Potion Party
"Er, Pinkie? Are you absolutely, positively, unerringly sure that this is a safe idea?" Twilight understandably asked.
Her poofy-maned friend simply waved her off from behind the bar. "Pfft! Of course I am, silly!" She gave a shrug. "What, you think I'd just slip and cause all my new potions to fall into a big pile and forget which one was which and then decide to have all my friends try them out to find out what they do unless I thought it was perfectly safe?"
The totally nonchalant way she'd said that was par for the course for Pinkie, but Twilight still bore that same look of concern. "Well..."
Unfortunately, she was interrupted when Rainbow suddenly zipped in from the side and leaned against the bar herself. "Hehe, don't sweat it, Twi! Pinkie's potions haven't let us down so far, right?"
Rarity, who walked up to stand beside Twilight, looked to the latter with a similar expression of worry. "There's always a first time for everything."
Applejack, who had been sitting at the bar the whole time while downing an apple milkshake, stopped her drink for the moment to look to the rest of her friends. "If Pinkie says they're safe, then ah believe her."
Pinkie beamed to that, but it was instead Fluttershy who spoke, looking to Applejack with some incredulity. "So...you'd be willing to try one of these mystery potions first?"
To that, Applejack let out a hearty chuckle. "Ha! Nah! Ah'm fine with mah shake, thanks!" To emphasize her point, she slurped as hard as she could, only to discover, to her slight worry, that her shake had actually been finished before she'd started talking, though only now did she realize that, with a sense of foreboding creeping in for her. "Well...shoot."
Spike, just coming into the room now while carrying a big and heavy-looking book, no doubt to give to Twilight, glanced ahead to the big collection of assorted potions Pinkie was setting up on the counter, and started to look curious. "Oh, I almost never get to try potions like this! Can I have one?"
Pinkie, seeing absolutely nothing wrong with that, reached over to offer him a potion in a shiny blue bottle, only to be stopped when Twilight used her magic to levitate it out of her hoof and into her own. "If it's all the same to you, Pinkie, I think I'll try this before we give it to the over-eager child, okay?"
Her potion-brewing colleague gave a quick shrug. "Meh, whatever floats your boat."
Spike, though slightly disheartened that he wasn't going to be the first to do this, nevertheless looked on with interest as Twilight opened the bottle and peeked inside. The liquid seemed harmless enough, no different from anything else Pinkie had made, and after Twilight gave it a quick sniff, she slowly sipped the tiniest amount. Everypony waited, keeping their eyes on her like a hawk, and after almost a full minute, there didn't seem to be any change whatsoever, much to their disappointment. "Ugh! Boring!" Rainbow remarked. "No change at all, Twilight?"
Twilight herself waited a few more moments, then gave a shrug of her own before finally speaking. "NO!!! THERE DOESN'T APPEAR TO BE ANY CHANGE WHATSOEVER!!!" Instantly, Twilight slapped her hooves over her mouth, her eyes darting left and right while her friends shrunk back after her unexpectedly loud voice. In fact, so loud had been said voice that the very foundations of the building had shaken with every utterance, and only when the shaking stopped did Twilight finally feel safe enough to lower her hooves and speak again. "WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?!"
Realization came to Pinkie, and she smiled widely. "Ooooooooooh! I remember that one! That was the potion I made to give everypony the Royal Canterlot Voice!"
Spike looked to her with confusion. "The...what?"
Suddenly, Pinkie herself look confused, and she glanced to the side. "Wait, has that thing been established in this universe yet?" She shrugged again. "Meh, questions for later."
Twilight glared at her angrily, but fortunately for Pinkie she was trying her best not to say even a single word right now, so there was no chance of a lecturer for the time being. Meanwhile, Rainbow, who apparently didn't see this as a sign that they should maybe stop, scooped up the next potion and downed it straight away, much to the horror of her friends. After putting the bottle aside and licking her lips, she too awaited the results, tapping her foot impatiently against the ground. "So...is there a timer for these things or...?" And it was right at that moment when, all of a sudden, she began to rise up, higher and higher into the air, all the way to the ceiling, where she unceremoniously collided with it. "Ooof! What the...?!"
Pinkie beamed. "Oh yeah! That's my super-awesome-cool levitation potion!"
Rainbow, looking down to her friends, grinned confidently. "Awesome!"
Pinkie raised her hoof. "Ah, ah, ah! Not awesome...super-awesome-cool. There's a difference!"
Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, but bottom line, I can fly! How great is that?!"
The other ponies and Spike all looked to one another, and in the end it fell to Applejack to point out the obvious. "Er, Rainbow? Y'all could already fly, remember?"
Rainbow blinked a couple of times, and then, after letting that notion sink in, she slumped her shoulders in defeat. "Aw shoot! The one potion I get to try and it's the one I didn't need! Typical!"
Rarity giggled. "Well then, I believe I will try my hoof at this. Risky or not, there's an old saying..." She picked up a bottle, looking to it with utter focus. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained!" She gulped it down, sighing with some contentment afterwards. "Ooooh! A nice little minty flavor too!"
Pinkie nodded confidently. "Eyup! Never gonna make a potion that tasted icky after all. I mean, who do you take me for?!"
Like the rest, Rarity awaited her inevitable change, and for her this one came a lot faster than the rest, as there was a sudden blinding light that caused the rest to shield their eyes from her. When the light eventually faded and they all turned to face her again, their expressions were ones of worry, which didn't do Rarity's own concerns any favors. "What? What happened?"
After slowly giving nervous glances to one another, they all looked to Rarity again, with Spike apparently being the only one to muster up enough courage to actually step forward and speak. "It's...um...it's not that bad."
Gradually, a preemptive look of horror came to Rarity, and she stretched out her hoof to Spike, as if awaiting being given something. "A mirror...if you would." She saw the looks of apprehension the little dragon gave her, and then, after a while, defeat. He knew he couldn't drag this out, and so, after having been given a hoof-held mirror by Pinkie, who apparently had the means to just conjure one out of thin air like she did with so many other things, gave it to his crush. Rarity accepted it, and after taking a deep breath, she finally looed to her own reflection. Panic gripped her, and much like the aforementioned mirror, she too brought something in from out of nowhere, in this case her massive couch, before falling upon it to scream to the heavens. "Noooooo! Not a green mane! Green manes are terrible! Ohohohoho, why meheheheheeeeee?!!"
Applejack, as was her way, rolled her eyes to this display of drama that, in all seriousness, she probably should've expected from Rarity. "Oh quit yer belly-achin'. Pinkie can whip y'all up somethin' ta get rid o' it, right, Pinkie?"
Pinkie herself giggled loudly to that. "Oh sure! There hasn't been a potion brewed yet that I couldn't undo!" she declared confidently.
Rarity, of course, still wasn't happy. "But...but...but...it's GREEEEEEEEEEN!!!"
Applejack sighed, walking over to the counter herself and stretching out her own hoof. "Alrighty then, let's get this over with. Guess it's mah turn now." Pinkie happily slid over a bottle to her, and after taking it, Applejack steeled herself before drinking the whole thing in one big gulp. All eyes were upon her now, and Applejack herself was preparing for the worst. Alas, it appeared the universe was feeling mischievous today, as the young farmer was engulfed in a quick poof of cloud, signaling the effects of the potion, and when that cloud dissipated, she saw, to her dismay, that this particular potion appeared to have rearranged he fashion sense. Specifically it had managed to clad her in a frilly and puffy-looking light-blue princess-type dress, complete with a cone-like hat. Applejack, maintaining an utterly deadpan look for this, took in a deep breath, then sighed, before frowning at just the situation in general. "Well...alrighty then," she said with no emotion whatsoever.
Being unable to hold herself back, Rainbow cackled loudly. "Oh yeah, this whole mess was worth it just to see AJ in that thing!" She whipped out a small camera, taking a quick snapshot before snickering to herself. "Oh this is so going on my wall when I get home!"
Though he had been just as amused as his friends, Spike now found himself acutely aware that he was one of the few who had not partaken of these mysterious concoctions today. So, after gulping loudly enough that everypony noticed him walk towards them, he began to reach out. "Okay...here goes." Then, he turned, seeing Twilight glare widely to him. Had she the ability to speak whiteout bringing the house down she might have actually told him not to go for it, so for now Spike simply had his entrenched knowledge of his lifelong friend's likely position on the matter. "Okay...maybe I shouldn't." He turned, then turned back a second later. "But what if it's something really cool?" He grimaced. "Or something really terrible?" He started pacing back and forth. "What if it's bad? But what if it's good? But what if it's bad? But what if...?"
Rainbow slapped her forehead. "Oh for the love of...JUST DRINK IT ALREADY!!!"
That apparently did the trick, as Spike, much to Twilight's chagrin, grabbed the bottle and gulped it all down in the blink of an eye. Now, being the youngest, he was somewhat more nervous about this than the rest, and so, when his stomach began to grumble, he clenched it while looking terrified. "Oh...no." Much like with Applejack, he was engulfed in a smoky explosion, and when those aforementioned vapors finally cleared, his friends all looked on to see not a baby dragon, but a puffed-up pufferfish, currently flipping and flopping all over the floor. "WHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYY?!?!" he yelled out.
Rarity, who had since recovered from her green-maned ordeal, shook her head, before using her magic to gently scoop up the panicked fish and place him into a conveniently-close water bowl. "Honestly, who goes and turns a dragon into a puffer fish, I ask you?"
Then, as if having awaited this moment all day, Pinkie happily clapped her hooves together, giggling happily. "And now, my friends, it's my turn!" Without even hesitating, she took the final bottle and wolfed it down like she hadn't had anything to eat or drink for weeks. Her friends watched, half terrified, waiting to see what terrible thing would occur. As Pinkie wiped a few stray droplets of potion from her lips, she too began to wait, tapping her forehoof against the counter. Then, she looked to the now empty bottle, before suddenly giggling nervously. "Oh, wait, I accidentally mixed in a strawberry milkshake in with the potions."
Rainbow fumed at her. "Oh come on!"
Then, much like with Spike earlier, there was a grumbling from Pinkie's stomach. "No, wait, definitely a potion!" Everypony stood back, and like with several past potion-drinkers, there was a sudden loud pop, coupled with an obscuring smoke, which eventually faded to reveal the effects of the potion. And it turned out that this particular effect was to give Pinkie Pie an entire army of clones of herself, all of which looked to one another with curiosity before looking to the rest of the group simultaneously. "Well...this is fun, right?"
Horror was the order of the day for the rest of the ponies, and Twilight, who had finally had enough of this, lowered her hoof from her mouth and basically just screamed what everypony else was thinking right now. "DARN YOU, PINKAMENA DIANE PIE!!!"
The Pinkies, pausing for a moment, looked to each other again before once more speaking in unison. "Er...which one?"