breathe water.” She shuddered in a breath, then said, “I have confirmed this already, with Archer.”

Nopony said anything at first, then Fluttershy turned to Twilight with a look of sudden horror, saying, “How could you?! Don’t you know how dangerous that is? You can’t experiment on ponies by testing if they drown or not!”

“I didn’t do it,” Twilight said with a wry grimace. “Pinkie Pie did.”

Fluttershy’s horror faded, and she smiled then and said, “Don’t be silly, Twilight. Pinkie Pie would never–”

“I was there!” Twilight interrupted again, her temper flaring at the ego bruising. “I saw her. She was trying to kill them! I dragged Archer out of the river! You really think I would drown a filly, but not Pinkie Pie?”

Twilight realized she had slightly raised her voice, which drove Fluttershy into total silence, hiding behind her hair fearfully. “I’m sorry, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, forcing herself to relax. “It’s just been a long day. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

Fluttershy still didn’t say anything, and it didn’t look like anypony else was going to, so Twilight turned to her flip chart and turned the next page. “Item two,” she said with a grim satisfaction, “The accusation that there is any danger of Scootaloo devouring our foals. To prove this is nonsense, Scootaloo here is going to demonstrate, by devouring a foal.”

Twilight turned forward and smiled enigmatically, as the ponies all started talking at once, except Fluttershy. “No, I’m not insane,” she told one. “No, nopony is going to be harmed,” she told another. “No, this isn’t a magic trick, well at least not sleight of hand. Yes, I am very sure of what I am doing. No, she can’t devour foals, at least not in the way you’re thinking.”

Having fielded all their questions rapid-fire, the ponies were reduced to grumbling, with the chief saying, “You even come close to harming a real foal, and I’m going to take you down so hard your granddaughters will feel it.” A real foal, heh. Hook, line and sinker.

“Archer, will you come forward?” Twilight asked sweetly. Archer poked her head around the corner of the entryway. Twilight was so very glad that these two fillies in particular were with her right now. She didn’t know if she could have shown everypony with just Archer and Licky, or with Scootaloo and Licky. She certainly wasn’t going to make Scootaloo create another filly, just for demonstration purposes! There was no need to worry about that though, because the stars of the show were all here. And, unless the universe had a burning hatred for Twilight’s reputation as a scholar and a gentlemare, everything was going to be just fine.

“I didn’t mean to alarm any of you,” Twilight said, hesitating and then adding, “Well, maybe I did a little bit. What you are about to see appears very shocking, and is not something for weak wills, or weak stomachs. While completely harmless, it may appear very differently to the untrained eye. If anypony would like to bow out now, besides Fluttershy, please do so.”

Fluttershy stopped from retreating backwards toward the library door and blushed, returning meekly to the table. Nopony else made to leave. Twilight was most worried about the police ponies, really. Creature Control was a job for those with iron stomachs, and wills. The cops only had to deal with ponies, most of the time! This was important though, and she couldn’t neglect conveying crucial information to the ponies at the table who decided whether Scootaloo lived or died.

So having warned them, Twilight began her explanation. “Yesterday, Pinkie Pie began spreading a rumor that these fillies will devour your foals, and so turn the entire foal population of our town into one giant swarm of filly-shaped parasprites. This is patently ridiculous, but it does have in it a grain of truth.” Twilight levitated the pointer to indicate on her chart her diagram that symbolically represented wrapping truth in lies. “For whatever reason she crafted that story, Pinkie Pie chose her words carefully so that her claims would appear to line up with reality. Everything she said was based on the natural behavior of these ponies, to make us think that those behaviors are dangerous, when in reality those behaviors are relatively harmless, and certainly not worthy of panic, or murder.”

Archer had finally crept close enough for Twilight to involve her, and Twilight snagged the filly in her magic, lifting Archer up beside her. “Archer here is like Scootaloo,” Twilight said in regards to the gently levitating pony. “She is what you would have called a ‘fillysprite.’ She has all the signs you have been searching for, and she was enchanted by Pinkie Pie’s parasprite song, just like Scootaloo just now. If you need proof, I can think of no better way than to demonstrate ...this.”

A certain fashion show came to mind, as Archer rotated around awkwardly, Twilight lifting up Archer’s tail and spreading her legs wide. “Twilight stop,” Scootaloo said petulantly, pushing at Twilight’s flank, while everypony else seemed paralyzed by shock, “They’ll think I’m weird!”

“Right now that is exactly what they need to think, Scootaloo,” Twilight said to her, turning to the group before they could erupt into protests. “As Archer is demonstrating here, she completely lacks reproductive organs. Or a digestive egress, for that matter. Her pelvic floor is completely solid, with articulation and musculature adjusted to account for this.” Twilight let Archer’s legs loose then, turning the filly sideways, saying, “You can also see a pair of oddly shaped wings on her back. Ponies of this kind are like pegasi, but have a significantly different wing structure, that at more than a casual glance should be easy to pick out.”

Twilight set Archer down, deliberately cancelling her horn with a hoof in full sight of everyone there. “Now I’m going to trust you all not to become violent,” Twilight said, “Because you might suspect my magic is involved here. So I’m going to be wearing this for the remainder of the demonstration.” Twilight lifted up a silvery horn suppressor. You couldn’t levitate those things without the force crumpling them, so she manually lifted it up in a hoof, and slipped it over her own horn. It was a sensation about as pleasant as stuffing socks in your ears, but Twilight wanted to be absolutely sure nopony suspected any funny business.

“Full disclosure,” she added, “I can override this thing, but only in a way that would noisily and flashily melt it into slag, at great risk to myself. So, you’ll be able to tell if I use any magic. I assume the police know how this sort of thing works...”

She looked hesitantly at Chief Drops, who thinned her lips, but nodded saying, “That sounds about right, but you really don’t need to go through such extreme measures. We haven’t needed to use a horn suppressor since the case of Mad Eye McGee more than 30 years ago.”

“Trust me,” Twilight said dourly, “This is a pretty extreme situation. It won’t take long anyway. I’ve already talked with Scootaloo and Archer about this.”

“Where did you even get that?” Chief Drops asked confusedly, waving a hoof at Twilight’s muffled horn.

“Oh, heh, I get my hooves on a lot of interesting things to experiment with,” Twilight scratched a hoof, adding, “Just one of the priviliges of my advanced studies.” That, and her teleportion ability. She didn’t mention that last part out loud.

She instead pointed her nose down to indicate the two, very nervous looking fillies.

“I said no foals were going to be devoured,” Twilight claimed, “And I also said they were going to be devoured. The reason for this is, while Archer here is a foal, you might consider her to be a creature, not a pony. This has been demonstrated, stated and proven by Pinkie Pie herself, and I’m sure the flower sisters next door can confirm it. My assumption here is that you would all object very extremely, as would I, to Scootaloo attempting to devour a foal, but since you know that Archer here is the same creature as Scootaloo, then in your eyes no foals would be devoured, and you have no objections.”

Fluttershy raised her hoof.

Twilight inwardly groaned and said, “Yes, Fluttershy?”

“Um,” she said, “I don’t know if they are real foals or not, but even if Archer really is a creature, then I would still have to object. Many creatures deserve to live too, and it’s wrong of you to kill one who is so young, even if she is your prey.” She was talking straight to Scootaloo when she said that, who looked back at her confusedly, at the mention of the word ‘prey’.

Thankfully, the uncomprehending blinking session between Fluttershy and the two fillies was something Twilight had the power nip in the bud. “That’s a very good point, Fluttershy,” Twilight cut in, “And the reason you need not object is: Archer is not Scootaloo’s prey. She’s just going to be consumed by Scootaloo. Scootaloo is not going to kill her. She’s just going to eat her.”

Junebug spoke up then saying, “You... just contradicted yourself. S-several times.”

“Here in this handy diagram I whipped up,” Twilight went on undauntedly, looking at her flip chart and... pausing. Her face twisted up in confusion. Why wasn’t the...?  Oh, right. Twilight bent down and picked up the pointer off the floor, in her mouth, using it to indicate the various relevant points in her diagram.

Twilight handily explained, “You can thee the proceth by whish the fillythsprite reproducesh and feeds. They are not paraspritesh, but they do reshemble parathsprites in many ways. Here you shee foo entering the reproducshive cycle, consumedh as we would exshpect, like normal fhood. There are two branchesh in the shycle at thish point—”

“What Twilight is trying to say,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, sticking her head down from above, addressing the crowd behind Twilight, “Is that when there isn’t enough food, they can eat each other, but when there is enough food they can spit each other back out.”

There was silence.

Then there was a creaking noise, as Twilight turned her head to glare with a broad smile at the back of Rainbow Dash’s head, the bucking cheater who could effortlessly summarize Twilight’s entire lecture in a single compound sentence, rendering Twilight’s next four charts null and void.

“Yes,” Twilight said, “That’s... exactly what I’m trying to say.”

“Ah know you like lecturin’ and all,” Applejack spoke up, before anypony did something she regretted, “But it’s awful darn late, and we need answers, not book learnin’. Don’t you wanna save all that fancy stuff as a surprise for the big wigs up in Canterlot?”

Twilight sighed and looked down, feeling defeated. She really did enjoy lecturing, and there was nothing wrong with that! But... Applejack really did know her very well, and it was awfully late, and these were town employees, not awarded professors.

“Alright fine,” Twilight said turning to face the crowd again, “I was only trying to fully prepare you, so that there were no violent reactions to this. This is a perfectly normal part of their life cycle, and though it appears to be eating or devouring, I have thoroughly verified that it is anything but. It is reproduction, or deproduction and only applies to these creatures alone, not anything they eat. It’s the same orifice, but a different task. I need to show you this, because the whole basis of Pinkie’s lies is confusing ‘deproduction’ with ‘consumption’, and you need to see how they are different, if you wish to avoid being fooled by her. We were planning to show the entire town, but in reflection, this is a much better idea. You are the experts on creatures after all, and you can make the best judgement for the town of what is true.”

“Can we do it already?” Scootaloo piped up at her feet crabbily. “I’m tired, and this is boring!”

Archer frowned disapprovingly at Scootaloo, but Twilight nodded and said, “Yes, I think we’re ready for you. There’s only one more thing.” Twilight paused, and looked at Archer seriously, saying, “Archer, do you mind if Scootaloo eats you?”

“Should I?” Archer asked, glancing nervously at the attentive ponies behind the table over there. “I don’t mind, but I–I’m not used to doing it in front of so many ponies. Are you sure it’ll be okay?”

“It’ll be okay, Archer,” Twilight assured her. “Do you remember what I said about Zecora?”

Archer blinked uncomprehendingly. Twilight inwardly gave herself a self satisfied grin, saying, “I mean, do you remember what I said to Scootaloo about Zecora?”

“Oh, uh, y-yes I think so,” Archer said, scrunching up in thought. She shook her head after a bit, and apologized, “It wasn’t enough time, sorry. All I really caught was that Zecora has um, something about her stripes.”

“Pff, like I was paying attention,” Scootaloo muttered wryly.

Twilight ignored that little comment and went on, addressing both fillies. “What I said was, that it was what ponies didn’t know about Zecora that fueled their fear,” Twilight recalled. “Ponies grew much more accepting, when they knew the truth about Zecora. This is one of those times. It is shocking, and a little weird, but if you do it when we’re ready, I’m confident that we can trust you for who you are, instead of worrying about superstition and rumour.”

“Alright, Twilight I’ll um... I’ll try.” Archer said amiably. She walked over to Scootaloo, and tapped the filly so she stopped pretending to snore. Hopefully pretending.

“Do you really not mind being eaten?” Fluttershy said with a disbelieving but captivated look on her face.

Archer turned to her and smiled, saying, “No, I don’t mind. It’s actually kind of fun! Thank you for thinking of me though.” Twilight had to shake her head at Archer’s gentle demeanor. Even though she’d seen it with her own eyes, Twilight sometimes had a hard time believing that this filly came out of Scootaloo’s mouth.

“That is so fascinating,” Fluttershy uttered, leaning forward raptly and brushing away her cherry blossom mane from her eye.

“Alright, let’s just do it Archer,” Scootaloo said impatiently, grabbing Archer by her shoulders.

Archer nodded to her, saying, “That’d be nice,” in a grateful, relieved tone of voice.

Even having seen it before, twice, Twilight still found herself utterly fascinated by the process. Scootaloo once again opened her mouth impossibly wide, and Twilight observed her abdomen and throat expand, even before Archer stuck her head inside. When Scootaloo’s lips came down to Archer’s shoulders, Scootaloo lurched back, and once again the filly she was deproducing was heaved bodily into the air. Scootaloo’s eyes looked out of focus, though it was hard to tell from the distorted angle they were at. Twilight was curious just how aware Scootaloo was of her own actions at this point, if it was involuntary or semi-conscious or what.

This time it was Archer being swallowed, not Dizzie as before, though the distinction between which of them was in Scootaloo’s gut was sure to become insignificant as the process completed. Twilight couldn’t help but notice Archer’s legs move just slightly, curling neatly under her body as she descended into Scootaloo like a melting stick of butter. Twilight wondered if Archer was still self aware at this point. So many questions to ask these fillies.

Scootaloo’s lips closed around Archer’s posterior, sealing tightly shut with only the blue pony’s soft tail sticking out of her mouth. It would have been a stretch to identify Scootaloo even as a filly, at this point. As she was, she had more the appearance of an ungainly, overstuffed orange sack, but muscles all over Scootaloo’s body were tensing and quivering, and she compressed down very quickly. In seconds, she resumed enough of her original proportions to wrap her arms around her belly, and the rest of the process appeared as if she was hugging herself back into the shape of an ordinary looking filly. Scootaloo didn’t look frightened or anxious though, despite clutching herself protectively, more like relieved. Like a filly who’s just had a very satisfying meal.

Twilight watched carefully to see if there was any point when Scootaloo’s expression changed, or her eyes widened or anything, but Scootaloo just collected herself calmly after that, and stood up on her hooves again. Slurped up Archer’s tail. Wiped at her nose. “Alright, I’m done,” Scootaloo mumbled, not looking directly at any of the ponies in the room. “Now let’s do the other thing, so I can go to bed.”

Twilight herself did look at the ponies they were presenting for. The palm tree stallion was looking a little green, and one of the police ponies had fainted on the spot. Junebug was looking every which way except at Scootaloo. Honestly, the only ponies who weren’t adversely affected at the sight of that were Twilight herself, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. Well Fluttershy wasn’t... ...adversely affected...

“That was incredible!” Fluttershy shouted, jumping up onto the table, wings outspread. “How did you do that? Do you do that all the time? Are you too crowded? I’ve always wanted to see mice do that, but I never had the heart to crowd them. How hungry do you have to be? How many are there of you?” She trotted towards Scootaloo as she spoke, down off the table and right past Twilight. Twilight smiled fondly at the excited pegasus mare, not nearly as frightened of her as Scootaloo was. Fluttershy swept Scootaloo up into the air, drifting in circles with her at hoof length, exclaiming, “It’s just so wonderful you’re the most incredible amazing creature I’ve ever seen!”

It looked like “palm trees” whatsisface and Junebug shared Twilight’s understanding of the situation. Junebug was even rolling her eyes and mouthing out the words ‘most incredible amazing creature’ as Fluttershy said them. Applejack had a knowing look in her eyes, but maintained her position of silent support, and Rainbow Dash just crossed her arms and huffed impatiently.

Twilight couldn’t imagine how Fluttershy wouldn’t be on Creature Control, while at the same time Twilight couldn’t imagine Fluttershy had the best qualifications for the ‘control’ aspect of it. Especially considering Fluttershy’s reaction to real parasprites, which—judging from how she was lovingly nuzzling Scootaloo in mid-air, and ignoring the filly’s furious struggles—hadn’t changed much in the interim.

Twilight couldn’t help but smile though. She loved seeing Fluttershy coming out of her shell once and a while. Fluttershy really was in her own world when it came to the sea of diversity outside of the boundaries of a stable society. However nice a change as it was, Twilight was not willing to let Fluttershy drag the filly’s entire life story out of her tonight. As fascinating as that might be, and potentially vital, it was very direly late, and Twilight wanted to wrap this up as soon as she could. 

“Terribly sorry, but it has gotten awfully late!” Twilight said to Fluttershy’s back, with a sly wink to Scootaloo, who was currently being hugged over Fluttershy’s shoulder like a limp ragdoll, completely boggle eyed. “We really need to wrap this up, so that these poor little fillies can get their sleep.”

Twilight smiled around at Fluttershy placatingly, if a bit pleadingly.

“The poor dear,” Fluttershy exclaimed sympathetically, swooping acroos the room as enthusiastic as she ever was, “We simply must get her to bed!”

“Yes, yes,” Twilight agreed curtly, with both hooves on Fluttershy’s chest, pushing Fluttershy back from her impulsive flight to leave the front lobby without another thought, to drop Scootaloo off in what looked like it was going to be Twilight Sparkle’s own bedroom. “There is just one more thing,” Twilight urged, “Before I can let you all retire for the night, peacefully and calmly. It’s very important, because it’s probably why Pinkie Pie thought up all those crazy stories in the first place.”

“Oh, okay Twilight,” Fluttershy said, giving Twilight a serious look with her one visible eye. “You certainly have convinced me. I don’t know about the rest.”

“Just trust me on this,” Twilight drawled, “You’ll all sleep a lot better at night if we do this one last thing.”

Fluttershy set Scootaloo down, the filly swaying drunkenly in place as she did. Fluttershy gently patted Scootaloo’s head, then seemed to think better of it. Then she flew back to her place behind the table, sitting quietly.

“You’ve seen the worst of it,” Twilight suggested ominously, “So I think we can cut straight to the demonstration. Scootaloo?”

Scootaloo faced away from Twilight and stood there, staring off into space. Twilight started to get a little nervous. “Scootaloo?” she prompted again.

“I’m trying!” Scootaloo snapped tensely. “It’s just—it’s hard with ponies watching.”

Fluttershy perked up at that, and her voice was clear in the silence of Scootaloo’s consternation. “Twilight, excuse me,” Fluttershy said, “Do you have a big blanket I could borrow?”

“Well, there’s the one on the guest bed,” Twilight said uncertainly. “Why, you mean like a security blanket?”

“Something like that,” Fluttershy said, then nodded slowly with a smile.

“Alrighty then,” Twilight said agreeably, lighting up her... right.

“Scootaloo, could you hold on a bit?” Twilight craned down and asked the filly. “I need to get a blanket for Fluttershy.”

Scootaloo sat back on her haunches and started blushing deeply, saying, “Sorry Miss Twilight, I just... sorry.” She trailed off into a mumble.

“You just take your time,” Fluttershy cooed over at the filly. “We’re not here to hurt you. Twilight thinks this is important, and she surely has a good reason.”

“No, it is important,” Scootaloo said with an agitated tail twitch. “It’s just that it’s kinda embarassing. I’m not used to– I mean—”

“Would it help if you ate something?” Twilight asked, halfway out of the room. She didn’t wait for Scootaloo to reply, saying, “Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. The pantry should be unlocked. I’d avoid the quackers, though.”

Scootaloo snickered behind her. Smiling, Twilight went into the back of the library. She wasted no time in retrieving the blanket from the cool, quiet interior, returning to the front feeling fascinatingly awkward with how she had to brace it in her teeth and drape it over her back to carry it. She released it with a flourish, whereupon Fluttershy caught it in her... wings. Scootaloo hadn’t returned yet, so Twilight went to check on her just in case. She was sure Scootaloo didn’t want to spoil her chances any more than Twilight did, but it never hurt to be careful.

“You alright back here?” Twilight asked hesitantly. Scootaloo looked fine, if a little... stretchy. Twilight certainly didn’t need to stretch as far as that to reach the faucet, which Scootaloo was currently using to pour herself a glass of water. It was adorable how small fillies were sometimes, even if Scootaloo wasn’t quite as small as she perhaps should have been. Over on the table, there was a half eaten bag of butter crunch cookies. It looked like Scootaloo had things under control.

“I’m fine, I sleep over at Sweetie’s all the time,” Scootaloo said to Twilight matter-of-factly, cradling the glass of water against her chest.

Twilight tilted her head slightly, leading her on with “So, that means...?”

“Well, she has a kitchen,” Scootaloo explained. “And a sink. So I know all about this stuff.” She took a long drink.

Twilight nodded solemnly, pushing back the troubling thoughts that brought up, then walked over to check on the ponies in the front lobby. She poked her head out of the kitchen, and snorted at what she saw out through the hall. “I think they’re ready for you, Scootaloo,” Twilight Sparkle said, with an ironic twist in her voice.

Scootaloo hesitantly looked out the door to the kitchen, then ventured down the hall toward the front room, with Twilight closely behind. Somehow Fluttershy had even convinced the police ponies, and they all were clustered closely together, huddled underneath the pink blanket that had been on Twilight’s guest bed, a few luminous eyes peeking out from underneath it.

“Well, I don’t see any ponies here, Scootaloo,” Twilight said playing along, “I guess that means we’re all alone here!”

“Heh heh, yeah...” Scootaloo said unconvincingly. “Alright, I can do this...” she added, solely to herself. Twilight didn’t move a muscle to interrupt her. The filly was still confounded, it seemed, but then she lifted a hoof and stuck it down her throat. Her eyes bugged out and she pulled it out, giving a few tense, distressful hurks. Her gut actually rippling a few times before contracting sharply, a large bolus erupting out of Scootaloo’s mouth, her mouth—for a moment—once again, open to an unusual degree.

Twilight hadn’t exactly been of a mind to observe it closely the last time, being that it was literally possible to miss it if you blinked. But when paying attention, Twilight had a keen ability to retain very fine details. What came out of Scootaloo’s mouth was presumably Archer, though it looked more like a gooey blue hairball, if cats could throw up hairballs as large as their entire body, that is. There was actually enough force in the process to send it flying a few feet, whereupon it hit the ground wetly. Whatever water and cookies Scootaloo had consumed had been instantly converted into this bizarre amorphous substance.

It really did kind of look like a parasprite throwing up.

Once the bolus landed, it shifted about like the living thing that it was. Archer’s mane and tail emerged as if she had been tightly curled up, and her body swiftly unfolded, like a cork out of a wine bottle. She appeared to be absorbing whatever fluid was in contact with her as she stood up, though any discarded splatters not in contact with her remained. It was impossible to verify visually whether her fur emerged from the substance, or whether it became fur itself.

Twilight blinked, and it was over. She looked nervously at the mysterious pink blanket creature, lurking there near the entrance to the library, completely still. Then she looked back at the fill(y/ies). Scootaloo was watching Archer pensively, and it was actually Archer who was the one to address the crowd. Archer turned to them with a weak smile, lifting a hoof and going, “Tadaa.”

Twilight facehooved. She had clearly overemphasized the performance nature of this demonstration to the fillies, way too much.

“In conclusion,” Twilight said slowly, drawing her hoof away from her face, “These fillies reproduce like parasprites, but they are much more complex in that they deproduce, apparantly in times of resource scarcity, and that they are fully intelligent, with a full, if somewhat colored spectrum of emotions. The story that they devour foals is false, and is based on the fact that when they deproduce it looks like they’re devouring foals, but in fact they’re only doing it with each other. This deproduction process is so different from the act of eating or devouring, that they somehow retain the information about the ones who have been eaten, and can fully reproduce the original filly, given enough to eat to account for the difference, or recovery.”

Picking up the presentation pointer, “Nofony is dying,” Twilight emphasized, on a point-by-point basis. Her very last chart, in fact. “No foals are disaph– hold on.”

Twilight spat out the presentation pointer and reached up with a hoof, carefully sliding off the horn suppressor. She had to be careful, because at her level, when her magic rushed back, the significant spatial distortion bowing the air around her horn, could possibly damage this fragile horn suppressor. It did not damage it however, because Twilight is a very careful pony. Placing it on the reading table, she raised the pointer in her eager magic, repeating herself more clearly this time.

“Nopony is dying. No foals are disappearing. Nopony is being eaten. Pinkie Pie is seriously disturbed. End of story.” Twilight was particularly proud of her 21.2 second sketch of Pinkie Pie there, complete with curly mane and scribbled frowny face.

“Any questions?” she added, facing them with a sweet smile.

Scootaloo spoke up crabbily. “Can we please go to bed now?”

“An excellent question, Scootaloo,” Twilight said pertly. “I think the answer depends on Fluttershy. She does have your blanket, after all.”

The pony blanket amalgam sprouted a bulge in it, as if a pegasus underneath had just flown up into the air saying, “Oh my gosh I’m so sorry!”

“I had a question,” Rainbow Dash said, fluttering to the ground by Scootaloo. “Were you really more embarrassed to spit Archer out, than you were to swallow her?” she asked the filly, seeming understandably bewildered by what she saw.

“Well, it’s!” Scootaloo said in protest, her words cutting off, as she actually formulated her answer, “Well, it’s messier when she comes out! Now I have to clean it all up. And it’s weird and gross and doesn’t feel good.”

“I’ll take care of the cleaning, Scootaloo,” Twilight assured the filly. “I should be thanking you for providing fluid samples for study! Ohh gosh I have to go get some pipettes. Everypony wait here and–”

“Hold on,” Chief Drops said, standing up after Fluttershy had risen off of them with the blanket. “I think there’s no reason for our presence any longer. You and Creature Control can work everything out on your own. That being said, how are we supposed to get out of here? You have the whole place shielded!”

“Eheh,” Twilight grinned nervously, “Yes I’ll get that right away, one moment.” She shot a beam into the shield and slid her horn signature into the control interface, decoupling the mana conduit and enabling the collection siphon. As such, when her shield ‘shattered’ it did not so much fall into wasted shards as it faded out, like a diminishing light. “I think it safe to say we don’t need that thing in place,” Twilight said happily. “The advantage of an unruly mob, is you get to resolve everypony’s problems all at once!”

Drops blinked at her.  “The shield is down,” Twilight said flatly, “Everyone may leave as they will. I assume Rainbow Dash will be helping me with her sleepover between Scootaloo, Archer and... where’s Licky anyway?”

There was a crashing sound from Twilight’s bedroom, along with the faint sound of Spike’s voice shouting, “Licky, no!”

“Alright, I’m going to make the bed,” Rainbow Dash said in a ‘not-it’ sort of fashion. “I think Fluttershy needs some help... looks like she thinks the bed is in the bathroom.” Indeed, Fluttershy emerged from it blushing, standing with the pink blanket neatly folded on her svelte posterior. Scootaloo glanced at Archer, who gave a sharp nod and ran for Twilight’s bedroom heading quickly up the stairs from whence she came.

The police were already making their way out—well, Chief Drops was at any rate, dragging the unconscious bodies of her two deputies behind her by the tails.

“Can we talk with Scootaloo tomorrow?” the palm tree stallion said eagerly, trotting up to Twilight. “We really want to find out about what kind of creature she is!”

“I don’t see why not,” Twilight said agreeably, “I have to warn you though, the answer to that question is up to Scootaloo.”

“Right now I just want to sleep,” Scootaloo said stiffly, but reluctantly added, “But I guess they can, if they’re cool about it.”

“I-I’d really appreciate it,” Junebug said to the filly. “E-even if you are the only one. Ones. Twos?”

“The only ones,” Junebug decided on, stammering, with a blush, “O-of your kind, I mean.”

“Yeah, okay,” Scootaloo said dimly, with a distant look in her eyes. “I don’t know anypony else like me, so... yeah.”

Junebug smiled and trotted out of the library followed by the palm tree stallion, who never had introduced himself, after all that.

With Fluttershy busy with Rainbow Dash, that just left Applejack. Twilight looked at the orange mare who was her friend, who’d been so supportive all this time. She was still standing there at ready to defend Twilight or the fillies, an protective expression on her face with the brim of her hat turned down. Applejack was so admirable. She really did embody everything you’d want in a good friend. “You going to stand there all night?” Twilight asked her in a bit of a smarmy tone. When Applejack didn’t answer, Twilight repeated her question. What she got in response, was a soft, almost unnoticeable snore.

After Applejack charged off in embarassment, Fluttershy, also made herself scarce, the two of them retreating to their own soft warm beds in various parts of town. With everypony out of the library, and Twilight seriously considering getting a physical lock, for a door to a public library, she went back to check on Rainbow Dash and the three fillies. Spike was long gone to dragon dreams in his favorite little basket bed. Archer and Scootaloo were both cradled on either side of Licky, singing her to sleep in that peculiar fashion of theirs. Twilight carefully lifted the three of them with a cushion of powered air, and Rainbow Dash eased them gently onto the bed, made crisp and clean thanks to Fluttershy, but soon rumpled and homey as the fillies made themselves comfortable wrapping up in the blankets and sheets.

Dash didn’t go to bed right away, instead pulling Twilight into the hall away from the fillies. “I did have one more question,” Rainbow Dash whispered to her. “It’s kind of... I wasn’t sure if I should say it in front of everypony. I didn’t want to mess you up, I mean, your lecture, but I mean, you should know this.”

“What is it, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked feeling some amount of honest concern at the uncertain demeanor of the rainbow pegasus.

“I don’t like to make a big deal about uh... ‘it’ you know,” Rainbow Dash said, tapping her forehooves together nervously. “But I mean, I heard what Pinkie Pie was saying. I saw her acting like that, like how she did, and all.”

“Yes?” Twilight prompted the nervous pegasus.

“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said tensely, “Pinkie Pie wasn’t lying.”

“About what?” Twilight said in confusion, “She had to be lying about–”

“About everything!” Rainbow hissed loudly, with a nervous wing twitch. She was clearly agitated about this. “Everything she said, she really did mean... I mean, she wasn’t trying to trick us at all. She was being totally honest the whole time!”

“I don’t understand,” Twilight whispered back loudly, and equally agitated now. “She has to be lying! We proved her wrong!”

“I um...” Dash glanced around, leaning closer to Twilight and saying, “I don’t really know if I want to sleep with those fillies again. I mean, you never know.”

“It’s perfectly safe, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight reassured her insistently. “Just think how devastated they’d be, if they thought you were afraid to sleep with them!”

“But... yeah, but... but...” Rainbow Dash countered haltingly, “If they’re so safe, then how could Pinkie not be lying?”

Twilight smiled at her friend, resting a calming hoof on her shoulder. “Pinkie Pie may not be lying,” she said gently, “But that doesn’t mean Pinkie Pie isn’t completely wrong. If you are right and she is being sincere, then that opens up a number of troubling implications, chiefly being who told Pinkie Pie that story and how did they convince her it was true? What she was saying is provably, demonstrably false. You know it, as much as I do. I can confidently tell you that I know you’ll be in no danger whatsoever of those three fillies. Scootaloo loves you, Rainbow Dash.”

Both Twilight and Rainbow Dash blushed hotly when those words spilled out of Twilight’s mouth. She probably shouldn’t have said it that way. But the fact remained that Scootaloo would hurt herself, before she let Rainbow Dash get hurt. Even if she could hurt Rainbow, there’s no way in Tartarus that the filly, or any progeny of hers, would do such a thing. She never had before, and she never will.

“You’re right, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said tensely. She forced her wings to relax, lifting her head and looking Twilight with those deep magenta eyes. “You’re a really great friend, you know that?” Rainbow Dash said to her with a small smile.

Twilight broke their gaze first, curling a hoof up as if to rub the blush out of her face. “You too, Rainbow Dash,” she said tenderly. “Now let’s both get to bed, without any regrets okay?”

Rainbow Dash grinned and nodded, spinning and darting back into the guest room. Her “look out below!” could be heard to the tune of three screaming fillies about to be cannon-ball-bedded. Twilight just rolled her eyes and headed wearily on up to bed. Despite her nap earlier today, she was already weary enough for a full night’s sleep. Soon with her warm comforter around her chin, and the heat from a special little assistant warming the foot of her bed, Twilight slept better than she had in days.

Too bad just a hoofful of hours later, still some time before the sun rose, Rainbow Dash was pulling Twilight out of bed, and shaking her violently, declaring “Twilight! Help!!”

“What? What’s... Rainbow, what—” Twilight said confusedly, hooves tangled in her rumply blankets.

“It’s the fillies!” Dash exclaimed to her face, “I did the best I could do, but but they keep getting out and I don’t know how! You gotta do something!”

“Rainbow Dash, what happened?” Twilight shouted back to her, “What about the fillies? What’s going on?”

“Just listen!”

As soon as she listened, Twilight wished she hadn’t. Her irises narrowed as the familiar sound of a one pony marching band drifted jovially through her ears.
> Dear Princess Celestia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash swore she could feel lightning flowing off her wings when she walked out of that spa. She felt frikkin awesome, more than usual that is. After making Granny Smith swear to never tell a soul what everypony in Ponyville just witnessed, Rainbow Dash took off into the skies, feeling euphoric at the change from solid cramped ground to the infinite freedom of the sky. She crowed out happily and flipped in the air. It didn’t matter that it had taken all day to fix her up and get everything patched together, because she was Rainbow Dash, and she was feeling good, and she was flying, and finally, free.

Of course it didn’t hurt, that the dim of the early evening shielded her from the eyes of any snooty coworkers, still trying to seek her out. The thought of that kind of forced Rainbow Dash to come back to reality, thinking now over her options in the current situation. There were three things Rainbow Dash knew. First, Applejack supposedly, maybe wasn’t really evil. Second, Twilight saved Archer and Licky, but she had left Scootaloo behind, and that meant Scootaloo was by hersel–no, she’d still be with Cheerilee. Third, she uh... third, she...

There were two things Rainbow Dash knew. First, Applejack wasn’t really evil. Second, Twilight saved Archer and Licky. Third, Scootaloo was with Cheerilee. Wait, third? You know what, never mind. Rainbow Dash blasted off towards Sweet Apple Acres, where Twilight had said she and Scootaloo were going to look for Apple Bloom. There, Dash found absolutely nothing, and absolutely nopony. The farm house looked empty, at least no lights were lit in it, and the surrounding area was clear of ponies, Apple or otherwise. Dash had just settled to the ground to check out some peculiar scuff marks in the grass, wondering why it looked like a giant ball had been bouncing around here beside the house, when she heard the thundering of a familiar set of hooves coming up from the hill to Ponyville.

Zipping up a safe distance in the air... assuming she didn’t have her lasso... zipping a little bit higher than that, Rainbow Dash shouted down to her orange supposed friend, saying, “Hey Applejack!”

“Get your baby blue butt back here, ya hear!” Applejack shouted out, once Dash came in hearing range.

Rainbow scratched her head. “You’re not gonna hit me again, are you?” she called down.

“Course not!” Applejack shouted, “Ah’m sorry ah did! You get down here, because ah need your help!”

“Well alright!” Dash said, landing with a hot clump and crouching down, “But I’m warning you I’m ready for ya this time!”

Applejack didn’t attack though, merely took off her hat and said, “Ah’m sorry ah went and jumbled you up. I was bein’ played for like a fool and shoulda known better.” Before Dash could reply she slammed her hat back on and said, “But that don’t give you an excuse to run away first time you see me!”

“Does it look like I’m running away?” Rainbow said, lashing her tail agitatedly. “What are you talking about?”

Applejack shook her head. “Ah mean the spa ya numbsk–”

“Who told you about the spa?!” Rainbow Dash demanded fearfully getting in Applejack’s face. “It wasn’t my idea! They forced me to! It was your stupid kick that did it! I told Granny to never tell a–”

“As I recall,” Applejack interrupted firmly, “You told her to ‘never tell a soul about this’ and she laughed and said you already told the whole town with your bellyachin’. Ah was right there after all!”

Rainbow backed up, but Applejack stayed in her face, walking forward saying, “And before ah could even get a word in edgewise, you went and blasted out the door! I had to chase you all around Ponyville just now!”

Rainbow Dash laughed nervously, saying, “Oh, you were there huh? I didn’t see you, sorry, heh. Heh.”

Thankfully Applejack straightened up then, asking Dash confusedly, “Wait, y’really didn’t see me?”

“I was kinda in a hurry to get out of there,” Rainbow said, scratching at a fetlock bashfully

“Well you better be in a hurry,” Applejack said, picking up steam again. “We got the whole town in a tizzy over this Scootaloo thing. They’re marchin’ on the warpath, and before you ask yes, yes ah know Scootaloo ain’t eatin’ foals. Pinkie used mah little sister to get at me, but now that I talked with Apple Bloom ah realize it was just one big old ghost story.”

“She went after Apple Bloom?” Rainbow Dash uttered in astonishment. Applejack nodded grimly. “Man, that’s low even for her,” Dash said shaking her head.

“Archer and the uh, extra one are... safe,” Applejack said warily, with a glance to the foliage as she did. “But ah cain’t find hide nor hair of Scootaloo, and Big Mac and Cheerilee are both missing too!”

“Can’t help you much, Applejack,” Rainbow Dash admitted, “I haven’t been able to find anypony either. It’s too dark out!”

“Well, hain’t you seen any o’ them torches?” Applejack asked grumpily.

Rainbow Dash shook her head, “It’s not dark enough to see if anypony was carrying a torch around. Sheesh you think I got eagle eyes?”

Applejack gave her a... look. “Is it too dark, or ain’t it?” the earth pony asked exasperatedly.

Rainbow Dash blinked. Her eyes widened in realization. “Ohh,” she said, “Yeah it was about halfway, so I guess it was both too dark and not dark enough.”

Applejack gave a displeased groan, her tail lashing in agitation. “Look,” she said, “How long do you think before it gets dark enough that you can spot a pony carryin’ a torch?”

Rainbow Dash looked up, and said “Uh... now? Celestia sets the sun pretty fast, you know.”

“Can you go take a looksee, then?” Applejack asked evenly. “Just try to spot any ponies that might be after Scootaloo, with their torches and all.”

“No problem AJ,” Dash said, spreading her wings, “I am on top of it!” And with that, she shot into the sky. The stars were already coming out, sprinkling across the sky like a moon princess were scattering them like flower petals. Dash remained focused on the ground though, looking for a pony’s own form of personal little star, the shining light of a torch. And wouldn’t you know, but it wasn’t more than a few minutes before a bunch of flickering glimmers caught Rainbow Dash’s eye.

It really was embarassing too, because the lights were all way up on the schoolhouse hill. It was partially obscured by the trees but still, it’s not like they weren’t visible from far away, or covered by a rooftop. Dash approached the building with interest at first, and then stopped so hard she was backpedalling in midair. What the buck was she looking at? The ponies were gathered around the schoolhouse like they were looking to set it on fire! They had real live burning torches, held high in hooves and sideways in mouths, curling oily smoke into the air. They weren’t just a few ponies either, but a whole mob! And were those... pitchforks?

Then the action exploded at the front of the building. Rainbow Dash couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was pony against pony down there. There was an outright brawl going on, no not a brawl a desperate push by a few ponies trying to break through the line against overwhelming odds. Dash was ready to swoop down and save the day, when she realized those ponies were none other than Big Macintosh and Cheerilee. She looked back at the Acres nervously, not sure if she should help or warn Applejack or if Scootaloo was with them or what. The mare and stallion were pushing ponies out of the way, clearing out a space and taking quite a few hits themselves and, then an orange streak shot between them in a roar of wings and the cry of an alarmed crowd. It was Scootaloo!

Dash shot after Scootaloo herself, on pure reflex, but that filly was going fast, and she had found a scooter somewhere in the school house, so her travel was practically frictionless. Rainbow Dash strained to catch up, beating her wings strongly, and then–woah! She had to abruptly bank left as the library loomed in her vision. Scootaloo didn’t even pause, shooting in the open doors like a bullet, slamming them closed behind her with her tail. Dash circled the library, but there were no lights on inside, and she couldn’t tell if Twilight was even in there anymore. She had to be there though, because where else would Twilight have gone after saving Archer and Licky?

Rainbow looked to the west, where the thundering of hooves and beating of wings was swiftly approaching. She knew she was tough, better than tough, but she couldn’t get them all. Applejack could have held them up at the door maybe, but Dash just didn’t have the weight for that. So she shot away from the library. It would be fine, if Twilight was there, but was she there? Rainbow was fast enough to get there and back before anypony could break in, but was Applejack? Rainbow had to hurry if they were going to stop these ponies from getting their hooves on Scootaloo.

She shot past the schoolhouse, just in time to see Big Macintosh and Cheerilee fall, swiftly buried by ponies eager to take them down. Darn her indecisiveness she should have helped them, right away! She just kept flying past instead, hoping that they’d be alright. They had good hearts in them those two, but what Rainbow Dash needed now was on a different level. Like, evil god butt-kicking level.

“Applejack!” she shouted before she even landed. She landed in front of the orange pony shouting, “They’re at the library! Scootaloo’s in there! You didn’t say they’d have actual torches! They took down Big Mac and Cheerilee! We got to get there right away!”

Applejack turned away from the second story window, where Apple Bloom was looking down at them with wide eyes. She looked across the orchard toward Ponyville and growled inwardly, scraping a hoof. “What did ya think ah meant by torches, you silly filly?” she asked Rainbow Dash out of the side of her mouth. “Lollipops?”

Rainbow Dash started to shout at Applejack, but then blinked. “You know? What you usually use for torches?” Rainbow interjected. “You know, flashlights? These were real live on-fire torches!”

“Can ya carry me?” Applejack bit out tensely.

“Wha?” Rainbow Dash asked cluelessly.

“What ah said. Can you carry me to the library?” Applejack spat out, her ears going low.

Rainbow looked at her sideways, saying “We can probably make it if we run.”

“It ain’t fast enough!” Applejack shouted, glaring at Rainbow Dash. “Just do it, before ah chicken out!”

Rainbow Dash was anything if not quick to respond. Without another word, she took to the air, zooming over Applejack and hooking her under the forelegs, pulling her up with her. Dash didn’t even check to see if Applejack was okay, just beat her wings hard to drag the two of them above the tree line, then poured on the speed, rocketing past the now dark school house, straight for the library shaped like a tree.

Rainbow suddenly shot up vertically in a disconcerting jolt, when Applejack heaved against her, slipping free of Rainbow’s forelegs to plummet down to the ground. Rainbow banked around to approach again, scoping out the situation. The lights in the library were on, downstairs at least. The courtyard was entirely empty though, and the front door was wide open. That was where Applejack landed solidly, running as soon as she did through the door, and into the library proper. The cries of alarm, and earth shaking crashes you would expect of bodies hitting the wall, soon emanated from the tree building in question.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t here to enjoy the show though. She dove headfirst through the door and slammed into the nearest pony she saw who wasn’t Applejack. It was, oh horse apples it was Blossomforth. Rainbow Dash was immediately caught in a steel hard joint lock, and every time she winged out of it she got twisted into another one. It didn’t help that there were like a dozen ponies trying to ponypile her and her poorly chosen foe. It was a good ten minutes before Rainbow Dash exploded from the pile of angry, sweaty ponies and rolled the boggled tangle of Blossomforth gently out the door. Then dove into the next pony, thankfully not nearly as hard to smack down as the first one.

Applejack was like ten ponies ahead of her by then, and that meant Rainbow Dash had to work extra hard to catch up with her. Now that she was free, Rainbow redoubled her efforts, and Applejack’s tense exchange with Bon-Bon helped Dash close the gap. They were neck-and-neck at 22 ponies each, when more ponies started to rocket out from the stairwell leading to the upstairs bedroom, like they were shot out of a cannon or a waterslide, smacking into the walls and floor, and other ponies, making Rainbow and Applejack’s job that much easier. Dash didn’t know what was going on, and was too preoccupied with giving ponies the beat down, to notice when Twilight Sparkle quietly walked down the stairs, herself.

Dash grabbed the pony by the legs she was kicking with, and took off, using the hapless pony’s head as a club to take out a whole swath of ponies at once. She dropped the dark magenta pony in a heap and continued to hurtle, landed sideways on the library wall. From there, she shot like a bullet, sending another half dozen ponies flying, hopefully knocking some of them out in the process. It was then that Twilight Sparkle jumped on the table, and asked everypony politely to leave the library, at a loud enough volume it made Rainbow’s ears ring.

And wouldn’t you know, a lot of ponies were smart enough to listen to her. That would have made Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s job easier, but then Twilight went and dragged Applejack into the back of the library, leaving Rainbow Dash having to clean up this mess solo. The only really worrisome pony left to deal with was that berry colored one though, who didn’t even seem to notice the effect of Dash using her head as a club, and just came at her swinging. Freaking earth ponies.

Nevertheless, Rainbow Dash did manage to take out the trash, laying out any unruly ponies flat on the floor until they weren’t getting back up again any time soon. Well, serves them right for listening to ghost stories, and trying to mess with Dash’s new best sister! Applejack seemed more focused on herding ponies, out than punishing their skulls anymore, and Rainbow Dash learned why after the last pony standing had thundered out. Applejack was smart, see, and she must have sussed what Twilight was planning on, that “out of the library” didn’t only apply to conscious ponies. So now it was all Rainbow Dash’s fault, apparantly, and she had to be the one to drag the unconscious ponies out, even the ones that Applejack knocked out! Except for the ones who fell down the stairs, who were all already outside. Must have been some other pony dragging them out, or Twilight when Rainbow Dash wasn’t looking. But there were still a dozen or three unconscious bodies to deal with, and some of them weren’t unconscious enough and laid into you!

Rainbow Dash didn’t complain though. She took the undeserved blame, with tactfulness and grace. So there was no excuse for Twilight to keep rolling her eyes at her, every time Rainbow Dash just—you know, mentioned about how unfair it was that she had to do this. Let’s see if Rainbow Dash ever told Twilight the truth, the next time! You try to just inform ponies, about how activities are below your station, and suddenly everypony’s a critic.

The rest of the evening, and night, continued as you may have known it did. The shield went up, Twilight got to give a big long lecture that doesn’t even bear repeating, and once again Dash got to sleep with the fillies. You didn’t hear this from her, but Rainbow Dash secretly found it incredibly adorable the way that Licky filly would hug her as if for support in the middle of sleep, burying her nose into Rainbow Dash’s flank as she snuggled close. She was kind of like Scootaloo really, Licky that is, if only Scootaloo hadn’t had that... thing, where she can’t open up to any pony. Whatever you called that sort of thing. Scootaloo’s closed up thing. Also Scootaloo talked, and remembered stuff. Licky didn’t do that.

It was Licky, who woke Rainbow Dash up before the sun rose though, by stepping on Dash’s face, on her way with the other two fillies off the bed. Dash spluttered and sat up, rubbing her sore nose. “What was that all about?” she asked irritatedly but nopony was answering. “Hey, where are you going?” she asked as the three of them vanished around the corner to the hallway.

Rainbow trotted out after them saying, “Hey, wait up! Where are you going?”

“Outside,” Scootaloo mentioned casually, not even slowing down.

“Woah, woah!” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s totally dark outside. You can’t go out now!”

“Oh we can,” Archer said happily. “The door has no lock!”

Rainbow Dash blasted past them sliding up facing them with her back to the front door. “And just why are you going outside? You should be in bed right now!” she stated authoritatively.

“Can’t you hear it?” Archer said astonishedly, head whipping around as she searched the dark shadowed room. Now that Dash thought about it...

“It’s Pinkie Pie’s song,” Scootaloo said from behind Rainbow Dash, pulling open the door. “We’re going to follow it to the river and die!” she said cheerfully, jumping outside. How did she get behind–!

Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure exactly when her heart stopped, when Scootaloo somehow ended up behind her, or when she said that, or how she said that or when Rainbow Dash ran out after her, or how switching on the porchlight only revealed how the blackness of night swallowed Scootaloo up like a glove as she left the light’s glow, or when Pinkie Pie was nowhere to be seen, yet the sound of her music was coming from all around like a terrifying carnival. Rainbow was fairly sure it was thudding frantically by the time she charged up to Scootaloo though.

“Go back, Scootaloo!” Dash shouted in a panic, shouldering the filly towards the library. Now Archer was outside too, and Licky was coming out the window. Scootaloo ignored her, and dodged around her easily, saying,

“It’s okay, Rainbow Dash I want to follow it!”

“What are you saying?!” Rainbow Dash practically screamed yanking the filly–her teeth caught air. She ran after Scootaloo but her aim was all to pieces she was so frazzled. Scootaloo wasn’t even moving very fast why couldn’t Rainbow Dash get that stupid tail?!

“C’mon Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo called out behind her, “Let’s all go together!”

Finally, Rainbow just grabbed Scootaloo in one hoof entirely, and took off making a beeline through the air for the library. She clotheslined Archer on the way, pushing them inside through sheer forward momentum, then slammed the door closed with them inside, then propped the broken sign up on the doorknob. Then, she turned around and chased after Licky.

Dragging Licky back by the scruff, Rainbow Dash found both fillies already outside again, climbing out the first story window. The one that sticks all the time, ever since Rainbow Dash crashed through it, and doesn’t open anymore. It was hanging right open, and they were bouncing away from it obliviously, in the same direction from which Rainbow Dash came. Dash threw Licky in through the window, and closed it–the window was stuck. The window was still stuck, but open this time! It wouldn’t close! She growled angrily, jamming it closed with a wrenching sound, and charged after the other two fillies again.

They struggled so much, Dash had to drag them back one at a time, throwing Scootaloo against the door, then going to get Archer, then throwing Archer against the door to grab Scootaloo, then pulling open the door, grabbing them both and zooming inside. Licky had gotten the window open again somehow so Rainbow Dash threw the two fillies she had into one of the hall closets, before they could go after it.

Dragging over a bookshelf, she hurled that against the closet door too, slamming it shut just as the fillies opened it, trapping Scootaloo and Archer inside. Then she ran out and grabbed the easy Licky, rushing inside with her and slamming the door. Rainbow Dash threw Licky aside, and heaved with her posterior, a giant atlas of the world flying through the air, to slam against the window. Licky had already gotten through it somehow. Licky had gotten through!

Dash ran outside again, dragged Licky back in, slammed the door, nailed the atlas firmly against the window, dragged another bookshelf to the front door, and braced it against the door with a clunk. She stomped down on four hooves facing Licky with a confident smile saying, “There, now what are you going to do?!” Licky didn’t answer but just looked at her with frantic eyes, while the sounds of Archer and Scootaloo laughing, lightly drifted in from outside. Wait, what?!

Dash carried Licky to the closet– the bookshelf was still blocking it! She pulled away the bookshelf, threw Licky in the closet, pushed back the bookshelf, ran to the front door, dragged away the bookshelf, ran outside, and had to repeat her game of filly tag, grabbing one even as the other slipped out of her arms easily, then grabbing the other while the one continued to pursue the music. When she threw them inside, she saw Licky rounding the back of the library.

Rainbow Dash slammed the door, bracing it closed with the sign again, desperately, and carried Licky around behind the library, where ...another window was open, and this one wasn’t a window that opened at all! It was a little rusty with age of course, and needed replacing, and that’s probably why it fell out of its frame, but... but why now?! She threw Licky in, threw herself in, then spun like a tornado to grab all three fillies in pure pegasus power. She blasted them into the closet with coats and socks going everywhere, slammed the door closed, propped the bookcase against it, then ran upstairs to get help from Twilight.

And would you believe this, Twilight Sparkle was still asleep! Rainbow yanked the purple unicorn out of bed and shook her by her shoulders, shouting “Twilight! Help!!” right into her face.

Twilight roused quickly, and was soon perched on the sill of her bedroom window, looking down with sharp eyes. Rainbow watched over her shoulder, saying, “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to get her instruments,” Twilight said in irritated haste. “Why isn’t she coming around to this side of the library?”

“I think you need to actually go down there to get her,” Rainbow Dash suggested critically. Twilight blushed and said nothing, but lit up her horn and winked out, appearing a short distance away two stories down on the ground. Twilight ran after something, and then something else caught Rainbow Dash’s eye. It was... it was the fillies! All three of them were outside, strutting along through the light like they hadn’t a care in the world. Rainbow Dash jumped out the window, and went horizontal a foot from the ground, to give her that 10 degree momentum that she used, to spin around the fillies, corral and confuse them. Three carefully timed hip checks sent each filly gone with the wind, one after the other, pulled back into the library. The suction pulled Dash along with too, then. She yelped in surprise as the door slammed closed in her face and the remaining wind tore at the books, falling off the shelves in dozens. Man, Twilight was not going to like that.

“How are you getting out?” Rainbow Dash accused the fillies, who weren’t there to be accused, because had already run away from her back to the ...closet.

She ran into the closet, and there Scootaloo kindly informed her, “Look, there’s a way out through the top! Scootaloo was already half squeezed up, into what looked like a crawlspace, when Rainbow Dash dragged her back into the closet proper. “Let me go!” Scootaloo shouted suddenly desperate and panicking, “I have to follow it!”

“Calm down!” Rainbow shouted at her, “You can uh, follow it right through... that closet over there!” Scootaloo squeaked in delight and wriggled out of Dash’s hooves like a ball of silly putty, charging over to the other closet, running in with abandon and slamming the door closed behind her.

“Hey!” came Scootaloo’s muffled voice from within, even as Rainbow Dash went and braced the bookshelf against the door. Then, Rainbow ran outside, flying laps around the tree looking for where the fillies would come out from–there! They squeezed out from underneath a branch, Archer, then Licky, then they went hopping after the music. Just as Rainbow Dash grabbed them, she saw Twilight Sparkle wink in, looking extremely peeved, especially with the cute way her bed hair frayed out, all scraggly instead of being neatly combed. Dash flew up to Twilight with the two of them–the one of them in her arms. Where did Licky go?! No time.

“Twilight, you have to put up your shield!” Rainbow Dash said earnestly. “There’s no other way to stop these fillies!”

“Couldn’t you just put them in a closet or something?” Twilight snapped irritatedly, “All I need to do is find that fleabitten harpy, and I can stop the song and send her back to the police.”

Rainbow Dash threw Archer in through the broken window then whizzed around to grab Licky before she could leave the light. “I did,” Rainbow Dash said panting hard. She backed against the window, using her ass to stop Archer from getting back out while holding onto an excitedly wiggling Licky. “They found a door in the top to a crawlspace!”

Twilight blinked, and said, “Well, one of the closets has access to the crawlspace yes, but that’s the secondary coat closet, all the way in the back. Why didn’t you put them in the broom closet?”

“Because I—” Rainbow frowned, looking down at her Licky plushie. “I don’t... know,” she said uncertainly, looking at Twilight again, puzzled as all hay.

“Rainbow Dash...” Twilight said pensively, looking back at her with a worried expression, “Where’s Licky?”

“She’s right he–” Dash blinked again, realizing what was in her hooves. “What the...” she threw down the plushie, and looked around trying to find the double orange filly. She had to be somewhere around... there! Twilight’s horn flashed a spotlight, illuminating Licky, who meeped and began running. Dash was faster, and dragged her back, but now Twilight was struggling with Archer whose tail was caught in her magic, but a stray wind kept blowing a branch in Twilight’s face, keeping her from holding her focus.

Dash stuffed Licky in the tree, then stuffed Archer in, then plugged the way in with her rear end again, and shouted, “Twilight, the shield! Hurry!”

“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight growled at her, “First off, done. Second off,” as she spoke the bubble of her magenta magic shimmered into place around the library. “It’s not that simple!” Twilight said. “I can’t lock them in if they aren’t inside in the first place!”

“But, I just got Archer and Licky, and Scootaloo is locked in another closet,” Dash listed off, as shaky as she was about checklists.

“You’re sure they’re all inside,” Twilight said warningly, looking over Rainbow Dash’s shoulder where on the other side of the bubble Scootaloo was prancing away into the shadowy night.

“How could they not–Scootaloo!” Rainbow Dash went flying after the filly who was outside the shield bubble. Twilight turned her head quickly, her searchlight swivelling from Scootaloo to fall on Rainbow Dash.

“Dash, don’t—!” Twilight shouted, right as Rainbow Dash crashed headlong into the solid shield, her forward momentum smooshed flat. She could swear there was a squeaking sound, as she slid down the shield wall.

“I didn’t have time to set up the filter,” Twilight told her crumpled form, trotting up as Rainbow Dash collected herself and shook the stars out of her head. “You can’t just fly through it like this.”

“Well great,” Dash snapped at her, “Now we’re stuck inside here, and Scootaloo gets to skip off to her doom!”

Twilight shook her head again, saying, “No, look,” she pointed at a discoloration on the shield that was coming from her... Twilight’s horn was lit up and her magic was ...making the shield look funny in one place. “You can walk through that,” Twilight said curtly. “Now get out there, and bring back Scootaloo!”

So Rainbow Dash walked uncertainly through the now not solid curtain of light, then blasted off into the darkness. “Other way, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight’s amplified voice called out. Rainbow Dash turned around, and blasted off into the other darkness. She tried to home in on the music, but the sound danced around the alleys confusingly, and there was just no telling. So Dash got some altitude instead, and flew to the edge of town, ignoring trying to find the music, and instead laying in... and instead floating in wait.

There she was! There was Pinkie Pie down there, marching straight for the Everfree forest, just like she had done the last time she put on that contraption, with the parasprites that Pinkie got rid of in the river. That’s what Scootaloo meant when she said... nope! Not gonna happen! Rainbow Dash waited even though Pinkie Pie had cleared the town perimeter, but only until a little orange filly with a magenta mane hopped out of Ponyville, following along behind Pinkie Pie, as if Pinkie was Applejack, and Scootaloo was Winona. Rainbow Dash dive bombed the two of them then, the air edging in her speed as she went after that thrice cursed Tartarus damned accordion–

She missed.

Pinkie Pie sidestepped at just the wrong moment, and Rainbow Dash missed. How did she know Rainbow Dash was even coming?! Dash’s wings creaked with the forces, her hooves digging furrows in the ground as she fought to stop her momentum. Rainbow Dash shot at Pinkie a second time, but she was clearly ready this time, because a root tripped Dash up and left her tumbling past the pink pony unsuccessfully. “Pinkie stop!” Rainbow shouted, totally ignored of course. Being upside down and covered with dirt might have had some effect on lessening her intimidation factor.

So she gave up on Pinkie and just grabbed Scootaloo and—she missed again. “Stop dodging, you–” Dash snatched at Scootaloo with her hoof at just the wrong time, when Scootaloo jumped up, bouncing off Dash’s head, Dash’s back, and then on toward the forest. The third try, Rainbow Dash got her, by knocking Scootaloo over with a burst run and practically falling on top of her, bearing down on the wiggling filly long enough to get a firm grasp on her tail, and then yanking Scootaloo high in the sky. Pinkie was screaming beneath her telling Rainbow Dash to resist the evil, and Scootaloo was screaming directly beneath her, begging her to let her follow the song, and Dash was screaming inside, because if she yelled externally then she would lose her grip on Scootaloo’s tail.

Rainbow Dash landed on top of the library shield, shouting, “G’t h’r!” She wrapped a hoof around Scootaloo’s midsection, still not releasing her tail hold, just to make absolutely totally sure there was no chance this filly could... Scootaloo wasn’t struggling anymore. She wasn’t even struggling anymore! Before Dash could react to that, Twilight came to open the shield.

A blast from Twilight’s horn caused the shield to shimmer beneath Dash, and Rainbow Dash descended into it like it was the surface of intangible water. She spread her wings, and fluttered gracefully to the ground in front of Twilight, not letting Scootaloo go until she was sure that even the discoloration in the shield high above them, was smooth again. Though Dash wasn’t holding her in place, Scootaloo wasn’t prancing away or laughing, but rather breathing heavily and shaking on her feet. She stood before the angry pegasus, stuttering breathlessly at her idol,

“T-thank t-thank you so much R-rainbow Dash you you I’m sorry I couldn’t  I–I just I tried so hard, but I—”

“It’s okay, Scootaloo,” Twilight Sparkle said in a voice entirely devoid of anger or retribution. “You’re safe now.”

“How is it okay?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, rounding on Twilight to direct her anger, and fear. “They were running after Pinkie like parasprites! She was going to drown them in the river, like... like parasprites! Scootaloo wanted to do it!” she shot her head around almost screaming at the little filly, “What is wrong with you?!”

Twilight yanked Rainbow Dash’s ear in her magic, forcing Rainbow Dash to face her again, now saying angrily, at Dash, “Weren’t you listening to my lecture?! It’s an enchantment! The Want It Need It spell! Didn’t you see my demonstration on oh right, you were inside keeping Archer and Licky from running out.” Twilight paused flustered, releasing Rainbow Dash’s ear. That is, she started saying angrily, but then ended on a mollified, somewhat embarassed, quiet realization.

Twilight looked uncertainly into Rainbow Dash’s eyes, and you could almost see the gears turning behind that unicorn’s vivid violet intensity. “You don’t know about the enchantment at all, do you?” Twilight said in an unhappy whimper, her eyes betraying her weariness.

“C-could you repeat it, just one more time?” Dash said meekly, shrinking back at the thought of Twilight being yet another pony who’s terribly disappointed in her. “I might have missed a few parts.”

Twilight brightened and put a hoof to her chest, opening her mouth and inhaling, then her brow darkened and she put her hoof down. Then she sighed at the ground, and looked at Dash deafeatedly saying, “I won’t lecture to you. I know how much you... hate it... so I’ll just tell you. Pinkie’s music is magic. It controls the parasprites like the Want It Need It spell, you remember that, right?”

“Yeah, that was one amazing doll,” Dash said rolling her eyes in mock wistfulness. Twilight groaned, and just turned around to lead them back towards the front of the library, but also turned around in order to smack Rainbow Dash in the face with her tail. Dash probably deserved that.

“Pinkie’s ...music is like a spell,” Twilight explained, leading the three of them back to the library. Scootaloo walked on her own, barely, but refused any assistance. Twilight said, “Except that it only has effect as long as the music is playing, it affects a much larger radius to any who can hear it, and it only affects ponies who are... like Scootaloo.”

“I don’t know why,” Twilight said as she entered the library. The lobby was lit up, and a welcome change from the cloying darkness that had threatened to swallow them up earlier. “It might just be that these fillies are evolutionary throwbacks,” postulated the perplexed purple pony, “Which makes them closely related... enough to parasprites, for an enchantment specific to parasprites to affect them.”

Archer and Licky were off to the side in the lobby, both wrapped in a blanket. Scootaloo ran up to them as soon as she saw them, and Archer pulled her into the blanket too. Spike the dragon was awake too, and looked like he’d rather not be, but was busily adjusting a replacement window, for the old one that had fallen apart in the fillies’ eager exeunt.

Dash looked from Spike, to the fillies, to her unicorn friend who... hadn’t seemed to notice the books scattered around in disarray. “We can’t keep doing this, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash pleaded with her. “Come on, you’re the smart one. You’ve got to know why Pinkie is all nuts about this, and how to stop her from... how to keep these fillies safe.”

“I just don’t, okay?” Twilight snapped sadly. “I don’t... it’s Pinkie Pie! Unless a book all about this is going to mysteriously appear from a hidden compartment behind the bookshelf, we’re not going to... I just I’ve never seen anything like this! I...”

The fillies all clamored quickly across the library, gallopping out the door where the shield was still glowing dully. Dash craned her ears and, sure enough, it was that song again.

Twilight looked vacantly at the empty door, the laughing fillies outside bouncing against the shield, then turned to Dash with such pain in her eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” Twilight said miserably.

“Twilight,” Spike said beside her. He’d walked up to them in his weird two legged walky way, with a dustpan in one hand and a broom in another, both braced against his hips in an admonishing way. “Why don’t you just write a letter to Princess Celestia?”

Twilight blinked slowly, and straightened up, looked at Spike, then gave Dash an incredulous look, gesturing at Spike wordlessly. Rainbow Dash shrugged, not having any idea what this reaction was about. Then Twilight looked at Spike again and shouted, “Are you crazy? How could I write a letter to Princess Celestia like this?”

“My best friend is killing foals!” Twilight shouted storming up to the dragon who had gotten a football helmet and protective pillows from... somewhere, “I’m trapped in a bubble in my own library. Half the town thinks I’m enchanted, and the other half is Fluttershy! Ponies are getting hurt here, and I don’t have any solution to this at all. What exactly can I write to Princess Celestia? What have I learned about this that will fix anything? What lesson have I learned about friendship? Nothing! I can’t write to the princess like this. This is the opposite of the situation I would write her a friendship report!”

Twilight seemed to realize she had backed Spike against the wall then, with her face physically pushing him into it, and backed off a bit. “I–I’m just,” she stammered, wobbling weakly, then trotted hastily towards the stairs to her bedroom.

“Twilight!” Spike shouted after her. She stopped, but didn’t turn around. He didn’t seem entirely terrified of her, but then he was probably used to this sort of thing. “I didn’t mean a friendship report,” he said in a frustrated tone, “I mean the princess knows all sorts of stuff, and she has the whole Canterlot library to research. You should ask her for help!”

He then spoke under his claw, more quietly to Rainbow Dash, muttering, “She’s so old, maybe she saw in person that whole ancient-pony-parasprite thing.”

Dash tried not to snicker at that.

Twilight remained standing with her back to them, then mumbled quietly with her head dipping down, “I don’t want her to know that I failed.”

Dash flicked her own ear with a hoof, saying “What?”

“It’s nothing,” Twilight stated bluntly, turning around and walking towards Spike. “You’re right Spike. This is an emergency. I can’t worry about my pride, when there are three fillies in mortal peril. Take a letter, if you please?”

“With pleasure!” Spike announced, dropping his tools, to go get more tools, letter writing tools that is.




Dear Princess Celestia,

I’m so sorry to write this to you in haste, and there may be many, even crucial details I omit, but this is an emergency. I know you are expecting my report on friendship, but something has happened that I really don’t know how to deal with, and I really, really need your help.

A local filly in Ponyville, or, fillies perhaps is more accurate, has been discovered to have a strange ability. She can—and has to, in fact—reproduce by mouth when she consumes enough food to do so. I’ve never read about a mouth reproducing pony, and what characterises her even more intriguingly is her ability to deproduce by mouth, that is to reverse the reproductive process perfectly symmetrically, with little to no loss of information. I truly, honestly think she may be the missing link between ponies and parasprites. I know that sounds crazy but, I mean there are just too many corollaries for it not to be a strong possibility! I~~~ my friend informs me that you do not need the full report on this, but that I should address the matter at hand.

Pinkie Pie has gone entirely, dangerously insane. She claims these creatures, or ponies rather, are a destructive macroorganism that maliciously consumes baby foals and destroys entire towns. She has woven such a web of lies, presumably from her hatred of whatever-it-is that Scootaloo does. Her grandmother, she references, may have impressed this upon her, a fury as bad as the strife between the three tribes in ancient times! Pinkie Pie believes it totally, as my friend Rainbow Dash will attest, and disproving it for her has served only to make Pinkie Pie more agitated. She is completely impossible to reason with, more than usual, and even now her foul magic fights with the most powerful spells at my disposal.

To make matters worse, and to lend credence to the pony/parasprite evolutionary model, Pinkie Pie’s strange parasprite controlling song also works on these fillies. They cannot resist, even when actively attempting to do so, much like a certain spell I ran afoul of myself before. Thankfully this one only lasts as long as the music plays. But using this song, Pinkie Pie has nearly drowned two fillies, and even perhaps came close to a third, were it not for the fast action just now, of my best friend Rainbow Dash.

I would like to know anything you can tell me of the parasprite/pony connection, and why such a song would affect proto-ponies, but not true modern current day ponies. I also need anything you can tell me about Pinkie Pie’s genealogy. I have good evidence that she grew up in a quarry town called Nickerlite, just south of Cloudsdale, but am unable to access the town’s records without a long trip, and putting three fillies in even more jeopardy. Any medical records kept on Pinkie Pie, you may consider unsealing, as she has clearly become a danger to herself and others. Again, the Ponyville hospital is quite outside my ability to reach at the moment.

I’m terribly sorry about this. I hope the princess can forgive me for asking, but I really don’t know where to turn at this point. I know it’s inappropriate and maybe a bit of a foolish dream, but I would like to call her a friend one day and maybe as a friend it would be okay to no Spike stop writing you’re not sup`~~~

No time to rewrite. Ignore last paragraph. Your devoted student,

Twilight Sparkle




They didn’t write this lengthy letter entirely on the spot. While composing it, and arguing with Rainbow about what to put in it, Twilight and Rainbow Dash recaptured the fillies, and dragged them down into the basement where the sounds from above were muffled. There, Twilight tried some experimental magic that she said was technically forbidden magic but not quite, and once she did you could barely hear the music. Yet still the fillies needed to follow it. Not even Twilight knew about the basement’s secret exit, but Scootaloo sure managed to find it. There was no escaping the shield though. It was just a solid, featureless unbroken sphere.

Spike’s dragon fire would soon incinerate the seal, transporting the wisp along ways secure enough to be relied upon for military communication. So that meant it was sure to go straight to Princess Celestia, at least according to Twilight. Whether the princess would do anything about it remained to be seen. Rainbow Dash had however found a very practical solution to the filly problem in the interim.

“See?” Rainbow Dash said excitedly, gesturing at the fillies, “And you just had the stuff all lying around. Now they can’t be enchanted at all!”

“What??” Scootaloo shouted, her ears stuffed with a downy pink fluff.

“I said,” Rainbow Dash loudly repeated, wait no, “Uh, never mind.” She waved dismissively at the filly, continuing to do so insistently until Scootaloo got the message and stopped bothering her about it.

The pinkfluff wasn’t enough by itself, but between that and them all holed up in the basement, and Twilight trying out some spooky forbidden spell about sound cancellation, the fillies weren’t gripped with an irresistable desire to follow Pinkie Pie to their death. The flickering, swinging light overhead and the hanging roots from above gave the basement a grim look to it. They all had hot chocolate, but the fillies stared into it like shell shocked war veterans, or like little fillies who had been through entirely too much, and were up way past their bedtime.

Spike’s breath stank up the place with copper as Twilight finally stopped prevaricating over that little typographical error at the end, and sent the letter to the princess.

“How long do you think it’ll take her to send a letter back?” Rainbow Dash asked curiously, and a little impatiently, her voice echoing in the damp silence.

“We have to be patient,” Twilight responded predictably. “It’s almost dawn, and the princess is going to be very busy raising the sun. I’m sure she can ask Canterlot scholars to help us out, sometime during the next day. For now, thanks to your... pinkfluff solution, I think we should all try to get some sleep.”

“What??” Scootaloo shouted, squinting at Twilight.

“I said—” Twilight started to fail, but then suddenly Spike toasted the air with flame again, and it formed back into an equivalent, but not identical scroll to that which Twilight had sent. All four of them looked at it anxiously when he did, the scroll falling wordlessly to the ground. (Except Licky. Licky was asleep on her feet, or bored, it was hard to tell.)

Twilight hesitantly lifted the scroll in her magic, breaking the seal and unrolling it. She just glanced at it, then looked up immediately. Then she levitated it over to Rainbow Dash with eyes full of worry, terror, and... maybe a little bit of hope. Rainbow Dash looked at the letter–




Are the fillies safe?




Rainbow Dash... looked at the letter again. “...that’s all she wrote?” Rainbow Dash asked uneasily.

“I think we better answer her,” Spike said, as he pulled the letter down to his level and reviewed its contents.




Dear Princess Celestia,

Yes, provisionally. The fillies are safe. We’re in my basement in the library, within a class 3 shield barrier powered by my backup crystals. Rainbow Dash stuffed their ears full of pinkfluff, and I attempted Solo Singer’s Song Suppression, and that seems to have hindered the enchantment enough. I have convinced the town not to trust Pinkie Pie either, and the town police are actively attempting to arrest her. Emphasis, attempting.




Wrapping the scroll in the seal again, Spike incinerated it in his magic. They stared at each other in tense silence, waiting for some kind of explanation in the princess’s reply. It didn’t take long, and he burped up a new scroll, which Twilight immediately unsealed and unrolled and... just kind of stared at. Again, she wordlessly gave it to Rainbow Dash to look at, and from her down to Spike. None of them could fathom just what it meant, but...




Don’t go anywhere. I will be there as soon as I can.




...they were fairly sure that help was soon to arrive.
> Princess Celestia Fixes Up Everything
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Several farming associations wrote strongly worded letters to Princess Celestia that morning, for rising the sun 100 minutes early that day, thus delaying the winter needed to freeze their old crops and weeds, and prepare their seeds for a spring awakening. Nopony paid them much attention. Applejack personally signed one at one point, but later sent a letter of apology once she learned what was the cause of the unseasonable weather. ...very few farmers sent letters of apology, though she wasn’t the only one.

“Twilight Sparkle ” came the amplified voice of Princess Celestia, echoing down from above. Twilight Sparkle was running as soon as the words hit her ears, bursting out of the basement door and not even looking back until she’d left the library, running into the pale, chilly light of early morning. Her regal majesty was waiting there, on the other side of the shield. Ohh, of course  she couldn’t get in! Shining specifically  specialized in cosmo locks! Twilight had just left her standing  out there! Twilight fired up her horn, as she ran up to her beloved mentor, frantically undoing the spell circuit that maintained the shield.

“I’m sorry Princess, I—” Twilight panted out, standing there like a mule, waiting for the shield spell to unlock.i

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said to her from across the barrier, in the most approving of voices. The shield wall still melted away far too slowly.

Twilight knelt down hastily before her princess as soon as she was able, saying, “I’m so sorry, princess, I should have called you right away. I shouldn’t have bothered you! I lost control of the situation. I’m sorry I just– I just don’t know what went—”

“Twilight,” Celestia remanded her sternly. “If there is one pony in all of Equestria who has nothing to apologize for, you would be that pony. Please, calm down. You have done nothing wrong, and many, many things right.”

“I don’t understand, princess...” Twilight said unsteadily, sitting on her haunches. Rainbow Dash, it seems, had run out of patience, in the ten seconds that she had to wait down there. She too zoomed out of the library, stopping short at the sight of the pearl white alicorn princess, at the golden regalia of the kingdom of Equestria, and most profoundly at Princess Celestia’s presence, shining in the morning light.

“If I am to understand,” Celestia addressed Twilight in a concerned tone, while Dash darted back into the library, “You pulled a drowning filly out of the river, when no other pony would save her.”

Twilight blushed crimson, saying “Yes I... I just did what anypony would I mean I just... how did you know??” That last part slipped out without even thinking, as Twilight’s curiosity momentarily overwhelmed her reservations in front of the princess.

Celestia raised one regal wing, as if to indicate off to the left of her, saying, “Oh, I just asked Pinkie Pie. She was all too willing to tell me all about it.”

Twilight followed the direction of the wing, to a tree separate from the library, where to her astoundment, Pinkie Pie was hanging there, suspended by her tuba hooked over a branch, with another thick branch piercing through the wall of her accordion. “Let me down!” Pinkie Pie shouted from up there, pedalling her legs ineffectively.

Rainbow Dash snickered beside Twilight, making her startle. Rainbow Dash was  by Twilight again! Sweet Celestia could that pony move fast. Twilight shot a disapproving glare at Rainbow, then smiled gratiatingly at the princess saying, “Sorry, Rainbow Dash is not—”

“No need to apologize, Twilight,” Celestia cautioned her. “It is rather hilarious.” She looked up to regard Pinkie Pie, who hung up there continuing to pedal her legs and shouting,

“It is not  funny!” The way that pink pony was going like that, she would really be cooking , if her hooves were touching the ground. In the running sense, not the baking sense.

“No, we shouldn’t ppff...” Twilight said, trying to control herself, in regard of the struggling pony. “It’s rude to laugh at pff...” Princess Celestia was looking at her, with the most amused twinkle in her eyes. Twilight just couldn’t hold back a tense laugh, just a little one. This whole situation was absolutely insane! And to her shock and relief, the princess laughed too: a bright bell-like laughter, that Twilight had heard more often in her childhood than she would ever admit.

“I think she’ll be safe up there, for a while,” Princess Celestia said, delicately wiping at her eyes with a golden shoed pastern.

“How did she get  up there?” Rainbow Dash asked bemusedly.

Princess Celestia looked at Rainbow Dash with an adorable pout, and said, “Why, I put her up there!”

Once Twilight had finished ruining her future as a scholar and a gentlemare, as Princess Celestia’s prized pupil, and most faithful student, Twilight eventually collected her wits, managed to stop laughing, and climbed to her hooves. Then, she imagined Princess Celestia shoving Pinkie Pie unceremoniously into a tree, and collapsed again, helpless with total barrel shaking laughter.

But then  she regained her hooves, and bit her lip to stay any improprietous thoughts. Twilight Sparkle looked at the Princess and said a bit breathlessly, “Thank you... princess... I really do need your help. Do you know what’s happening with Pinkie Pie? Or why Scootaloo et al are the way they are? Or what the nature of this fillysprite tale is?”

Celestia smiled at her and said, “Yes.”

“Yes, to...?” Twilight prompted.

“I think you should bring the fillies out,” Princess Celestia said to her. “We all have a lot to speak about.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to talk things over in the library?” Twilight asked, then waved her hooves frantically, saying, “Oh no, not that I meant to say that you—”

“It would,” Princess Celestia agreed, tilting her head to look, up and to the left, “But I’m afraid Pinkie Pie needs to hear this as much as you do.”

Nodding uncertainly, if not devotedly, Twilight ran just barely into the library foyer, and shouted loudly, for the fillies to come up from the basement. She turned to leave, only to find Rainbow Dash right in her face, giving her the most disgusted  look in the world. Twilight blinked, as Dash passed her by, going down the stairs to the basement. The three fillies trundled up, shortly afterwards, followed by Rainbow Dash who waved in front of Twilight Sparkle a bunch of balled up tufts of... oh.

Twilight smiled awkwardly, and Rainbow Dash’s face broke into an easy smile herself, easing Twilight’s nerves. Dash tossed aside the pinkfluff, and gestured for Twilight to join them out in the gleaming sunlight.

Ahead of the two mares, so too did Scootaloo, Archer and Licky stop short at the sight of Princess Celestia, but doubly so at the sight of Pinkie Pie, hanging up there in a tree. Dash came up behind the fillies, and scooted the three of them towards the princess, while Twilight just trotted up on her own. Once they were all in earshot, and they had either settled down comfortably, or remained paralyzed with fear in the case of the fillies, Princess Celestia began her tale.

“There once was a foolish princess, who thought she had no other choice to set things right, so she hid away the memories of Opal Star Pie, whom you may know as Granny Pie.”

Twilight gasped at that, since she knew what it implied, but Celestia explained to the others, “Memory spells are forbidden, for a very good reason. You can take away a pony’s memories, but the mind is a delicate thing, and even a princess cannot be sure that she has done it right, and not made a terrible mistake.”

“The princess did what she could for Opal Pie, giving her as full a life as she could live, but what she didn’t know until today, is that lost in Opal’s tormented memories, was a little filly named Pinkie Pie.”

Princess Celestia paused, and the half second was enough for Twilight to come to the stunning conclusion that, “You  made up the story about the fillysprite? You?!”

“Let me finish, please,” Princess Celestia said patiently. Twilight shut the buck up, and listened in rapt attention.

“There was a very good reason this princess thought she had to shut away the memories of Opal,” Celestia went on, “And it was because of a tragedy so terrible, that Opal could not bear to remember it. She begged  the princess to make her forget. She did things that... ponies should not do to themselves, that her grief was driving her to do. Her memories were destroying her, and the princess thought it was the only thing that she could do to help her.”

Everypony was quiet as Princess Celestia spoke. Even Pinkie Pie had stopped hollering and wiggling about, just hanging there and staring at Princess Celestia in open mouthed disbelief.

“What did she want to forget?” piped up a little blue filly at Rainbow Dash’s feet. It was the question Twilight wanted to ask. Twilight wanted to, but she was afraid of the answer, so she hesitated. But Archer didn’t hesitate. She asked clearly, and with no restraint in her voice. It did not sound like a filly who didn’t know any better.

“Opal Pie, and Pinkie Pie,” Princess Celestia continued, “Grew up in a town on the northwestern edge of Equestria, a town called Nickerlite. While their principle crop was mineral, they still relied on vegetable crops in order to thrive. It wasn’t much, but enough that the rock farmers could harvest a small surplus to feed each other over the winter. That would change one day, when the parasprites came to Nickerlite.”

The ponies were slogging through their ruined fields, desperately waving the parasprites away, capturing them in great nets. There were always more, and more. They cradled their chewed crops, torn from the very mouths of those cursed beasts, as if through will alone they could keep the plants from dying, and the vegetables from going bad. It never worked. Nothing did. The land was dying around them, as they wept and hungered.

A mature looking, off-white pony, with hair not unlike Pinkie Pie, went marching over the hill away from that place. She held a look of determination on her face, as well as a strong, protective cloak and heavy saddlebags, encumbered with a coil of rope tied to one side, and a somewhat gnarled stick with a point on the end attached alongside the other. She had a seasoned look in her eyes, like she was well familiar with these roads, and the untamed lands beyond them.

“Opal had sought aid,” Celestia went on, “Not from the princess, but from a legend she knew, passed down through generations of Pies. She left Nickerlite and crossed the world, seeking the song that would end the parasprite as a menace, forever. Where she found her answer, is a secret she took to her grave, but it likely had something to do with events that transpired thereafter. Her improvised musical arrangement replicated the sounds which parasprites would follow without question, the mysterious forbidden magic from a very ancient time, and a very ancient people.”

Twilight was starting to get what Princess Celestia was getting at, but her story hadn’t yet answered any questions about what had so endangered these fillies yesterday. Twilight spent her fillyhood learning that nopony was as good at storytelling than Princess Celestia though, so Twilight was absolutely confident that the princess would get there in due time.

Celestia declared to all, “Using this magic song, Opal Pie saved Nickerlite, and ended the parasprite menace for Equestria, indefinitely. Countless ponies were saved by her selfless deeds, and many ponies would have suffered, and perhaps even starved, without her help.”

“She was a hero,” Celestia said, casting a meaningful glance up at Pinkie Pie.

For once, Pinkie Pie did not know what to say.

“Unfortunately,” Celestia continued somewhat somberly, “That’s where her luck began to run out. She saved Nickerlite, but such a great cost had already been exacted. The crops were ruined, the food spoiled, sometimes with the very corpses of the parasprites who sought to feed on it. And winter was coming to Nickerlite.”

“Nopony starved to death,” Celestia said gladly, “But many went for want of food. The whole kingdom did its best to grow late in the season, but the bounty was small, and the weather could not be denied forever. As if to spite the delay, it was a long and harsh winter. Food ran out. Ponies went hungry. Foals  went hungry.”

She looked at Pinkie Pie again, saying, “It was a difficult time for anypony to be happy in Nickerlite, who had suffered the most from the terror of the parasprite.”

“And that’s where Scootaloo comes in,” Princess Celestia said, as if in conclusion, smiling in self satisfaction. Twilight stared incomprehendingly, and was about to interrupt, when Celestia clarified,

“Or rather, a pony much like Scootaloo. You see, ponies like Scootaloo were once much more common than they are today. Long in the distant past,” Celestia said, in melodious oration, 

“There once was an empire of sheep, if you can believe that. These gentle, carefree creatures nonetheless formed a powerful nation that would shape history, and future society, for many ages to come.”  The princess laughed, and said, “Some like to claim that sheep created ponies, in order to have someone to run their empire for them, while they lived an easy life forevermore.”

Nopony seemed to get the joke though.

“In Ancient Fleece,” Celestia continued, clearing her throat, “There was a coastal city called Shellfi, which became home to what everysheep knew as the Oracles. Noram knew what they were, only that they hailed from an island far off in the ocean, a floating island that had at last drifted close enough to the mainland for the oracles to make trade. And what they had to trade made the sheep empire prosper greatly. The oracles traded in the future.”

The island was not very large, nor was it very bountiful. Much of it remained brackish and marshy, home to one particular kind of root, and the highlands were small enough to be home to only one particular kind of tree. It floated there in its slightly askew manner, drifting about on a seemingly infinite plane of water. And walking upon it and surrounding its waters looking from a distance like a halo of many bright colors, were ponies much like Scootaloo, of all ages and sizes.

Their home wasn’t much, and it wasn’t always kind to them. Terrible storms rained down upon the land making everypony hide for cover, but terrible storms also brought the bounty of fresh water which nourished them and the things that grew there. Changing winds brought birds from which to collect eggs, and drifting swarms of a particular kind of insect who survived by floating to tropical islands and devouring them, a kind of insect that these ponies welcomed rather than feared. It wasn’t the greatest way to live perhaps, but it was all they knew, and all they had ever known was them, their little island home, and the endless glassy seas.

“The ocean is a treacherous homeland, for those who try to live on its surface,” the princess continued to tell, “The weather is unruly and unpredictable. Storms and even hurricanes may spring upon you without warning. Migration patterns of flying insects, birds and fish change unexpectedly and without schedule. 

And so, to survive, these oracles had to develop a powerful insight into the events that were to be. To plot their courses, as they skimmed the featureless waves around their home. To prepare against storms, and to find sources of fish and fresh water. But a few of them were... more than that. The Oracles of Shellfi were so powerful, in their vision of how things shall be, that they were worshipped, even feared. They formed prophecies, some of which you may even be familiar with today. They took the uncertain future, and made it... gentle. Predictable. Orderly.”

Princess Celestia sighed, and said, “When—” her voice caught, and she sighed again, looking at the ground with an unreadable expression. “When Discord came to rule the land,” she said darkly, “They were his greatest threat, and his first victims. He drove them mad, even before he existed at all. Tortured them with unthinkable futures, with what he would do to them and their world.”

There was once a coastal city called Shellfi. There isn’t any longer. Time and decay have long since dismantled all but the sturdiest of marble columns and stone foundations. But those sturdy marble columns certainly don’t stand upright, while they weather the tests of time, for there were terrible nights of fire and terror at the end of that city. Screams of fear, anguish and frustration permeated the air as their city fell into war, destruction and ruin, until nothing was left standing. The ones who emerged victorious or at least alive had nothing to show, for their determination to fight back the madness of the oracles. The wearied sheep could only walk away from the smouldering ruins, with nothing left for them there but bad memories.

The fear and hatred that resulted were terrible, though perhaps not as terrible as what resulted from  them. Now abandoned, banished, chased away from what lives they had made, the oracles returned home, and ponies and other creatures patrolled the sea to make sure no more oracles left the safety of their island. For the safety of them, it was said, and of the world. The foretellings of doom, and the insanity were both pushed back to that island. The destructive future of the oracles was driven back with them, back to the place from which it came, told never to return.

And all the while, off the coast, that little island ever so slowly drifted closer, in its geologically paced course to reunite with the mainland. What had once been a unimaginable boon was now only a source of fear to them. For the mainlanders, the oracles. For the oracles, the the mainland. So there, the oracles hid and huddled, and watched the distant shore in fear, fear for what they knew, and for what they could not know was to come.

“His coming ruined their island home,” Celestia explained soberly, “Turned the very waters against them, swallowing them up whole. He... he annihilated  them.”

The ponies of Ponyville couldn’t have known what those ancient mainlanders may have seen gazing out into the ocean, their gaze captured by that little island on the horizon. You could no longer see an island at all, just a roiling cloying storm of venom colored clouds, the rolling thunder continuous from the constant lightning flashes within. A few, so very few streaks of color shot out across the water from it, when the storm closed on the island with terrible finality. Tendrils reached out from it like hands, seeking their fleeing forms. A few escaped. So very few.

The ponies of Ponyville could not know of the grim expressions on the faces of the ponies and sheep, and others watching from the shore. None were there to welcome the oracles to the mainland anymore, but rather to defend the shore from them. Yet those few streaks of color continued planing desperately for the shore, because they had nowhere else to go. The ancient defenders couldn’t have known of what was to come, or if they had known, they couldn’t have believed it, so there was no welcome awaiting these wave skimmers.

Nopony now or in ages past ever knew what happened inside that storm, since nothing caught in that storm lived to tell about it. It continued through the night, a fiery orange light not that of the sunset glowing ruddily from its interior, and when the rumbles ceased and the storm dissipated, there was nothing there on the horizon but unbroken water.

The ponies of Ponyville couldn’t have known how the ancient ponies felt, or the sheep, or the seaponies or the dell dwellers, once they learned that the horror had only just begun, and they had mistaken their true enemy, for his first victims. The ponies of Ponyville could not know any of that, because Princess Celestia did not tell them. Although she tried her very hardest, she could only make the story show on her face when she said, simply,

“He annihilated  them.”

A small crowd was beginning to develop, as ponies who awoke early saw the princess herself, telling a story, out in the courtyard in front of the library. Everypony seemed enraptured by her tale which, even to think about what horrors they must have gone though, was a bewitching story that you just couldn’t look away from, kind of like a train wreck.

“They—” the princess paused, lifting a hoof, then putting it down to continue in a grim tone, “There were many peoples whom Discord destroyed: the flutter ponies, the seaponies, the breezies, but I think what he did to the oracles was the most spiteful, or perhaps the most fearful.”

“We thought they were gone forever,” Princess Celestia murmured, in an entirely too small voice for her regal bearing, “We thought we—that I would be the last pony, to ever see them alive.”  She seemed to come out of it then, looking down at a stunned Scootaloo with an expression of tremendous relief. “I was wrong, of course,” Princess Celestia said with a small smile. Her smile faltered though, and the princess continued her tale as if she didn’t want to do so.

“Oracles are very primitive ponies,” Princess Celestia explained, “Isolated on their island uncountable ages in the past, with no natural predators, they remained simple and unchanged, while the rest of ponykind had to adapt to ever-evolving, hostile circumstances. As such, oracles... continue to reproduce by mouth, of which many early forms of pony are thought to do. At the time of their prehistoric isolation, the precursors to the oracles should have simply devoured their landscape and then died en-masse, but... something changed in them, that enabled them to survive, and even thrive, even with scarce resources and in a harsh environment. They gained the ability to...” the princess waved a hoof around, as if searching for the word. 

“Deproduce!” Twilight yelped excitedly. Then she covered her mouth and laughed nervously.

“Deproduce, yes that works,” Celestia said with a smile. “Thank you, Twilight. Now I’m sure you’ve all realized that Scootaloo here is an... oracle, and that she reproduces and... de produces by mouth. And unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately in better circumstances, this deproducing she can perform is not  limited only to ...other oracle ponies.”

Twilight’s smile faltered.

“As the ponies in Nickerlite struggled to get by,” Celestia continued her tale, “A strange terror began to grip their community. Their foals began acting curiously, communicating in secret, hiding things from their parents. Wearing shirts, they said, to shield against the winter cold, but in reality it was to shield them from being discovered . Foals that were once strong, became weak. Foals that were once indominable, lost their incredible stamina. Ponies attributed it to the scarcity of food, but... something else was going on entirely, right under their noses.”

Twilight Sparkle couldn’t stop the feeling of pure, unadultrated horror at what the princess was saying. She couldn’t... she couldn’t prove Princess Celestia  wrong! You just didn’t do that! That was not a thing you did! Pinkie Pie had a triumphant frown on her face, if that was a possible facial expression to have.

“Princess Celestia,” Twilight implored her, looking up at the beautiful alicorn in worry and consternation. “I must be hearing you wrong. I’m sorry but, it just...” She gave a sideways smile, saying wryly, “It sounds like you are implying that Pinkie Pie was right when she said Scootaloo could devour  our foals, and turn them into creatures like her.”

There was silence all around. Celestia looked a bit nervous, and said in clarification, “Yes, Scootaloo can devour your foals, and make them the same as herself.”

“I knew it!!” Pinkie Pie shrieked, at the same time as Scootaloo shouted out,

“No I can’t! That’s stupid!”

Twilight looked at Scootaloo in baleful confusion, and the filly stammered at her wide eyed, “I–I never–I couldn’t how would that even, I never not once ever did I ever  try to eat anypony I wouldn’t I swear!”

“I believe you, Scootaloo,” Princess Celestia said with a significant nod to the filly. All heads turned to the princess again. “Nor could  you do that to a foal,” Celestia clarified further, “If the foal was unwilling.  Unless perhaps, if a number of you held her down, until your natural processes overcame her resistance.”

“That’s not very comforting!” Scootaloo shouted quaveringly to the princess.

“If it helps,” Celestia suggested coldly, “There are ways to turn an oracle into an ordinary pony, for all intents and purposes. Either act done unwillingly is very much forbidden, what many would consider an unspeakable cruelty. Even so, it would be both easier, and more  cruel, for you, Scootaloo, to hold a pony down and kill her. Trust me, Scootaloo. I believe with all my heart and mind that you would never deproduce another pony without permission, but it is very important for you to know that you can.”

Scootaloo just cowered there, as meek and silent as Archer was pretty much all the time.

Celestia looked away from the filly and went on with her story. “When enough foals were discovered mysteriously having grown wings on their back, and having lost their... means to make the next generation of foals, the conspiracy was blown wide open, and the ponies of Nickerlite were horrified by what they found. A creature like a parasprite, but appearing as a filly, had been devouring their foals, replacing them with identical copies, who themselves devoured more foals, as what came to be called the fillysprite.”

“Scootaloo didn’t know this was possible,” Celestia said to all of them at large. “Because she never tried, and thank goodness for that. But it was very much possible, and one thing you must know about oracles is, they do not need to eat very much to live . They may not be as strong as other kinds of pony, or as durable, or able to fly as well, and their magic is far less... utilitarian than that of a unicorn, but the one thing that characterizes them is efficiency. They can eat just about anything, yet their tastes are remarkably simple, and they only need a small amount to sustain themselves. They can deproduce when food is scarce, making literally fewer mouths to feed.”

The princess shook her head sadly.

“There was a famine in Nickerlite,” Princess Celestia reiterated, “Ponies were going hungry. Foals were going hungry. And an oracle came among them, somehow. Somehow, a lost tribe of ponies forgotten by time just happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The oracle was a filly at the time, and she was there with all the other fillies and colts in Nickerlite. This filly had the means, and the instincts, to solve the hunger problems of her friends once and for all.”

“If anypony has ever truly gone for want of food,” Celestia said with a frightening amount of sympathy, “Then they could understand the temptation that this filly was, for these young children. Not only did these foals deproduce willingly, but they treated it like a secret club, one that they hid from their parents, in fear of how they would react, or what they would think. A justified fear, as it turns out.”

Princess Celestia spread her wings, declaring for all to hear, “When a pony has been devoured by an oracle, she cannot keep her within. The conflict of personality is so great, that the oracle soon spits out another oracle. And like they do for their own kind, this oracle will have the memories, personality, appearance and I believe the soul of their old friend, now in the form of a pony who needs little to eat, and can hide inside her friends when she doesn’t want to be hungry. I’ve been told it’s a painless process, and the ponies I knew who chose to be oracles rarely, if ever, regretted their decision.”

“Yet once again,” Celestia said in a voice thick with emotion, “Opal Pie brought forth her forbidden song, a tremendous guilt driving her to ignore the pleas of these foals, and do what must be done. She clearly thought she was responsible. She said as much herself to me, once. And the foals who had been devoured, as one they all followed her obediently, their own magic turned against them. The town turned everything upside down, not a colt or filly was spared this test by song. And so, Opal Pie destroyed the fillysprite, just as she had any parasprite in her life, drowning it in the river, so it could never harm another foal again.”

Celestia’s brow twisted further, and her voice was tinged with anger when she said, “And that  is when they wrote to their princess, about what they had suffered, and what they had done. Not before, but after, and as soon as the foolish princess read that letter, she knew that there was nothing she could do.”

The princess folded her wings.

Twilight made a mental note to thank her number one assistant.

“Wait, but Opal Pie—!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed beside herself with shock.

“She didn’t!” a pony behind Twilight shouted anxiously.

“She did!” her friend shouted to her in— oh, right.

“The horror!” her other friend cried out, “The horror!”

“So, you see the reason behind the deeds of this foolish princess,” Princess Celestia finished sorrowfully, above the sounds of the ponies stammering among each other in confusion and sorrow. “Granny Pie needed to forget what she’d done, that over half the foals of Nickerlite, at her hooves were—”

“Lying!” Pinkie Pie shrieked, swinging around in a total panic, “You’re lying! She was a hero! She wouldn’t do that! She didn’t steal my friends! It was the fillysprite! You’re all insane!!”

“Oh. Yes. That’s right,” Celestia sighed, putting a hoof to her forehead. “There was one foal that... alright. Listen. ” she intoned in a wave of force that shut everyone up tight, including Pinkie Pie... somehow.

“When the town thought they were just killing parasprites,” Celestia explained, “There were some who suspected the truth, that these truly were foals and not monsters. They couldn’t stop the music though, and oracles, even newborn, can always find their way, if a way exists for them to find. But one pony did... manage to save his foal. We found the two of them hiding in their root cellar, in a... pickle barrel. It had been emptied out, and nailed shut from the inside. Inside it was Opal’s son, a very resourceful Igneous Pie and a filly named...”

There are giant colossi roaming an unending dark plane of rubble, debris, various and sundry. Now and then they mature, the light fails in their holy shit did that one just explode? That one totally just exploded. Everypony get down!

Twilight Sparkle lept to her hooves, screaming “PINKIE PIE IS THE FILLYSPRITE?!” aghast, shocked, angry, horrified, amazed, unbelieving, frightened, and with perhaps a touch of admonishment. She somehow managed to convey all those emotions at once, simultaneously. Needless to say, she didn’t need to use the Royal Canterlot Voice spell.

“Pinkie Pie is Scootaloo’s mom?!” Rainbow Dash shouted belatedly, in the ensuing silence, not quite as tumultuously as Twilight had.

A third pony cried out, “The horror! The”

“Too soon, Lily,” Rose snapped at her.

“Sorry,” she said bashfully.

“Ah, hah !” Pinkie Pie shouted, slipping out of her musical harness and descending to the ground with a thump. She marched right up to Princess Celestia, saying, “You almost got me, you really did; you were almost  making sense there, but there’s one thing you missed , one crucial clue you ...omitted!”

Celestia looked down at Pinkie, nonplussed, saying, “Pinkie Pie, I...” and then the pink pony turned her back to the Princess of Equestria, lifted her tail into the air and stuck her ass right in her face.

“Hah!” Pinkie exclaimed triumphantly, shaking her ass in Princess Celestia’s face. “Oh yeah! See that? See that not  a fillysprite there? Take a good look princess. You thought you had me beat, but you were wrong! How do you explain this big fat”

“Enough! ” Celestia declared, pushing aside Pinkie Pie’s animated rump with a golden limned hoof.

“Pinkie Pie!” Twilight shouted almost immediately afterwards, charging up and smooshing Pinkie Pie’s face in her hooves to impress upon her. “The princess just  said that she could turn an oracle into an ordinary pony. Stop embarassing yourself! Stop literally  embarassing yourself!”

Pinkie Pie stopped... shaking her ass , at least, looking at Twilight with baby blue eyes that spoke volumes of confusion, and hurt.

“Yes,” Princess Celestia spoke up behind Pinkie, making Twilight break her gaze with Pinkie Pie. The princess was looking at Twilight, or Pinkie Pie, with a somewhat apologetic expression. “About that.”

“When Pinkie Pie was discovered,” the princess continued, turning away from the two of them to the crowd at large, “Many ponies were still very angry, and very scared. They didn’t want to admit that what had happened should never have happened. And so I– so this foolish princess had her hooves on the only living example, of a tribe of ponies she hadn’t seen in over a thousand years. Just a little 11 year old filly, who hardly knew what was going on. She didn’t even understand what she’d done to herself, and had been pressured into it by her friends at the time, not out of cruelty but out of fear that her frail constitution could not withstand the food shortage. There’s a lot of guesswork involved in what motivated these foals, but, that’s the best conclusion, which any of the select examiners in this investigation had reached.”

Pinkie Pie was facing the princess now, and well, she looked hopping mad, but at least she wasn’t shouting.

“She didn’t deserve what had happened to her,” Celestia said, “What she had become was more valuable than all the iron in Canterlot, yet she was in grave danger in her own community, of hurt feelings, or desperate denial, of ponies who never wanted to be reminded of what happened, and just wanted to move on with their lives. So the foolish princess made another hasty decision, one that she would one day come to greatly regret.”

Celestia smiled down at Pinkie Pie sadly, and the princess said, to herself, Pinkie Pie, everypony at large, and perhaps in reflection to someone in long ages past, “I was never very good at transformation spells.”

“I’m not a,” Pinkie Pie gaped disbelievingly, that the princess would even say that. “I’m not transformed!” she said aghast, “You’re wrong! I was always like this!”

“As you may have guessed, the spell did not take as it should have,” Princess Celestia said, turning away from the fretful Pinkie Pie, “But it was enough to restore her as an earth pony, enough to keep her safe, and that’s what I most cared about. I may simply not be ruthless enough to fully eradicate somepony’s true nature. The spell may even have faltered from my own foolish longing for these adorable creatures to come back to us, a forlorn hubris that stayed my horn, but for better or for worse...”

“Pinkie Pie,” Celestia said, turning to face the pony just slightly, “You have lived your life under a misapplied transformation, and a lie.”

Pinkie Pie dipped her head in dismay, and exclaimed desperately, “But I have a belly-dingle!”

“And have you ever actually used it?” the princess replied smoothly. Twilight Sparkle’s brain broke. Nopony noticed.

“I... that’s none of your beeswax!” Pinkie said blushing, shrinking back and curling her tail around her rear end, self consciously.

“Haven’t you noticed, Pinkie Pie?” Princess Celestia continued to ask hopefully. “You’re far more special  than any other pony around you. You can find solutions that other ponies cannot. You have incredible abilities. You and your friends are all very special ponies for very good reasons, and I would like for you to accept—”

“You want  the fillysprite to eat our foals!” Pinkie shrieked, going lower on her hooves and glaring at the princess through frantic tears in her eyes. “You probably created it! You want us all to die and no more happiness to ever”

“Pinkamena Diane Pie ,” Celestia intoned to her. Beyond intimidated or outraged, Pinkie was just weeping wordlessly at this point, as the monarch of the sun imposed a fraction of her will. The light seemed to flare around Princess Celestia as she said, “You have endangered the lives of foals, needlessly. The love and steadfast devotion of your friends is the only thing that saved you from becoming as much of a broken mare, and a monster, as your ill-fated grandmother. Yet you refused their help, and denied them, schemed and manipulated them at every turn. You were faced with the most terrible trial in your life, and you came up wanting. And for that, I’m so sorry.”

The light died around, and within Celestia, as she repeated herself. “I’m sorry. This was all my fault. I should never have transformed you. I should have known the consequences it would bring. I thought you were the last... a once in a lifetime miracle... my  lifetime, that fell through my grasp before I even knew it had come. I didn’t want anything to happen to you. I didn’t want any more letters  to arrive. And the lie I helped create, almost drove you to...” the princess shuddered with her head low as she repeated softly, “I’m sorry...”

Everypony was either too paralyzed with fear or indecision, all the dozen ponies surrounding the sorrowful princess. Twilight had only seen Celestia like this once before. There were only thirteen ponies alive who had ever seen her like this before. But Twilight didn’t know what to do. Even Pinkie Pie was backing up awkwardly, unsure of her very hoofsteps. With her devoted ponies all around, the Princess Celestia was left utterly alone. That is, until a little filly whose ridiculous purple hair was drawn up in a short swoop of a cowlick, laid a very leery hoof on Princess Celestia’s pastern. Looking up at her and trembling, Scootaloo nevertheless recited unsurely, “It’s not your fault.”

Princess Celestia’s demeanor changed very little, but she knelt to her belly in front of Scootaloo. Before the little orange filly could justifiably bolt in terror, Celestia wrapped her delicate, pure hooves around Scootaloo and pulled her close to her heart, the princess’s head curling down over Scootaloo from above.

It was some time before Celestia stood, and Scootaloo scarpered the hay off, to hide behind... Rainbow Dash. And Twilight’s brain was still broken, incidentally, so she could not otherwise comment on the issue.

“It’s clear to me now,” Princess Celestia said, “That in the Nickerlite tragedy, I have been lying to myself, as much as others. And as well intentioned that lie has been, you little ponies have once again shown me that it’s important that we all be honest with ourselves, and never again let such a tragedy befall us, or the oracles.”

She faced Pinkie Pie and stated, “I’m here to remove your transformation, and also to apologize.”

“You better  apologize!” Pinkie Pie accused defiantly. “Because I’m not transformed! There’s nothing wrong with me. You’re just gonna transform me, and pretend that you didn’t!” She tried to run away then, but of all ponies, Daisy was in her face, with a stubbornly disapproving glare. Then, Rainbow Dash got ahold of her tail, removing Pinkie Pie from the earth.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?!” Pinkie cried out, flailing around, as upside down as the day she was born.

Celestia closed her eyes, and touched her forehead with a hoof, saying patiently, “Pinkie Pie, I left you alone, and you almost incited this town into the cold blooded murder of three fillies. Now hold still.”

“NEVER!” Fortunately, it seemed like the limits of Pinkie’s resistance had been reduced to flailing around furiously, but uselessly.

As previously said, an enchantment fooling everypony for any significant amount of time is almost unheard-of. Ponies able to weave such a complex and nuanced mind spell are unimaginably rare. But Twilight Sparkle knew one  pony who, if any  pony could, she  would be able to weave such an enchantment. Yet that begged the question, was the princess undoing her own transformation spell? Or was she powerful enough to enchant every pony present into believing she had?

All Twilight could do was try her hardest to keep her wits about her, and guard against any magic, even from the princess. She raised her alarms, and armed her most secret wards and... if anypony noticed, they didn’t say, but Twilight hoped desperately that even if she couldn’t withstand the princess’s command of arcane sorcery, at least she could warn everypony in an outright pyrotechnic display of resistence, should the princess be fooling them all. She trusted Princess Celestia absolutely, but... she also remembered that look  in Pinkie Pie’s eyes, and something about it made her feel... uneasy about all this.

Twilight just discovered these creatures so very recently, and it turns out her best friend had been one, all along? And none of them even knew it? It made a scary amount of sense, when you thought about it, but... Princess Celestia? Lied? 

It just seemed like there was something wrong with all this, and Twilight just couldn’t put her hoof on it. The princess lit up her horn.

Nothing was lighting up Twilight’s alarms, though. And the princess was clearly casting a true form recall, unimaginably of the fifth tier. Twilight couldn’t tell anything else about it, the weave was so intricate and convoluted and... well, any magic touched by the power of the princess was not easy to look at directly without eye protection. However it happened, Pinkie never stopped yelling the whole time. That pony could just go and go... but as the glow died down, two things were abundantly clear.

First, Pinkie Pie had come free of Rainbow Dash’s grasp.

Second, Pinkie Pie had wings now.

Pinkie Pie quieted down when the magic around her faded and she landed lightly on the ground. Bracing tensely she looked off into nothingness, concentrating intently, even as she caught her breath from all that hollering. Twilight wanted to comfort Pinkie, but how do you comfort somepony whose entire life, and biology  has been a lie? How would that even feel? It affected Pinkie Pie so profoundly, that she was concentrating every ounce of what attention she had on herself, so it must have been very profound.

“Ha!” Pinkie shouted, snapping her head up to stare at the princess defiantly, “It didn’t work! I told  you I wasn’t transformed!”

Twilight could only stare, dumbfounded.

“You thought you could turn me into a parasprite,” Pinkie sneered dancing on her hooves teasingly in front of the princess, “But you couldn’t, because it’s not true. I’m still me! I don’t feel like eating anypony, and I’m not going  to eat anypony, and now everypony knows of your treacheriness! You should never have sided with the fillysprite, Princess Celestia!”

“If that is  your real name,” Pinkie Pie said smugly, leaning sideways toward the patiently pensive princess, with a sneaky expression and a conspiratorial tone to her voice. “I bet the real  princess could have transformed me easy peasy! You’re just a big faker, aren’t–”

“Pinkie Pie, please ,” Twilight said in an anguished shout, from where she stood behind the pink pony, both feeling and sounding trapped somewhere between laughter and despair. “Look at your back!”

Pinkie Pie spun her head around to glare at Twilight, saying, “And you ! The things I could say about you, miss ex -friend. You—” her eyes flicked down to the wings on her back. In a less hurtful situation, Twilight would have marveled with the nonchalance at which Pinkie Pie regarded her own wings, and the way that nonchalance bled from her face smoothly to be replaced with... you guessed it, pure, unadultrated horror.

“No!” Pinkie Pie shouted desperately, leaping sideways if she could escape her own wings. Ironically, that made them spread proudly, as scrawny looking as they were. “No!!” she shrieked shrilly, sticking her head around to look at her own rear end which was as featureless as the space between Scootaloo’s legs. “No!” Pinkie exclaimed a panicked, third time, snapping forward to crouch there like a hunted animal.

Pinkie Pie looked at the ponies around her, sinking on her hooves splayed, as if the open square were spinning around her. “I...I  won’t eat you!” she implored them in a desperate trembling voice, “I don’t want to! I-it’s just me, Pinkie Pie! Don’t let me– I won’t do it. It’s not me! I’m not the fillysprite! I’m not !”

“Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said cautioningly, stepping towards her, only to be driven back by the force of Pinkie Pie’s scream,

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!” she screamed at Twilight. Pinkie Pie stared at her and backed up a step, her irises narrowed with terror, backing up another step, and then ran, running in whatever direction that ponies weren’t. Twilight hadn’t recovered her wits, and everypony else was looking at each other, or after the fleeing pink pony dumbfoundedly, so once again Pinkie galloped away uncontested.

Nopony seemed determined to chase Pinkie Pie down, at least. Twilight made to step towards Pinkie, the way she had fled, but a warm, golden shoed hoof pressed against her chest, making Twilight look up at the princess in worry. Celestia just shook her head slightly, and removed her hoof from Twilight’s chest.

“I’ll go keep an eye on her,” Rainbow Dash said, spreading her broad, powerful wings. Princess Celestia looked indescribably apprehensive, and Rainbow Dash gave her a confident smile saying, “Don’t worry I’ll leave her alone. I just want to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.” That made Princess Celestia smile, and she nodded approvingly. Rainbow Dash shot off into the sky, and Twilight Sparkle added another item to her checklist of neuroses: • considered by Princess Celestia less capable of restraint and tact than Rainbow Dash.



“I say this with great pleasure,” Princess Celestia announced to the still growing crowd, “A terrible tragedy has been avoided in Ponyville today, thanks to the brave acts of a few very determined little ponies. ‘Tis a day of newly discovered joy, and not one of broken hearts and dreams. You have saved Scootaloo’s life, and in doing so finally closed the book on one of the darkest chapters in pony history. Mistakes were made, tempers flared, but this time nopony was hurt. This time everypony lives, and as long as you live, you can learn to love each other, and work together to make a better world. I look forward to what young Scootaloo accomplishes in her life, and I cannot express my delight that her tribe is no longer a forgotten memory.”

The princess paused then, as if expecting an answer. Nopony really knew what to say to that though. Twilight sure didn’t.

“You know what this calls for?” Lily shouted out shrilly. At some odd looks, she shrunk back and said, “What? Somepony  had to say it!
> Pinkie Pie Crashes the Party
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Princess Celestia smiled upon Lily, saying “That is a wonderful idea, miss...?”

“Lily,” Lily said tensely, her voice fading to a whisper as she realized it was the princess who was addressing her. “  ...Flowers... ”

“Miss Lily Flowers,” Celestia said gratefully. “Pinkie Pie is very hurt and frightened right now, and if there is one thing that could ease her heart, and bring her back to us, I have to say a party is a splendid idea.”

“I’ll get picnic tables!” Twilight blurted eagerly, turning and running into the library where she kept her supply of spare picnic tables for any picnic related emergency.

“We can whip up some morning treats!” Mrs. Cake of the Cakes said excitedly.

“We already were going to do that, honey,” her husband corrected her quietly.

“Oh, don’t be such a fuddy duddy,” she teased him, pushing his nose in lightly with a hoof, then went skipping off toward their bakery.

“Coming, dear!” he said half out of habit, trotting after her with her sleepy newborns on either side of him snugly in their baby totes.

And so it proceeded quickly, with every pony contributing something of their own who could provide and the rest quite willing to enjoy the bounty that resulted. There were cream puffs and freshly picked chrysathemums. A grape colored pony with a bruised eye carted in a sloshing punch bowl. Twilight watched them approvingly while she set up tables, the aqua green Lyra with her beloved namesake along with Fiddlesticks, plucking and strumming respectively a lively tune, to a melody ponies quickly began dancing to, this time of their own free will.

Scootaloo shot into that, and while she was technically the V.I.P. of this party, she was clearly more interested in just showing off her wicked dance moves. Archer on the other hoof, stayed close to Twilight the whole time, looking apprehensive at all the ponies around. Leading her a bit out of the crowd, Twilight gave Archer a gentle nudge of a nuzzle. Archer looked up and relaxed a bit at the unicorn’s sympathetic smile. Princess Celestia was amidst the partygoers too, chatting brightly with a single glass of punch in her magic, rarely if ever sipped. She looked around nervously every now and again, but no pink pony could be seen emerging from her funk to join the clarion call of a party. Spike was all over the punch bowl himself in the meantime. That dragon liked punch almost as much as he did gems. And Licky was...

“Uh oh,” Twilight said nervously, trying to spot that odd orange-on-orange filly in the crowd. “Where’s Licky? Does anypony know?” she called out. Before she could give a description, Archer herself piped up brightly saying,

“I know where she is!”

“We have to get her, before she breaks something else,” Twilight said disconcertedly, “Where did you see her last?”

Archer’s smile wavered a bit confusedly. “She’s um...” At a loss for words, the blue-on-blue filly just sat back, and patted her stomach in a satisfied manner.

“Oh?” said Twilight suddenly uncomfortable. “I ...hadn’t even noticed you um...”

“I thought I’d do it while the princess was telling the story about Opal Pie,” Archer explained on her hooves again. “Just so Licky didn’t get upset, or interrupt anything. I’m not usually the one who does it, but Scootaloo was busy, and I really shouldn’t leave everything to her all the time.”

“That’s true,” Twilight said a little more understandingly. “So,” she added uneasily, “I don’t suppose you can produce her again?”

Archer shook her head, making Twilight’s heart fight not to fill with dread. This was normal for these fillies. They are supposed to do this. It’s just Twilight ponypomorphising again, so she should just calm down and accept it. She had sort of been warming up to Licky though. Were these creatures really so ephemeral as all that?

It occurred to Twilight that Licky had, in fact, been no more than a single day old.

“She was a little broken,” Archer said sheepishly. “Licky couldn’t stop running around, and being excited about everything all the time. It’s not that she was happy. She just... couldn’t slow down. It’s because Bee made her, and Bee was only a few days old. All Bee knew was that we were safe, and just thought anypony who came out of us could be careless and never have to hide.”

“You really can control what kind of filly you produce?” Twilight asked astonished yet again by these odd sort of ponies. Archer started to nod, but then shook her head slightly.

“Sort of,” she said uncertainly, “You get better at it the longer that you’re... out, and the more of them you take inside. It’s sort of like practice. But it’s more like what mood you’re in. I can’t decide the color, or anything. I just throw up and they’re there. But the filly who comes out is going to be... the kind of filly I think would be good, at the time at least. If they’re new, I mean.”

“So, because Bee thought she was safe,” Twilight reasoned carefully, “The filly she produced would be less cautious, and take more risks?”

Archer nodded, “Yes, and because Scootaloo just wanted a filly to come out, who didn’t make trouble, Bee just stood around all the time and didn’t do much. Scootaloo didn’t want to have Bee; it was an accident, so Scootaloo made her less um... trouble to deal with.”

“So when Scootaloo was born, you were all feeling really safe then!” Twilight concluded, pointing with her nose over at the filly in question, who was currently stage diving onto a bunch of ponies, from her improvised ‘stage’ on the picnic table.

Archer laughed chirpily. “No way!” she declared, “That was back in Whinneapolis, and it was really dangerous. Scootaloo came out like Bee.”

Twilight paused. “Oh?” she repeated, looking down to Archer warily.

“She was just an extra,” Archer explained blithely. “She mostly just stood around, at first.”

“She sure isn’t like that now!” Twilight countered, prodding silently for more information.

Archer shook her head, sympathetically, “No, she sure isn’t. It’s because she was the last one.”

Twilight tilted her head.

Archer looked nervous suddenly, saying, “There was another one of us called um... Maple I think, who was the real one. She just had Scootaloo as an extra if they ran out of food.”

“So how did Scootaloo become, um... the real one?” Twilight asked using that odd terminology the filly (fillies) had come up with to understand their own condition. Archer took a long time to answer. The sounds of the party filtered over the quiet figures of foal and mare.

“She was the last one,” Archer repeated.

“What does that mean, exactly?” Twilight pressed curiously.

“It means Maple didn’t come back,” Archer said glumly. “She probably died or something. That’s usually what it is. We never found her body, but... if she never came back, it was because she couldn’t. And then the other extra stopped coming back too. So Scootaloo had to become real, or...”

The little blue filly scratched at the packed dirt, saying, “I probably shouldn’t be talking about this. I don’t know if I’m supposed to ask Scootaloo, or if she’d mind. She doesn’t like to talk about it much, even with me.”

Not going against her better judgement, which is to say going with her better judgement, Twilight swallowed her curiosity, like a bitter pill the size of a football. “You’re right, Archer,” she whimpered very maturely, “This is something Scootaloo should decide whether she wants ponies to know about or not. It’s good of you to respect her privacy. You can hurt her very badly if you share her memories. Think of it like a personal diary, I suppose.”

Archer nodded solemnly, but then a smile teased across her face. She said offhoovedly, “You know Scootaloo’s friend, Sweetie Belle, once took her sister’s diary, and put it in the newspaper! She was really mad!”

Twilight laughed at that, saying, “Those three made all of us really mad, that time. But they learned a valuable lesson in doing so.”

“They sure did,” Archer said emphatically.

“And afterwards, they were better friends than ever,” Twilight pointed out approvingly.

“They sure were...” Archer said ...wistfully.

“Don’t you have any friends?” Twilight asked. She instantly regretted doing so because, it should have been a rhetorical question. Everypony has at least some friends. But Archer wasn’t just anypony. She hadn’t been around as long as a pony her age, and she had special... needs. So it was no surprise when Archer said,

“No, I haven’t been able to find any. I want to be friends with Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, because they’re really nice ponies. Um, and there’s a unicorn in class who’s purple and blonde and she’s always saying really wise things. There’s a colt who sits in the back who always knows the proper way to do things. His name is Truffle.”

Archer’s words were kind of spilling out at this point. Twilight listened to her patiently, as the pony abruptly started pouring her heart out. “I want to ask him to be my friend, but I don’t know if Twist would be okay with that—she doesn’t seem to like me, I think. I don’t know how to ask either because I mean, even when Scootaloo came here, it was Sweetie Belle who made friends with her! I just haven’t had anypony come to me like that, so I’m not sure what to do.”

“I might have a few ideas for you,” Twilight said in consolation, “And if I don’t, I know one of my friends who sure will.” She didn’t mention that this friend had been the one trying to kill Archer for the past day or so. Pinkie would come around though, Twilight was sure of it. Now that Twilight knew what was really going on, she could finally help her friend Pinkie Pie deal with her troubles.

Archer looked up at Twilight with lost, yet hope filled eyes saying, “That would be” Rainbow Dash crashed down onto a picnic table, right in the middle of the celebration, the thoom of recklessly released mana sending a wind blowing, among others, Twilight’s mane into disarray. The young pegasus mare exclaimed, not brashly, nor boastingly or overconfidently, but in a completely terrified tone,

“The party is over! Everypony get out of here! Just drop everything and go! Get inside. Lock your doors and windows. Don’t come out for anything! Come on, hurry!” Ponies started leaving as soon as she said it, but she wasn’t satisfied with how they were trickling out so slowly and it looked like she was going to start carrying ponies off herself.

Twilight teleported a single step, winking in right by Rainbow Dash on the picnic table, demanding at her, “What’s going on, Rainbow? What happened to Pinkie Pie?”

“She’s the fillysprite!” Rainbow shouted, coming eye to eye with Twilight.

“The fillysprite isn’t real!” Twilight shouted right back. “What are you really saying?”

“I don’t– I mean she’s a fillysprite,” Rainbow Dash reiterated in a flustered tone, backing her head up. “She’s one of those oracle things the princess was talking about.”

“We know that, Rainbow Dash,” Princess Celestia said, suddenly dangerously close to the two of them. Whether she teleported, or merely walked up soundlessly was never quite clear with her. “We all saw the enchantment end on her,” said the princess, “Please calm down, and tell us what you mean to say.”

Rainbow Dash gulped in a breath, and then she seemed frozen, staring with wide eyes and narrow pupils, at a punch cup on the picnic table in front of her. A cup that was... there was a vibration Twilight noticed in the ground now, that was making the punch ripple in the cup, and the cup dance closer to the edge of the table. Dash snapped her head around, looking to the east, staring down the street and beyond, at a low rumbling sound that was getting louder by the second.

“Oh no, they’re here...” Rainbow Dash shuddered dreadfully. And now Twilight finally saw what Rainbow Dash was talking about.

“No...” Twilight said softly. What was coming towards her could not be true. “No,” she repeated, as if she could bend reality by her will alone, more than usual that is. “No!” she accused the object of her ire, the unstoppable threat that even now thundered her way.

“Not agaiiiiiiin!” Twilight Sparkle shouted in abject despair as pink pony after pink pony shot past her, the sounds of glass shattering and ponies screaming beginning to echo throughout the entire town. A sly pink hoof slowly rose up from beneath the table Twilight was standing stiff legged on, and it pushed over the glass of punch right beside Twilight’s right rear hoof, then descended down as if it were never there.

“What in Equestria?!” the princess Celestia said, still beside Twilight, one of the few ponies who was not being chased around by bright pink madness, as clones of Pinkie Pie once again resumed terrorizing the populus of Ponyville. “How did she make so many? Did she have a creche all along? Why are they all alike? This is impossible!”

“This... is Pinkie Pie,” Twilight said to the princess resignedly, climbing down off the picnic table to slump against it wearily. Twilight didn’t even have it in her to save face in front of the princess. If this didn’t peeve Princess Celestia, then nothing would. The Princess wouldn’t be upset at this. Nothing to worry about, right? Yayyyyy. Twilight imagined waving the world’s tiniest flag.

Twilight lifted her ears in a puzzlement. “The mirror pool was sealed though,” she added, while a building fell over in two pieces, somewhere behind her. “And it’s deep in the Everfree. Why... why didn’t you stop her, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight suddenly spat accusingly at Rainbow, “You let her go into the Everfree?!” Twilight then... continued to stare silently beyond Rainbow Dash, at what was passing by. It looked like the Pinkies had managed to rig the Friendship Express to go down market square, instead of the train tracks. Again.

“I...” Dash seemed, to Twilight, flabbergasted. Twilight couldn’t tell if it was at her, or at Pinkie Pie, or at something about this situation. “She never made it to the Everfree!” Rainbow finally blurted, confused beyond recognition. She blinked, and then clarified, “These aren’t from the mirror pool!”

“You mean to tell me Pinkie Pie became an oracle for 103 minutes,” Twilight said evenly to Rainbow Dash, “She’s already gotten over her hatred of oracles, and she’s already found an unlimited source of food, that she’s somehow consuming fast enough to produce all... these, and the mirror pool had nothing to do with it?”

“Yeah,” Dash said. Without qualifying herself. Twilight squinted at Rainbow, not even lifting her head, just leaving her cheek smooshed against the table. Dash stared back at the weary unicorn, with those even round eyes that could hold no deceit.

“Okay,” Twilight stood up from her slump by the picnic table. “We need to reach Pinkie Pie first, and then cut off her food source. Then we can deal with... whatever this is.”

“Uh...” Dash said uncertainly.

“But why would all of her siblings look exactly like her?” Princess Celestia mused in puzzlement. “In any rate, you’re absolutely right. But perhaps you should take care of seeking out Pinkie Pie yourself, while the rest of us attempt to corral the ones already here.”

“Good idea,” Twilight said, running on automatic (planner mode variant). “Alright, so I can probably fashion an open topped cage in similar fashion to the force bubble if I use a pillar matrix. You begin digging a pit to contain it,” she said to Princess Celestia. “It has to be too deep for a pony to jump out of, accounting for any lift they can get from those wings,” At that, Twilight cast a suspicious glance at one of the Pinkies who was trying to get altitude by buzzing as hard as she could... ineffectively.

“You fly to Sweet Apple Acres and get Applejack, so you can both help herd the Pinkie Pies,” Twilight said to Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash raised a questioning hoof, but Twilight was already facing the little blue Archer filly, who’d stuck with them this whole time.

“You perform reconnaissance,” Twilight shouted to Archer, louder than the pony in the next yard, who was shouting “My Begonias! Why are my Begonias sideways?!”

“Find out their communication abilities,” Twilight instructed intently, “And whether they can be swayed by the I’m so sorry Princess Celestia!”

Twilight snapped her head away from Archer and gaped, finally realizing she’d just started ordering the princess around, like she was just another Ponyvillian volunteer. Twilight started fidgeting meekly, asking, “Please princess, tell us what we should—” 

“I would,” Celestia responded teasingly, “But I’m afraid I have a hole to dig. You can take care of it in my stead, I hope, Twilight Sparkle?”

“I... uh...” Twilight blanked on a reply. Yes. Yes would be a good reply. “yeah...” Close enough.

“Twilight!” Rainbow shouted in her face suddenly, impatiently, “There is no food source. I don’t know what’s happening!”

Princess Celestia’s beneficient smile faltered.

“Well–” Twilight fussed in consternation, then prompted the rainbow pony agitatedly, “What is Pinkie Pie eating then?”

“She’s not!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed in abject disbelief.

“But where would she... oh dear,” Princess Celestia murmured unhappily, a tiny light of realization in her eyes, and the corners of her mouth turning down slightly. But only Archer alone was regarding her worriedly, right now.

“She’s not eating,” Twilight Sparkle stated skeptically to Rainbow Dash, “And she’s not at the mirror pool.” She then jumped to her hooves, frustratedly shouting, “Then why are there so many Pinkie Pies?!”

“I don’t know!” Rainbow Dash backpedalled, flailing her hooves in demonstration, “I was just following her, and she was going for the Everfree, but then she fell down and she just...”

Princess Celestia looked aside, and bit her lower lip, subtly enough that nopony noticed.

“Look, here’s what I saw,” Rainbow Dash began to recall.

Flying high is the greatest feeling a pegasus can have, short of breaking the sound barrier. You’re queen of the skies when you’re up here. Though the skies are a pretty lonely place to be queen of. But nothing beats the open air, for freedom of movement and manuverability. You’re not going to run into a tree when you’re ten times higher than the tree line. Flying high also makes you difficult to spot from the ground, even by a pegasus in Rainbow Dash’s case.

That’s how Rainbow Dash followed Pinkie Pie, giving the pony enough leeway that—even if Pinkie was looking for her—she would not have noticed Rainbow Dash’s camoflaged blue belly against the bowl of the sky above. Pinkie wasn’t looking though. She was just running, and stumbling, then running again. Rainbow Dash’s eyesight was top notch, so she could have made out stuff like Pinkie’s expression, if Pinkie ever looked up. But, all she could tell just from seeing the top of Pinkie’s poofy mane, and poofy tail, churning hooves and heaving sobs, was that this was one very upset pony. Despite her reservations on interfering, when Rainbow Dash saw that pink horse fall, and not get up again, she fired herself at the ground like an arrow.

“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash shouted, landing running, and stopping short at her fallen friend. “What’s wrong, are you alright?”

“You... followed me...” Pinkie Pie said weakly. She had a smile on her, as Rainbow pulled her up in a fright, trying to see what was wrong with her, as if shaking a pony in your front hooves could help with that.

“It’s okay, Pinkie,” Dash said smoothly, stopping with the shaking and just cradling her friend in her hooves tenderly, “Nopony hates you or is afraid of you. You’re going to be fine.”

“I don’t—” Pinkie grimaced, her face twisting with disgust, and then looking with so much fright, into Rainbow Dash’s eyes again. “I don’t feel so good.”

If there’s anything worse than getting thrown back against a tree, it’s getting thrown against a tree by the force of the slimy, yet firm ball of gooey pink puke firing out of your best friend’s mouth like a gunshot. Dash crumpled to the ground at the base of the tree, covered in slimy saliva or– or whatever the hay this stuff was, and the thing that hit her wiggled, then popped out into a a a pony that looked exactly like Pinkie Pie. Dash and this ‘Pinkie Pie’ stared at each other for a timeless moment, before Rainbow turned to the real Pinkie saying, “Why does she look exactly like you?”

Tears streaming down her eyes, Pinkie Pie said despairingly, and very nauseously, “Why are you asking me-ee-eeeugk” She rippled again like a water balloon, and out of her gaping wide mouth shot a second ball of pink puke.

“How many you got in there?” Rainbow asked critically.

“Heck if I know!” Pinkie said her sides heaving, “There’s only one... one... oh noooglkh” and her eyes bugged out as another giant pink maroon swirled hairball fired out from inside her.

The two finished Pinkies were looking at each other with confusion and alarm while the third began to emerge. “What have you done to me?!” the original Pinkie cried, panting harder and heavier until yet another uncontrollable spasm contracted through her, and like a well oiled machine, she spat out yet another giant gloopy ball of yuck. The thing is, these balls were all the same size as her. Yet she wasn’t getting any smaller? Where was she getting all this stuff?

“I don’t know!” Rainbow Dash prevaricated frantically, “Nothing! Why do you keep doing it? Are you trying to repeat the mirror pool or something?”

Pinkie responded by horking forth another giant ball of magenta and pink spoo. “You... think I want to?!” she panted exasperatedly. Another Pinkie erupted from her. Collapsing weakly on her belly again, she moaned out breathlessly, “Can’t... stop it!”

Dash backed up from Pinkie anxiously, looking around trying to figure out what to do in the situation. “A-alright,” she said intelligently, “You finished Pinkies can line up over here, and y-you can aim it so the new go ones over there. Let’s all just keep calm and...” She trailed off. Another Pinkie unfolded. Rainbow really didn’t like the glimmering look the ten, now eleven Pinkie Pies were all giving her, in tandem.

Another blob erupted from Pinkie’s gut, right at Pinkie’s feet, and she pushed it away furiously. It actually rolled a little. Then she made another Pinkie, and sank down exhaustedly on her belly again. “Rainbow Dash...” she begged almost inaudibly, reaching faintly for the rainbow pony, “Help... me...” That was all she could say, before making another Pinkie Pie. It didn’t matter if she was standing or lying down. It just kept on happening! She lay on her side, clutching her belly and just crying pitifully.

“J-just hang on Pinkie we’ll figure out how to deal with this,” Rainbow said despite this unnerving feeling, forcing herself closer to the slimy mess that was original Pinkie Pie. She dodged as another ball of goo fired past her like a cannon. “Please tell me you’re almost done doing that,” she pleaded desperately.

“Water...” Pinkie Pie said hoarsely laying flat on her back. Her belly was already heaving in spasms she was trying to hold down, but they kept getting stronger, until her mouth snapped wide and she shot another Pinkie Pie into the air. She should not have tried to do it on her back, because it flew up vertically, lingered in the air just a bit, then plummeted back down splattering the already messed up pony with a face (and body) full of wiggly pink goop.

“Eww...” Pinkie managed to say underneath it. “Eww,” it said back to her mechanically, until it was Pinkie standing on top of Pinkie. The original looked terrified at this, but then she had to throw up again, and the bolus slammed the new Pinkie in the chest, right off of the original one and into a heap of bubblegum puke and brand new pony.

“Take...that...” original Pinkie said faintly.

Dash stammered, beside herself with unease, “I-I’ll go get you some water, um, water hold–just hold yourself togeth–just be care–I gotta go!” Rainbow zipped up into the air, looking around in a panic. Then she zoomed over where a nice little puffy cumulus was sitting. Stealing it from its appointed spot, she shoved the unresisting cloud back down to where Pinkie Pie was still throwing up. There Rainbow Dash started compressing it down into something that could be drunk, or wash you off. The Pinkies all stared at her as she did, moving in a creepy sort of sync. There were so many of them now. It made Rainbow Dash both nervous and terrified, or nervified if you will.

So of course, Rainbow Dash completely bungled the simple task of getting her friend a drink, and forgot that when you compress clouds down you have to ground the static charge otherwise they

Kaboom

And with that, every single Pinkie Pie went running screaming, fleeing the lightning and thunder, in the opposite direction, which, of course, had to lead them straight into town.

“...so, it’s my fault,” Rainbow Dash concluded guiltily.

“No,” Princess Celestia said, “The fault is mine for not realizing this would happen.”

“I don’t care whose fault it is!” Twilight cried out, stomping exasperatedly, “We have to do something about this, before somepony gets hurt!”

Princess Celestia spread her wings, announcing, “Pinkie Pie is in grave danger. I must go help her myself. You can handle the others as you may, but do not kill them.” She emphasized that last part with an extra urgency, as if anypony had actually been considering it. Then without waiting for an answer, the princess sprang into the air and soared above the buildings. She obscured the sun at the apex of her flight, before winking out into an eastwards focused teleportation.

Twilight only stared for a moment, before she realized that Pinkie Pie... a Pinkie Pie was millimeters away from Twilight’s face, staring at the exact same empty spot in the sky, with fascination. Twilight shoved the poofy curly mane away, resisting the urge to just grab this one unprepared. It shrank back at her glare with a look of terror, then blanked out and went scrambling backwards in a sort of crablike motion.

“Dash, Acres,” Twilight spat, “Get Applejack.” Dash saluted, and blasted into the air. A literal cannon ball flew past Rainbow Dash, but she weaved in the air like a dancer, avoiding that and the frightened flock of geese, on her way to the Acres. It wasn’t very safe to be in the air above Ponyville, at the moment.

“Archer,” Twilight said, leaning down to the nervous filly, “Forget reconnaissance. Get Scootaloo, warn every pony you can.”

“Oh good,” Archer said relievedly, “I didn’t know what reconnaissance meant.”

“You need everypony to bring all of the Pinkie Pies here to the library. All of them,” Twilight said. “I don’t care how they do it, just do it.”

“In the meantime,” Twilight said, lighting up her horn, and preparing an earth loosening spell, “Spike and I will be turning this courtyard into an excavation site.”

Twilight looked around for Spike and, of course, he was nowhere to be seen.

“...he’s under the picnic table over there,” Archer said, pointing to the underside of the picnic table that only a little filly could easily see under.

“Great, thanks!” Twilight said quickly, charging over and levitating the picnic table up into the air where Spike was cowering underneath.

“Twilight, thank goodness!” Spike shouted, “They were coming at me from all sides! I tried to fight them off but there was no—”

“Save it big boy,” Twilight said unimpressed, “Go get some shovels from the Flowers. In fact, go get the Flower Trio. And shovels. It’s about to get very messy around here.”

Spike paused at that. “...them?” he asked in a severely unsure manner.

“Tell them I need them to help me dig a nice big safe hole,” Twilight said, “Nothing dangerous, just digging. If that fails, get shovels, but you’re going to be digging a lot, if we don’t get some more ponies to help.”

Spike cringed at the thought of doing the work of four ponies. He saluted, then jogged over to the house/flower shop that made this neighborhood so pleasant, with ponies inside who managed to do the opposite sometimes.

Twilight went around behind the library tree, backed a good 200 feet away to avoid any roots, and started loosening the soil in a precise and very large square, getting down about 12 feet before she couldn’t probe any further, while waiting for help to arrive. And to her pleasant surprise, Spike did return with more than just shovels: three somewhat guilty looking ponies wielding their own shovels, along with him.

“Excellent!” Twilight cheered, looking up from her work. She paled then, stammering, “Now you—wait, no– don’t—!” and Spike, Rose, Lily and Daisy all charged over Twilight’s prepared plot, immediately sinking up to their barrels in extremely fungible soil. Or in Spike’s case, up to his everything.

Twilight levitated out one of the shovels Spike was carrying, using it to scoop out dirt from around his body with a bit of a nervous chuckle. “Eh... let’s get started, shall we?” she suggested. And so they did. And that’s about all there is to say about that.

“Why are there more Pinkies?” Applejack shouted, way back west at Sweet Apple Acres, running directly away from it down the beaten path along with Rainbow Dash, neck-and-neck towards Ponyville. “Didn’t we just get over this last—”

“It’s not the mirror pool,” Dash shouted tensely. “She just started spitting them out!”

“You’re gabbin’ like she’s the fillysprite or somethin’!” Applejack said, frustratedly.

“She is!” Rainbow Dash asserted, “She’s been the fillysprite all along! Can’t you tell? Just look at the signs!”

Rainbow Dash shot ahead as Applejack stumbled to a halt, then Dash careened around, to find Applejack counting to herself, confusedly.

“Ah don’t follow,” Applejack said flatly ticking off items on her mental list, “She ain’t got wings, she ain’t throwin’ herself into the river, she’s got a flapdoodle!”

“Princess Celestia cast a spell, or something. I don’t know!” Dash said exasperatedly, “Haven’t you ever seen Pinkie Pie open her mouth?”

Applejack only hesitated a moment before saying, “Fair enough,” and started running again.

The first thing they encountered was a fire, right at the edge of the farm, with three Pinkies all around it roasting marshmallows. It would have been innocent enough if the thing they were burning wasn’t—

“Mah Apple Cart!” Applejack shouted charging up in dismay as it looked like someone had dismantled it by smashing it with hooves into splinters, then set that splintered wood on fire... somehow. Unfortunately, her emotional cry gave the Pinkies warning, which caused the three Pinkies to lift their heads up staring dispassionately, toss away what they were holding as though they were one being, then scatter in three different directions at once. Applejack was too busy stomping out the fire to give chase, and Rainbow Dash just hovered uneasily, saying,

“Don’t you have like a hundred of those things?”

“It’s the principle of the matter!” Applejack said kicking the embers with the thick part of her hoof, “Plus ah ain’t gonna let mah whole orchard catch ablaze.”

Rainbow Dash paled. “Yeah,” she said faintly, “That could have been really bad,”

“Let’s just git over to the library,” Applejack said, “See if they’re ready for us.”

Rainbow Dash got there first. (duh) She wasn’t sure what she was looking at first, but once she saw past the lip of the pit to the ponies down in there it was pretty clear. “How you doin’ down there, Twilight? You ready for Pinkies?”

“No!” shouted Rose frantically.

“Not while we’re down here!!” Lily shrilly clarified.

“The h—” Daisy started to say, but Twilight cut her off saying,

“We’re almost done! I just need to go down 20 feet more and we should be past her jumping height!”

Considering the literal mountain of unearthed soil surrounding this curiously square shaped pit, Pinkie Pie could jump pretty darn high. Dash looked around, and over there was a Pinkie hopping around, and she’d figured out how to flutter her wings madly, so maybe that was the reason it had to be so deep. It looked like that Pinkie was trying to steal somepony’s foal, successfully, the little thing wailing in her arms while a couple of mares chased her with broom handles swinging in their mouths.

“Can’t you make your cage now?!” Dash shouted down to Twilight. “Things are on fire up here!” Matter of fact, where was Applejack? Oh, she was over there stopping the Buffalo stampede through market square. Why the heck are Buffalo—?!

“The walls would be too high!” Twilight shouted up at Rainbow Dash, “How would any pony get up there to drop them in?!”

Rainbow Dash stared for a moment, then rubbed at her temples.

She swooped over and grabbed a Pinkie, hauling her high into the air over the pit. “This high enough?” Rainbow Dash called down to Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight’s ears went down and she clenched her teeth in a sort of weird smile. “Oh,” she said guiltily. “Yes, that works.”

There was a twinkling sound along with Daisy saying, “Wait, no no no–!” and then with two flashes of light, the three ponies, a dragon, plus Twilight winked in up on top of the ground, outside the hole. “Confound it Miss Twilight!” Daisy snarled angrily, swaying on her feet along with the others as if her sense of balance was suddenly perturbed by a sudden unexpected motion. Spike was the only one besides Twilight who just took it in stride.

“Sorry!” Twilight said to them, her tail going down. “I forgot you didn’t want me to teleport!”

“Just please, stop these Pinkies,” Rose groaned nauseatedly. Twilight thinned her lips, then turned to face the pit.

“Can I put this one down now?” Rainbow Dash asked as entertaining as it was to watch all this. The Pinkie she carried wasn’t fighting her at all, and in fact was swinging in Rainbow Dash’s forelegs like she was on a swingset, going “Whee! Eee! Eee! Eee!”

“One sec!” Twilight shouted, concentrating on whatever her horn was doing, with intensity. Magenta bolts of lightning leapt between the corners of the pit, and then four glowy poles rose out from the corners. Twilight’s magic shimmered into place between them, and they wobbled into solidity with a weird vibratey sound.

“Okay, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight shouted out. Dash swooped down into the giant cube shaped magic thing, and deposited Pinkie Pie on the floor of it. Her pink little hooves landed on the surface with a bright tinkling sound that seemed to fascinate her. Dash didn’t spare any more time, whooshing out of the cage and heading into the air, scanning around for any other pegasi.

“Drizzle!” she shouted out, shooting over to the purple pony with the pumpkin colored mane. Drizzle was trying to put out a fire: it looked like a fountain had caught ablaze, despite being made of stone and covered with water. “I need you to cut that out,” Dash interrupted her, “And find the other weather ponies. Tell them to go grab as many Pinkies as they can. Twilight has a cage for them all, over by the library!

“But boss, the fire!” Drizzle protested, waving a hoof at the fountain.

“I’ll take care of it,” Rainbow Dash assured her. “We’ve gotta stop these things if we don’t want everything on fire!” Drizzle fluttered away without another word, and Rainbow zipped down to the ground. A number of earth ponies she wasn’t familiar with were around the fountain, watching the fire with some amount of interest and bemusement.

“Don’t just stand there,” Dash shouted, drawing their attention, “Kick some dirt on it or something. It’s just a grease fire, come on!” That got them moving at least, and Rainbow didn’t wait to see the results. Instead she charged down the street after a Pinkie she saw. Before Dash could catch her, Pinkie darted into the Sugarcube Corner. Rainbow Dash paused at the entrance indecisively. Was that the real Pinkie? Couldn’t be. The real one wasn’t in any state to be hopping around. But wait, would the real one ever spit herself out leaving a clone behind, or did she only spit out new ones?

Rainbow Dash got her answer when Mrs. Cake, carrying her filly, burst out the front door at a thundering gallop shouting “Run for the hills!” Mr. Cake carrying his colt followed at a similar pace shouting, “The end times are here!” The building subsequently rumbled, and behind the fleeing Cakes  about 200 Pinkies came charging out the door.

“Oh no,” Dash whimpered. She didn’t even try to stop that hoard of solid pink, but flew into the bakery itself where she discovered that Sugarcube Corner was mysteriously completely out of stock today. Nothing was on the slobber covered shelves or behind the busted display cases or in the ransacked kitchen. “They even ate the...” Rainbow trailed off holding up a limp sack of empty flour.

“Alright, new plan!” she shouted, as she zipped out the front door. Anypony around Rainbow Dash who could have heard her, was far too busy running and screaming to pay attention though. Dash’s head sank, and her ears folded down. “This is a complete disaster,” she moaned, then charged off again, taking to the skies after three paces, and subsequently scoping out the situation below.

They already hit that fancy restaurant clearly, since there was only half of it still intact. The soda fountain was leaking milkshake out of every door and window. That had to have made at least a hundred more of them. Then, Rainbow Dash spied a building which was not issuing any smoke besides the smoke that it usually issued. A prime target, yet completely intact.

It was all she could think to do at this point. She couldn’t bring a Pinkie to Twilight, if they were going to make a hundred more. So Rainbow Dash dive-bombed, making a beeline straight for the local Hayburger. She quickly found out why the place hadn’t gotten buried in its weight in Pinkies yet, because there was the small family who ran the restaurant, one in each door and window, relentlessly beating back anything pink which approached them.

Rainbow Dash hip checked a Pinkie out of the way of being mercilessly beaten by the proprietor, only to have to dodge the furiously swinging broom herself as the earth pony shouted, “Nopony gets in! We’re closed! Get out of here you strange things! Closed for the day! Closed for the year!”

“No I–ow I–ow, ow ow!” Dash squawked until she managed to back up to the point that she wasn’t actively getting attacked, and she shouted,

“No, I’m here to help you! You can’t let any Pinkie eat anything or they’ll make a thousand more.”

“You think that’s not what we’re already doing?” the angry matron said harshly to Rainbow Dash. “Nopony gets in, not even you!”

“Argh, I’m–” Dash wanted to facehoof, but she was interrupted by the feel of hooves landing heavily on her back, making her stagger in place before the Pinkie leapt off of her, using her as a stepping stool, landing neatly up on the...

“They’re on the roof!” the older son shouted in alarm. Rainbow Dash didn’t bother correcting him. She just leapt after the Pinkie, landing on the roof herself where (of course) Pinkie had found an attic hatch with a padlock that had been left open, down into a storage area in the upper part of the restaurant. Dash bit down on—she missed. Pinkie slipped inside, and Dash bit down on nothing but air. Pinkie wasn’t even looking at her! How did she dodge? Rainbow jumped after Pinkie into the access hatch, landing on dusty floorboards and shouting desperately, “Pinkie no, don’t eat anything!”

Pinkie, who was halfway through shoving an entire bag of hay buns into her mouth, stopped short at that, and just let the bag drop out onto the ground, looking at Rainbow Dash blankly. Did that... work? Dash wasn’t sure. She just grabbed Pinkie, who put up little resistance, and hauled her out to the roof again. Making sure the padlock was securely locked this time (wasn’t it usually?) Dash turned, hovering in the air to hold the soft pony nose-to-nose, talking to her very seriously.

“Pinkie Pie, you need to get to the library,” Rainbow Dash enunciated clearly. “L i b r a r y.” If this Pinkie Pie understood, she gave no indication, just staring forward fixedly. Dash drifted to the ground, releasing Pinkie uneasily, and just sort of pushed Pinkie with her face, towards where the library was. Pinkie Pie went blithely bouncing off in that direction. If she was anything like Licky though, there’s no way that would last. Yep, something distracted her and she ran off to the right, out of sight. And here come 20 more Pinkies this way.

“Keep them out. I’ll go look for help!” Rainbow Dash shouted to the ponies defending the Hayburger. “I locked your attic!” she added with resentment. She then threw herself into the air and curved around looking for earth ponies. It was strange though: either everypony was shut tight in their houses or... something. Dash could only find Pinkies on the street. Oh no, what if she was eating ponies! But the princess said they couldn’t do that! But there were so many! So maybe they could?

From where she hovered, Rainbow Dash could see her workmates, and the other pegasi of Ponyville seemed to have caught on, divebombing Pinkie Pies and carting them up into the air, winging them over toward the library. They all seemed to have the same trouble getting and keeping ahold of the things, but with all of them working together they were bound to succeed occasionally.

With no better idea, Dash just grabbed a Pinkie and flew to the library, thinking maybe she could ask Twilight where all the ground ponies had gone.

Rainbow Dash didn’t set this Pinkie down gently, because there was no way Rainbow was going to enter that swarming mass of pink, that the floor of Twilight’s cage had become. Pinkies popped out of it like water at a roiling boil. Dash just... dropped the Pinkie in her arms, probably from a safe height, into that mess. Then she flew down to outside the cage, where Twilight was... powering the spell or something.

“Twilight!” Rainbow said, explaining hurriedly, “The Pinkies are eating stuff and making more Pinkies and they ruined Sugarcube Corner and I need help finding ponies to defend the Hayburger it’s the last place still standing!”

“Rainbow Dash, you need to get Rarity!” Twilight said tensely, not looking away from the cage. “We need a skilled unicorn to reinforce the fourth pillar. They keep breaking the spell somehow, it’s becoming unstable!” Rainbow looked around and there was that lyricist unicorn, and her golden magic was tinting one of the corners of the cage, and the hospital surgeon had his own teal colored magic tinting a third. And then there was... some white unicorn that Dash had never heard of, with bold looking electric blue hair. She wasn’t looking so good. Her horn was flickering and she kept cursing under her breath, and her blue magic barely tinted the fourth corner.

“Okay, Twilight!” Rainbow said curtly, shoving off again and torpedoing towards the southern part of town. It wasn’t long before she ran across the iconic Carousel Boutique, which stood out very clearly at the edge of the tent neighborhood. Pinkies were leaving it mostly alone, and Rainbow found out why when she tried to get in, finding all the doors and windows shuttered, shaded, and possibly even boarded up.

“Rarity, you in there?” Dash shouted at the closed door.

“Go away!” came Rarity’s muffled voice from within.

“Rainbow Dash, help!” came Sweetie Belle’s even more muffled voice. Uh...

“Come out, Rarity!” Rainbow urged, “Twilight needs your help!”

“No!” Rarity shouted, “We’re never coming out! First the Fillysprite threatened dear Sweetie’s life, and now the Pinkies are back. No more! The outside world has ceased to exist! It is a lost cause! We will rebuild society from the ashes, the two of us making our way in a forsaken land, now ....” Rainbow kind of tuned her out at that point.

“I’ll tell her you’re unavailable,” Rainbow shouted at the door.

Then Rainbow Dash turned and flew off for the library again, with only the sound of something squeaking, “Don’t leave me in here with her!” behind her.

Dash thumped down by Twilight again, whining, “Rarity won’t come out of her boutique. Isn’t there any other unicorn who would be good?”

“I need to find Derpy Hooves,” Twilight Sparkle said quickly, a drop of sweat trailing down her brow, as the brave pegasi of town continued to drop Pinkies into the pit. “You’re Derpy’s friend aren’t you?”

Rainbow gaped at Twilight. “Why does everypony think I’m friends with Derpy?!” she exclaimed shaking her front hooves frustratedly.

Twilight remained silent, focusing her magic on the Pinkie pit.

Dash looked aside. “Yeah,” she said in a subdued tone, “What do you want with her?”

“Derpy’s daughter, her older daughter is a talented pyrotechician. She should suffice nicely,” Twilight muttered distractedly. “Could you go get her?”

“Hasn’t Derpy come by to drop off Pinkies?” Rainbow asked uneasily.

“Why would I be asking you, if she had?” Twilight snapped irritably, still not looking at Rainbow Dash.

Dash sighed. “On it,” she said, too flustered to be enthusiastic. She flapped up into the sky and went looking for the grey pegasus. Somehow she doubted it was going to be an easy task.
> So Much for the Memories
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack was not having a good day. Riding on a buffalo about a hundred miles north of where you were supposed to find any buffalo is what Applejack would call a not good day. Day nonwithstanding, it was moments like this the orange farm pony lived for. Feeling the hot tempered beast bucking against you, fur meshing with your fur as you fought for your life to stay on top and not end up caught under those drumming hooves, it almost made you not regret having a bad day. If this was what you called a not good day, then Applejack wasn’t much interested in what you’d call a good one.

She probably should have gone and let Twilight fix all this, but there were just some things a scrawny little purple unicorn couldn’t handle. This was not just one Pinkie Pie, but a whole lot  of Pinkie Pies, and buffalo for some reason. Applejack was so busy saving the day, she simply did not have one second to spare to limp back to miss “solve-everything” to whine about hardships and uncertainty.

That was Rainbow Dash’s job, anyway.

Applejack was always ready to lend a hoof for her friend, and for Ponyville at large. She might not have all them fancy powers and sorcery, but she had a good strong back and a step above your average pony in terms of ability and skill. Some ponies didn’t like hard work like this, but as for Applejack it just made her heart sing when other ponies looked up to her, and trusted her. She finally got her lasso around the lead buffalo’s head, and Applejack knew once again she was going to be able to live up to that trust.

“Calm down  ya crazy cow!” Applejack shouted vigorously, jumping off the buffalo’s back and hauling her head around with the lasso on her neck. For her effort, Applejack got flipped into the air like a ragdoll, but she didn’t let go. She hung on until she slammed back down in the dirt, refusing to budge, while that buffalo tried to outrun her own head. That’s the first rule of herding creatures much larger than yourself. No creature, no matter how large, is going to get very far without its head. 

The fight for control was fierce though, and it was all Applejack could do to keep her teeth on the rope. Her hooves scraped to and fro as the little earth pony relentlessly fought the buffalo cow down, disrupting her ability to charge and forcing her to stop, forcing her to think rationally , if only to figure out how to get this annoyingly persistent pony off her back. Applejack was waiting for that moment. As soon as the buffalo got a cunning air about her, and went to throw Applejack into the air again, Applejack champed out, “What’s got you so riled up?!”

And then she was in the air again. One of Applejack’s hooves came up to press down securely on her hat, not even a hair on her coat disrupted this time when, descending like a stone, she burst onto the dirt again. Applejack had barely touched ground this time, before the buffalo was in her face, exclaiming in that sonorously deep voice these folks had,

“She ruined  my oatmeal!”

The greater Equestrian oatmeal exposition had been a smash hit. This year all ponies from all over the land came to Ponyville, as well as some esteemed oatmealists who were not ponies at all. There were the Trottingham stone ground golden oats, a few ponies from Baltimare with a cinnamony honey drenched concoction, the Ponyville home team whose bowls were served with fresh crisp apple slices inserted into the mash, and the Windyfeather tribe of buffalo, there to spread awareness of their culture and their stewed grains.

This particular tribe stood proudly, six giant round brown hairy buffalo adorned with feathers and bangles, before a kettle of hot, steaming cracked oats. They were traditionally hoof ground, and flavored with the finest desert mushrooms and hoof-dug mustard root, and time refined portions of parsley and dill. Sure to be medal winners this year, the buffalo were awaiting tasters to gather enough courage to come and taste their wares. No doubt they would be unable to hold out long, sorely tempted by the powerful smell emanating from the cauldron. Sure enough, to their delight, a pink pony appeared before the buffalo, appearing  very interested in the interesting  smelling concoction they had brewing.

Brandishing a clay bowl, the matron said with a knowing smile, “Would you wish to try a sample?”

The pony responded by dunking her head in the bubbling cauldron. Then she yanked her head out and screamed before you could say, “Wow, that looks hot!” The rest of the herd galloped around the table to gathered around the squirming pony rubbing at her face, one offering a wet cloth to clean her face with.

But this pony mare she wasn’t the most polite of ponies. She just looked at the offered cloth disinterestedly! Then she licked all  of the oatmeal off her face in one swoop of her tongue. The pink mare jumped up to her hooves, darting through a space in the herd, where she stood before the cauldron of their oatmeal with an uncharacteristically angry look on her face. She spun on a dime to give a mighty kick with both hooves to the side of the cauldron, bowling the entire thing over, and pouring its contents all over the ground.

“What have you done?!” a steer shrieked, aghast as their hard work and assuredly blue ribbon oatmeal lay wasted on the muddy earth. Ignoring him, this pink pony  mare poked a hoof tentatively into the cooling slop and then jumped bodily into it, rolling around in the oatmeal delightedly. She opened her eyes and looked around innocently, once she became aware of an angry herd of buffalo surrounding her at a distance of abooooout 3 inches away, give or take. What might have passed for fear crossed her face. There was a tiny gap where their broad bodies pressed against each other though, making just enough space between their pairs of legs for a little pink pony to squeeze through.

“Get her!” some bovid shouted when Pinkie Pie squeezed out from within their circle, and started running down the street. While the herd thundered after her, another Pinkie came sneaking up behind, and started to eat the oatmeal (and possibly the dirt), indulgently. The herd charged en-mass through town leaving their ruined oatmeal behind, as of yet unaware of the Pinkie Pie situation. It didn’t take much charging around though, before the herd became aware of the situation. It was true these ponies were sometimes hard to tell apart, but this was ridiculous!

Applejack frowned as the buffalo cow finished her story. Applejack backed up then, stomping her hoof and shouting, “Well stop chasing them around willy nilly! We need to herd these things toward the library!”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” the lead buffalo asked disparagingly.

“Well we—” Applejack paused, closed her mouth and looked down, lifting up a hoof as if it were needing inspection all casuallike. She just needed time to... think.

“Hmm...” she schemed, tapped her chin, thinking about what the Pinkies were like to deal with. They couldn’t be reasoned with, it was clear, and they all had to get to the library somehow, but ponies chasing them individually would find themselves flip turned upside down, with Pinkie Pie giving them the slip every time. Just like through the legs of a buffalo. So they all had to do something as a concerted effort , with a lot of ponies working together to make sure there weren’t no way for any sort of Pinkie escape manuver.

“We need to form a line,” Applejack concluded. “We cain’t let these Pinkies get one inch or lick of space to slip through. If we stand shoulder to shoulder though there ain’t no way they’re gonna get past us all. We can clear out the town that way, and leave the Pinkies right where they’re supposed to be. Meet me on the east side of town past all the Pinkies, then we can turn around and push ‘em right back to the library.”

Some of the buffalo looked at each other and nodded. “Let’s get on then!” Applejack shouted, waving her hooves and charging off to the east. That’s where the Pinkies seemed to be coming from, so she was just gonna let them keep on coming, until every Pinkie got pushed all the way through town, to the library on the west side.

The buffalo charged past her to the east as Applejack dallied, shouting, “Come on, everypony!” She started dashing from pony to pony, going like, “Cherry! Whatnot! Goldie, come on, we gotta herd these Pinkies right out of our home! Brozie, Thunderflank, come on!” Applejack might not have as good an idea of everypony as Pinkie Pie’s freakily ededic memory but everypony she did know, knew another dozen ponies themselves. Soon, pretty much everypony knew the situation, and they all gave up whatever fruitless Pinkie task they were struggling with, following Applejack to regroup east side of town.

A vague cheer began to rise, as the ponies rallied behind her. Soon Applejack was hot on the heels of those buffalo, with the entire town behind her, everypony ready to give this Pinkie swarm a piece of their mind. Applejack dragged ponies of all shapes and sizes, except of course one particular sort of pudgy pink shape with little wings, out beyond where the Pinkies had ventured.

Once she had a feel for it, Applejack stopped and whistled hard. They had to be absolutely sure that none of them buggers were further along, but Applejack wasn’t too worried. She had a feeling that she was right where she needed to be, to round ‘em up good. She had a good intuition for this sort of thing. Applejack never missed a cow coming in from pasture after all, nor a sheep, and she sure wasn’t going to miss a Pinkie. The buffalo slid to a halt, and they and every member of the townsfolk vaguely gathered around her.

It didn’t occur to Applejack to wonder why the Pinkies weren’t still  coming from the east, but Applejack was a pony who lived in the here and now, and little details like that could be Future Applejack’s problem.

“Alright everypony, form a line!” Applejack shouted, rearing up excitedly.

“Everyone,” a buffalo prompted politely.

“Alright every one , form a line!” Applejack shouted more deliberately, rearing up. She half-pushed the ponies in place, without too  many protests, showing them where they needed to go to get maximum coverage of the area. From north to south they assembled, a solid wall of muscle and spirit, ponies and buffalo alike joining to turn back the pink tide.

Applejack ran back and forth along the line, encouraging ponies and buffalo alike, saying, “Not one Pinkie gets past this line! We gotta check every building, barrel and bush. Leave no stone unturned! No really, she likes to hide under big rocks! We’re gonna go west here, and sweep all these pink ponies to the library. Then we come out and do it again, until there ain’t a cotton candy mane to be seen! You ready to do this?”

A thundering of hooves was the reply. “Then let’s move out!” she shouted, charging for– backing up until she was enmeshed with the line, and saying a little quieter, “Careful now, everypony. Let’s move out!” They all began walking forward, stomping through the dirt and weaving through the houses of town. They went slowly, pausing as soon as any of them got hung up on checking something, or making sure no Pinkie was hiding anywhere.

At first the only sign of them was a few curious blue eyes looking from the distance, but not approaching, but soon enough they ran into the Pinkies. Rather the Pinkies ran into them, pink ponies dancing to and fro, looking for ways to get in trouble no doubt, but not even seeing the ponies who were stopping them. A few ponies tried to talk to them, but Applejack hollered, “They don’t talk! Just push ‘em along!” When they were pushed, the Pinkies ran away at first, but came back quickly, not so much curious about what was going on, but merely seeking a destination beyond the line, that was summarily denied when they got shoved back by the inexorable advance.

They made good progress at first, sweeping through the municipality like a fine toothed comb. It was hard work, though. Pinkie, or—whatever you called the Pinkies who weren’t Pinkie—had an uncanny ability to get away from you, when you were least  expecting it. You’d push a crowd of them back towards the library, and suddenly one of them would be standing right  behind you, or popping out from behind that barrel that you know  you checked behind. There sure seemed to be a lot of them too. Applejack didn’t even want to know what happened to the original Pinkie, to make all these ones. Nothing good, that’s for sure.

Applejack got a better idea just what she was up against, when a bunch of Pinkies came pouring out of what remained of that new soda fountain. It looked like they’d turned on every tap and spigot in there, practically flooding the place with sugary drinks and icy cream, and much of it ended up right in their bellies. You could tell, because it looked like some were more trying to roll  away rather than run away. These Pinkies didn’t seem to have any restraint whatsoever, and with how much the real Pinkie loved her sweets, it was just a disaster to any shop or stand selling sweet stuff. Which was pretty much every shop in Ponyville, apple carts included. Applejack couldn’t fathom how it could possibly be any worse a situation to be dealing with.

That’s when the Pinkies started reproducing themselves.

“What in the name of Celestia?!” Applejack exclaimed, scooting back frantically as the pile of a half dozen fat Pinkies became a pile of a half dozen not  fat Pinkies, and a number of gigantic balls of disgusting pink puke. Just like she’d seen that crazy Scootaloo filly doing, except this time they were all just Pinkie being Pinkie, over and over and over again. Feeling chills down her spine, Applejack ran back to the line, pushing past eager Pinkies to reach her townsfolk, and shouting, “We gotta step this up! They’re makin’ more of them when they eat stuff! The longer we wait, the more of them there’s gonna be!”

There was an unsatisfied murmuring, but Applejack joined in shoving the Pinkies forward roughly to continue their forward pace. You had to shove them roughly, because there just wasn’t any other way to get them to listen to you. Applejack had to run back behind the line then, where she spied a suspicious looking cardboard box shuffling along back there all innocent-like.

They made it to the library with over 200 Pinkies being driven before them. Twilight saw them coming and her eyes narrowed. “Why are there so many?!” she exclaimed.

Applejack leapt over the line, landing before Twilight and saying, “We gotta get ‘em in your cage thing, fast! They’re eatin’ everything in Ponyville they can get their hooves on, an’ makin’ more  of them!”

“Just...” Twilight looked at the mass of Pinkies they had corralled, every one of them just waiting for an opportunity to scram in every direction at once. She firmed her lower lip. “Wingward, Cloud Chaser!” Twilight Sparkle shouted into the air above her, “Get every pegasus here to drop these into the cage!”

The pegasi were having trouble catching the Pinkies, after the Pinkies had begun to catch on that winged things  swooping down on them were carrying them off to some place they didn’t want to be. Bonnie had it covered though. She stepped in, and whacked a fleeing Pinkie with her prominent hindquarters, which sent her in a neat arc through the air right into the arms of Blossomforth, it looked like. Cherry caught on and started doing it too, and with bucks, bumps and headbutts the ponies on the ground kept delivering Pinkies right into the willing arms of the pegasi.

It was a pretty efficient operation, after the ponies on the earth figured they’d speed things up by butting the Pinkies one by one up into the air where a pegasus was waiting to catch them and swoop away. Applejack watched the last Pinkie fall with a satisfied but grim smile.

Another Pinkie snuck up behind her, and stole her hat.

“Confound you piles of pink horse pucky ding dang discorderly mounting bucking monsternags give me back my hat!! ” Applejack said in a calm, level, and not at all infuriated tone. The offending Pinkie had vanished in mid-air, the very moment Applejack spun around, snorting and glaring. Wait, mid-air? Applejack craned her neck up into the air, and sure enough, the Pinkie was dangling there in a particular pegasus’s arms. A very particular pegasus with a rainbow colored mane, and a not so particular Pinkie who, on top of her ridiculously bouncy curls, was wearing Applejack’s hereditary family Stetscolt.

“Rainbow Dash!” Applejack shouted out to the ascending pegasus, urgently.

“Applejack, you made it!” Rainbow shouted down elatedly, adding in a teasing fashion. “I thought those buffalo got the best of you.”

“Hah!” Applejack bleated with a sloppy smile, crouching on her hooves challengingly, “Ain’t no buffalo gonna buffalo this pony! Ain’t no creature nor pony  that ah cain’t herd!”

“Except parasprites?” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes.

Applejack blushed angrily, shouting up, “That’s different and you know it!”

“Well, these  are like parasprites,” Rainbow said, brandishing her Pinkie. “You having any trouble herding them?”

The Pinkie in question was sliding out of Dash’s armlock, so the pegasus had to keep grabbing her before she fell limply back to the ground.

Applejack paled when she remembered, and shouted, “Rainbow Dash, wait! Ah need you to–”

“Hold on, Applejack,” Rainbow interrupted fighting with the Pinkie’s limpness, “Lemme just get rid of this Pinkie and I’ll help you out.”

“NO!” Applejack shouted, but the Pinkie had already left Rainbow Dash’s hooves. Whether Rainbow Dash intended it, or if the Pinkie finally just slipped out of her grasp, the pink pony, and a familiar brown cowpony hat both descended ungracefully into the sea of pink at the bottom of Twilight’s magic cage thing.

“Mah hat!” Applejack shouted in despair.

“Oh! Your hat  ...whoops.” Rainbow flustered in a nervous tone, hovering in place up there above the cage, hoofing at her mane embarassedly, and looking down into the pink sea, “That’s what you needed help on... right?”

“Well don’t just stand there!” Applejack shouted at her.

“Hello? I’m flying ?” Rainbow said confusedly, gesturing at her ungrounded hooves.

“Well don’t just fly  there!” Applejack shouted, bracing on the magic wall and lashing her tail at the infuriating pegasus, “Get it back!”

Rainbow Dash paused. She looked very  leerily down into that churning group of Pinkies, out of which nopony could expect to emerge intact and sane.

“I think they’re eating it,” she said quietly, descending down to stand beside Applejack, the two of them helplessly watching the hat getting torn apart.

“Consarnit! ” Applejack shouted, beside herself with anger, throwing her hat down, and glaring furiously at the pink menace.

There was a pause.

“Applejack...” Rainbow Dash said beside her, very cautiously.

“What?!” Applejack demanded, sticking her face in Rainbow Dash’s face. She blushed apologetically, and pulled her neck back then, and set her hat back on her head, saying, “Sorry Rainbow, ah’m just so worked up over this mess. They ruined mah hat!”

“Then... what’s that on your head?” Rainbow asked, pointing a hoof above the pouting Applejack for clarification. As if there were any place other than the top of Applejack’s head, that Rainbow could have been referring to.

Applejack sighed and rolled her eyes, “That’s mah spare  hat, ya silly filly,” she patiently explained, “Ah got more than just one , y’know.”

“How many hats do you have? ” Rainbow Dash asked with a skeptical tilt of her head.

Applejack shrugged at the whithers, saying, “Ah dunno, couple dozen maybe? Ah go through them a lot in this town.”

“Then what’s the problem ?” Dash exclaimed, her face twisted in confusion.

“It’s the principle of the matter!” Applejack grumbled grumpily, looking away from those big innocent eyes, feeling all put out at everything and everypony and everyone.

“Look, whatever,” Dash grumbled back, looking away herself, fretfully. “But—” she turned back, “What have you been doing  all this time?”

“Herding Pinkies!” Applejack stated proudly, with a hoof on her chest. “We got a posse of ponies and buffalo, and went all the way east of town, funneled them right over here to the library. We’re gonna cover the south side of town next, so they don’t get in the apple orchards.”

Dash rubbed her chin, fluttering slightly airborne again to remark, thoughtfully, “Yeah, that’d be bad, but... I would think you’d be more worried about north of town, where all those big bales of barley and wheat are from the summer harvest. I mean, it’d be absolutely terrible if they got into the apples, but those bales they could probably go through in one gigantic bite, and then boom  a thousand more Pinkies. I dunno. Hey I gotta go find more Pinkies to grab, so you just keep doing your thing, okay Applejack? Applejack?”

When Rainbow waved a hoof in her face, Applejack snapped out of her trance of pure, unadultrated horror. “Oh celery stalks if they get into the harvest crops,” she squeaked, with a terrified look on her face. “Gotta go, Rainbow!” she shouted, then ran over to where the ponies were convening who helped her herd the group from the east.

“Come on everypony!” she hollered.

“Everyone !” came a buffalo’s voice.

“Whatever!” Applejack said impatiently, “We gotta push ‘em down from the north, before they get into the wheat and barley! Now come on! Every uh... friend!”

She took off at a run, at what might be a leisurely pace for her if she wasn’t dancing-on-her-feet-worried about what was going to happen if their entire harvest went up in pink. She was not looking forward to the consequences if that were to happen. If Pinkie Pie did that , Applejack figured everypony was going to have to get mighty used to having cutlet of Pink for dinner for the rest of the year. It was just like—

It was just like with the parasprites...

Shaking her head, Applejack continued charging past Pinkies, her entourage thundering behind her urgently. She didn’t pause for the Pinkies who were throwing themselves at a local eatery, ignored the ones who were spilling out the windows of somepony’s house, and continued ignoring the ones who were clinging on the top of Town Hall, making growly noises and swinging toy airplanes in their hooves around their heads.

Applejack and everypony kept on running north, until the last Pinkie had been passed. And it was a close call, but these Pinkies didn’t have any rhyme or reason to their travel, so Applejack managed to reach the edge of town before any  Pinkie did. She turned on her hooves and called to any pony who could listen—which was a surprising amount of ponies—saying, “Come on, we gotta do it right now! Push these Pinkies back, don’t let ‘em take our Wheaty’s!”

“And our Lucky Charm’s!” Lucky Charm shouted out. Applejack never did figure why he farmed barley, with a name like that, but a cutie mark’s a cutie mark. He wasn’t much of a farmer, anyway. One could say he was barley farming.

Once again, ponies of all sorts...even technically not ponies, who were surprisingly placid and organized buffalo, all formed a line, and Applejack started marching back with them, through the neighborhood southwards. The line parted like a wave around the houses as they went, going inside and checking each one for the presence of Pink. It wasn’t long before they got their wish, and thankfully there wasn’t too many eating establishments up north, so not only did the Pinkies not  gravitate this way, but they weren’t getting any chances to multiply further.

The worst part was the more you pushed these Pinkies the more they pushed back. They were just ambling around in random directions at first, but when you started herding them they immediately had to be exactly  the way you didn’t want them to go, right this very moment.

Applejack got the impression that they were both like  Pinkie and unlike Pinkie, in that they were every bit as ornery as her, but not a one of them said a single word, or even acknowledged anypony’s presence. You could kick one in the chest, and it’d slide back, but then just keep hopping forward not even looking at you or realizing it just got kicked back. It probably the second strangest thing Applejack had ever herded in her life.

Those air whales sure had been an astounding experience.

The line had a bit of trouble, when a Pinkie started trying to join in with herding Pinkies. Nopony was sure whether to let her do it, or to push her ahead, or what. Applejack ran the line and encouraged them though, and they let her be and kept pushing forward. Whether or not Pinkie Pie or, some part of Pinkie Pie at least, wanted to help, they had to get these Pinkies away from their all-important hay bales for the winter seasons. Applejack held a grim visage, but she wasn’t really worried. Long as they all got to the library, everything was gonna be fine and dandy.

That was right about the time when everything went totally, catastrophically wrong.

Butting Pinkies with her head, Applejack was shouting out, “C’mon, get on you! Get it up. Keep it moving, ponies!”

“We got a runner!” Margey shouted, charging at a Pinkie who’d gotten behind the line and was running, well, hopping away. It was strangely adorable when Margey connected, the completely confused expression on Pinkie’s face as she went sailing through the air, her little wingding wings fluttering ineffectually. Margerine Delight rejoined the line next to Applejack, right as they arrived upon another... well... it wasn’t an eating  establishment, precisely.

The line parted around a building whose presence in their town not many ponies liked to bring to attention. It would have been generous to call it a tavern, but it was at least a fun place to share a drink with friends in the evening. Trouble is, it was also one place you could go if you really wanted to get soused on questionable liquor. Applejack never liked the place, but they managed to get ponies drinking her cider after it’d gone bad already, so she couldn’t complain about the extra bits there.

Still, it wasn’t the least questionable of places, and it wasn’t exactly an eating establishment but they did  serve food there. A few ponies went to check out the tavern anyway, to make sure there were no Pinkies inside eating up the pretzels or what have you, and getting even drunker than they already were naturally, guzzling down that tarnished juice stuff. Applejack didn’t event want  to know what would pop out of Pinkie’s mouth if she drank a bunch of booze .

Applejack might have been more concerned—no, alarmed—no, panicked  if she knew about the other thing  they served at that bar. Something that was even less respected than alcohol in these parts, for what it did to ponies. Made them downright idiots, liable to do some damn fool thing like run off a cliff or start rearranging everypony’s flower garden in town to be color coordinated without sleeping... for 3 days straight. Yep, Applejack was mighty low on respect for that stuff, and as a consequence not even she  knew that the tavern offered it to discerning customers, who felt they needed that little pick-me-up to take away the blurry edge of an alcoholic buzz.

No sooner had any of her line ponies gotten to flank the door of the tavern, than it burst open, and the greying proprieter charged out of it. That was the other reason this tavern stayed in Ponyville. That old fart had been in the business longer than Applejack had been alive, and nopony was gonna run such a long standing, respectable business out of town just for being a little seedy. At the sight of the ponies outside, and the mass of Pinkies they were pushing along, he fell to his knees, shouting in despair, “It’s all over! They got into the salt!”

Putting two and two together, Applejack’s pupils had a moment to narrow before she shouted atop her lungs, “Everypony! Surround the building! Drop everything! Block off the windows! Don’t let even one  of them get out!” Applejack sure didn’t know what a hyperactive pony like Pinkie Pie was going to be like on salt, but she figured it was pretty bad. She didn’t know what a Pinkie Pie like these  was gonna be like on salt, but she figured it was gonna be pretty gosh  darned bad. But actually, it turns out it wasn’t bad at all. It was worse. 

They had ponies holding the window shutters shut, and barricading them if necessary. All the doors were being watched, blocked and leaned against. It was a single story establishment, thankfully, so nopony had to climb up to the second story or anything. Applejack was cautiously approaching the front door, thinking to run in there and at least separate the Pinkies in there, to try to minimize the damage they could do collectively. But then Wheaty cried out in alarm, as something slammed into her window.

The ponies were shouting, as the Pinkies apparently were trying to physically batter their way out. It felt like Pinkies were throwing chairs against the windows and using battering rams to try to push the doors open. The defenders didn’t realize at first, but the reality is, the Pinkies weren’t even trying to get out at all. The chairs, doors, and walls just happened to be in their way at the moment.

Fighting to contain them had turned into a losing battle. There was no going in that place if you valued your tail, your hide and your sanity. The battering had turned into one continuous rumbling thunder, and even the ground was beginning to shake unsettlingly. Applejack backed up from the whole mess, starting to see what a mistake she had made. The walls, even the walls, they looked sort of like...

“Everypony, run!” she shouted frantically, pushing protesting ponies away from their defense of the egresses to the tavern. The Pinkies weren’t just banging on the windows and doors anymore. It was more like the ceiling and walls of the tavern were swelling, like something at an incredible pressure was trapped within.

“Go! Go!” Applejack shouted, leaping away with most of the others just as the entire building erupted into a titanic explosion, the blast sending Applejack flying heels over head. Ponies all around her were screaming their heads off. She twisted in midair trying to see, but the motion of the Pinkies was so impossible to track that they just all looked like a badly exposed photograph. Ponies went flying everywhere, and Applejack landed with her back to a fence. The Pinkies actually rose up into the air like they were flying, before crashing down on everypony like a tidal wave, and running in every direction at once. There were so many! There were... there were...

Three?

Three Pinkies, and hopefully something explosive, detonated the tavern, and ran through the streets faster than the eye could see. It seemed like a whole barn full of them, but it was actually only about three that managed to summon up such unstoppable power. The explosion had the form of a pinkish cloud sweeping over everypony and all the Pinkies they had been herding, as if Pinkie’s very essence had been dispersed into the air. Applejack picked herself back up, a dim silouette inside the pink cloud, coughing as the dust started irritating her lungs and making her nose run. What was  this stuff, and why was it making her feel all jittery?

Applejack’s face fell in horrified realization. “Ohh nelly,” she mentioned.

“Get outta tha,” she shouted to everypony, “AHSHOO get outta the cloud!”

“You kidding?!” an unfamiliar voice shouted eagerly back through the obscured air, “This is primo quality, and cracked!” Applejack just... ran away from that little comment, and from what was left of the tavern. She shook the dust out of her hair once her vision cleared, and that was a mistake because it made her head pound along with the increasing speed of her heart rate. She took a despairing look back, trying to figure how to get those Pinkies in line, but dozens of them were all kicking up the dust right into their own faces, buzzing around like hyperactive bees, and anypony who could stop them...

There was no herding Pinkies anymore. Ponies were trying to keep things together, but all they were doing was shouting in each other’s faces and zipping around trying in vain to catch the pink blurs shooting effortlessly past the line. They were going crazy! Applejack bit her lip as a Pinkie drove herself right through a wall, to the sound of a screaming family inside. The Pinkies were going crazy! Applejack was going crazy! She didn’t want to go crazy! She danced on her feet, unsure of what to do. She had to hold it together! She had to do something! She had to get help! She’d be in no position to help anypony like this!

Applejack went running for the library, finding it dreadfully effortless to do so. The town flew by her, her hooves pounding underneath her, while her heart raced at a million miles a minute. She hit the tree head on because she couldn’t stop right easily, but that was fine, because somepony here could always solve everything. Without even pausing, she ran up to Twilight and shouted hurriedly, “We gotta situation! Some Pinkies managed to blow the tavern sky high! There was salt everywhere! They’re all runnin’ around too fast to see, and everypony else is just running around being all crazy because of the salt and I really need somepony to stop those Pinkies because I got a facefulla that stuff and I don’t know how long I can keep my wits!”

“Aaaaapppplejaaackkk,” Twilight said, turning to face Applejack as if in slow motion, “Youuuuu’reeee spppeeeeakiiiiing toooooo ffffffaaaaaaaaa”

“I ain’t got time for games, Twilight!” Applejack said shaking her by the withers. “I don’t do so well with that stuff and someone’s gotta stop the Pinkies!” She must have shook Twilight too hard, because there were two of them now, both looking at Applejack sort of extremely with extreme concern. Applejack saw the magic Pinkie jar behind them flickering, as Twilight’s focus left it. She winced and immediately released both Twilights, who hurriedly resumed reinforcing the cage. It was getting real hard to see, on account of the sun ramping up in brightness a few notches, making Applejack squint and pull her hat lower over her brow. She pondered what she could possibly do for a good few microseconds.

“Ah know!” Applejack exclaimed in realization, pounding one hoof into the cusp of another, “Ah’ll go get the Pinkies mahself!” She ran off at a blinding speed, and she was making good time until she realized she hadn’t made it more than four feet before plowing face first into the ground, and just running like that for a while. Oh, this wasn’t good this wasn’t good at all. She jumped to her feet again, shooting over to another green pony saying, “C’mon Wintergreen we gotta go herd the Pinkies fast. Ah think they might be into the crops north of town! They could be anywhere at that speed! Heh heh, speed,” she couldn’t help but chuckle at her little word play, despite the gravity of the situtation.

The pony just stared at her in terror, and on her head was glowing a, oh she was a horny pony. Heh heh, horny. Applejack had to pat her on the head and leave her be since the unicorns had to magic the cage, so instead she started chasing after the flower ponies, but they kept running away and screaming, and all Applejack was doing was saying “Hey c’mon! You gotta help! You know how to help, right? You can do anything!!”

Applejack heard Twilight running up slowwwly behind her, still talking in that silly sounding slow way saying, “Aaaaaapppleeeejj” but Applejack grabbed her again, shaking her by the withers, saying urgently,

“Salt, Twilight! The salt! Salt salt salt salt salt!” She must have shook Twilight too hard because the shield was flickering again and wait, in fact Applejack wasn’t supposed to shake Twilight at all. Applejack released the little purple pony abashedly, backing up a step before suddenly realizing, “I know! Ah’ll go for help!”

She would have run off then at a blinding speed, but her legs weren’t working quite right again, so they got all tangled up in her other  legs and Applejack went down in a heap. At least this time she noticed right away, instead of running into the ground like some kind of crazy pony.

Instead of getting back up, Applejack calmly rolled onto her back, giving her legs a critical look. What was wrong with these things? They weren’t moving fast enough. She tried running them in the air, and that was lots easier than running on the ground, but she still didn’t get anywhere. It was really funny too, the way her legs were all bendy and she could kick and stuff. A chuckle built in her until she was laughing enthusiastically, because her legs and the thing and it was just so funny how she had like, legs  and all, because they were funny legs.

“Mah legs are so buckin’ hilarious!” Applejack crowed triumphantly. She didn’t even notice she was falling unconscious until she did, passing out with more surgical precision than a pony could have caused from just clocking her on the back of the head. The blackness that engulfed her was such a relief from the blindingly bright sunlight that was making her eyes water and redden, no matter how hard she squinted. And then Applejack was out like a late zap apple.





Twilight stood somberly over the body of her fallen friend. Applejack seemed to symbolize Ponyville as a whole, in this moment. Fallen over on her side, Applejack’s peaceful appearance concealed a total loss of sense and reason. Princess Celestia had ordered Twilight to keep the Pinkies safe, but there was nothing to keep them  all safe from the Pinkies . And now their winter bales were to become just more pounds of pink flesh, far too much for any one pony to contain. When would these Pinkies stop eating? Why did they even exist? The answers were not forthcoming, and with no other recourse they might as well give up the entire town as a lost cause.

Behind Twilight, Lyra and Sparkler were shouting about the pillar barrier. Without her magic it would surely fall, but what purpose did it serve anymore? There were soon to be an innumerable amount of Pinkie Pies charging down from the north, anyway.

Plans for evacuation drifted through Twilight’s head. Plans for marking buildings as condemned. All the buildings. Every single one. Perhaps they could cordon off the entire municipality somehow, stop the Pinkies from spreading to neighboring towns. Perhaps they could build a scale model of Ponyville and nopony would know what happened to the real one. Twilight saw in her head the disappointed and horrified visage of her princess, at what terror resulted from what Princess Celestia herself had ordered to happen. A princess who had gone through so much, finding nothing but tragedy after tragedy.

Twilight was interrupted by a sturdy hoof clocking her on the side of the head, and a stallion shouting “I said, snap out of it!”

“Huh?” Twilight groaned confusedly, holding her aching head. “Spike?” She focused on—well, it definitely  wasn’t Spike.

“Twilight Sparkle,” the tannish brown stallion said to her with great urgency, “You have  to reinforce the barrier. It is imperative that you not let it go down!”

“Why is it important?” Twilight half shouted at the frantic stallion. “I’ll just let these Pinkies go, and go to the north and fix things there, then let them fall apart, and go to the south and fix things there and let them  ” a hoof on her shoulder.

“Just do your best with what you have here,” the stallion said in an eerily sympathetic tone, “This is Ponyville. Your fellow citizens can do more than you think. We’ve been through worse than this and survived! You have to trust them. Do your best, and I’m sure they’ll find some way to pull through.”

Twilight almost stared through him, wanting to refute his inexplicable optimism, but he was right. She wasn’t going to fail any worse if she did what she could, than if she just gave it all up for lost. “Thank you,” she said seriously to the stallion, lighting up her horn and turning to the force cage. Lyra and Sparkler were bearing the brunt of the operation, with Dr. Doctor a close third, but the field was no longer uniform but swirling and warped and worryingly uneven in places.

Twilight slammed into it metaphorically, the cage lighting up with her characteristic glow as she stabilized the pillars and adjusted the vectors to account for the latest bizarre amalgamation of force that was on the center of the cage. The barrier smoothed out, and stopped distorting, and with just a bit of ultraspatial 4 day harmonic derivation, the last of the anomalies were contained. A Pink hoof which had somehow managed to push through the barrier was inexorably drawn within, leaving nothing but smooth magenta, raspberry, teal, and golden sheens on the smooth, glasslike cage walls.

Twilight spared a glance at the stallion who helped her, thinking to thank him for his motivational support, but the earth pony was already running away full tilt, shouting to an unseen party (no doubt a Pinkie Pie), “Get the bloody hell away from my ship!”

...ship?

No time for that. Twilight had to concentrate.

You’d think this a perfect time for a scene transition, but in life we have to deal with what we’re given in the proper  order, and without conveniently skipping the boring parts. For Twilight, caging Pinkie Pies was unsurprisingly—or perhaps surprisingly—a very boring experience. Oh sure, the spell theory involved was fascinating and all, but the application was very mundane: just making sure the runes remained unswirled, and the proper mana channels were set, accounting for all the little dings and scrapes Pinkie Pie seemed to have on reality. 

Twilight had already gone over at least three scenarios in her head, in which she utilized the library battery to maintain this impossible to escape spell, scenarios that would involve her being more useful than just sitting around and pouring her magic into it. But ultimately, she had made snap judgements, and now she could only do her best with what she had.

Twilight regarded the others helping her with her spell. Lyra with her musical ability effortlessly smoothing out the cage’s dissonances, Dr. Doctor eliminating weaknesses and fractures with surgical precision, and Sparkler who, while younger than Twilight, had an innate grasp of the art of pyrotechnic fireworks displays, which lent itself nicely to the multitasking of several thousand Pinkies all trying to escape at once. There was also some blue haired unicorn Twilight hadn’t seen around much, but she was pretty much still cursing and nursing her aching head, having not done much magic before today besides levitate the occasional glass, or turntable.

Not a lot of conversation was spared between the four of them, as they all had to concentrate on maintaining the cage’s integrity, but for Twilight, feeling her own magic mingling with theirs was its own sort of intimacy. It was a strange sort of communication, that unicorns could share together without speaking a single word.

She hadn’t known how good of a lyricist Lyra was for instance, until just now. The soothing touch of Lyra’s magic almost carried a song in of itself, and though Twilight was providing the brunt of the magic, it was the aquamarine unicorn who was doing the most to keep the cage both stable, and Pinkie proof.

Twilight really missed working so closely with skilled unicorns like these. Her Friendship studies had been refreshingly multi-tribal, but there were just some things an earth pony or a pegasus could not relate to. She made a note in her mental checklist to follow up with Lyra after the crisis has passed, see how she’s been since she finished school at Canterlot. In fact, since Twilight knew of Sparkler through  Lyra, that meant two of her old classmates were both  here and integral to the solution to the problem at hoof.

However ineffective that solution may be.

As she shifted restlessly to keep a close eye on her corner of the cage, Twilight’s hind hoof kept inadvertently nudging Applejack’s magically somnolescent body. Even asleep, Applejack was a bitter reminder that despite the fascinating challenge in the problem of containing Pinkie Pie, that the four of them faced with an innovative solution, there were still going to be vastly more Pinkies outside the cage than within it in short order.

Her foot hit Applejack’s limp side again.

“Can somepony take care of my friend?!” Twilight shouted over her shoulder, a little angrier than she intended. “She needs... bed... um, something... gah!” A pink nose in the meantime had started poking through Twilight’s magic, and she hurriedly adjusted the barrier to resist (of all things) being nuzzled  into nonexistence. Twilight really wished she had a more long term solution than this. There weren’t supposed to be this many Pinkies in the first place. None of this was supposed to happen at all.

Twilight gritted her teeth, wishing she could go up north, where some sort of salt explosion if Applejack’s words could be deciphered had ruined everything forever. That  she could do something about! But no, Twilight had to sit here reinforcing this stupid cage full of stupid Pinkies who were too stupid to stop reproducing when they knew they weren’t welcome. And the worst part is, Twilight had to concentrate , and it was just impossible  to concentrate, between the interruptions and the wails of despair in the background, and the sounds of property damage, and the unmistakable sound of a... wait, what in the name of Celestia was she hearing?! 

In a rising panic, Twilight Sparkle turned away from the cage and saw
> The Parasprite Polka
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The crouching orange filly known as Scootaloo was absolutely terrified at the moment. Oh no, it wasn’t being scared of Pinkie Pie, even though there were a whole lot of them and they were totally dangerous. But what Scootaloo was scared about was how the princess turned Pinkie into a... back into a... a whatever Scootaloo was, and then Pinkie went crazy all over town! What would everypony think of Scootaloo, once Pinkie has made such a mess of things?

Scootaloo moaned in despair, planting her face on the seat bench, wishing she could understand what was even going on. Scootaloo was pretty sure there was no way in Tartarus Pinkie Pie could throw up this many times. At least, not if she was doing it like Scootaloo did. That took effort! And food, and discomfort, and embarassing yourself. Plus Scootaloo couldn’t remember ever throwing up the same pony twice, much less throwing up yourself. But these Pinkies acted like new ones, not the same, but they all looked like Pinkie. But weren’t they supposed to look different?

It was the first time Scootaloo ever seen a pony who was like her, but hadn’t come out of her mouth. It should have been totally cool, to finally have that in common with somepony, instead of always having that one thing that makes you a freak. But instead, it was a disaster! Instead of partying, Scootaloo was following Spike’s example, and hiding under a picnic table. She couldn’t go out there. Soon as she ran out there into town, everypony would be like, “Oh no look, there’s another one!” and they’d go after her, and beat her up, and they’d be right to do so, because Pinkie gave them no reason to think differently!

Scootaloo’s ugly self reflection was interrupted by a more literal reflection, when Archer’s head popped down from over the lip of the picnic table. Archer had apparantly quietly landed on top of the picnic table, and was now looking at Scootaloo upside-down-ly.

“Is this picnic bench taken?” Archer asked softly... too softly, so it was hard to hear her above the tumult. But Scootaloo got the gist of what she was saying. Scootaloo slid back, allowing Archer to wiggle her little blue butt down, until they were both underneath the picnic table side by side, hooves perched on the seat, peering out fitfully at the unfolding disaster that was Ponyville.

“This is terrible,” Scootaloo groaned, “We were so close to having friends again, and now everypony thinks we’re monsters. Again!”

Archer turned to face Scootaloo with a concern bordering on skepticism. Scootaloo blushed, and added, “Yeah, I know it’s only Pinkie Pie, but I mean, why couldn’t we do something like this? First you make a filly, who makes a filly, and soon they just start running on auto-pilot, making more and eating everything in sight!”

“I think they would want to go back inside me, instead of making more,” Archer offered forgivingly. “Princess Celestia did use a lot of magic on Pinkie Pie too, so it’s different than if we just tried to do it on our own.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes, saying, “Of course it’s different. When we do it they’re not all Pinkie Pie.”

“It’s like she’s trapped in the past,” Archer speculated, “Just the same, over and over again. I wonder why.”

Scootaloo didn’t answer, but just turned to look outside their little flimsy wooden fortress. “So...” she said at last to her blue other, in a pleading tone of voice, “Any ideas? What’s our strategy here?” Somewhere in another universe, Applejack adopted a disapproving glare, while Twilight just facehoofed silently.

“Twilight said we should warn everypony,” Archer said,  “And something about reconnasense.” As she spoke, she watched—for instance—a Pinkie charging noisily down the street on two hooves, with the other two hooves holding a chicken above her head, a giant flock of angry chickens hot on her heels.

“I think everypony already knows what’s going on,” Archer concluded unhappily.

“We gotta think,” Scootaloo said, bonking her head with a hoof, “She’s like us, right? So we have to know something about her that other ponies don’t. How do we stop her?”

“I think the grown-ups are doing that,” Archer mumbled.

Scootaloo shook her head. “I know, I know,” she said, “But maybe they’re not like, special or something. If we could figure something out, we’d be heroes!”

It looked from here like Twilight had some kind of magic cage thing that they were dropping Pinkies into, and the last thing Scootaloo wanted was to get dropped in there. She should just stay where she was in hiding, and not make trouble. She didn’t want to though! She hated feeling so helpless! Where was her scooter? Where were her killer moves? She couldn’t go karate chop the Pinkies back into each other though. What to do, though?

“I wonder...” Archer whispered thoughtfully, staring off at something up across the square. Scootaloo joined her gaze trying to see what Archer was looking at, but all Scootaloo could see was just ...Ponyville. Well, what’s left of Ponyville, anyway.

“What do you see?” Scootaloo asked Archer, searching around, violet eyes following violet eyes. Archer answered her with a hopeful question.

“Do you remember that song?”

A bitter laugh burst out of Scootaloo before she thought better of it. “How could I forget?” she asked, the memory of it alone relieving her foul mood. “It was such an awesome song,” she sighed wistfully. “If only we didn’t have to not listen to it.” Scootaloo started bobbing her head to the tune, kind of sort of thinking about humming it even though she shouldn’t.

“Well, what if we could play that song?” Archer asked.

Scootaloo smiled patronizingly and started to answer, but stopped when her eyes widened in realization. “They’re just—!” she spat out swiftly.

“I know!” Archer agreed, “And if we did then,”

“Right!” Scootaloo responded, “So she’ll also”

“We just have to...” Archer trailed off thoughtfully.

“But where are we going to get four hundred pounds of flax?” Scootaloo protested, brows knitted in confusion.

Archer shook her head, “No, not that. Look!” She pointed her hoof across the square again, and Scootaloo looked, but there wasn’t anything unusual aside Pinkies causing destruction.

“I still don’t see it...” Scootaloo muttered abashedly.

“Her instruments!” Archer finally clarified. Sure enough, the one pony band musical harness was still stuck there abandoned up in that tree, by the branch puncturing the accordion and the sousaphone hooked over the top. Scootaloo’s eyes widened even more, but then she blinked and looked at Archer in even more confusion.

“I don’t think either of us can play all those instruments,” Scootaloo said skeptically.

“Well, you know how to play percussion, remember?” Archer prompted. “And I took recorder lessons. I’m sure I could figure that harmonica out.”

“But 12 instruments at once?” Scootaloo exclaimed. Archer smiled, closed her eyes and shook her head gently.

“Well?!” Scootaloo demanded. She knew Archer had never done anything like play that many instruments before!

Archer explained patiently. “Scootaloo, when Pinkie Pie played them, there was only one of her, so she had to play 12 of them all at once. But if there are enough of us, we would only need to play 1 instrument, each!”

Scootaloo’s reaction ranged from delight to concern. Finally she uttered in dispute, “How are we going to stop from going all... Pinkie Pie, though? Why should they listen to us to not make more?”

“I think we can do it,” Archer said with determination. “It’ll be harder than we’ve ever done before, but I think we can do it.”

“Maybe, maybe if only we make the new ones...” Scootaloo admitted reluctantly, “Since we’re best at it.”

“That could work,” Archer nodded. “How many will we need?”

“We won’t know until we get that harness,” Scootaloo declared, crouching low on her hooves as she gave it over there a determined stare.

“If anypony sees us together...” Archer said uncertainly.

“You just have to keep a lookout, while I get it down,” Scootaloo responded. “If anypony comes after us, just yell and we’ll run.”

“How about under the south bridge?” Archer said, “If we get separated.”

“That’s as good a meeting spot as any,” Scootaloo admitted. “Now come on, we gotta hurry.”

With that, Scootaloo leapt out from her picnic shelter, shortly followed by Archer, the two little fillies spreading out, running across the square with their target set in their sights. Anypony who would have noticed them were far too busy dealing with Pinkie Pie to do so. Though Scootaloo was worried, they didn’t attract any attention. For the moment, they were just another two unknown fillies running about and getting underhoof.

Scootaloo jumped into the air as they neared the tree, trying to remember the lessons that Rainbow Dash imparted on her, mostly consisting of Rainbow Dash spending the entire lesson trying to figure out how the hay Scootaloo’s wings worked. Scootaloo was a fast learner though, and with careful control of her buzzing wings and straining her levibud to its limit, she followed a shallow arc through the air and her hoof managed to snag the bottom of the musical harness.

Scootaloo pulled herself up into it. It was far too big for her to wear, of course, but she could use it to pull herself up into that tree. Clambering over it, Scoots made it onto the branch that it was impaled on, and perched there, looking down woozily. Scootaloo was not used to being this high, and certainly not in such a precarious situation. She kept telling herself she could catch herself if she fell but, well, there was a whole lot of tree sap in support of the fact that she’d overestimated her capabilities before.

“I’m going to push it off the branch!” Scootaloo called down in a shaky voice. “Don’t catch it, it’s too heavy!” Archer nodded and backed up. Scootaloo butted her head up against the flexible side of the accordion and heaved, inching it forward in little jerks until it slipped off the branch. She didn’t get to see what happened next, because the branch flipped up when the harness fell off, tossing Scootaloo off of it right into the air.

With a loud cry, Scootaloo tried to remember the confusing lecture on ailerons and updrafts and get her uncooperative wings to catch her uncontrolled fall. She did almost succeed, but she still hit the dirt face first, her muzzle smarting painfully as she slid to a halt. Picking herself up, she looked around and saw that Archer was already heading towards the harness, which having slipped entirely free had fallen heavily to the earth.

Between the backsides of both Scootaloo and Archer, the two of them could lift the musical assembly together. They were a little wobbly, but all they had to do was coordinate their movements and they wouldn’t drop it or anything. That was one thing Scootaloo was really good at with her... others, was coordination. It was kind of unsettling really, just another reminder that she and Archer were too close to each other to regard one another as friends. Normally Scootaloo deliberately tried not to sync with Archer, sort of hoping to distinguish them from each other, but it did come in handy now at least. Two normal fillies would totally have dropped everything, especially when somepony shouted behind them,

“There’s another two!”

Scootaloo couldn’t turn to see who was talking or if they were talking about her, but she was pretty sure what was going on when another voice exclaimed,

“Those are the originals!”

“Cheese it!” Scootaloo shouted, she and Archer charging off as one, with a ludicrous amount of instruments balanced on their collective backs. It was kind of pointless to hide really, because every step made the tamborine clatter and the symbols bang when they skipped along the ground beside the fillies. So Scootaloo was pleasantly surprised when, collapsing panting in an alleyway, she and Archer were not immediately met with pony pursuers rushing around the corner. She peeked around the corner, but ponies were just chasing Pinkies, still. She looked back at Archer, who just shrugged and turned towards their hard-won prize.

“Okay, so what do we have?” Archer asserted, as the two of them hurriedly huddled over the instruments and got to work.

They counted carefully, and it turned out that it was 13 instruments, not twelve. Scootaloo was sure she could put the cymbals on her hooves, while working the bass drum on her back, and Archer could play the harmonica, and probably the tamborine on her flank, that left one filly who needed to play the banjo, and one to carry the accordion, and one to play the tuba.

Scootaloo frowned, “But that means the new ones will outnumber us.”

“It should be okay, though?” Archer offered consolingly.

Scootaloo shook her head though. “I just don’t want it to get all crazy if we’re wrong,” she said, resisting.

There was a pause, then Archer said, “Maybe you could play the tuba? If I played the cymbals, that would let you push the keys.”

“But then you’d be playing three,” Scootaloo protested. “The cymbals, the harmonica and the tambourine?”

Archer shrunk back at that, looking uncertain herself that she could do such a thing.

“I-I guess we’ll have to make three then,” Scootaloo admitted.

“It’ll probably be fine,” Archer said.

Scootaloo sighed, mumbling, “But I really wanted to play the cymbals...” But alas, a cold, unforgiving universe denied her this one simple joy. Such is the terrible sacrifice of a tubaist.

While Archer messed with the stuff, Scootaloo kept looking nervously around the corner of the alleyway.

“I wonder why nopony is following us,” she muttered. Perhaps they just hadn’t been pursued at all, perhaps ponies were clearly too busy with a townwide disaster to go after a few fillies. Perhaps it was just dumb luck. But despite feeling like they were being watched, Scootaloo had to admit they remained unmolested.

“You’d think somepony would at least be curious,” Scootaloo said, looking back to Archer. “What do you think ArcHOOOSHI!”

Archer blinked at Scootaloo’s jumping backwards reaction, only to nearly jump out of her skin as somepony said, “Oops, sorry!” about 3 inches behind her shoulder. Archer spun around and reflexively tried to hide behind Scootaloo, even though both of them were the same size, shocked at the sight of a maizy looking orange haired earth pony. 

“Heeey, what are you fillies doing out here?” the older mare accused hesitantly, lowering her head to Scootaloo’s level. “Don’t you know i-i-it’s dangerous, with those things running around?” she announced, to those things running around, with a straight face.

Scootaloo looked at the pony sideways to her, leery as all get-out. “Who are you?” she asked testily, not sure why the pony seemed familiar, or whether she was just one of the mob that chased them.

“I-I’m Junebug,” Junebug said with a noticeable stutter, “One of the CCP who was at the library.”

Scootaloo continued to stand warily sideways to Junebug. “You’re not gonna dump us in the cage with all the Pinkies?” she asked.

Junebug just shook her head. She appeared confused at the question, as if it wasn’t an obvious thing Scootaloo should be asking.

“Because we-we’re the things, like Pinkie Pie?” Scootaloo continued feeling a little irate at Junebug’s uncomprehending head tilt. “Shouldn’t you be scared that we’ll– we’ll do that?” As if to punctuate her point, several Pinkies flew past the alleyway right then, except they weren’t flying, but rather riding, on other ponies, who clearly hadn’t been asked permission to do so, from how they were all yelling and bucking.

“Oh!” Junebug said, holding up a hoof to look at it modestly. “ I-I..I would be, buuut,” she frowned, “You haven’t before, and I don’t think i-it’s natural. Something’s wrong with Pinkie Pie, for her to swarm like this.”

Junebug snapped her mouth shut and awkwardly planted her hoof then, and backed up a step, looking all flustered suddenly. She said, “I-I mean, not that I mean you’re bugs or a-anything buut, I-I mean just I don’t think you’re like Pinkie Pie.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Archer exclaimed excitedly, in apparant ignorance of Junebug’s agitation. It calmed the older pony right down though, so maybe Archer had the right idea. Well, Scootaloo clopped over and plopped down by the musical harness, back to getting them loose again.

“Right,” Junebug said confidently behind her, “So I’ll just take you h—” She paused. “... to the library, and... y-you can wait in there until the older ponies have this all settled out.”

“What? No!” Scootaloo exclaimed twisting around to look up at Junebug. “We’re gonna help, too!”

Junebug shook her head, saying “It’s not something you should worry about. The grownups will handle it. I-it’s just too dangerous for little fillies like you.”

Scootaloo glowered angrily at the big orange pony. “We’re not scared!” she told her. It came out sounding way too defensive though. Scootaloo scrunched up and turned aside, adding more calmly, “We’re doing just fine.”

“Youu should get back to the library...” Junebug continued to suggest. It really was hard to take any demand coming from her as anything but a suggestion, with how she kept hesitating at every little thing she said.

“There’s something we need to do,” Scootaloo replied insistently, ignoring Junebug to pull on the pile to try to get them loose. “We’ll be fine,” she assured over her shoulder confidently. She and Archer started fiddling with the straps, unfastening them and separating the instruments out.

“How are you going to play all those instruments?” Junebug asked curiously. Scootaloo winced. Of course this grownup would be more confident  when they weren’t paying attention to her. But it was so the wrong question to ask.

It was the wrong question to ask, because Scootaloo was totally going to get in trouble if she told the truth. She didn’t want Junebug to think that she was like Pinkie Pie. But this pony already knew Scootaloo was like Pinkie Pie, so how could it hurt more? Junebug said she wasn’t going to throw them in the cage, after all. Junebug even saw Scootaloo make Archer last night, so she knew it wasn’t exactly the same as Pinkie Pie, right?

“We... need to make three more,” Scootaloo mumbled very reluctantly.

“Three more wha–oh,” Junebug’s face grew uncertain at the belated revalation. Scootaloo could practically feel her uncomfortable stare burning into the back of her head. “Y-you sure you aren’t going crazy like Pinkie Pie?” Junebug asked.

“We’re not going to eat all the food,” Scootaloo said quickly, turning over her shoulder to look up at Junebug seriously. “Just enough so we can carry all these instruments, and make Pinkie Pie stop doing bad stuff.”

Junebug’s alarm didn’t decrease as she backed up a step, saying “But what if they run amuck?! Yours I-I mean, not Pinkie Pie, I mean.”

“They won’t,” Scootaloo assured her, not feeling half as assured herself. “Me and Archer will be real careful so they won’t come out all nutty.”

“Can you control your o-o-others?” Junebug stuttered searching for the right word that simply did not exist in modern pony vocabulary.

Scootaloo shook her head, “No, I mean like... they know everything I do, but you still have to convince them to use it, and I can help them be easier to uh, convince, when they come out.” She frowned and added, “...I think.” She felt like she was explaining it wrong, and Junebug just didn’t seem to quite get it.

“Please miss Junebug,” Archer asked emotionally, putting a small blue hoof on her upper foreleg, “It can’t hurt any more, can it? If it goes wrong you can just put us with the Pinkies. I think we could save them, though!”

“I-I-I never said you couldn’t,” Junebug blushed flusteredly, “J-just that it’s too dangerous. N-normal.. I-I mean, not... “not you” ponies will ask for help from the grownups, before trying crazy things like making more of you. Why can’t somepony else play the instruments? I-I could play a tambourine.”

Scootaloo gave Junebug a long look. Archer piped up with a reluctant, “Do you even know the song?”

Junebug lifted a hoof, her face looking confused even through the shifting shade from the buildings on either side of them in the alleyway.

“The song?” she repeated, with that blank stare.

Scootaloo felt a chill even just trying to talk about it. She knew it was dangerous to let Junebug know her plans, but she just had to impress this on Junebug. Scootaloo couldn’t afford to get in trouble now. Junebug’d just throw them in the cage, and they wouldn’t save anypony, and that would be an experience Scootaloo would never want to remember again.

“The one Pinkie Pie was playing,” Scootaloo explained, trying to keep the tremble out of her voice, “That m-made us follow her.”

Junebug rubbed a pastern on her chest, saying dubiously, “I guess so? It went sort of like hmm-hmm-hmm-hmmmm-hmm-hm-hm”

“No,” Scootaloo interrupted in exasperation, “It went like this: ~~~~” and a trill came out of her mouth that sounded almost like an accordion, before she clapped her hooves over her own muzzle. Scootaloo blushed in the silence, and crossed her eyes as if she could see what was going on with her weird mouth. “Didn’t know I could do that,” she mumbled.

“You uh, sure you need the i-instruments at all?” Junebug asked curiously. “What other cool noises can you make?”

“P-pretty sure yeah, I mean I don’t really–” Scootaloo cut off as Junebug’s words started to hit her, saying, “Hey, it’s not my fault! I didn’t even mean to make that weird noise.”

“I-I thought it sounded cool,” Junebug smiled. “I wish I could sound like a-a cicada.”

“What’s a cicada?”

Junebug winced. “N-nothing.”

“She could just follow along, though!” Archer exclaimed thoughtfully. “It’s just a tambourine it only needs to keep the beat. That means you could play the tuba, and we only need to make two fillies then. We can do that!”

Scootaloo started to nod, but giving Junebug one more suspicious look said, “So, me and Archer need to make two more fillies in order to play these instruments. That’s okay, right?”

“No,” Junebug answered easily. Before any alarm could be raised, she added, “But I-I don’t got any other ideas. I-if... if you know the song, the only other pony who knows it is, well...” She gestured to the catastrophe of pink outside the mouth of the alleyway.

Scootaloo followed her hoof, looked back at her, then sighed and nodded. She still didn’t feel comfortable with not being all by herselves, but if Junebug really wasn’t going to hurt her, then it would be alright not to hide from her, just this once.

Archer pulled at the accordion, its punctured bellows stretching open at a touch, with the merest whisper of what should be its true sound. “We need something that can fix this first,” she said. “Everything else is fine, but this is... really broke. I don’t think we can tie it with cloth, because it needs to be airtight. I don’t know how to make it airtight though.”

Archer huffed in frustration, sitting down, while Scootaloo cheerfully exclaimed, “Oh, I know something that will work for sure!”

“Really?” Archer asked, both her and Junebug turning to look at Scootaloo with questioningly hopeful gazes.

“You bet,” Scootaloo said puffing out proudly. “I could get some easy I just have to go to the hardware store.”

“Oh, that’s um...” Archer looked aside.

“That’s in the same direction the Pinkies came from...” Junebug said uneasily. “I-it would be really hard to go through that...”

“It’s right in the middle of all this,” Archer agreed to Junebug less than happily.

“Right at the epicenter,” Junebug said down to her.

“Well... you two stay here,” Scootaloo mused, having just walked to the mouth of the alleyway while they were sitting there prevaricating. “I don’t care about the pinkiecenter or whatever,” she said, “If I can get my scooter, I can totally make it, no problem.” Her scooter, she spied miraculously unmolested where she’d left it leaning against a tree for the impromptu party, whom Pinkie even more impromptuly crashed.

Scootaloo chuckled at that. It’s like Pinkie really can’t miss a party after all. “Wait—” Archer said to her cautioningly, but Scootaloo was already at a gallop. She jetted across the square, dodging rolling barrels, and at one point a giant wad of cotton candy with Pinkie stuffed in the middle of it. Leaping on her scooter, Scootaloo pushed off with her hoof and engaged her wings.

As the familiar acceleration picked up, the world seemed to reach a greater clarity somehow, even though things were moving by her faster. Scootaloo wasn’t going to waste any time with tricks, but it was just easier to pay attention when things were flying toward you, instead of all around you. It gave her breathing room to think on the curious experience with the Junebug, and the ponies of Ponyville in general.

They sure were weirder than the ones in Whinneapolis, but maybe weirder was good? Scootaloo sure knew she was weird, and maybe if ponies were just used to weirdness, she might stand a chance at not having to move again. She’d only done it once before and... she really didn’t want to lose all her friends and have to do it again.

It was useful to run into Junebug it turns out, rather than disastrous, because she could watch Archer while Scootaloo went and blasted off towards the hardware store. There was one thing that Scootaloo needed before she could solve all their problems. She only hoped that she hadn’t blown all her credit on scooter parts again. Scootaloo had just this terrible memory for that sort of thing, and a tendancy to need a lot of scooter repairs. But that was why she did jobs there most of the time, so she would probably be okay.

As she careened through the streets, Scootaloo couldn’t help but notice that the streets were a lot emptier. Everypony she was dodging was Pinkie Pie, not any of the other ponies in Ponyville. Where had all the other ponies gone? Was everypony fleeing the area? Scootaloo firmed her jaw and picked up the pace. She had to get this done quickly or there wouldn’t be a town left to save.

Her progress down the hellish landscape that Ponyville had become was hindered by several obstacles, most of them currently in the process of falling. Scootaloo rode up a toppled over plant potter to catch enough air to make it through the window of a passenger cart flying through space, using the other window as a springboard to leap out before it landed behind her, and shattered into a million pieces. From there, she had to duck and twist through a series of clotheslines that had been taken down from their runners and stapled haphazardly to walls back and forth across the street. She landed on her still travelling scooter, with just enough time to dodge another rolling barrel, only to look up with alarm as the entire detached roof of one of the buildings came down on top of her, with a terrible crash of finality.

Seconds later, she emerged from beneath the sagging peak, her head ducked low, just enough space for her tiny body to fit underneath, with only the mane on top of her head looking worse for wear. Thinking fast as a toppled food cart loomed in her vision, Scootaloo did a forestand, flipping upside down to propel her scooter up above her, travelling over the fallen frame in a gentle arc, and then expertly dodging the tumbling cabbages rolling out of it, her hoof coming down hard on the soft plush flank of the Pinkies who were hot on the trail of those cabbages. Ignoring that, Scootaloo looked forward and saw it. There was the hardware store, right in front of her.

It was a warm oak building with shutters for doors. A scooter model that Scootaloo could never afford was always displayed prominently in the window, one of those fancy lightweight scooters currently that you could fold up when you weren’t going around. Inside were an array of tools, wheels, screws, lumber and knicknacks that were a joy to just browse among in more peaceful times. The store’s unique, sturdy oak construction was complicated by the fact that it was currently on fire.

Scootaloo squinted at the flames licking from a lower window of the building, and without slowing down, she drove in anyway. The smell of phosphorous and magnesium were heavy in the smoky air, somepony having set off the entire fireworks display. A more soot black than pink Pinkie Pie was curled beside them crying, but not doing anything else about it. Scootaloo jumped off her scooter just in time to clear the counter, and landed at a gallop, running into the employee room she had become rather familiar with during her exploration of mechanics over the past year. The reason Scootaloo ran into a burning building became apparent, because in the employee break room she knew there was a certain tank of fire extinguishment, very useful for putting out fires.

Only problem is, the fire extinguisher was as big as she was. Scootaloo ended up having to scramble out of the way when kicking it loose from its stand made it topple over, almost landing on her with a clunk. She grabbed the rubbery hose in her mouth, bracing and walking backwards, dragging the tank ponderously along with her. Every second it took made the heat in the air more oppressive. The sweat trickling down Scootaloo’s brow was both from that, and from the fear that she might be too late.

She wasn’t too late. Pointing the broad cone at the growing fire, Scootaloo pulled out the pin in her teeth, and turned the valve just like they said it would work. She was rocketed back by the violent blast of foam picking her up off her hooves. She returned step by step, training the blast on every bit of flammable or flaming material she could see. There was a ridiculous amount of foam in this thing. Scootaloo thought it was just a tank of liquid, but it just kept expanding, like soap suds sort of!

It was like nothing she’d ever seen. It ended up practically covering half of the entire display floor, not just the fireworks display. Scootaloo wasn’t sure she got all of it, but already the air was clearing. The foam even seemed to capture some of the smoky smell, leaving only a clinical, sterile smell behind.

A very confused looking Pinkie Pie emerged from the dusty foam, with it clinging to her face like a generous beard. Scootaloo ignored her for now, taking a moment to catch her breath and looking for any other signs of fire or smoke. Then her eyes widened in realization that, even here in the store, Pinkie Pie was the only pony to be seen.

“Mister Breezy?” Scootaloo called out, less than hopefully, walking a few steps. “I need to buy something!” No answer. Why was nopony around? She chewed on her lip, then danced on her hooves, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Pulling her prize off the hook with her teeth, Scootaloo was blushing hard with shame as she jumped on her scooter, tossing it to the board with a clatter then zipping out of the store. Her shame was short lived though, because when Scootaloo looked at the war-torn street she came down, her ears fell as she realized that she was going to have to go back through that all over again.

Rather more shaken, bruised, somewhat singed, with flecks of fire retardant clinging to her fur, Scootaloo scooted exhaustedly back to the alleyway. There, a little blue filly named Archer was still waiting, along with a tannish mare with orange hair and a beetle on her flank known as Junebug, and of course the all important instruments.

“G-got it...” Scootaloo panted, taking only enough time to toss the roll of duct tape at the piled instrument medley, before collapsing face first onto the ground.

Scootaloo was only out for a few minutes, she was pretty sure. When she caught her wind and struggled to her hooves again, Junebug was still holding up the accordion, while Archer carefully wrapped layers of duct tape around it, in alternating angles to match with the accordion’s natural folds. “Is it working?” Scootaloo asked walking up to them.

“Scootaloo!” Archer exclaimed in relief and delight, turning to face Scootaloo. Well, she more exclaimed “Schooha” spit out the duct tape, and then exclaimed “Scootaloo!” The blue filly, whom Scootaloo knew more than well, jumped down from where she was perched on the bell of the tuba, her tiny wings a-flutter as she exclaimed in uncharacteristic excitement,

“I think it’s working! The accordion makes noise again! I taped over both the holes, and Junebug is helping and I think everything else isn’t broken!”

“Awesome!” Scootaloo said with a hoof pump, “I think we might have this one in the bag!”

“Now we just need two more fillies who can play the song,” Archer agreed.

Scootaloo nodded excitedly. “Yeah! Let’s all go get something to eat right away then.”

Archer gave an uncomfortable non-answer at that, and the grown mare Junebug put in unhappily, “Y-you should take a look at this, Scootaloo.”

The three of them crept to the mouth of the alley leading into the market square, where an open air market had been inconveniently interrupted. It was completely empty. Empty stalls, empty carts, empty barrels.

A single lonely apple was rolling along the dirt, whereupon a Pinkie Pie leaped through the air to devour it in one bite. Pinkie stood there, looking around unconcernedly, then got an alarmed look as she began to choke up, and with a heave through her whole body, a goopy pink blob came out of her distended mouth. It didn’t rocket out as it had done before though, just plopped to the ground, unfolding after a moment into a second Pinkie Pie. The first had a relieved look on her face, and ignoring the second, just went bouncing off  out of the square. The second just kind of stood there, looking bored. Yawned after a while.

And Scootaloo was having second thoughts about all this. Third thoughts. No wait, fourth thoughts. She looked beside her at Archer also perched there on a crate, then up at Junebug worriedly. “They ate all the food already!” Scootaloo urgently hissed.

“There’s got to be something...” Archer murmured thoughtfully. “There have to be food stored somewhere, that we can get to but Pinkie Pie can’t...”

“Where could we go that Pinkie Pie couldn’t?” Scootaloo exclaimed in a harried tone.

“Maybe you...” Junebug offered hesitantly, “Could e-eat a Pinkie Pie?”

Scootaloo looked up at Junebug again, and her eyes widened with alarm. “No,” she said definitively, paling at the very thought. “I am not eating that.”

Archer also looked up to Junebug, adding, “We don’t know why she’s acting so weird.”

Scootaloo nodded to Archer, saying, “If we went and ate one of her,” and they both faced Junebug, telling her together with a concerned,

“We might catch what she has!”

Junebug backed up a step at that. She blinked in mild confusion and pondering, and finally just shrugged on the spot with a sorry smile, saying, “I-I got no ideas then.”

Scootaloo sighed, and added, “Plus I kinda don’t wanna know what goes on in Pinkie Pie’s head.”

That actually made Junebug grow pale. “Say no more,” she agreed. So Scootaloo didn’t. “M-maybe ponies around here know where food is hidden?” Junebug suggested, peering out again around above Scootaloo. “What can y-you eat?”

“I’m not pi–” Scootaloo glanced at Archer, then said, “We’re not picky. Pretty much anything. My favorite are roasted marshmallows.”

“You can fly, Scootaloo!” Archer announced.

Scootaloo raised an eyebrow saying, “Yeah maybe after another three months of practice.”

“No I mean... you can reach things that are high up,” Archer clarified, looking at her own wings and buzzing them demonstratively. “And I’m a wimp who can’t reach anything!” she said cheerfully, turning to face the two of them again.

Scootaloo blinked, and said slowly, “So... how is that a good thing?”

“Well we’re phys... physio...” Archer’s muzzle scrunched in frustration, “Physicalifically the same,” she said, “But only you can fly. I mean, it takes a long time to learn how to coornidate when you’re new, so you can, but I can’t do it yet.”

She pointed out of the alley, concluding with “And the Pinkies are all new.”

“So how does that get us food?” Scootaloo asked uncertainly, feeling a bit self conscious at Archer’s praise for some reason. Probably because Archer was saying it was good to be a bad flyer, so being a good one was bad, right?

“Well, um,” Archer toed the earth, and admitted, “I don’t know but, if we can find some food that’s high up out of reach, then you can get it and Pinkie can’t, so it will still be there.”

“So, like a cupboard or something...?” Scootaloo said with a dubious head tilt.

“What about an apple tree?”

They both turned to Junebug.





“Wow, you’re right, but... look at them.”

“I know, weird...”

Junebug insisted on accompanying the two, if for no other reason than they were two fillies in a war zone. The war seemed oddly like it was winding down though. Their first impression of this was when they got to the Sweet Apple Acres, where apple trees had been picked clean, below 20 feet or so. All the apples higher were still sitting there on their branches, glowing healthily in the afternoon sun.

They didn’t... look exactly ripe, but Scootaloo wasn’t about to be picky at this point. It was close enough to Apple Bucking season, so they’d just be a little tart is all, and she was concerned more about saving the day than settling her stomach. Though once she thought on it, settling her stomach might have been the very key to saving the day.

What she and Archer were remarking on wasn’t the apples though. “Wow, you’re right, but...” Archer said looking over the handlebars she clung to of Scootaloo’s scooter and gesturing toward the Pinkies she could see. Scootaloo looked over Archer’s shoulder and reversed the polarity on her wings to slow them to an abrupt halt. There were Pinkies here, but instead of trying to eat things they were lying around, leaning on the trunks of trees, not unconscious nor in pain, but just lazing about.

“Look at them!” Archer emphasized.

“I know, weird...” Scootaloo agreed. Junebug galloped up behind them, breathing hard for an earth pony.

“You... fillies are... fast...” she panted.

“Sorry Miss Junebug,” Scootaloo, said with a half grin, “Not every pony can be as awesome as me.”

At Junebug’s silent stare, Scootaloo’s grin faltered and she explained herself with, “That’s what Rainbow Dash says when she is doing awesome things and going really fast.”

“Right, well...” Junebug looked up at the trees, to which the Pinkies around here didn’t seem to be leaping at persistently. “You want to try to get those apples up there?”

Scootaloo nodded, and released her tight hug around Archer’s midsection, hopping off the scooter so the blue filly too could dismount. Crouching and spreading her wings, Scootaloo said, “OK now watch me do this!” and then, Scootaloo leapt into the air, rocketing into the atmosphhaha, no actually she rose slowly from the ground, quickly buzzing her wings and gaining altitude more from her leap than any aerodynamic lift. She did manage to orbit the tree though, kicking her hooves off it to push herself higher with every turn. “Watch me!” she repeated, “I almost got it!”

And then she got it, and her hooves hooked right over the lowest branch on the tree. Scootaloo’s back legs and wings pedaled furiously until she had scrambled up onto the branch entirely. It was about 10 feet off the ground, one of the ones without apples, but the ones with apples were now within reach! “I can reach the apples!” Scootaloo called down. She looked around for any ripe ones and there were a few that looked good at least. Biting the stem and pulling, she got the apple to snap right off, sticking her head out to look down at the woah, the ground was really far away from up here...

“You okay Scootaloo?” Archer called up at Scootaloo’s sudden hesitance. Smiling not-truthily, Scootaloo snapped up her head just enough, that when she released the apple, it arced right towards Archer. Archer caught the thing fruit-first in her mouth.

“I’m fine!” Scootaloo said with a false confidence, clinging tightly to the branch she was trying to perch on. She tried to remember how she felt when Rainbow Dash took her flying, with the rainbows falling all around. She just had to get the apples and maybe some fresh leaves and get down from here as soon as possible. This high was nothing like that waterfall. N-nothing like it at all.

Scootaloo hastily started pulling off apples and sending leaves scattering down, where Archer zipped around collecting them. Scootaloo didn’t look at that though, since there was no way she was going to look down again, not until she had all four hooves on the ground. Some of the apples might not have been ripe, and some might have been better left alone, but at last Archer shouted out, “I think this is enough! Hurry the Pinkies are looking at us!”

Scootaloo gratefully slid right down the trunk of the apple tree, thumping her plain butt on the earth, before flipping to her hooves with a steady relief. She saw um, Archer crouched protectively over a pile of apples and leaves, and Junebug with a big discarded branch in her mouth, using it to shoo away the two Pinkies who decided to come over and see what was going on. Repeatedly.

Archer threw an apple, a very tiny green one, and one of the Pinkies caught it in her mouth. She immediately winced at the powerful sourness and backed off sputtering, now clearly uninterested in what was to be had if it tasted like that. These Pinkies were pretty easy to read, unlike how Pinkie usually was, which Scootaloo found kind of... weird. Pinkie always had that air of mystery about her, where you couldn’t tell how she felt about something or how she’d react, but these Pinkies were a lot simpler.

Not spending any more time on that thought, Scootaloo hurried over to Archer, sliding up beside her on the earth, saying, “Okay so we’re really going to do this.”

“I–I just think about playing instruments, right?” Archer asked a little uncertainly. Scootaloo frowned inwardly, thinking maybe Archer really didn’t have all that much experience with making new fillies. She just usually spit out ones that were already there. “You think about what’s important to you,” Scootaloo said to Archer. “If we can play the song that will make the Pinkies stop um...” she looked around at the snoozing Pinkies. “I guess maybe we don’t have to–”

And that was when the shockwave from a giant pink explosion blasted past them, a distant cloud rising north of town.

“That!” Scootaloo pointed emphatically. “That was scary. We don’t want that. You think about how you don’t want that, and how good playing music is going to make you feel. And how sc-how you feel like it’s dangerous. And then they’ll come out of you better, I think. I think it’s what you want for you, not anything somepony wants for them.”

“Makes sense,” Archer said, deep in thought. “I think you’re right,” she concluded. “Every time you did that in the past, they came out the way you want–not how you wanted, but they came out so they could help you.”

“I hope it’s right,” Scootaloo said a little nervously. “I don’t wanna–”

“Wll you fllies gt eatn?!” Junebug champed out around her stick, still being circled warily by an inquisitive Pinkie.

“You heard her,” Scootaloo said, brandishing an apple. “Bottoms up!” This would have to be one of the first times she ever had any need to eat more than her fill. The fillies they made would be a necessity this time, not just a necessary evil. Feeling a little indulgant at that, Scootaloo tossed the apple up and caught it in her mouth. With a crunch, the thing dissolved into a tart mush, certainly not anything as tart as what Archer gave that Pinkie. There was plenty of sugar in this apple, even if some was still locked up in the tartness, and between that, the other apples, and the leaves, there was plenty of building... stuff. Stuff for making fillies.

Scootaloo was surprised by how much she had to eat to get it right. Their little stash diminished between them, and Scootaloo’s belly filled up swollen. It was like it was... it was harder to do, when you were trying to do it right, so she had to eat more maybe? She didn’t really understand, but finally she felt some threshold crossed, like a switch being flipped in her, and suddenly she went from wanting to put things in, to wanting to put things out.

“I’m (BURP)”

Scootaloo blushed and stood on all fours, repeating, “I’m ready I think. I-it’s... hold on it’s... yeah– ugh...” Discomfort swept over her, as there was something forming inside her that she really needed to get out of there. She knew exactly what it was, but that didn’t stop it from being disconcerting. She was glad to start heaving, just to expel the thing, the... the new filly that she was creating. That was kind of coo— and then her whole gut squeezed down and her mouth opened, in that way that it did when fillies came out. The ball of filly stuff inside her stretched her wide, as she urgently shoved it up through her throat and out.

Scootaloo only paid half attention as it plopped to the ground. She swallowed wetly once it was out of her; doing so helped close herself up faster. Her eyes then rested upon the filly who had come out of her. It wasn’t Dizzie again, that’s for sure. No, Dizzie was thankfully long gone, just a memory of sadness. The quivering ball of fur and feathers in front of Scootaloo now was an icy blue color, much lighter than Archer, with an even lighter stripe of electric blue in her emerging mane and tail. She unfolded uncertainly, standing one hoof after the other, until she was eye to eye with Scootaloo. Her short mane naturally parted into slicked back spikes, going from gleaming to soft textured, as she absorbed the last of that weird stomach goop stuff. It looked kind of windswept, like those cool ponies uh... Scootaloo didn’t really want to speculate.

Scootaloo sort of hoped the new filly would say something, but she was just sort of... there. Oh well, she’s new, so it’s to be expected. “Hello!” Scootaloo said to her in a friendly tone. “I’m Scootaloo, and I need your help to play something.” Getting no answer was fine, because now Scootaloo had the new filly’s attention, and that was what she needed to get. Now just have to think of something to call her...

Had Scootaloo not been focused on her new “sister” she might have felt unnerved by Junebug’s strong stare of utter fascination, not so much at the process, but at their little one sided exchange at the end there. It was an attention only broken, when Archer scrambled to her own hooves more hastily and said, “I’m I-eugk-it’s h-hh” and with her eyes bugging out and her throat and mouth stretching wide, out from her came a second goopy ball of filly.

This one was a bright yellow green, all swirled with red. The swirl turned out to be her hair color, with the resulting filly standing up having a golden green coat of fur all over her, and a pinkish red mane and tail. The mane and tail sort of bunched up roundly, in a way that sort of looked like...

Scootaloo chuckled. “Good job,” she said in honest praise to Archer, “I like her. You did real good, but... you really want to be friends with Apple Bloom, don’t you Archer?”

Archer just blushed, and turned from her own creation. Scootaloo shook her head chidingly, and put a hoof on Archer’s cheek, pushing her back towards the second new filly that came out of her.

“You have to say hello,” Scootaloo instructed, “That’s what I always do and it helps them.”

“R-right,” Archer said, fidgeting self consciously as she faced the silent green filly. “Hello, um... Tart Apple I just made you um... I need your help to play some instruments.” The newly christened Tart said nothing, but as Archer looked her eye to eye, a gentle smile touched the fourth filly’s face.

Scootaloo hauled around the new blue... Newblue? No that was too obvious. Light Archer was too hard to say. She hauled around the new blue pony to distract Junebug from watching Archer and Tart, saying up to Junebug, “See? No problem. Neither of our fillies are going to destroy the town. We’re just gonna play the song, and save the day!”

Junebug peered at blue... Bluey... Snowy, yeah that works. And Snowy peered back at Junebug impassively. “This is Snowy,” Scootaloo explained. “She’s new—I mean, really new, not from any time before. That means she won’t really see you for a while maybe. I bet she can play a mean accordion, though!”

“This i-is just more than I-I can imagine,” Junebug said in a tone that bordered on wonderment. “This is i-incredible. You could do so much with this.”

“Um...” Scootaloo thought about it, but she couldn’t really think of any applications besides if you needed more fillies for your band. “I guess so,” she admitted, “I mean, if you ever need another filly, it’s pretty quick and easy. That’s um... I mean, if you ignore all the throwing up and gooey stuff it’s kind of... convenient I guess?”

Junebug firmed her muzzle neutrally, saying to Scootaloo, “Well yes it... it’s probably just convenient. Maaybe we should just show them the instruments.”

“Good idea,” said Scootaloo, heading to the wagon that she had previously tied to the scooter all along in which she had, previously, as before mentioned and not totally forgotten about, placed all the instruments haphazardly. Taking special care with the accordion of course, as it had been the most damaged, and seemed to be the most easily damaged of the instruments. Scootaloo lifted out the accordion complete with barrel mount, carrying it on her hindquarters over to the new Snowy, where without asking she just placed the accordion atop Snowy’s back, and tightened up the straps. Tightened them really far since they were sized for Pinkie Pie, but they managed to cinch up enough. Putting the accordion bellows pump line over Snowy’s rear left hoof, Scootaloo stepped back to look at her handiwork.

Snowy stood there looking over her shoulder at the accordion strapped to her back. When she took a few steps, it began to wheeze sounds as she did so. Then her hoof shot up to the valve keyboard, and she deftly turned the discoordinated wheezing into a sequence of familiar notes. And even just that part of the song made Scootaloo smile, like she felt like she had come home, and everything was going to be okay now. “Alright Snowy,” Scootaloo said to her, “Now that you’re settled, we’re going to have to go save Archer from having a meltdown.”

Archer only needed a few... tips, of course. She wasn’t used to taking a leadership role, to say the least, and her new filly really really needed to be led, so Scootaloo had to make sure Archer was together enough to do it. Between that and fielding Junebug’s questions it took a minute or two, but not that long before they were all assembled.

Scootaloo took the front, with her right hindleg easily tugging on the mallet of the bass drum on her back, a deep thump with her every step, more or less depending on how she angled it. Her torso was wrapped entirely in the sousaphone tuba, making her need to stand a bit stiffly to avoid it dragging on the ground. 

Then came Snowy, with the accordion strapped onto her, walking in a three legged gait that set the pace for the four of them. She didn’t have any problem playing it, and in fact seemed to have more of a problem with anypony who wanted her to stop. Scootaloo really hoped she hadn’t overdone it there in making Snowy. Well, as long as she wasn’t going crazy and destroying Ponyville it was a success in Scootaloo’s mind.

Third was Tart, who had the banjo strapped around her neck. It was too big for her, but they had to work with what they were dealt, so it didn’t bump on the ground too badly. It was sort of ironic how Archer’s wishes ended up, since the one they had playing the Apple family’s instrument sort of looked like she could be an Apple herself, if she wasn’t a pegasus. Pega-something.

Archer took up the rear, allowing her to keep a closer eye on Tart, and buoying her confidence by not having to always worry about whether a filly behind her had wandered away. She had the harmonica on its stand right in front of her face, and a quick run over its span of notes showed that playing a harmonica was a whole lot different than playing a flute. Archer insisted she’d almost got the hang of it though, once she figured out to use her tongue to block the unwanted holes. Her forelegs were ensheathed in the cymbal holders, allowing her to crash them together mid-step if the music called for it.

Archer would have strapped the tambourines to her flank, so they jingled with her every step. It probably wouldn’t have interfered with her use of the harmonica. But Junebug really wanted to help, so she got to take the tambourines instead, following along behind all of them, promising that she’d do her best to keep with the pace of the song.

“Alright, everypony, here we go!” Scootaloo shouted, then as music started to swell behind her, she blew into the tuba to start them off. She stopped. The harmonica died when Archer ran into the bass drum on her back. Heedless of that, Scootaloo blew into the tuba again. “It’s not working!” she said in a panic, the tuba sounding like nothing but air going through a big metal pipe. “I can’t make it play!”

“I can’t sing those low notes!” Archer said in alarm. “How do you get a tuba to play?”

“I don’t know! I only ever played the drums before!” Scootaloo moaned. No matter how she fiddled with the keys, it just wouldn’t make music. Bitter tears started to come to her face as she sat down, trying so hard but it just would never work. Why wouldn’t it play?! She—

She was nose-to-nose with Pinkie Pie. A Pinkie had stuck her face in Scootaloo’s face, holding an oddly cheerful expression for a pony who was supposed to be unemotional and new. Then the Pinkie started trying to steal Scootaloo’s tuba.

“Oh no, they’re trying to stop us!” Scootaloo shouted, pulling back at the insistent pink pony in desperation. “Help she’s gonna steal my tuba!”

When no help came, Scootaloo got even more upset. Archer shouted behind her, “No wait, let her have it!”

“What?!” Scootaloo exclaimed, turning her tear stricken, puffy eyed face to look at Archer in shock. And that distraction alone was enough for Pinkie Pie to finally get the tuba out of Scootaloo’s hooves. “Now look what you did!” Scootaloo said angrily to Archer, who wasn’t getting any of her instruments stolen. In fact neither was Junebug, and no Pinkie was going after Scootaloo’s bass drum. In confusion, Scootaloo turned forward to see where the Pinkie had fled with her tuba, only to come face to face with the tuba’s broad bell.

BWOMP

After Junebug and Archer helped Scootaloo get to her hooves again, instead of being toppled upside down on top of the bass drum like a turtle on its shell, Scootaloo looked again at the Pinkie with the tuba. As if on cue, the Pinkie played two broad, low notes in succession.

“You... you can play the tuba?” Scootaloo asked. Pinkie’s willingness to give another BWOMP seemed to answer that question.

“You want to help us?” Scootaloo asked dazedly. BWOMP BWOMP was Pinkie’s answer.

Once only three, now the twelve ponies started marching around the apple trees, uncertainly at first, but growing with confidence, as everypony played the music without making trouble, and even Junebug was still pretty good at making rattles at the right times, even if she didn’t know the song.

And the Pinkies paid attention, and the Pinkies began to follow behind. At first one, two, and then a dozen, Scootaloo soon found herself the head of an impressive marching troupe. And she couldn’t have been happier to do so, because all the while she boomed her drum and crashed her cymbals, that beautiful song was playing. They were making it themselves! And Scootaloo knew that with her in front, she would never ever, ever take anypony to the river, nor make them go into the water and never come out again.

They headed to the north side of town first, where the big explosion had been, and as they did, they soon found that their little endeavor turned out to be very, very big indeed.
> No Monsters Here
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash cruised along looking forHOLY bucking road patties! What the hay was that?! A distant explosion rumbled across the landscape, an emerging cloud almost glowing as it rose to the sky, glowing in a very bright shade of ...pink.

“Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash said with a suspicious squint, changing her direction to jet towards the aftermath of the explosion. Heading for what, she was not certain, but she was sure an explosion like that wouldn’t be good, and that a lot of ponies might need help.

When she got there, it was a maddening sight. Rainbow Dash landed amid the wreckage of what might have been a building once. She tried to figure out just what the hay she was looking at.

The Pinkies were all zipping around almost faster than Rainbow Dash could track, and the rest of the town didn’t seem much better off! There was a stallion who seemed to think it was hilarious to ride on top of a lamp post, two mares mutually and endlessly chasing each other’s tails, a bunch of big buffalo who thought it was a good idea to roll upside down and now seemed surprised that they couldn’t get back up, basically pure bedlam.

“Discord!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed angrily, slapping one hoof in the palm of the other.

“Nope!” a strawberry red mare with blonde hair and slightly whiter highlights and bright blue eyes said, 2 inches away from Rainbow Dash’s face. “Salt!”

And then she was gone.

Suddenly alone, Rainbow Dash blinked, then looked around at the ponies running around, some vaguely trying to maybe corral Pinkies maybe, but so out of it that they were doing anything but.

“What is going on?” she shouted, stomping her hoof down.

“Um, I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” an older stallion’s voice rang out, distinct not in its volume but in its coherency. Dash turned to look at him half hidden around the corner of a nearby building. He looked like someone had forgotten his birthday and kicked his puppy while stealing his ice cream at the same time. It was an odd look for an older gentlepony. Rainbow thought he looked familiar, but she didn’t recall what he did in this part of town. Dash didn’t usually come around here on account of all there really was to do was that one sort of skeezy... oh.

“What do you  want?” Rainbow said suspiciously at the tavern owner. Her glare softened as heart went out to him though, because that tavern must be what got destroyed. “I mean, sorry for your loss and all,” she admitted, self consciously scratching a hoof on her past–

“No, wait!” he said, making Rainbow Dash freeze in place.

“What’s wrong?” she asked concernedly, putting her hoof down firmly, where it hit one of the many piles of pinkish dust littered all over this wreckage.

He gave her a look.

Then he put a hoof on his forehead, and slowly drew the fork of it down his brow, and across the bridge of his nose. “That’s salt,” he stated, pointing at her hooves.

“Salt?” Dash asked looking down at her hooves. “Why is it pink then?”

“It’s strawberry flavored, okay?” the tavern owner said in a strained voice.

Dash gaped at him openly, saying, “Why would you want to make strawberries  taste salty ?”

“No, not salt,” he griped. “Salt!” But that was the same thing, so Rainbow Dash just continued cocking her head at him.

“Weasel dust,” he tried, growing agitated. “Gutter glitter. White horse. Nose candy. Bounce powder! I’m sorry!” he was openly bawling at this point falling to his knees, “It’s me! I’ve been selling salt all this time! I didn’t mean to hurt anypony! It was all fine, I was just going to keep it under the table, I was making everypony happy! And now I’m ruined! One bad trip and everything went up in Pink!”

Rainbow Dash visibly... flinched. “Wait, you mean like... salt ?”

“Yes!” he said in exasperation and despair, “Salt!”

“Well that’s great  buddy,” Dash said placatingly to the stallion, and not very sympathetically, with maybe a bit of a disgusted sneer, “But what’s salt got to do with m–”

She looked down at what her hooves were stomping in.

“Salt?” Rainbow Dash asked dumbly, lifting her head to look at the proprieter. He was too busy weeping to answer, but everypony around in a full block’s radius were all too happy to fill in for him, exclaiming in one single loud collective,

“SALT!”

And all with huge smiles on their faces.

Dash jerked her hoof up again. “Oh fuck oh bucking apples oh no,” she said, rising up into the air, and as soon as her wings beat down it was going everywhere  again. “No!” Dash shrieked, flapping hard enough to take off vertically straight into the air. There was a collective cheer beneath her, but she ignored it. She may have kicked up clouds of the stuff all over everypony, but she had to stay out of it at

all.

costs.

As she flew, Rainbow kept her hooves as far away from her face as possible, hoping the tears streaming from her eyes were just from the wind in her face and her distress, not a certain irritating powder. In a completely selfless act that was for the good of everypony, Rainbow Dash abandoned all attempts to help anypony, instead making a beeline for Sweetie Belle’s real house, where Sweetie Belle’s real parents were, that Sweetie Belle really lived with, and more importantly for what lay just beyond it, the nearest lake lagoon that Rainbow Dash could pile head first into with a huge splash.

With a burst of water and rainbow, Dash came up for breath, her mane whipping above her as she gulped in air. Floating there on her back she rubbed her hooves quickly together, splashing in the water like some kind of pony raccoon, or otter maybe. Her forearms were clean now, and her nose felt clear. It looked like she was safe. She didn’t feel  any tingling at least. Then again, that stuff snuck up on you, and especially...

Suffice to say, Rainbow Dash made sure to emerge from that lake a soaking, bedraggled, and quite muddy mess of a pegasus. And that was fine  with her, because it  didn’t get her. It had been close, but she was safe. Probably safe. She wasn’t blacking out, or missing time, so she was probably safe.

“Is that you , Rainbow Dash?” a very familiar voice said in front of her, breaking Rainbow Dash out of her spiral of worry with a heady bludgeon of disgust. Rainbow groaned, and wiped the mud off her eyes, opening them and looking forward into the unsettlingly askew, but brightly golden eyes adorning the smiling visage of Derpy Hooves.

“I’ll be fine,” Rainbow Dash grumbled to her. “I just had to wash something off really fast. I’ll just get cleaned up really–”

“Oh, I can help with that!” Derpy exclaimed, fluttering lightly into the air.

“No, no, no don’t—!” Rainbow exclaimed, squeezing her eyes shut, and sticking a hoof out at her, but a second passed, and Derpy was still just hovering there passively. She had kind of a sad look on her face, like she expected Rainbow Dash to reject her without even giving her a chance.

“I was just gonna make it rain on you,” Derpy said in a plaintive tone.

“That... that’d be fine , Derpy,” Dash said guiltily, shaking globs of mud off her wings. With an instant smile, Derpy eagerly bounded into the sky in search of a rain cloud, and Rainbow Dash had to half smile at that pegasus. She sure was enthusiastic; that was one thing you couldn’t begrudge her for. Presently a suitable cloud was fetched, and Derpy’s confident stomps made the water come down from the rain soaked cloud. The water trailed slickly over Rainbow Dash’s well oiled coat, washing the caked mud off her body and tail. Dash closed her eyes with her nose turned up, and wondered if maybe their friendship wouldn’t be so bad after all.

That was when Derpy hit the lightning bolt.

While she was unconscious, Rainbow Dash had a very peculiar dream. She dreamed she had woken up from being electrocuted, woken up quickly enough that tiny bolts of static still danced through her hair, woken up still there down by the lake. In front of her, in the dream, was Scootaloo. Except Scootaloo was just passing by, with an oversized bass drum strapped to her back, and cymbals stuck on her front hooves. Rainbow Dash thought that meant the dream was symbolic of the conflict Rainbow Dash felt between her friendship with Pinkie Pie and Pinkie’s antagonism of Scootaloo, but then there was a second filly passing by that Rainbow Dash didn’t particularly recognize at all. She had Pinkie Pie’s accordion strapped to her for some reason.

Dash was starting to think that maybe this dream was representative of her feelings of alienation, when Pinkie had stopped seeming like Pinkie while she was wearing that instrument, but then the next pony who passed by was Pinkie Pie herself, blowing enthusiastically into her own tuba, along with the rest of the troupe, in that very catchy and familiar tune that Rainbow Dash had been battling desperately all last night.

Perhaps it was just the song persisting so long through the night, that it filtered into her dreams? There was another unfamiliar filly with a banjo who stumbled to play it now and then, but couldn’t really be heard above the rest of the instruments. Behind her, bumping her forward gently was Archer, who had a harmonica attached in front of her mouth. Then came Junebug, who appeared to be attempting to trot as bouncily as Pinkie Pie did, in order to make the tambourines jingle on her flank.

Then the dream just took a turn for the strange, because behind that was Pinkie Pie, then Pinkie Pie, then Pinkie Pie, then a hundred, then a dozen, then a score. Like... all the Pinkies. “Are you okay, Rainbow Dash?” came the voice from Derpy’s familiar visage, poking her head through the unexpectedly thunder cloud, still hovering above.

“I’m fine,” Dash said uncertainly, “But I think I may have had too much ice cream before bed again, because this is one craaaazy dream.”

Derpy fluttered down to Dash’s level, looking at the parade of Pinkies, saying, “Ooh, I see. But, I thought we were awake?”

Rainbow Dash gave Derpy a look, then demanded, “Well, how do you explain that, then?” throwing a hoof in the direction of this strange phenomenon.

“When the Pinkie Pie turned into a bunch of Scootaloos, I think the song counts for her now,” Derpy speculated, a forehoof idly pressed beneath her chin, “And Scootaloo’s playing it so they’ll follow her instead, instead of destroying stuff.”

Dash gave Derpy another look... a different look. Derpy nonjudgementally looked right back at her... sort of. Rainbow Dash couldn’t help but perceive, in that moment that their eyes failed to meet, that Derpy wasn’t really capable of giving anypony  a look. Derpy was one pony who would never ever give Rainbow Dash a look, no matter what Rainbow Dash did or said to deserve it. Huh.

“C’mon, let’s follow them,” Dash decided, winging up above the Pinkie parade, and pausing to look back to the ground. Derpy hadn’t moved in that moment, just with a curious, unfamiliar expression on her face, like she was unfamiliar with something. Then she too hovered up into the air and came beside Rainbow Dash, who turned forward and together, the two of them travelled quickly to the head of the parade, where Scootaloo and crew marched ahead of a massive amount of Pinkies.

Rainbow Dash thought  it was a massive amount at least, but massive was an overstatement. The score of Pinkies grew and grew from there, until it turned even more massive, into a uh... a whole lot  of Pinkie Pie. Pinkies came out of the woodwork (sometimes literally) joining the procession one after another, turning the streets pink with... pink. Scootaloo was travelling north through town, and every Pinkie in earshot seemed quite happy to bounce along directly toward her and join the mass travelling along behind her.

Some other pegasi were fluttering down uncertainly to the pink tumult, but the Pinkies were dancing along so orderly that nopony was sure it was a good idea to try to drag them away to the Pinkie cage, which was full apparently. Some efforts underway regarding that, or something. Other ponies crept out from behind barrels and under tree stumps to watch the procession, some following along its edges with caution. But one way or another, the Pinkies soon formed a solid pink core to a population of Ponyvillians who weren’t all sure what was going on, but were certainly happy that Pinkie Pie, whichever she was, had stopped destroying their house.

Somepony had the bright idea of singing along. Dash wished it was herself, but it was not her bright idea, rather one she picked up on, as the voices in the crowd began to join together, improvising a song based on this simple tune Scootaloo and crew were playing. If it was possible for the effect to be any stronger, the singing seemed to magnify it. Pinkies came from all over town. Pinkies came from where they had fought pitchforks brandished at them by desperate ponies guarding the mountainous bales of hay. Even the salt disaster, where it looked like Scootaloo was heading, the hopped up ponies didn’t all have the coordination to join, but the hopped up Pinkies  all joined as one, and merely danced to the rhythm of the sixteenth notes.

Full of spirit for the success of this, a whole throng of ponies formed, looking like a gigantic spearhead from the sky, whose handle was entirely pink. Scootaloo and crew’s musical accompaniment gave strength to their words, which in turn gave strength to the song. Pegasi were turning loops in the air, earth ponies and the few unicorns prancing in unison. It was like the whole town was swelling in song. Scootaloo led them along in a broad circle all through town, finally convening for the Golden Oak’s library, where they could put these Pinkies somewhere safe.

When they arrived at the library and the climax of the song, Dash burst upwards like a fountain, from a circle of ponies in the shape of a flower with a bright pink center, twirling together with the other pairs of pegasi, her arm locked together with... oh hey, it was Derpy again. And with a bright cheer they all finished, with high hooves all around.

Rainbow Dash then spied Twilight Sparkle, still standing there by her magic box cage. Twilight’s horn was aglow, and she would have been facing the cage, but instead she was looking around behind her, giving Rainbow Dash a very odd look. Actually, Twilight was probably giving all of them a really odd look. She was just kind of staring behind her, sort of like somepony had reached in there and switched off her brain.

Ponies parted to the left and right as Scootaloo marched forward, leading the Pinkies they had gathered into the square. Standing on either side, or floating above, they watched warily as Pinkies passed them peacefully, a pretentious, preternatural procession of pink. Rainbow Dash herself flew down to Twilight, landing in front of the unresponsive unicorn, exclaiming deliberately yet casually,

“Hey, how’s it going?”

Twilight turned her head to look at Rainbow Dash, but didn’t seem to see her, sort of mouthing words with nothing coming out. Scootaloo started circling around the market square in front of the library, forming sort of a holding pattern with all the Pinkies. Strangely, none of them turned around to approach Scootaloo from the front, instead all following along behind the procession, in an endless circle of the square.

Rainbow Dash waved a hoof in front of Twilight’s eyes, asking “Are you o—”

“The song, of course!” Twilight exclaimed loudly enough to make Dash’s ears go back. “Why didn’t I think—why didn’t anypony  think of–is that Scootaloo ?”

“Yup,” Rainbow Dash said, backing up and perking her ears, following Twilight’s gaze to the marching pegasus filly. “Her and some others. I really don’t wanna wake up now, because I think the squirt just saved this town.”

“Twilight!” came an alarmed cry behind her, from the mint green unicorn known as Lyra, causing Twilight to spin on her hooves. Twilight sort of blasted the cage again, with some sort of weird thing that made it more purple again. Highly technical unicorn stuff, obviously.

“Ohh, what are we going to do?” Twilight fussed, despite the taxing usage of her horn. “There have got to be at least twice as many Pinkies out there. There’s no way they’ll fit into this cage! We’re already operating at maximum capacity limits. Why did they have to multiply? Why did they have to multiply more ? There has to be a solution to this. But what?” 

Rainbow Dash didn’t have a solution, so she shrugged helplessly at the brown earth pony stallion, who happened to be standing on the other side of Twilight looking impatienta. He tapped Twilight on the shoulder, where she snapped her head around to him and shouted, “What?!”

“Somma us made another cage ovah there,” the brown, heavyset stallion said in a gruff, scruffy voice with a heavy Manehatten accent. “You can put the Pinkies in it, probly.” He had a construction hat on.

Twilight blinked. “Wow, that’s  convenient,” she said somewhat mollified. “And you didn’t mention this until just now, because...?”

“We did like a hour ago,” he said neutrally, “You just mumbled somethings about translatral omnisomethingoranudda.”

“Translateral omnifold matrices, yes,” Twilight corrected half-heartedly. “If you haven’t noticed I have been a lit tle distracted today” To emphasize her words, she zapped the cage extra more unicorn power, so it made a cool looking flash. It certainly was enough to impress Rainbow Dash. As for the older stallion he just raised a hoof saying,

“Hey, hey no offense. Just sayin’ it’s ready.”

“Awfully convenient that it’s only ready the very moment that we need it,” Twilight persisted, unyielding in her grumpy snark.

“Toldja it was ready ten mins ago,” he responded readily. “You just said somethin’ about star somethin’ manisomethin’s.”

“Antestarnian manifolds, probably,” Twilight said disgruntledly. “Just, do whatever you want just, get the Pinkies so they can’t hurt anyone, and don’t  kill any of them!” Then she turned to face the magic cage and stared at it silently like the other sentinel unicorns.

The easiest task was getting the Pinkies into the new pit. With some coaxing from the ponies involved, Scootaloo and the band stood alongside the pit, playing their instruments as the Pinkies proceeded forward, every Pinkie jumping heedlessly into the space below. Thanks to Twilight’s precise measurement of Pinkie Pie’s normalized pronking capacity, the pit was far too deep for them to escape. Moving the Pinkies who were already in the magic cage was trickier, because that meant both taking the cage down, and getting the Pinkies out of that plain dirt pit, without engaging her legendary digging capabilities.

What they did was lower the cage walls to the level of the ground, where ponies all around “helped” the Pinkies out of the pit, helped the Pinkies who needed it at least and didn’t jump right out. There was a greater volume of Pinkies in there than you would think, expanding rapidly when they found they could spread out and escape. But rather than terrorize the population, they simply went prancing over to the musical group, obediently jumping into the larger pit where the others remained at the bottom dancing their peabrained little hearts away.

Then the cage could be dispelled, and the maintenance unicorns all sagged with relief. A rather somewhat rotund pony with a cream coat and pink and blue curls went rushing over to Lyra, placing a cool cloth over her horn and feeding her chocolates. The doctor was joined by nurses, settling to rest there on a prepared seat instead of the solid turf. Sparkler who hadn’t gone as long had a big smile of accomplishment, and with the way her adoptive mother Derpy, and Derpy’s oddly pensive foal celebrated her release, it made sense for Sparkler to feel that way.

Fluttershy was usually Twilight’s spot-pony, her or Rarity given the situation. But Fluttershy was without a doubt currently hiding inside her house, behind the door on the first floor, underneath her bed. And Rarity was... something. Applejack was waaaay out of town, laying there on the ground like an upturned beetle, twitching now and again in her magically induced sleep. Pinkie Pie was uh... yeah. So, that left it to Rainbow Dash. She didn’t have a cloth, so she went and grabbed a nice dense, wet not  staticky cloud for Twilight to bury her forehead into. Twilight didn’t seem to want to stop to catch her breath though, even though like, all  of her friends besides Rainbow Dash were AWOL or K.O.’d. It made Dash kind of nervous, actually. Was it really that  dangerous to have Twilight Sparkle as a friend?

The final task, perhaps the hardest of all, was to get Scootaloo to stop playing that buckfucking song. Reasoning didn’t work. Nor did pleas, shouts, threats, threats of physical violence, or physical violence. Finally it was Twilight’s magic that managed to snag the fillies, as they evaded yet another attempt by Dash to grab their instruments, determinedly playing them while running at the same time. Twilight somehow caught the leading edge of the duct tape, and as the fillies darted away, the white/blue one got spun around as the duct tape unravelled, leaving her accordion once again a useless leaky mess.

Twilight was starting to find some real satisfaction in causing damage to that accordion.

So the music stopped, and oddly that wasn’t enough to get them to calm down this time, because like, they were actually the ones playing it, or something. Scootaloo immediately ran out from under her bass drum ...somehow, to find a new accordion, but Dash went after her and finally managed to cart her into the air, holding the struggling filly up trapped on a featureless cloud until Scootaloo agreed to calm down and talk to her (if it meant getting an accordion). Subsequently, Scootaloo came to realize that she sort of really didn’t want an accordion after all, and that she actually didn’t  want to play it after the Pinkies were trapped. Sort of. Maybe.

By the time Rainbow Dash cooled Scootaloo’s supernatural enthusiasm, and gave her a Dashride(tm) down to the warm, forgiving ground, Twilight had taken care of Archer, and Archer was well, trying  to take care of the two new fillies, who berefit of their song were just crying without end. Thankfully, all that marching and playing had worked up a good appetite, and their cries ceased quickly once Scootaloo and Archer pounced on each one, sort of hunching over the filly to sink down over her and engulf her.

Dash was so relieved, she went and hugged both the fillies, even before Scootaloo and Archer had slurped up the tails yet. And it was weird, but... feeling the muscles within these misshapen fillies flexing and compressing under her hooves made it not  weird. They weren’t weird filly blobs anymore, they were just Scootaloo and Archer, warm, alive and healthy, as they did something incomprehensible for Rainbow Dash, but perfectly normal for themselves.

After all this, Twilight hadn’t even spared a second to see this new Pinkie cage. Dash had to drag her over practically, because she was just totally pessimistic about it. “I don’t see why they even bothered,” Twilight grumbled disconsolately her butt dragging along the ground, “Pinkie spent half her life in petriculture. She can pretty much go through the walls of any physical pit you dig, like butter.”

Twilight flicked an ear around hearing nothing but the mumbling noises of ponies mingling and talking concernedly, and the occasional squeal or whine from the Pinkies in the pit. “Music stopped too,” she mumbled half consciously, “They’re probably all back around town by now, wreaking havoc agai... oh.”

While roughshod and haphazard, the larger pit the Pinkies were sitting in was entirely lined with thick metal plating, riveted and in some areas welded in place. Much of it was simply exposed metal, but many of the sheets were brightly painted in pastel colors. Rainbow Dash had never seen anything like it. Heck, she hadn’t ever seen that  much metal in one place before, except maybe gold. This stuff looked like one of those weird new alloys that Dash knew very little about. Stronger than gold, lighter than platinum, something something. Egghead stuff.

“They cannibalized the train,” Twilight mentioned disbelievingly.

“They trained the what now?” Rainbow asked her sometimes inscrutable friend.

“The tr– the locomotive,” Twilight corrected herself, looking at Dash for confirmation.

Dash smiled awkwardly and attempted, saying, “They trained the loco cannibals?” with a shrug. She knew it was wrong, because cannibalism was what Nightmare Moon did, not regular ponies with any sense in their heads. But she had to say something wrong, so that Twilight could correct her, without Dash having to do something stupid like admitting she didn’t know something.

Twilight groaned, and said, “You remember that new rail network that they have been building out from Canterlot?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Rainbow said unenthusiastically. “Move stuff around faster, some big machines on rails or something? I don’t know why they don’t just ask a pegasus!”

“Those machines are called locomotives,” Twilight lectured, “They operate on the mechanothaumic recompression of ignited anthracite, which turns the wheels that push them along the rails.”

“Woah,” Rainbow Dash said in an impressed tone, “Loco is right!”

Twilight rolled her eyes, continuing, “Anyway, as the weight is not a limiting factor, they generally construct these locomotives, or ‘trains’ out of a modern metal alloy, generally an even ratio of platinum/iridium, which is quite tough and its metallic nature would be resistant to any sort of digging or scoring.”

“I think I follow, but that doesn’t explain what’s the deal with cannibalism.”

“Well,” Twilight followed up impatiently, “They have been building a rail to Ponyville for quite some time now, and the locomotive to ride on those rails was built out of, and covered in very strong metal plates.”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “Oh, like those  plates?” she said, pointing down at the pit o’ Pinkies.

“Exactly,” Twilight said. “My guess is they just ripped off all the plates and casings, leaving the train looking like an animal picked clean by scavengers. Thus the term ‘cannibalize.’”

Dash nodded sagely, “Uh huh, but the thing is, we  are ponies. We’re not rail machines. It couldn’t really be cannibalism if we aren’t–”

“It’s just a saying, okay!” Twilight snorted huffily with a death glare.

“...okay,” Dash said, shrinking back meekly.

The sunken metal pit the two stood over could have encompassed the foundation of Town Hall. The roughly attached plates formed a haphazard but complete seal from floor to open ceiling. In this pit could be seen a sea of pink. Shifting, roiling, bouncing... but staying.

“That’s a lot of Pinkie Pies” Rainbow Dash remarked distantly, feeling a little dizzy even looking at the thing.

Twilight nodded sleepily, looked like she was going to fall over, then shouted “Princess Celestia!” at the top of her lungs, and started running away at full speed. Rainbow Dash watched her indecisively for a second, before sighing and taking to the air, flapping on after the fleeing unicorn, who appeared to be heading in the princess’s last known direction, to the east. Rainbow may as well follow along, because Twilight needed somepony to catch her when she did fall over, after all.

Derpy may have shyly watched Rainbow Dash leave, before sighing and flying in the other direction across the square. She had a foal to keep watch over, after all.

Princess Celestia was the first thing Rainbow Dash saw at the edge of town, the resplendent princess standing there very quietly, doing seemingly nothing. Before her was a sleeping, or otherwise unconscious Pinkie Pie, who had undergone a dramatic change, and that’s not counting the wings on her back. Pinkie Pie looked... like something Pinkie Pie should never look like, like something nopony  should ever look like.

She was a lot smaller now, and not in a good way. Her legs were skinny and her barrel was tight, shrunken against her belly; you could see her knees, and the edges of her ribs. Her hair had fallen limp, descending haphazardly around her head which, looked unsettlingly normal. She was surrounded by a glowing circle of the princess’s magic, which had a bunch of lines coming out of it that joined together at sort of right angles before going into a second circle which had lines coming out of it  which... well okay, it was a big magic thing, and it looked kind of scary. Pinkie would twitch every few seconds and it would light up briefly.

Rainbow Dash would have poked it curiously, but she didn’t have a death wish.

Twilight was walking carefully around it, peering at the edge of the pattern intently. “What do you make of it?” Rainbow Dash asked in a carefully concerned tone.

“Princess Celestia is trying to remove her magic from Pinkie Pie, without removing Pinkie Pie’s magic,” Twilight explained roughly. No really, she sounded pretty rough. “It’s a very delicate process, and she must not be disturbed.”

“Wow, you can get all that just from this spell thing?” Rainbow asked with a marked degree of respect.

Twilight glanced back at her sideways, saying, “Well, yes. But it’s also written on the side, here.”

Rainbow looked down and actually the edge of the magic circle thing wasn’t lines, but instead letters in Princess Celestia’s elegant swirling calligraphy. They said, “Please do not disturb. Spell separation in progress. If T.S. refer to D.D. Delicate Dweomer Division”

“The pentuple D is pretty last resort,” Twilight said with a heavy look towards Pinkie Pie, “You only use it when your enchantment includes no disenchantment facility, or disenchantment is beyond your thaumic capabilities, and you can’t just integrate the enchantment into their dative pattern. In this case, disenchantment itself includes no such facilities since it is already disenchanting, and the level of magnitude to blind wipe a fifth tier would be uh...” she paused counting on her hooves. “Well, hopefully it’s beyond the princess’s capabilities,” she admitted, “Because that amount of magic would be pretty much sufficient to destroy, well, everything.”

“Everything  in Ponyville?” Dash said with a really creepy feeling in her tummy.

Twilight lifted her head to look straight at Rainbow Dash, her voice level as she said, “Everything.”

“B-b-b-b-but what’s she doing right there!” Rainbow Dash said quick stepping away from that ominously glowing circle.

Twilight blinked at her, then her face softened into a smile and she said, “Don’t worry, no spell is that powerful. It’s just some outrageous value that indicates our thaumic metrics are not a perfect model. Prosaic Scrutinizer had the—” she took another look at Rainbow Dash, and said, “I mean, this is Dancing Dusk’s Delicate Dweomer Division. It’s only half the raw power of the target enchantment, more like a surgeon’s scalpel, really.”

She turned to muse at the glowing thing around Pinkie, saying, “A really large surgeon’s scalpel.”

Dash nodded uncertaintly, saying half under a wing, “So... you’re gonna help her?”

Twilight actually snickered at that. It was quick, but enough to hurt Rainbow’s pride. Twilight said, “Well, if you were watching somepony perform surgery, would you push their head around trying to help them perform surgery better?”

Rainbow didn’t answer, but as she felt her ears going down, she figured it was pretty obvious to Twilight that she didn’t have to tell her that the answer was “No.”

Instead, Twilight turned to Celestia again and said in a worried tone, “Has she been casting this all these hours?”

“She’s a princess?” Rainbow Dash offered as if in explanation. “Besides, you were casting that cage thing for all these hours.”

It was probably the wrong thing to say because Twilight sagged at that revelation, saying, “You know what, I think I’m just gonna take a rest here.”

“Yeah, you look pretty terrible, Twilight,” Dash admitted with something of a wince at the limp haired, bedraggled, eye twitchy, shaky hooved friend of hers.

Twilight rolled her eyes at that, practically rolled her whole head really, and settled down onto her belly in the meadow they were in, collecting her tail neatly around her haunches. “Yeah I’ll be fi–” she said before flopping over onto her side in a dissheveled heap on the grass there. Dash peered over her friend concernedly, but Twilight merely began emitting a quiet snore.

After propping Twilight’s head up with the softest thing she knew any pony could touch, which is packed cloud, Rainbow Dash flew back through Ponyville. The town was already in the process of reconstruction. With the Pinkies taken care of, those who survived the saltpocalypse were quick to action to restore their town to its iconic beauty.

Which is to say, the fallen half of one single broken building was halfway pullied up to being reattached, and several rooted up flowers were already restored to their beds and de-wilted. Several ponies with watering cans were making the top priority of flower garden restoration a reality. But Ponyville was still pretty darn broken. Everything looked smoking, shattered, dissheveled, or otherwise on fire. It might take half a week to fix this  much damage!

Rainbow Dash really hoped that Pinkie Pie wouldn’t get in too much trouble for all this. It totally wasn’t her fault! Well, it sort of was, but it also wasn’t? Even her clones were never trying to do anything bad, they just kept making really really stupid mistakes because they were dumb. But maybe Pinkie was lying about it and meant  to make the mistakes? How could one pony accidentally  cause this much chaos and destruction?

Not to mention scaring a little filly so her folks would cave in. But... Pinkie wasn’t even there  at all. It was just a misunderstanding between Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, if Rainbow Dash heard right. Pinkie just said stuff, to make... later happen... stuff. Rainbow Dash’s head was starting to hurt. So she did what she usually did when things were getting confusing, flew high up into the sky until everything was tiny and insignificant below her.

Dash didn’t know how long she stayed up there, dancing on the chill winds that swept fast through the upper vastness, playing with clouds like it wasn’t already her job to do so. A solid ten minutes at least. But such a very long time was just what she needed to clear her head. There were no obstacles up here, nothing but water vapor and sky, and her drifting around like a little lost pebble in the stream. Except pebbles don’t float. And this is air, not water. And she wasn’t really floating she–

Yeah she had been up here long enough.

The first thing Rainbow Dash noticed swooping back down to town was a commotion around the local constablry. She landed on the roof of the jail, walking across it and swooping down by the window. On what she saw in there, Rainbow Dash got a guilty look and went around to land at the main entrance, walking into the cramped building. Two ponies were being let out of jail and the more stoic one had been coaxed out, but the other was so hysterical, they absolutely refused to be taken outside.

“What is your problem?!” the constable shouted angrily around her mouth hold, but the only answer she got is a steady, “Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.” They’d already gotten a shaken Cheerilee out of there, but Big Macintosh just wasn’t letting go of that sink.

Apparantly there weren’t any detectives here who could do detective work, because even Rainbow Dash could see what happened, from all the pink hair scattered crazily around and the eerily disgusting ooze all over the jail cell bars, which was clearly slobber from Pinkie Pie. It was like these ponies had never been slobbered on by Pinkie Pie on a regular basis, the way Rainbow Dash was used to. It looked like Pinkie had been so persistent to get at the occupants within, that she left curiously smooth looking bite marks on the bars.

It took a few tries, but finally when Rainbow Dash said, “The Pinkies are all  gone. They’re in a cage, very  far away,” it got through to him. Enough for him to say,

“...really?”

And also for his grip to loosen enough that they could drag him out of the prison.

“You’re free to go!” they said, tossing out Big Macintosh, where he thudded on the ground right next to where Cheerilee was waiting nervously. Then they tossed Rainbow Dash out for good measure, though she caught herself before hitting ground and shook her fist at the stubborn officers shouting, “Why I oughta–!”

She was definitely issuing a complaint to the Ponyville Penitentiary, Pinkie Pie nonwithstanding.

Cheerilee was much calmer and more rational than Big Macintosh, relatively at least. “She came at us !” Cheerilee orated dramatically to Rainbow Dash waving her hooves for emphasis, “She wouldn’t stop chewing her way into the cell! She wanted something, maybe our blood! She exploded or seemed to explode there but was always watching without a scratch! I saw things down that throat, Rainbow Dash!”

“I saw things,” Cheerilee repeated, holding Rainbow Dash to get her face right up close to her bloodshot eyes.

“Right! Okay!” Rainbow said with a false confidence in her voice, “Don’t look down her throat. Got it!”

“Oh I’m sorry Rainbow Dash,” Cheerilee said relaxing some of her titanic strength on Dash’s shoulders. “I shouldn’t be taking this out on you.” And then she crushed Dash close again exclaiming, “But did you see those bars ? Those bars were pure platinum, and she was chewing  through them!”

Cheerilee released Dash entirely then, pushing away from her with an embarassed blush. “I’ll be fine,” she said abashedly, “I just had never imagined Pinkie could ever be so... I think I finally understand what the true urgency of a Pink Alert is all about.”

“Yeah th–” Rainbow paused. “A pink alert?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes the new alert system has a pink level now,” Cheerilee explained, “For acts of Pinkie Pie, ever since the incident with the cakes and the Cakes.”

“Wait, Pink Alert is actually a thing?!” Rainbow exclaimed in pure stunned amazement. And maybe with a little guilty glance to the side.

Cheerilee nodded, giving Dash a jittery smile, with that sad look in her eyes. She said, “A lot of this could have been avoided if somepony had just mentioned to put the school on Pink Alert.”

Rainbow bit her lip, turning away and saying, “Heh heh, yeah that sure would have been a nice thing, wouldn’t it.”

Finding immediate urgent business elsewhere seemed like a good idea, so Rainbow Dash bid the newly freed Big Macintosh and Cheerilee farewell. She almost mentioned that Applejack was currently unconscious or something over by the pool of Pinkies, but then she remembered that Applejack was currently unconscious or something over by the pool of Pinkies  and thought better of leading Big Macintosh in that direction.

Instead, Rainbow Dash headed to the one other thing she really probably should have taken care of a while ago, like “right away” a while ago. Landing in front of Carousel Boutique, Dash shouted out flatly, “Rarity. You have to come out of there.”

There was no answer which was a little worrying. Rainbow said a little louder, “Rarity! You have to let Sweetie Belle go!”

“Never!” came the muffled voice from within. “You Pinkiesprites are never going to get dear Sweetie Belle and make her your newest Pinkie Belle clone!”

Dash sputtered, then shouted, “This is Rainbow Dash, not Pinkie Pie! The Pinkies can’t even talk!”

“That’s just what the Pinkies want  you to think!” was Rarity’s answer. Still no word from Sweetie Belle. This wasn’t good. Dash flew up and tried the windows, finding them all latched tightly shut, except one which only led into a sealed, locked room.

“Open a window, Rarity!” she shouted, flying up to the top of the Boutique. No answer. “Open a window, or I’m coming in!” Rainbow shouted again. There was the sound of a chair being scooted against a window.

“That’s it!” Dash shouted, swooping up into the sky, and doing what she did best. With a hard, fast, mostly  controlled dive, she smashed hooves first through the window, the chair, a sofa, and the refrigerator which thankfully didn’t get smashed through, but only scooted away with a muted thud of hooves on metal.

Embedded in the sofa, Rainbow Dash had to strain to pull herself out from its spring laden confines, trying not to wince as they poked at her uncomfortably. What made that really difficult was the broken high pitched screaming and the animated broom continually swatting her in the face. But Dash got free somehow, and planted on the ground, grabbing the broom in her mouth and– and not being planted on the ground, but hanging onto the broom and– a-a-a-a-a-and

“Stop shaking the broom, Rarity!” Dash exclaimed, clopping down to the floor of the second story of the boutique.

Rarity responded by whirling it in the air expertly beside her like a grand master of broom fu, shouting, “Rainbow Dash, you—!”

She paused.

“You’re not Pinkie Pie...” Rarity said quite dissociatively. Her squiggles were rumples. Her bathrobe was shedding. Her eyes weren’t exactly focusing properly. And the whole Boutique was just saturated with the heady smell of fear.

“Out,” Dash stated, kicking what was left of the sofa away from the window. She yanked loose the chair. “Out,” she repeated, dragging a panicked protesting Rarity to the window, physically forcing her to stick her head out with a wail of despair. “Breathe, Rarity!” Rainbow commanded, though the hyperventilation of the heaving unicorn underneath her hooves made saying that quite unnecessary. With some fresh air in her lungs, Rarity finally started to calm down.

Rainbow Dash left her there quivering with her head stuck out the window, and swooped around, pulling open the windows in the room and blowing out the stale air all in one move. She would have rushed downstairs to search for Sweetie Belle, but upon turning around Rainbow Dash saw Rarity had pulled her head in, and was now looking at the ground rather than at Rainbow Dash, saying,

“I... had thought there would be more Pinkie Pies out there.”

“We saved them,” Dash asserted. “Stopped them, I mean. Stopped them. They’re all at the library. Not in the library, no in a cage. Or a pit. A pool I guess. She had to correct herself a lot at the little signs of alarm Rarity was displaying. Man, when a pony had a freak-out, Rarity sure didn’t mess around.

Then again, neither did Pinkie Pie.

“Where’s Sweetie Belle?” Rainbow Dash asked evenly.

“Oh, I simply sent her to her, um...” Rarity lifted a hoof. “Oh dear,” she said worryingly, “If you will excuse me for just one moment.” And then she was running full tilt down the stairs. Dash stayed right on her neck until Rarity got to her uh, fancy things room. “I may have um,” Rarity tried to explain, “Discipline  um, she was acting out you see, so um, perhaps I may have been a teeny  bit excessive with the er, for her protection, her restraints, that is to say—”

“Just cut her loose,” Rainbow Dash said, with a sigh, “And we can all go home in peace.”

Rarity’s cerulean magic undid the lock, and then the other lock, and then the other lock, and a deadbolt, and a door brace, and pulled it open to reveal a tiny little fitting room, in which there was what looked like a convincing looking pony mannequin used for fitting, and beside it a shredded pile of what looked like cloth ribbons that had been tied to a wall column. Oh and there was also that one open window back there, letting sunlight stream in.

“Oh dear,” Rarity said with a blush from head to hoof, saying, “I never meant to I mean you see, she may have ...escaped, a tad.”

“You are like the worst babysitter ever,” Rainbow Dash said with a hoof to her own face. She snapped her head up with a cheesy smile though, saying, “Good enough for me. Good luck with her parents, Rarity!”

“Her...” it finally seemed to get through to Rarity as her ears tilted down and she crouched forward going, “Oh no, oh no no no no,” all staring forward at nothing and everything. Dash really couldn’t do much for Rarity’s emotional state, like, ever , but she did have to make sure Sweetie Belle was okay. Sweetie had asked for her help after all!

That was the only thing Rainbow Dash felt any real guilt about, as she dashed into the sky leaving the darkened boutique behind. Sweetie had to escape on her own, when Dash had to leave her behind to save the town, in the protective, loving arms of her best (only) sister. Too late to do anything about it now, even if the filly had proved herself resourceful on her own. Rainbow was  sort of curious how Sweetie Belle kept escaping like this. She was getting awfully good at it.

Dash kind of felt like she wanted to spend some more time up in the clouds again.

It looked scary and all, but Pinkie Pie was fine it turned out. Twilight kept explaining it wrong, but Rainbow Dash finally got the gist of it, that Celestia took all the rest of the Pinkies out of Pinkie before they could really come out of her. And they did  take a piece out of her when they came out, even though it didn’t look like it at first, so left unchecked Pinkie would have eventually wasted away to Rainbow Dash didn’t think about that part.

So, controlled conditions apparantly meant another magic cage, smaller with opaque walls. Under controlled conditions, in that cage was the princess, Twilight Sparkle, a clone, and the weary, wasted body of Pinkie Pie herself. Princess Celestia awoke Pinkie Pie, and laid down for her the way it was gonna be. Oh and Rainbow Dash was there too, sorta, perching on the top of the cage to listen in.

“Princess... Celestia...?” croaked the emaciated Pinkie, the radiant princess being the first thing anypony sees when they walk into the room or awaken with her in the vicinity. Pinkie could barely sit up on her own, so Twilight was quick to raise a glass of water to her lips, which Pinkie sipped then coughed on. “Is that... me...?” she asked hesitantly, focusing on the other her who was considerably fuller and healthier and bouncing randomly around in the cage. What water Pinkie drank was quickly turned to tears as she started to realize. “I’m...” she tried to say, not saying it very well as she was breaking down on the spot, “A monster!” she managed to get out in a weepy cry.

“Pinkie!” Twilight asserted to her urgently. “You’re not a monster. You’re a wonderful pony  who has simply made some very unfortunate mistakes. It’s okay, Pinkie. I forgive you. Scootaloo forg—” and that was enough to get Pinkie curled up on her spindly little self, bawling hoarsely and even refusing water. She tired of her tantrum... worryingly  fast, just shivering there on the ground like she had no insulation from the cold. That was when Princess Celestia chose to speak.

“Monsters cannot cry,” Princess Celestia stated.

She was turned away from Pinkie Pie the whole time, like it hurt to look at her. It probably hurt the princess to look at her. But Princess Celestia said, “Monsters can pretend to cry, and it can look like they are crying, but they will know that they are not. Are you crying, Pinkie Pie?”

There was a silence. “Buh,” Pinkie bwabbled, “Buh, what am  I then?”

Twilight sat down beside Pinkie, cradling her head against her side as if she wasn’t a horrific half dead monstrosity. “It’s okay, Pinkie,” she repeated, “You’re a pony . You’re not like other ponies, but you are still a pony, and you will always be a pony.” She actually forced Pinkie to look at her, not that that was hard to force her in any direction at this point, saying, “More than anything Pinkie, you’re my friend. You’re still my friend. I know you didn’t mean it, and that you’ll never, ever do it again.”

“T-thank you Twilight,” Pinkie whispered. She was soon managing to sit on her own now, fumbling with the water canteen in broad hooves on sticklike arms. It fell, and Twilight caught it in her magic, nudging Pinkie’s attention over to the other curly haired healthy and dumb Pinkie Pie, saying,

“Well, if you really want to thank me, you can start by eating her.
> Coming To Terms
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was another silence. A different silence.

“...no,” Pinkie said, her expression unreadable from the hair falling down over her face. Between the distance looking down from atop the privacy cage, and Pinkie Pie’s weakly muted body language, it was hard for Rainbow Dash to see the alarm in Pinkie’s reaction. But it was there.

Patiently standing before the emaciated pony, inside her magically induced Pinkie containment cube, Twilight said, “You have to—” 

“No,” Pinkie countered.

“It’s okay, Pink–” Twilight started, but Pinkie resisted, saying,

“No. No I won’t e-eat a p-p-only monsters eat p-p-pon–”

“That’s not true!” Twilight shouted at her. Princess Celestia half turned to Twilight. Even the other Pinkie Pie started paying attention.

“I used to think that was true,” Twilight said more levelly with a nervous glance at the princess, “But then I discovered something–somepony who eats ponies, and she was no monster. She was a little filly, who just wanted friends and family and a normal life. Good ponies do eat ponies Pinkie, we just didn’t know about it.”

Pinkie huffed tensely, turning away from Twilight’s gaze and squeezing her eyes shut.

“You have to eat her, Pinkie,” Twilight continued insistently, “She’s a part of you. A part who came out of you, without ever even wanting to. You— look at yourself!” Twilight was raising her voice again, but she didn’t look like she was going to stop this time. “You’re nothing but skin and bones! You would be dead if the princess hadn’t found you!”

Pinkie grumbled something to herself that Rainbow Dash couldn’t make out. But Twilight sure could.

“Please Pinkie, you’re my friend!” Twilight exclaimed, crouching low on her hooves with her ears flat in desperation. “I... I can’t lose you! You know what that would do to me? You–you’re going to be okay! Everything is going to be okay. Nopony is going to die, and everything is going to be fine, if you would just eat the Pinkie!”

“Why can’t she eat me?” the skinny Pinkie sneered contrarily.

“Because the incorporation process appears to subsume the deproduced personality into a subconscious state of anautonomy,” Twilight explained smoothly.

Pinkie Pie blinked at her.

“Because she’s not Pinkie Pie!” Twilight exclaimed less than smoothly, lashing a hoof in the direction of the unconcerned Pinkie Pie clone.

After a pause, Pinkie seemed to perceive that Twilight was still looking at her expectantly, and a stubborn frown crossed her face. She shook her head.

“You’re going to eat this Pinkie...” Twilight insisted, rather... strongly, grabbing the other Pinkie in her telekinesis and pushing her against the original Pinkie.

“No I won’t!” shouted Pinkie, struggling stubbornly (and weakly) against Twilight’s attempts to physically shove the other Pinkie down her throat. It wasn’t very effective, on either of their parts.

“Twilight,” the princess said with concern, starting to stride towards them, but Twilight snapped up a cautioning hoof in her direction, a hoof of absolute importance to be obeyed. And somehow the princess uh, obeyed it. Rainbow Dash’s head was starting to hurt again.

“You eat this Pinkie!” Twilight shouted angrily, while the other Pinkie being jerked around gave a frightened and unsettlingly equine squeal. Weren’t they supposed to be bugs or something?

“No!” shouted Pinkie back, batting the other Pinkie away with her forehooves. Symbolically batting her away, if not physically.

“You eat Pinkie right this instant, young lady!” Twilight shouted with a glower.

“YOU’RE NOT MY MOM!” Pinkie shouted back through angry tears.

That even made Twilight pause.

The thin Pinkie looked around self consciously, saying, “What? She’s not.”

Twilight facehoofed. “Just eat the Pinkie,” she said.

“But I–”

“Just! Eat!”

Pinkie stared at Twilight in trembling fear and confusion.

“Just... trust me,” Twilight said more gently, forcing herself to relax. “It’ll be okay. You’re hungry, I know you are. Just do what you want to do. It’s what you’re supposed to do.”

She placed the other Pinkie beside the original, and the two looked at each other from varying perspectives. Pinkie touched her bouncier, fluffier, more adorabler-er counterpart, who didn’t even flinch at Pinkie’s sorry physical state.

“I... I... okay Twilight...” Pinkie said miserably. She hugged the other Pinkie, who again didn’t resist or try to run away. She seemed to almost be expecting this sort of thing. Maybe the new ones sort of... did? Like with the ones Scootaloo made, and stuff?

“I just eat her, right?” Pinkie asked, nosing at the other Pinkie, who giggled but otherwise remained passive.

“Just put her head in your mouth,” Twilight said. “The rest should come naturally.”

“Her whole head?” Pinkie said in disbelief.

Twilight frowned disapprovingly at that saying, “I know you can open your mouth that wide, Pinkie.”

“I... um... yeah...” Pinkie said, still looking at Pinkie reluctantly.

“Everything will be fine, Pinkie,” Twilight reassured her. “You’ll be fine. She will be fine.” She pointed at the other Pinkie, making the original Pinkie even more confused. It occurred to Rainbow Dash, that for all her history with these kinds of ponies, Pinkie probably didn’t know about the awesome cool and totally not weird thing that Scootaloo and Archer could do. And apparantly that Pinkie Pie could do now.

“You’ll feel her dissolve in your belly, and then you’ll remember what happened after she separated from you,” Twilight explained soothingly. “You won’t be any less yourself, and neither will she, um, somehow. That’s what Scootaloo says, at least.”

“Where is...” Pinkie glanced around hopefully.

“Somewhere not being traumatized by all this,” Twilight responded stiffly. “You can apologize to her after you’re not dying of extreme starvation.”

...

“Can I have a cupcake instea–”

“No.”

“Fffine...”

Pinkie Pie nervously, hesitantly, opened her mouth just a teeny tiny bit and closed it down on her healthier duplicate’s... ear. Just her ear. She nibbled at it as if tasting a fine wine, while the other Pinkie half-closed her eyes, and thumped her foot on the floor. Pinkie released the ear, crossing her eyes saying, “My theeth are funny now,” as she ran her tongue along er... well it was sort of like teeth. Tooth?

“Dental ridge,” Twilight said shortly. “Please hurry, Pinkie. I don’t want to have to recussitate your heart, just to get you to eat yourself.”

Pinkie whimpered, but nodded. She looked to the other Pinkie and opened her mouth—literally—to nom on her. Then, she opened her mouth a bit more. Then, the other Pinkie tried to help by actually climbing into Pinkie’s mouth. This had the opposite intended effect, as the alarmed original Pinkie Pie squeaked and fell backward pushing the other away frantically, moaning in pain as her strained tissues hit the earth.

“Pinkie please” Twilight said, her own voice cracking from the emotional strain.

“I... I can, Twilight,” Pinkie said, “It just surp–”

“Yes you can, Pinkie!” Twilight argued fiercely, then drew up short, lifting a hoof. “Wait, did you say you can?”

“It just surprised me,” the flat haired Pinkie said somewhat grumpily. Then she struggled up again and hugged the other Pinkie. Sort of the way that Scootaloo did before, probably just something that happened to these kinds of ponies. Then Pinkie opened her mouth, and she like, “Pinkie Pie”-opened, not just regular-opened. Or maybe it would be Scootaloo-opened now? She opened her mouth really bucking wide, okay???? Now put down that chilidog and look up in the sky!

Pinkie Pie opened her mouth, and managed to wiggle it entirely around the ears, nose, bouncy mane and head of her duplicate. If a skinny Pinkie Pie looked weird in of itself, with her head stretched to twice its size from another head inside it, it looked really, really weird. The image of Pinkie Pie as a hot air balloon flashed through Rainbow Dash’s mind. Who, incidentally, was the one watching all this, by the way. And maybe just a few other curious pegasi who happened to drift up to the open top of the cage, just a teeny bit of a crowd.

They looked like an amalgam of two ponies, the second Pinkie’s torso just sticking out at a slight angle, with the real one hugging her tightly. Pinkie Pie’s eyes actually managed to seek around, even all stretched out like that. Sort of like they would rotate if she was looking behind her, except her eyes were so... sideways that they just didn’t move right. Of course anything Pinkie said was unintelligible, but it was something she mumbled like “Mmm mmm mmm? Mm–!! Hn—”

Even in the middle of her whole fillysprite thing, she seemed uncertain, but then her voice cut off and her tone grew urgent. Pinkie Pie gave sort of a confused grunt, as her body jerked like it was... it was totally trying to do the Scootaloo thing, but Pinkie was way too weak to lift the other Pinkie, so she just sort of fell on her side, as did the other one... the torso and legs of the other one, at least.

Twilight stood over them worriedly, her horn glowing even brighter, but Pinkie’s whimpering had become a more pleased, or satisfied “mmmm” sort of sound, and she hitched forward, eyes rolling, as the other was still pulled into her mouth, inch by inch, by a hestiant, then eager flexing. Pinkie was doing something that might have passed for a full body swallow, if it were possible for a pony to have a full body swallow.

Pinkie Pie’s skinny belly stretched outward as the other was pulled into her, making her look like a teardrop, with... uh... skinny little hooves sticking out of it like toothpicks. Okay yeah, the skinny hooves, those are really creepy. Rainbow Dash pretty much never wanted to see a pony starving like that ever again, no matter what weird tribe they were. She wanted good nice thick smooth legs, and her friend to stop suffering something like that.

And then, with a not so subtle gurgling sound, even the hooves seemed to fix themselves. Whatever happened to the Pinkie inside her, it seemed to flow like fluid into her legs, filling out her extremities as her midsection rippled in steady contractions. Pinkie just lay there, looking totally blissful, turning from a grape with sticks on it, to something more resembling a normal pony again. She still looked totally skinny though, but you couldn’t see her joints all creepily as much. She sat up much easier this time, and seemed to notice she still had the tail sticking out of her mouth.

With another powerful contraction, she slurped it right up into her mouth, and the last of well, the curly haired Pinkie was gone. This last step seemed to affect Pinkie more than all the rest of the process though, because her eyes widened (the normal way) and she said, “Oh muffins, I just did that. T-the tail it was I just... I just did...”

And probably the first coherent thing that came from Pinkie’s mouth since random pregnancy advice, she said, quietly, and then with more agitation, “I saw it happen to Inkie. I did. They just... slurped her right up. They said she was okay, that I would be okay. They didn’t tell me, just said close my eyes. It was supposed to be a surprise. It was a surprise I didn’t... I didn’t even know!”

“Who’s Inkie?” a wavery voiced pegasus mare hanging onto the cage called down below. A flat-haired, tear-stricken Pinkie jerked her head to look up, along with Twilight, along with the Princess Celestia, to see at least a hundred pegasi all looking down at the dramatic events unfolding.

“Ceiling!” Twilight shouted angrily, and a bit desperately. Her magic flared and all the pegasi were knocked away by a new panel of the cage zooming up to the top of it, closing off the ceiling and giving the ponies within actual privacy. Rainbow Dash fluttered down to the ground level of the containment cube, giving its opaque walls a wan look. Rainbow liked privacy and all, but that was important stuff, and it sort of felt like lying to hide it.

She spared a smug grin though, because the cage had originally been designed to drop things in from the top, yet not even Twilight Sparkle had thought to add a ceiling. That was one thing unicorns and earth ponies always seemed to forget, they never checked the ceiling. Score one for pegasi super secret agent spyponies.

Okay yeah she did feel a little guilty about how Pinkie was going to get all embarassed and all, and it probably was wrong of her to put herself above unicorns and earth ponies, and Pinkie all crying and upset wasn’t really important for the whole town to see, and... yeah Rainbow Dash was pretty much never going to speak of this again.

A good amount of time passed, before Twilight let the cube fade from an opaque magenta to nothingness. A still very skinny, but less weepy Pinkie emerged. She was helped along by Twilight Sparkle at her side, with Princess Celestia following cautiously from behind. None of them were willing to look any pegasi in the eye, though to be fair Rainbow Dash was pretty much the only pegasus who didn’t scram for the clouds when they got caught peeking. She didn’t care though; Rainbow would do the right thing no matter what secrets she knew about Pinkie. Anypony with a problem that would have to go through Rainbow Dash.

Plus she was—and don’t quote her on this—but she was pretty sure Princess Celestia had smiled amusedly before the ceiling blocked them off.

Twilight led Pinkie to the edge of the Pinkie pool, where Pinkie’s ears went down at the sight of all of the Pinkies down there, either jumping around or looking up at her expectantly. “That’s a looooootta me,” Pinkie Pie said dazedly.

“First the mirror pool, now the Pinkie Pool, huh, Pinkie?” Dash said to her cheekily.

Only half listening, Pinkie Pie stared downward and licked her lips. “Uh huh. I’m um... I’ll be right back in just one”

“No,” Twilight said forcefully, dragging Pinkie back from the edge with her magic. She got in the way, looking at Pinkie saying, “You cannot under any circumstances go into that pit.”

“Why not?” Pinkie whined, sinking down exhaustedly. “You said I could eat them, and it was okay?”

“The problem is, one of them might eat you,” Twilight said. Pinkie got real serious at that, and Twilight impressed upon her, “It won’t hurt you, if that happens. But it will make you extremely hard to find, and recover. You won’t be ‘you’ any more, just like the Pinkie you have eaten didn’t take over your agency. I have no idea what happens, if the pony who eats you is eaten. I will happily introduce you to the Pinkies under controlled conditions, one at a time. That way if something... unfortunate happens, we can make sure you’re alright.”

“I don’t want to get eaten...” Pinkie whimpered, scrunching down even more compactly.

“You’ll be fine if you do,” Twilight said to her, “We’ll just feed the Pinkie until she ...relinquishes you, and you’ll be safe and sound.”

“I know,” Pinkie Pie said, unusually quietly.

“So don’t worry we’ll wait, what?” Twilight blinked down at the dejected, starving Pinkie Pie.

Dash jerked back a step, surprised as Pinkie lunged to face her, and not facing Twilight. “I–I remember when it happened,” Pinkie Pie said urgently to Rainbow Dash. “The first time. That’s what you were hearering before Twilight swatted ya. It was a looooong time ago, and I thought it was just a bag or...something, but I remember.”

She turned back to Twilight, saying in a hurt voice, “And it was really scary!” More outraged in tone than hurt, really. “I couldn’t even think, and I thought I was Inkie, and my sister was scared, and I couldn’t be scared, only she could, and that was scary!”

“...and then I was out again,” Pinkie Pie said dully, not really looking at anypony at this point. “They said I did such a good job, and I could be in the club for big foals now. Then the... bad things started to happen.”

The quiet whisper escaped her, “...I miss her,” before Pinkie went silent again.

Twilight craned down to her, murmuring, “You don’t have to say this, Pinkie. You’re in public now, and just about anypony” she shot Rainbow Dash another nasty look, “Could hear what you said.”

“It’s okay Twilie,” Pinkie Pie mumbled from where she lay there. “I wanted Dashie to know... because she... I should have listened to her... first...”

Both Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle had their heads nestled attentively close to the little pink pony, at least until Pinkie started to snore. Dash pulled back and started to snicker, but as usual Twilight was a worry-wart.

“Oh no, she was supposed to eat more. I don’t know if it’s safe for her to sleep like this. By my calculations, she needs at least 3 Pinkies to reach even minimum pony plasma counts.”

“Aw, Twilight,” Dash said chidingly, “You gotta focus on getting the Pinkie ready to eat then, and don’t worry about her sleeping or not.” Her brain tripped over something then, and she added, “Wait, how many Pinkies does she need to eat to get back to 100%?”

“At least 11,” Twilight said, “Perhaps all the way up to 20, I’m really operating in uncharted territory here.”

Rainbow Dash blinked at her. “Then Twilight,” she said haltingly, “What about the other... how the heck many Pinkies are there?”

“Let’s just say,” Twilight said unconcealing a disgusted look at the starving pink pony, “She’s gonna be eating herself for quite a while.”

Rainbow Dash started counting, and Twilight sighed, and stopped Dash’s rhythmic tapping with, “Assuming she can eat 1 Pinkie a day on a permanent basis, around 21 days. Assuming 1 every other day, which I feel is more likely, 102 days.”

Dash shook her head, “Sorry Twilight, but... there’s a jillion Pinkies over there! That’s a lot more than a hundred! Like, a lot!”

“Yes, but remember the other Pinkies are going to need to eat too,” Twilight corrected.

Rainbow had to pause at that, asking unhappily, “So... you don’t just subtract?” 

Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s more of that ‘fancy mathematics’ you always make fun of.”

“Figures,” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes resentfully.

Twilight gave Rainbow Dash an eyebrow raise, whereupon Rainbow Dash just crossed her hooves and returned a challenging look. It obviously intimidated Twilight into submission because she rolled her eyes submissively and stopped looking Dash in the eye. Rainbow Dash was clearly too challenging to be challenged, obviously, because Twilight didn’t send her away or demand she know about math.

“As a matter of fact,” Twilight said, laying a proud hoof on her chest, “This ‘fancy mathematics’ also lets me figure out how many Pinkies came out of Pinkie’s mouth. Working backward from my final estimate of twelve kilopinkies, or QBJQ, I have estimated that Pinkie produced no less than 1200 Pinkies, all on her own.”

“1200? Jeez that’s...” Rainbow shook her head sadly, “I didn’t see her with any more than like a hundred. No wonder she was half d-d-injured when the princess found her.”

Twilight nodded seriously. “And 1200 became 3000 in the second generation when each made a second Pinkie Pie. Then 3000 became 12000 when the doubles then doubled. Therefore, 12 kilopinkies.”

Rainbow blanched and said, “Woah, they double every time, you’re right. If they got the hay that’d be a fourth generation and that’s...” she frowned, “300 is like, twice twelve right?” Twilight nodded.

“Hey wait,” Dash said peering down at the Pinkies, “So every 2 generations it goes between 3 and 12 and you just add zeroes then. Ponyville is like, what um, around F3Q I think? Oh, right, the Q...”

“You ca–” Twilight said, but Rainbow Dash was getting tired of feeling stupid.

“You know what, never mind, Twilight,” Dash said in mild agitation, “I was just trying to think how many times before they added up to every pony in Ponyville.”

Twilight twitched and said, “Eheh... actually, they can’t.”

Dash cut Twilight a sideways glance.

“Princess Celestia may have failed to... I mean,” Twilight tripped over her words, “I may have failed to consider that these oracles developed in a resource limited ecosystem. Apparantly they started out on ‘empty’ from the spell, but successive generations became progressively more innately satiated thus naturally limiting their population growth.”

Rainbow Dash looked at her straight on.

“The Pinkies started out empty,” Twilight clarified with an exasperated sigh, “But the Pinkies made from those Pinkies started out fuller, until they all stopped eating at the third generation.”

“Stopped, as in, past tense?” Dash asked uncertainly.

“Tell nopony of this,” Twilight blurted, suddenly and quietly in Rainbow Dash’s face. “I didn’t mean to tell you. I should never have told you.”

“What, why?!” Rainbow said, backpedalling.

“Because there is a filly, no, two fillies,” Twilight continued to impress heatedly stepping forward to Dash’s backward, “Who did something very, very brave, and they deserve a parade in their honor without somepony lacking in tact going and suggesting to them that their bravery was completely useless and unnecessary.”

Rainbow Dash stood very still under Twilight’s stare. Once she worked out the words to say, she said, “It wasn’t, you know.”

“Wasn’t what?” Twilight asked predictably.

“Useless and unnecessary,” Rainbow replied. “They stopped all the destruction, even the salt.” She had to pause to sigh inwardly, “But yeah, I get what you’re saying. I’ll”

With a gulp, and a sinking feeling, she said, “I’ll... try.”

And there Rainbow Dash was with all the best intentions, stuck with keeping secrets again.

She flew off with conflicted feelings into the sky once more, just flying about aimlessly, kicking a few clouds into shape just out of force of habit. It really didn’t take much to manage Ponyville’s weather, even with the proximity to the Everfree. Outside that wild magic, the skies stayed relatively tame. It sure wasn’t like Chickago, or Dodge. It only started to get tricky when you wanted it to rain on the town at a very particular time and hour, or how ponies were so particular about their morning clouds.

She spotted squirt, cruising down to see Scootaloo sans Archer, talking excitedly with Sweetie Belle, who for some reason had a ribbon tied around her hair like a bandanna and smudge marks on her cheeks. Considering what those fillies had been through, Dash lighted on a cloud and watched from above while Scootaloo dragged a reluctant Sweetie over to a narrow alleyway. There, a nervous Archer emerged from hiding. Scootaloo stood with Archer, shoulder-to-shoulder, both of them with too wide apologetic grins on their faces. Sweetie’s reaction was to reach forward with her hooves and try to squish their heads together.

That led to Scootaloo and Archer both pulling away, the alarmed blue pony retreating back into the alleyway, while the orange and purple one admonished Sweetie Belle, who dropped her tail and looked aside self consciously. Sweetie Belle walked carefully over to the alley, where Archer poked her head out of the shadows. Some words exchanged, Archer came out into the light again. Sweetie walked around and around her, looking her all over. They were pretty soon rubbing cheeks and cantering along together. It was totally adorable, but Dash figured she wouldn’t bother them by stealing the spotlight with her mere presence again.

It got her to thinking though. A very serious thought about Scootaloo’s future, and the future of her friends. She cast off from the cloud, flying over towards the Apple Acres in the distance. On her way, she saw ponies milling around in the partial sunlight, hauling around piles of mended boards and reconstituted plaster. The statue wasn’t on fire anymore which is good, still looked a little oily though. She saw the schoolhouse up on the hill with some students milling around it uncertainly.

She detoured there and landed in front of them, saying, “Hey, what’s up?”

“Miss Cheerilee is supposed to have a lesson today,” one of them said uncertainly. “She’s not here though. Can we go now, or should we stay?”

“I think you should just chill for a little longer,” Dash said, addressing the huddled masses in general. “Cheers already got out of prison this morning, and she should be over here any minute now.” They were pretty wide eyed at that for some reason, so Rainbow added reassuringly, “Hey, she was pretty frazzled from her night with Big Macintosh, so if I see her I’ll remind her about her classes. But I gotta go now, there’s someone who I gotta set straight about this before she worries anymore.”

She might have heard a “what–” but she was already in motion, soaring into the gentle, forgiving sky. Cheerilee could clear up any questions her own students had; that was her job and all. Rainbow Dash instead trucked her brightly colored butt over to the big farmhouse that sat in a clearing on the rolling hills, surrounded on all sides for quite a ways with solid stands of apple trees.

Alighting, she trotted up the porch and knocked on their sturdy wooden front door. She was unsurprised to see Granny Smith answer the door. “Eeuhuwhazisit?” Granny said clearly. “Oh yer the Rainbow one!” she realized, “Any news from that lil’ orange scampaloo?”

“Yeah, she’s... great. Really great,” Rainbow said, feeling something like pride welling up in her for some reason. “How’s Apple Bloom doing? Is it alright if I tell her about what happened?”

“Tell her?” Granny said disbelievingly. She reached a hoof out and slid Dash right into the farmhouse saying, “You git yerself all cosy an’ ah’ll get us some vittles and you cain tell alla us what happened.” Then Granny rushed into the kitchen to start preparations, and by rushed Rainbow Dash means really, really slowly.

“Yeah, not happening,” Dash grumbled impatiently. She went and trotted right up the stairs looking around for a little filly’s room. She found it alright, because there was a big chest of plush toys—woah, Apple Bloom had a huge bed! Dash trotted up to it, but there was no tiny filly on the simple, unornamented mattress. Just empty, rumpled covers, and the heady scent of a...

Rainbow Dash was back in the hallway, pointedly avoiding a certain room that she certainly never went into. She found a door partially closed and tapped her hoof on it, saying, “Hey, Apple Bloom here?”

There was a pause. “Who is it?” came the smart filly’s voice.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash said, “I just wanted to fill you in on how everything’s working out alright.”

“Did Granny send you up here?” Apple Bloom asked tiredly.

“No uh, I just... you know, I mean, okay maybe it was a weird idea. But Scootaloo is fine, and I saw her with Sweetie Belle, so I thought since you’re her friend too you and you’re all stuck in bed you would want to know—”

There was a thump in the room. Hooves walked themselves up to the door. A teeny little yellow filly with bright red hair and a big pink bow, and a black eye poked her nose suspiciously around the corner. “Ah ain’t stuck in bed,” she grumbled. “Ah’m just a little sore.”

She limped unconvincingly past Rainbow Dash over to the stairwell, turning to look at her and say, “Come on, let’s see what Granny is cookin’”

“How did you know she’s cooking?” Dash asked curiously.

“Wayl,” Apple Bloom said all cutely and stuff, “You’re here, an’ you ain’t an Apple. Therefore you’re a guest. Granny always makes sure her guests are fed.”

Apple Bloom started to ease herself down the stairs then, and Dash trotted up to where she was, walking down beside the filly just in case she had trouble with her hooves or something. Asides some nasty bruises on her chest, and the bandaged ear, she didn’t look all that bad really.

They got to the bottom and Rainbow Dash raised her head to ask Granny how long it would take, only to find the table all set, with a pitcher of milk and cups, and some glowing toasty apple strudel sitting out on plates, in three places on the table, one of which taken up by Granny dozing on her rocking chair. She was startled enough she didn’t even head towards the table until the unhesitant filly who accompanied her had jumped up in her chair and looked back at the rainbow pegasus.

So Dash sauntered up to the table, while Apple Bloom leaned forward and bit into her treat, her little cheeks puffing up with delight as she sounded out around the mouthful, “Fank yew Grammy”

“Eh, huh?” Granny cracked her eyes open, saying, “No problem, any frienda Applejack’s a frienda mine.” She glanced at Rainbow and said, “Go on it ain’t poison now.”

“Uh, oh no prob,” Dash said blushing at her hesitance. “Thanks for gi–”

“Sth rude too fank thomeone,” Apple Bloom sputtered out, pausing to actually swallow with a hearty burp. “Rude to thank someone,” she repeated, “If’n you ain’t even put it your mouth first!”

Dash blinked at the filly.

Apple Bloom looked nervous then, saying hesitantly, “Cuz you don’t know what it taists like.” Looking away, she went back to scarfing down the rest of her strudel.

“Oh, okay,” Dash said agreeably, leaning forward and taking a big bite. She never could remember whether you were supposed to talk with your mouth full or not. The strudel was still warm like right out of the oven, but not too hot to burn your tongue, not even the jelly part of it that almost tasted like fresh apples. It crackled in her teeth all buttery and full of hay. And was that apple butter? “Sthgood!” she exclaimed enthusiastically, tearing into it. When was the last time she even ate, anyway?

“Mmh!” Rainbow snapped her head up from the empty plate, making sure to remember to say with difficulty, “Ftank hyou mers smrth.”

“Doon’t mention it,” Granny said with a crinkly smile. 

Granny had a more unhurried, conservative approach, nibbling hesitantly with hers held between her hooves in the rocking chair. “Now what’s the news from town?” she asked. “Ah ain’t been there since y’saw me at the... yer know, the unmentionable place?”

Dash blinked at Granny this time, before realizing and smiling saying, “Oh yeah, the spa. U-u-u-uh I mean, not that I was really,” she shot a glance at a puzzled looking Apple Bloom. Then Rainbow Dash just hung her head while Granny Smith whooped with laughter.

“So, uh, Scootaloo is fine, and going to be fine,” Rainbow Dash said. “And she’s actually really special but uh, I just wanted to say that I think she and Sweetie Belle made up, and they were playing with Archer when I saw them last. So, yeah. You don’t have to worry that you scared off Sweetie from them or anything.”

Apple Bloom’s eyes dawned with relief at the sound of that. But it was Granny who spoke saying, “Hyeah, but what’ve the big ermunthingamajig goin’ on?”

Dash nodded to Granny, “Yeah you shoulda seen it. Princess Celestia herself came and totally screwed up trying to fix everything. Pinkie Pie is just like Scootaloo it turns out, and she got too magicked so she started spitting out clones of herself. It was just like the mirror pool, except like, a hundred times worse!”

“Yeah, but,” Granny said insistently, “What’rebout that gol’ darn pinksplosion north of town?”

“Oh, yeah,” Rainbow Dash said hesitantly, “The Ponyville Pub had some salt going on, like the drug I mean, and Pinkie Pie got into it, well her clones did, and they blew the whole thing sky high!”

“Dagnabbit!” Granny said swinging her hoof. “Now where am ah gonna get mah uhmnhn...” she looked at Apple Bloom, then said smoothly, “Ah’m very sorry for their loss.”

“But it’s okay,” Rainbow Dash continued, “The town is still totally intact, mostly, sort of. And it’s all thanks to Scootaloo, and her other oracles, and the rest of the town, and some buffalo I think. You know how Pinkie’s one pony band was hypnotizing the fillies like Scootaloo, the oracles, you know?”

They knew, so Rainbow Dash went on, “Scootaloo got all of Pinkie’s instruments, and she totally saved the day. She played that song, and she could do it even with all those instruments, because she just spit out more ponies like herself to pick up the ones she couldn’t play. And they hypnotized all of the Pinkie clones, and led them right into a Pinkie pit where they couldn’t jump out, and the town was safe.”

“That’s so cool!” Apple Bloom said with shining eyes.

Granny nodded to her saying, “That sounds like a cause fer song’ndance if’n ah ever heard it.”

“It totally was!” Dash said enthusiastically. “And after we got done with the song and dance, Pinkie uh...” she rubbed a hoof, “Private stuff happened, and then Pinkie was getting better because she could eat the Pinkies who came out of her. So, that’s what’s been going on in town.”

Rainbow swished her tail saying thoughtfully, “It’s pretty much over, I think. No more hoards of Pinkie Pies, at least. I think the worst is past us, so I took some time to come over here. I just really was worried if Apple Bloom would still want to be Scootaloo’s friend.”

“After that?” Apple Bloom exclaimed half standing on the table, “She’s a hero! She’s like the best friend ever!”

Rainbow Dash nodded slowly, “Scoots is awesome that is true. The princess said Scootaloo is this super old style pony, like back in the dinosaurs or something. Because of her wings, and the way she eats fillies and stuff.”

“Yeah, but only fillies like her. She cain’t eat me or anything,” Apple Bloom said smartly, taking a drink of her milk.

“No she can eat you, or just about anypony, Apple Bloom,” Rainbow Dash said, “But that’s the ack what the”

Dash’s wings flared, which did nothing to stop the spray of milk from covering her as Apple Bloom shouted, “What?! No she cain’t! We just said she cain’t!”

Dash shook the drips of milk off her wings, and folded them... reluctantly. “We were all surprised by that,” she said, “And Scootaloo the most of all! Princess Celestia said they can eat somepony who isn’t an oracle, and then spit them out again but they’ll be an oracle, just like, whiz bam!”

Apple Bloom just stared at her unbelievingly, and Granny spoke up saying, “What in tarnation do you mean by oracle? Like a fortune teller?”

“Yeah, no, um, sorta?” Dash said turning to her. “They’re what Scootaloo and Pinkie Pie are, and her kind of pony is good at... fortunes or something. But they’re called oracle ponies, I...think.”

Dash blushed, admitting, “You’ll have to ask Twilight for all the details. I sorta might have missed a few things.”

“Cain we please go back to the part about her eatin’ me?” Apple Bloom exclaimed in distress.

“Oh, right!” Rainbow Dash declared lifting her head and perking her ears. “So the princess said Scoots could eat you,” she said turning to Apple Bloom, “And turn you into an oracle like her and all, and you basically have to let her do it or it doesn’t work. But I guess it’s a good thing you never tried it out, huh?”

“But Scootaloo wanted... to...” Apple Bloom whimpered quivering, but then her muzzle firmed resolutely. She shook her head saying, “No, no. Miss Rainbow, you’re a good pony, an’ all, but you gotta resist. Pinkie Pie’s all got you enchanted now, and it just ain’t true!”

“Wh—” was all Dash got out before Apple Bloom tackled her shouting, “Ah’ll hold her down, Granny! You go get help!”

One ludicrous fracas later, and they had managed to separate, the little filly and the old biddy standing there looking at the young strapping mare, while she stood looking back, all three with cautiously neutral expressions. “Okay, so I got off on the wrong hoof,” Rainbow Dash said. “What I meant to say is Scootaloo isn’t going to eat you, not any more than Sweetie Belle is going to kill you, and they’re both fine and look, just be friends with her again, okay?”

“She uh, really needs her friends now,” Dash muttered, looking aside. “Even if she’s like oh no I have this terrible mouth and you cannot befriend me now, alas and alack!” Rainbow... removed her hoof from her forehead and settled on all fours again, concluding plainly, “Just tell her she isn’t dangerous, and you’re still friends with her.” 

“This’s sers business,” Granny Smith said gravely. “Ah don’t want my little granddaughter get eatin’ or turn to no oracle pony or nothin’. Didn’t ye hear the blue one go on about eyeballs?”

Dash blinked. “Uh... no?”

Granny blushed and lifted a hoof, “Oh right, ye weren’t there, well umnnuengn... ask that there Scootaloo filly about eyeballs. Parasprite eyeballs,” Granny said in a dead serious tone.

“Ah didn’t get bit.” Apple Bloom piped up.

Apple Bloom was poking herself in the side, hissing as her hoof hit a sorely sensitive spot. “Was just thinkin’ about the fight,” she said, looking up to Granny, and then Rainbow Dash. “Ah was fightin’ for mah life. Ah could’ve k–really hurt her. Hayfires, ah bit her!”

“Apple Bloom, watch yer buckin’ language!” Granny admonished.

“Sorry Granny,” Apple Bloom mumbled, shrinking down.

“Yeah you took a pretty good chunk out of her cheek,” Rainbow said. “Also her brackey...something artery. Twilight said she was still bleeding when she got to the library.”

Apple Bloom whimpered, shrinking down even more until she exploded from the pressure, shouting, “An’ she never bit me!” as she jumped to her hooves. She stood there silently, tears shining in her eyes. “The whole time, she was kickin’ me and shovin’ me and bucking my side,” Apple Bloom blurted out, “And she even cut mah ear with her hoof, an’ she never not once even once used her mouth!”

“Ah even bit her tail,” Apple Bloom admitted, shrinking down again. “Ah thought she was a monster. I went an’ bit down and tore a piece of her tail right off.  It’s prolly still lyin’ over by the clubhouse in the dirt an’ ah did it, and she never bit me not even once.”

“I dunno kid,” Dash said to the upset filly somberly, “Sounds like you’re more afraid of yourself than you are of her.”

“I... yeah,” Apple Bloom mumbled miserably.

“Ah ain’t gonna say this’re not serious, and ah ain’t gonna say this’s settled, but...” Granny sagged a bit, saying defeatedly, “That filly ain’t never put you in no danger Apple Bloom, and until she does ah cain’t forbid you from hangin’ out with her.”

“But what if I—” Apple Bloom started.

“If you do that again to a real monster,” Rainbow cut in, “Then you’ll be a hero. You just gotta make real sure that you know what’s a monster and what’s not. If you know that, then you’re already like halfway to winning!”

Apple Bloom looked up at her with wide, round eyes then, and Rainbow Dash looked her straight back, telling the filly most confidentially, “Scoots won’t admit it, and you didn’t hear it from me, but you’re pretty strong, and I bet you could protect her if she was in trouble and needed to be saved.”

“Okay Miss Rainbow,” the filly said evenly, and more importantly sincerely, “Ah’ll do my best t’try.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, and turned on her heels, heading away from those two to the front door of the Apple house. She paused at the threshold and looked back repeating her question, “But you will be friends with Scootaloo still, right?”

“Ah will!” the filly said intently, puffing her chest out.

Dash smiled, and said, “Thanks kid,” and turned forward again, a lot more confident now that Scootaloo was going to be alright after all this. Pushing open the door, Rainbow Dash looked wistfully up at the drifting clouds over the horizon. Her rainbow mane teased in the breeze that wanted to dance into the house and through the windows. That moment, the young pegasus mare could swear she felt the sky calling to her.

“Would anypony be up fer seconds?” Granny spoke up behind her.

Dash whirled around, tongue out, and shouted, “Would I?!”

It was a good afternoon.
> The Trials of Being Pinkie Pie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie Pie did  get in trouble, it turns out. At first it didn’t seem like she was going to get anything but a slap on the pastern with pardon after pardon the princess was giving out.

“Pinkie Pie had a troubled upbringing,” Celestia explained, “She was just under a misimpression given to her by somepony who deceived her, not deceiving anypony else.”

“Pinkie Pie was subject to high levels of immanation during her enchantment,” the princess explained, “It was my actions which led her to that unnatural state, and I will do whatever I can to ensure her spree of destruction leaves as little lasting harm as possible.”

“Pinkie Pie had been denied her true nature for so long that she had no instincts she could rely on. It must have been terrible to lose trust in your own heart, when what it tells you is so different from what is true. When her heart told her it was wrong, she only felt more that it was the right thing to do.”

“Pinkie Pie was just being Pinkie Pie.”

And explanation stuff like that. But finally, they got to addressing the pertinent concerns, which means talking about the bad parts or about what Pinkie should  have done. Pinkie paid real close attention to that. Pinkie sort of knew what they were, but she wasn’t sure what  she knew anymore, so she let them tell her, just to be sure.

“I have said my peace,” Princess Celestia said, returning to her seat in the town hall auditorium, “The defense rests.”

It was an unwelcoming courtroom that Pinkie Pie found herself escorted to. Everypony was gathered in the one hundred first room in the Town Hall, one of the big auditoriums used for presentations and plays. The stage had a judge’s podium placed on it, and stands for the audience and the defense. But that’s not what made it scary.

What made it scary was it was the very same auditorium that Pinkie had sat in for so many tense and nerve wracking hours, desperately hoping Twilight would keep missing her nervous twitches. It was kind of a mean thing for her friends to do, but it was also kind of funny in the end, so Pinkie had to grant them that much at least. When the birdy started chirping outside, Pinkie was sure  that was the end of her, and also when she had to look to see if her mirror clone could touch the ceiling, and a frog crossed with an orange; how could you not get distracted by that? When that weird clone made those...things pop out of her hooves, Pinkie thought she was going to die for sure. And that other clone’s face, that horrible, horrible face.

And somehow Twilight didn’t  see her. Pinkie was behind the clone right when the nasty horn laser hit it and it started convulsing, and she snapped her head to the front hoping nopony saw. And nopony saw . They were all too busy watching the clones getting zapped into big nasty clonesplosions, so every time Pinkie thought she had lost, she just barely  pulled through. She was used to being reeeally lucky, but these were deadly laser shooters, and Pinkie had to sit there watching paint dry!!

And then... then the last clone wouldn’t move. It wouldn’t stop staring. It wouldn’t even twitch. Pinkie didn’t even know if it was dead. It just stared and stared behind her, endlessly staring at the wall of paint, and she didn’t have any more clones left to hide her mistakes, so she couldn’t twitch, couldn’t even blink.

And then you know what happened? Rainbow Dash tried to kill her! She said that somepony was making balloon animals! She didn’t even say that it was, like, two  cities away, so Pinkie thought it was right here, and she was so  bored of watching paint dry, and before she knew it she was asking her friend where, where, because she couldn’t even see the balloon maker, just looking around and magenta light filled her vision. 

Two seconds later, Pinkie Pie had opened her eyes, and took her head out from under her hooves. The last strand of magenta energy was flying out the window, and it wasn’t her! 

“But... I messed up!!” she yelled to Twilight. “How do you know I’m me?? I failed the test!!” And the infuriatingly smiling unicorn didn’t even budge. Twilight just looked at Pinkie’s manic form and a light chuckle bubbled up in her chest. Not Pinkie’s chest, Twilight’s chest. Twilight’s stupid purple smartie chest.

“Oh Pinkie,” she said, removing Pinkie’s hoof from her chest. “You didn’t fail the test. There was no test!”

Pinkie just fell back on her butt and sounded way too much like a donkey in response to that.

“The clone disruption spell I whipped up is completely harmless to ponies,” Twilight said getting all lecture modey. “My immediate hornpower is barely enough to so much as tickle a normal pony, much less kill you. Your biomorphic field is quite resilient, I assure you. All I did was utilize an aerolitic neodynamism etc etc etc to return the clones to the pool.”

“Then why   the test?!” Pinkie exclaimed, sitting there in an outraged flabbergasted heap of outraged flabbergast. She must have exclaimed too loud though, because everypony’s ears were flat, and they were all silently staring at her, and the windows sort of shattered.

“I knew this was a bad idea!” Rainbow Dash called down from above.

And Twilight looked really nervous then, as Pinkie intensely stared at her, all friendlyly  and nicely , thinking about making Twilight cupcakes,  because cupcakes tasted sweet,  and good.  Twilight lifted a hoof, and said, “Well, uh, we had to get all the Pinkies in one place, eventually, and... well... you see...”

“Y’ain’t gonna do it again, are ya?” Applejack spoke up next to Pinkie. And that cooled Pinkie’s temper, like the fire of a thousand... not... suns. All she could think about was that wall of purple paint. That horrible, horrible wall. It wasn’t even on a building. It was just a wall. Of paint drying. Why, oh why did it have to be paint drying?! 

Pinkie said “No, thank you,” very maturely and calmly, without crying and blubbering and collapsing on the floor, and rolling around or anything like that. After she was done, she saw her friends remained remarkably unsympathetic, still standing around her in a semicircle.

“Guess you learned your lesson then,” Applejack said smugly, as soon as Pinkie quieted down enough to hear her. And Applejack just went and trotted off out of the town hall. It wasn’t until then that Pinkie realized. She never had to worry about being exploded at all, because her friends already knew her so well, and she was something precious to them, that they would never hurt or needlessly put in harm’s way, and her stupid dumb  friends just wanted her to think  it was going to happen, just so she would stare at paint drying until her joints stiffened up and her eyes started to cross.

She still wasn’t sure if she should have forgiven them or thanked them, but Pinkie Pie definitely never ever wanted to return to the Mirror Pool, or have a fun copy of herself to help her, ever again. Fast forward to a few days ago, when stupid not  fun copies of herself started coming out of her mouth, of all places. Pinkie Pie just really really, really wanted them all to get in trouble and get zapped away and back to the pool so that her friends wouldn’t make her sit there again for 3 hours watching paint dry.

And boy did that  not go well.

So now she was escorted into the very same auditorium that had once served as her torture chamber. Now it was to serve as her place of trial. Ponies probably didn’t notice that she never had parties in Town Hall anymore, or that Pinkie avoided this room in particular. Or that she voted absentee now. But if she had said something about it, would they have picked it for her knowingly, since Pinkie hurt them all and they wanted to hurt her back?

She was less afraid of that happening now, after Princess Celestia herself defended Pinkie Pie. Pinkie was still scared, but it didn’t look like they were going to make her watch paint dry, even though she made even more and more clones than she ever had before. They just wanted to... talk to her, and treat her like she was a pony who could be helped, and reasoned with. Pinkie wasn’t sure at this point if she should be thanking them, or worrying about their sanity.

“The defense rests,” Princess Celestia said, retreating from the podium, and taking her seat beside the Cakes, who looked like they were going to faint from their proximity to the all powerful princess of everything except when she wasn’t.

“Then let the um...” said the somewhat portly judge, with the big purple bun her mane was done up in, who was actually Sweetie Belle’s mom. You wouldn’t think she of all ponies was a judge, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. She looked really  uncomfortable as she said the word, “...prosecution  come to the stand.”

Even Pinkie could understand the reason the judge was feeling uncomfortable. She didn’t quite understand the reasoning behind this  being the prosecution talker pony person. Twilight’s explanation had something to do with bias, and part of an im, and which ‘tourney pony was best at understanding all the bad things Pinkie did, without getting mad and lying about her to try to hurt her. But even with that understanding, Pinkie had to admit it was awfully unsettling seeing Fluttershy take the stand against her.

It made Pinkie feel terribler too. Fluttershy shouldn’t have to think up bad things to say about her, but it was yet another thing Pinkie had burdened her friends with. Pinkie hadn’t been a very good friend lately. 

Since they started making her eat herself, which she didn’t mind at all, because she was too busy being delicious, Pinkie had had a lot of time to think, and a lot of time to cry. She wished she had never even heard of that silly fillysprite story. She didn’t even really remember why she was so upset over it. It seemed so silly now, but now wasn’t then, and try as she might, Pinkie couldn’t ever change now to then.

To make matters even worser, she hadn’t been able to bake a single thing since the incident. There were just too many ponies she hurt and especially buildings. She wasn’t very good at building buildings, but she had to help out however she could. Helping with constructions, going before the council of oatmeal. You know, not fun stuff like that. Her hair had perked back up once she got enough of um, her to eat, but she didn’t feel like laughing or making noise or saying anything funny as she sat there anxiously, awaiting Fluttershy’s testimony.

“Pinkie Pie was,” Fluttershy spoke clearly, pausing to look nervously under her wing where some papers were perched saying, “Um... I mean... what I mean to say is...” Gee, whose idea was this again? Oh right, Twilight. She’s the big idea pony.

“Pinkie Pie should have listened to her friends,” Fluttershy said at length, as if admitting some great fault of her own. Pinkie’s ears turned down though, because it was her  great fault, not Fluttershy’s, and she could only feel worser as Fluttershy listed off all of the, um... some  of the ways Pinkie Pie should have listened.

“Rainbow Dash told her that Scootaloo wasn’t evil,” Fluttershy said more confident as she got going, “And it was the honest truth. Twilight’s magic showed that Scootaloo was safe, and Applejack could tell that Pinkie was listening to the wrong um, ponies. If it were other ponies whose advice she had ignored, it may have been acceptable, but we’re her friends, and she knows how much we care about her. She should have listened when we said she was going too far. I mean, I think so. that is... um...”

The court wasn’t attended by many ponies, so Fluttershy wasn’t too  nervous. There were the Cakes who housed and clothed Pinkie Pie (the joke is she doesn’t wear clothes), and all her best friends. There was Cheerilee and Big Macintosh, and Applejack. Those three were watching over Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, and Archer now. The fillies were here so they could “learn a thing or two” and Pinkie was fine with being used to learn stuff, even if it made her feel as good as a chalkboard. What really  surprised Pinkie Pie was the princess Celestia, who brought in some ponies, who...

They were all brown and grey, the color of rocks and dirt. The color that Pinkie could never really be a part of. It was her mother, and her father, and her two siblings. Her surviving family. The group of four looked more than a little lost, out of place in the colorful Ponyville, the same way that Pinkie Pie felt in  of place in the colorful Ponyville. It was a very peculiar role reversal, yet despite her past, the last thing Pinkie Pie wanted was to see her family in distress.

It wasn’t her whole family, but then, it couldn’t have been. In the forefront there was a tall brown stallion with rock grey hair along his neck and thick sideburns, with a simple black hat adorning his head, and a simple black tie adorning his neck. The image of a rock pick rested proudly on his hindquarters. At his side was a grey mare with greyer hair. The couple may have born little resemblance to Pinkie Pie herself, were it not for that gray mare’s baby blue eyes, which she kept securely situated behind some serious looking golden spectacles. Her hair was in a neat bun, as always, and her black shawl bore only the simplest of gold ornaments. Really the most distinctive feature of her were the boulders on her backside. Those were hips that could move mountains, or so her father liked to tell her mother, when he thought the foals were asleep.

Behind them were two mares about Pinkie’s age, one younger and one older than her. The older one had fur the color of shale with a straight plain grey mane and eyes of even dimmer brown than her father. The other looked nearly identical to the one, but slightly taller, with colors reversed: plain grey fur and a mane the color of dirty amethyst. This fourth pony didn’t seem to be nervous at all, but from what Pinkie remembered of her, she had a very reserved way of expressing herself. So maybe she was really  nervous. The third pony, her other sister, seemed less reserved, and was simply staring around the room like a lost tourist. A lost tourist in a courtroom.

Anyway, so somehow Celestia got her family allllllll the way from Nickerlite to come over. Something about how they raised her, but they couldn’t have raised her any different because they were them and she was Pinkie Pie, and really, how do you raise somepony like that?  Besides any of those ponies she described, the court was closed off to the public except for that one window at the top of the auditorium that Twilight had forgot to lock. It was mostly—no pretty much totally for Fluttershy’s benefit.

So, thankfully Fluttershy seemed to not completely crumble, before just a small bushel of ponies. She recovered, after checking again the notes a certain somepony had prepared for her, and saying in an awkward blurt, “Pinkie Pie should restrain herself around little fillies and colts.”

That hit Pinkie pretty hard. She really did hurt foals, didn’t she? And yet she didn’t even know why. Fluttershy continued more evenly, saying, “Younger ponies don’t know as much, because they haven’t been alive as long to learn as much as older ponies. It’s not fair to try and scare them to get what you want, because they have no way to tell if what you’re saying is not true, and they don’t know themselves enough yet to know if they will react badly in stressful situations.”

She looked guiltily at Pinkie Pie and said, “You should have consoled Apple Bloom and told her she was safe, instead of yelling at her and um, running away.”

Pinkie still didn’t know why, but at least she knew what to do. Console Apple Bloom. That was a good thing, right? But what about the next time? She didn’t want there to be a next time, but it might not even be Apple Bloom next time, and it might not even be evil fillymunching monsters. What should she do then?

Pinkie spared a glance at the judge. Hopefully the judge pony was nice, and she would be able to tell Pinkie what to do. Pinkie Pie sure wasn’t going to tell herself  what to do anymore. Not after all that!

It was kind of funny watching Rainbow Dash stare at Fluttershy’s delivery. Pinkie had been as surprised as her that Fluttershy would give testimony, but Rainbow Dash really wore her brain on her sleeve. That meant it was really easy to tell what she was thinking. And right now Rainbow Dash was thinking that Fluttershy is the bestest prosecution pony ever, and how far she’s come since that meanie minotaur tried to swindle her. But Rainbow didn’t really realize that yet until today, and that meant she was really surprised, and that meant her jaw was dropping open. She looked so funny when she did that!

Fluttershy nervously and uncertainly explained in very clear words how Pinkie shouldn’t incite town mobs, even when she thinks she’s really right, how she should have told the police right away, or perhaps the creature control patrol, or even the princess(es), since just knowing is almost enough to win any battle against parasprites. And she was right. And Pinkie still didn’t really know why she didn’t. She just wanted to save her friends at first, but once she’d started playing the parasprite song, Pinkie just couldn’t bring herself to listen to anypony else. What’s up with that? 

Fluttershy also said Pinkie shouldn’t have kept it all to herself, and even if Pinkie loved her grandmother very much, Pinkie still shouldn’t let a crazy mare’s stories rule her life. Pinkie really missed her granny, but she missed her old  granny, before Granny Pie had to go away and got all angry all the time. It was new granny who told her about the fillysprite. New granny was dead though, so she wasn’t going to hurt anypony else. Pinkie wished that old granny wasn’t.

Fluttershy was using a lot of words at the end there, trying to figure out how to say “crazy mare,” so Rainbow tried to help by shouting it out from the stands. So Pinkie shouted in response that Granny Pie was a hero, because she was  hero. Granny Pie had just made some... mistakes, but she still saved ponies and went on adventures. Or, she used to. Then the judge said that everypony had to get quiet or they’d get in trouble, even Pinkie Pie.

The judge’s sentence was kind of ear lifting to Pinkie Pie. “Your foalhood was ...strained,” she said with a disapproving glance at the guilty looking cluster of Pies. So Pinkie’s childhood wasn’t good? Pinkie knew it wasn’t good, but she didn’t know it wasn’t good  good. “And pretty gosh darn incomplete,” the judge concluded. “It seems as you could benefit most from learning more about how to behave from foals, and how to treat foals, so for the remainder of the school year you should assist Miss Cheerilee in her daily lessons, listening to her and only doing whatever she thinks is best to help them, disregarding your own judgement, while trying to see what life’s like for a foal.”

Pinkie wanted to shout that’s a great idea, but she also wanted to shout out that’s a terrible idea because what if she hurts foals again? But she didn’t know how to say something was both a great and a terrible idea, so she had to stay quiet.

“During the following summer,” the judge continued with some relief in her voice, giving Pinkie a good impression that being quiet might have been the best idea. Imagine that! “You can spend one week each, for each of your best friends, you know, all twelve of them. You’ll devote each week to that friend, doing whatever they want you to do, and sure as with Cheerilee you have to disregard your own judgement.”

Pinkie really really  didn’t want to mess that up, but her anxiety lessened when the judge’s firm visage softened, to look at her with a gentle sympathy, “Don’t you know, your experience showed you that your own judgement isn’t all that great right now. It must be real frightening to know that you can’t rely on yourself to do the right thing, but you can  rely on your friends. I just know if you devote yourself to this honestly and generously, then your own judgement will improve, and you will be able to lead a fuller and happier life.”

“Hopefully without any more Pink Alerts!” called a strange mare, shouting from a window high up in the auditorium that nopony  had noticed was open. With a pleasant twinkle of Twilight’s magic, the window slammed shut in her face.

“Erm, I’ll be be posting the proceedings and sentence outside town hall, for all to see this week,” the judge said, ignoring that little outburst. “If anypony wants to object to their reasoning or their severity, a trial of trial may be scheduled. So, if there are no other objections...” she gave a meaningful look at the princess, who just nodded slightly.

“Court is adjourned!” the judge said cheerfully, rapping the gavel twice on the podium, then spitting it out. She bit the papers she had before her, shifting to slide them into her bag, then magically levitated a scarf onto her neck, and hopped down to the level of everypony else.

When they all ventured outside into the bright shining ...overcast sky, Pinkie was feeling really good about how all this went over. “You know what this calls  for?” she said, to her friends surrounding her and also her parole officer with a bright grin. Her grin faltered then when they waited for her to finish. Pinkie had wings on her back now, she remembered. Things were ...different now. It was too easy for her to lightly flutter them, just to see if they’re still there.

“No really, girls,” Pinkie Pie said in a subdued tone, looking back askance at the town hall auditorium converted into an impromptu courthouse. “Does  this call for a party? Because I honestly don’t know.”

“What kind of party would it even be?” Fluttershy said quietly.

Pinkie smiled eagerly at her and declared, “Why, a Justice is Served party! There would be cake and dancing and volleyball and... other servy things!”

“That’s... actually not a bad idea,” Twilight said, and Twilight really thinks about these things, so it must be good! Pinkie was about ready to explode from happiness to make her first party in since she went crazy and started terrorizing the town again, when... she saw someponies she wasn’t certain she wanted to see. Her little herd of friends was fast being approached by her little herd of family , with her mother, and her father at the lead. It was terribly awkward but, Pinkie supposed that it was necessary. The princess herself had brought them here, and if they were part of why Pinkie was a meanie, then she felt it imperative to mend relations.

With her friends to support her, Pinkie steeled her nerves. She had only run away from home after all, not done anything especially terrible. She simply needed a life outside of petriculture, and when her family hadn’t been able to oblige, she was herself obliged to take matters into her own hooves.

“Hello mother, father,” Pinkie said somewhat reservedly, looking also to her siblings that she left to their treasured rocks. “Blincina, Maud.”

Her father was a traditionalist, in that he considered and taught that the stallion was the center of a family unit, so it was no surprise when he was the first to speak, as little as he clearly wanted to. Mother probably pushed him to come forward at all.

“Hello Pinkie,” he said, in that gravelly voice that took her back all those years, in just a single moment. “Bit of trouble you got in?”

“I’m afraid my troubles aside, I have no intention to return to the farm,” Pinkie told him right away. “There is a wonderful town of ponies who I am forever indebted to, and fast friends I have made. I may not have had the best success on my own, but the farm is simply not where I wish to be.”

He looked at her impassively. “I was wrong,” he said, simply and quickly.

Pinkie stared at him in surprise. “I’m sorry, what?” she blurted.

“I told you that you would fail at life, if you walked away from the family... the farm,” he said in the same even tone that he said everything. “It seemed ludicrous that a pony like you would ever succeed as a party planner, of all things. You weren’t the pony I thought you were though, and you succeeded. I was wrong.”

Mother elbowed him, and he added with a grunt, “And... I was wrong for trying to frighten you into staying.”

Mother took her turn then, saying, “We love you, and didn’t want to see you hurt. When you really left, it was clear that we hurt you anyway. I’m sorry that...” she glanced aside nervously. “You just didn’t ever send any letters. We should have...”

“I didn’t want you to know,” Pinkie Pie said quietly, “You said that parties would neither feed nor shelter anypony, that party planners were worthless. I did not want you to think that I was engaged in something you were ashamed of. And if I wrote, I... was afraid that I would lose my nerve, and give up what I’d made of myself, to return to the farm. It was better if you just forgot about me.”

“We could never forget about you, Pinka... Pinkie,” her mother said with a trace of emotion in her voice. “You were a treasure to me just as much as any of your sisters. I shouldn’t have... when Inckera was ...gone, I should have taken it with more grace. I never meant to say she was... a better daughter. I was so glad you were alive. That’s what I should have told you, even if you wanted to... leave.”

Her father spoke then, saying sharply, “I was lying when I said party planners were worthless. I only said it to keep you from... making a mistake. There is nothing wrong with what you do. I’m... proud that you ...proved me wrong.”

“There is more to life than survival.”

Pinkie hadn’t heard Maud’s voice since she was much younger. It hadn’t thrived since then. It had become deeper, and even more scratchy, but... there was a certain appeal to it. It was the sort of voice that could soothe anypony gently to sleep, whether they liked it or not. “There is more to life than survival,” Maud said simply, “There are also rocks. I write poems about rocks now.”

Pinkie looked at Maud searchingly, then a comprehension dawned in her. “Oh, what you mean is that parties are akin to poetry, both without measurable value?”

Maud nodded very slightly. “Poems do not feed or shelter anypony. Neither do rocks, except big rocks. But they make me feel good. To write them. The little rocks.”

Well if that  didn’t offer Pinkie much to ponder in the coming years, she didn’t know what would! Her gaze drifted to her fourth family member, Miranda Blincina Pie, who looked at her like a deer in headlights. The purple pony with straight grey hair looked around, then lifted a hoof and said,

“...what? I  said she should go.”

Blincina had grown into one of those power voices, that felt like there was always something exciting in them. Having spoken, Pinkie’s second sister stuck her raised hoof out straight towards Pinkie in a thumb up gesture of approval, saying with a half smile, “Good job, Pinkie.”

Pinkie looked at the four of them uncertainly. She felt so achy breaky that she just wanted to grab them all in a big hug and never let go for a few seconds. Father’s eyes turned down, and he started to turn away, to lead his family back to... however they got here. They wouldn’t tarry long. Pinkie leaned back into the quiet mass of her friends whispering, “I’m afraid I don’t know if I should–”

“Hug them you stupid mare!” Rarity hissed, pushing Pinkie stumbling forward.  Rarity’s coarse whisper and brutish shove were convincing enough advice, so Pinkie did. And they were all surprised, because ponies weren’t often seen hugging in Nickerlite. They were also surprised because Pinkie could hug all four of them at once, but that was just Pinkie being herself and... also because Pinkie was one of those oraclesprite ponies. According to Twilight, Scootaloo was real stretchy too. But even that was okay, because Pinkie Pie was here hugging her family after all these years, and they hugged her back... eventually, and when they did take their leave, she and they both felt a lot more warm hearted than they did before.

“That went well!” Pinkie said with a broad smile at her departing family. She trotted along with her friends, trusty Applejack who didn’t judge her even now, and the amazing Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle, who had taught her what friendship even was, and a de-frazzled looking Rarity, who had shown her most elegant face for the formal court proceeding, and Fluttershy who... really really  didn’t mind what happened to Pinkie.

“You um... sounded ...different,” Rainbow Dash said, trying to be complimentary about it. “What was with all the big words?”

“What big words?” Pinkie asked her in confusion.

“Like um...” now Rainbow Dash seemed confused too. “Well I guess intention isn’t a big word, um... measurable?” she struggled to express herself, “You just sounded so...”

“Loquacious!” Rarity exclaimed.

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash said looking at Rarity. “That’s a big word! Wait, did she say loquacious? I don’t remember that one.”

Rarity almost tripped, trying to facehoof.

“Ohhh,” Pinkie realized. “No, you shoulda heard me when I moved into Ponyville I was like ‘May I purchase your entire supply of streamers’ and ‘I wish to acquire bits so that I may eat without accruing debt’ and ‘You are cordially invited’ well I mean I still say that, but I said it for every party. I was... kind of terrible at parties at first.

“But I practiced and practiced, and soon I figured out how to talk party!” Pinkie said cheerfully. “And the rest is history.”

Twilight kind of boggled at her saying, “You... actually talk like that on purpose ?”

“Uh huh?” Pinkie said uncertainly to Twilight. “Is that bad?”

“Just... why?!” Twilight asked with a twitchy eye.

Pinkie headtilted a walking shrug, saying, “Because it’s fun, silly! Also ponies like it. Also it’s easier. Also I always had to talk like that old snooty way or I’d get in trouble so now I can talk however I want and I can keep saying things without having to stop and nopony gets mad or upset or worried or asking me to take a breath or anything like that at all!”

“S’truth,” Applejack said smoothly into the end of Pinkie’s big sentence. “Ah remember before Pinkie got talkin’ all Pinkielike, everypony thought she was a little filly outta a crazy house or somethin’. Kept tryin’ to catch her, put her in a facility or send her somewhere. Never did catch her. Me and Bonnie had a betting pool over some chores how long she’d hold out. An’ then she just blew everypony’s mind with th’ harvest parade. After that nopony seemed to mind her. I reckon how you talk is real important for how other ponies see you.”

Applejack turned to face forward a little self conscious at the stares from Rainbow and Twilight, grumbling to herself, “Never did get those chores done.”

“Your family... seemed... nice,” Fluttershy spoke up quietly. She didn’t continue beyond that, and Fluttershy didn’t really say nice, like “nice” nice, but said it more like “I don’t know how to say they’re a bunch of stodgy fuddy duddies without offending you” nice.

But Applejack jumped on the opportunity to change the subject away from her bet with Bonbon, saying with a little more sincerety, “Eyup, your family seems right nice, alright! Never thought a rock farmer’d be so level headed aw shucks,” She blushed, pulling her hat over her eyes. “Kind of obvious now that ah say it out loud.”

“They’re okay,” Pinkie said to embarassed apple pone. “I don’t really know them anymore, since it’s been so long, but then again things change really  slowly on a rock farm. Father might have one  more gray hair maybe.” That was a joke because his hair was all grey the day he was born, but nopony picked up on it. Pinkie looked thoughtfully at the loyal, dependable Applejack, who always helped out her own family, and always came back to them no matter what, and Pinkie sighed out with a heavy heart, “I should have at least written, after I got to live with the Cakes.”

“Well,” Applejack said tentatively, giving Pinkie a delightfully nonjudgemental, but slightly sad smile. “We cain’t always be as lucky as ah am. Some ponies just never get a chance to look back where they came from, and ya cain’t expect them to see what they ain’t got no more. Takes a small miracle sometimes. Or a princess.”

“Or a town-wide disaster,” Pinkie put in.

“Tell me ya didn’t orchestrate this whole thing just t’ get back in touch with your kin again,” Applejack said flatly. Pinkie laughed at that silliness. Pinkie stopped laughing. Pinkie adopted a stiffly neutral expression. Pinkie Pie nodded to Applejack. Applejack ended her stare, and turned forward the way they were trotting with a satisfied smile. Pinkie sagged on her own hooves with relief.

“You got them now ,” Applejack said smugly, cute little nose pointed proudly in the air, “An’ ah advise you keep aholda them as close as you can.”

“I will,” Pinkie said by her side emphatically. “And I’ll write them, and they can write me, but I still won’t move back because my home is here, but you’re right and I’m so glad the princess helped bring them here!”

“You seem to be taking all this really well actually,” Twilight said to her. “I’d think you would be more upset.”

“No, I’m pretty happy with how things turned out,” Pinkie smiled pleasantly. “It could have been a lot worse!”

“Well, I mean...” Twilight waved an unused trotting hoof, saying, “Your whole life was a lie, and everything changed overnight.”

“Oh, it wasn’t really a lie,” Pinkie speculated with a distant smile, “It was just a little less me-spitty-outy and less wingy.” She fluttered the things, feeling lighter on her hooves as she did so. “They’re actually kind of fun, I think,” Pinkie said. “And maybe I can see Dashie more often.”

Rainbow Dash turned to her with a “Wha–” before Twilight interrupted, saying,

“Your tribe have greatly specialized wings, more for travelling on the surface than flying in the air. You might not be able to get much lift with those to fly up to wherever Rainbow Dash is.”

“I know that,” Pinkie said to Twilight, “But I could use my Pinkiecopter or a balloon. It just means if I fall, I’ll be safer. Like I was born with a parachute?”

“I’m not sure that—” Twilight says before Rainbow Dash interrupts her, saying,

“That’ll be totally awesome Pinkie, because you’re gonna have to follow me for my  week this summer.”

“What’re we gonna do?” Pinkie asked curiously.

“I’m joining the Cloudsdale Summer Speed tournament,” Rainbow said confidently, “And you’re gonna be my cheering squad!”

Pinkie gasped in delight, “That’s–”

“No offense, Fluttershy,” interrupting Rainbow said to the quiet butter colored pegasus. “But Pinkie is way  better at cheering than you are.”

Wait no, Pinkie  was the one who interrupted that time. She didn’t mean to though.

“None taken,” Fluttershy said with a gentle smile.

“But I mean,” Twilight uttered persistently, swaying to walk a little closer to Pinkie, “You scared a lot of ponies, and there’s still a lot to clean up.”

“I know Twilight, and I’m sorry,” Pinkie said sincerely. “If there’s anything I can do to help I’ll do anything I can, but you heard the judge. She told me just  what I have to do to get better, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“I think you’ve learned a lot from this,” Twilight smiled, “Even if you had such a frightening experience, and you had to see what terrible consequences are there if you choose the wrong thing to do.”

“Well, you know I always listen to Granny Pie. I’ll just do what she told me to do,” Pinkie winked at Twilight, who stiffened at that and turned to stare at her. Pinkie waited just long enough for Twilight to open her mouth to speak before exclaiming, “Giggle at the ghosties!” A giggle escaped her just for saying that phrase, never mind living it.

Twilight smiled uneasily at that, and Pinkie just giggled more at that under her hoof. “She didn’t have all  bad advice,” Pinkie explained to soothe her friend’s worries. “I just have to learn from this about what Granny Pie said was good, and what she said that was bad.”

Twilight left Pinkie in peace for a while, before speaking up argumentatively again, “You’re not going to be as strong as you were before.”

“I was never all that strong, Twilight,” Pinkie corrected her, “Why do ya think I left the rock farm? That maybe was the transformation spell not working, but probably just that I don’t lift a lot of heavy things. I party!”

“Maybe,” Twilight granted, “But you have to learn about your body now. Do you know how much literature there is on wing care?”

“I got her covered, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said confidently. “Fluttershy can teach her everything she needs to know about preening.”

“Oh, um, I can?” Fluttershy asked with a surprised look in Dash’s direction. “I mean, yes, I can,” she mumbled, looking down without waiting for an answer.

“Thanks Flutters,” Dash cheered slapping her in the back, “You’re the best!”

Fluttershy just wheezed weakly.

“I think Pinkie Pie is perfectly fine the way she is,” Rarity said warmly, making Pinkie beam with pleasure. “If anything, her life is an improvement over what it once was! Think of how her Pinkie Sense can finally make... ehm... sense!”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Twilight admitted reluctantly.

“I really am fine,” Pinkie said to Twilight reassuringly. “I don’t even mind all the work they want me to do, to make things better. I’m even looking forward to it!” Though she wasn’t sure that Cheerilee was looking forward to it, but Pinkie was determined to make that as painlesslessless a process as possible. Painlesslesslessness is a state that is without the lack of lacking pain, incidentally.

“But...” Twilight was starting to get a little worked up now. Poor Twilight really was having a hard time seeing how hard it was, to find anything really bad, about all the stuff that happened. “I mean, you have to eat all those Pinkies now!” she said with a snort.

“It’s not so bad, when you get used to it,” Pinkie shrugged. Twilight eyeballed her, and Pinkie just gave a bright smile right back. Sighing, her unicorn friend turned away to face the way they were walking, lost in thought.

“I suppose it’s good overall, having all those Pinkies to eat,” Twilight finally conceded to a satisfied Pinkie Pie. “Since with your new metabolism, you won’t be able eat as many cakes and sugary candies as you used to.”

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Pinkie cried in anguish and grief, falling to her knees on the cobbles and raising her forehooves to the cruel, unforgiving sky.
> Rainbow Dash Adopts Scootaloo
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie just has a liiittle bit more to say, because she really wants you to know how things are working out between her and her friends. So, Pinkie Pie came to grow accustomed to her new life, and her new environment. A lot of things were the same, but a lot of things were really different. Most of the things that were really different were really different  only temporarily, until what effect Pinkie had on the world had been cleaned up, then they wouldn’t be too different anymore. But a few things were going to be different, really different, and Pinkie had a feeling it was going to be that way for a long, long time.

Eating other Pinkies was a really weird experience for Pinkie Pie. It made sense, what her super stretchy Pinkie mouth was for, but it still felt weird. It didn’t feel bad  is the thing. It actually felt really, really good, not just like eating, but like she was satisfying some deep itch inside her that she never knew needed scratching. But she couldn’t feel guilty  about doing it at all. It’s not that she felt vindictive about the Pinkies who went and made so much trouble for her, but they just... didn’t seem to mind being eaten!

They were still being eaten, and going away forever, and disappearing into her belly, and she knew that they were too... empty, that there just wasn’t anything left to come out again. And you were supposed to be scared of going away forever, but the other Pinkies weren’t! They were always so calm about it, and not just from what Pinkie could see with her eyeballs! Every time Pinkie ate one, she also sort of was  that one she ate. She could remember what it felt, and how casual it was about dying. She was more like it was a... a recipe, not really a pony.

There were times on occasion it got to her though. Once when Rarity was feeding her a Pinkie— Oh, they had built a whole new building for Pinkie next to the pit, just a shed really. She would sit in that shed, and somepony, usually Twilight would bring a Pinkie to her. And Twilight liked doing experiments with it and trying things, like getting Pinkie to eat herself part of the way. Pinkie could stop herself, sometimes, but couldn’t reverse it at all and had to start going again pretty soon. The one time Twilight actually rigged something to pull the Pinkie out of her early, it... wasn’t pretty. They weren’t going to repeat that experiment again.

But the first time Rarity tried it, Rarity was the very  last of her friends to see Pinkie eat a Pinkie. She didn’t even want to, but she said it was her duty as a friend, to be with her through thick and thin. So Rarity one day, very reluctantly, led a Pinkie into Pinkie’s eatin’ shack.

The other Pinkie had turkey called at Pinkie, so Pinkie turkey called back at her, and she turkey called again, but it was soon pretty obvious that this Pinkie didn’t want to do much of anything besides turkey call. So Pinkie decided to just eat her and get it over with.

“Now, I’ll get really fat, and weird,” she said to Rarity cautioningly, “But then I squeeze myself back up into a slim little Pinkie me again. So don’t worry if it looks painful, because it only feels good. And yes I can breathe, so don’t worry about that either. Okay?”

It’s funny Pinkie would have thought it was Fluttershy to whom she had to be really careful, and give a careful lecture to, but Twilight just rolled her eyes at the suggestion, and Twilight was right because Fluttershy practically jammed the Pinkie down her throat in eagerness to see Pinkie’s little eating show in progress. But Rarity, well... Rarity was really nervous. So Pinkie spoke with her carefully and slowly, and Rarity gave a quiet, hesitant, Fluttershyish “Okay,” and “I’ll just stand over... here.” And leaned against the wall for support.

“Don’t worry Rarity, just remember how scary all these Pinkies were when they ran around town,” Pinkie said consolingly. “I’m gonna eat ‘em all up and they’ll be gone in my belly, and then they can’t scare you ever again.”

Rarity smiled wanly at that, as much a smile as Pinkie could drag out of her at least, and she said with just a touch of indulgence, “I’ll do my best to imagine that was the Pinkie who ended my Fall fashion line.”

“You did what!” Pinkie exclaimed in dramatic exaggeration to the other Pinkie, who just honked at her. Goose call? “Well missy,” Pinkie said admonishingly, wiggling her tush and licking her lips hungrily at the other Pinkie, “Let’s see you eat Rarity’s Fall fashion line, in my belly!” Rarity actually snickered, and Pinkie took that as a good enough cue as any to pounce.

That’s another thing Pinkie found she was really good at now that she was a real oracle, was pouncing. She felt like a cat or something, or like something that eats somethings that move, and don’t just sit there on your plate. A gryphon maybe? But gryphons rip their food to shreds, and Pinkie just wanted to dive onto it, getting it inside her whole.

The other Pinkies definitely  didn’t like being eaten one piece at a time. That was another experiment Pinkie and Twilight would not be repeating.

Pinkie Pie glomped her mouth around the other Pinkie’s head like a big hug, and felt all woozy and stuff, and then yanked her right up into the air. That part was kind of scary at first, because Pinkie couldn’t really stop from doing that. She just got all... jerky like that, and had to sit down underneath the other Pinkie. But it really did help a lot, since you didn’t have to swallow as hard when the you could just take advantage of gravity. Pinkie swallowed, and ballooned outwards and the Pinkie inside her started to turn to tingly mushy stuff that made Pinkie squeeze down as it disappeared into her body. It was really calming, but a little not calming, because she couldn’t move while she was a Pinkie pear and with other ponies around who could move, that made her nervous for some reason. But one pony was okay, especially if that pony was her best friend.

When Pinkie had squeezed down tight enough to get her one of her eyes to look straight again, she was gratified to see Rarity was still there, and hadn’t fled the shed. Rarity was looking queasy and sweaty, and trying to smile to comfort herself as much as Pinkie. So before Pinkie was even back into Pinkie shape again, she waved a hoof at Rarity, like she was just saying hi, I’m okay even if I look a little funny right now. Soon with both eyes straight, Pinkie could see that Rarity had calmed down a bit at that, and at how Pinkie was looking like a pony again. Pinkie stood up while her belly was still shrinking up, looking just like a silly fat pony as her belly wobbled beneath her. Or like a pony with a baby inside her. Pinkie—

Pinkie didn’t like to remember about how ponies... how other  ponies could have baby ponies inside them.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it, Rarity?” Pinkie said to her congenially, while the other Pinkie’s flesh and thoughts diffused through her. Rarity opened her mouth as if to say something, then lifted her hoof, then put it down again, then closed her mouth. Then she opened it again.

“Well, it was... not what I would call a... good time,” Rarity said uncomfortably, at the somewhat misshapen Pinkie Pie. “I certainly would find it a nightmare if I  had to do something so... strange in my daily life. It seems to... fit you though, in a peculiar sort of way. It certainly fits with your enthusiasm about... erm... eating.”

“Yup,” Pinkie said chirpily, striking a jaunty pose. She was all scootched up now, so she pretty much looked like her old self again, just a little shorter, and with adorable little wingies on her back.

She confidently assured Rarity, “It doesn’t bother me at all OH CELESTIA WHAT DID I DO TO THOSE CHICKENS!” Pinkie Pie collapsed in a heap as the memories of the day of that particular Pinkening finally hit her.

After a paralyzed silence, Pinkie looked aside, at a paralyzed-with-fear Rarity, and laughed nervously. “Eh heh heh. That happens sometimes, sorry. I really have to apologize to Fluttershy and... um... Henrietta.”

Rarity didn’t make Pinkie eat a Pinkie ever again, but by the time they came out of the shed that day, Rarity and Pinkie Pie were hugging, and Rarity was comforting Pinkie in an oddly motherly sort of way. And Rarity didn’t hate her forever or anything, and even the ponies whose houses she broke couldn’t hate Pinkie Pie, because they just couldn’t help but smile when she was around. That was one thing Pinkie never wanted to be different again, was her ability to find the best in things, to raise hope in others, and to bring a joyful smile to somepony’s face just from seeing her hopping down the road.

So all-in-all, Pinkie was okay with eating... ponies that came out of her, but there were those times when it did get to her.















“How you doing, squirt?” Rainbow Dash called out behind her, flapping along purposefully through the air. From within the wooden travel cart Rainbow Dash was harnessed to, Scootaloo popped her head out and announced, “Great! I can still see it!”

Dash turned forward and she could see it too. “How d’ya like that , Whinneapolis?” she drawled cheekily, waving a hoof at the gleaming horizon they were approaching.

“Twilight said it’s so big, you can’t see the other side!” a second voice piped up. Archer’s own eyes were peeled on their destination, the filly so excited she couldn’t even bear to look away.

“I wonder if we’ll see any crabs!” Scootaloo exclaimed.

“Or shells!” Archer said right back to her.

“Or driftwood!” both fillies said together, in the special way that... those fillies could do. It still made Dash pause, how they could move the same way, and finish each other’s sentences. It wasn’t telepathy is the thing; they just knew each other so well, from how they were  each other, depending on who was inside whom. Or that’s as good as Scootaloo ever managed to describe it.

That being said, it really wasn’t a lot to get used to: how Scootaloo and Archer were two fillies but also kind of like the same filly. More than Rainbow Dash expected, sure, but still not too bad. Because they definitely had their differences, they just sort of... synced up sometimes. Plus Dash was totally cool with them being oracles today, because if Twilight had her numbers worked out right, they’d be seeing some awesome moves, once you turned these fillies loose.

“Got your boards ready?” Dash shouted back for the seventh time.

“Yeah!” they chorused, lifting strangely smoothed slabs of wood, kind of like scales in appearance. According to the princess this was some ancient traditional...thing that oracle ponies used, sized down for fillies of course.

“How’s Twilight?” Rainbow called to them over her shoulder.

“Still asleep!” the two of them exclaimed back, ignoring the fallen unicorn piled unceremoniously in the back of the cart, snoring away.

“Who’s Scootaloo?” Rainbow shouted to them.

“I a—” they both called back, then there was a pause. “Sorry about that!” Scootaloo called out by herself.

“Just messin with ya!” Dash said with a laugh, and looked down at the forests thinning to coastal scrub and grassland. They steered clear of Los Pegasus, and of any civilization really. This whole trip was kind of hush-hush, because of the princess and to avoid any crazy crowds or eyeballing oglers. Scootaloo had gotten a little taste of fame after Celestia’s big announcement, and she was honestly getting tired of curious ponies trying to poke her. Scootaloo loved showing off, but sometimes ponies see somepony they saw in a newspaper story, and can’t figure out there’s a pony in front of them, not a newspaper story.

Princess Celestia herself was supposed to be meeting them there at noon today. Not for any length of time, but just that she wanted to er, as she put it, “see the oracles return to the sea,” for the first time, before getting off to do her whole princessly business. What Rainbow Dash didn’t realize until she got there, was that it wasn’t just the Princess visiting on her own. In fact, all of Equestria was going on hold today, for the sake of a few fillies and fun.

Dash didn’t realize it, because she figured Princess Celestia was the only pony who really needed to see this historic event. Outside of a few sparse, uncorroborated fragments left from Before Discord, there just wasn’t a lot of information about the oracles at all, not even for big fancy historians who studied that stuff all day. Nopony at the time kept any history, because well... they wanted to forget about what happened. Thus nopony besides the princess was old enough to even know about it, much less be totally stoked about this sort of thing.

Twilight was gonna turn more than a few heads once she did her science thing about the fillies. But for now, she was still collecting data, and that meant pretty much nothing more than a fun day at the beach.

It had to be the west coast, because that’s where Celestia said their little uh, island used to be. Convenient, because most of the coastal cities were crowded on the warmer east coast. Groundlings loved their warm water after all.

The four of them finally reached the beachhead, a strip of sand and water going north and south as far as the eye could see. And a pegasus eye could see pretty darn far. “We’re here! We’re here!” the two fillies cheered enthusiastically, hopping up and down.

“Now hold your horses,” Dash said to them. “I’m gonna set down, and then we’ve got to set up camp. Once we’re all unpacked, then we can hit the waves okay?”

Archer started to whine but Scootaloo saluted and said, “You got it, Rainbow Dash!” quieting the blue pony on the spot. Dash set down well away from the beach, the wheels of the cart grinding gravelly into a ground that was still firm and up a hill from the shore, over which you could see the whole sparkling endless ocean before you. There were trees there, sheltering them from the worst of the winds whipping along the coast. Upon landing, both fillies jumped out and galloped right up to the crest of the hill looking down at the ocean.

“Wow,” Archer said, as if she hadn’t been staring at the thing from behind Rainbow Dash’s back all the way here.

“This is so cool!” Scootaloo cheered. “Look, you can see the waves!”

“I read the moon does that!” Archer said. “Princess Luna uses it to pull the water in and out every day. All that water!”

Dash smiled at them. “Hey, don’t go too far,” she said, “Not until we’re finished setting up. I’m gonna need your help in a sec. And don’t go in the water! You know how disappointed Twilight would be if she missed it.”

“Okay, Rainbow Dash!” Scootaloo called back.

“Let’s look around!” Archer said, leading the way as the fillies curiously inspected all around the campsite they’d landed in. Archer was leading the way a lot recently. She’d really started to mature for a ... a three year old, 21 year old. Before those fillies would go and wander too  far off, Rainbow trotted around to the back of the cart and hooked her hooves over the edge, peering down at its precious contents.

She poked its precious contents.

“Hey, Twilight,” Dash said, nudging the unicorn mare firmly. She stopped when Twilight mumbled and groaned, then rolled up to sitting, looking at Rainbow Dash muzzily. Twilight’s horn lit up, and a few pieces of that surprisingly useful pinkfluff came glowing out of her ears. She flicked one clear ear, saying, “We’re here?” with a cautious eagerness.

Rainbow Dash nodded and smiled.

“Ohh my gosh,” Twilight said, clattering to her feet. She reared up over the edge of the cart looking around until she spied the ocean. “There it is!” she said giddily, “That’s the ocean! The horizon is perfectly flat!”

Dash had to blink and back up a pace as Twilight jumped out of the cart, galloping right up to the crest of the hill and pausing there where the fillies had been, looking down at the endless water, not even noticing her hair whipping in the careless wind.

“This is so cool!” Twilight exclaimed joyfully, dancing right in place on the tips of her hooves.

“Yeah um,” Dash said a little uneasily, “The ocean is pretty cool alright. Really wet.”

“The coastline is so big!” Twilight said engrossedly. “I can see the beach, and it just keeps going as far as you can see, where the coast curves around way over there!”

Dash joined Twilight at the hilltop, looking with some satisfaction at the rushing ocean waves. “It is pretty cool. I should come here more often,” Rainbow Dash said supportively. “Just smell that air. You can just smell the sea salt!”

“Rainbow, you’re right!” Twilight exclaimed, spinning by Rainbow’s side to rush back to the cart. The purple unicorn levitated out a small stoppered tube, pulling it open and standing there looking speculatively up at empty air saying, “Maybe I can get a sample.”

“Boy, Twilight you’re as excited as the fillies,” Rainbow said with a chuckle.

“And what’s wrong with that?” Twilight retorted with an unrestrained sloppy smile.

“Well they’ve  never even seen  the ocean before,” Rainbow Dash pointed out smugly.

“Oh, and you have?” Twilight said, pouting snippily, returning the tube to its place in her scientific stuff.

“Well, yeah,” Rainbow Dash spoke uncertainly. “I’m a pegasus! I’ve been pretty much everywhere there is to go. And... you’re... not  a pegasus!” She finished in wide-eyed realization, peering at Twilight in a new light.

“Brilliant deduction,” Twilight drawled wryly, tipping a hoof underneath her jauntily. “Did the horn give it away?”

“You haven’t even seen the ocean before?” Dash said with wide eyes. “How old are you?”

Twilight gave her a look, and Dash blushed, saying, “I mean, I didn’t mean to be rude I just thought um,”

“I’m BS,” Twilight stated. “About halfway to the big PQ. But yes, I have not had an opportunity to visit the ocean before.”

Dash rolled her eyes. She forgot about that whole unicorn thing. Let’s see, if B comes after... Q, then... Twilight interpreted Rainbow’s eye roll as something different, and looked aside in mild offense, saying

“It’s not that  unusual to never have seen the ocean, you know.”

Rainbow blushed, ruffled her wings a bit self consciously. “Yeah, I guess I just forgot not everypony is a pegasus,” she said. “You grew up in Canterlot, right?”

“Spent most of my life there...” Twilight said somewhat wistfully, looking around at the flora and fauna of the sandy area. “I really should get out more. This is so intriguing!”

“If they ever get that railway working, I guess it’ll be easier to travel around for non-pegasi who don’t have a pegasus... friend,” Rainbow Dash said a bit timorously, feeling insecure at the thought that she might not be as needed anymore. It wasn’t a big deal, but... well, pegasi in general. You want to go somewhere, you look for wings, right? She wasn’t sure it was a good idea to depart from that model.

But how many of her friends had never even seen the beach  before?

“Don’t feel too threatened, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said strutting up behind her with a friendly sway in her stride. “Remember the trains are confined to their tracks, and they certainly can’t put tracks everywhere, or there wouldn’t be any room for anything else!”

Rainbow Dash laughed, “Heh, yeah, you’re right Twilight.” And then she about-faced, realizing hotly at her friend, “Hey wait, I’m  not feeling threatened!”

“Excuse me,” came a third voice, attracting both of their immediate attention. “Is this filly yours?”

Emerging from the shadows was the princess dark as night, Princess Luna herself. Beside her floating in a blue corona was an orange filly named Scootaloo, and also a broken off piece of driftwood that appeared to be still stuck around her neck. Beside her on the other side was a somewhat harrowed looking and apologetic blue-on-blue filly named Archer.

“Princess Luna!” Twilight said going down on one knee. Oh right, Dash went and bowed herself respectfully.

“Cease thine supplications,” Luna said impassively, with perhaps a slight smile, “In favor of illuminating me, on preparations thus far, for your day on the beaches!”

“Er, we need to get the— tents set up, still,” Dash said, jerking up straight and trotting over to the wagon. “Then the beach umbrella um and the food um, and then we’ll be ready,” she said, jumping in and rifling through the wagon’s contents anxiously, her wings spreading habitually as she fussed around in circles in there.

“Dost thou have any sunscreen?” Luna inquired over Dash’s buried head. Dash popped her head up, to look at Luna.

“We burn easily,” Luna explained. Behind her, Twilight was busy trying to get the driftwood off of Scootaloo. 

Sunscreen hooved over, tents erected and driftwood removed, the four now eleven of them traveled down the hill to meet Princess Celestia. Scootaloo ran ahead, immediately tripped herself up, and got a face full of beach sand. Rainbow Dash flew after her, and picked her up, but Scootaloo insisted she was fine ...after she stopped spitting out sand.

“You gotta walk carefully here,” Dash explained, demonstrating as her hooves sank into the fine, shifty beach sand.

Twilight came next, slower because she did walk carefully. Too carefully in fact, lifting her hooves really high and uncertainly, trying to find the best way to walk across sand. And it’s funny, Rainbow couldn’t offer any of them much advice there. While Dash had seen the ocean before, she really never bothered to figure out a good way to walk on sand. Seeing Twilight figure things out, that Rainbow Dash would never have thought of just made Dash feel really lucky that she had non-pegasi as friends, and also kind of guilty for not bringing them along with her more often. She probably wouldn’t be able to tell the ground from the clouds without ‘em.

And finally Princess Luna followed along behind with care, whom Archer would simply not leave alone, peppering the princess with endless questions. About the moon, and the tides and... well, egghead stuff that Twilight would be into. Actually Archer and Scootaloo had sort of a Twilight/Rainbow Dash dynamic going on. Dash wasn’t sure how much of that was intentional on Scootaloo’s part. And maybe on Archer’s part too? Did Archer herself play some part in deciding what kind of filly she was going to be when she came out? So weird how you could plan what a filly is going to be like, for these fillies at least.

It’s not like ordinary ponies had any say in planning what the ponies coming out of them were going to be like, say for instance when naming them Rainbow Dash or Twilight Sparkle.

Waiting there on the beachhead was the resplendent princess of the Sun. It was obvious to Dash in hindsight. Of course both  princesses had to see this. Celestia had a bit of an age gap on Luna with the whole thousand years imprisonment thing, but they were both around a really long time ago, long enough to see the whole Discord cataclysm go over.

Discord... what a creep.

So there were two  ponies it turns out, who absolutely had to see Scootaloo and Archer go play in the water, both of whom were the absolute monarchs of existence itself. Wait, monarch doesn’t work that way. Well whatever. Real  important ponies. Rainbow Dash started to find herself feeling... on the spot a little bit. Both princesses being here made you wonder who was running Equestria at the moment, and this fun little outing Dash had planned was more important than running Equestria?  Rainbow Dash just... found herself staying on the ground more, clustering around the fillies, that sort of thing.

“Now be real  careful,” Rainbow Dash said to them, as they gazed out to the endless waters. “I’ll be watching the whole time and I can swoop you up if anything goes wrong, but if I don’t, then you just holler! The skies are gonna be clear today, and the tide is on its way out, so we shouldn’t have any problems. But just in case.”

“Yeah, we know Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo said rolling her eyes. “Plus there are like, two  princesses here who could swoop anypony up who got in trouble.”

“Okay, fine, just—” the sand shifted under her uncomfortably, as Rainbow danced on her hooves. “Just have fun, okay?”

“Right, with these board... things, I guess?” Scootaloo said, turning hers around in her hooves. “It doesn’t have a handle bar, but I guess it could be fun. Weird how you don’t need wheels, because it’s water.”

“We can swim too though, right?” Archer asked.

“Oh yeah,” Dash assured her, “And there are some tide pools near here. Twilight brought along some snorkels, and...” Rainbow Dash looked over to the unicorn, who was a busy blur of motion, setting up weird looking measuring devices and equipment, all over the beach.

“...stuff.”

With the princesses seated together in the warm sand, and Twilight all set up, and Dash managing to convince Twilight that the klaxon alarm on her doohickey thinglebar should be put on silent mode, there was nothing left but just the two little fillies, and the ocean waves before them. The pressure must have been getting to them too, because even Scootaloo stopped at where the water rushed in and out, leery of actually getting her hooves wet.

Dash winced at the hesitant fillies, looking at her own hooves partially embedded in sand. Then she spread her wings and charged forward between them, whooping excitedly and crashing right into the oncoming waves. Scootaloo immediately broke into a smile and ran after, and Archer too proceeded into the water, splashing around in the slim waves, while Dash stood there out deeper, the refreshingly chilly salt water flowing around her pinions.

“It pulls at you when it goes past!” Archer said engrossedly at the salty waves rushing around her own hooves.

“Well it stops doing that when it’s deep here,” Dash called over to her, “So come on slowpokes. The princesses are watching, so let’s get skimming!”

Dash actually didn’t have a board herself, but... she... shit, that would have been a good idea. She probably should have thought of that before they left. Anyway, Scootaloo and Archer bumped the boards off their backs to splash in the water and started pushing them out to where Rainbow Dash was leading them on. “Okay I’m gonna try it!” Scootaloo shouted, once she thought it was deep enough, releasing her contact with the solid beach to climb fully onto the board.

Slowly at first, but with growing confidence Scootaloo set her wings abuzz, and accelerated forward smoothly. Dash was out up to her withers, but Scootaloo just came right up there travelling around Rainbow’s head in slow circles. The filly had a look of wobbly unease on her face so Dash shouted, “You’re doing great! Keep it up, squirt!” Scootaloo smiled at her, and an aggressive gleam came into it as she gripped the board tighter and started to really engage her wings.

Scootaloo’s progress was very loopy but growing in confidence as she spiralled around in circles and figure eights atop the water. “This is great!” she shouted above the sounds of the surf. “Archer you gotta try this! You can go everywhereWOAH” and right then the hump of a wave bowled her board over and capsized it, the filly vanishing beneath the waves.

She burst out with a spray of salty water all around, shaking her head dry and shouting, “I’m okay!” With one hoof on her board, Scootaloo pulled herself out of the water and her wings almost immediately picked up again, not hindered by the wetness in the least. She rode up to Archer, who had got on the board, but was just standing there wobbling atop the passing waves.

“C’mon, try it Archer!” Scootaloo said encouragingly. “Just uh... don’t go straight into a wave. But it’s really easy. Come on, you can do it!”

Archer engaged her own wings, hoof slipping, then clomping firmly down on the board as she was pushed forward unexpectedly quickly. Scootaloo stayed with her, until Archer was zipping along at the same pace that Scootaloo was. “This is  fun!” Archer said delightedly.

“Toldja so,” Scootaloo said smugly. Then with a resounding buzz, she left Archer in her wake, and really  took off.

Rainbow Dash blasted out of the water, droplets raining down as she flew into the sky. She had to take to the air just to see what that little filly Scootaloo could do. Riding alongside the waves, riding over them, board leaping forward into the air, Scootaloo’s awesome moves were only bested by her enthusiasm, the bright sound of her laughter ringing out across the water. She did a flip.

From one wave to the next. There was absolutely nothing that could stop her now. Scootaloo just took off faster and faster down the coastline. The only way Dash could have even hoped to keep up with her against these coastal winds, was because Scootaloo didn’t beat a straight course, looping back and forth like a needle and thread right along the coastline moving from one wave to the next. The only fitting analogue Rainbow Dash could think of was one of those gunpowder fueled firework rockets that go all over the place. Scootaloo had thrust  and on the frictionless water, she didn’t have anything to hold her back.

Rainbow shouted down to her, but she couldn’t get close enough to Scootaloo to tell if she’d been heard. That little filly just kept going! And oddly wasn’t laughing anymore. It wasn’t until Scootaloo failed to turn when the coastline did, piling straight forward up onto the shore, that Rainbow backwinged frantically to cruise back to where the filly had gotten to the sands. Scootaloo was flat on her belly in the sand, breathing hard and completely wiped out. Rainbow Dash came plummetting down to stand by the filly, her own tired, hot breaths alerting the filly to her presence.

“Nice... moves... huh?” Scootaloo managed to wheeze out.

“Nice?” Dash exclaimed, “Those moves were incredibleawesomazing! How do you get that kind of speed? What was it like? Were you doing flips? Did you mean to do that wave thing? It was so cool!”

Scootaloo didn’t answer, just looking up at Rainbow Dash, curling her hooves to her belly and squeeing like a schoolfilly. Which she was. Anyway, Dash sat beside her, and Scootaloo sat up on her haunches, both looking out to the water. “Boy am I pooped!” Scootaloo said trying to sound all casual about it. She really did look exhausted though.

“I wonder how far north we got?” Rainbow said looking around. Just emptiness and ocean and trees far as the eye could see.

Scootaloo’s ears wilted at that. “Aw, that means we have to go back ,” she said with a long tired look at the diminishing tide.

“Wanna ride?” Dash asked. Scootaloo beamed up at her, gratefully.

The squirt was thoughtfully quiet there on the flight back. “This is so peaceful up here,” Scootaloo did say at one point. But not much else.

“What was it like down there?” Rainbow Dash had responded.

“Pure adrenalin,” was Scootaloo’s only answer.

Twilight was predictably hopping mad when they got back. She cooled off a bit after Dash pushed her into the water, though. Twilight’s depth flasher thing clocked Scootaloo at 10.6 wingpower, before she vanished off the radar. Which is really powerful, for just about anypony, never mind a little filly. Dash was starting to understand how Scootaloo managed to cart that wagon of stuff around on the ground all day without taking off.

The princesses were still there, Celestia in particular looking concerned. (Luna never looked like much of anything.) But they both expressed relief upon seeing Rainbow Dash returning with Scootaloo laying on her back, and Scootaloo’s precious board thing laying on Scootaloo’s back. Celestia very quickly made her leave, saying something about putting out the fires in Canterlot. Luna said her sister was probably speaking metaphorically. Yes she said “probably.”

Archer was glad to see Scootaloo too, and also Rainbow Dash, but you know how it goes. Archer wasn’t even in the water anymore, by the time they got back, just messing around on the sand. Twilight kept lamenting bringing all this equipment, if they weren’t even going to use it, but Dash pointed out Twilight’s roughly 2 hours of piled up autoscroll, and helped calm her down by saying they could always do more later.

The princess of the night oversaw its enaction. Her ancient dance of magic and nature rising up into the air like a cresting pegasi, sent the tides surging away from an increasingly broad beach, as the last of the sunlight faded and the moon rose over the horizon. 

They relaxed in the light of a bright bonfire that night. That’s the nice thing about the ocean, is with all that sand, you can build a huge fire without having to worry about it spreading. And there was always driftwood piling up, so there was plenty of fuel. As they cooked and ate their shish kabobs, Dash would have liked to have a scary story or two by that fire, but Twilight kept thinking up other things to talk about for some reason. It was too big a fire to really have that spooky “campfire” effect anyway.

With the bonfire doused on the beach, the final princess took her leave, swooping into the air. The rest of them crawled tiredly into their respective tents and sleeping bags. Rainbow Dash said that Scootaloo and Archer could both share her tent if they wanted to be around this awesomeness, but surprisingly Archer didn’t mind sleeping with Twilight tonight. It worked out pretty well that way actually, since Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure, but she thought that maybe unlike Scootaloo, Archer might have been a snorer.

Rainbow Dash had gotten Scootaloo all snuggled up as a bug in a rug in her cocoonlike sleeping bag, resisting the odd urge to do something sappy like kiss the filly on the forehead, before blowing out the lamp. As they were headed to slumberland, Rainbow whispered excitedly to Scootaloo, “Surprised you didn’t get your cutie mark in that wave board thing. You were having a blast out there!”

“I was at first,” Scootaloo whispered back. She didn’t say anything more, but something about that bugged Dash, so she whispered,

“You weren’t having fun?”

After a silence, Scootaloo said, “I was having fun at first, but then I didn’t want to stop, because I just started to feel like something was chasing me.”

“Something” she said, not “somepony.”

“...you mean me?” Dash asked hopefully. “I was following you the whole way.”

“No,” Scootaloo answered quietly.

Rainbow didn’t know what to say, and Scootaloo didn’t say any more for a while. The silence grew between them, and Rainbow almost thought Scootaloo was asleep. Dash was so confused at this point, and a little humiliated, because she hadn’t even noticed that Scootaloo wasn’t having a good time. She hadn’t even thought that Scootaloo might have been in distress.

“There was nothing down there,” Scootaloo assured Dash, breaking the silence one more time. “I was just jumpy or something. I dunno.”

Right. Jumpy. For four miles.

Scootaloo didn’t say anything more for the rest of the night, and neither did Rainbow Dash. Dash lay there awake, until the filly’s breathing evened out and the loudest noise was the lonely crickets chirping outside. Stewing in her thoughts until she too drifted off, Rainbow Dash had to figure that in some fashion she’d gotten her scary story, after all.





Today was a joyous day at the orphanage, for two reasons. A lost filly had been found, who had fallen through the cracks so far, that she had no records remaining at all. A hot shot pegasus of the sky had come to the orphanage to adopt that filly. And the west dormitories had been rebuilt. Wait that was three things. It was as close to a fairy tale as most of those colts and fillies ever got to see, even if they were hugely envious of the one who got to be adopted by their friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash.

They couldn’t be too envious though. Any foal who knew her would have to admit that if anypony had done the most to deserve adoption by Rainbow Dash, it would have to be the chief head grand top honcho of the Rainbow Dash Fan Club.

Archer was inside Scootaloo at the time, for legal reasons or some junk. It was easier to just adopt one filly, and the law didn’t really have accomodation for what you do if that one filly were two, three, or four at the time. Scootaloo was never really comfortable with being divided beyond four. Three extra between both her and Archer seemed to give her a happy medium between being able to keep track of herself, and her somewhat fatalistic desire to have an ace in the hole should it be needed.

It actually worked out pretty well, because even the craziest fillies that came out of Scootaloo’s, and to a lesser degree Archer’s mouth, had basic survival instincts. The trick was reining them in before they got hungry enough to split again. Rainbow Dash was working on a pen to keep the extras in during off hours, when she wasn’t giving squirt and blurt flying lessons. Yeah that’s right. She figured out a nickname for Archer. Anypony who had a problem with that could suck it up.

For now, Scootaloo was just Scootaloo alone, standing there next to Rainbow Dash in the assembly hall. Bright banners decorated the walls, for what was to be the Congrats on Adopting Scootaloo party. Turns out parties at the orphanage were fairly common, as a big sendoff when a foal got adopted. Also turns out foals got adopted more often than Dash had thought they did, so maybe this orphan thing wasn’t as much of a raw deal as she figured. Seemed that for every mother who made the mistaken assumption that she could totally handle it, there was another couple looking for the right foal to raise. The hair bun mare said that average turnover was a year, and any foal that came of age and didn’t get adopted got taken into the orphanage system itself.

Which is to say, to work at an orphanage, you pretty much had to be raised in one. Which is to say, Rainbow Dash had to apologize to Paper Heart. A lot.

But today was a happier day than that, because they finally had the paperwork in that got Scootaloo registered as an honorary orphan, and the paperwork that got Scootaloo status as an Equestrian citizen, and the paperwork that finished off the whole deal. If Dash ever had to see another scroll it would be too soon, but it was over and done with because today was the day she was going to take Scootaloo home with her. Not just to visit but like, to sleep and eat pre-packaged meals with and stuff.

Paper Heart herself presided over the ceremony, standing behind the podium and briefing both Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash on the expectations and responsibilities of parenthood. There were orphans all alongside them during the proceedings. Several orphans Dash didn’t know were there, but she also saw the green on purple filly who had covered for Scootaloo, and some others Dash had gotten to know in recent days, being around the orphanage so much. She had the sneaky suspicion many of these foals were only gathered round for the pizza party afterwards.

But for now, she and Scootaloo were the center of attention. Scootaloo listened raptly, while Rainbow Dash listened ...less raptly, trying not to yawn. She had really murdered the workout this morning, and a nice cloud nap would be really super after this was done. But finally, Paper Heart wound down, and got to the end of her speech, the important part that would change both of their lives forever.

“Do you, Scootaloo,” Paper intoned in the quiet halls, “Take this mare to be your lawfully appointed guardian?”

“I do!” Scootaloo piped up enthusiastically. Rainbow Dash spared her little filly a goofy grin.

“And do you, Rainbow Dash,” Paper Heart said when the entire wall of the building exploded inwards in a rain of timber and plaster, knocking Paper mid-sentence right off the podium, and in fact knocking the podium right off the dias entirely. The crashing whirring sound snapped Rainbow Dash to attention as she whipped her wings out, the dust parting around her like a typhoon while Scootaloo huddled down beside her, staring up at a monstrous colossus. What looked like a polished wood and metal frame with in the middle what looked like a pot belly stove, glowing a mysterious green from within the vents, and in the elaborate carvings all along its golden plated chassis.

“You!” Dash shouted in frantic accusation.

“It’s time for your checkup, Rainbow Dash!!” came the heavily amplified, manic, and all too familiar voice from amid the structure. The colossus moved like it had arms and legs, and at the center of it was a very familiar green pony gripping levers and dials, steam hissing through her mane colored in muted stripes of lavender and magenta.

Of all the horrors Rainbow Dash had laid eyes upon, she found nothing to be quite so terrifying as an earth pony in power armor.

“I got rid of you!” Rainbow Dash accused the ambulatory structure above her desperately, looking around at the frightened ponies, the children, her mind racing as she planned her exit route. “Celestia cut your funding! The project is over!!”

“For every head of the hydra you cut off, three more will take its place!” the machine mare demanded, one great stomp crushing the bench while foals and adults scrambled to get out of the way. The panic filled the room as ponies raced to escape this monstrous thing. “You cannot get rid of progress!” Another limb swung at her, and Rainbow had to dodge, diving behind a fallen bench that skidded across the floor.

“That makes no sense!” Dash shrieked at her above the rumbling tumult, to which the pony pointed one massive limb at her and said,

“Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be, Rainbow Dash! You’re coming with me one way or another!”

Rainbow gritted her teeth. She was one pneumatic punch away from oblivion at this point. “Scootaloo, you run when I say go,” she hissed sideways to the filly who hadn’t left her side, without taking her eyes off of those green traced glowing limbs. “Find Twilight, tell her it’s the Rainbow Project. She’ll know what you mean. Ready...” a flicker of fire at the base of the limb.

“GO!” Dash shouted, leaping straight up as Scootaloo darted right, the bench they were hiding behind exploding in a shower of splinters with the concussive detonation from a shoulder mounted missile bay. The mare anticipated Dash’s direction though, a giant armored hoof smashing into her and hurling her through the window. Wiping the blood off her lip, with glass raining down all around her, Rainbow shouted to the mare as loud as she could, “You want me? Come and get me!”

Then she shot off fast as her wings could take her, fully aware that the deep rumbling behind her was only becoming louder as the pony engaged her booster rockets and rose up into the air, hurtling after her like a flying mountain of gold and fury. Rainbow was faster since last time, right? She could totally beat this thing, right? As the wind blasted past her, fast as she could cut through it, Dash poured on the speed, really hoped her training would pay off. She absolutely hated checkups.

~ THE END ~