One of those days
I will admit it.
Starlight Glimmer is a unicorn that doesn’t have the...best track record when it comes to helping others with spells.
Oh, MAN, she doesn’t! A lot of the time, it blows up in her face – and in anypony’s face that’s nearby.
Still, as one of my “Equestrian big sisters”, that mare is one of the ponies I trust the most. So, I was going to take a chance and hope she doesn't blow it. Both figuratively and literally.
At this moment, “Starie'' and I were in the library in Twilight Sparkle’s castle. It was where this guy, Eric “Buggie” Reed, was hopefully not about to make a big mistake.
“I can’t believe I’m going to listen to my favorite music again! You’re sure this spell of yours is going to work, right?”
“Yep," Starlight answered with a nod of her head. She pointed at blue-colored headphones lying on a table, which she had just created with her magic. “After I cast 'Musiallic Copia', all you have to do is put those headphones on and think of your favorite songs, then it will read your thoughts and play it. The songs will even be saved in the headphones, so others will be able to listen to them too, but only the last one you listened to.”
I leaned toward the headphones. It seemed simple enough, but I had a bad feeling. “This is all good, but how about we get Twilight to help you with that spell too as a...safety measure? Your spells are most effective when you cast them together.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re worried I’m going to mess up casting Musiallic Copia, aren’t you?”
Figured my big sis would see through me. Almost wanted to cover my face with the hat I was wearing, one with designs of my friends’ Cutie Marks. “I’m not afraid you’d mess up, Starie. It’s just, the last time you cast a spell that worked on my memories, it backfired and had nearly every mare chasing after me thinking I was their boyfriend!”
“And I only cast that spell because” – she pointed a hoof at me – “you kept begging me to cast it, so you would forget about what happened the week before that, remember?”
I raised a finger to try to protest, but she had me. “You win. Okay, do your thing and cast that 'Musica Coalla' or whatever.”
Starlight’s horn glowed light-blue. A stream of magic flowed from it and seeped into the headphones.
Once all the magic was in, I put it on my head, cut it on, and thought about the lyrics of one of my favorite songs, "Holier Than Thou" by Metallica.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcc_aw-5CzA
“Whoa, it worked!” I was tempted to dance. But, while I’m not as bad a dancer as Twilight (though I do love seeing her dance, so I can laugh my head off) I’m still not that good.
“There! Still worried I’d screw up?” she asked with a teasing smirk.
“Okay, I’m sorry, and I really do trust you. Anyway, I am going to go and enjoy these songs. Thanks, Starie!”
Figured I’d do a little jogging while listening to my tunes, so I went out of the library and left the castle.
After I took ten or so steps out the castle’s door, Rainbow flew out of the sky and to me. I turned the headphones off.
“Hey, Eric, what are you doing wearing headphones?” She tapped my headphones. “I thought only Vinyl Scratch wears those things."
“Guess she’s not the only one anymore. Besides, these headphones are special: they play my favorite songs from my old world.”
“Oh. Where did you get it? I thought you couldn’t go back there.”
I pointed toward the castle. “Just now, Starlight cast a spell that let this headphone 'read' the memories I have of the songs, then play them. They are saved onto my phones, so anypony can hear them, but only the song I listened to last.”
“Cool. Can I give it a try?”
“Sure.”
I took off my headphones and let Rainbow put them on her head. Ponies’ ears are on the top of their heads, so she had to position them at an angle just to get one of the headphone's cushions to cover an ear. Rainbow acted how I'd imagine Twilight might if she tried to put it on her head, so she almost looked adorkable. Once she was able to hear the music, Rainbow bobbed her head.
“Whoa, this is a great song! Uh, you think Starlight can get me one of these things that can fit my ears?”
“You can ask her. She might need that phone, so take it with you.”
Rainbow ran into the castle. About a minute later, she ran back out, wearing a new one that covered both her ears, and “hoofed” me my own headphones.
“Thanks a lot, Eric. See you later!” She flew off and into the sky.
I didn’t know why, but it felt like I made a big mistake.
The next day, I was walking through Ponyville. However, I was feeling some chills. Something was...wrong. No pony was around, but there normally be at least a couple of them nearby.
“OW!”
A whack from behind knocked me onto the ground with a grunt. That hurt!
I growled and glared at a yellow pegasus mare that was lying on the ground. She was wearing headphones, just like the one Starlight made for Rainbow. Must have been the very same one, because she was mumbling the lyrics of "Holier Than Thou".
Also, why did that crazy mare slam into me?!
“Hey! What was–”
The mare stood up and flew away, end over end. She didn’t even say “sorry”.
My annoyance left me when she crashed to the ground again. She got back up and flew away again...and then crashed a third time. And then a fourth time! Now I was just feeling sorry for her. The poor thing was suffering worse luck than what the Chicago Cubs had for over 100 years. In other words, a LOT.
Whatever was wrong with her noggin, I picked up my hat that got knocked off during my most recent “meeting” of crazy ponies.
Raindrops tapped my head. Rain wasn’t going to help “crashy’s” flying.
But, I would have sworn it wasn’t raining in an area in front of me. Puddles weren't forming there, yet they were in my immediate area. I turned my head back and forth, and some spots also had puddles forming while other areas didn’t.
Then the clouds in the air rushed to different areas of the sky, so it stopped raining on me, but it rained in areas that were dry a moment ago. It was too random to be normal, so the pegasi in charge of the weather must have been slacking off or something.
Okay.
Faint singing slowly grew louder. Coming from one of Ponyville’s streets, a parade marched toward my direction, but not at me. As it got closer, I could spot Spike leading the way. Spike and every pony in the parade wore headphones and were singing "Holier Than Thou".
Okay, getting weirder.
A DJ booth on wheels came flying by with a unicorn with a yellowish-white coat “driving” it. I thought I spotted headphones on her head as that booth went by.
Maybe Vinyl Scratch just can’t talk, because she was the only pony with those phones that wasn’t singing. Still, something felt off with her too.
I took a step, but my body froze. It took all of my willpower just to move my fingers, but no way could I take steps. An irresistible force yanked me to the side, and something wrapped something else around me.
The paralyzing hold on me ended, and I found myself looking into blue eyes. The grip around my torso felt like what ponies’ forelegs have, so it was a pony. They must have been both a full-grown pony (they are around my height) and a unicorn, since the hold that was just on me had to be magic.
“Why, hello there, darling!”
That “darling” told me which unicorn’s eyes I was looking in. Save for the one time Trixie did it just to see and laugh at my reaction, only one pony had ever called me “darling”.
Rarity. I didn't even know she was nearby!
My stationary position abruptly ended by being swayed back and forth. A heavenly voice singing "Holier Than Thou", which I was starting to get tired of, filled my ears.
Well, maybe not a heavenly voice, but Rarity has a great singing voice. Wish she’d let me go, though!
“Rarity! What’s wrong with you?! If you want to dance, at least ask me first!”
Rarity kept swaying me side-to-side and singing. I groaned and struggled to loosen her forelegs’ grip, but it was like trying to pry a friend off of you after you win a lottery – I wasn’t getting rid of this pony. I’d have to “thank” ponies’ physical strength, even unicorns, for this.
Though, it’s not like I didn’t enjoy “dancy” wanting to hug or dance with me; Rarity is a cute mare.
If this day weren’t strange enough, it kept raising the bar. Discord would be proud.
Rainbow Dash zipped through the air while spinning end over end, but unlike that hyper-clumsy pegasus that slammed into me earlier, Rainbow kept her altitude.
It wasn't too unusual, but Fluttershy flew overhead, singing, with birds and butterflies trailing her. She, of course, had headphones on.
In the corner of my eye, Pinkie was slowly walking along. She had headphones on too, but she wasn’t singing, or even smiling. She just seemed to be...indifferent.
For Pinkie Pie, that meant she was acting VERY weirdly. She was acting how Maud usually acts.
Three more pegasi stallions suddenly hit the ground, but got up and flew away. Would have been fitting if they were listening to “It’s Raining Men”, even if they are stallions.
And those rain clouds continued to move from place to place, making it “rain” on and off over Rarity and me.
This is the part where I’d normally hightail it to Twilight, AKA my second "Equestrian big sister", and ask her what the buck was going on. But as my luck would have it, she and Applejack were off on a friendship mission, so I couldn’t run to my favorite princess this time. Maybe Starlight might know what to do.
But before I could run to Starie, I had to do something about a certain unicorn’s hold on me. Since she was too strong to force myself free, perhaps I could trick her into letting me go.
“Oh, uh, Rarity, didn’t you hear about the rare jewels that were found in the gem caves?”
Rarity gasped and let me go on the spot. She ran, well, hopped off to those gem caves right outside of Ponyville while still singing. Sucker! Had no time to worry about if she’d get mad about that lie later.
Laughing filled the air. It was a female voice. It was familiar, and yet the voice was...unnatural.
A grey mare, wearing her own headphones, zipped across the street, ran to the front of that still-ongoing parade, and started leading it while singing the loudest. It sunk in who that mare was, and I just took off running to the castle. “Weird” just took steroids, which itself was on steroids. I had to find Starlight Glimmer, fast, and hope she could do something about this!
When Maud Pie laughs and sings like a filly, and acts more like Pinkie Pie than Pinkie Pie herself does, something is seriously wrong! She didn’t even have that dress on that she always wears.
I bust through the doors of the castle, but in the lobby, Starlight was lying on the floor, panting. Was she hurt?!
I ran to her and asked, “Starlight?! What happened to you?!”
She buried her face under her forelegs and pleaded, “No, please, I can’t make any more headphones! I’m too–wait.” She uncovered her face and stared at me. Never seen her like that before. “Buggie?”
“Yep, I’m Buggie. Again, what happened? You look like you ran ten laps around Ponyville, or like Twilight wanted to experiment on you and you barely got away.”
“Normally, I’d laugh, but I’m not in the mood.” She took a few pants, then continued, “As for what happened to me, you were right.”
“I was?” I rubbed the back of my neck. “About what?”
“I still don’t know what went wrong, but the Musiallic Copia spell I cast on your headphones did backfire. After I cloned the one for Rainbow, but had its shape be able to cover ponies' ears, Spike and ponies kept coming to me, begging me to clone them one. They wouldn’t leave me alone unless I did!”
My hands tighten into fists. Anypony that harasses big sis Starlight are ASKING to get their flanks kicked! But I’d have to kick my friends’ flanks too, and Spike’s my Equestrian little brother, so I was stuck with having to release my fists and cool it. “Oh. Well, I guess we'll just have to let them sing and get it out of their system. But, we should do something about how a peg–"
Her eyes widened. “Wait, is everypony in Ponyville singing?”
“Yeah. Or at least most of Ponyville.”
She gasped deeply and sprung to her hooves, wearing a big, worried frown. “No, no, no! If they keep singing, their voices are going to cause damage to Ponyville! Not only that, something about that song must have given them ‘singitis’, so they won’t listen if we tell them to stop!”
My mouth dropped. Only in Equestria would an ailment like "singitis" exist. “Why? How? Pegasi were falling out of the sky, but how could singing mess up Ponyville? Ponies are great singers!”
“Maybe Twilight never told you or your human ears just can’t tell, but ponies’ singing is at a frequency that would cause structural damage if too many of us sing at once and for too long.”
I facepalmed. Forget why did I let Starlight cast that spell three days ago: why did I get out of bed that day?! Then again, this wasn't so bad. “Then can’t you fix everything by just canceling that Music-something spell on Spike’s and those ponies’ headphones?”
She sighed. Great, what was the catch? “I wish it was that easy, but I cast Musiallic Copia so many times, I’m nearly out of magic!”
And there it is!
“What?!" I pointed at her. "You’re out of magic? You’ve cast crazy-powerful spells and you never ran out of magic before!”
“Even if I made it look easy, Musiallic Copia uses a lot of magic and I cast it over fifty times today! Even Twilight would be at her limit, and she’s an alicorn!”
Starlight looked like she was barely trying when casting that whatever-you-call-it spell. Maybe she was internally struggling. “Wonderful, and Twi’s still on her friendship mission, so she’s out of play to bail us out. I would ask Sunset for help, but she’s on a road trip with our friends' counterparts." I laid a finger on my chin. We needed a powerful unicorn and–wait. Powerful. "What about Trixie? Bigmouth or not, she’s no slouch when it comes to magic.”
Starlight shook her head. “Nope, Trixie’s sick with a cold. Besides, she’s mostly limited to learning spells that are useful for magic shows. Musiallic Copia isn’t one of them.”
I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I might have overestimated Trixie’s magical limits. “So much for Ms. Powerful. Well, we’re fresh out of strong unicorns, so if you can’t regain your magic in time, is there any way we could snap Spike and those ponies back to their senses sooner?”
Starlight rolled her eyes upward and set a hoof under her chin. "If I’m right, all we need to do is get those headphones away from everyone and break them. That should make their singitis wear off in time.”
Our plan was set. I dashed to my bedroom and grabbed two of my baseball bats; one of the two glowed pink. In case I’d ever need it, Twilight poured a little magic into the glowing bat, so it hits with several times more power than normal.
Next, we got all the hay from the kitchen we had to help use as bait. With three big bags full of hay and my baseball bats, Starlight and I left the castle and went pony hunting, while putting up with the on and off rain. With how Equestrian ponies are sapient, and Starlight is herself a pony, that sounded a little wrong to say.
Apparently, singitis had an unusual effect on Pinkie, since it didn't make her sing.
About a minute later, we caught up to that parade. Maud did look cute being so excited with her grinning, hopping, and singing, but it just wasn’t...her! This was even creepier than when I couldn’t tell if she was thinking “I like you, and I want to be your best friend”, or “I hate you, and I’m going to kill you in your sleep”, or something in between whenever she looked at me.
Starlight and I broke apart and spread out the hay we had, then we called out, “Hey! Free hay over here!”
The ponies stopped singing and trotted to the hay. Starlight and I managed to snatch six headphones while they were trying to chow down, and we ducked behind the nearby Sugarcube Corner. The way the ponies gathered around the hay, they looked much more like animals than they usually do, if that even makes sense. They also seemed a lot dumber, which would make this little mission easier.
However, there were more important things to worry about. Namely those six headphones we took. I took my non-glowing bat and wailed on one of them, letting out grunts with each swing. The dents only barely grew with each hit. It took me almost twenty full-power strikes before that phone finally cracked. Starlight made that thing durable!
As for Starlight herself, she unleashed blows on another phone with my glowing bat. With so little magic left, to use the bat with much force, she had to use her forelegs to hold and swing her bat. It took her almost as many tries to break her target as it took me. With the glowing bat being much stronger, it showed she was even less adept at using her forelegs to hold or, in this case, swing things than I thought.
After we broke those two phones, Starlight and I were panting hard. Energy just forgot where I was.
“Okay…*pant*...this is going to be harder…*pant*...than I thought,” I said.
“Much harder. Those were only two that we just took care of. I copied over FIFTY of those headphones!”
One of the loudest moans ever left my mouth. This was gonna be a loooooong day.
After we caught our breaths, it was time to work on the other four headphones we had snatched, then tracked down the parade again; it restarted while my headphone-cracking partner and I were going to town on the six headphones. The six ponies now without headphones weren't singing with as much energy as before, so that was a good sign that Starlight's idea was working.
Like before, we spread out some hay to draw the crowd close, took some of the headphones, used a ton of energy to break them, then repeated this a few more times until only Maud and Spike were left. Even if how Maud acted was cute, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get too close to that pony.
“You take her,” both Starlight and I said at the same time while pointing at Maud. So much for that. We grabbed some rocks, managed to distract Maud with them – like we did with the hay with the other ponies – and got her headphones.
When she returns to her old self, it will never feel so right to hear Maud talk slowly and not smile...much.
Now, we had the rest of Ponyville. First up was Pinkie. She was so indifferent and not reacting to much, she didn’t even care if we took her headphones, so Starlight and I simply walked up to her and took it. She shrugged the whole thing off.
Next were Rarity and Spike. Starlight and I got some jewels to use as bait, then grabbed and broke their phones.
We did have to get more hay at times, but Starie and I went all over Ponyville and, eventually, collected and disabled all of the headphones, save for two. Fluttershy and Rainbow stayed in the air, so we couldn’t get theirs. Luckily, it wouldn’t be dangerous if only those two sang, so it was okay to leave them alone for now. If Fluttershy’s singitis would start screwing up her flying, her birds would catch her, and Rainbow is just that good a flyer. Besides, Fluttershy looked so happy and adorable with her animals – she’s an adorable pony to begin with – so I didn’t want to ruin that mare’s fun anyway.
At this point, Starlight and I could barely walk and were close to passing out. We weren't far from Twilight's castle, so we wrapped an arm/foreleg around and leaned against each other, and wobbled back to the castle. We were wet from the rain, but neither of us really cared.
It was about time for Starlight and me to have an extended one-on-one brother-sister time, and we just had it. Just didn’t plan for it is all.
Finally reaching the castle, my favorite unicorn and I limped through the doors, digging deep for any crumbs of strength reserves we had left. We took a few steps inside, then collapsed to the floor. Even leaning against each other couldn’t keep us up any longer. We just lay there and pant, maybe for ten, fifteen minutes, before one of us even got the idea to say something.
“Okay, I know I learned this lesson before, but I’m never trying to solve problems with magic again, for real, unless someone’s in danger. At least, not if I'm casting the spells by myself.”
“Well, maybe it really wasn't that Music-a-junk spell’s fault, and if I didn't let Rainbow listen to my headphones, this wouldn't have happened anyway. I'm just glad we fixed that mess, or Twilight would have let us have it if she came back to–”
The castle’s door opened. Speak of the Princess: Twilight, hair wet from the rain, came trotting in.
“Ugh, I don't know why the peg–wait.” Twilight’s eyes widened, she gasped, and ran over to Starlight and me. “Starlight?! Eric?! Why are you two lying on the floor?!”
“It’s a LONG story, Twi, but in short, it’s because we’re tired,” I answered.
That frown of Twilight’s relaxed, but now just seemed confused. “But if you are so tired, why not go to your rooms, or at least dry yourselves off?”
“Buggie and I are just that tired, but we’ll get up soon.”
“Okay, suit yourselves,” Twilight said with a shrug of her shoulders and trotted to the castle’s hallways.
After another couple of minutes, I finally regained enough energy to stand; Starlight did the same thing.
Starlight said, “As bad as it was, it could have been worse. At least Twilight didn’t hear those songs.”
Even if ponies with singitis seemed to be...dumbed down, Twilight being affected too was a scary thought. Not that she can't sing, mind you. “Oh, I don’t even want to think about that! With you out of magic, if she got out of–”
Starlight pointed at my head, or maybe the top of it. “Wait, where are your headphones?”
“Uh...I think it’s in the library. Why–"
“Wow! You were right, Buggie! This song you said you love is great!”
There was no time to think. Starlight and I ran like mad to the library to separate Twilight and those headphones before that music could affect her.
In truth, Twi probably would have been overall harmless with singitis, but Starlight Glimmer and I were not taking any chances.