> Costume Catastrophe
>  by PrincessEnchanteDream
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Rarity
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity was utterly and completely exhausted. She had dark bags under her eyes, her hair was a mess and the orders never seemed to finish. She wasn't even done with her recent one and had already gotten a huge order for an entire season!

Needless to say, her friends were shocked when they took in her appearance. Fluttershy, God bless that kind soul, had offered to help her out and she did, except when a box full of baby critters arrived at the animal shelter, she was called and had to rush away, though very apologetic. Only when Rarity had assured her that she'll manage, then only Fluttershy went back home.

Seeing Rarity's disheveled state, Sunset proposed that they go for a day trip around the city, and take her mind off things. Rarity hesitantly agreed, only after Applejack and Rainbow Dash convinced her that she'll be able to work better after a short break, and probably get some inspiration.

So off the six friends went, in Pinkie's van and had lots of fun sightseeing, eating delicious food and just hanging around. Rarity had to admit, this certainly took her mind off things and reduced any stress she had. After their day had ended, they started back home, although earlier than planned because Rarity insisted she had a "totally fabulous idea" and wanted to start on it immediately.

Pinkie dropped off Rainbow, Applejack, and Sunset at their respective houses and headed towards Rarity's. When she got there, however, she was most surprised to see that the front door was open and unlocked.

Rarity frowned.

"Um, Rarity?" Fluttershy asked nervously. " You seem kind of tensed. Are you alright?"

"Just peachy, darling."

"SEE YOU LATER, RARES," Pinkie yelled from the van.

Rarity half-heartedly waved back and turned to go inside. She gingerly stepped into her house and then placed her purse on the coffee table. Her eyes swept around the very messy house.

Then, her left eye twitched.

This could be the work of only one person in the world, the oh-so-delightful, Sweetie Belle.

Rarity breathed in deeply, trying to keep her fraying temper in check. But it all went crashing down, when she went to her room and saw the sorry state it was in, namely; her neatly ironed and folded clothes lying in a heap in front of the closet.

"SWEETIEEEE BELLEEEEEEE!!!"

She was shaking in anger so much that she barely noticed the things around her starting to tremble. Her magic went haywire and bursts of golden-blue light flew out of the house and around the surrounding Canterlot City.

Rarity's eyes slowly adjusted to the sudden change in light, which began to fade as the seconds slowly ticked by. The blue and golden light hanging around in her room gradually cooled. However, she couldn't help but feel that something was somehow.... off. She took a quick look about, but noticed nothing especially odd.

Her arms somehow felt different, though. Something certainly wasn't right, and as she glanced down Rarity swore she could see something pink snaking its way down her arms. She blinked, then quickly pinched herself to check she wasn't dreaming.

She wasn't. Her dress had somehow gained full sleeves, as opposed to the straps over the shoulders it normally had, but the straps themselves were gone as the dress had dropped down to her chest area. White fabric emerged from the top of the bodice as the bracelet on her arm vanished.

Rarity had no idea how to react. Yes, her clothes were changing before her very eyes, as the fabric that had once been near her shoulders finished dropping down to leave them now exposed. On the other hand, this was hardly the weirdest thing to have happened and could actually be of some use to her.

She then decided that she should at least observe what was going on, but gasped as the dress got tighter around her waist. The entire dress suddenly turned pink, apart from the sleeves that already were, but the bodice was a noticeably darker shade than the other parts. The area over her hips, which had changed to a jagged pattern, was now light pink and ran all the way around from the front to the back.

The fabric of the skirt merged together to produce a seamless, smooth texture, before suddenly beginning to grow longer. The skirt grew over her knees, down over her boots, and kept on dropping downwards, to the point that Rarity could no longer see her feet. Speaking of feet, she could feel her boots start to shrink before something began pushing her up.

More and more of her skirt pooled across the floor, becoming quite dense if not especially large, and the outer fabric then darkened slightly to a shade similar to the sleeves. Following that, several underskirts and petticoats flowed down the inside, brushing past Rarity's legs and also reaching the floor, giving the skirt a bit of volume.

A golden tiara then appeared on her head and a necklace followed, as if to signify that these strange events were over, and Rarity now had a good chance to react. "Well, I suppose I could have ended up with something worse to wear."

She walked over to the window, to see that much of the street was lit up by intense light. Blue and yellow sparks snaked through the air, flying between objects and causing the street lamps to flicker. "Hmm. I wonder what that is?" The specks certainly seemed to be travelling at great speed, but not so fast that they were invisible to the human eye.

Rarity then glanced down at her dress again, and realized something. "Of course! Shortly before the light appeared, there were blue and yellow flashes! They must be connected to this somehow!" She continued to look out of the window, puzzling in her mind as to precisely what had caused this to happen.

She didn't notice the much larger light fragments that seemed to be heading towards specific places.
> Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy waved goodbye to Rarity as she and Pinkie got into the van and headed back home.

Suddenly, there was a loud scream that echoed through the air, the ground shaking slightly as it did so.

"What was that?" Pinkie asked, looking in the mirror behind her to try and see what it was.

"It sounded like Rarity!" Fluttershy said, looking worried. "Perhaps we should head back and look."

"I'll pull up and we can walk back!" Pinkie said. "It'll take longer to drive. That, and I can't turn us around in a one way street!"

Pinkie drove into a nearby parking space and cut the engine, then both she and Fluttershy hopped out and made their way back through the streets. Something odd was happening. Golden and Blue specks of energy floated in the air, interfering with the street lamps and causing the entire environment to glow slightly.

It was rather reminiscent of ash particles from a forest fire, and Fluttershy was about to remark on this when suddenly two larger orbs approached them.

"Ooh! Pretty!" Pinkie said. Seconds later, the two orbs slammed into them, and everything suddenly went very bright.

Fluttershy covered her eyes to try and protect them from the intense light, and only removed it once the light had faded from view. She looked about to see that the sky was still full of those sparks dancing about, which looked very surreal in the light.

Something brushing against her legs suddenly got her attention, and she quickly looked down to try and see what it was. Wait a second. The skirt of her dress seemed to be longer than normal. But that wasn't possible, right?

She quickly blinked to see if this was actually happening. One moment it seemed as if her eyes were just playing tricks on her. Then, with a slight grumble and a brief stretching sound, her skirt began to grow longer.

As it continued to grow longer, the hem suddenly started to sink into the skirt as it reached her ankles, where it stopped growing longer. The turquoise trim and pattern vanished as the entire skirt turned yellow, followed by the butterfly patterns in the skirt vanishing.

Another skirt flowed down Fluttershy's legs on the inside of the other one, providing a bit more volume to it, whilst her bodice suddenly started to shift. The side straps around her arms began to grow up her arms and shoulders, getting wider whilst completely obscuring the pink straps at the top, whilst her neckline dropped slightly and formed curve, the lighter colored frills vanishing into the fabric as the entire bodice turned dark blue.

The rear of the bodice then grew taller, followed by a white collar emerging from the back and growing upwards until it was in line with the base of her skull. Parts of the freshly expanded sleeves then suddenly got pulled inwards.

Fluttershy felt she recognized this dress, but finally got the key clue when her sandals, which she could clearly see, morphed into golden heels, the pink fabric around her legs morphing into golden bows on the heels. This also had the effect of increasing her height a little. Her sleeves suddenly began to inflate like balloons, growing until they were quite puffy in size. They also gained red infill as the process seemed to come to an end.

Fluttershy was more confused than scared. "Why am I Snow White?" She turned to suddenly see Pinkie Pie, and gasped. "Oh my goodness! Pinkie, what happened to you?"

Pinkie's grin was akin to the Cheshire Cat. "Welllllllllllllllllllllllll..."





Meanwhile...





Pinkie had begun to feel a bit weird after the energy had hit them, and had ducked round the other side of the van to get some of her secret supplies out. Precisely what these were nobody knew, but then again you had to accept that, sometimes, Pinkie Pie was just Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie went round the side of the van to the door, when something in the door mirror caught her attention. She stopped and looked closely, suddenly noticing there was a red tiara on her head. "Oooh! Pretty!"

As she stepped closer, she saw her tank top suddenly sprout sleeves, which turned pink and gradually grew longer and longer, until they reached her wrists. Purple fabric popped out of the ends as white gloves materialised on her hands, followed by the sleeves becoming embedded with many, many crystals.

The emblem of three balloons vanished from her shirt, as it was now, and the material softened as it turned the same shade of pink as the sleeves. The same, however, was not true of the center of the shirt, which turned a darker pink and was covered in white buttons. A collar also grew out of the shirt and suddenly burst backwards, neatly shielding the back of her neck from unwanted sunlight.

"Hey! I look really weird! I LOVE IT!"

Another part of her shirt pushed up to form a choker around her neck, before her skirt suddenly merged into her shirt, leaving her in a dress. Her sandals began to drop in height as they morphed into a pair of pink heels, and her socks soon vanished with them.

The skirt began to merge together, the three tiered ruffles turning to a smooth, flat surface. It rather reminded Pinkie of when she adopted her sad persona. Then everything happened at once.

With a loud bang of a party popper, her skirt shot downwards, over her knees and growing to completely cover her feet in seconds. With another pop, it then exploded outwards, covering a surface area of several feet in less than two seconds. The inner layer turned a deep purple, with lighter purple segments erupting out of the top of the skirt on each side, and a white thing appearing around her waist.

The suddenness of the changes caught her slightly off guard, but Pinkie quickly recovered. "YAY! I LOVE THIS! YOU'RE NOT THE ONLY PRINCESS, TWILIGHT!"

She then went round the other side of the van to see Fluttershy's clothes had also changed, and she seemed similarly surprised.





Now...





"I wonder what caused this," Fluttershy mused to herself, observing the constant movement of the sparks in the sky. "That doesn't normally happen."

"I'm willing to bet Equestrian magic," Pinkie said, moving slightly slower than normal thanks to her dress. "That seems to cause everything around here!"

"And without Sunset here, we can't easily get a message to Princess Twilight," Fluttershy noted. "We need to check our friends are OK."

"Not with the van, we aren't," Pinkie said. "You're not insured on it, and I can't exactly drive with this on!"

"I think we should split up," Fluttershy said finally. "You go check on Applejack, and I'll see if I can find anybody else!"

"SURE THING BYE!" Pinkie shouted. Both girls set off in opposite directions, one walking, and the other using exploding sprinkles to propel herself along.
> Applejack
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Applejack was quite relaxed when she came back home from their day trip around the city. Sure, Rares was a hardworking gal like herself, but even she needed a break once in a while. That, and it was always nice to go on a trip with all your best friends.

Their trip ended early, at Rarity's insistence, and as her farmhouse was the closest, she was the first one to reach home. Applejack then freshened up, as she had to help around the farm. She sat down and took out a much needed bottle of apple cider, as one can never have too much cider.

She choked mid-gulp as a familiar screech rung out, shaking the window panes.

"What in tarnation was that?" Applejack sputtered out. "Geez who else would it be, but Rarity."

She hurried outside, intending to check on her friend, when she was stopped by Granny Smith.

"Applejack, dearie," Granny Smith began. "Would ya go check on the pumpkins please. I reckon I saw something scurrying over there."

Applejack paused. "Of course, Granny."

Granny Smith smiled and ruffled her hair. "That's ma girl."

So, she changed course and made her way towards the pumpkin patch. Applejack looked around carefully, but nothing seemed to stand out in particular. As she went to inspect further, a sudden bright golden-blue light startled her.

"Whoa, nelly!" AJ yelped, as she ducked for cover but even she couldn't avoid the ball of light headed straight for her!

She staggered back from the impact, stepping backwards as the light in her eyes slowly faded. The world slowly came back into her vision, and the brim of her hat had helped to restore her sight more quickly by blocking some of the light.

Applejack quickly reached up for it, only to realize it wasn't there. "What in the?"

She looked about for it, in case it had fallen on the floor, but it had not. There was no trace of it. As she looked around, she suddenly felt something moving on her arms. She brought her left arm up to take a look. Funny. Her sleeve seemed to be shorter. She quickly rubbed her eyes to check she wasn't dreaming.

Alas, she was not. Her sleeves were shrinking back into her shirt before her very eyes. "Wait, what's goin' on?"

The sleeves shrank further and further, until they were barely over her shoulders. With a quiet puffing sound, they began to inflate, growing bigger and changing into a pair of puffed sleeves the size of armbands. The neckline on her shirt also dropped down, further than it was already, and the sides neatly curved up to her shoulders. This process repeated at the rear as the back dropped slightly.

A pair of light blue evening gloves suddenly appeared on her hands, and grew backwards as far as her elbows. However, they then kept going, over her elbows and back to partway up her arms.

Applejack was trying to keep a cool head, but it proved not to be easy. Although she knew that magic could do strange things, there was no way she could rationalize what was happening. They had never encountered magic that could do this!

She groaned as she felt like her chest and waist were being put through a blender, being pulled tighter by something that had appeared on her body. As it pulled tighter, her shirt continued to change. The apple motifs and gap where the button was vanished, and the entire garment suddenly turned blue. Two shades of blue, as a matter of fact. The main body of the shirt turned a darker blue than the sleeves and gloves, which were fairly light in their complexion.

Her shirt suddenly latched onto and merged with her shorts, leaving her in a very odd outfit indeed. As she looked down, her high boots began to shrink down and down, sliding down her feet until they were right at them. The back of the shoe fitted just under her ankle, and the body shrank back until she could clearly see her socks. As her socks vanished, the material shifted, changing from hard worn leather to... glass? Was that a glass slipper?

Applejack then moved her attention to the shorts, or rather what had once been shorts. The legs suddenly merged into one, forming a mini skirt, and this started to grow longer and longer, flowing down her thighs, past her knees, and down to the floor, where it stopped at the floor.

"Aw, shucks! I can't see my feet! How am I supposed to walk in this?"

When it comes to magic, a person should know better than to tempt fate. Applejack suddenly felt a cold chill against her legs as something flowed past them and reached the ground, followed by a gentle whooshing sound as something rustled past on top of them. Applejack knew from her time with Rarity that those were other skirts on the inside. Could this day get any worse?

It could, unfortunately. With a flash and a grown, the skirt began to grow. The fabric stretched, grew, expanded, spreading outwards. The hem covered the ground at a rapid rate, pushing past one foot, then two feet, then three. As it grew in size, Applejack started to lose her balance, amplified when a pair of light blue panniers suddenly burst out of the top.

Applejack feared the skirt would keep growing until she was unable to walk, but just as suddenly as it had started growing it stopped. The patterns that ran along the bottom of the former shorts vanished from view, and the entire skirt turned dark blue. Applejack felt her hair being pulled up into a fancy bun, and with that it seemed it was over.

Applejack stepped forward, feeling utterly ridiculous. She looked like one of those princesses from Disney movies. The skirt wasn't easy to move about with, and got snagged a few times on things.

"Now how did this happen?" she asked herself.

"HIIIII!" Pinkie said, appearing from nowhere.

"Ahhh!" Applejack cried, and fell backwards into the pumpkin patch. Pumpkins exploded, throwing their juice everywhere.

"Now what did you have to do that for? The crop is ruined!"

Pinkie helped Applejack to her feet. "Sorry, but I had to get the news to you! It's new magic!"

Applejack's dress was coated in messy stains, but as they watched the stains faded away as if they had never been there. The pumpkins were also magically restored.

Applejack shook her head. "Well, we're in for a weird day. Any clue what's goin' on?"

"Not really!" Pinkie replied, hopping about with ease despite her giant skirt. "Fluttershy and I just turned into princesses, that's all!"

"Something funny's going on here, and we need to get to the bottom of it." Applejack put a hand to her chin, still unused to the feeling of formal gloves on it. "Let's head down the hill."

As they did so, they saw Pear Butter emerging from a barn. Both girl's jaws dropped when they saw her, and failed to spot other sparks flying through the air.
> Rainbow Dash
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rainbow Dash hummed a merry tune as she picked up her cycle from where she had left it at Sunset's and made her way back home.

Halfway there, who should she meet, but none other than the Canterlot Movie Club. Her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. Weren't they supposed to be back at Rarity's place? And why on Earth were they dressed like the medieval ages?

Apparently, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were just playing around with some things they found in Rarity's house. That was fine, except the fact that they had left the house unlocked and a complete mess.

Everybody present winced as Rarity's shriek of "Sweetie Belle!!" echoed around.

However, none of them were expecting the sudden burst of golden-blue magic that flew everywhere.

"Oof!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, as the aftershock from the yellowy blue blob hit her. "What was that?"

She looked around to see the CMC were still there, and not much seemed to have changed apart from these strange blue and golden sparks flying through the air. The street lights seemed to be playing up too.

She made note of this, but something strange caught her attention. There seemed to be some rustling noise coming from below. Rainbow Dash glanced down and gasped. "What?"

Her shoes were starting to shift and drop in height. They melted downwards until they stopped just above her ankles, and then softened and tightened onto her feet like leather. The laces, front plates, and other covering parts melted away as well as the remains of her shoes turned brown, now looking like some footwear out of a fantasy movie.

Naturally, this raised the question of where the material had gone. She soon got a big clue, as her pants turned dark blue from their usual deep purple, and the rainbow colored lightning bolts faded into them. The ends of the skin tight leggings began to flare out, growing wider and wider as they came into contact with each other, merged, and then became one. This process continued up the legs until it reached the top, meaning that Rainbow Dash was now in a long, ankle length dark blue skirt.

Her reaction was one more of curiosity than concern. Her shirt and jacket melted into one another, the hood vanishing and the remaining fabric connecting the shirt to the skirt, producing a dress. The top remained at the same height as before, but a brown cloak suddenly grew from the back and flowed down to her back.

The sleeves grew longer and eventually reached her elbows, before the ends morphed into puffy cream fabric. Having taken note of this brief interruption, the sleeves then resumed their growth to her wrists, where more cream fabric emerged out and almost to the joint where her elbow stopped and her hand began.

A brown band and a quiver appeared on her waist, followed by a bow materializing on her back.

Rainbow looked over herself as the skirt flared out a little more as another one flowed down inside it. Mercifully, it didn't grow any bigger, and she found she had remarkable freedom of movement whilst wearing it.

The last part were decorations appearing on parts of the skirt. "Check me out!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed. "Good thing I didn't get a stupid dress. At least I can run in this!"

She suddenly looked over to the CMC, who had seemingly undergone their own transformation whilst she had been observing her own. At least, based on how they were excitedly chatting to one another. More large sparks flew through the air as they spoke.

"Err, guys?" Rainbow Dash asked, attracting their attention. "Any idea what's going on here?"

Sweetie Belle spoke up. "Well, it sounds as though Rarity got a bit mad. Maybe a connection there?"

"Bit?" Apple Bloom asked skeptically. "Sweetie, Rarity is a whole lotta mad at us."

"How bout’ we talk to the Princess?" Scootaloo suggested.

"Yeah, we probably should," Rainbow Dash replied, collecting together her things. "I'll head to the portal and see if I can raise her, and you guys see if anybody else needs help!"

The teams all set off in different directions. Rainbow Dash grumbled to herself as she ran along, the wind whistling through her skirts. "Just trust Sunset to choose today of all days to go to Everfree Lake!"

More of the strange sparks floated through the air, and she heard exclamations of surprise and confusion from within buildings she passed. At last, she reached the school, and it seemed as though she was in luck. The portal, surrounded by the strange light fragments, was active and glowing, and as she approached, it started to shimmer and glimmer.

Rainbow's face dropped when she saw who stepped through.





Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom quickly made their way over to the other side of the city. Not far from Rarity’s, they came across Fluttershy, who was dressed in a ballgown version of Snow White's dress.

“Girls!” Fluttershy exclaimed in surprise. “Oh my, you three too got affected by this strange magic.”

Sweetie Belle nodded solemnly. "We think Rarity's anger at us, caused her magic to go haywire."

"We were on our way to see if anyone else needed help" added Apple Bloom.

"And Rainbow Dash's clothes also changed, she's gone to the portal to find Princess Twilight," chimed in Scootaloo.

Fluttershy bobbed her head in understanding. "Well, I myself was looking for any of our other friends who might've got affected by it."

"Anyways, I'll go check on Rarity, Scoots is headed to the main city, while AB is on her way to her farm," said Sweetie Belle.

"I'll look for Twilight then."

The four of them then went in different directions to find out the mystery behind this strange magic that was spreading around Canterlot.




Sweetie Belle rushed as fast as she could on her skates to get to her house. 

"Rarity?" Sweetie called out. "Rarity, where are you? RARITEEEE!!!"

"Over here, Sweetie Belle," Rarity answered from the backyard.

There was rustling of skirts as she made her way over to her sister. Both their jaws dropped open as they took in each other's appearances.

"Why hello there, Sweetie Belle," Rarity said sardonically. "So nice to see you here. Oh, wait- you weren't supposed to go anywhere at all."

Sweetie winced at her sister's tone. 

"I'm sorry Rarity, I really am," she said earnestly. "We didn't mean to make such a mess, we were just bored and had nothing to do. I'm so sorry."

Rarity's face softened. "Oh alright, I forgive you girls. Next time onwards, you're not staying alone by yourself."

Sweetie Belle grinned. "Thank you, thank you Rarity! You're the best." 

She bounded over and enveloped her in a hug. Rarity warmly returned it back.

"Now, let's take a look around town and see what's going on, eh?"

Rarity then reached into her dress pocket and pulled out a key. 

"But first I have to lock the house. We'll clean it up later when this whole mess is sorted," she said with a pointed look.

Sweetie Belle giggled sheepishly.
> Sci-Twi
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flurry Heart giggled as her Aunt Twilight chased her around the house.

"Gotcha," Twilight Sparkle said triumphantly as she scooped up Flurry without missing a beat.

Flurry laughed and snuggled into her aunt.

Oh, how she adored spending time with her lovable niece. Sure, hanging out with the girls every once in a while was fun, but it's not everyday Cadance and Shining Armor ask you to babysit Flurry while they're away doing something important. Originally, she was going to go with her friends for the day trip, but she had to cancel it when Cadance had called her in an hurry. Not that she minded. Not at all.

Twilight checked her watch. Her friends should've probably reached home by now.

She was suddenly startled when a shriek rang out. Flurry whimpered and clutched her tighter.

Twilight held her comfortingly. "Don't worry Flurry, your aunt Twily will keep you safe." She then walked over to the other side of the room and placed Flurry on the sofa, so that she could inspect what was going on.

She was, however spooked by the strange golden-blue light sparks flying around.

"EEEEEKKK!!!" Twilight shrieked and braced for whatever was about to come at her.

Twilight, oddly enough, didn't really feel anything when the ball of light hit her. True, there was a brief, mild sensation of discomfort and a slight electrical surge, when one has been agonizingly changed into a monstrous demonic creature by dark, corrupted magic, any other impact feels minor and insignificant in comparison. She still had a job to do, though. Cadence was relying on her to ensure that Flurry Heart was OK.

She made her way to where Flurry Heart was, namely on the other side of the same room. As she walked, she could've sworn something weird was happening with the other wall. Namely, there was a painting which was about level with the tops of her eyes, only it seemed to be lower than normal.

She stopped momentarily to check if anything was lodged in her shoes. The only problem was that it wasn't her shoes anymore. In place of her normal dark blue shoes with mid range heels were a pair of golden heels. The angle on the heel was ridiculously steep, and was what had caused the apparent drop in height of the painting.

"Is this some sort of magic?" Twilight asked herself, looking down. Most people would probably be screaming their heads off in surprise if this sort of thing happened to them. Twilight, however, was of a scientific mind. This meant that she was instead fascinated, and felt obliged to make notes of what was happening.

She fished out her phone and set it to record her feet, certain this wasn't the end of it.

Alas, it was not. As she pointed the camera at her feet, she saw the pockets on her skirt begin to sink into the fabric, melting away as if they had never been there. "Oh, this is getting a bit weird."

It was about to get weirder. The skirt, which was normally purple, turned a golden color, the start symbols fading away and vanishing. Lines moved down from the waistband to the hem to separate the skirt into bands. Then it began growing. The fabric began to creak slightly as it grew longer. The fabric flowed over her knees, down past her ankles and completely covered over her feet, making it impossible for her to see them.

"OK, my skirt just grew in length. Not something you see every day!"

Twilight shivered as a band attached itself around her waist, underneath her shirt. This band suddenly sprouted vertical metal strands that raced down underneath the skirt and reached the floor. The bands were soon criss crossed with other bands that ran horizontally across the body of the frame, and the bottom was formed together into one other band. This caused the outer skirt to seem lumpy and disjointed.

There was a distinct rustling noise as Twilight could see (and briefly feel) several sets of petticoats growing underneath the skirt but atop the frame. They flowed downwards and to the floor, giving the skirt more volume.

Then, with a creak, the metal frame began to inflate. The skirt spread across the floor, rustling and stretching as it did so. Twilight still tried to calmly document what was happening. "Skirt is inflating and widening at a rapid rate. Fabric appears to be physically growing rather than stretching out. It's also a bit heavy too!"

It soon became apparent that the room Twilight was in had not been furnished with such wide skirts in mind. As it surged past 4 feet, based on Twilight's calculations, it began bumping into things and pushing furniture around. Twilight stepped about to try and mitigate the effect, but breathed an audible sigh of relief as the skirt began to slow down, and stopped growing altogether at six feet.

The fabric on the bottom of her shirt suddenly leaped down and attached itself to the outer skirt, before losing its purple lines and turning gold like the skirt. "My shirt seems to have become a bodice- OW! Seriously, why does this need a corset?"

As she glanced from side to side, she saw her sleeves suddenly start to deflate. They grew smaller and smaller, until the fabric faded into nothingness, and the remaining fabric fell to the side and formed two loops around her shoulders. Her collar shrank back, the bow tie vanished, and the neckline on the shirt dropped until it reached her lower chest, stopping just above her breasts. The fabric loops were now linked into that.

Her hair was then pulled from her signature high ponytail and into a messy half-bun with golden ribbons. Finally, parts of the skirt bulged out as darker golden fabric was run around the bottom, held in place with golden pins. Her bodice turned a darker gold than the skirt, and a pair of evening gloves appeared on her arms as the process seemed to end.

Twilight looked at herself in fascination. "I've never seen anything that can do this before!"

Flurry Heart was aware of Twilight's sudden change, and giggled. "Pwincess!" she said, in between copious quantities of childish garble.

Twilight tried to walk over, but her skirt kept bumping into things and swaying about. "This is ridiculous! This may look nice, but it's really impractical!"

She was just able to get to Flurry and pick her up before the doorbell rang. "Ah! That must be Cadence," Twilight said. She went to the door, forgetting her strange attire, before opening the door.

"Fluttershy?!" she exclaimed. "Why do you look like that?"

"I could ask you the same," Fluttershy replied. "This has happened to Pinkie too!"

Twilight put Flurry Heart down, and raised a hand to her chin. "Perhaps the incantation is unsound," she said. "The fulton particles in the fluoride array have been sometimes perpendicular, but I have never seen them perform complete molecular and atomic reassembly before! THIS IS SO EXCITING!"

Fluttershy blinked. "I don't mean to sound rude, Twilight, but I have no idea what you just said."

"Perhaps the incan-"

"What did you mean?"

"Oh." Twilight blinked. "What it means is that the magic may be wonky. Apologies. Sometimes it's hard to shake my hipopotomonstrosesquipidaliophilia!"

"Never mind hippos!" Fluttershy said. "We need to find a solution to this."

Moments later, a car pulled up on the drive.
> Starlight Glimmer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starlight couldn't explain why, but she had a nagging feeling that there was a huge magical disturbance somewhere.

It had begun only a short while later, and she had tried to ignore it the best she could, but somehow she knew, that something wasn't right.

She just had to find out what it was, her mind wouldn't rest until she figured what was going on.

Just to take a look, and confirm if things were alright, Starlight made her way towards the room in which the portal to the human world lay. She'll be back soon, and hopefully, no-one would miss her for too long.

Starlight used her magic to open the door and trotted inside the room. The portal was open, glittering and shimmering as usual. She took a deep breath and jumped inside.

In her haste, however, she forgot to leave a note to Princess Twilight on her whereabouts.





Rainbow Dash's face fell when she saw Starlight Glimmer come out of the portal from Equestria. She groaned.

"Not happy to see me?" Starlight joked.

Rainbow shook her head. "Now's not the time Starlight. Quick, we need to get a mess-WATCH OUT!"

Starlight Glimmer noticed- too late- the colored blob headed for her.

"Get out of the-" Rainbow Dash began, but it was too late. The golden blue orb of energy slammed into Starlight with the force of a comet, knocking her back towards the portal. Luckily, she didn't go into it, and staggered forwards to try and get her breath back.

"Well, that was weird." Starlight suddenly noticed Rainbow Dash backing up. "What?"

"Just giving you some room for the inevitable," the prismatic haired girl replied.

"What do you mean, the inevitable? And why is there suddenly a metal band around my waist?"

Starlight had no familiarity with this thing that had suddenly attached around her waist, a little way above her hips. She presumed it was some sort of support.

Suddenly, a series of metal bars burst out from the band in all directions, thundering towards the floor at incredible speed in a perfect curve. They roared past her knees and down to the floor. A large metal support band at the bottom formed to hold the shape in the correct place, and a series of further metal strips suddenly ran across the others, moving in a horizontal pattern compared to the earlier vertical pattern.

This left Starlight looking a bit awkward. "Why am I wearing a cage?"

Rainbow Dash sighed. "This is what I was trying to warn you about! Do you think I normally dress like this?"

Starlight Glimmer looked down inside the cage to see her boots begin to change. The heel was still there, and the laces faded to nothingness as the boots melted away like running wax. The fabric dissipated into the air, slowly getting thinner and thinner. The back dropped down to just below her heel, and the tops and sides melted away to reveal her socks, still in pristine condition.

This soon changed as the threads began to split apart and unwind, the cotton spilling over the sides of the shoes and falling to the floor like a puddle, before they faded away entirely.

"These feel really uncomfortable," Starlight admitted, as her heels suddenly glowed and changed to what looked like glass. However, Starlight knew that glass didn't glow like that.

The holes in her jeans stitched themselves together and turned into a completed garment, before the entire set turned white. The complete look was soon ruined, however, as the seams along the sides abruptly tore open from top to bottom, leaving Starlight feeling very awkward.

An odd stitching noise followed up as they were sewn back together, only this time as an incredibly tight ankle length skirt. This was soon corrected, and gained some width, reducing some of the pressure on Starlight's legs. To her surprise, the pockets sank into the skirt and vanished, and more fabric suddenly grew out of it and up the inside of her shirt, forming into a dress of sorts.

"O... Kay, then," Starlight noted. "I've fought crazy bug queens, seen off a crazed film star, and tried to direct a school. But this is easily the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me!"

Alas, it wasn't over. It wasn't even half done. As Starlight looked down, a skirt suddenly erupted from somewhere and flowed down the frame, effortlessly covering all of it with its vast expanse. The skirt was oddly lumpy as it moved against the metal, and was made entire of light blue ruffles.

Imagine her surprise when another skirt formed on top of that, and another, and then three more after that, all flowing downwards and to the floor to cover one another. They did, however, produce an extremely smooth texture that covered up the prior lumpiness.

Two more, flatter layers then emerged on top of that, also growing to the floor and seeming to glow in the light.

Starlight's beanie vanished, followed by her watch, and her shirt began to change. The sleeves shrank back into it, and the purple extensions to the sleeves retreated with them. Not long after this, the neckline dropped to her breasts, and the shoulders were covered by ruffled fabric that soon extended all the way round and down the back, which had opened up to create a backless shirt. The ruffles were blue, a shade soon shown by the entire shirt. The shirt stretched downwards and stopped.

Then as butterfly motifs appeared on the bodice, the final skirt grew out of the bottom in the final wave of expansion, flowing over the prior layers and stopping at the floor, with the process seemingly complete.

Rainbow Dash made her first comment in a while. "It seems everybody looks like a princess these days!"

Starlight looked in awe. "Wow, this feels amazing!" she said, doing a quick twirl and feeling the skirts flowing about.

"Wait, you like it?"

"Like it? I love it! Ever since I saw Rarity's book on period fashion and read about these, I've always wanted to wear one!"

"Yeah, well most of us don't." Rainbow Dash's bluntness rather spoiled the mood. "Can you ask Twilight for help, please? We may need her help to fix this."

Starlight Glimmer nodded. "Oh! Right!" She began whistling to herself as she turned around and tried to go back through the portal.

"Erm, Rainbow? I can't actually fit through the base of the statue. The skirt is too wide!"

There was a loud facepalm. "How big is that thing? Great, the only individual in the area who can go through the portal without causing confusion can't fit through because of a stupid dress!"

"About eight feet across, I estimate," Starlight admitted. "And I have no idea what would happen if I took it through. Do clothes from this world vanish when we get there? If not, I'd be barely able to move as a pony in this lot!"

Rainbow Dash sighed. "Let's go! Other people out here might need help, and we're pretty well qualified to give it!"

Both girls dashed off in the direction of town, one looking a bit annoyed, the other enjoying her newfound fashion tastes perhaps a little too much.
> The Canterlot Movie Club
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To say that their very fun day turned a whole lot weird would be an understatement. What started as a simple game of dressing up, now resulted in facing the wrath of one angry Rarity. Oh, and the strange, blue-gold sparks flying around were weird too.

"Uh-oh," Sweetie Belle whimpered. "Rarity's really mad at us."

"No, really?" asked Scootaloo sarcastically.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes.

To their extreme bewilderment, the Canterlot Movie Club members saw Rainbow Dash's day wear transform into a princess dress that was beautiful, yet practical. And now, the same thing was happening to them too!

Scootaloo was the first to notice any substantial changes to her attire out of all of them. As she glanced over herself, the skirt of her dress began to sparkle and glow in the light. This pattern of light slowly spread over the entire garment, until her entire dress from top to bottom was sparkling with blue intensity. "Well, at least I'll never get lost in the dark again."

It looked as though her side of the changes wasn't done, however. She felt the rustling of fabric as her skirt grew slightly longer. Whereas it had previously been slightly off the ground, now it was in contact with the sidewalk below her. "OK, that'll make walking harder."

Apple Bloom was next. As she glanced down, she gasped as the entire dress suddenly became covered in golden fabric, the skirt being positively covered in the stuff. The patterning continued to weave its way across her dress, the bodice lighting up in a spectacular pattern of golden colours and lines. The sides of the skirt were also covered with more of the elaborate patterning.

Scootaloo then attracted her attention to the back. "I don't quite know how to describe this, Apple Bloom, but your skirt's changing."

"I can see that!" Apple Bloom replied, who then looked behind her. The frame underneath was moving, and her entire skirt was extending backwards. However, it only moved for a few inches before stopping. "Hopefully I can still walk in this."

Sweetie Belle was dreading what would happen to hers. Perhaps this would punish her for her actions by making her dress so big she couldn't move! As she looked down, small crystals suddenly erupted from the skirt and bodice, making the grey and pink sections seem to glow in the light. They seemed to sit there like diamonds, glowing intensely.

There was a groan and a creak from underneath her skirt. "Oh no."

She shivered nervously as her skirt started to grow bigger. Fabric rustled on the ground as the inner layers and the frame inflated like balloons, the outer fabric growing and stretching in size and mass.

"Sweetie Belle, your skirt's growin'!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.

"You think I don't know that?!" Sweetie Belle snapped, as the skirt continued to move outward. "This was such a bad idea!"

Luckily for her, fate was rather more merciful than she had feared. After the skirt had gained an extra foot, it suddenly and inexplicably stopped. "Phew. I thought it would get bigger than that."

"Any ideas what's causin' this?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Clothing can't just change like this!" Scootaloo exclaimed. "It's impossible!"

Apple Bloom facepalmed. "You live in a town which has a portal to a magical horse world and gets attacked by magic crazed supervillains at least one a week. And THIS is the weird bit for you?"

Sweetie Belle was very silent. "This is kinda my fault," she said sheepishly.

"Why?" the other two girls chorused.

"If I hadn't messed up the house or suggested we take these dresses, we wouldn't be in this mess, nor would the city!"

"Err, guys?" Rainbow Dash asked, attracting their attention. "Any idea what's going on here?"

Sweetie Belle spoke up. "Well, it sounds as though Rarity got a bit mad. Maybe a connection there?"

"Bit?" Apple Bloom asked skeptically. "Sweetie, Rarity is a whole lotta mad at us."

"How bout’ we talk to the Princess?" Scootaloo suggested.

"Yeah, we probably should," Rainbow Dash replied, collecting together her things. "I'll head to the portal and see if I can raise her, and you guys see if anybody else needs help!"

The teams all set off in different directions.





Apple Bloom and Scootaloo broke off with Sweetie Belle as they all went their separate ways. Her to the farm, Scoots to the main city, and Sweetie to Rarity's.

Apple Bloom hurried as fast as she could to her farm. Upon reaching there, she was surprised to see both Pinkie Pie and Applejack, both in fancy dresses.

"Apple Bloom," Applejack said sternly. "I take it you and the others have something to do with this?"

AB nodded. "I'm really sorry Applejack, we didn't mean to cause such a mess. But now, Rarity's angry and there are weird golden blue sparks around the city which is changing everybody's clothes!"

Applejack sighed. "Don't fret sugar, I'm not mad at you. The important thing is that you learnt from your mistakes and that's what matters the most. Now, let's find out what is going on around the city."

"OKIE DOKIE LOKIE!!" Pinkie agreed, bouncing around.





Meanwhile, Scootaloo was on her way to the main city. She stopped, took a U-turn and went back towards Diamond Tiara's house. Somehow, she just had to check whether or not these two girls were also affected by Rarity's magic.

Back at Diamond Tiara's, she and Silver Spoon were chatting as they sipped orange juice. It was Silver Spoon who first noticed that something was amiss.

"Um, Diamond," Silver began shakily. "What is-AAAHHH!!"

Diamond's own words died at her throat.

Two glowing orbs were thundering their way, and there was no time to move. Diamond Tiara tried to move, but her heavy skirt meant she was slightly too slow. It slammed into her with the force of a thunderclap, causing her to step backwards to avoid falling over. She knew from experience that getting up after falling over in one of these things was not particularly easy. "You OK, Silver?" she asked, as she turned around.

Silver Spoon pushed her glasses back up her face. "I think so," she said, before looking down and nearly jumping in surprise.

"YOUR DRESS!" both girls said in unison. "IT'S CHANGING!"

And indeed they were. Diamond Tiara looked in shock as the edges of her dress suddenly lit up, golden fabric and lining sprouting from the edges of the panniers and the hem of the skirt, glowing intensely as they spread across and merged into glorious lines of color. Her bodice also glowed furiously as more of the golden fabric stitched its way through, producing light all by itself as it snaked across and around. It almost looked like a black version of Apple Bloom's dress.

Silver Spoon's gained similarly elaborate patterning, spreading all over the dress she was wearing. Golden fabric flowed along her bodice. Her expression changed from one of panic to one of wonder as the process ran along, running up and down her sleeves, across the bodice, and along the edges of her skirt as a series of curved panniers formed on the side, looking thoroughly deflated.

As golden lining ran through her hem, which now looked almost yellow in the light, her skirt suddenly popped outwards with a flash, happening so fast Silver Spoon could barely register it happening. As the skirt settled into its full size and shape, the panniers inflated to their correct positions, and a hoopskirt and several layers of petticoats formed underneath to support the skirt. Despite the sudden change in weight, Silver Spoon seemed happy. She did a twirl and grinned with glee as her skirts rustled and flew up. "Instant princess! Just add water! I just wonder why it happened so quickly?"

The same was not true of Diamond Tiara's transformation. The dress had no intention whatsoever of quickly transforming. With a groaning sound and a surge of light, her skirt slowly began to inflate. It bulged as it continued to push outwards. The outer hem rubbed across the ground, collecting small bits of dirt and rubbish as it expanded, slowly pushing any unwanted detritus aside as it expanded.

It soon pushed past an extra foot in width and kept growing.

"This is ridiculous!" Diamond snapped. "Stop growing, you stupid thing!"

The skirt ignored her request. In fact, it actually seemed to hear her frustration, as instead it sped up. With a blinding flash it suddenly blasted out to six feet, but then just as suddenly stopped.

Diamond Tiara looked down in confusion. "Firstly, how do I suddenly have such a massive dress, and second, HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WALK IN THIS THING!"

Silver Spoon suddenly noticed Scootaloo there, who had been watching the whole thing. "Stop laughing, it's not funny! Mind you, it's not easy walking around in this one either. Oh well."

Scootaloo stepped out of the bushes, her own dress still glowing from earlier. "Calm down, guys! I think yours have stopped now."

"They better have," Diamond Tiara said. "I think this is quite big enough to be honest."

"Doesn't your mom sometimes wear one that big?" Silver Spoon asked innocently.

"Yes, but she's also a fair bit taller than me!" Diamond Tiara snapped. "Is there anything we can be doing?"

Scootaloo nodded. "Rarity's magic is causing all these changes. We think it might have affected everybody in Canterlot, so we need to gather everybody together and see they are alright. Can you guys form a search party?"

"We can do that!" Silver Spoon grinned. "Besides, we make equally good princesses to you, if not better! Fancy a battle of the ballgowns at some point?"

"Suit yourself," Scootaloo smiled. "And maybe. Though I suspect I have an edge."

Diamond smirked. "I can do this," she said... and immediately fell flat on her face, her skirts flying up as she landed. "Or, maybe not. RANDOLPH!"
> Rumble, Tender Taps, and Button Mash
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rumble knew he was in for a very strange day indeed.

Not only had he just heard a loud scream echoing over the city, he had also witnessed three close friends of his (and his crush, although he would never admit it) whizz past in clothing from other eras. As much as Scootaloo had looked adorable, he suspected the clothing had been borrowed without permission.

And now he had just been hit by a strange blob, which had left him somewhat disoriented. As the light returned, the skies were filled with light, and blue and yellow particles floated around on confusing air currents that made little sense to him. He decided to check what was going on with his friends, so reached into a pocket to recover his phone and call Button Mash, just in case he had any clue what was going on.

As he reached in, his hand brushed against some oddly soft fabric. Funny. He could have sworn he was wearing sports shorts today. He glanced down to check, and his eyes widened like dinner plates in shock.

Where his shorts had once been a dull blue, they were now red! They stood out like Rudolph's nose on a foggy Christmas Eve, and as he observed closer they grew longer, flowing down his legs, over his knees, and down to just above his ankles, where they stopped. Mercifully, the pockets remained, but a golden line ran down the sides of the legs as the top of the pants were held in place by a newly added zip and button.

"OK, this is getting a bit weird," Rumble said, in an echo of what had come before from others. This weirdness was only reinforced when his favorite pair of trainers shifted, the laces being sucked into them and the empty space being covered in hard wearing leather. Small heels pushed out of the back as he tried to regain balance, but it wasn't easy to maintain balance in these. As if to add to the confusion, they shifted into a pair of brown boots.

Rumble's shirt expanded, gaining a collar, buttons down the front, and the sleeves grew down to his wrists, before the entire garment turned a pristine white. "I look even more stupid than normal. At least this isn't as bad as that camp I made a mess of."

Finally, his sports vest turned khaki. A collar surged out of the top and closed shut around his neck, gaining a light yellow plate to clasp it shut, and long sleeves grew out of the sides that ran all the way to his wrists, before the cuffs seemed to fold back slightly. A belt materialised around his waist, presumably to keep everything held up as a pair of epaulettes appeared on his shoulders.

Just as suddenly as it had all started, it just as suddenly stopped. Rumble was more confused than worried at what had just happened. "I'm pretty certain clothing isn't meant to do that. Time to get Button on the horn."

He unlocked his phone and checked the display.

No bars.

"Great! No bars, and no way of communicating. Perhaps the landline is still working." Rumble set off for his door, but it was slow going. "These boots are really uncomfortable. And why are my pants so stiff?"

He was almost back to the inside of his house when he suddenly heard a familiar voice. "Hey Rumble!"

Rumble suddenly wheeled around, a trick which would normally have been easy had he been wearing his normal shoes. Unfortunately the boots gave him a completely new center of gravity, which resulted in him falling over. "Ow! Scootaloo, you made me jump!"

"And more, it would seem," his friend replied, before she came through his gate and helped him up. "You know, this is an interesting reversal of the usual fairytale setup."

"Tell me about it," Rumble sighed. "I only ended up like this a few minutes ago."

"It seems everybody's clothes are being transformed by the energy," Scootaloo noted. Seeing the look of confusion on Rumble's face, she continued. "We kinda made a mess of Rarity's house and it seems as though she reacted badly to that."

"So badly she's inadvertently changing people's clothes," Rumble sighed. "I tried to contact Button to see if he's OK, but it seems the magic you refer to is blocking cell signal. I'll have to try and see if the landline is working properly, or else we may be on our own."

"I'm trying to find other people affected by this," Scootaloo said. "Would you want to join the search party?"

"Sure," Rumble said. "Anything to get me out of this stupid thing. The dress suits you, though."

"Thanks!" Scootaloo grinned. "Now then, should we make the call?"

"Yes," Rumble nodded. "Now, what's Button's home number?"

"Wouldn't it be in the phone book?" Scootaloo asked, as they made their way indoors.

"Who on Earth has a phone book these days?" Rumble retorted, as he found his way to the landline. Luckily, it seemed to still be responding based on the voicemails currently on it. "Good, the machine is still working. Seems that anything with a cable is still working. It would seem, though, that Wi-Fi and internet (unless wired) is also down."

"Have you checked?"

"I would, but sitting down or bending over in this lot is incredibly difficult," Rumble replied. "I think the pants may be slightly too tight for me."

He punched in the land number and started the dial sequence. It took a few seconds for the number to engage, but when it did the device rang out successfully, proving the connection had worked.

Except nobody picked up.

"This is Elaina Mash. If you can hear this message, I am currently away. Please call back later or leave a message after the tone."

"Maybe they've gone away?" Scootaloo suggested.

"Or Button has his headphones on again," Rumble sighed. "You know, precisely as his mom tells him not to!"





Tender Taps couldn't understand why it was suddenly seeming like rain outside. There had been a loud screech that had caught him off guard, followed by these strange lights all over the place. These lights flew about wherever you looked, and kept lighting up and reflecting off the sunlight. However, they were so dense that they seemed to blot the sun out.

"Well, this is weird," he said, shutting the dance manual he had open. CHS' musical theatre department were doing Singing in the Rain this year, and were using the original choreography from the film. Naturally, he was learning Gene Kelly's moves to ensure he didn't mess up (not easy as he needed to sing at the same time).

He glanced out of the window in confusion as he saw giant blobs flying about the sky, randomly crashing into things. "What the?"

This meant he was caught rather off guard when he saw a blob change course and head straight for him!

"Oh no!" he shouted, diving under the table and covering his ears. Seconds later, there was a bright flash from underneath said table which blinded Tender Taps for a few seconds. He pulled himself out once the light had cleared up, and looked about for any signs of anything odd.

Nothing. Then why did his feet feel weird.

Tender began to panic. Maybe it was like in that weird story he read where a golden apple caused everybody to turn into horses? He didn't want that.

He glanced down to immediately see the cause of the problem. His shoes were now a different design and color, that was all, now black instead of their previous brown. They also looked more like formal business shoes. Nothing to be concerned about.

Wait, WHAT?

Tender Taps' leg warmers suddenly vanished from his legs into the ether, the fabric floating up and into his vest for some reason, and this was followed by his pants morphing and changing, gaining creases at the front and back, and a zip on the front. The button stayed in roughly the same location, but two pockets appeared on the side, as well as another at the back of the pants themselves, which seemed to continue the business suit theme.

The vest then got the memo to change as it became longer, sliding into his pants and becoming tucked in. A white collar grew out of the top of the vest and curled over, before doing itself up at the top. "Ow! That's a bit tight!"

The next stage concerned a tie appearing underneath the collar and rolling downwards to the bottom of his shirt. The tie was in alternating orange and yellow stripes, and stood out horribly from the rest of the shirt.

As a black suit jacket appeared on his shoulders and on top of his shirt, his hair was slicked back, and slightly adjusted at the back to a cut very reminiscent of that worn by performers such as Frank Sinatra in the 1950s. The strange glowing lights seemed to have temporarily stopped, and as Tender Taps glanced out of the window he saw a pair of girls go by in giant frocks.

He glanced back to his suit and immediately felt better. "I guess I got lucky." He quickly tried the shoes as he stepped forward. Normally, he found that if his footwear had a slight spring in it, it helped him maintain momentum and avoid falling over. And this was not only allowing him to keep his momentum going, it also meant that his balance was slightly easier too!

"Alright!" he smiled, referring back to the manual. "This should be simpler now. At least I won't need to work with those for the time being."

He was about to go back to his work when he suddenly saw somebody approaching outside. He glanced through the window and his jaw dropped.

It was his friend, Apple Bloom. She was still in the same dress as earlier, but somehow she managed to look even more stunning than she had before. In order to spare her having to squeeze her dress through the gate, he instead went outside and walked over to his white, cleanly kept picket fence, leaning on it and suddenly looking like he had been plucked straight out of a film about 1950s suburbia.

"Heya Tender Taps!" Apple Bloom smiled, stopping to talk to him. "Yer lookin' great! That suit really, well, erm, 'suits' you?"

Tender Taps laughed. "Thanks, Apple Bloom. Considering what some people who passed by earlier ended up in, I guess I got lucky. I can still walk about in this and breathe normally."

Apple Bloom looked confused. "Huh?"

"Don't you wear these really tight things with those?"

Apple Bloom suddenly clicked what he was talking about. "Oh! Those corset thingies Rarity sometimes talks about. By the way, her magic is causin' this."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"You tell me, Gene." Apple Bloom smiled. "You look just like him now, you know. Or Frank Sinatra."

"I don't think either man had orange skin or purple hair," Tender Taps noted. "I guess that would make you my Ginger Rogers."

"Good luck to me doing anythin' backwards and in high heels," Apple Bloom replied. "Can ya think of anybody else who may need help?"

Suddenly, there was a voice from upstairs. "Tender? Can you help me please? I can't get my skirt through the door!"

"Sure thing mom!" Tender Taps replied. He then pointed down the road. "Miss Cheerilee lives not far from here. I think some other members of staff live nearby, so it could be worth checking if they need help."

"Thanks!" Apple Bloom replied, and quickly took off. Tender was amazed at the speed she could move in the dress she was wearing. He figured she was just used to it by now.

"Oh well, it could easily have been worse," he thought to himself, as he went back indoors. "Here's hoping Rumble and Button Mash are OK."





Rarity and Sweetie Belle hurried away from their house and towards the main city. Originally, they were going to use Rarity's car but.....well, Rarity couldn't really drive in her dress. So, they went on their way, not being slowed down by their skirts as by now they had gotten somewhat used to wearing it.

They then came across a very familiar someone.

"Button! Hey Button, over here," Sweetie Belle called.

Button came running towards them, dressed nicely in a blue suit with black pants.

"Rarity, Sweetie Belle," he panted out. "Good to see you-whoa! Sweetie.....you.....look....really pretty."

Sweetie Belle giggled. "Thanks Button. You don't look too bad yourself."

Rarity smiled knowingly. "Hello Button dear, I'm guessing you already know what is happening from your friends?"

Button Mash nodded. "Wellllll......"





A few minutes earlier...





Just as Rumble had predicted, Button Mash had been indoors with his headphones on, as was his custom. This meant that, unfortunately, he could not see or hear other things going on, as he was using a VR headset.

Although he couldn't see or hear the outside world, he could feel his stomach growl, indicating now was time to eat. He took the headset off, paused the game, and went into the kitchen to prepare himself something.

His eyes glanced over the home phone, and he noticed it had a missing message, so he picked it up and dialed the number.

"Hello?"

"Hey Button, this is Rumble."

"How ya doin', bud?"

"No time to chat. Unless you've been hit already you need to watch out for a large blob. After it hits you, it will transform your clothes."

Button blinked. "What?"

"It sound crazy, but-"

The line abruptly cut out, and Button looked out of the window. Strange sparks flew through the air around him. "Oh, cool! This is just like in Storm of Glory!"

Then the big one hit him. "OW!" The impact hurled him across the room and landed him next to the door, dislodging his trademark propeller hat which he never took off. "Looks like the batteries need checking," he said, forgetting completely about his journey and taking a look.

As he fiddled with the battery compartment, he thought he saw something black on his slacks. He glanced down, and noticed the color was streaking across them, changing them from casual wear to looking like something a prince would wear in those period dramas his mom liked.

"Hey, this must be what Rumble was talking about!" he said, with a grin on his face. "This will save me loads of money for clothes!"

His brown and white shoes hardened into a pair of black boots, which gave him plenty of lower support, and as he stood up he noticed that they were slightly tight in the back. "Hmm. I could ask Rarity to adjust them for me. These boots and pants are a bit tight!"

His orange and white T shirt suddenly turned white all over, and grew a collar which went up to his neck. This folded over and the top button closed as a white cravat threaded its way in through the collar.

More buttons appeared up and down the shirt, signaling the end of its days as a T shirt, whilst an elaborate blue jacket appeared on his person, complete with golden trim all over the place and blue buttons. The sheer number of buttons was apt, given his name.

"Well, this is interesting," he said, as he looked in a mirror. "I wouldn't look out of place in old Europe!"

Just then, he saw Rarity and Sweetie Belle outside, and went to join them.





Now...





"...So, yeah, that's it, basically," Button Mash finished.

Rarity put a hand to her chin. "So it would seem this magic affects men as well. If that's the case, producing a counter spell, should we need one, will prove to be quite the headache."

"Mind if I come with you guys?" Button asked.

"Well, does your mother let you?"

"She's in Maretime Bay for the weekend, and won't be getting back until Sunday night."

Sweetie Belle bit her lip. "That doesn't give us long to clean this mess up!"

"I suppose you can join us," Rarity pondered. "Do try to keep up darling."

"Noted," Button said, and after locking the door joined the pair. "Say, Sweetie Belle, that's a nice dress. Fancy a dance?"
> Celestia and Luna
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Celestia whistled merrily to herself as she finished the last of her chores and sat down on her couch. A perfect weekend to relax. And what's better than to do some gardening to relax? Nothing else, that's what!

Celestia loved her greenhouse. Filled with a generous amount of plants and exotic flowers, it was truly a picture of great beauty. She was so lost in tending to her plants that she didn't notice when a scream rang out in the air.

Or, maybe she did and just brushed it aside, thinking it to be nothing out of the ordinary. After all, they dealt with magic-crazed villains from a horse world on a daily basis. Yeah, nothing new there really.

Her first awareness of the situation, so caught up was she in her gardening, was a bright flash coming from somewhere near her position. She quickly covered her eyes to shield them from the light and any unwanted radiation, fearing that the worst had come to the worst and a second Cherneighbyl had happened just down the road..

She looked up out of her greenhouse and through the glass to see strange particles floating through the air, all of them glowing intensely and leaving blue and golden trails streaking through the sky. "Well, this is strange," Celestia said.

Suddenly, there was a voice. "Is everything OK in there?"

Celestia quickly glanced about to see if any of her plants were talking, as had happened the last time strange energies had been around. "I'm fine, thank you! But thanks for checking, Luna!"

"I shall put some tea on if you would like," Luna replied.

"That would be nice. Thank you!"

As Luna made her way indoors, Celestia decided to check the news on her phone, reaching down to the pocket on her jacket to take it out.

Only her pocket was no longer there. Her phone had landed on the floor, as the garment it had been in was currently in the process of sinking into her shirt.

"Oh my," was Celestia's decidedly muted reaction to what was happening. She bent down anyway to pick the phone up and take a closer look at what was going on nearby, only to have no signal. "Bother!"

Her golden jacket had almost completely faded into her shirt by this point, sinking in like it was melting. It was at once fascinating and confusing to watch. Celestia could only conclude that Equestrian Magic was at it again, but she had never seen it do this before.

The first thing she noticed was the sleeves of her shirt growing longer, presumably from all the fabric absorbed from her jacket. The sleeves flowed down her arms, curved round the bits where her elbows were, continued down her forearm, and then reached her wrists, where after pointing out slightly, they stopped growing. Golden trim formed on the pointed part.

The purple line running across her shirt began to lighten, until it had faded from view completely. What happened next surprised Celestia. The neckline and shoulders of the shirt began to shrink down, sliding down her front, past her neck, and dropping further and further still. The sleeves dropped down to partway below her shoulder, before suddenly puffing outwards to the sides and gaining a similar pointed element to the ends of her sleeves with golden lining and trim. The next stage was the middle of her shirt dropping down past her collarbone, down her chest, and stopping when it reached the front of her breasts, leaving some of her cleavage exposed to see.

"Not my immediate choice of clothing," Celestia noted, as golden lines flowed up and down the sides of her now thoroughly transformed shirt, and along the top of the bodice. A golden necklace with a purple gem set into it appeared around her neck whilst a golden tiara, also with a purple gem, appeared on her head.

"Principal!" called a voice from outside. Celestia looked over and saw Rainbow Dash outside, calling to her.

"Hello Rainbow Dash, what can I do for you?" Celestia asked, momentarily forgetting the sheer absurdity of what was happening to her.

"You may want to leave the greenhouse whilst you still can! You may get a big dress!"

Celestia wasted no time in exiting the greenhouse. And she made it just in time. As she was walking to the door, her shirt suddenly merged into her pants. As she opened the door, the button holding them in place were it not for her shirt vanished, and the zip faded into them as well (the pants, not the button), which left Celestia with a very strange looking garment indeed.

She made her way out of the door and locked it behind her, dropping the key into her pocket. Or rather she would have had the pocket still been there, for both of them had suddenly sewn themselves up, the interior of the pocket merging into her existing clothing. "This is getting rather awkward."

She was shortly clear of the door, with plenty of space, when the legs began to merge together. The divide between them closed up, and spread down towards her feet. The legs then seemingly melted into each other like cheese melting on a hot slice of toast, and before long Celestia had a dress with an ankle length skirt.

"Well, this doesn't seem too bad. A tiny bit low cut for my taste, but nothing too bad."

Unfortunately, Celestia just had to tempt fate. With those words, the skirt began to grow again. It flowed down and over her feet, rendering her unable to see her feet (Celestia already had heels on, so she suspected those would not get affected if this was going the way she thought it was).

The skirt turned white in a similar manner to the purple band that had once existed on her shirt turned bodice, and a golden set of places with a purple gem clasp appeared around her waist. Golden lines flowed down the front of her skirt as some of it folded back slightly to reveal some other layers. Celestia felt something flow down her legs, followed by something cold and metallic atop that. The rustling that followed suggested some fabric layers atop that as well.

Then, with a bright flash, the skirt started to grow. It expanded across the ground and grass at an increasingly rapid rate, the fabric flowing out of the dress and allowing it to gain a wider and wider span. It stretched across the ground, an endless expanding dome that pushed onwards.

Celestia's face had changed from one of concern to partial delight. "It looks like a flower in bloom!"

As she noted this, more lining and fabric was added to the skirt, allowing it to expand ever more quickly. It grew relentlessly, sweeping across the ground with a loud rustling that made it clear to all who witnessed it what was happening.

Celestia was almost disappointed when it began to slow down. I say almost, as she was fully aware of the growing weight on her hips as the dress expanded. It slowed, spluttered forward a few more inches, and then stopped completely.

The Principal of Canterlot High School looked over her new clothes in a mixture of confusion and wonder. "Well, this was not what I was anticipating would happen today. But that's not really an issue. This may just be my inner child speaking, but I feel like a princess."

Rainbow Dash sniggered at that.

"Is something funny?"

Rainbow Dash spoke up quickly. "According to Twilight, your counterpart in Equestria is also a princess, so this may be-"

"Somewhat apt?" Celestia said, starting to step forward. Her skirt swayed as she walked, gently rocking back and forth with her motion. She then stopped, momentum nearly keeping her moving. "It is a bit impractical, and somewhat heavy."

"This seems to be happening to everybody," Rainbow Dash explained. "People's clothes are being changed by Equestrian magic, and Starlight can't go back to ask Twilight for help as her dress can't fit through the statue. I was wondering if you had any way of contacting her?"

"I'm afraid not," Celestia replied. "As far as I know, the only one who can is Sunset Shimmer."

Rainbow Dash sighed. "And none of us can get to her as she's up in the hills, and none of us can drive there for obvious reasons."

Suddenly, the pair heard a cry of surprise from inside the house. Celestia picked up her skirts and rushed to the door. "Luna!" She then got stuck. She looked back. "Rainbow Dash, I am aware this is most undignified, but could you give me a push?"




Luna hummed as she turned on the gas and put on the kettle for tea. After doing so, she turned towards the living room, for some peace and quiet.

True to her nature, she preferred to keep the blinds shut and use less light as much as possible.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, meditating in the peaceful environment. That is, until she was interrupted by a bright flash of light.

Luna was confused at the sudden burst of light. She liked to keep the lights off as much as possible during the day, and the sun had been very intense so she had closed the curtains, leaving the house in a beautiful shade of darkness that left her in a state of peaceful contemplation.

Only for this to have been interrupted by this blast of light. The intense light had messed up her vision, so she waited to try and let it clear.

Although she could barely see, she could hear what sounded like a strange hissing noise, like somebody was pumping a tire full of air. She tried to figure out who could be using a bicycle pump at this point in the day. Celestia, maybe?

Luna wandered over to a light, but seemed to be having a harder time than usual getting there, as if something was constraining her movement. She wasn't wearing anything of the sort, so this had her concerned. She finally made it to the light switch and switched it on.

She gasped when she saw what was causing the problem. Her pants seemed to be filling with air. Whereas they were normally form fitting, they were bulged, and expanding in size as she looked on. This was what seemed to be producing the hissing sound. "What in the world is going on?"

As they continued to be stretched and inflated, they began to creak, indicating they were reaching their limits. With a sudden pop, a seam went. Then another. Then another.

In a series of sudden and loud pops and bangs, the seams on her pants tore open from top to bottom, fabric ripping and splitting as something tore them to oblivion. Luna could see something blue underneath them, but had little time to react as the blue object suddenly exploded outwards, flinging the ruins of her previous clothes across the room.

Fabric poured out into the room like a tidal wave, expanding rapidly into a giant dome. Skirts and extra layers formed underneath as a metal frame popped into existence, sitting on Luna's hips. The skirt popped out into a dome shape, with sections slowly bulging outwards further than some others to produce a ridged look.

"What sorcery is this?" Luna exclaimed, suddenly shocked to be in a massive skirt that took up a considerable portion of the room.

The collar of her shirt sank down her body and morphed into a light blue, flat band of fabric that looped round her neck gently. Her shirt tore itself open around her breasts, leaving parts of the top exposed whilst keeping a modest form. Her sleeves inflated until they were the size of small beach balls, and turned a light blue. The same color as the skirt, to be precise.

As her shirt latched onto the skirt and formed a dress, the bodice, as it was now, turned a very dark blue as the light blue fabric loops were held in place by a dark blue disk with a symbol of the moon on it. Luna gritted her teeth as her waist was suddenly sucked in by a corset, which proved to be extremely uncomfortable as she disliked wearing such constraining things.

Finally, a small blue crown materialised on her head. Luna, panting from not only the confusion but also having to breath harder thanks to her constrained waist, looked on in a mixture of confusion and concern. "I simply do not understand. What causes one's clothes to suddenly become like a ballgown? I must look ridiculous!"

Suddenly, she heard rustling outside a window. She went over to it and opened it, seeing a girl with pink skin standing there. Also wearing a massive dress.

"Oh, hello!" the girl replied. "I'm Starlight Glimmer. Rainbow Dash said I was to look for Vice Principal Luna. I presume you are her?"

"Yes," Luna replied, "although I must more closely resemble a princess right now with all this ridiculous finery on. Tell me, how are you attired such as you are?"

"Strange magic is changing everybody's clothes," Starlight replied. "I, for one, kinda like it!"

"Alas, some of us do not," Luna replied. "This will take some getting used to. But I wonder why these things? Such voluminous skirts do not easily lend themselves to daily living."

Suddenly, Pinkie Pie appeared. "HI! Everybody's wearing these things because the two authors of this story really like poofy dresses and it makes for some really fun writing and description!"

"Ahhh!" Luna cried. "How did you get in here?"

"If she's like the Pinkie I know, it's best not to question it," Starlight sighed.

The door suddenly opened, and Celestia appeared- and got wedged in the door. "Rainbow Dash, I am aware this is most undignified, but could you give me a push?"

"Coming right up!" Rainbow Dash shoved Celestia through, and the Principal popped through, her skirt popping back into shape moments later.

"Greetings, dear sister," Celestia said, in a mock formal tone, and curtsying as she did so. "Pray tell, how goes the realm today?"

Luna rolled her eyes. "Sister, you are enjoying this FAR too much. I know you loved dressing up as princesses as a child, but the practicalities of these clothes, or lack thereof, are making things very difficult. I cannot fit through doorways, for example."

"Should we discuss the matter and come up with a plan to get everybody into one place?" Celestia asked.

"Of course," Luna said. She then turned to Pinkie, but Pinkie had vanished. "How strange. Starlight, you had better come inside too. It is rather difficult conducting an entire series of negotiations through a window."
> Cheerilee
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cheerilee flipped through the pages of the book as she revised the course for her upcoming class. It was the weekend and as a teacher, she felt it was better to be prepared in advance for the classes on Monday.

She nodded thoughtfully at the current chapter. ‘Learning all about Flora and Fauna.’

Cheerilee then decided to make the lesson more interesting by using some practical examples. And for that, she needed to pay a visit to the local garden.

She picked up a bag to collect the samples in, and then locked the house behind her. The garden was only a short walking distance from her house, and she needn't not use her car.

Cheerilee smiled as she reached the park. It was so calm and peaceful, who wouldn't want to come here? She carefully plucked a few leaves and some flowers, satisfied these would be enough. As she went to pick one last flower, she was startled by a screech that rang out around.

Nearby other people also looked around, some alarmed and some curious. A few had questions, and that was soon  answered.

"LOOK!", someone screamed, pointing in the air. "What on earth is that?"

Indeed, there were strange blue and golden sparks flying around, and now some people, terrified, had started to flee the place. The balls then hit some, but nothing seemed to happen.

For a fleeting moment, Cheerilee wondered if that might be Equestrian magic.

Before she could think it over, a bright ball of light came rushing towards her and hit into her.

"Oof," Cheerilee groaned, stumbling back from the impact.

Cheerilee was getting a very strange sense of deja vu. When the blast of light had hit her, she couldn't help but feel something like this had happened before, and as she looked around more of those strange particles danced through the sky, the result being surprisingly beautiful. Or rather it would have been were it not for the strange circumstances and the fact that more of those large objects were flying around.

Not that it helped that Cheerilee was beginning to feel a bit off. Something seemed to be squeezing her feet, and as she looked down she noticed her brown boots seemed to be shrinking. She frowned. The lime green protector fabric, meant to stop the boots from rubbing against her legs, vanished, and the green laces holding the boots on unravelled and shifted, eventually moving away from the boot completely and flying into the ether, completely uninhibited and never to be seen again.

What remained of her boots turned green, and before long they began to shrink down her legs, gradually getting shorter and shorter. They descended down her lower legs, past the back of her lower leg, and finally stopped just above her heel. The tops of her now shoes then opened up to the elements, revealing her socks, and the rear heel increased in incline as it did so, pushing Cheerilee up slightly. Her shoes then turned entirely green, putting her in a pair of green heels.

Cheerilee sighed with irritation when she realized where this was going. She remembered where she had seen this before, about a year or two ago when she'd been out shopping for school supplies. Some cold and metallic attached into place around her waist, and as a metal frame emerged from underneath her skirt and descended towards the ground, she shook her head and sighed. "Oh not again."

The frame eventually reached the ground and stopped, leaving Cheerilee looking very silly indeed. Thankfully, fate had no intention of leaving her looking so ridiculous, so a cream colored skirt also flowed down from inside her... skirt, and grew to the floor to cover up the frame and help keep the shape right. This was then followed by another to eliminate the 'lumpy' texture only a single skirt over a metal frame would produce. And we wouldn't want Miss Cheerilee wearing a lumpy skirt, would we? That would be most undignified.

As she tried to figure out what would happen next, the outer skirt, the original skirt she had been wearing, turned a lighter shade of green than normal, and the flower patterns that covered it faded away until there was no trace they had ever been there. Moments later, it glowed briefly, and then began to grow. It lazily drifted down the other skirts she was wearing and stopped shortly before the floor. Moments after that, there was another bright flash, and with a groan the skirts began to expand in width.

Cheerilee had seen some weird things in her times as a teacher as Canterlot High (including her own clothes being changed into replicas of the sort of things she wore in her college days), but a skirt growing in width had to be the most ridiculous thing to have happened to her personally. Having said that, she was very relieved when it slowed down, having expanded across the ground very rapidly and moved leaves and other objects away from her. It stopped expanding at about four feet in width, she estimated, which left her very glad. She knew how big these things could get, and was thankful hers would not be one of them.

A line of ruffled fabric ran across the halfway point of the skirt, and another formed at the bottom of the hem as an extra section of fabric flowed down and reached the ground. The area in between turned into three tiers of ruffled fabric, giving it the appearance of a layer cake.

Now it was the turn of her shirt and vest to change. The vest started off by simply vanishing into thin air, never to be seen again. Her shirt, on the other hand, was here to stay. The collar sank back into her shirt, which then turned green, same shade as her skirt. The sleeves pulled back slightly to reveal more of her upper arms, whilst the neckline dropped considerably at the front and the back. The sleeves puffed up slightly, and ruffled fabric ran round the front and back of the neckline. The buttons vanished from the shirt, but thankfully the magic stitched the shirt up as a bodice, before using the fabric from the vest to attach the shirt to Cheerilee's skirt. A ruffled section of fabric emerged from the bottom of the bodice to more cleanly mark the transition from it to the skirt.

More green fabric with ruffles on it flowed out of the front of her bodice and flowed down to the previously mentioned line, whilst at the back similar fabric grew down to the bottom of the skirt and stopped, with a ridge section around her sides.

Cheerilee picked the skirt up to examine the engineering. "Hmm," she said to herself. "If I can keep this, it would certainly make a handy teaching tool!"

"Hello Miss Cheerilee!" called three voices. She glanced up to see Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom approaching, all of whom were done up in a similar level of finery.

"Hello Apple Bloom! What brings you three here? And why are you dressed up to the nines?"

"Rarity's magic is transforming everybody's clothes," Apple Bloom quickly explained. "Me, Sweetie Belle, an' Scootaloo are going round to see if anybody needs help."

Cheerilee sighed, resisting the urge to correct Apple Bloom's grammar. "Not again. Well, as you can see they already got to me. And here I am, trying to collect samples and looking like I escaped from Gone with the Wind."

Apple Bloom looked closely. "Hey, that dress looks familiar. Isn't it in one of our textbooks as an illustration?"

Cheerilee had a brainwave. She quickly went indoors, her skirts rustling and swaying as she went along, and emerged outdoors again after a few moments. "Here it is! Page 132, absolutely right. By some strange coincidence, I was looking at those pages whilst writing a lesson plan this morning."

Apple Bloom spoke up. "Does this mean people can subconsciously influence their clothes changin'? That, or the magic just has a really weird sense of humor."

"You say this is happening to everybody, right?" Cheerilee asked. When the girls nodded, she continued. "Then I can't stand around here in my garden." She went through the gate, her skirt giving her about an inch to spare, and closed it, having already locked her house. "I'll join you and help out."

"I don't mean to be rude, Miss Cheerilee, but are you sure you can keep up?"

"I'm only in a big dress, not immobile," Cheerilee replied. "Besides, I wore these things during the brief period I was a reenactor, so I know how to walk in them."

The pair set off on their mission, keeping a close eye out for anybody who was potentially in trouble or affected by strange magic. They wouldn't have to look far.........
> Cadence
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cadence sang softly to herself as she drove to Twilight's place. Don't get her wrong, she and Shining Armor loved Flurry Heart to death, but even they needed a break sometimes. And Twilight was only happy to babysit Flurry.

Shining Armor was quite busy, being a captain of the army but he had gotten a day off today. Coincidentally, Cadence needed to run a quick check at the nearby town for an upcoming field visit for the students. She asked Shining if he would like to accompany her and he was only enthusiastic to come along.

Now, a short while later, they were returning home. Shining had stopped to get down so that he could do a quick patrol around the city. Cadence had rolled her eyes but nevertheless smiled fondly.

As she parked her car in the driveway, and made her way upstairs to Twilight's apartment, she couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that something was off. To her uttermost surprise, Twilight had answered the door, fully clothed in a Belle inspired ballgown.

Cadence stared. Then she giggled.

"Hey Twi," she said in between muffled laughter. "Playing dress up, eh?"

Twilight sighed. "No, Cadence, it's a long story."

Cadence nodded and followed her inside. On the couch, with Flurry in her arms, was Fluttershy, also dressed in clothing not unlike Snow White's.

She frowned. "Something's not right here. What is going on, girls?"

"Mama!" Flurry cooed in delight, clapping her hands at the sight of her mother.

"Well, Cadence you see," Fluttershy began. "Rarity, um, got mad at the Crusaders for wrecking her house, and um, now her magic's gone haywire that's, um, changing everyone's clothes."

"And we're trying to figure out  if there is any counter spell for it," added Twilight.

Cadence nodded in understanding. Her eyes widened and she shrieked as she saw a bright ball of light headed straight towards her!

She was fully ready when the blast hit her, although it still shook her a bit. It felt oddly intense, like a localized, small scale electric shock you can sometimes get from touching things.

Twilight reacted almost immediately, speaking quickly. "Cadence, I intend to document the process for reasons of science. If we have evidence of it happening, I can work on how to reverse it. But first, in keeping with scientific ethics, I must request your permission to document this."

"Go ahead!" Cadence said, already aware of her jacket starting to become softer, like some sort of jello.

Twilight forced her skirt through a gap between two chairs. 

"Move, you stupid thing!" 

She then fired up the camera, whilst Fluttershy kept an eye on Flurry Heart to ensure she didn't get up to any trouble.

Cadence monitored the process herself as it started proper. Her jacket, which as previously discussed had the consistency of a highly viscous liquid, suddenly sank into her blouse, leaving her with a very odd looking full sleeved garment with a slightly lower cut than normal.

She glanced down and saw the sleeves compress onto her skin, becoming skin tight on her arms. Then, they began to extend forward, flowing over her hands, encasing both them and her wedding ring completely. They moved over both sides, covering her hands totally, before the material changed to soft fabric and pulled back to become tight to her hands. Her ring materialised on a nearby dresser as the sleeves and gloves turned to white, and became covered in elaborate embroidery and lace.

Her neckline started to drop, falling downwards a few inches before coming to a complete stop. Moments after that, her chest and waist tightened. Cadence cried out in mild shock as a corset formed underneath and pulled her waist in. 

"Ow! I thought wearing that once for my wedding was bad enough!"

The shirt also turned white, and was also covered in elaborate patterning and even more lace and fabric as the shoulders on the dress started to grow in size. It was like watching a bubble expanding in size in a science experiment as more air is fed into it, only what was happening was that fabric was physically expanding in size and producing extra space and mass. They kept on swelling until they were close to the size of small beach balls, but then just as suddenly stopped expanding. Her necklace also vanished.

Cadence sighed for a moment. "Is that it?"

"We can't be certain yet," Twilight noted, doing her best to not knock over her camera tripod with her skirt. "If myself was anything to go by, the process is nowhere near complete."

"If you say so," Cadence said, sounding worried. "It's just that Shining is supposed to be returning from the game store soon. It's his day off, and if he saw this-"

"If I know my brother as well as I think I do, he'd love you no matter how you were," Twilight replied.

This, at least, reassured Cadence, and gave her strength as the process started up once more, throwing her headlong into the fresh throws of transformation.

Cadence looked down and saw her normally golden heels start to change, becoming white in color and gaining small bows at the bottoms of them. They also extended slightly higher up her feet, helping them to stay on them. She had to admit this felt pretty weird, but at the same time it was not the worst thing she had ever experienced.

The next stage concerned other clothing she had on. Cadence felt something forming on her feet, before suddenly white fabric flew out of her shoes, up her legs, and vanished up her skirt, before forming into place to stay in that position. "Well, that's one way of getting a new pair of tights!"

This was not the only thing that would change, however. Cadence's skirt turned white, much like her other clothes, and then began to grow longer, stretching down her legs and expanding towards the floor. The fabric was not so much stretching as physically growing, and eventually it flowed over her feet and to the floor, before pooling in a giant mass at the bottom which made moving difficult.

Cadence breathed in sharply as a metal band formed around her waist, but at the same time knew this feeling somewhat well. As they all watched, tense, Cadence's skirt suddenly began to inflate. The top of the skirt changed into a dome like shape, and the rest began to spread outwards, layer after layer of fabric, tulle, lace, and extra skirts forming underneath and helping the dress push out further and further.

The skirt was growing quickly, and determinedly, greedily consuming space around it as it flew outwards, forming an ever bigger dome as it stretched and grew. The skirt kept on inflating like a balloon, the floor being covered more and more in its vast white, wintery expanse. So much so it began knocking into furniture.

"Interesting," Twilight noted. "Mine didn't get this big."

"I hope I don't end up pinned in place!" Cadence said. "I don't think this house was built for skirts this big!"

The skirt collided with a chair and casually knocked it out of the way. Speaking of which, the layers of fabric began to creak and groan, indicating they were reaching their limits. Seconds later, the growth of the skirt began to slow down. After pushing onwards another few inches, it hiccupped out, and stopped.

White, petal like sections popped out of the bottom of the outer skirt as a long, flowery train formed behind her. The entire skirt was covered in elaborate embroidery and fabric patterns, and a necklace, a new one, appeared around Cadence's neck as a bouquet of flowers appeared in one of her gloved hands. Finally, a veil appeared on her head as the light faded, and at last it seemed to have stopped for good, much to the relief of everybody involved.

Cadence looked over herself.

"I wasn't intending on being in a wedding dress again so soon!" she joked.

"But it doesn't make any sense!" Twilight said, having stopped the camera. "The energy hits people and changes their clothes, yes. But there's no rhyme or reason as to how or why they get changed. I'm wearing Belle's dress for some reason, Fluttershy over here is Snow White, and you're in... well, that!"

Cadence suddenly made a connection, and tried to move forward, only to nearly get stuck. "I'll ask Shining to move some of the furniture around when he gets back, as we could do with more space for the time being. But I recognize this dress."

"You do?" Fluttershy asked.

"It was one of the options I boiled down to when I was planning my wedding to Shining," Cadence replied. "I tried it on and wasn't a fan. Thankfully, Rarity agreed to make that new number for me."

"Maybe the connection is clothing we all have some form of attachment to," Twilight thought, thinking to herself. "Perhaps if I can get to my spectrum analyzer, I can tweak and determine the wave forms to determine their origin! That could allow us to run a Melton conversion and-"

"Twilight, in English please," Fluttershy asked.

"Oh! Sorry. I may be able to measure things to fix this."

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. All three of them rushed for the door and bumped into each other seconds before it opened.

Shining Armor stepped through, replete in a magnificent red and blue army dress uniform, and started singing. "In short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral, I..."

He trailed off as he saw who was inside. His eyes widened.

"Am the very model of a modern major general?" Twilight finished.

"What happened to you guys?" Shining asked.

"The same that happened to you," Fluttershy pointed out. "Magic energy changing clothes."

"Touché," Shining said. "About half the police force currently look like 19th century policemen right now."

"Why not you, though?" Twilight asked.

"It's my day off," Shining replied. "Are you alright, Cadence?"

"I'm fine," Cadence replied. "It's just a heavy dress. It's not like I'm pregnant or anything!"

The look on Shining's face said it all. "Agreed."

Twilight and Fluttershy suddenly exited, heading off to find Twilight's equipment. Just as they left, they saw a blast of energy hit Flurry Heart.

Both parents looked at one another with a look of horror. "Oh no," they said in unison.
> Granny Smith, Pear Butter and Bright Mac
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Granny Smith was having a good day so far. 

She whistled merrily to herself as she finished her work in the orchards and headed towards the pumpkin patch. She frowned as she got near it and heard something rustling around.

"Show yourself," Granny Smith cried out threateningly, shaking a fist. "No scallywag is gonna be eating my prized pumpkins!"

She attempted to bend down to take a closer look, but her old age made it quite a difficult task.

"Oh darn it," Granny muttered. "I'll ask one of the kids to take a look."

Granny went back in the direction of their house where she met Applejack, who was just going out.

"Applejack, dearie," Granny Smith began. "Would ya go check on the pumpkins please. I reckon I saw something scurrying over there."

Applejack paused. "Of course, Granny."

Granny Smith smiled and ruffled her hair. "That's ma girl."

She then headed to the living room and continued with her chores. She stopped briefly to look outside the window.

"What in tarnation is that?" Granny exclaimed, at the bright blue and golden sparks flying around.

The moment that the energy blast flew through the air and hit her, Granny Smith perceived everything as seemingly happening at once. Whilst this is, of course, an impossibility given the world circumstances, as it would take thousands of years for everything to theoretically occur at the precise same time, it remains a suitable image nonetheless, as it left the older lady a bit confused, and possibly surprised.

"This had better not be another of Bright's pranks," she muttered to herself, as she went on with her work. One of the bedrooms needed cleaning, and with Grand Pear out for the weekend at a tractor convention or something, that left them one pair of hands down. At least Applejack was back now; they'd already accounted for Apple Bloom not being around (bless her soul; she was a hard worker, but even hard workers need days off), and Granny Smith hoped that strange scream had nothing to do with her youngest grandchild.

So, imagine her surprise when she suddenly noticed in a mirror that her neck kerchief was missing. "Well, that's funny. Did I put it down somewhere again?"

She paid it no further heed. She was always putting things down in weird places and then forgetting to pick them up again. She went on with her work, but then stopped when she felt something moving on her arm.

She glanced down and nearly jumped several feet into the air, which would have been an impressive feat for a woman of her age. The sleeves of her shirt were flowing down her arms, sliding down them until they reached her wrists, and stopped there completely, the newly gained cuffs doing themselves up at the ends. Her shoulders also began to noticeably increase in size, expanding to be a bigger size until they, of course, stopped.

Buttons began to form up and down her shirt to act as some sort of support, whilst the shirt then buttoned itself up. Contrary to what has been happening to the others, the neckline on her actually began to rise, stopping when it was just shy of her neck. A collar popped out of the top and flipped down before buttoning up. It now looked like one of those bodice thingies that Applejack's friend periodically talked about, and had once asked her if she wore those sorts of things when younger. How old did people think she was? She was only 70!

"I would put this down to be a prank, but even my eyes are beginning to doubt that," Granny Smith mused to herself, walking over to the window and taking a look outside, now awkwardly stuck between fashion eras. More of the sparks and light danced upon sunlit skies, producing a meteor shower effect.

Granny Smith's attention was soon drawn elsewhere, however. As the jacket turned lined green and white, her red skirt turned the same colours, with the apron vanishing into thin air (much like the previously discussed neck kerchief that had vanished to nowhere). Her skirt then grew longer, extending all the way to the floor and gaining three sets of ruffles at the bottom.

Her boots morphed into a pair of hardened shoes, perfect for the terrain they worked on, and with that there was seemingly nothing else to observe. To see if everybody was OK, she went downstairs and stepped outdoors- to suddenly see her son dressed way more formally than normal.

"What happened to you?" she asked. "Did you fall in the dressing up box?"

"That's not too far off what happened," Bright Mac admitted. "It may explain why I look like I escaped from the Civil War."





Meanwhile......

Pear Butter was in the apple orchards, snipping away at the dead leaves and branches, to prepare for their next harvest.

She dropped the tool from her hand, when a scream echoed throughout the air.

"What in the world was that?" Pear wondered aloud.

She was going to go investigate when she noticed golden-blue sparks flying in the air.

Pear Butter saw the blast of energy approaching her position, and covered her eyes as the light grew brighter. She had no idea what it was or how it was even here, but as the light faded everything seemed to be normal again. "Well, that was weird," she said, before starting to walk forward.

It only took a few steps for her to stop, as something felt wrong in her chest. It almost felt as though it was being compressed. She glanced down to suddenly see that her shirt was changing. The middle portion from her chest down to her waist had turned black from its normally cheqeuered hue, and was gradually getting tighter on her waist.

"What's happenin'?"

The sleeves suddenly came to life, shrinking further and further up into her shirt until there was no trace of them. Likewise, her collar and upper part of her shirt began to shrink back until her upper chest could clearly be seen. Pear was thankful nobody could see her as the fabric from what remained her sleeves and collar turned gold, and became ruffled fabric that ran along the front of her chest, over her shoulders, and round the back in a very loose pattern, making it look like something a princess would wear.

The extra fabric from her shrunken sleeves and collar spread downwards, linking into her jeans and flowing into them. Pear tried to move again, but the legs of her jeans suddenly tore open as the button and zip vanished, leaving them flapping there. Within seconds, they had sewn up again, but as an extremely tight skirt which made walking difficult.

Pear looked down in disbelief as her boots shrank down, the fabric almost seeming to melt and become much softer, turning into a pear (ha ha) of golden heels. Her new skirt then turned to gold, or at least a golden shade, and then began to softly grow longer, gently flowing down her legs and over her feet until she could no longer see either.

Pear shivered as she felt something metal brush past her legs and down to the floor, where it briefly swayed. She then felt another skirt drop down inside it, followed by what seemed to be more layers on the metal object based on how her skirt suddenly seemed to gain volume.

She suddenly remembered what this thing was, and she had a clue of what was coming next. When she was a little girl, her grandmother had sometimes worn this old style dress with a big skirt, and Pear knew that this was similar somehow.

She was quickly proven right. The metal thing, or the hoop, quickly began to expand outwards in a dome pattern, and the fabric of the dresses and skirts on top of it started to expand as well. Pear quickly figured out that the fabric wasn't stretching, as it seemed to be getting wider without any imperfections. It seemed as though the skirts were actually growing, more and more fabric and layers flowing out of them as the dome of a skirt continued to stretch out wider.

Pear's concern soon turned to a feeling of enjoyment as she saw her skirt continue to grow wider and wider, covering more and more of the ground with its vast golden expanse. She was slightly worried that she may not be able to fit through doors, but this fear was quickly alleviated when it began to slow down after expanding through five feet. With a quick grumble of metal and stretching skirts, at six feet it finally stopped growing.

Pear stepped out of the door and outside, her skirt gently swaying in the breeze. She looked every inch the Southern Belle, and stopped when she suddenly saw her husband and mother in law, both of whom would not have looked out of place as extras in a Western. Well, at least this was true of Granny Smith. Her husband was dressed in something that would have fitted in with the old South.

"Hello Pear!" he said, with a smile as he saw her. "Energy get you too?"

"Yeah," Pear replied, nodding. "It coulda been worse though, based on what Applejack has said about magic."

"Now, that dress looks familiar," Granny Smith said, peering at it and trying not to be blinded by the light shimmering off its golden hue.

"It's because she wore a very similar one to our senior formal," Bright Mac smiled, memories of that night returning to his mind as he did so. "I'll always remember the song you sang as we danced."

Pear smiled as well. Bright was such a nice and sweet guy, but as she was about to take his hand she suddenly heard rustling to the left. She suddenly turned to see Applejack and Pinkie Pie running towards her, both of them attired in fancy gowns. Applejack's she recognized as Cinderella's dress, but Pinkie's was unknown to her.

"Ma!" Applejack called. "You got hit by it too?"

"As ya can see, yes," Pear replied, indicating to her dress. "Now we all look like extras from Gone with the Wind."

"What about Big Mac?" Bright said suddenly. "Remember? It's his and Sugar Belle's wedding rehearsal today."

"And now Apple Bloom's here!" Granny Smith said. "I'm pretty sure she weren't dressed like that this mornin'."

"I'll deal with it!" Applejack called, speeding across the ground with remarkable speed for such a heavy dress.

"Make sure you don't loose your slipper!" Bright called after her.

"Very funny!" came the reply.

Pear looked to her husband. "We need to get to Big Mac in case he's in trouble, or Sugar Belle for that matter. If whatever this magic is could do this to us, I dread to think what could have happened!"

"I'll get the truck out and we can drive down there to help!" Bright said quickly, and headed off to start it up.

Pear looked down at her skirts in consternation. "I somehow doubt I'll be able to fit this through the passenger side door."





Bright Mac jogged towards the house, slightly uncomfortable in his current attire, to fetch the truck's keys. He grabbed them from where they dangled on the windowpane, and ran back where the truck was parked.

As he ran, he recounted the day's completely strange events. He was simply working on his father-in-law's tractor, when he heard a loud scream. Bright balls of light had followed, which flew around everywhere.

Bright got into his truck and started to drive back where Pear and Granny Smith were waiting for him. As he drove, he thought back as to what all just happened.............................................





Abruptly being hit by an unknown flying object whilst trying to repair a tractor is, generally speaking, not a good thing to happen during your day. Bright Mac knew this well, as it had just occurred to him. "What in tarnation?" he exclaimed, as he stepped back from the Ferguson he was working on. This machine belonged to his father in law, who was currently away down the coast at a John Deere convention looking for new equipment to replace a selection of older kit.

He sighed, and wiped the sweat off his brow, suddenly noticing the weird particles dancing through the sky. "OK, today is gettin' weird."

He stepped backwards to try and get some collected mud and engine oil off his muddy boots so that they may last a bit longer. They weren't exactly short of money (apples and other produce still brought in a remarkable haul, seeing as their primary customer Barnyard Bargains believed in paying proper amounts for things rather than trying to force the prices down), but at the same time being frivolous with it wasn't in their nature. Bright Mac knew that all too well, considering his own cousin's lack of responsibility in that regard.

Imagine his surprise when his brown boot, or rather brown boots, were suddenly black, and slightly different in design. Whilst still fitting for walking across a field or being in a fancy building, they still looked weird nonetheless.

"Have I been inhaling lubricator fumes by mistake?" Bright asked, quickly pinching himself to see if he was dreaming.

Alas, he was not. As he looked downwards in further confusion, his socks didn't change, but his hard wearing jeans shifted into a pair of black formal pants of the sort worn with a suit, the sort of thing he was not fond of at all. Not least because he found them ridiculously constraining, and utterly inappropriate for working outdoors.

But, it seemed as though there was nothing he could do to stop them, or indeed anything that seemed to be happening. As time went on and the process continued, his favorite cheqeuered shirt started to shift as well, firstly by tucking itself into his newly acquired pants, then by abruptly softening and turning white, like a formal shirt, soon losing any trace of its former patterning.

Bright had to admit he found what was going on more annoying than anything else, as a white cravat was suddenly tied into place around his neck. This felt like somebody had glued a boa constrictor next to his vocal chords, which was not fun at all. Moments later, a black jacket formed on top of that, closed shut with offset buttons and also featuring another set of buttons that seemed to serve no function at all. To check, he reached for them and checked. Nope. Completely pointless.

"Boy do I feel silly," he said, as he slowly walked back over to the house, only to see his mother emerge dressed like she was an extra in a Western.

But none of it compared to what had happened to his wife, Pear Butter. Whomever had done this to them clearly had a sense of humor, as both of them looked like they would have fitted in perfectly in the Antebellum South.





Bright brought the truck to a stop next to where Pear was standing, navigating carefully to avoid getting his wife's skirts caught in the wheels. He'd heard stories of the old days where trams and streetcars had had plating fitted over the wheels to prevent clothes from getting caught in them, and wondered if fitting those would help.

He opened the passenger side door, and reached over to help Pear in, who was trying to squeeze her skirt through the door.

Pear struggled for a bit longer, before the hoop suddenly popped out of shape and the skirt deflated. Pear was now able to sit down normally. "Phew! I've still got it, even if I am a bit rusty with these things."

"Never thought I'd see this happen," Bright commented. With that, he disabled the parking brake and they set off, driving through the streets and on their way to find Big Mac. Along the way, they passed Apple Bloom heading towards the park in a Medieval dress, and people all over the place were dressed in excessively formal clothes; men in suits and jackets tighter than normal clothing, which explained their odd walks, and women in long, flowing dresses that looked more appropriate for the ballroom than the street. Even the policemen and military personnel had been affected, many looking like they had gotten lost on their way to the pantomime.

Eventually, they arrived at the church where the rehearsal was happening, and both parents bailed out. Pear took a moment to pop her skirts back into shape before following Bright.

As they approached, they could clearly see everybody had been affected. Not least Big Mac and Sugar Belle, both of whom now looked very different.

Big Mac blinked. "So I'm not dreaming."

Pear spoke up. "I'd ask what happened to you guys, but I think we know the answer to that."
> Twilight Velvet and Night Light
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Night Light grunted as he stood up on his tip-toes and tried his hardest to reach the bag on top of the wardrobe. It was no use, it kept on slipping out of his reach.

"Why me?" Night Light grumbled to himself. "Darn, Twilight and Shining had to just go out today."

"What was that, honey?" Twilight Velvet asked sharply from below him.

"Nothing nothing," Night quickly said.

"I thought so," replied Twilight, still suspicious.

Sweating nervously but trying not to show it, Night Light turned back to his task and reached up, finally getting ahold of the bag.

Twilight Velvet could barely contain her excitement. "Hurry up, Night, and give it to me!"

Night Light got down from the step-ladder carefully, and handed the bag to Twilight, who took it giddily. She brushed away the dust and peered inside, smiling when she found what she was looking for. 

"Look Night," said Twilight, holding up a photo album. "It's our wedding album."

Night Light nodded. "That it is indeed. I believe we were looking for it for quite some time."

Twilight squealed with joy and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, Nighty."

He smiled back at her.

They then went into the living room and sat on the sofa, keeping the book between them and flipping it open.

Twilight sighed wistfully and pointed to a picture. "That's my wedding dress. I remember mother stitching it together with her own hands. Too bad we had to give it away."

"You looked like a princess that day," teased Night Light, poking her in the stomach. "Oh, wait-you still do!"

Twilight Velvet blushed. "Oh hush, what I would give to wear it again just one more time."

Night reached over and pulled her into a hug. They jumped apart when a scream shook the window panes. He and Twilight Velvet looked at each other in confusion. 

Night Light glanced briefly outside and looked surprised. "Dear, why is there a pantomime policeman outside our window?"

"Don't pull my le- oh." Twilight Velvet blinked as she looked out of the window as well. "That's weird. I didn't know local cops dressed like that."

"When a felon is engaged in his employment-"

"He also sings."

"How strange."

Moments later, they saw strange lights flickering and dancing in an otherwise clear sky. Suddenly, seconds later, a much larger one flew through the window and slammed into Night Light, pushing him back into his chair. "Oof!"

"Night!" Twilight Velvet rushed over to her husband. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he grunted, sitting forward. "Just feel as though I have a minor bout of indigestion."

Velvet was about to speak, but then jumped back. "Your jumper!"

"What about it?" Night asked, then glanced down to see it had suddenly split in two. "Oh. Well, that is strange."

As he continued to look on in confusion, his jumper had shifted in proportion, gaining a set of tails in the process. Moments after that, it changed from its normal blue to black, and gained buttons up and down the front, which promptly did themselves up.

"This looks like a suit jacket of some sort," he mused.

"Dear, shouldn't you be at least a bit alarmed?" Velvet asked. "Clothing doesn't magically change by itself!"

"I prefer to do my panicking later," Night Light replied. "For now, I stay calm and try to rationally figure out a solution to this problem."

His purple tie turned red, and pulled back up his shirt until it was a bow tie around his neck (mercifully for him, his shirt had not changed an inch or in any way, shape or form). This left him with just his slacks to swap out.

He was wrong, of course. His shoes hardened into a pair of black formal shoes, polished to a truly ridiculous extreme, and gained laces rather than losing them as seemed to usually be the case. These were, of course, done up, and then his slacks (or rather the legs) began to slide back up his legs. These turned black (the entire set of slacks, not just the legs), but luckily the buttons and zips all stayed in the right places. That could otherwise have been awkward. Very very awkward indeed.

The process appeared, with that, to be finally over. Night Light glanced over himself, looked to the photo album, and then back to himself. "This is the suit I wore on our wedding day!" he realized. "Magical forces must have done this!"

"Don't be silly!" Twilight Velvet said. "Magic doesn't exist!"

Night Light put a hand to his chin. " Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once observed that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. I must come to the assumption that as I have eliminated that which is impossible, magic remains the only option, irrespective of how improbable it is."

Their attention was momentarily taken by a horde of pirates running past, waving their swords and singing sea shanties at the tops of their voices.

"Do they have no indoor voices?" Twilight Velvet asked.

"Well, dear, they are outdoors."

Twilight Velvet had no chance to get a response in before being hit by another of the large blobs herself.

Night Light was concerned, but just in case Twilight Velvet's clothes too changed, he backed away slowly.

And change they did. Twilight Velvet's jumper began to shrink. The sleeves began to shrink back, and the collar and shoulders began to thread themselves apart, the individual segments all undoing rapidly and flittering away into one another as the neckline dropped downwards. It descended down at the back as well, until it stopped at her upper chest and breasts, and the middle curved inwards, forming an interesting curved pattern at the front. At the bottom, it began pulling upwards. Whereas normally it dropped to partway down her legs, covering part of her skirt, now it stopped above her hips, leaving a small gap between it and the skirt.

Twilight Velvet gasped as the jumper tightened onto her body, becoming quite a firm fit as it shifted from nylon to a mixture of cotton and lace. In a bright flash, the garment turned from its normal pink to white, and the front rapidly became covered in elaborate patterns and color symbols, forming complex and diverse shapes, all marked out and superbly decorated using silver and diamond sequins which made it seem to shimmer in the light. As if this wasn't enough detail, silver details also appeared on the garment as her ears gained earrings, a silver necklace appeared around her neck, and a crystal headband appeared in her hair.

She had a good idea of where this was all going, and she looked to her husband. "Quick, check the photo! Could it be!"

Night Light picked the album up and began comparing what his wife was wearing to the image. "I think it is!"

"Hold on, it's starting up again!" And it most certainly was, as in one swift motion the bodice, as it now was, attached itself to her skirt, using the leftover fabric from its prior transformation to fill the gap.

Two sets of white patterns emerged out of the bottom of her skirt as it turned white. That wasn't the only thing to turn white. A quick glance down confirmed that her normally purple heels had turned white, and were also encrusted with brightly colored gems that glittered in the light.

With a brief creak, her skirt began to grow longer, stretching over her legs, down over her knees, flowing past her ankles and making direct contact with the floor. The outer fabric began to puff up, changing from a flat texture to an incredibly elaborate series of ruffles and puffed fabrics, a mixture of silk, cotton, and lace that seemed to either curve wonderfully or bulge out slightly in place.

A metal object brushed past her legs, followed by several more skirts flowing down that and helping to give the outer skirt more volume.

Twilight felt it necessary to state the obvious. "It's my wedding dress! Though it is a bit smaller than I remembered..."

Thankfully, that was to be dealt with too. With a brief flash, the skirt began to inflate. It spread across the floor like a tidal wave, fabric spreading and stretching and growing in size as it moved along the floor. The inner layers expanded too, of course, and the frame spread sideways. Unlike a lot of earlier incidents, this seemed to be forming an A shape of course.

Not that Twilight was too worried, of course. She had a grin on her face that would give the Cheshire Cat a run for his money as her dress continued to grow, expanding ever wider, taking up more and more space with its glorious white expanse. Something she hadn't felt since she had been a younger woman.

"If I remember correctly, it wasn't much bigger than this," she said. And with that, the growth, just as suddenly as it had started, stopped, leaving both a man who seemed like he was going out to some formal dinner, and a woman who, to any outside observer, could easily be mistaken for a princess. Which, I guess, is the entire point of such wedding dresses, and was exactly how she was feeling right now.

Twilight Velvet looked over her transformed clothes in wonder. She ran her hands over the bodice, feeling embroidery she hadn't felt in many, many years. She reached down and felt the ruffles on the skirt, soaking up the softness of the fabric. She watched as she pushed the frame and it rocket gently back and forth, the inner skirts swishing as it swung. Every detail was perfect and exact to that happy day. After so many years, her wedding dress was returned to her.

She quickly pinched herself to check she wasn't dreaming.

She wasn't.

Night Light then noticed his wife start to cry. "Dear, what's wrong?"

"I'm just so happy!" Twilight Velvet said, her tears being tears of joy. "I never thought I'd get to experience wearing this again, and here I am. One of my biggest regrets has been undone." She did a quick twirl, briefly letting her inner child take over and grin with glee as the skirts flew out. "The skirts are even the same cut and thickness as the original. I have no idea who made this happen, but I want to thank them personally!"

Night Light stepped over to give his wife a hug, but unfortunately he slipped on something. He skidded across the floor, and his other foot landed on Twilight's skirt.

There was a loud tearing noise as part of it ripped off with his foot and ended up on the floor. "Oh no," he said. "Darling, I'm so sorry-"

"Look!" Twilight replied. Sure enough, the damaged section began to glow, and new fabric, identical to that which had come off, grew into place and filled the gap.

"Whoa," was all Night Light could say.

Twilight, on the other hand, was ecstatic. "I've gotten my wedding dress back and discovered it can repair any damage it suffers on the same day! This is like a dream come true!"

"Want to try and recreate our wedding portrait?" her husband suggested.

"That's an amazing idea!" Twilight replied, once more the blushing bride she had been many years earlier. "I'll find the camera!"

Before she could do so, the pirates from earlier ran the other way, bellowing at the tops of their lungs about being quiet as the pantomime policeman from earlier chased them.

Seconds later, there was a knock at the door. "I'll get it!" Twilight Velvet called, and walked over to it, still grinning at feeling the skirts flowing against her legs and watching as it gently swayed back and forth.

She opened the door, and her eyes widened. Her daughter and one of her friends was on the other side; the former dressed like Belle, the latter like Snow White.

"Hello!" Velvet said, looking a little surprised. "Did you get transformed too?"

"Yes, actually," Twilight said, heaving her skirt through the door and helping Fluttershy through. "As pretty as this thing is, it is really impractical! You can see why they stopped wearing them for daily use."

"Mine isn't what I'd normally wear, but my skirt is nowhere near as wide as yours, so I'm not really in a position to complain," Fluttershy replied. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Velvet."

"Please, Twilight is OK," Velvet said.

"Considering there are two people in the house both called Twilight, that could get confusing," Night Light pointed out.

"I'd ask why you're dressed like that, but I think I know the answer," Twilight said. "Magical flying blobs?"

"Yes," Night Light replied. "Why do you ask?"

"It's what happened to us too," Fluttershy said. "Rarity's magic seems to have gone a bit wrong. The CMC made a bit of a mess of her house, and this made Rarity angry. It seems her magic is what's transforming everybody's clothes, ourselves included."

"What did I tell you, dear?" Night Light said. "I deduced it was magic, and it is. The model works."

Velvet ignored him. "So it was Rarity? I must thank her!"

Twilight ignored this and spoke up. "Mom, I will be in my lab for a bit. I've collected some samples and evidence. Until the Princess can get here we're on our own, and I think I have enough data to figure out a way to reverse this-"

"No!" Velvet suddenly blurted out.

"Excuse me?" Twilight asked, surprised at the sudden interruption.

Velvet then spoke again. "I don't know if you know this, but this is my wedding dress. We had to give the original away because we didn't have enough space to store it, and that's always been one of my biggest regrets in life. To finally have it back feels wonderful, and I'm not making the same mistake I did the previous time. Twilight, is there any way to keep this as it is?"

"Well, I can't promise anything, but-"

"Twilight, please. Can you at least try?"

Twilight saw her mother's face, and nodded. "Yes, mom, I'll try. I can't promise anything, though. Time for research!" She and Fluttershy dashed up the stairs, briefly getting stuck as they did so.

Night Light looked to his wife. "If that's what's happened to Twilight, then what would have happened to Shining?"

"We'll have to find out then."
> Cirrus, Petunia Shy and Zephyr Breeze
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In one bungalow, at 48 Oak Street, lived Fluttershy's parents, Cirrus and Petunia Shy, with Zephyr occasionally staying around. By occasionally, I mean, most of the time anyways.

Right now, Zephyr was in his bedroom, while Petunia and Cirrus sat in the living room. Their daughter, Fluttershy, was out on a trip with her friends.

Just then, Petunia got up and went to the kitchen where she poured herself a glass of water.

Cirrus smirked and sneaked up behind her.

Petunia yelped as she felt someone hug her from behind. She calmed down when she realized it was only Cirrus. She turned to him and lightly punched him.

"What was that for, you goofball," Petunia said softly. "You scared the flowers out of me!"

Cirrus grinned. "Now, why can't I hug my wife this delightful afternoon?"

Petunia smiled fondly at him.

"Hey mum, have you see-aaaarrrgghhhhh!!" Zephyr Breeze groaned and slapped a hand over his eyes.

Petunia and Cirrus squeaked and jumped apart, blushing a deep red. Petunia busied herself with the kettle as Cirrus sheepishly rubbed at his neck.

"You wanted something, m'dear?" inquired Cirrus.

"Nevermind, I'll come back later," said Zephyr as he hastily rushed out of the room.

Petunia and Cirrus looked at each other, and then promptly burst out laughing.

They were, however, startled by a screech that rung out in the air. Petunia and Cirrus scrambled to clutch each other tightly.

Then Cirrus saw something that made his eyes widen.

"Um, honey," he began nervously. "Watch out for that-"

Petunia only shrieked in response as a bright ball of light came out of nowhere and hit her.

There was silence for a few moments.

The first that Petunia Shy realized of the situation was a slight change in the composition of her clothes. Particularly her shoes. Compared to usually being quite firm heels, they now seemed to have softened slightly. "Something strange is happening," she said, at a volume slightly higher than usual to her husband. However, to anybody else this was about 1 decibel above whispering.

"How so?" Cirrus asked.

"My shoes are changing," Petunia replied, as they suddenly turned golden, and the angle of the heel declined slightly, making it slightly less hard for her to walk. Make no mistake, she was very used to their current angle, but three was of course different to four.

Her white, knee length skirt was the next thing to change. The symbols on it vanished into the ether, melting into the air like smoke, never to be seen again. Her skirt then continued its process of changing by turning gold and gaining the consistency of soft silk, like something somebody would wear in high society social events.

Petunia jumped slightly when she felt something form underneath it, something slightly cold, before some more fabric appeared underneath it. This was a blessing in disguise, as it kept the cold thing off her legs. More skirts flowed down the metal thing, all stopping at the bottom of her hem.

Bird like symbols appeared all across the skirt, but they were so bunched up and squashed it was very hard to tell what they all were. Moments after that, the skirt began to grow wider, beginning to look like an extremely strange shorter skirt with a wide, triangular base. It stretched wider and wider, pushing onwards and covering more ground in all directions. So much so that Cirrus had to step backwards to leave some space, such was his concern about getting hit. Sure, he was worried about what was happening to his wife, but at the same time it did her no good if he was incapacitated by this, which in his years of work experience he knew could come from anything. Even a previously normal skirt that was somehow growing by itself.

Eventually, it expanded to quite a wide diameter, and stopped. Now then, a second is a very short period of time. About enough time for you to count from one to five extremely quickly. This should give you an idea of how quickly the next set of things happened.

Petunia's skirt suddenly surged down and hit the floor, very wide, taking up large amounts of floor space. The bird patterns, previously bunched up and stuck in one place, were now spread out properly and cleanly spaced, making their detail plain and clear to see. The other skirts flowed down and gave the skirt an ethereal look, almost as if she was floating where she stood.

Moments after that, her jacket faded into nothingness, and her yellow blouse turned gold. The sleeves, shoulders, and upper collar all shrank away into nothingness, and the fabric was quick to attach itself to the skirt, producing a dress. One far bigger and rather different to what Petunia was used to wearing.

"Oh my," was her only reaction to the entire situation, unintentionally echoing her daughter's reaction to the same situation.

Cirrus looked at his wife's dress in a mixture of amazement and astonishment. "It certainly suits you," he said. "And to see it happen with my own eyes! Fluttershy was right about magic existing in this world."

"Aww, thank you," Petunia replied. "I never thought I'd hear a weather scientist admit he believes in magic."

"Well, until other evidence presents itself, I cannot think of any other explanation," Cirrus admitted. "Shall we dance later? I'll see if I can fish my suit out."

"Are you guys done being lov-" Zephyr walked around the corner, and the words died in his throat when he saw his mother dressed up to the nines. "Uh, wow. Looks good on you, mom. Did dad get that as a present for you?"

Petunia blushed once again and tried adjusting her glasses to hide her embarrassment. "Thanks. But you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you how I got it."

"I've seen Rainbow Dash running faster than Sonic the Hedgehog, so I'm prepared to accept some crazy stuff. Broaden your mind and all that."

Cirrus was about to speak, but then suddenly a large golden and blue blob flew out of nowhere.

"Take cover!" Petunia called, but Cirrus had no time to react before it hit him. The room exploded in a fountain of bright light.

Zephyr had dived behind a nearby desk to shield his eyes. "OK, now things are getting weird. Welcome to Crazytown!"

Cirrus was especially aware that, considering the weirdness that had just befallen his wife, the same weirdness could affect him too, and he had to be ready for that. As he quickly checked himself over, he noticed that his white shirt stayed the same length, expect the cuffs had changed to feature elaborate laced and floral designs. "Well, this is certainly odd," he said, glancing at his newly gained fashion accessories.

His jumper then split down the front, only for the flayed ends to hover next to each other. The left hand side gained a series of buttons, designed to hold a waistcoat together, whilst the other side gained an equal number of button holes. This was to allow the garment to be put back together, and as the material softened the buttons attached themselves into the holes and held the now waistcoat together. It also turned a rather odd shade of red, with golden patterning and trim to offset the omnipresent red.

Cirrus mostly regarded these changes silently, much as his wife had when she had changed. It suited him best to look and see what was going on. Rather than get agitated over a process he had no control over, he simply waited for it to finish before doing anything.

His tie also began to splinter apart, and pulled back up, out of the waistcoat, and split into two parts. The top half was what looked partially like a black bow tie, and the other was an elaborate lace thing (a cravat, he wondered?), that extended down the front of his waistcoat about as far as the breast pocket.

His pants turned the same color as the waistcoat as a large red coat, which ran from his shoulders to his knees, appeared atop his waistcoat, adorned in the same colours and patterns. They then pulled back to his knees as a set of tights suddenly formed around his feet and spread up his legs, soon covering anything down there. His shoes then sank down a bit as they shifted from work wear to something that would have looked more at home in a Jane Austen adaptation.

A giant black hat with golden trim appeared on his head as the process seemed to stop. "Well, this is rather different," he said. He then glanced to Petunia. "I'm not sure they're from the same era, though..."

"I think you look very handsome," Petunia said, smiling gently in that way she always did. "It suits you perfectly."

"Thanks, darling."

Zephyr emerged from his hiding spot and saw the pair. "You look like you escaped from the Revolutionary War," he commented. "That, or War and Peace."

"That's an interesting thought," Cirrus said. "I've always been interested in that era of history."

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. "Could you get that, Zephyr?" Petunia asked. "It's not exactly easy to walk in this, and the skirt is a bit big for me to open the door properly."

Zephyr stepped to the door and opened it, to see Rainbow Dash on the other side. "Hey Rains! How's it goin'? You still up for that date?"

Dash looked annoyed. "Zephyr. Get. Your. Foot. Off. My. Skirt."

Zephyr did so. "Hey mom! Dad! Rainbow's gone all fancy too!" Both parents had since come to the door.

"OK, so you've got it too," Rainbow Dash said. "Right. I hope it's not too much of a bother, but could you contact the other parents and find out how they are? I'd use super speed to run between them, but any further magic could cause problems, not to mention I'd probably trip."

"OK then," Petunia said. "We'll be happy to help."

"Thanks," Dash replied. "Nice dress, by the way." And with that, she vanished.

As the door closed, Zephyr spoke next. "I wonder what Fluttershy got? Hopefully I'll get the handsomest outfit of all."

Cirrus shook his head. "Zephyr, that is not a word."

"Expand your mind, dude!"





Zephyr Breeze was outside when it hit him, and although he had some form of advance warning in that regard, he wasn't entirely sure what to do or say in response. Yes, his parents might be able to help, but with his father trying to get into contact with the Pie Mining Company's headquarters (Igneous wasn't home as the company had blasting scheduled for the weekend. I mean, seriously, who works on the weekend?) and his mother phoning every parent in her friend circle, it seemed as though they were certainly kept extremely busy trying to help fix this mess.

So Zephyr decided he would ride out the storm on his own. It had worked for him in the past, so it would work now, even if the last time he had tried it the barbershop where he worked had been forced to shut due to lack of patronage. Maybe wig making was a viable career.

His shoes were the first section to be awakened by the magic spread in the giant flying blobs, and safe to say he was not especially happy to see his scruffy brown loafers somehow become noticeably less scruffy. They turned black, and hardened into a very odd set of formal shoes, that managed to at once make him look formal and rather idiotic, considering the rest of him screamed hippy.

His pants, already a little too small for him, shrank an extra size, leaving Zephyr hopping around briefly. "Ow! Whose idea was this?"

They turned black as well, complete with chalk lines. This frustrated him. How was he supposed to be seen as a productive member of society if he looked like he was stuck in a quarry for Faust knows how long.

As he was trying to figure out what to do next, his exceptionally weird excuse for a shirt, which was basically a badly maintained vest with orange colours and what looked like purple watermelons on it, was changed into a white coloured shirt with long sleeves and buttons running up and down it. This actually caused it to expand in size somewhat, and make him look less messy somehow. Unfortunately for Zephyr, as the buttons were done up and the collar and cuffs closed, it then became incredibly stiff, as if somebody had dumped industrial quantities of starch over it to glue it in place. He would not have been at all surprised if the shirt shattered if he so much as bent over. The black tie only emphasized the ludicrous whiteness of his shirt.

A black waistcoat and jacket, both of a similar cut, appeared in place upon him. Zephyr Breeze was left hopping about in confusion and frustration over what had just transpired. "Seriously? Dad gets a cool suit, mom gets a pretty dress, and I end up looking like I escaped from a travelling quack show? Is there no justice in this world?"

Just then, he saw a piano sitting on his side of the road. This was very strange, as there had been no piano there previously, and pianos are not known for their ability to suddenly appear from nowhere and be perfectly operable in terms of their condition.

Zephyr may have had a bit of an awkward relationship with gaining stable employment, but one thing he certainly was was a surprisingly good pianist. "Well, I suppose a quick test run couldn't hurt."

He sat down next to it, on the stool, and began to play. The piano was clearly old, and rather out of tune, producing the very distinctive 'jangly' noise characteristic of old strings. It didn't take him long to settle into some of the old classics, and he was so caught up in his playing that he didn't notice the rather large crowd of people who were listening from a distance and observing this rather strange man playing an out of tune piano.

So much so, he was surprised when he stopped playing, and a round of applause broke out. He looked over his shoulder to see a crowd of people had been watching him playing, but soon cleared off when a policeman appeared.

"Good moaning!" the policeman said. "What do we hove here?"

"I'm playing a piano, sir," Zephyr replied.

"And on the wring side of the stroot, no less," the policeman answered. "Pianis can only be plooyed on the side of the stroot farcing the direction of trovel, so I'm afraid that'll be a foone of twinty dellars."

Zephyr decided to try some humour to help him out of his predicament. "Begging your pardon constable, but it's an English piano. It would want to play on this side of the road. And may I ask what language you are speaking?"

The policeman nodded. "Ot is Anglish I am spooking, and neebody has ever complooned. In the cas of the pooani, whoch is indood Anglosh, that would be 14 peends, 8 shollings and sixparnce, or I may have to put the sispoct's face on the beard of the poloce stution."

Just then, with very fortunate timing, Cirrus and Petunia emerged to hear what all the noise was about. "Oh! Where did that piano come from?" Cirrus asked.

"From nowhere," Zephyr replied. "Dad, do you have... sorry, what was the sum again?"

"14 peends, 8 shollings and sixparnce for plooying a piano on the wring side of the strote."

Cirrus sighed. "That's a bit harsh for playing a piano, but the law is the law I suppose." He handed the money to Zephyr, who in turn handed it to the policeman.

"Think you. Gid day."

Cirrus blinked. "I feel like we're in the middle of a Monty Python sketch. Next somebody will be telling us to listen very carefully, as they shall say it only once."

Petunia spoke up. "That was some very good playing, Zephyr. Clearly the piano lessons payed off. And, beg my pardon, you'd certainly look the part in a saloon in all that."

"I'm not sure weather to take that as a complement or not," Zephyr replied. "Though, maybe when this mess is over, that could be my calling. Zephyr Breeze, pianist extraordinaire! Playing today's and yesterday's hits in varying degrees of tunefulness for your enjoyment and delight!"

"Here we go again," Cirrus sighed. "I hope this one actually works. How about a piano playing, singing barber?"

"If I were to do that, I'd have to change my name to Sweeney Todd!" Zephyr joked.

"Perhaps not," Petunia said. "I just got off the phone with Windy Whistles. Apparently, we're all to meet in Canterlot Park not far from here. Shall we walk?"

"Sounds good!" Cirrus said, and they set off together into the town, accompanied by occasional talking and the rustling of skirts.
> Cloudy Quartz and Igneous Rock
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cloudy Quartz frowned as she stared at the logbook in front of her.

Oh dear.

This was not good. Not good at all.

There was a huge demand for quarry from the nearby industry and they still hadn't completed it, despite the deadline.

Cloudy sighed and rubbed her temples.

What on earth were Marble and Limestone doing?

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing.

She picked it up and looked at the caller ID.

Petunia Daisy Shy.

"Hello Petunia," said Cloudy tiredly.

"Um, hello Cloudy," Petunia replied meekly. "I hope I'm not disturbing you or anything."

"You're not."

"Oh, um okay. Listen, I might sound crazy right now, but you have to believe me, there are these magic blobs flying around which are transforming everyone's clothes!"

Cloudy blinked. "Petunia, go back to sleep, you're probably tired."

"You have to believe me!" insisted Petunia. "I saw Cirrus' clothes get changed in front of my very own eyes!"

Cloudy Quartz sighed deeply. "Alright Petunia, whatever you say."

"Rainbow Dash herself told us. Take care, Cloudy."

She ended the phone call and massaged her forehead. "Sometimes I don't know what is wrong with that woman." 

The brief flash of light barely registered in Cloudy Quartz' eyes as her eyes adjusted back to normalcy. Truth be told, there wasn't much that phased her. The light around here were somewhat unpredictable, as they lived on the edge of the normal power grid. This meant that brief flashes and power surges were quite common, and the family had just become used to living with it. When your family runs the largest quarrying operation in the region, there are some things that need to be taken with a degree of acceptance and thought. That, and she had things to be getting on with in her day, so she simply moved on in her mind and continued filling out the accounts she had laid out in the family logbook.

Something else, however, would soon catch her attention as she continued to work. She felt something present and moving on her leg. Much to her irritation, she moved a hand down to swipe it away, assuming that a fly or similar had landed there.

She looked visibly puzzled when her hand came into contact with not a fly, but fabric. And not the usual feel of her skirt, which had more of a business look to it. This fabric was soft, and felt like something on an evening gown. She quickly wheeled the chair back to take a look.

Large amounts of fabric was pooling on her chair, seemingly emerging from nowhere and out of the ether. She stood up, and it all rolled down her legs. Each skirt rolled down one by one, more and more, seven of them in a row, until they took up a lot of space around her. Far more than she was used to. "What sorcery is this?" she asked. "Surely providence cannot intend this for me!"

She was wrong. Avoiding the chance to reference an old meme, she shivered as she felt a cold thing run down her legs, then relief as another skirt materialised underneath that to protect her legs from the metal, not to mention save her embarrassment if her skirts got blown upwards.

There was another bright flash, and the skirts suddenly burst across the floor, gaining several feet in width whilst maintaining an A frame appearance. As they expanded to their full diameter, buoyant and seemingly full of air, the entire skirt turned grey, a marked contrast from the usual black and white chequerboard pattern it normally maintained. The symbols of three rocks also vanished into nothingness.

"There is something dark afoot," she said. "Foul magics!"

Just then, there was a great shrinkage. Her collar shrank back into her shirt. Her sleeves began to shift, with the outer layer on the end peeling away to reduce the mass on her sleeves. Her shirt was then attached into her skirt as the area around her shoulders and neck didn't move, allowing her to maintain an element of her preferred modesty. Speaking of which, they turned transparent, allowing her arms to be seen.

The elaborate patterning on the bodice formed into place as the bodice turned grey, producing an evening gown that could easily have been a lot worse for the highly conservative Cloudy Quartz. To ensure her glasses were not playing up, she took them off, wiped them, and put them back on.

The dress was still there.

"Goodness me! Whatever caused this?"

"SURPRISE!" said a voice suddenly, as Pinkie Pie suddenly appeared from nowhere. "Hi mom!"

"Must you always spring from nowhere and stun us all with your buffoonery?" Quartz asked. "And what is that you are wearing?"

"Oh, it's magic. Rarity got really mad because her sister and her friends borrowed her clothes and messed up her house without her permission so her magic malfunctioned and its transforming everybody's clothes into posh things and this is really weird and-" Pinkie stopped, and took a deep breath here, before continuing. "And now we're seeing if everybody is OK before Twilight can get here and fix things!"

Cloudy Quartz blinked. "I see. I shall have to consult your father and decide our best course of action."

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and a voice spoke. "Excuse me, but I have an important message."

"By all means."

Just then, a man entered, dressed most ridiculously. "There's trouble up quarry," he said. "One of t' cables on t' winding engine has snapped."

"We don't have a winding engine."

"Some strange force replaced all our machinery with vintage ones!"

Cloudy Quartz put a hand to her head. "This is going to give me a headache," she said. "Convey me to the quarry immediately. I must speak to Igneous at once. Pinkie, go and find your sisters. Undoubtedly they will be struck by this too."





Igneous Rock had been at work when it happened. Always one for getting stuck in, he had been working on one of the excavators when the bright light had occurred.

"Clearly something is wrong, and I must investigate," he said, sliding out from underneath the bucket excavator he was working on. Being the head of a quarry company did not render him immune from frontline work. Indeed, such behavior was a quick way of alienating yourself from your workers, which Igneous was determined not to do.

He hadn't noticed that the bright light had hit him, as he walked back to the portable trailer he used as an office. He would rather have built a small building out of Welsh slate to house his men and office, but planning laws wouldn't let him as they had to return this land to nature after they were done. That would be rather hard given the giant holes quarrying blasts in the ground.

He sighed as he stepped through the door. A brief glance in the mirror caused him to stop and pause. His normally grey shirt, well suited for the quarry, was now white, but remained otherwise unchanged. "How unusual."

His black tie slid out of his waistcoat and upwards his shirt, moving upwards until it stopped around the collar. Then it began to melt, seeming to fade away and falter into nothingness, until only a small amount was left. This turned pink, and was soon wrapped and tied around his neck as some sort of pseudo bow tie.

His waistcoat, now that we come onto it, remained the same, but turned a golden color with some lighter trim to offset the bright colours. It also lost its distinctive pickaxe image that he used as an identifier. Igneous frowned. "Hmmm. I never much liked garish colours, and this is altogether too garish for me."

Thankfully, his prayers were answered when a black coat materialised into being atop his waistcoat. It was heavy and thick, and featured six buttons. However, only two of them actually served the function of being functional, if that makes sense. Indeed, the others seemed purely for show, as Igneous did them up out of a force of habit.

His pants turned grey from their normal black, but otherwise he could not observe any changes to them perceptible to his sight. He figured it would only leave his shoes left to change to something else. Although they themselves turned totally black as opposed to the black and grey they normally were, and gained laces to hold them on rather than friction, they were largely unchanged, featuring the same gradients and features to hold them on.

"Well, that could have been a lot stranger." Igneous would have come across as strangely blasé about all this to anybody else, but truth be told he was hardly one to be surprised by anything. After all, strange things seemed to happen in this town at least once a week, so there was no point in kicking up a fuss.

He stepped outside his office to see if anybody else was affected, and to his surprise saw that the other staff had undergone similar transformations of their own, all wearing clothing that made them resemble navies. The machinery in the quarry was also now considerably more vintage, with the modern tech replace by steam excavators and shovels.

"Sir!" called one of the workmen. "One of t' cables on t' winding engine has snapped."

"Message head office and ask them to send a replacement," Igneous quickly replied, as he strode over to one of the machines. "Ho there! Why is this unit not operating?"

"She's being uncooperative," the foreman replied. "I've got her up to steam, but the controls are wonky and are fighting back, as crazy as it sounds."

"Let me try," Igneous said, and hopped in the cab. With a bit of gentleness on the levers, and some skill with operating mechanical marvels, he coaxed the steam excavator into life and soon got it doing a marvelous job, shifting dust and sand as well as rock into a nearby set of wagons that would be moved to the crushing plant for processing.

Igneous was so engrossed in this work that he only just heard the company car pull up outside the office building. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, and hopped out of the cab, telling the foreman to keep operating the unit whilst he was away.

The door opened, and his wife stepped out, looking rather overdressed for the quarry setting. "Igneous," she said. "Something very strange is happening. Fate has conspired to do strange and confusing things to our clothes, and to others too!"

"I'll say," Igneous replied. "Don't you think an evening gown is overdoing it a bit for a quarry visit?"

"Now is not the time for buffoonery," Cloudy replied. "I just got off the telephone with Petunia Shy. Apparently, according to one Rainbow Dash, we and our friends are to meet in the park to discuss matters."

"Then we must go!" Igneous called, and both adults hopped into the car. "Canterlot Central Park, and quickly!"

"Very well, sir!" the driver replied, and the car sped off, throwing up dust and dirt.

The foreman turned to a fellow workman. "Well, this is a weird day."





"Hey, Marble?"

"Mhm?"

"Why do I get the feeling that something odd is going on?"

"Mhm."
> Hondo Flanks and Cookie Crumbles
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hondo Flanks grunted and wiped the sweat away from his brow as he struggled to fix the customer's car.

It was all in a day's work.

Needless to say, it required a lot of patience and concentration to change the car's gears. Hondo was so focused on his work, he didn't notice the golden blue sparks flying around.

Much like Cloudy Quartz, Hondo Flanks had not witnessed the flash of light that hit him, or rather paid it little attention at all. This was because he was in an environment that was quite brightly lit, so the extra bright flash wouldn't bother him very much. He glanced around for something that would not be a cause for concern, as he was about to start up an arc welder. An old car needed some repairs, and as he enjoyed fixing things in his spare time (a hobby that was a distinct contrast from his job managing an advertising agency), he had naturally set aside some time to see if he could get this old rust bucket back to showroom condition.

He lifted the bonnet and peered through the engine, noticing the vast arrays of old parts and mechanical components. Some of these parts would need ordering, as he lacked the capabilities to mend or make them himself.

He was about to turn back when he briefly caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He stopped, suddenly noticing that one of his hands had a glove on it that had a distinct workman's look to it. "That's funny," he said to himself, in his distinctive northeast accent that so many found unintelligible. "I'm pretty certain I wasn't wearing that earlier."

Sure enough, another one appeared on his other hand. "Having said that, they are rather convenient for working on old machinery."

As was the next item he gained. Apart from his boots becoming considerably tougher, his already work worn brown shirt turned grey, with an open collar to add to the look. A cap appeared on his head as well, large and peaked, meaning he either looked like an engine driver or a bus conductor, depending on the context.

His pants shifted to become jeans, hard wearing clothes perfect for an industrial environment such as this, and the look he had was finally completed when he gained a light blue work jacket atop that to protect him from any soot and oil that may come his way.

Hondo Flanks was, admittedly, a little confused at what had just happened, but he got stuck in with his work with a smile. He was in his element, and this enabled him to focus on other things and not think about why his clothes had suddenly and inexplicably changed in the way that they had.

In fact, he was so engrossed that he didn't even hear the knock on the paper thin door that separated the garage from the rest of the house he shared with his wife, Cookie Crumbles. He eventually did, however. "Yes, dear?"

"Rarity and Sweetie Belle are hear to see us!"

"I'll open the garage door!" Hondo replied, and he popped the switch next to him that opened the door. He waited for it to finish rolling open, and then stepped outside to see his daughter standing there. Rarity being dressed rather formally for the occasion.

"Hello my darling!" he said, walking towards Rarity with the intent of giving her a hug.

"Father, it is perchance best you do not," Rarity replied, posh mode still in full swing. "It would be a pity to ruin this dress."

"Oh, true." Hondo discreetly hid his oily gloves behind his back. "So, what brings you here?"

"We wanted to check if the strange clothing curse had affected you, and to see if you were OK," Rarity said. "I see it already has. So that's three of us..."

"No wonder it took so long to get here!" Hondo exclaimed.

"Driving in a long dress is hardly a practical exercise, considering the number of things a skirt can get stuck on," Rarity sighed. "Is mother OK?"

Suddenly, a voice could be heard. "Stay calm, mom! I'll help you through this."

Both father and daughter looked at one another. "There's your answer," they said, in unison.





 Meanwhile....... 

Cookie Crumbles was in her kitchen, making.......well cookies.

She poured some butter into a bowl, added some white sugar and then brown, and stirred the mixture until it was smooth. After that, she cracked precisely two eggs and measured one teaspoon of vanilla essence to add to the mixture. Then, she added in half a tablespoon of baking soda. Finally, she stirred in two cups of flour, one cup of chocolate chips and some walnuts.

Cookie dusted her hands on her apron, and then put spoonful of the mixture into a baking tray, such that she had at least 15 neat little dollops of cookie dough. She placed the tray into the oven and was just about to turn it on, when she heard their doorbell ring.

"Just a minute," called Cookie.

She made her way out of the kitchen and towards their main door. She opened it, and to her surprise, both her daughters were there, dressed in absolutely gorgeous dresses.

"Oh my word!" gasped Cookie. "My babies look so beautiful!"

She reached around their heavy skirts and pulled both Rarity and Sweetie Belle into a hug.

"Mom. I....need.....to......breathe," Sweetie Belle wheezed out.

Cookie Crumbles smiled sheepishly and released them from the hug.

"Excuzez moi, Mother," Rarity said, daintily stepping around Cookie. "I need to take a look at how father is doing."

Cookie pulled Sweetie Belle towards the kitchen.

"Come darling, I just made a new batch of cookies."

Sweetie Belle smiled at her. Then, her eyes widened as she glimpsed a blob of light heading straight for her mother.

"MOM! LOOK OUT FOR-"

But alas, she was too late. The bright ball of magic had already hit Cookie.

Cookie Crumbles looked at her daughter in shock, having just been hit by a flying blob. "What's going on?" she asked. "Is this what happened to you?"

Sweetie Belle reacted almost immediately, gently helping her mother over to one side away from the furniture. "Stay calm, mom! I'll help you through this." She looked around. "Good, nothing for a potential skirt to bump into..."

"Sorry?" Cookie asked, but as she asked that question it was rather answered by itself. The legs of her calf length white pants suddenly began to widen. "Hey! What's this?"

"Ah, that's just the skirt starting to form," Sweetie Belle said quickly. "I may need to stand back to give it space."

Once they had fitted quite tightly onto her legs, but now they spread out wider and wider, slowly moving closer and closer together. Then, when they made contact, they didn't brush against each other but rather seemed to merge into each other, flowing closer and closer into one garment and soon coming as one. The legs slowly began to vanish as they transformed into a skirt, one that only ran to her calves as her pants had once done.

Seeing this, Cookie was suddenly a lot more at ease with herself. "Oh! It's just like Cinderella before the ball! Nothing to really worry about."

The pendant around her neck vanished as the collar of her red shirt began to open up, sliding closer and closer to her shoulders and down her chest until it stopped above her cleavage, forming a nice curve shape around her breasts. The back, mercifully, stayed in place, which made wearing it a lot easier.

The shirt and skirt then turned a cream color, followed by the sleeves growing longer and longer, until they reached her wrists and stopped. "Say! This looks pretty stylish!"

The shirt then merged into her skirt, forming a dress.

"The next bit may a bit hard at first. If you need help-"

"How could walking in this be hard?"

Cookie Crumbles would soon learn she was a fool for tempting fate. Several extra skirts flowed past her legs, which gave the outer skirt greater volume and size. All of these layers then grew to the ground, meaning she could no longer see her feet. "Ah. Walking in this may be more difficu-AAAH! That's cold!"

"That's probably the crinoline," Sweetie Belle said. "It may be either a dome or an A frame."

With a bright flash of light the dress burst outwards, flowing outwards like a river as they expanded across the floor. Bigger and bigger, and faster and faster it grew, until it reached several feet in diameter and then, just as suddenly, stopped growing.

The outer skirt and bodice became covered in flower patterns as a top layer of lace and silk formed on top, interlaced with depictions of flowers and greenery that looked absolutely beautiful. Cookie looked over her dress in wonder.

"I haven't worn anything like this since I was in school!" she said, her initial shock having turned to a response of delight. "And you say Rarity did this?"

Sweetie Belle looked sheepish. "It's kinda my fault. She got mad because I messed about with stuff in her room and made a mess."

Cookie blinked, and she took her daughter into a hug as best they could with the massive volumes of skirt they had to negotiate. "It doesn't matter whose fault it is. All that matters is that we learn from our mistakes and work to put them right. What did you say we were to do, Hondo? HONDO!"

Hondo Flanks suddenly appeared, oil dripping off his gloves. "Hello there. What is it?"

"I thought you said something about doing something."

"I think I can help, mother," Rarity interjected, suddenly appearing and trying to keep her skirt out of the patches of oil and dirt. "Whilst you were indoors, I got a message from Rainbow Dash asking her parents and their friends to go to Canterlot Park. You should probably head there now, Sweetie Belle and I have more people to help."

"You got it!" Cookie grinned. "Wait, Rainbow's parents? Are they also getting fancy clothes?"

Suddenly, there was an incredibly loud voice.

"YAY! WE LOOK LIKE A PRINCE AND PRINCESS!"
> Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bow Hothoof had always been one for practicality. He had always tried to avoid stuffy clothes, knowing that they could affect his potential chances of getting anywhere, or even more impact his ability to do things at times. As he roamed about outdoors, trying to find rubbish and detritus to clear up and put in the bin, he suddenly noticed two giant blobs flying towards the house. One changed course and flew into him, whilst the other went indoors.

"Hey, that was weird," Bow groaned, as he walked over to the door. "Hey, Wind, you OK?"

"I think so!" she replied.

Bow, satisfied with her response, turned around and resumed his great search. When his attention was suddenly drawn downstairs. He had never been one for posh shoes and clunky boots, and as such was rather surprised when he saw his yellow shoes, hard built and designed for a hard day's work, had turned black. Not only that, the laces had turned black as well, and the gradient of the heel had shifted ever so slightly, giving him a slightly different gait.

He rubbed his eyes in confusion and looked down to see if he was seeing things. Alas he was not. "OK, this is pretty bizarre, and WOW THOSE ARE TIGHT!"

His dark blue slacks had turned a strange charcoal color, and not only that had tightened considerably onto his legs. What appeared to be chalk lines ran down them to the bottom of the leg, which was now a lot smaller around him.

His favorite white shirt soon lost its blue piping and began to grow taller, the collar rising higher and higher until it was around his collarbones. Another collar rose out of that, and ascended until it was like a shirt worn with a business suit. The collar then closed around his neck, the button doing itself up, and then a silk tie appeared, doing itself into a knot and rolling down his front underneath his jacket.

As his shirt had grown, his jacket had shrunk. It had changed from green to a white color, shrinking down and losing its collar and sleeves very rapidly. Buttons appeared all over it as it changed, with four of them being done up to hold it in place as a waistcoat. A stupidly posh waistcoat.

His gloves vanished as a long black jacket with tails materialised atop his existing clothes, and his head was soon adorned with a top hat that made him look rather odd. He glanced down over his clothes in confusion and surprise, albeit no delay. "What in the world? Why do I look like I'm going to the races?"

The peace and quiet was suddenly shattered by a series of nearby noises. The most prominent of those noises was a scream. Not a scream of terror, mind you, but of utter delight and extreme happiness. The next sound to follow was the pattering of heels from indoors. This was strange, as his wife was the only person indoors and she normally didn't wear heels.

So imagine his surprise when Windy Whistles suddenly burst out of the door, wearing an absolutely spectacular dress every color of the rainbow, skirts swirling and spilling everywhere. She quickly pulled him into a hug.

"YAY! WE LOOK LIKE A PRINCE AND PRINCESS!" she cried, as usual showing little regard for appropriate volume given the circumstances.

Bow returned the hug. True, Windy was always ridiculously upbeat and peppy, but today her joy seemed to have rocketed to stratospheric levels not seen since she had been pregnant with their daughter. Not to mention, he had to admit she looked absolutely adorable in that dress. "You seem happy. I didn't think it was possible for you to be even more beautiful than you always are, but that dress really suits you!"

"Thank you!" Windy exclaimed as she broke the hug. "I'm just so happy right now! This dress is amazing!" She did a series of twirls, her inner child having temporarily taken control of her."

"So, how did this happen?" Bow asked.

Windy grinned, her face still the image of jolliness. "Oh, it was so amazing! I was just going about my normal business and then it happened!!"





A few minutes earlier.....





 Windy Whistles hummed softly as she dusted around the house. She smiled as a picture on the mantelpiece got her attention. It was a family photo of all three of them, and Rainbow was looking the most adorable in a fluffy pink dress as she pouted angrily. Windy herself was dressed in a similar pink gown, and Bow in a fancy tux, although he seemed to be slightly uncomfortable in it. 

 She sighed wistfully. Those were such fun days. 

 Just then, her phone rang. She picked it up and answered it. 

 "Heya Rainbow," Windy said cheerfully. "How are you, sweetie?" 

 "Uh hi mom," Rainbow replied. "Say, you haven't seen any colorful blobs flying around, have you?"

 "Colorful blobs? I'm afraid not, honey." 

 "Oh okay then. If you do see one, make sure to stay out of it's way." 

 At, that exact moment, a blob flew in from the window. Windy stared at it in silence. 

 "I..... I think I just saw a colorful blob in the house," said Windy, shakily.

 Rainbow Dash groaned. "Hang in there mom, I'll be there soon." 

Windy Whistles knew that flying blobs weren't normal, at least where she was from. Then again, she had grown up in a city miles from here, where strange and wonderful things happened almost on a daily basis, so who was she to complain about what was and was not possible? She looked about for a source of the light, but alas could find none.

"Oh well. Probably just a trick of the mind."

"Hey, Wind, you OK?" she heard her husband call.

"I think so!" she replied. She certainly hoped everything was normal. That loud scream she had heard was certainly far from normal. She stepped into her living room to check something else when the lights started up again.

"Huh? What's going on?"

Rainbow energy emerged into the sky, and began to dance and swirl around her. Lights twirled, and the energy began to coalesce into large waves that flowed and ran in great circles all around Windy, but mainly from her hips downwards. "Well, this looks pretty cool!"

As she glanced down, her pink pants began to shift. The legs suddenly tore open from top to bottom as if somebody had run a knife down them, the legs flapping in the wind produced by the whirling energies. The legs then suddenly stabilized in place as they had previously swung back and forth, and with the sound of a loud sewing device were suddenly stitched back together, albeit as a hobble skirt.

Windy groaned as she tried to shuffle forward. "Walking in this is next to impossible!"

Luckily for her, the skirt widened to reduce the strain on her legs, and then grew longer, flowing over her ankles and touching the floor very quickly indeed.

The whirling energies became much more certain in color, and with a blinding flash suddenly vanished into the ether as the skirt she had on started growing wider under its own power. When the light had cleared, Windy's eyes widened in wonder. Where the light had formally been, she was now wearing a very big, very wide A frame skirt. The frame swayed gently when she touched it, the many, many layers of skirts swaying and rustling as it did so.

It took very little for Windy's inner child to be switched back on, and this was one of those things that had that effect. She whooped for joy as she looked down, suddenly being taken right back to her princess phase when she was a little girl.

Her jacket vanished into nothingness, followed by the sleeves of her shirt beginning to shrink. Her shoulders also melted as the sleeves pulled backwards up her arms, fabric fading into nothingness as the shirt dropped down to her breasts, and ran round the back, leaving her shoulders and arms completely exposed. The fabric lost from both garments was suddenly sprinkled throughout the skirt, which turned every color of the rainbow in its external colouring.

Windy was absolutely ecstatic, as the final stage began and her shoes transformed into a pair of heels. After squealing in delight, she headed for the door to the garden to show her husband her new dress. She burst out of the door, her skirts flying everywhere as she ran forward, and seeing her husband dressed up poshly as well only magnified her happiness. She quickly hauled him into a hug, and showed her traditional disdain for the concept of appropriate volume.






"So, that's what happened," Windy summarized.

"Ah, gotcha," Bow Hothoof nodded in understanding.

"Hey guys!" called a voice. Both parents looked over to see Rainbow Dash there, also dressed up adorably.

Windy covered the ground in nothing flat. "Dashy, it is so SO good to see you!! We're all in matching clothes! Do you know who did this?"

Rainbow Dash's face was beginning to turn purple. "Mom, I appreciate the... gesture, but I also need to be able... to breathe!"

Windy looked embarrassed, and let her go. "Sorry."

Rainbow nodded. "Thanks. Basically, there's magic changing people's clothes, as you have seen, and me and my friends are working on a counter to help those affected."

"It's just like Cinderella!" Windy said, twirling yet again. "Oh, I love it so much!"

"Watch you don't get dizzy, dear!"

"Funnily enough, one of my friends has been turned into Cinderella." Rainbow Dash took up the conversation again. "So, if you guys could head to Canterlot Central park, that'd be great. I've got other people to help, so see ya!" She sped off down the road, her lighter skirts no impediment to her ability to run.

Both the parents, on the other hand, set off for the park. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could dress like this every day?"

"If we could, it would become routine and boring." Bow then grinned. "But I wouldn't mind seeing you wearing that once in a while. It reminds me of prom night. You always loved to wear anything poofy back then."

"You kidding? Big skirts are the best! It's just most corridors aren't wide enough to accommodate them!"
> Intermission
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy stared in wonder around Twilight's laboratory. Sure, she was known for being a huge science nerd and all, but all this seemed pretty amazing. Various notes crowded the softboard, while flasks, chemical formulas and other lab equipment cluttered the desk.

Twilight, meanwhile, was frantically scribbling on her notebook and muttering to herself.

"Um, Twilight?"

"Not now, Fluttershy."

"....okay..."

Twilight seemed to be in a world of her own as she furiously scribbled equations and numbers down. Figures and symbols marched across chalkboards like soldiers fighting their own mathematical battles, and chemicals bubbled in chambers as the young scientist (whom many thought was perhaps a bit crazy) worked hard to try and find a solution to the problem.

The only problem was, the space was a bit cramped, and as she was moving about she constantly bumped into things, which knocked some objects over.

"Right, adjust the equation for morpographic capacitation by about three coulins and..."

Just then, a device beeped. "Ah! I think it's done!" Twilight shuffled over to a machine and took a rather vile looking liquid out of a device. "Counter spell, liquid style!"

"What is it exactly?" Fluttershy asked.

"It's a chemical compound imbued with incantation precepts, allowing the substance to enact a molecular reversal and restore the patterns of molecules to their base form."

"In English, please."

"Basically it reverses whatever magic is working. Time for a test run!" Before anybody could stop her, Twilight put a small sample into a test tube, set the syringe, and then sprayed it on her dress.

Nothing happened. The dress was as big and yellow as before, and refused to change back no matter what Twilight did.

"What?" the nerd exclaimed. "I was certain this would do the trick! Maybe my numbers were wrong, or the equipment is faulty, or-"

"Twilight!" Fluttershy suddenly interrupted. "You may want to look at this."

Twilight peered at a computer screen. "Magic surge at Crystal Prep?"

"I don't like the sound of that...."

"Of course that's it! Rarity's magic must've reached there also! C'mon Fluttershy, we have to take a look!"

Fluttershy nodded and hastily followed Twilight downstairs.

Unfortunately, as smart as she was, Twilight miscalculated the speed at which she should be running in, all the while being clad in a gigantic ballgown.

Uh oh.

Twilight stumbled over her heels, tripped over her massive skirt, and went tumbling and rolling down the rest of the stairs, while Fluttershy looked on with horror.

"TWILIGHT!"

"AAAAHHHH!!"





Meanwhile.......





Twilight Velvet and Night Light were having a wonderful time waltzing to their wedding song. It brought back lovely memories and they cherished it all the very much.

Suddenly, they were interrupted by something. Or rather, someone.

To their extreme bewilderment, they heard the sound of something heavy falling down the stairs. They didn't have to wonder long, because Twilight came tumbling towards them, in a flurry of gold skirts. After a few moments she finally stopped, her skirts inflated around her like a balloon.

Fluttershy came hurrying towards her, worried for her friend.

"Oh my goodness! Twilight, are you alright?"

Some muffled noises.

Twilight Velvet cautiously approached the mountain of skirts that was her daughter and poked it.

"Twilight? You silly girl, you could have hurt yourself!"

"Dear, I don't think she can hear you."

With the combined efforts of her parents and Fluttershy, Twilight was finally able to stand up straight, albeit a little disheveled, but otherwise completely fine.

"Whew. Remind me to never do that again."

Twilight Velvet smiled fondly.

"Maybe be not so hasty next time, sweetie."

Twilight brushed a hand over her skirt. "Yeah. Maybe this thing's not to bad after all."

Just then, the telephone rang.

"I'll get it!" Twilight Velvet called, as she picked up her skirts and answered it. "Hello?"

Fluttershy looked over to Twilight.

"Um, Twilight, if you're alright now, we should, um, head over to Crystal Prep."

Twilight facepalmed. "Oh, of course!"

Night Light bid farewell to his daughter and Fluttershy as they walked out the door and then turned to his wife, who was finished with her conversation.

"Who was it?" he inquired.

"Windy Whistles. She said we're all due to meet at the central park to discuss further arrangements regarding our current predicaments."

Night Light grinned and bowed.

"Lead the way, fair mademoiselle!"





Rarity and Sweetie Belle made their way down the street towards their next destination. The sheer number of people affected had given them both a clue that the proposed solution to this crisis would need to be considerably more effective than originally planned. The sky continued to hold at a murky grey, with the thick levels of magical particles continuing to impair visibility. Buses and cars were pulled up at the side of the road, drivers unable to proceed safely thanks to the thick clouds of magical particles. Not only that, people were using torches to make their way through the murk, and see safely ahead of themselves.

Several more glowing orbs roared by, slamming into people nearby and changing them in the instant. One sporty jock looked on in dismay as his sports jacket and slacks morphed into a most ridiculous looking suit that was squeezed tight on his bulging, muscular frame. One other person, a lady, was both surprised and alarmed when her white summer dress exploded into a gigantic ballgown, skirts and layers flying everywhere around her, and her response and slow movement suggested that she was not used to walking around in these sorts of heavy garments.

Through it all, Rarity and Sweetie Belle pushed on, trying to find others. "I think it was a good move to go on foot," Rarity said. "Driving in these conditions would be very unpleasant. It is a bit of a pea souper, after all, and the visibility is next to zero!"

"Not to mention driving in a long skirt is next to impossible," Sweetie Belle mumbled quietly.

"There is that," Rarity admitted. "I would be most frightfully stuck if this skirt got caught in the pedals or any moving parts. And if it were to be torn and ripped- heavens forbid such a thing happen!"

Sweetie Belle gave no reply. The guilt was continuing to eat at her, as she was stuck in her own thoughts. A single stupid decision had let to this entire fiasco, and now the entire town was paying for her idiocy. She kept her head down, not wanting to look at anybody and be reminded of all this. The endless rustling of her skirt and its weight upon her hips didn't help in that matter, and as she walked along she soon became briefly aware of a voice calling to her from next to her.

"Sweetie Belle?"

The younger girl shook her head. "Yes, Rarity?"

"Hmm, funny. Were you lost in your thoughts?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I attempted to get your attention three times." There was a pause. "Why are you looking at the pavement? It is not very interesting down there."

Sweetie Belle mumbled something unintelligible.

"Now, now, darling, you know I cannot understand you when you speak that quietly. What is on your mind?"

"I said I can't look when evidence of my own stupidity is all around me," Sweetie Belle said, finally looking up.

Rarity gasped when she saw how upset her sister looked. She indicated to a bench nearby, and both siblings sat down. "Tell me, why do you feel this situation is all your fault?"

"Because if we hadn't messed the house up, you wouldn't have gotten mad! We could have prevented this, and instead we let our boredom get the better of us!"

Rarity sighed. "I will agree that deciding to use the features of the home as tools in breaking your boredom was not the wisest of things to do. But you should not beat yourself up over it. We can fix this situation and get the circumstances back to normal." There was a pause. "Besides, you are not entirely to blame for this fiasco."

"I'm not?" Sweetie Belle sounded audibly confused.

"I was the one who lost my temper and lost control of my own magic, remember?" Rarity answered. "It was a most unladylike thing for me to do, and I apologize as well. The only thing we can do is learn from this and move forward."

"Thanks," Sweetie Belle replied. "I'm feeling a lot better now."

Suddenly, a great and strange noise started up just down the road. "What on Earth is that?" Rarity asked, surprised at all the noise.

Just then, a great column of people playing bagpipes marched past, making an absolute racket. There were at least fifty of them, all adorned in various elements of Highland garb, and they maintained perfect time and speed as they went by.

"What a racket!" Rarity exclaimed. "I recognize that tartan!"

"The problem's gotten a lot further than we thought," Sweetie Belle finished.
> Spitfire and Soarin'
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The wind whistled past Spitfire’s ears as she ran, kicking the ball away from her teammates.

Fleetfoot groaned as she missed the ball by inches.

Spitfire grinned triumphantly, and with one strong kick, she sent the ball sailing over their heads and right into the goal post.

"SCOREEEE!!!" yelled Thunderlane, who was the goalie.

The Wonderbolts' team all gave each other high-fives to celebrate a game well done.

"Bolts, listen up," commanded Spitfire, blowing on her whistle. "Short break for five minutes and then I want to see individual practice sessions from all of you. Am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Fleetfoot and the other girls headed over to the locker room, while Soarin' and Thunderlane made their way over to the other side of the field.

Spitfire stayed behind for one last round.

Just as she was about the kick the ball, a blue and golden blob came out of nowhere and whizzed past her.

She stared at it, then shrugged and went back to her game. She didn't notice it making a U-turn and gently bumping into her.

Spitfire's foot then went for the ball, but due to a sudden and inexplicable change in her gravity she missed it, flew through the air, and landed on her back in the mud with a splat. "Oww!"

The ball rolled casually away and eventually came to a stop in a crevice as Spitfire got back to her feet. "I don't normally have this issue," she said. "Haven't missed a shot like that in years. Is my kit playing up?"

She glanced down to her feet to see if her boots were playing up, and her eyes widened in confusion. Where her usual blue boots should have been, a pair of golden heels sat instead. "What the heck?" she asked.

The heavy duty socks she usually wore to protect her legs from chafing were gone as well, leaving most of her legs exposed. She glanced about herself to see most of her friends had also gotten into similar difficulty, leaving her as not the only one. Although her concern for her team mates was great, she also needed to see to her own predicament, and so tried to wobble off the playing fields as best she could. She'd worn heels in the past, yes. But not ones this stupidly tall!

There was also some strange glare in her eyes that she couldn't get rid of, for some reason. A golden light...

It didn't take her very long to establish the source of said golden light. As she looked down, she saw her normally blue and yellow shorts had turned gold and were glowing intensely. Skidding to a stop to try and avoid anybody seeing her, she looked on in shock as the legs suddenly flowed into each other, merging and joining together to create a single piece down there. The undersides of the legs had also opened up, putting Spitfire in a mini skirt in effect. This was a problem. She hated wearing skirts.

To her even further shock, her shirt, which much like all other Wonderbolts garb was blue with yellow trim, soon turned gold itself. Her left hand shoulder began to unravel, the fabric pulling apart and dropping down her front and back, exposing her arms in the process The neckline plummeted, revealing rather more of her upper chest than Spitfire was comfortable with. Curiously, though, the right hand shoulder fabric stayed in place, presumably to hold the garment up. The sleeve was still removed, though.

The upper part of the shirt, or what had formally been her shirt, suddenly ruffled up all around the sides and front, although the side with the strap on it remained in place. The rest of the lost fabric suddenly reappeared at the bottom of the shirt, which merged into the skirt, producing a dress. A stupidly tight dress which made moving very hard.

Spitfire's waist was suddenly sucked in by an unknown force, and a metal band appearing around her waist made her shiver as a metal contraption burst out from underneath the skirt and grew to the floor, quickly followed by several extra layers of skirts flowing down it to the floor and completely covering her legs and feet.

"Oh no."

The outer skirt, still looking stupidly short, would soon join them as it slid down her legs, flowing to the bottom and covering all the other skirts over.

There was a bright flash, and with a sudden pop the skirts all started to inflate, pushed outwards by the metal hoop. The fabric didn't seem to be stretching and straining in any way, instead physically growing more and more skirt as it pushed outwards. The ground was increasingly swallowed up by the expanding dome, which covered so much ground that it seemed as though it were a mile wide.

The frame inside creaked and groaned as the metal continued to expand, the skirt maintaining a perfect dome shape as it grew. This went on for several minutes, until at last the skirt began to slow down and stop.

And stop they did. The inner layers, at least. The outer layer kept going a bit longer, producing a distinct lumpy texture on it, which looked a bit strange.

Spitfire felt very stupid indeed. She looked down into the skirt, and realized the outer layer was so shiny she could see her face in it. "I hope nobody can see me like this." She stepped forward... and almost immediately tripped. She flew over, landing on the ground with a thud. As she did, there was a loud tearing noise as something got caught on something else.

Spitfire soon pushed herself back up, and looked down to see what had caused the noise. Much of the outer skirt had torn off, leaving a trail of golden fabric and exposed inner skirts. "Maybe that's how I get this off!"

She was wrong. The ruined portions of the skirt glowed, and soon grew longer, the damaged sections regrowing in a matter of seconds. Before long, the skirt was fully repaired, and if you hadn't witnessed the prior incident you would be forgiven for concluding it had never been damaged.

This left Spitfire even more disheartened. "So I can't get this thing off and any damage it takes is magically repaired. Fate, I hate you sometimes."

"Hey, boss! What's going on?"

Spitfire heard the voice of Soarin', her second in command, approaching. She turned as best she could to see both him and her fellow players running towards her, all of them wearing a combination of heavy evening gowns and formal attire.

She facepalmed. "This is getting silly."





"AAAHHH!!" Soarin' yelled, as he ran away from the ball of light chasing him.

What on earth was happening?

A few minutes earlier, he and Thunderlane had been practicing goals and everything seemed perfectly fine.

Then, he stopped for a break while Thunderlane went to practice shots with Misty Fly.

The next thing he knew, a scream had rung out in the air, and weird blue and gold sparks were flying in the air.

And, now one such ball was right at his heels!

Soarin' was a veteran sportsman, and a longtime student of Canterlot High School who believed that anything could plausibly be believed if the evidence to support said belief existed. Unlike a lot of his more skeptical classmates, he accepted the possibility that magic could exist, considering all the craziness that happened in his home town on a regular basis, ranging from magic crowns and weird amulets creating demonettes (not 'she demons', as that is not a word), green mists, and possibly strange trees and living plants entombing students on mountain tops. Safe to say, he was well versed in the weirdness department.

He would have been fully equipped to face these supernatural threats, but sadly today was not one of those days. As he sprinted across the field, trying to get away from the magic sparks, he rolled into a tree with a bang and was shaken when a blob hit him, sending him the other way and landing him next to a wall. "Ouch, that's gonna sting."

He sat up, processing the circumstances going on, when he suddenly noticed a golden sheen near him, soon joined by a duller, darker colour to offset the bright light and help him see properly. He glanced down to see what had caused the light. Possibly the most garish jacket he had ever seen in his life. It was gold with black trim in all sorts of different places to offset the intensity of the colour.

His blue sports shirt soon joined in the fun, gaining a collar at the top and then buttons down it, the shirt splitting open in the process, which looked very weird indeed. It then turned white, and the buttons all did themselves up. Including the top one with the folded down collar, which made breathing an interesting logistical exercise as it was far too small for him.

His shorts then joined in the changing game, turning black, gaining a belt and belt loops around the top, and then growing longer over his knees and down to his ankles. The belt was also quite tight, and Soarin' tried to loosen it, but his hands were deflected away by an electrical discharge.

"Patience..." hissed a voice.

"Oh great," Soarin' thought. "I'll be stuck like this for a while..."

His beloved boots soon morphed into a pair of black shoes with no laces or indeed any formality at all, giving them the look of a pair of loafers. Soarin' was aghast. He was no opponent of wearing posh stuff (and he had to admit Spitfire looked great in the Wonderbolt flightsuit worn for extreme sports), but this looked like something a fourth rate pop star would wear.

And a Fourth Rate Pop Star was a thing that Soarin' did not want to be. As he glanced about, trying to ascertain if anybody else was around or indeed affected by this, he suddenly saw the team captain, Spitfire, tripping and damaging a very big and very fancy dress she was wearing. Only Soarin' knew that she hadn't been wearing anything like that seconds ago.

"Ah, so it must be magic!" he said, and began to head for her position.





"Hey boss! What's going on?"

Spitfire turned towards him, in a golden dress so bright that he had to shield his eyes from the intensity of it.

Upon seeing the rest of her teammates also dressed in formal evening dresses, Spitfire facepalmed.

"This is getting silly."

"I'd like to disagree, boss," piped in Surprise as she ruffled around in volumes of white skirts. "THIS IS SO FUN!"

Her fellow players had differing opinions though.
> Fleetfoot and Blaze
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally having a break after their rigorous practice session, Fleetfoot jogged over the locker room to freshen up.

She sighed in relief as she sat down on one of the benches and took a gulp of much needed water.

Fleetfoot then decided that she had enough rest and made her way towards the sports field.

However, she knew something was wrong when she struggled to walk properly in her kit. She had taken some time off the pitch in order to recuperate (cold water often that affect, as she personally disliked energy drinks), but this was rapidly proving to be very odd. The strange flashing lights and confusing light nearby didn't help, and it didn't help her chest felt constrained.

What was causing this? She had no allergies that she knew of, and she looked down to try and see the cause of the problem. The cause of the problem was immediately obvious; her shirt had turned red. This was not the only factor, however. The shirt had also tightened around her waist and was restricting her airflow, forming an almost thin look to her waist.

Fleetfoot heaved air into her lungs as best she could, not used to stuff like this, and watched in dismay as her sleeves and shoulders unthreaded and turned into a soft, wispy, red fabric, more suitable for decorative curtains than sports kit. Her clothes, such as they were, were changing, and the remains of her shirt dropped down to her upper chestline, held in place there.

A new set of shoulder fabric, the same, rich red as the remains of her shirt, formed in place, and the cloak thing attached into it. What came next caught Fleetfoot off guard. Her shorts suddenly shot downwards, and as they did so the legs merged into each other and formed a single skirt. As they were still moving downwards, she could feel something race past her legs and some other things rustling about on top of the something. The something was pretty cold, though. Eventually her now skirt reached the bottom and touched the floor, and the other things stopped getting longer with it. Her shorts also turned red and merged into her former shirt, which was now a... bodice? Was that the right word?

Imagine her greater surprise when her skirt began to expand and inflate. The fabric, far from a slow, gradual stretching across the floor from one location to another a la Cinderella, simply exploded outwards like a heated object that had just been exposed to a vacuum. It surged outwards in all directions, fabric and layers flowing in all directions and surging to reach their biggest size as fast as possible. Nonstop growth went onward, the skirt pushing outwards into an A shape of sorts. The skirt was not skipping or tearing in any way, with the fabric seemingly growing rather than stretching.

The front and sides stopped after a bit, but the back of the dress kept on growing, spilling further and further back into the field as the teen watched in dismay. "How am I supposed to walk in this?"

Eventually, however, it stopped growing backwards and stopped, forming a very long train. Not only that, but the whispy cloak thing extended backwards to cover all of the train as well, as the skirt and bodice became filled with sequins and diamonds to make it glitter and glow in the dark and the light.

Fleetfoot was about to comment on what she was wearing, not noticing her boots had changed into heels in the meantime, when Surprise ran over, hauling a similarly heavy dress over to her location. 

"Hey Flatfoot!" she called. "Nice dress!"

"Err, thanks?" Fleetfoot replied. "I'm not too sure myself. I mean, how do I walk in this thing without falling over?"

"Lean slightly forward and lift the front of the skirt up with your hand if that helps." Surprise's advise was surprisingly accurate.

Fleetfoot tried it out, and found it helped immensely. In fact, moving in such a huge skirt was easier than she anticipated. "So, how do you know how to move in these? This is a lot lighter than I was expecting."

"I wore one to the Fall Formal one year," Surprise replied. "Nobody saw that coming!"

"Otherwise you wouldn't be called surprise!" Fleetfoot laughed.

"Err, guys? A little help here!"

Both Surprise and Fleetfoot saw their friend, Blaze, wedged in place by her dress. Both of them sped over to help. 'Sped' being something of an operative word in the circumstances.





Blaze meanwhile, was experiencing a weird day.

On her way to the locker room, she had briefly stopped to tie her shoelaces, which had come undone, and looked up when a strange scream echoed throughout the air.

Bright blasts of yellow and blue magic followed, and one such intense ball came rushing towards her, and pushed her headfirst into a nearby tree.

Blaze groaned and rubbed her head as she stood up, her vision blurry and her joints in pain. "What... wass... that?" she asked, with slightly slurred speech as a consequence of whacking into a tree. She had no idea what had just happened. One moment the day had been pretty normal. Spitfire had sent them all off to do individual practice before they came back together for a practice match, all in preparation for them to take on the Crystal Prep Shadowbolts. This seemed to have been going normally so far, but that scream and the strange force that had hurled her into this tree had certainly done a number on her ability to focus.

Not only that, it seemed as though the wind was somehow picking up despite it being a perfectly clear day. "No clouds, no obvious source of wind... this is a weird day."

Blaze continued to make her way across the field, looking for her friends. The windy noise was picking up, and furthermore seemed to be following her.

She stopped when she noticed light energy flying through the sky alongside vast reams of golden blue particles dancing across the skies. Then the energy began to circulate around her. "Huh?"

Pinkish gold light surrounded her, floating round and round in a circle like a velociraptor circling its prey. It whirled round and round, cutting off her only routes of escape. It flowed in closer and closer like a snake, and as it did so her clothes began to change.

Her shorts were where it began, naturally enough. Their former cream and blue colour faded from existence and was quickly replaced by a dull grey colour, almost the sort that made it look like she was standing in a black and white photograph taken in the days before people could afford colour. The legs of these shorts then merged into one and formed a skirt, wildly inappropriate for playing sport.

This was not the worst bit, however. Neither was the next bit. The sleeves on her shirt stayed in roughly the same place, but the neckline dropped slightly to nearer her collarbones, and the bottom of the shirt merged into the skirt before turning the same dull grey colour, which also looked quite dull in shade.

Moments later, the energies finally caught up as her boots morphed into a pair of heels, quite inappropriate for running. The outer layers and most of the fabric faded and melted away, reducing them so she could see her feet, although not for much longer as her skirt then began to grow, flowing down her legs until it covered over her feet. The only indication she had heels on was the compression she felt in her feet and her odd center of gravity.

The aforementioned energies suddenly and dramatically flew inwards, and there was a blinding flash. In that moment, Blaze felt quite a lot of weight get added to her hips, and although the bright light was making it incredibly hard to see, she could have sworn she saw a metal frame or cage somewhere in the mix as the weight piled onwards, something very heavy now being focused onto her body.

And with that, the light suddenly faded. Much like a Fairy Godmother, the magic had Blaze set up and ready for the ball. Just two problems. There was no ball (of the dancing type), and Blaze felt an idiot in the dress.

The skirt was not as big as it could have been, but it was still far larger than Blaze was used to. It extended for several feet in all directions, sticking out in an A shape rather than the dome that was traditionally associated with this type of dress. Several layers of fabric helped keep the shape in order atop the metal, and the top layer was a shiny shade, almost a shiny light pink. The skirt was also covered in embroidery designed to look like flowers and patterns from nature, an image alluded to by the way the skirt curled in and out like petals on a flower.

The bodice wasn't much better. It was tight on her, and although she had the inner dress on to prevent rubbing, her shoulders felt bare and naked without much fabric on them. Didn't help that the outer loops of fabric sat atop her arms rather than her shoulders.

More of those flower patterns covered it, and Blaze sighed. "Well, can't practice in this. About as much use as a chocolate teapot when it comes to playing soccer."

On the way to Spitfire, she briefly met and chatted with High Winds.

High Winds went and Blaze was about to follow her, when something stopped her.

She frowned and looked down, feeling something off.

"Oh no."

To her dismay, her skirts had gotten all tangled up in the thorny bushes.

She groaned.

Luckily, Blaze spotted Fleetfoot and Surprise at a distance not to far from her, both clad in fancy evening gowns, one a deep crimson red and the other a soft snow white.

"Err, guys? A little help here!" she called.

Fleetfoot and Surprise turned towards her, and upon seeing her predicament, hurried over to her as fast as they could given in their current situation.
> High Winds and Misty Fly
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

High Winds had been minding her own business when the incident had occurred. Although there had been an intense blast of bright light, she had no idea what had just happened. One moment the day had been pretty normal. Spitfire had sent them all off to do individual practice before they came back together for a practice match, all in preparation for them to take on the Crystal Prep Shadowbolts. This seemed to have been going normally so far, but that scream and the strange force that had hurled her into this tree had certainly done a number on her ability to focus.

Not only that, it seemed as though the wind was somehow picking up despite it being a perfectly clear day. "What's that noise? I have no idea what could be making it. This day is starting to be a bit strange."

Blaze continued to make her way across the field, looking for her friends. The windy noise was picking up, and furthermore seemed to be following her.

She stopped when she noticed light energy flying through the sky alongside vast reams of golden blue particles dancing across the skies. Then the energy began to circulate around her. "Huh?"

blue and silver light surrounded her, floating round and round in a circle like a velociraptor circling its prey. It whirled round and round, cutting off her only routes of escape. It flowed in closer and closer like a snake, and as it did so her clothes began to change.

Her shorts were where it began, naturally enough. Their former cream and blue colour faded from existence and was quickly replaced by a dull grey colour, almost the sort that made it look like she was standing in a black and white photograph taken in the days before people could afford colour. The legs of these shorts then merged into one and formed a skirt, wildly inappropriate for playing sport.

This was not the worst bit, however. Neither was the next bit. The sleeves on her shirt stayed in roughly the same place, but the neckline dropped slightly to nearer her collarbones, and the bottom of the shirt merged into the skirt before turning the same dull grey colour, which also looked quite dull in shade.

Moments later, the energies finally caught up as her boots morphed into a pair of heels, quite inappropriate for running. The outer layers and most of the fabric faded and melted away, reducing them so she could see her feet, although not for much longer as her skirt then began to grow, flowing down her legs until it covered over her feet. The only indication she had heels on was the compression she felt in her feet and her odd center of gravity.

The aforementioned energies suddenly and dramatically flew inwards, and there was a blinding flash. In that moment, High Winds felt quite a lot of weight get added to her hips, and although the bright light was making it incredibly hard to see, she could have sworn she saw a metal frame or cage somewhere in the mix as the weight piled onwards, something very heavy now being focused onto her body.

And with that, the light suddenly faded. Much like a Fairy Godmother, the magic had High Winds set up and ready for the ball. Just two problems. There was no ball (of the dancing type), and High Winds was not at all familiar with how to move in these sorts of things, despite having secretly wanted to wear one since she was little.

The skirt was not as big as it could have been, but it was still far larger than High Winds was used to. It extended for several feet in all directions, sticking out in an A shape rather than the dome that was traditionally associated with this type of dress. Several layers of fabric helped keep the shape in order atop the metal, and the top layer was a distinct silvery shade until about two thirds of the way up the skirt, when it abruptly transitioned to a dark blue shade. The skirt and bodice were also covered in embroidery designed to look like flowers and patterns from nature, an image alluded to by the way the skirt curled in and out like petals on a flower.

The bodice wasn't much better. It was tight on her, and although she had the inner dress on to prevent rubbing, her shoulders felt bare and naked without much fabric on them. Didn't help that the outer loops of fabric sat atop her arms rather than her shoulders. Instead of panicking about it, High Winds decided that the best course of action would be to locate her friends and see if they were also afflicted by this problem. So, quickly picking up her skirts to avoid tripping on them, she started to make her way across the field. She felt like Cinderella running away from the ball, albeit it was the wrong time of day entirely for that!

As she went along, she ran into Blaze. Literally. She came to a stop in time, but her dress had its own momentum and swung forward, colliding with Blaze's. Thankfully, no harm was done, but the two girls looked very confused.

"Sorry!" High Winds called. "I didn't mean to play bumper skirts, but this isn't easy to move in!"

"You tell me," Blaze replied, before her face turned to a frown, then looked down at her dress, then back to High Winds. "Hold on a minute..."

"Yes?" High Winds asked.

Blaze was silent for a few more seconds before replying. "Our dresses are the same design, just different colours. Mine's a pinkish silver, and yours is blue and silver. But the design, shoulder setup, skirt width, those are all exactly the same."

"Maybe it's just a popular design!" High Winds replied, doing a quick twirl. "This is fun! Although soccer practice was the last place I was expecting to wear one of these."

"Suit yourself. The sooner I'm out of this, the better." Both girls set off on their way to Spitfire, who seemed to want to speak to them.

Although Blaze might've......had.....just.....a little problem.





Meanwhile, Misty Fly had been practicing shot runs with Thunderlane when it had happened. Truth be told, she hadn't even noticed it until Thunderlane had pointed out the strange lights in the air. That had left her worried and confused, two emotions she normally didn't feel. The team considered her the radar of the unit, as she always seemed to know exactly where all the players on the pitch were and where the ball was with almost supernatural precision. Nobody knew how she did it, but anyways, she definitely knew what was going on when the strange energy hit her.

"Ouch!" Unlike most cases, the energy pulse not only knocked into her, but maintained the momentum, sending her flying into a tree and causing her to land on her back. "Well, that's gonna leave a mark. Hopefully this won't throw anything out again."

She sat up and got up, both of which are critical to resuming forward perambulation, when she began to notice something odd. "Hang on, something weird's happened to my clothes."

And it was. Her shirt appeared to be fading, rather like what happens when you set the washing machine incorrectly and it drains all the colour out. And this seemed to be happening. The blue and cream colours slowly faded away until the shirt was a flat white. Frankly, Misty Fly could do with a flat white right now to counteract all the craziness going on.

The top of the shirt started to unravel, the seams unthreading and the fabric slowly coming apart to expose the bare skin underneath. Misty Fly rubbed her eyes in surprise and shock. "This can't be happening."

But it was. Her shoulders and entire collar were gone, and the sleeves were already melting and sliding down her arms. The fabric continued to drop down, eventually stopping right above her breasts and forming a curve along them. The sleeves had now terminated in line with them, and had puffed up considerably, although still forming two small loops rather than the life ring shape you sometimes see on these sorts of clothes.

The white material had softened considerably from the hard worn feel of a sports' shirt, feeling more like a formal dress, and her front had also become adorned with lace. There was only one type of dress which had that, and Misty Fly knew that from accidentally coming across her mother's wedding dress whilst sorting the attic for junk they could sell. "Oh no."

It was about to get worse for her. The legs of her shorts also went through the same fading process as her former shirt had done, their former blue and cream shifting to white, and the shorts then grew upwards to merge into her shirt, turning that into a blouse of sorts.

The legs of the shorts then merged together, creating a skirt, which then dropped down over her knees and boots to the floor. Misty Fly couldn't see it, but she could feel her feet getting squished as her once roomy boots changed to a pair of heels, and her socks vanished so she could feel whatever material it was against her feet. Whatever it was it was very cold.

Another cold thing then brushed down her legs and stopped at the floor also, underneath her skirt. Some more things then flowed down the top of that, pushing the outer skirt out slightly.

What happened next went totally against the flow of what had previously happened. The entire skirt expanded in all directions, but slid sideways rather than pushing outwards, sliding out a bit to produce the top of a dome shape. It then poofed outwards in a spectacular burst of energy, covering several feet of the ground in fabric and skirts. It expanded so rapidly Misty Fly had to cover her eyes to protect them from the sudden white glare produced.

Flower patterns appeared all over the skirt and bodice as it flew outwards, eventually stopping after having consumed about five feet of space, which made moving not easy for a girl who hated dresses.

Misty Fly growled at her new attire. "Stupid thing," she said. "It's a wedding dress!"

"Hey Misty, looking good!" called a voice. She turned around to see Thunderlane, attired in a purple suit that looked like it had been borrowed from the personal collection of Elvis Presley.

"Shut up," Misty Fly snarled. "I hate dresses, especially these ones!"

"Wedding dress, from the look of it," Thunderlane continued. "Who's the lucky guy?"

"Shut. Up. I see you look stupid too."

"That I do," Thunderlane conceded. "I wonder what caused this?"

"Same," Misty Fly said. "I'm going to find who or what caused it, and give them a piece of my mind and hope they have the appetite!"

"Seems the others were affected too," Thunderlane said, pointing to the other girls and boys of the Wonderbolts running about in silly suits and fancy frocks.

"We should probably meet with Spitfire to discuss a course of action," Misty Fly noted, her level headed mode temporarily subduing her frustration and anger. "And hopefully change out of these whilst we're at it!"

"Not in public!" Thunderlane exclaimed.

"That's rather obvious, you fool!"

Without another word, the duo set off for the group huddle.
> Rapid Fire and Silver Zoom
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rapid Fire, meanwhile, was balancing the football on her ankle. She tossed it into the air, caught it with her other foot, and then tossed it again, only to catch it in her hands and roll on her arms.

"WOO yeah!" exclaimed Rapid, once the ball had stopped spinning. "Better and better. Great job, Rapid Fire!"

She set the ball down, and placed her right foot on it to keep it in place. Huffing, Rapid decided she needed a break now. She bent down to catch her breath and doing so, she didn't notice the golden-blue blob fly right into her.

However, she did shriek in surprise and lose her balance, but quickly caught it on time.

Rapid Fire would first get awareness of the strange circumstances surrounding her day when she suddenly saw a skirt poking out from underneath her shorts. Confused and a little surprised, she peered a little more closely, questioning how on earth one could even fit through her shorts given the nature of how shorts were put together.

She quickly found the answer. With a tear, the legs tore open down the seams, flapping about awkwardly with no structural support. In a similarly quick moment, the stitched themselves back together differently to before, not a very short skirt indeed.

They soon turned pink, her skirts gaining a metal frame that flowed down the inside and stopped when it reached the floor. It then began to inflate in all directions, gaining metal strips that ran both up, down, and across the frame, which was still expanding outward in an A shape. This left Rapid Fire rather confused, and feeling increasing pressure on her abdomen, which a small metal band soon relieved. Now, a band made of metal, not a musical band that played metal music.

The skirt and former shorts had been busy too. They grew down the inside of the frame and stopped at the floor, covering over her feet, but not before she saw her boots begin to turn into heels. She felt cold glass on her feet and her entire center of gravity be pushed upwards as the frame briefly lifted off the floor, only to grow some more to allow it to reach the floor. The skirts followed suit.

What happened next caught her by surprise, as a pink skirt flowed down the top of the frame and to the bottom of the ground. She looked around and saw it had covered the whole frame in all directions, which left her surprised. Maybe Surprise would feel the same way, if she ever encountered her.

Anyway, on with the story. Several more skirts then flowed down on top of that, reducing the lumpiness and helping to maintain the shape of the skirt as a proper A shape, with elements of a dome to it as well. After at least five layers had flowed down, the top skirt finally emerged from the bottom of her shirt. The very strange contrast from blue to pink was not unnoticed, and it stopped a short way before the floor, before a series of elaborate ruffles and bunched fabrics grew to the floor on all sides.

At the rear, Rapid Fire suddenly noticed that each of the skirts underneath the top skirt had been longer than the last, and what happened next surprised her again. The rear of the dress began to stretch backwards, producing a gradually longer and longer train that eventually extended a full five feet behind her. More of those elaborate fabrics extended behind her, complete with the complex network of ruffles and layers that meant the skirt weighed an absolute ton on her hips, even with the pressure relief provided by the aforementioned metal structural support.

Her shirt shrank rapidly, becoming little more than a sleeveless and backless bodice as it shrank, the fabric running away like wax. Finally, it attached itself to her shirt and the whole lot turned pink.

Rapid Fire staggered about in confusion and some surprise (no, not that Surprise). She had to figure out a way to get back to normal, if only to save herself the embarrassment of having been seemingly turned into a life size Disney Princess, although the gown looked way too fluffy to be official, and slowly made her way across the field, trying to see if she could find anybody she recognized.

To her relief, she saw Silver Zoom, at a distance not too far from her, and similarly dressed in a ridiculously impractical ballgown. She grunted and hefted up her skirts, and made her way over to Silver.





You know there's something seriously wrong with your day when a strange blob comes flying out of nowhere and hits you, consequently changing your clothes into period-style dresses.

Even stranger, the impact of those blobs knock you off balance or send you flying into a tree. 

On the contrary, the same couldn't be said about Silver Zoom.

She arguably got lucky when the blob hit her. Unlike some of the others, who were thrown across the field or landed in awkward and annoying places, all she got was a mild pushback from the impact that moved her very slightly, but not enough to cause her any real problems or navigate her way across muddy fields to get back home. She wandered about, trying to find her way back. The conditions had changed very suddenly, with strange lights floating and dancing on the winds. This made navigation hard, as all the flashing lights were messing with her vision and making it hard to see. She groaned as she stepped along, trying her hardest to see where she was going, and eventually covering her eyes to try and best see where she was or what was going on.

Then suddenly everything happened at once.

It all seemed to happen so quickly Silver Zoom had no chance to register it in her head. Luckily, the writer, who is omniscient, knows exactly what happened, and can describe to you precisely what happened.

In a flash, her shorts merged together into one and burst down her legs to the floor as some cold metal thing flowed down her legs, before suddenly exploding outwards like a flower petal in bloom, covering several feet of ground as the skirt warped and folded in places, some parts extending further than other parts exactly as flower petals would.

Her boots morphed into heels just as quickly, and her shirt suddenly merged into the giant skirt and began to tighten. It slowly tightened onto her body and waist, making it form fitting and quite snug, as opposed to the relatively loose fit of a sports shirt. The sleeves completely shrank back on one side, the shoulder opening up and exposing that side for all the world to see, a process that was not replicated on the other side as a single strap remained, although the sleeve was now much longer than it had previously had been, and this was of benefit to her as it at least kept that arm warm.

Finally, the dress began to change colour. The bodice, sleeves, and half of the skirt turned to a deep purple shade, and almost seemed to glitter and glow as layer after layer of crystals and glowing sequins were added, causing it to shimmer in the light. The other half of the skirt changed to become a strange shade somewhere between pink and purple, which looked very odd.

To say Silver Zoom felt odd was an understatement. She saw her friend Rapid Fire nearby with a massive pink number on, and slowly made her way over, not used to walking in heels. "Hello!" she said.

"I feel stupid," Rapid Fire complained.

"Welcome to the club," Silver Zoom replied. "I wonder what caused this though?"

"I don't know, and I don't particularly care," Rapid Fire said. "The sooner I'm out of this thing the better."

"Look! There's Spitfire! She looks really pretty in that dress," Silver Zoom commented.

"There are all the others!" Rapid Fire noted. "And they manage to look sillier than us."

"Come on!" Silver Zoom called, and they headed in Spitfire's direction.
> Surprise and Thunderlane
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Surprise was well named for her impressive ability to, well, appear suddenly and without warning, as well as vanish just as suddenly, which had led her to win the Houdini award at school for many years in a row. Reportedly, the relatively new girl was good at it too, but that was that. Surprise was out at practice, as was her usual practice, when she had been hit by the flying blob and briefly incapacitated. As she slowly regained use of her limbs, she could see strange lights dancing on a crystal sky, and what appeared to be people from the Victorian age wandering about the streets. This left her a little surprised, so she stood up and attempted to brush some dirt off her shirt.

Funny. The sleeve felt thinner than usual. Surprise quickly glanced down to see that the arm and the fabric were indeed thinner. This confused her. Why were they thinner? Had she used the wrong setting on the tumble dryer?

Just then, the fabric around her neck and collar, as well as the tops of the shoulders, began to unravel. They opened up, and slid down her body to a point where her upper chest was clearly visible for all to see, with the fabric stopping at her breasts. The sleeves were still attached to the sides of the new garment, but they were now asymmetrical. They dropped down as far as halfway up her upper arms, before now continuing to her wrists before stopping, terminating in a puffy outer sleeve.

As you can probably guess, Surprise was more than a bit, well, surprised. Her friend Derpy had told her of a strange incident where she had received an abrupt wardrobe makeover courtesy of Rarity, but it seemed like this might be connected somehow. After all, once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

The next series of events would confirm this even more, as sure enough her former shirt merged into her shorts and turned both sets of garments, or I guess they were now one garment, white. Surprise glanced about a gain to see a remarkable number of women in wedding dresses about, and quickly figured out that she was probably about to join them despite having no intention of marrying (and being too young, but let us not get excessively stuck on formalities).

Sure enough, her shorts soon got the memo it was time to change, and they began to grow longer. The legs flowed down her own, over her knees, and stopped eventually at her ankles, where they made no further progress.

The bottoms of the legs then merged into one, and the merger began to move up her legs, swallowing the dividing line as it moved upwards like a shark swallowing its prey. Eventually, it reached the top, where the gap vanished altogether, revealing a very odd skirt.

Moments later, the skirt grew again, flowing down over her legs and pooling at the floor in a bigger and bigger pile, spreading out over the floor and ground like a puddle of water. Eventually, more than a foot of fabric in all directions had pooled at her feet, and then it happened.

With a boom, the skirt flew outwards, quickly forming into an A shape. It rocketed outwards at such speed Surprise was even more surprised than normal. It flew outwards to about six feet, then stopped, as a frame and several layers of petticoats formed underneath to hold the skirt in place.

She was suddenly thrust upwards as her boots became heels, and she looked behind to see a long train growing out of the skirt, spreading backwards. The front and sides of the skirt spread forwards too, presumably to more evenly cover the surface area of the ground, and the entire dress was soon covered in elaborate nature patterns.

Surprise was secretly happy. She had always wanted to wear one of these again, having previously worn one to the Fall Formal, and now her dream had come true. She hauled herself over to Fleetfoot, who was also in a big gown, and went to talk to her.

"Hey Flatfoot!" she called. "Nice dress!"

"Err, thanks?" Fleetfoot replied. "I'm not too sure myself. I mean, how do I walk in this thing without falling over?"

"Lean slightly forward and lift the front of the skirt up with your hand if that helps." Surprise's advise was surprisingly helpful.

Fleetfoot tried it out, and found it helped immensely. In fact, moving in such a huge skirt was easier than she anticipated. "So, how do you know how to move in these? This is a lot lighter than I was expecting."

"I wore one to the Fall Formal one year," Surprise replied. "Nobody saw that coming!"

"Otherwise you wouldn't be called Surprise!" Fleetfoot laughed.

"Err, guys? A little help here!"

Both Surprise and Fleetfoot saw their friend, Blaze, wedged in place by her dress. Both of them sped over to help. 'Sped' being something of an operative word in the circumstances.

After a few moments of struggle in their heavy skirts, they both managed to make their way to Blaze, who seemed to have gotten tangled in the thorny bushes outside their playing field.

Surprise snickered. "My, aren't you in a.......'leafy' situation?"

Blaze scowled. "You gonna help me or not?"

Surprise grinned and then both her and Fleetfoot grabbed one of Blaze's arms.

"On the count of three, we'll pull," said Fleetfoot.

Surprise nodded. "One."

"Two."

"And......THREE!"

Fleetfoot and Surprise pulled on Blaze with all their strength. With a mighty tug, she came tumbling free. Unfortunately, the edge of her skirt got caught as she was yanked out.

 Riiiippppp.

"Oh no," muttered Blaze.

As keen as she was to get out of it, the same couldn't be said about the current state of the dress. From the waist to her ankles, there was a huge tear in her gown.

However, to Blaze's absolute amazement, the dress stitched itself back together, good as new, in a flurry of gold sparks.

"Welp, there ya go," said Fleetfoot matter-of-factly. "No wear, no tear, all-in one non-removable princess dress. Not available in stores near you."

Blaze glowered at her. "Do shut up, Fleet."

"Let's go, let's go! Over there, where Spitfire is!"

Fleetfoot and Blaze nodded, and all three of them headed in Spitfire's general direction.





Thunderlane had never really been one for garish clothes, unlike his younger brother Rumble. He had been practicing during soccer with Misty Fly when suddenly his phone went, and he went off to one side to answer it. 

"Hello?"

"H-y big br-! Th-s is R-mb-le!"

"Your message is a bit garbled, please repeat, over?"

"W-tch o-t! Th-re'- m--ic a-out ch-ng-ng c-ot-hes! B- o- y-ur g-ard!"

Thunderlane put his phone away, very confused. "I have no idea what that was all about."

Suddenly, there was a bright flash, and the bright light his brother had referred to slammed into him. This nearly knocked him over, but he was a stable man, and easily stayed upright in difficult circumstances.

He was, naturally, a little surprised when the collar of his shirt grew upwards, covering over his neck, or al least most of it. The sleeves grew longer, and neatly reached his wrists. It also turned black from the former blue and yellow.

A purple waistcoat and jacket appeared on top of that as a series of things began to happen to his shorts. The first things were the addition of a zip and button on them, which helped with holding them in place. They also turned purple (the shorts that is, not the other stuff), and the legs grew down to the ankles, covering those over as his boots morphed into shoes, also purple. A garish wristwatch appeared on his arm as the process seemed to complete itself.

"I look like a musician," Thunderlane noted. "A musician who escaped from Canterlot's Got Talent, but I guess somebody has to pick up the slack."

Thunderlane looked once, then twice around his surroundings.

Not seeing anyone nearby, he grinned and pretended to play an air-guitar, complete rock and roll style.

"Whoa-oo-oaaaaa!" sang Thunderlane, terribly off-key.

Surprise, Blaze and Fleetfoot doubled over in laughter as they went past him.

Thunderlane flushed, rubbed his neck sheepishly and hastily got up.

He then turned over to Misty Fly to see she had undergone a change of her own, and was now clad in a wedding dress.

Misty Fly growled at her new attire. "Stupid thing," she said. "It's a wedding dress!"

"Hey Misty, looking good!" Thunderlane called.

"Shut up," Misty Fly snarled. "I hate dresses, especially these ones!"

"Wedding dress, from the look of it," continued Thunderlane. "Who's the lucky guy?"

"Shut. Up. I see you look stupid too."

"That I do," Thunderlane conceded. "I wonder what caused this?"

"Same," Misty Fly said. "I'm going to find who or what caused it, and give them a piece of my mind and hope they have the appetite!"

"Seems the others were affected too," Thunderlane said, pointing to the other girls and boys of the Wonderbolts running about in silly suits and fancy frocks.

"We should probably meet with Spitfire to discuss a course of action," Misty Fly noted, her level headed mode temporarily subduing her frustration and anger. "And hopefully change out of these whilst we're at it!"

"Not in public!" Thunderlane exclaimed.

"That's rather obvious, you fool!"

Without another word, the duo set off for the group huddle.





Needless to say, Spitfire face-palmed at the current state of her team.

"This is getting silly."

"I'd like to disagree, boss," piped in Surprise as she ruffled around in volumes of white skirts. "THIS IS SO FUN!"

Spitfire was just about to address them, when a voice spoke up.

"Hello!"

The team looked over to see a girl with purple hair waving to them. She was clad in a gigantic blue ballgown with the widest skirt they had ever seen.

"Who are you?" Spitfire asked. "Did you get lost on your way to the ball, Cinderella?"

"Yes and no," the girl replied. "I'm Starlight Glimmer, and I'm heading round to help those affected by this magic that's changing everybody's clothes into dresses and suits. If you could report to the town square, that'd be great! We have a plan to fix this mess."

She went on her way, her skirts bouncing and swaying as she walked along.

Spitfire glanced over to her team. 

"You heard the lady! MOVE!"

Without a second thought, they sprinted out of the field and onto the street, keen for this crisis to end as soon as possible.
> Sour Sweet and Sugarcoat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As was usual for her, Sour Sweet had been out on the waterfront when the incident had occurred. One moment the sky had been this amazing, wondrous blue, the next there seemed to be this strange, flickering effect, with impermeable fog and sparks flying through the air. This had made the world incredibly dark, making things hard to see through her sunglasses.

Sour Sweet raised them and took a look at the sky. "This would be interesting... if you were a meteorologist, I guess. Twilight would probably like it."

The other beach patrons were clearing out at the lack of sun, and Sour Sweet gathered up her belongings in preparation to do the same. Only she didn't make it off the beach in time, as out of nowhere a ball of yellow and blue light crashed into her, momentarily blinding her.

It took her eyes a few seconds to adjust back to the light, in which time it was obvious to the girl that something was wrong with her. Or rather, her clothes.

Her purple open shoes, for instance, had tightened slightly at the front, and the strap that ran across the front of them had vanished from existence. As she peered at this strange phenomenon, she noticed the ground seemed to be getting further and further away from her. She eventually clicked that tall heels were growing out of the bottom of the shoes, and continued to do so for several seconds until they, of course, stopped, leaving Sour Sweet feeling quite wobbly as she adjusted to her new center of gravity.

Moments later, her socks unravelled and vanished into the ether, followed by the layers of her puffy skirt turning from their usual red and green to a dark purple at the front and back, and light purple at the sides. The layers then merged into each other, forming a flat layer, and then with the creak the skirt started to grow. It grew downwards, over her knees, past her ankles, and eventually began to pool at the floor.

Sour Sweet rubbed her eyes in confusion. "I must have had too much cheese last night."

She yelped when she felt something heavy appear on her waist, and something cold brushed down her legs before stopping at the floor. She saw the skirt bulge outwards slightly as some more things flowed down the inside of it.

Seconds later, the skirt started to expand in all directions, the fabric growing and stretching as it moved across the floor in an A shape pattern. Given she had exhausted all rational explanations for this most strange of phenomena, Sour Sweet resorted to the only explanation left. Magic had to be the cause of this!

Speaking of magic, more and more fabric poured out of the skirt as it continued to expand. But just as suddenly as it had begun to expand, it stopped, the sides pooled off to the... well, sides, and floating gently as they did so.

The bottom of the sides of the skirt became covered in odd swirl patterns, and white crystals at the bottom. More of the white crystals appeared on the central purple section, joined by white dots. Purple crystals appeared on the upper section of the side sections, locked in very close to her hips.

The sleeves of her shirt suddenly shrank into her shirt, and the tops of the shoulders unravelled and melted into her shirt, leaving her in a very odd looking barrel top as the emblem on the front vanished. What was left joined into the skirt as a bodice, and also turned light purple as more crystals appeared all over it. A pink tiara appeared in her hair, seemingly signifying that all this craziness was over.

Sour Sweet tried to walk away from the scene- and promptly faceplanted. "Ow!" She pushed herself back up, the frame helping her in this regard by popping back into shape like a spring. "Whomever invented this, know that I hate you!"

"Look out below!" called a familiar voice. Sour Sweet stared, dumbfounded, as Lemon Zest suddenly landed next to her on the sand without a scratch, clad in a dress with a gigantic skirt.

"What is happening today?" Sour Sweet asked, by this point incredibly confused.

Lemon Zest smoothed out her skirt and got it back into shape. "I've landed slightly off course," she said. "I was supposed to land at the aerodrome. Oh well, better lost than flattened like a pancake!"

"How do you have one of those ridiculous things on?"

Lemon Zest grinned as she removed her helmet. "Ridiculous? This thing saved my life!"

"How so?" Sour Sweet asked. "I can barely move in this!"

"Let's start at the very beginning, which, Julie Andrews reliably informs me, is a very good place to start."





Meanwhile......





Sugarcoat had been near the edge of the docks when it had happened. Near where the Everfree River flows out into the sea is a small harbor, and she had decided to go there in order to get away from all the noise of town, which always irritated her immensely.

Moments ago, all had been fine, and then moments after that the sky had gone weird, as a scream had echoed through the skies and strange particles had flown everywhere. One of these particles had hit her, but luckily had barely affected her.

Or so she thought. She couldn't deny her shirt felt a bit itchy, almost as if it was moving on her. She dismissed that idea as ridiculous almost immediately. And yet the itchiness didn't go away.

She glanced down to see what was going on, and saw to her slight surprise that her sleeves were shortening in both directions. The tops of the shoulders on her shirt opened up and melted away, and shortly after her sleeves stopped in line with the top of her shirt. The shoulder section joined it moments later.

It turned white, and then proceeded to merge into her skirt, both shirt and skirt suddenly forming a single garment on her body. The skirt of the now dress followed the shirt in turning white, now looking like a rather awkward sundress on her body.

Most people would have reacted very distinctly to this sort of thing, but Sugarcoat lived in a town which seemed to have the weirdness magnet permanently switched on, so she didn't seem overly concerned about the situation.

She was, however, mildly bemused when a metal frame popped out of the bottom of her skirt as her tights turned white. As the metal frame reached the bottom of the ground and stopped, her heels also turned white. A small band of embroidery appeared around her waist as the transformation continued.

As she looked at the metal contraption hanging off her waist, recognizing it as a frame of some sort, it expanded in width, growing wider until it had reached approximately four or five feet in diameter. Sugarcoat found she had to shuffle to one side to prevent one side from hitting a nearby wall, and stood roughly in the middle of the path to give it enough space.

She figured it wasn't over, and she was correct. An inner skirt flowed down it from underneath the previous one, and stopped at the floor, looking very lumpy as it had gone directly over the metal frame and the joins itself. Another skirt soon flowed down on top of that, followed by two more in rapid succession. Sugarcoat shifted her feet to try and support the growing weight on her hips, but breathed a sigh of relief when the original skirt, the one which now looked very silly on her indeed, grew down over the others, reached the floor, and stopped.

Sugarcoat adjusted her glasses. "I look ridiculous," was all she had to say.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" asked somebody else. "I hate to be a bother, but you're blocking a path."

"You try moving quickly in a dress that weighs half a ton and is half a mile wide," Sugarcoat replied, entirely in keeping with her motormouth tendencies.

"I asked nicely," said the voice, a dock worker. "Sorry Cinderella, but we all have places to be."

Sugarcoat sighed at her apparent wedding dress. She was relieved that she was nowhere near children, or else she'd have been deluged in little girls asking her if she was a princess.

Just then, she saw a familiar face floating down the river. Indigo Zap. She walked down some nearby steps and indicated to her. "Over here!"

She couldn't help but notice that Indigo Zap was dressed similarly to her, in a dress that looked like water.

Marvelous.
> Lemon Zest and Indigo Zap
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lemon Zest grinned, feeling the air whizz past her ears as she glided smoothly. 

One moment she was descending correctly on the right glide path, the next she was cartwheeling out of control as she fell. A gigantic surge of energy flew across the sky as she tumbled.

Lemon Zest hit the side of her helmet to try and reset the HUD, but that did no good. The data on it was scrambled, meaning she had no idea what altitude she was at or how fast she was falling. Once she was briefly the right way up, she pulled on the ripcord to try and slow herself down.

The parachute failed to open.

Lemon Zest gulped, as she suddenly rolled the wrong way up. If the couldn't get herself oriented correctly, she would smack into the ground at fatal speeds. And although it was a minor source of irritation compared to her main predicament, her chest felt oddly itchy as the parachute case and housing disconnected.

The temperature around her began to drop as the zipper on her flight suit suddenly vanished, before new fabric stitched it up in front of her eyes. The collar sank into the top of it, and black trim material formed underneath it as the fabric at the front and back began to lower in height, dropping down to be in line roughly with her breasts.

Fluffy, ruffled material popped out of the front, sides, across the tops of her shoulders, and round the back of the top, leaving Lemon Zest wondering what on Earth was going on. Speaking of shoulders, the sleeves began to shrink up her arms, until they had shrunk upwards to roughly where her shoulders stopped, and the fabric faded into the new garment.

The legs on the flight suit merged into one, the fabric sliding down and consuming the separation between the legs in a similar manner to how a glacier covers and consumes land before itself. This produced a very strange dress, the entirety of which turned a very light blue, with the skirt in particular elaborate floral patterning.

Lemon Zest held on as something metal flowed down her legs as far as her feet (her boots having ben replaced by a pair of heels in the meantime). She was only slightly relieved when an underskirt flowed down underneath the metal, as she was still fully aware she was falling potentially to her death.

What happened next caught her off guard. Several more skirts moved into position underneath the top one, as it gained a considerably less lumpy texture. Then, with a flash of light, it suddenly began to inflate. The skirt grew wider and wider, the frame expanding and the fabric stretching to cover more and more space. Lemon Zest's view of the sky above her was increasingly blocked by the expanding dome coming off her clothes, and watched in surprise as it continued swelling in width.

It was probably a good thing she was not on the ground, as otherwise she would have bumped into things. The skirt had to be several feet wide by now, still growing and stretching. With absolutely no strains and imperfections on the outer fabric, the skirt was growing absolutely huge. The dome continued to swell outwards, and had to be at least four feet across now. And yet it kept going, taking up more and more space with its vast expanse.

At last, when it reached five feet it started to slow down, and at six feet it stopped. The width of the dome, and the shape itself, suddenly gave Lemon Zest an idea. It was a long shot, but it was that or smashing into the ground at several hundred miles an hour.

She shifted her body weight, trying to roll over as best she could, but the wind forces were making that easier said than done. "Come on! Come on!"

At long last, she succeeded in rolling so that her feet faced the ground. Then, with a giant WUMPH! her rate of descend slowed dramatically. Lemon Zest looked down and saw she could no longer see the ground. Her skirt had ballooned outwards like a parachute, and the fabric was stretched like latex, allowing her to float downwards at a safe speed.

"This is quite fun, actually!" she grinned, as she lazily descended towards the ground. Although she was drifting from her intended landing path, the sand below looked like quite an inviting landing spot.

"Look out below!" Lemon Zest called, and then she landed safely, her skirt deflating as she touched down, and a thoroughly baffled Sour Sweet looking at her.





"Well, I'm glad it worked for you, but I can barely move in this thing!" Sour Sweet said.

Lemon Zest looked closely. "Small steps, lean forward slightly." She grinned as she did a quick spin. "Lifesaving tool, and feels pretty nice to wear too. Seriously, why did we get rid of these things?"

"Look!" Sour Sweet suddenly interrupted. "It's Twilight!"

Sure enough, they saw Twilight passing by.

"She looks like Belle!" Lemon Zest noted.

"And she's heading for Crystal Prep!" Sour Sweet added. "Come on! She'll know about what's going on. She seems to know everything!"

"Follow that princess!" Lemon Zest cried, and both girls set off as best they could.





Indigo Zap, meanwhile, was on a stroll through the streets of Canterlot.

"The skies are looking nice today," mused Indigo as she glanced up and then down. Without further ado, she continued on her walk.

The loud sonic boom was a sudden disruption in an otherwise clear sky, and made Indigo Zap suddenly stop in her tracks and look up at the sky. "Wait, what? What's going on?"

The sky suddenly began to look like a smog, with particles floating through the air and generating gigantic sparks. Indigo Zap was in the middle of nowhere, and as such she had no clue what was going on.

One of the sparks crashed into her, knocking her closer to the riverbank. "Ow! Hey, what is this?"

She nervously looked behind her. She was rather close to the water's edge, after all, and would hate to fall in. She was out on her own, and lacked any realistic means of calling the authorities should she get into trouble.

Unfortunately, her boots had sunk into the mud, making walking off rather difficult. It also did not help that her boots were beginning to change. The boots turned completely blue, any traces of their former colours and patterns vanishing as they began to shrink down her legs. They stopped when they reached her feet, leaving the entirety of her jeans and her ankles exposed (which had socks over them, of course). The top plates and sides then unthreaded, the fabric vanishing into thin air before they slid downwards, revealing the tops of her feet as far as the first joint on her toes.

"Aw, man! Those were my best walking boots!"

Heels suddenly pushed out of them, throwing the girl off balance. She quickly began cartwheeling with her arms to try and restore her balance, but the worst was yet to come. The fabric on her jeans seemed to be becoming softer, or at least did not feel like denim anymore.

They spread sideways from the bottom, briefly looking like bell bottoms before the legs merged into each other. This process of merging went all the way up to the top, meaning that before long her jeans were replaced by a rather tight and uncomfortable skirt.

Contrary to the stereotype of most tomboys, Indigo Zap had no issues with wearing skirts- she wore one as part of her school uniform, after all, an outfit she wore five days a week during term time. This, however, was a bit uncomfortable. She was rather relieved when it began to shift again, as it became less tight, reducing the pressure on her legs.

The skirt flowed down to the floor, and like the moving of the tides started to grow wider. It initially formed into a dome shape of sorts, but gradually became more and more wavy, flowing outwards like the ocean. Individual strands flowed outwards and changed colour to produce a rather spectacular pattern, not dissimilar to waves, that seemed to float and bounce gently on the waves. The strands themselves quickly changed colour, producing an alternating pattern of turquoise, dark blue, and light blue. It expanded across for quite a while, the flowing sense continuing, but Indigo Zap was certainly happy when it stopped growing. "Heh, it could have been worse."

Her yellow shirt and dark blue undershirt suddenly merged into each other and combined with the skirt, which had now gained a metal frame and some petticoats to hold it out and reduce the discomfort produced by such a wide skirt. This allow allowed the pockets, zip, and button to vanish, although any belongings that had previously been in them ended up in her hands (namely a phone).

The straps of her undershirt disconnected, and shrank down along with the sleeves of her main shirt, all of them descending to her chest line and stopping at the top of her chestline. Still secured in place, It turned the same shade of dark blue as a portion of the skirt.

As far as suddenly having your clothes changed into a princess frock goes, Indigo Zap seemed remarkably calm about it. "Hey, I remember this one! I wore it for the Crystal Gala last year!"

Unfortunately, whilst this had been going on, the ground was looking less than stable, and it and the riverbank suddenly gave way!

Indigo Zap fell towards the water, remembering that she had to stay calm and tread water when she hit the surface. However, she noticed she was falling more slowly than she would have expected. Glancing down, she saw her wide skirt had opened up into a parachute, which was slowing her fall. This gave her more time to prepare for when she hit the water, and she braced for landing.

She landed on the surface, the outer layers of her dress spreading outwards across the water. To her surprise, she did not drop down into the water to neck height, but instead floated in it, her entire upper body clear of the water.

She knew this river quite well, having taken a boat down it once or twice, but floating along by clothing was an interesting change from the normal. "The docks are this way, so I should be able to find a jetty fairly easily."

She gently bobbed down the stream, her journey pleasant, if rather surreal. Those who were on the riverbank, similarly formally attired, did double takes as they saw a young lady floating down the river in a dress.

At last, she reached the docks, and suddenly saw Surgarcoat, who was also wearing an elaborate gown. The latter waved to her, and Indigo Zap did her best to drift over to the dock, where Sugarcoat hauled her out of the water.

Sugarcoat puffed. "That dress is seriously heavy. You may want to dry it out."

Indigo Zap pointed to the sky. "That shouldn't take long! When's the wedding?"

"Very funny. I see the magic afflicted you too."

"Yes, in more ways than one! This saved my life! It must have special floating magic in it, as I floated down the river to here and didn't sink!"

Sugarcoat looked unimpressed. "That's basic physics, not magic."

"Sorry?"

"When you fell, your skirt caught an air pocket underneath it. Air is lighter than water; this is why armbands float rather than sink. The air underneath the skirt meant that you stayed on the surface rather than sink, which is what would happen otherwise."

Indigo Zap nodded. "Note to self; pay more attention in physics class. Remind me never to badmouth these things again, Sugarcoat?"

"It's called a crinoline, from a French word mean-"

"I know what they are," Indigo Zap interrupted. "I was sat next to Coco Pommel during that clothing elective I did as the two I wanted to do clashed, remember? She knows all there is to know about these things! Anyways, you don't seem at all surprised at this!"

"You live in a town with regular magical occurrences, nearly got eaten by giant plants at the Friendship Games, saw a team mate get turned into a demon, and helped prevent the collapse of reality all in one day. As far as weird things go, getting your clothes changed into a fancy dress is pretty mundane."

"Should we check on the others?" Indigo Zap asked.

"Yes, we should. I'll message them and tell them to rally outside CPA."

The two ballgowned (is that a word? It is now) teens set off for the school, one of them texting as she went along. Of course, she didn't realize that phones were not working properly due to the magic storm.
> Sunny Flare, Suri Polomare, and Coco Pommel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunny Flare calmly sat down on a bench as she waited for her friends to arrive. Five minutes later, she was bored out of her mind.

To distract herself, she pulled out her phone and started texting her friends. Unfortunately, all it showed was error. Sunny frowned, then pressed sent again. That didn't work either. Sunny groaned and powered it off, hoping it'll receive signal after restarting.

So occupied she was in trying to fix her phone that she didn't even notice the spark hitting her. It was a fairly bright day, and she was preoccupied as she waited outside Crystal Prep for her friends to show up. Although it was the weekend, there were no other obvious hangouts, and she was waiting here by choice.

The brief shift in light did not affect her eyesight too badly, as she was preoccupied with her phone, as she was about to send a text. However, something touching her leg suddenly caught her attention.

She glance down, and saw that her boots were starting to shrink down her legs. "Wait, what?"

She blinked twice, and then pinched herself to check she was not dreaming. It turned out she was not, and as she looked the fabric of her boots began to melt away, shrinking and dropping downwards. Eventually, they looked more like normal shoes, and even then the process was not done. Her heels opened up, although stayed set at the same angle, leaving a bigger gap between them and the rest of the shoe, and the tops opened up to expose her socks whilst the section around her toes narrowed.

"Ow! These are too tight now!" Sunny Flare attempted to reach for the heels, only to discover to her horror she was stuck in place. "Somebody! Help!"

Her socks suddenly began to grow up her legs, slithering like snakes up them, over her knees, up her thighs, and then under her skirt, where they morphed into a pair of tights, thankfully not too tight on her.

A circle of some sorts formed on the floor, that seemed to be about six feet around her. Seconds after the circle had formed, fabric burst out of the ground in a dome shape and attached itself to her skirt, which had folded down slightly in order to connect with the other fabric properly, forming a very large dome. Sunny Flare felt something metallic appear under that, and then heard the rustling of more layers of fabric beneath that one. Parts of the skirt bulged out whilst others sank inwards, producing a very odd look to the skirt.

"Hey! I know what these are!" Sunny Flare said, her fear changing to a grin. "It was some posh French word, or something. Something to do with horses or something like that."

Her skirt turned white and became dotted with black dots as her shirt merged into her skirt, forming a dress in the process. Moments after that, her jacket vanished as her shirt turned white as well, the sleeves and upper section shrinking away to form a bodice with two straps over her shoulders, but a full back at the back which helped to keep the body in shape.

To her absolute surprise, Sunny felt extremely cool despite the several layers of fabric she was wearing. "Sweet!" she said, doing a quick spin, and walking forward to the edge of the school. "I can't wait to show my boyfriend this!"

"Sunny Flare!" called a voice. She turned, and saw it was none other than Twilight, a former Shadowbolt.

"Ah, Twilight, how nice to see you!" Sunny Flare smiled. "I see you're playing dress up too!"

"There's no time for jokes," Twilight said, moving to one side as otherwise her skirt was blocking the path. "Rarity- you know, you met her at the Friendship Games- has had a magic malfunction and everybody is getting their clothes changed! I see they've already got to you, but we need to get everybody together and try and reverse it."

Sunny Flare looked with a mock look of horror. "But I only just got this dress!"

Twilight took her completely seriously. "OK, so that's two people who don't want their dresses changing back. Right, not a problem! Can you get the other Shadowbolts together?"

"Already done, Twi!" shouted Lemon Zest, speeding across the road with Sour Sweet. "Gang's all here!"

"We're here also!" Indigo Zap called, who appeared with Sugarcoat tailing along behind her. "Come on, little miss grumpy! You're gonna miss out!"

"Something I certainly will not miss will be getting out of this ridiculous frock," Sugarcoat grumbled. "I'm getting sick of people asking me if I'm a princess or getting married, the answer to both of those questions being no."

"Do you know of any other Crystal Prep students who have been affected?" Twilight asked.

"I suppose we could go look for Suri and Coco," Lemon Zest suggested. "Suri will probably be selling coffee, and knowing Coco she'll be designing some clothes."





Suri had been working on the beachfront when it had happened. Customers had wanted coffee, and she was more than happy to supply it to them. It seemed that, after her failed venture into the fashion market, that she had finally found an area of business where she could make some income to support her family and generally show that she was not the nuisance a lot of people assumed her to be. Besides, what's one failed business venture? Most people's first attempts at forming a company and selling a product go wrong, so what was the deal here? Some people were too harsh.

Suri had stepped temporarily out of her hut to let off some heat. As nice as it was today, the inside of the building was not air conditioned, and with all the machines for making hot drinks nearby it produced a lot of heat. She quickly wiped the sweat off her brow, and looked about to see people frolicking about on the seaside, generally enjoying the hot weekend day.

She had not noticed when the sky had clouded over, only that there was some sort of brief burst of light that momentarily irritated her eyes. Once it had faded, she proceeded to go back indoors, only to stop.

Something didn't seem right about her jeans. She glanced down at them, and noticed to her surprise that they had turned dark blue. This was hardly normal. In fact, it was positively perturbing.

As she looked on at this strange sight, various gems and other glowing objects began to emerge from the material, rather like magma bubbling to the surface during a volcanic eruption. They glinted in the sunlight, in every single colour of the rainbow, and they seemed to be everywhere! More and more of them floated outwards. The odd thing was that Suri had not felt them underneath on her legs. They seemed to be materialising on the fabric itself.

"What's going on?" she asked, now a bit concerned.

There was a creak as more of these bits appeared on her jeans, and with a groan the legs of her jeans began to inflate. They moved sideways like the gas bag of an airship being filled up, and they soon merged into each other and upwards, until any sign of separation was gone completely, and they had become a very odd looking skirt.

The skirt continued moving sideways as more and more of the objects continued to emerge. They were reflecting so much light Suri was forced to cover her eyes. Something metallic emerged from the sands and attached itself around her waist, the vertical strips of metal soon being supported by horizontal ones.

All of this could clearly be seen under the skirt, which by now had stopped growing, and stabilised in shape by the addition of two more layers underneath. It grew forward a bit, producing a partially layered effect dotted with light, and burst backwards as a long train formed behind her, stretching out nearly a yard behind her.

Her shirt merged into her skirt as the zip, buttons, and pockets vanished from the latter, holding the skirt in place. Her sleeves shrank backwards into her shirt as the shoulders came undone and unravelled, the fabric sliding downwards and curving inwards between her breasts. The sides were now below her shoulders, producing a strapless gown. Finally the bodice, as it was now, also turned dark blue, became covered in more of the same glowing objects, and then finally stopped changing.

Suri regarded the garment in horror. "Seriously?" she asked. "How am I supposed to fit in the hut with this on?!" She felt absolutely hideous in this. This looked just as bad as some of the horrors she had made in fashion class. Luckily, she had an idea.

She opened a nearby locker which had a spare set of clothes in it, and hauled the dress off as best she could, before changing into the new clothes within another room. She watched as the dress changed back to the clothes she had previously worn, but then in dismay as her current clothes changed into an exact duplicate of the dress she had just removed.

"Can I not escape?!" she cried, frustrated.

"Erm, Suri," said a quiet voice.

"What is it?" Suri snapped. She wheeled around, and saw Coco Pommel standing there, clad in a poofy dress herself. "Oh. Hi, Coco."





Meanwhile.......





Coco had been busy designing when a sudden boom made her stop.

"What in the world?" she wondered.

Coco Pommel briefly looked up from her work station (business had been quiet) to try and establish if there were any customers today. This operation was a small thing she ran on the side, to supplement her family income, but the young designer certainly enjoyed it, despite the odd reverence that she seemed to have gained recently, with plenty of people referring to her as 'Miss Pommel'.

Not only was this overdoing it, she felt, it was technically incorrect. She wasn't eighteen, for Faust's sake! She stood up from the table, switching off her equipment, and walked over to the window to see a sky full of strange particles reflecting the summer sky. Was it just her, or was one getting-

There was a sudden flash of light as one collided with her, pushing her backwards slightly and away from the doors. "Oof! What is this?"

She was more dazed than scared, as her vision cleared, the street outside seemed to be a vision of pandemonium. Coco saw two girls whizz past. They'd been in only a few minutes ago, and not dressed like that.

Some bright reflection suddenly went in her eye. "What's causing..." she looked down in surprise. Her usual red skirt, which usually had a matte colour consistency, appeared to have gone quite glossy in shade, and as she looked closer, there was a blue patch on it. "...That." She didn't quite know what to make of it, so she ran her hand over the patch to try and clear it, assuming she'd left some fabric on it.

That didn't work. The mark was still there, and as she was still puzzled, the blue patch started to spread. It spread across her skirt, gradually consuming the former red. As it travelled, the pleated patterns were absorbed as the entire skirt became level, with the purple hat emblem on it also being consumed. The white trim faded, and soon she was left with an extremely shiny dark blue skirt that turned rainbow coloured when exposed to light.

Coco watched this process with a mixture of confusion and fascination. What on Earth was happening to her clothes?

Her attention was pulled upwards as the sleeves on her shirt suddenly started to shrink back into her shirt, soon leaving her in a strange top of sorts. The collar also vanished, and the neckline steadily dropped downwards until it was at the upper end of her chest. The red thing around her collar also vanished. The white lining on her shirt faded to nothing as it merged into her skirt, and the blue colour from the skirt soon spread all over it, with elaborate silver embroidery appearing on top of it, running from her waist to the top of the neckline, and all around the sides and back.

Coco's curiosity was turning to excitement, as she was beginning to have a clue where this was going. She squealed in excitement as a metal band appeared around her waste and on the floor, and a lattice structure suddenly emerged from the bottom of her skirt, grew down to the metal on the floor and connected to it. Another series of metal bands threaded through the others to give them structural support and hold them in shape.

An inner skirt grew down the inside of the frame as another grew down the top of the frame, followed by another three. If she had been in any doubt about what she was wearing now, she had received her confirmation. "Oh my gosh! It's a crinoline!"

Just then, the outer skirt, the one which had formally been red, grew longer, down over the other skirts, and to the floor as her heels changed to flatter, much shinier blue ones. More of the embroidery dotted itself over the skirt as the skirt started to inflate, spreading in all directions. It expanded as a giant dome of fabric, the structure curving, spreading outwards like a flower in bloom. It soon encompassed several feet in diameter, and in most places this would have been a problem. Thankfully, this room was nice and wide, so the skirt could keep growing without interruption, the amount of light it was reflecting being almost blinding as the skirt continued to inflate like a balloon.

Coco was looking on in glee at this sight. She was, however, fully aware that these things were pretty heavy, and could be quite big. She breathed an audible sigh of relief as it began to slow down once the flowing, spreading fabric reached five feet. It pushed onwards, coming very close to hitting things in the room, but then, with a grumble, it reached just shy of six feet, lurched out another inch, and stopped.

To say Coco was having the time of her life was an understatement. Ever since she was a little girl she had wanted to wear one of these, but the only ones she could find were well out of her budget. Speaking of which, this dress looked awfully familiar. She walked over to the table, making sure to take careful steps so not to fall over, and took a look at the page she had left open.

The exact same dress was pictured on the page. One she had secretly wanted to buy, but could no afford.

As was normal for residents of this world, she began speaking to herself again. "Whoever made this happen, thank you so much! How can I ever repay you?"

She headed out through the door, only just managing to squeeze the skirt through the opening, and saw that other people all around her were undergoing similar transformations, or had already completed them. She pitied anybody whose clothes had changed into this sort of thing whilst driving, and gently crossed the road to where she saw a familiar face in trouble. Suri Polomare was stuck in a giant gown as well, and seemed to be quite frustrated.

"Erm, Suri," she said.

"What is it?" Suri snapped, and wheeled around. However, her face softened considerably when she saw Coco Pommel standing there, clad in a poofy dress herself. "Oh. Hi, Coco."

"So I'm not the only one," Coco said quietly. "You need a hand?"

"Yes, I do," Suri replied. "But I bet you're loving this. You get to be a poofy princess whilst I can't even get into my place of work!"

"You could help out at the store, if you'd like," Coco told her. "Remember; take small steps and try not to move too fast. If you do, you'll only slow yourself down as these dresses absorb air like a sail."

"Miss Pommel! Miss Polomare!" called a familiar voice.

Both of them turned around to see Rarity approaching. "Oh no," Suri said. "What does she want?"

Rarity stopped before them. "My, my, you both look exquisite!"

Coco giggled. "There's no need to be so formal, Rarity!" She followed it up with a quick curtsy, which Suri tried to imitate with minimal success.

"I see it got to you too," Rarity answered.

Suri was annoyed. First that girl beats her at the fashion show, now she humiliates her with a ridiculous frock? She did her best to keep her anger in check. "Erm, yes. What, precisely?"

"I was a little frustrated earlier today and had a bit of a... ahem, magic surge which is transforming everybody's clothes."

Coco's squealed again, and pulled Rarity into a hug. "You did this? Thank you thank you THANK YOU!"

"She's excited!" Suri said sarcastically.

"Coco darling, I appreciate the... enthusiasm, but a lady does need... to be able... to breathe!"

"Sorry!" Coco said, her face flushed red with embarrassment as she let her mentor go. "But you've made my dream come true!"

"Ah, yes. I've seen you looking at that one in the catalogue I left you a while back," Rarity noted.

"I tried to make my own, but I'm really not skilled enough at this."

Rarity looked at her. "We do need to get everybody together in order to reverse this spell, but I promise you this; when this mess is over, I will make you an exact replica of the dress you currently wear. Sounds good!"

Coco's facial expression left Rarity in no doubt as to how she felt, and the three ladies set off for the center of Canterlot City, followed by a crowd of many other people.
> Lyra and Bon-Bon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lyra was practicing her lyre when a blue-green blob came out of nowhere and hit her. She, unfortunately did not see it, as her eyes were closed in concentration.

Lyra looked up from her steps. She was certain something had hit her, but on the other hand she may have imagined it. Rather like she had imagined those portals with ponies inside them back at the Friendship Games. She brushed it off at first, and got up to go back indoors.

Her arms felt a bit warmer than usual. This was funny, as the sun didn't seem to be particularly strong today. She glanced to one side to try and figure out what was causing it, only to notice she suddenly had sleeves. Not only that, they were progressively getting longer, eventually flowing down to her wrists, and expanding in width until they trailed downwards by at least several inches.

Her shirt then lost its elaborate and fancy patterning, alongside the pockets, and turned brown, although her neckline rose a bit and became square, as opposed to its normal curved shape. Embroidered white and red fabric formed into place around the neckline and along the edges of the sleeves.

"Well, this is interesting." Lyra was curiously blasé about the entire thing, but kept on watching nonetheless as her shirt, changed as it was, merged into her shorts.

The result looked very strange indeed. The rather fluffy material on her shorts flattened down as the legs merged together. Her socks then unravelled from around her feet, and the remaining fabric moved up her legs to combine with her shorts, or rather skirt. She then noted that the entire assembly turned brown as the socks widened and joined together, forming an even longer skirt. Her boots, on the other hand, turned into a pair of heels, shrinking down and morphing until they did not resemble their former state at all.

The skirt, which was now roughly the same width as her, then grew downwards to the ground and began to pool at the bottom, albeit not very much at all to allow her to still be able to walk.

Lyra sat down as the process had apparently finished, her clothes a rather off shade of brown, as a light brown belt with an elaborate metal buckle appeared around her waist to complete the process and help to hold the dress together. "Well, that was disappointing. I was hoping to get something a bit more elaborate."

She glanced to the side to see her lyre had somehow become a full harp at her side. However, the principle of playing the much larger instrument remained the same, and she began to play an old melody that she knew well, and that she knew had a high probability of attracting somebody she knew and cared for very well.

And sure enough, she was there. Lyra smiled as a large crowd assembled to hear her play, and amongst them was Bon Bon, dressed not dissimilarly to her.





On the other hand...





Bon Bon, as her name implied, was an expert at the handling and processing of sweets, whenever she was not doing work on the side for SMILE. Sometimes the two jobs coincided, which was handy for a secret agent. And best bit of all, her girlfriend had no clue of her double life.

However, a recent incident had been made known to her, and as a result she needed to go undercover. For this end, she would be travelling in disguise, or disgeese as her handler kept calling it (she assumed he was French, based on his atrocious English and his inability to pronounce words correctly).

She was most surprised when a spark crashed into her inside her house, but otherwise showed relatively little concern. "Perhaps this is a new disguise delivery system!" she said. "To replace the old machine method!"

What followed not long after would initially seem to confirm her suspicions. The bow around her waist, which doubled as a belt, unwound itself from around her waist, and then faded into the fabric, causing it to briefly bulk up before fading away into it. Not to worry. There was always a way to reverse the disguises when needed.

She was, however, a little surprised when the blue and yellow lines from the skirt of her dress vanished, fading to white, before the yellow lines that formed part of the shoulders faded too. Following this, the collar shrank into the blouse, which looked very odd indeed.

Blue colours ran up the sides and part of the front of the dress, and over her shoulders, and down the other side all the way to the bottom.

"Well, this is a bit of a strange disguise," Bon Bon said to herself. She had often had to wear weird things as an agent, though. Once she had to go and spy disguised as a pineapple. Don't ask, it's a very long story.

The sleeves of her blouse began to grow longer, sliding down her arms and over her elbows, across her forearms, and then stopping at her wrists. The section around her elbow turned white, and then shrank back slightly.

Her skirt then began to grow, flowing over her knees and down to her feet, before expanding in width and taking up more room to the sides as it gained fabric in several places. Her chest and waist fabric also loosened, giving her a bit more space to breath, before a series of blue ribbon fabric was tied up in front to help secure the chest in place.

Bon Bon blinked in surprise. "I'm not sure this is the disguise."

Suddenly, the idiot policeman from earlier entered. "Good moaning."

"Good moaning," Bon Bon replied.

"I was just possing by the deer, and I thought I would drip in woth the disgeese," said the policeman. "But I soo that you already have the disgeese, so that resilves that win. I shall goo and take fourty wonks, before I inspoct the droons."

He left the box there, and Bon Bon blinked. "How can his English be so bad?"

Bon Bon saw there was an oboe like thing in the box, and took it out before proceeding outside. "Maybe I'm supposed to be a bard?"

She then walked down the street, and to her astonishment, saw a crowd had gathered around Lyra, who was playing a harp!

The assembled crowd clapped when Lyra finished her impromptu concert. Bon-Bon made her way through the throng of people, coming to stand in front of her best friend.

"Why Lyra, I wasn't aware you could play the harp," she said slyly.

Lyra grinned back at her. "The more you know. Besides, you're one to talk, Miss-I-came-from-the-medieval-ages."

Bon-Bon tapped her chin in thought. "Come to think of it, everyone nearby is dressed pretty similar to us. Rather strange, don't you think?"

"Let's go find out then!"
> Big Macintosh and Sugar Belle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was certainly the strangest wedding rehearsal she had ever been to, to say the least.

The strange lights and noises certainly seemed to suggest this, and now the impossible seemed to be happening. As Sugar Belle checked over the room to ensure everything was alright, as most of the other people had gone outside to watch the Technicolor light show streaking across the skies, her eyes suddenly caught something in her vision. Was it her, or were the sleeves of her wedding dress shorter than they had been?

She brought one up to her eyes and gave it a close look. She blinked, convinced she was seeing things. But she was not. The sleeves of her wedding dress were slowly, but surely, sliding backwards up her arms back towards their point of origin.

Sugar Belle had no clue how to react to this phenomena, probably because what she was witnessing was impossible. Fabric cannot simply change shape and move by itself! That was a basic violation of physics (as a baker by trade, she certainly knew plenty about physics and chemistry, although this was a little bit out of her field considering science had never covered a phenomenon like this).

The sleeves continued to shrink back. They were soon at her elbows, and only continued to retreat even further towards the shoulders, their movement continuous and producing a series of scratchy feelings on her arms as they continued to move along her arms.

They stopped just shy of her shoulders, slightly outside of her field of vision, so she turned to the full length mirror nearby to try and get a sense of what was going on. As she watched, the sleeves started to grow in side. But not down her arms. They were beginning to expand in width like bubbles, growing and swelling in spherical shapes that spread in every direction. The expansion kept on going, with the fabric continuing to spread and grow up, down, and sideways, consuming more and more space. Just when she thought they could not get any more puffy, they suddenly stopped, leaving her with extremely big and puffy sleeves. Then, for some reason, new sleeves grew out from them down to her wrists.

"Well, what was the point of that?" Sugar Belle asked nobody in particular. Losing sleeves to gain them? What a waste of everybody's time.

A necklace appeared around her neck as she suddenly breathed in sharply, feeling a compression in her waist. A corset had materialised around it, and it was getting tighter, sucking the bodice of her dress in with it. Her waist progressively got narrower thanks to the forces exerted on it, but mercifully it stopped before it got too tight, although it did leave her with brief breathing challenges.

Her shoulders had already been consumed by the puffy sleeves, but the front and back of the bodice still shrank downwards, completely changing the layout of the upper section of the dress. She suddenly heard a creaking noise from underneath her skirt. She was wearing a crinoline frame underneath it to give the skirt a little bit of extra volume, but she was rather surprised when she felt the skirt get heavier, as more layers seemed to be appearing underneath the outer layer. By the time it was done, she estimated there were about four or five layers underneath it.

There was a brief flash, and in the next moment everything seemed to happen at once. The outer skirt fabric became ruffled and extremely fluffy as with a bright blast of light the skirt exploded outwards in all directions. There was no gradual growth or taking up of space. One second it was quite small, and the next it covered much of the floor in a gigantic bell shape. The sudden change in weight distribution forced Sugar Belle to adjust her posture or risk falling over, but she was able to stay upright. Thank heaven her heels didn't change any more than they had. Or that the hallway had been empty, as this thing would otherwise have made getting out of here impossible!

Sugar Belle cautiously stepped forwards towards the doors, which were currently closed. Stepping forward, and seeing the front of her skirt brushing against the door, she gripped the handle and slowly pulled the other one open, looking outside as she did so.

The world outside was completely different to when she had entered. Sparks flew through the air, and everybody outside was dressed far more formerly than they had been before! Big Mac was even there... in a kilt, which he had not been wearing previously.

Sugar Belle opened the door as wide as it would go, and tried to fit through. Only to suddenly stopped partway through. She looked to her left and right, and soon saw the problem. "Bother! My skirt is wedged in the door!"

And it was. She pushed forward briefly, but that seemed to have no effect, and not only that she was worried about damaging it. She put her hands on the sides of the skirt to try and push it in, and to her surprise it worked. She popped through the door and out the other side, her skirt popping back into shape moments later.

Moments after that, some more people arrived. Again, Sugar Belle was pretty certain that was not how Big Mac's family normally dressed.





Big Mac had been elsewhere in the building when it happened. He knew that although this was not the real thing, he was still superstitious and was fully aware that seeing the bride at any point from 24 hours before right up to the wedding was bad luck. So he had been separate to be absolutely safe, compressed into a rather big suit designed to accommodate his rather formidable size.

Naturally, he was confused when he heard noise outside, and took a look out of the bottom of a window to try and establish what was going on. He was greeted with utter pandemonium, a situation echoed in his case when something crashed into him and knocked him off his chair.

He fell to the floor and promptly pulled himself up, trying to clean off the accumulated mess on his jacket when he noticed something off. He was not one for excessively flashy or ornamental clothing, and yet there were now several silver buttons in the structure of his jacket, mostly on the sleeves. They were positioned in such a way that they reflected light back into his eyes, which he found rather irritating.

Thankfully, the buttons all stayed in the same place, and nothing seemed to have happened to his shirt, which had been an absolute nightmare to prepare for this occasion. He quickly gained a waistcoat, underneath the main jacket, and that was soon full of the shiny stuff as well, as was portions of the main body of the jacket itself.

Big Mac took a quick glance in the mug he had been drinking from, and saw that it seemed to contain normal coffee. "So it's not what I've been drinkin' that's making me hallucinate," he said, convinced that none of what he was witnessing was real and was simply an illusion.

That didn't explain why his feet felt so squashed, though. He soon found the cause of the problem, as his feet were in shoes that he was pretty certain were smaller than they had been previously. His socks also seemed to be considerably taller, for some reason, and he soon saw why this change had occurred.

As an elaborate tartan shawl and cloak was bolted onto a clasp on his shoulder, turned out in checkmarked patterns of red, blue, and green, his formal pants were merged into one and shrank back up his legs to about his knees, before becoming much rougher in texture and turning the same colour as the cloak. Yes, it was now a kilt.

Big Mac now certainly knew he was not hallucinating, and that his day had just taken a turn for the bizarre. He decided to take a look outside, and opened a side door to try and exit. When he stepped outside, he saw that everybody was dressed completely differently to how they had been before. "We'll have a hard time fittin' them all in," he said to himself.

Seconds later, there was a pop, and he saw Sugar Belle quite literally pop through another door. She looked like she had escaped from a Disney movie, but before Big Mac could say anything his family's truck pulled up, and out got his mother and father, both of whom were not dressed as they usually did.

Big Mac blinked. "So I'm not dreaming."

Pear spoke up. "I'd ask what happened to you guys, but I think we know the answer to that."

"It was rather strange, I must admit, but seeing that we're all in this, I can confirm I'm not hallucinating," his father remarked.

Just then Pear's eyes fell upon Sugar Belle, who was dressed rather elaborately as compared to her previous dress, which was something she knew for a fact, as she had been there when Sugar had picked it out.

"Not that I'm complaining, but you look gorgeous, honey!" Pear exclaimed as she rushed over to Sugar, her skirts swishing as she did so.

Sugar Belle smiled shyly and ran a hand through her hair self consciously. "Really?"

"If you have any doubt, just look at Big Mac over there," pointed out Bright Mac, motioning to the person in question, while  stifling chuckles.

It was then Sugar noticed how he was looking at her. Body frozen, mouth agape, and blinking eyes, Big Mac looked like he could barely believe his eyes. 

"Wow."

Big Mac was a man of a few words, but in that instance if anyone asked him to write a song to serenade his lady, he would've done it in an heartbeat. Forget songs, he could write an entire book series on "All the Reasons Why I Love Sugar Belle, and Will Continue to Do So." Big Mac knew she was already pretty, but today, it seemed like she was an angel sent straight from the heavens and he was merely a poor peasant lucky even to be in her presence. All that were missing were metamorphical wings and a halo, but in his eyes, she seemed to be glowing, no, sparkling, even without them. 

"Marry me?" Big Mac asked dazedly, with heart eyes.

"But I already am?" questioned Sugar Belle, in equal parts amusement and fondness.

Bright Mac and Pear Butter exchanged smirks over their heads, being reminded of their younger selves. Bright Mac was similarly stunned speechless when he first saw Pear walk down the aisle, and Pear could vividly remember having the same shy, lovesick smile on her face as Sugar did right now.

Sugar Belle and Big Mac would’ve continued smiling and staring at each other if it weren’t for Bright Mac clearing his throat and patting Big Mac’s back.

“Back to the task at hand, right kiddos?”

Sugar Belle jumped slightly, startled and blushing, while Big Mac looked away and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, although he still stole glances at Sugar when he thought no one was looking. An action that was not missed by his mother by any chance.

“So, what are we going to do now?”

Pear Butter smiled knowingly. “Applejack called, it seems that we’re not the only ones in this predicament here, a couple other people we know seem to have gotten caught in it too. We’re all meeting at the town square to discuss the next course of action.”

“Seems fair enough.”

Big Mac stepped forward, holding out his arm as he did so. “Shall we, m’lady?”

Sugar Belle blushed but nevertheless took the proffered arm. “We shall.”

And so, the party of four set off towards Canterlot City Square, all smiles and laughter as they did so.