> Spying Gone Wrong
>  by Star Sage
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Suspicious Beginnings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ya’ll wanna run that by me again sugar cube?” asked the orange pony farmer as she looked at her multi spectrum friend, who was staring just over a bush that the two were hiding behind at their mutual friend and acquaintance, a purple unicorn mare who seemed to be lightly trotting down the path toward the local city park.

“Well, I heard tell that Trixie, you remember, the blue unicorn who made us all look like foals and then destroyed part of a town with that Ursa Minor thing?” asked Rainbow Dash, still peeking over the bush at Twilight Sparkle.

“I don’t think that’s exactly how that happened, but yeah, I do have a mighty sharp memory of that silly little mare and all her tricks. What’s that got to do with spying on Twilight?” asked Applejack, sticking her nose into the bush, and pushing it through so she could watch as Twilight stopped by one of the diners on Ponyville’s bustling main street.

“Well, I heard from a very reliable source-” began Dash.

“You mean you Spike told you after ya’ll done wheedled it out of him,” AJ said, filling in the blanks that the rainbow pegasus probably never would admit to.

“I deny everything. Anyway, my sources told me that Trixie sent a letter to Twilight, calling her out in the park today, and I figured that could only mean she’s going to challenge that egg-head to some kind of magic duel or something, and that’s so not cool of Twilight to cut us out of that sort of action,” said Dash, continuing to stare at Twilight as she sat down near the diner’s front window, probably to wait for whatever she’d ordered to get ready.

“That don’t sound like Twilight…well, not the Twilight of today anyway. She might have been like that during her first year here in Ponyville, but I doubt she’d go off and get herself involved in some big ol’ battle in the middle of town without telling her friends,” said the farm girl, pulling her head from the bush and shaking a few stray leaves from her hat as she faced Rainbow Dash.

“That’s the point, maybe this is some kind of unicorn honor duel thing, and she can’t involve us without breaking some kind of code,” said Dash as she lofted down from the top of the bush, and then leaned in close to Applejack.

“Well then, wouldn’t it be rude of us to go pokin’ our muzzles into somethin’ that ain’t really none o’ our business?” asked AJ quite matter-of-factly, turning to find that thanks to Rainbow Dash trying to look like she was keeping a low profile, almost everypony in the street save Twilight, who was currently buried in a book, was staring at the normally attention seeking pegasus.

“Oh come off it country girl, do you really think that Trixie is going to follow rules like that? She’s probably got a dozen pegasi and a hundred unicorns here to help her win through some cheating trick,” said Rainbow Dash, and Applejack, remembering what had happened before with the blue mare, tapped her hoof against her chin, thinking that over. While those numbers were ridiculous, it wasn’t too farfetched that Trixie would indeed pull some cheat and try to humiliate Twilight publicly, for that embarrassment the last time the show pony had been in town.

“Even if ya’ll are right, what are we two gonna do about it? We kinda stand out in a crowd, even if the whole crowd wasn’t staring at us,” said AJ, motioning with her hoof towards the onlookers. None of them were stopping of course, it was a busy summer day, with autumn close at hoof. No time to really stop and stare at two strange ponies, but enough time to do some rubber necking, which even Twilight would notice, once she got her nose out of her book.

“Well, we’ve just gotta stay close to Twilight, and not let Trixie know we’re onto her, right?” asked Dash, as she rummaged in her saddle bags for something.

“Exactly, so we aren’t gonna be able to do nothin’, so we might as well mosey on home. Twilight is a big mare, and can take…what is that?” AJ queried as Rainbow Dash pulled a jar out of her saddlebag. While the jar itself wasn’t familiar at all, the label on it, as well as the shade of liquid that it was filled with was. The liquid was blue, and the label on the front had the image of a poison joke on it, a most unfunny flower, despite its purported sense of humor.

“Oh, just something I picked up a while back from some unicorn guy that was visiting Twi a while back,” said Rainbow very off hoofedly, which was suspicious in and of itself.

“You mean that purple unicorn stallion that Twilight said not to take stuff from, since his experimatatin’ was libel to blow us all to Celestia come?” asked AJ, staring with a look of what could almost be called fear at the jar.

“Yeah, him, that DawnChaser guy. He said he’d distilled the essence of Joke down to its purest form, and we could even get the same joke twice, if we wanted. He said it was for parties or whatever, and I should have fun with it,” admitted Dash, tossing the jar from one hoof to the other, making AJ even more nervous.

“So it’ll cause those same jokes to happen to us again? I didn’t think ya’ll would enjoy crashin’ into the trees and walls like ya did afor,” said the earth pony, knowing that that probably wasn’t what the pegasus intended, but hoping she was wrong.

“Well, that’s only if it touches me first. If it touches, say, Pinkie Pie, and then I touch her, we’ll both get big tongues. At least, I think that’s what he said,” Rainbow responded, her tone becoming a little less sure at that last part.

“Oh no, you are not dragin’ me off on some spy on Twilight thing. Aside’s, what help could we be if weren’t both hoofheld size anyway?” demanded Applejack.

“That’s the beauty of it. According to the nutty professor, this stuff should keep us from getting hurt, like at all, and so we should be able to do some damage to Trixie, enough to make her magic worthless so Twilight can zap her and send her running away crying,” said Rainbow Dash, and Applejack looked at her, wondering what that absentminded unicorn had really meant by, ‘hurt at all’.

Not that he’d lie, Applejack as the Element of Honesty, was pretty good at spotting fibbers, but still, Rainbow might not have been paying good attention, and then there was the fact that the source of this stuff had also, without meaning to, caused one of her apple trees to come to life and start fighting back against her family, before Twilight got there to remove the spell.

“Okay, before I agree to be part of any crazy plan you got cookin’ in that speed addicted brain of yours, I wanna know exactly what he said,” demanded AJ, hoping that Rainbow Dash had forgotten, giving her a good excuse to back out of this, and drag Rainbow with her, and then find some less painful way to help Twilight out.

“Alright, he said…umm…right, he said that ‘As long as you’re joked, you’ll be the in danger, from accidents, so I included something in this to make you immune to damage from heat, cold, acids, bases, magic, and penguins’…not sure what bases or penguins are, but that covers everything, right?” said Rainbow Dash.

“Are ya’ll sure he didn’t say pressure?” asked Applejack.

“Wait, yeah, that was that last one. He said even if I crashed head first into the ground, while doing a Sonic Rainboom I’d be fine,” she responded, nodding as it sounded right to her memory.

“Well, I suppose if he promised we’d be okay, all we’ve got ta do is be car-HEY!!!” the last was a shout as Rainbow Dash knocked off her favorite hat, and then poured the stuff in the jar, that turned out to be a powder, onto her head. Rainbow Dash, showing surprising restraint, didn’t just dump the whole jar out, using only a tiny bit on her friend, and then capping the jar again, before setting it, Applejack’s hat, and her own saddlebags in the hollow of a nearby tree.

“Don’t get your ponytail in a knot, cowgirl. It’s one of Pinkie’s trees, so our stuff will be just fine, and so we don’t lose it during this important mission,” said Dash, as she floated upward towards the top of the bush, to look over at Twilight. After confirming that her quarry was still in sight, she looked down to find Applejack already shrinking out of sight, and quickly descended, bopping her friend on the head, collecting some of the powered on her hoof, and rubbing it on her own head.

“Okay, that should be good enough. I’ll start flying towards Twilight, and we should get there just as I get tiny too, so we can hide somewhere close to her and follow her around Ponyville,” said Rainbow to her diminutive companion, plucking her up with her hoof, and then setting her on her back. Dash then waited until the bush started to get taller to her, before taking off into the sky.

Of course, Rainbow seemed to have underestimated the rate at which AJ shrank, as she was filly sized when she went skyward, but as she reached a few feet up, slowly became the same size as AJ, and thus, had far more trouble keeping her up, as the cowpony tried to find a good way to lay across her friend’s back.

While the pair try to sort that out, the diner gets its delivery boy back, Thunderlane, a black haired pegasus with blue and white mane, comes in from delivering stuff around Ponyville, his head  thumping to the music in his head as he goes, his eyes closed. After all, it was just a hop, skip, and flight back to the diner to pick up the next order.

When he suddenly slams into something, he’s jarred out of the tune in his head, and has to correct his vectors and everything, adjusting his wings and making sure he’s level, before looking around at whatever he’d hit. By the time he’d finished tough, whatever it was had already flown off, and he figured it was just another bird, being annoying. Oddly he thought he heard some odd shouts from far away, however, looking around, he didn’t see anything, and resumed his course towards the diner below.

Also making their way down to the diner below were Rainbow Dash and Applejack, the pair screaming as loud as their tiny lungs would allow. Unfortunately, that wasn’t very loud, as they couldn’t get much air, and with the wind drag from Thunderlane as he straightened himself out, Dash couldn’t get herself stable, and so the pair fell into the pipe pumping out white smoke that was atop the diner’s roof.

The pipe is not straight, and both of them oomph and grunt as they smack metal sides of the thing, both noticing in their heads that it didn’t seem to be doing anything at all to them, which was good, though because they seemed to bound against it, neither was able to stop themselves either, as they kept going down the pipe, which was bad.

At last the pair emerged into the diner, the bright lights as opposed to the dark pipe momentarily blinding them. That meant that it was a complete surprise to AJ when she suddenly splashed down, landing in something cold and bubbly, which instantly got up her nose, and made her wish she’d just told Rainbow no when she’d proposed this, as she let her body’s buoyancy carry her to the surface.

Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, flared her wings out as far as they would go, trying to catch any updrafts she could to start flying, which, luckily, worked, and so she was able to soar upwards, her eyes opening as she did so, allowing her to make two observations. One was she was much smaller than AJ had been before, instead of being hoofheld size, she was about the size of a fly. Two, the owner of the diner hated flies, and swatted her with a newspaper, sending her spiraling down again, landing on something soft and fluffy, before being covered with something green, and then sealed down with something heavy.
> Simple Meetings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twilight sighed as she waited for her food to be prepared. It wasn’t that she was waiting long, that was one of the advantages of this diner, called a fast food place, over the slower cafés around Ponyville square. She actually knew they were working as fast as they could, they just had a lot of orders, as Thunderlane and two other pegasi could attest, Thunderlane having only just gotten back, and now all three of them going off with more orders.

Still, Twilight was anxious. This was a special day. It was the first time she’d be meeting someone she hadn’t seen since some regrettable words had passed between them, and she wanted to be prompt and on time for their reunion. Most of that had been at the behest of somepony she’d met only days ago, and one she’d learned not to take at his word all the time, but he’d sounded sincere that she might be the one to bring Trixie back from this pedestal she seemed to keep trying to stand on, and maybe even be a friend with her.

Mind, that seemed a pretty tall order, considering the stallion, DawnChaser, a fellow unicorn, had claimed to be Trixie’s older brother. According to him she wasn’t a bad mare, and just had some emotional baggage hanging off her, and if Twilight just tried to approach her as a friend, the show pony would open up. The lavender mare, student of Celestia, had been about to refuse, but then, she’d really thought about it. While she and Trixie were opposites, and introvert and an extrovert, she did remember not having any friends, and thinking of Trixie in that state, it made Twilight much more willing to reach out to her.

So she’d arranged this little unofficial meeting in the park through DawnChaser, the stallion sending letters through his own magic to wherever his sister was, and basically ordering her to leave all the tricks, the clothing, basically everything behind, and just approach Twilight as any other pony. Twilight, listening to DawnChaser dictate such terms, decided that, if Trixie really did follow them, then she’d do her best to be friendly.

That was why she was here, waiting to get food from the diner, something simple for the two of them to share. After a chapter and a half of waiting, which was probably less than eight minutes, since it was a short book, Twilight heard her number, and walked up to the window to get her food. As she approached, she saw the unicorn diner owner was looking around, levitating a paper with his magic, and commenting on stupid flies.

Trying to ignore that, Twilight laid the bits out, and then used her magic to grab the two cups, and the bag, and trot off at a brisk pace towards the park. The trip gave her time to go over what she was going to say to Trixie, hoping to avoid bringing up the topic of her last visit, but as she entered the park, and saw the blue mare sitting dejectedly on one of the benches, her hooves crossed as she laid her head on them, her entire speech flew out the window, and she just walked up to her.

“Sparkle…er, I mean, hello Twilight, it’s a…pleasure to meet you again,” said Trixie, stumbling over her word choices, obviously just as nervous about this meeting as Twilight herself, though probably for entirely different reasons.

“Hello Trixie, it’s good to see you too. Have you been doing well?” she asked, climbing onto the bench beside Trixie, both leaning with their backs against the back of it, looking upward, while Twilight levitated the bag of food and cups to sit next to her, on the opposite side from Trixie.

“Well? Hah, the Great and Powerfu-I have been doing quite well, actually. My brother found me wandering in the Everfree Forest the day after….that thing happened here, and dragged me back home to have a talk with me. The usual responsibility, great power spiel he seems to like so much,” said the unicorn, her tone becoming almost wistful as she spoke of her brother.

“He said as much. That seems lucky for you, doesn’t it?” responded Twilight in an off hoof manner, but Trixie barked out a laugh that sounded rather bitter.

“Lucky? You call having one of the Magisters, a unicorn equivalent of a Wonderbolt in the family as lucky? Why do you think Trix-Why do you think I was so eager to get away from such things, out here in the boonies?” said Trixie, this time the bitterness of her tone obvious, even to Twilight, who sometimes still had trouble reading ponies.

“If he weren’t a Magister though, would we have been able to find you so quickly? I mean ,the Everfree forest is dangerous. I know, Zecora lives out there, and I visit her all the time,” said Twilight.

“Indeed, I’d heard about that sav-er, that zebra who makes her home in such a wild place. My brother said it was she who contacted the Magisters so he knew where I was,” her tone got wistful again near the end, her lower hooves kicking in the air as they dangled off the bench.

“But as soon as I got home again, it was the same as before. ‘How’s DawnChaser’s little sister?’ ‘what’s up with DawnChaser missing classes and Hayvard?’ ‘Why is that blue filly such a burden on the Professor?’ All those eyes in Manehatten, and not one sees Trixie, not one looks at me. They see my brother, they expect me to become just like him, since he’s just like our father and mother,” Trixie observed, her voice breaking a little, but a quick sniff, and the sadness seemed to evaporate, as her expression once again became aloof, just like when she’d first come into Ponyville.

“So, your whole family is unicorns?” asked Twilight, sometimes hearing of those pure families, that rarely had relations with the other species of pony, figuring it diluted the bloodline or something. Heck, her own family tree was a little like that, until the last two generations, with an uncle that was married to an earth pony mare, and then her brother marrying an alicorn, and Cadance of all alicorns to boot.

“No, not all of them, but we’re all famous for something. My brother for his spell crafting, my father for his, my mother for her flying which helped end a drought, she was a pegasus obviously. Her father for being Captain of the Wonderbolts in his day, her mother for being…well, you get the idea, Trix…I can’t do much beyond show tricks, and so many of them want something more, something meaningful, and I hate the way they seem to look down on me,” complained the aqua mare, flipping her white blue mane with a toss of her head.

“Your brother doesn’t look down on you, you know?” said Twilight, hoping to bring that connection out into the open a bit more.

“Ha! He’s too busy looking at his experiments and working with his assistants to ever notice me. I’m just that little loser he has to come rescue because she’s a failure to her family name,” sighed Trixie.

“That’s not true. If he really thought that would he have come to get you out of the Everfree Forest? Would he have tried like he did, sending those messages back and forth with you for hours, to get you to come here so we could talk. He even asked me to try and be your friend, you know. Said you might like one since you seemed so lonely,” Twilight accused. Trixie seemed a bit taken aback by that, and sniffed a little, as her eyes made a slight wobble in their sockets, like they had some water in them, but a few blinks, and it was as if they had never been there at all, as she turned towards Twilight.

“He really got you to come see me, here?” asked Trixie, and Twilight nodded, which seemed to instantly brighten Trixie’s face.

“Well, I suppose he’s not an entirely neglectful brother. Speaking of neglectful, is that lunch behind you?” Trixie said, looking for the first time, to the bag and cups Twilight had brought. 

“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I just got two hay and lettuce sandwiches, and some fizz drinks, I hope that’s okay with you,” said Twilight as she brought out the food, taking one of the sandwiches in her hoof, and then passing one, plus a drink, to Trixie.

“That will be just fine Spark-Twilight, just fine,” she said, catching herself again, as she took the cup that was offered, and then took a sip on the straw, her lips curling around it, and then sucking, seeming to have trouble after a moment, and have to suck real hard, but after that moment passed, she swallowed, and smiled at Twilight, who bit into her sandwich, enjoying the simple taste on her tongue as she chewed, and swallowed herself, the pair just chatting through the rest of their meal.
> The Fate of Spies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack, after a few minutes beneath whatever she was sunk in, realized that she hadn’t breathed in a while. Oddly, that didn’t feel bad, and for a moment, she wondered if she might have died, but a quick check of her body told her nope, her heart beat was strong, so she was still alive. That seemed odd, and so she tried to make it to the surface again, slamming once more into some solid wall and trying to let her body raise her upward again.

This time it worked, probably because she’d been rising slowly, and had just been deep in whatever she’d splashed into. With her at least breaching the surface she took one long deep gasp of air, filling her lungs with the sweet taste of the gas around her. Mind, sweet taste was right, as she looked about her, realizing quickly that the tickling feeling she’d been having under water…under liquid, wasn’t just her imagination, as all around her bubbles came to the surface of the stuff, popping and creating quite the ruckus of sound, and belching sweet tasting gas into the air.

Trying to focus over the sounds she was hearing, Applejack began to take stock of her situation. She had no idea where she was, since Rainbow Dash had let her fall to her doom, and even looking around told her nothing. There were high, straight walls that seemed to be made of fibers woven tightly together, too tight to use for traction to climb out. Contained in those walls was the bubbling liquid, and herself, incidentally. There did seem to be some kinda pole thing in the center of the lake of stuff, but since it was almost as wide as she was around, it was useless for getting out.

Applejack of course, screamed for help, as she had no idea where she was, but considering how loud the bubbling sound was, she doubted anypony heard her. She heard them though, if only barely, voices outside, one sounded like Twilight, and the other…she couldn’t place, but it was familiar, and probably meant Rainbow had somehow followed Twi, and dragged AJ along for the ride. After recognizing the voice, AJ began a second series of screams, accompanied this time by pounding on the walls, but like the first time, it didn’t help, and so she was forced to just float in the liquid, waiting.

After what felt like an hour, something started to happen. Not a good something though, as she felt her prison move, the liquid sloshing around, and this time getting into her mouth, something she’d kept from happening the whole time she’d been swimming in it. That little bit in her mouth told her something important though. It told her where she was. Before she could make any use of that, however, there was suddenly a whirlpool forming around the pole in the center of the fizzy lake, and it quickly dragged AJ beneath the surface again, the earth pony crying out only once, her scream coming out as a bubble.

The suction carried AJ downward, slamming her into the pole…straw, several times, before finally she got to the bottom, and was pulled towards the opening at the bottom. Not going down without a fight, the earth pony spread her body out blocking the straw’s lower end with her form, as she tried to resist the pull of whoever was sucking on the other end. Of course, seeing as how she was small enough to fit up said straw, it was no contest, and after a few seconds of holding out, Applejack folded, literally, and shot up the straw.

She was rocketed upward, and then tossed out of the top of the straw, and into some pony’s mouth. Before she could do anything about this though, she felt even more suction, and while she tried to grab onto the tongue with her hooves, it was useless, the saliva providing no traction for her, and so she was pulled back, and with one motion, swallowed down with the rest of the drink. The trip down was shorter than she thought it should be, as she moved down the tube of soft flesh, and was finally tossed out into a wide open space filled with even more liquid, this one bubbling as well.

She panicked as she flew over the churning stomach acids, expected to hit them and then meet a painful end. AJ was therefore surprised when, after splashing down, she was bubbled back to the surface, not tingling as she was being broken down into food by whatever pony had swallowed her, instead, gently floating on the top of her stomach juices. Actually, the bubbling and slight warmth made the experience rather pleasant, and when she was sure she wasn’t being digested, Applejack decided to enjoy it, since this was much better than how most of Rainbow Dash schemes ended for her. Mind, thinking about how she was getting out made her realize she was going to need one mighty shower.


***********************


Rainbow Dash started struggling against whatever she was in, trying to move against the soft thing below her, and the heavy thing above her, but it proved to be useless. She was strong, powerful, and the best athlete in Ponyville, as she’d proved to Applejack time and again. However, despite all those achievements, right now she was just a little pony fly, and that meant it didn’t take much to trap her somewhere. Not really seeing the point of pointless struggles, and finding the thing beneath her to be very soft indeed, is it any wonder she eventually closed her eyes, and started napping.

Mind, she woke up from her nap fully aware of what had happened, as she came at the problem with renewed energy and speed, her wing flapping hard, as her legs pushed against the stuff above and below. Luckily for Rainbow, the weight above seemed to have greatly lessened, feeling at least 20%, probably more like 80% lighter. This allowed her to wiggle and worm her way forward, to escape whatever was trapping her, and soon she saw the light of day outside, her eyes going wide with excitement as she drew closer.

Just before she could completely escape though, a new pressure, this time a thousand times worse, seemed to come from both sides of her, and she acked as she was once more pinned by the weight. However, thanks to the light from outside, she could see that the stuff below her was holed, and had a rough looking brown edge, while the stuff above her was ridged, like a leaf of some kind, an image reinforced by the green color.

Rainbow was still trying to puzzle just what she was seeing, having failed to notice that she wasn’t breathing, and thus wasn’t smelling the stuff around her which would have clued her in. She did figure it out on her own though, as she was still staring towards freedom, when freedom suddenly turned rather unpleasant. In specific, the view outside shifted from the park on a sunny day, to staring directly into Twilight’s mouth. Her teeth glimmering in the sun as saliva dripped from the top of her mouth to the bottom, and her tongue quivering a little, as she moved the sandwich, which Rainbow was in and was obviously held in her hooves as there was no magic glow.

Dash tried to cry out, of course, but by the time she did, she was already moving towards Twilight’s mouth, and so had no ability to stop herself, as she was shoved inside. Even if she could have shimmied backwards, she wouldn’t have made it far enough fast enough to escape, and so she was contained in Twilight’s maw, as the lower jaw dropped, the pressure above being released, and Dash instantly shooting out of her prison and into free air.

Well, free-ish air anyway, as the maw around her remained closed, Twilight chewing the mouthful with her lips closed, her flat molars coming together like something from a school movie, and nearly causing Rainbow to gag as she watched the formally solid sandwich get crushed and mulched, while saliva mixed in with it. Speaking of saliva, Dash wasn’t paying close enough attention to it in her state, and so when a huge drop fell from the roof of Twilight’s mouth, Dash found herself all wet, and thus, not very good at flying, slamming into the mare’s tongue with a splat.

Before Dash could really process that, she was pushed by the slimy member in between Twilight’s teeth, landing roughly on the bottom set, and staring right at the top set, as it hung above her, and then rushed to meet her, the two sets of molars coming together with a clack. That sound made Rainbow Dash, who’d closed her eyes at the last second, open them to find she was not smushed by Twi’s chewing, and instead was just lying there on her teeth, which met again, and then again, Twilight not enjoying having a meal that resisted her.

Unluckily for Rainbow Dash, Twilight took that as a challenge, and with a toss of her head, everything in her mouth began to slide towards the abyss of her throat. Rainbow tried to fight that powerful suction, but after a few moments of trying to get power from wet wings, and grabbing onto everything, Dash tumbled off the back of Twilight’s tongue, and then descended with a gulp, plummeting down her throat.

The arrival in the stomach was met with Dash flapping her wings to stay out of the pool of juices, hoping AJ had avoided a similar fate, and then slamming face first into one of the walls. After doing that once, Dash, seeing a way out, did it again, and again, trying to hit it harder each time. However, rather than getting Twilight to notice her, it only caused her to take a drink, and so Dash was soon washed into the liquid, noticing only vaguely that she wasn’t turning into rainbow goo, while she fought and kicked, going to do so that whole way as she was passed down, until the exit at the end.