A strange artifact arrives at Twilight's library and turns her into a dragon. From there, everypony she touches suffers a similar fate and the race is on to find a cure before all of Equestria falls prey!
A strange artifact arrives at Twilight's library and turns her into a dragon. From there, everypony she touches suffers a similar fate and the contagion begins to spread! Twilight and her friends struggle to avoid spreading it further in this comedic misadventure of dragons and the fiery spells they weave. Can Twilight find a cure?
It was a slow morning at the boutique, but when the difference between a slow day and a busy day was two or three sets of hooves through the door it was hard to notice. For the moment the little shop was empty save its owner, Rarity, and her little sister, Sweetie Belle. The young filly was perched atop a dais amidst enough mirrors to reflect her strained expression from every conceivable angle, or guarantee a lifetime of bad luck if she were to misstep.
“How much longer do I have to stay this way?” Sweetie Belle asked through gritted teeth. Every muscle in her body was sore from standing perfectly still. She'd been positioned there for the past ten minutes, practically a lifetime, whilst big sister Rarity fussed with color and shape, pinning together the base of the gown around her little sister.
“Just a while longer,” Rarity said in a distracted, singsongy voice. Sweetie Belle bit the inside of her lip in frustration, trying to will herself to hold still for another few seconds. The snow white mare hummed quietly to herself as she circled her living mannequin taking measurements and jotting down notes. Nervous sweat beaded on the curly-maned filly's brow as she found herself on the front lines of a silent war between big sister's instructions to stay absolutely still, and the growing, almost irresistible urge to scratch her nose.
“Rarity my nose itches,” Sweetie Belle whined softly.
“We'll be done in a few minutes. Try not to think about it,” Rarity suggested. The little unicorn's eyes crossed. At the moment it was the only thought she could muster. A series of sharp raps at the door brought the torture to an end.
“Come iiiin, we're open!” Rarity trilled. More knocking. The seamstress huffed, setting her measuring tape aside as she made her way to the door.
“Honestly who knocks in the middle of the day?” Rarity grumbled, half to herself. “This is a business not a bedroom.”
Sweetie Belle heaved an audible sigh of relief. She struggled gracelessly off the dais, still blanketed in the cumbersome gown. The clamor of her effort caused Rarity's ear to twitch and she turned her head to see her new gown headed toward the kitchen, the train of the gown dragging along the ground behind her.
“Sweetie Belle, where are you going with that?” Rarity asked.
“I'm starving, I'm taking a break.”
“Alright, well do be careful! We wouldn't want to see our lovely work ruined,” Rarity called back. She cast a glance toward her fleeing sister with growing concern. Her imagination was already conjuring up all the nightmarish ways Sweetie Belle could ruin the gown without so much as opening the refrigerator. More knocking brought the purple-maned mare out of her horrified revelry and brought a scowl to her face. Such impertinence! She did her best to put on a smiling face and swung the door open.
“Good morning,” Rarity sang. “Welcome to the Carousel Boutique, where everything is chic and magnifique! How can we -”
Spike's slitted emerald eyes were looking up at her. For a moment they seemed to sparkle like the gem they resembled. The little dragon was out of breath, his scales were slick with sweat.
“Oh, uh Spike, what are you doing here?” she asked, withdrawing a little from the uhh... “You're looking quite... sweaty... today”
A scrap of cloth floated out of the boutique like a little ghost and landed on Spike's forehead. It scrubbed the scales furiously under Rarity's sapphire influence. Beneath the onslaught Spike loudly protested, but Rarity paid it no mind. The little dragon's complaints simply faded into the background, like Sweetie Belle's. Speaking of...
“Come in come in, I'm afraid we're very busy today, but you're more than welcome to stay of course,” Rarity said, making her egress from the door.
“Rarity it's really important I need to talk to you for a minute,” Spike said.
“Of course, it'll be just a moment. Oh Sweetie Belle! Break time is over!” Rarity called. When this failed to prompt Sweetie Belle to immediately appear, Rarity's face turned to a scowl. She began shuffling through a stack of fabric bolts, trying to imagine each color if it were the base of the new gown.
Spike crossed his arms, equally impatient. “Rarity!”
“Just a moment Spike now don't be boorish,” Rarity said sternly. She still had not looked up.
“Rarity!”
“Patience!”
Spike interjected himself between the unicorn and the pile of fabric bolts. He held her head still with both hands and looked her right in the eye.
“Rarity! I'm trying to tell you something important! It's an emergency!”
For a moment Rarity just looked back at Spike without saying anything. Her pupils seemed to narrow, forming thin black slits in the sapphire pools. Her muzzle swelled, stretching forward like one of Pinkie's balloons until it pressed right up against the little purple dragon's snout.
“Yes Spike what is it?” she asked. She was looking him right in the eye now but her listless tone made it clear that she was somehow paying even less attention than before.
“Uh Rarity? What's with your eyes?” Spike asked, pointing at the mare's cat-like pupils with a clawed purple digit. As though on cue a little white horn emerged on the tip of Rarity's muzzle. Her reptilian eyes crossed as she focused on it.
“What is...?” she asked quietly, reaching up to touch it. A snowy white claw caressed her bulbous muzzle, prodding at the new horn protruding into her field of vision. An unsettling expression settled on the white unicorn's face. Spike took an uneasy step back, getting a better look at her. She was hardly a unicorn at all now. A single white horn still protruded from her forehead, but her entire body had changed shape. Curved and lithe, she was completely covered in sleek white scales. Dark purple fur cascaded wildly down her elongated neck. A slender white tail was curled against her hind claws, adorned with royal purple blades that matched her feral mane. Of course, three little diamonds still adorned her flanks.
Rarity was taking stock as well, studying herself in wide-eyed shock. The seamstress's voice quavered as she gaped at her new body.
“My mane! My beautiful tail! ...SPIKE! Spike what did you do to me! Change me back at once! This is most improper! How undignified! Look at me I'm... I'm...” her eyes had settled onto the bulbous curve of her draconic belly. “FAT!”
“Actually all dragons look a little chubby,” Spike said with a widening grin. “I think you look cute!”
Rarity's eyes narrowed. Was she growling? Yes. Spike could swear that for a moment smoke puffed from her nostrils, currently flared like a minotaur about to charge. “Chubby? A little chubby?! OUT! GET OUT!”
“I didn't mean it like that!” Spike protested, but Rarity was a much bigger dragon than he was, and she seemed to be all too aware of this, swatting at him with her tail, then racing after him. The young dragon dashed out the door, slamming it shut behind him. From the relative safety of the front porch, he could hear Rarity screaming for Sweetie Belle.
“That could have gone better,” he grumbled, sulking as he slunk away. A loud growl caused Spike to practically jump out of his scales. Half expecting the curvy white dragoness to be stalking him down like a hungry panther, the little dragon stole a glance over his shoulder just to make sure it was just the rumble of his belly following him. To his relief he found he was alone, a problem he meant to remedy shortly.
* * *
Hunger, seasoned by a healthy dose of fear, had driven Spike to seek refuge. He was halfway to Sugarcube Corner when he came across a familiar face headed the same direction.
“Applejack! Applejack!” Spike called frantically, hurrying to catch up with the rust-colored mare.
“Good mornin' Spike!” Applejack hollered back, face lit up with a smile. She wore a pair of baskets across her back that had the distinctive jingle of coins with every step.
“Ah just got back from the market, an' it's a good mornin' indeed!” she said, giving the baskets a little shake.
“That's... great...” Spike said, panting for air. He nearly collapsed right there on the ground in front of the farmer.
“You look plum tuckered Spike, what's the matter?” Applejack asked, wrinkling her nose.
“It's Rarity! She's out for blood!” Spike yelped, gathering up just enough air to spit out the words.
“Uh huh an' why's that? Take a bite out of one of her froufrou dresses?” Applejack asked, a mischievous grin creeping across her face at the thought.
Spike bit his lip for a moment, nervously tapping his fingers together.
“I kinda called her fat,” he confessed, averting his eyes from Applejack's prying gaze.
For a moment there was silence. Applejack's chesire grin had turned to slack-jawed disbelief. What followed next was a wild fit of laughter, the mare pounding the earth with her hooves as she struggled to breathe.
“Hoo wee! Ah bet she's madder than a soggy wolverine!” Applejack guffawed.
“Yeah something like that,” Spike said, forcing a nervous chuckle.
“Aww don't worry there Sugarcube, she'll come around, always does.” Applejack said, quickly warming up to soothe Spike's apparent distress.
“She turned into a dragon!” Spike protested.
“Ah bet she did,” Applejack chortled.
“No really!”
“Uh huh, tell ya what Spike, Ah could use a little break before headin' back to the farm. Where were you headin'?”
“Sugarcube Corner,” the little dragon said. “I'm starving!”
“Good choice,” the rust-furred mare said. “Rarity won't be caught dead in that place for a week after that Ah reckon. Though between you an' me Ah'm not sure how she's not skinny as a rail with how fussy she is 'bout her food. Hop on, Ah'll take ya over there.”
The farm pony nodded toward her back. Eager to be off his feet, the little dragon scrambled up onto her back. Applejack stood still and silent as a statue. Several moments passed without a sign of life from her.
“Applejack?” Spike asked, confused as to why he wasn't already on his way to a delicious sapphire encrusted cupcake at Sugarcube Corner.
“AJ?” Spike asked, prodding at the back of the pony's head.
“Ah'm fine...” Applejack mumbled listlessly.
“Are you sure? You sound kinda... sleepy...” Spike said. Suddenly he felt himself rising into the air, Applejack's body expanding beneath him. Curved ivory horns protruded out the back of her soft blond mane, lifting her hat off her head for a moment before it flopped back down, nestled between the new horns. Spike found himself seated on the back of a sunset orange dragoness.
“Uh oh...” Spike grimaced, sliding off. Applejack the dragon still seemed dazed. Spike slipped around in front of her, looking up into her slitted green eyes. She blinked them slowly for a minute, her long, slender tail curling back and forth through the grass.
“Ah'm fine,” she said mechanically.
“Applejack?” Spike asked quietly, waving his hands back and forth in front of her spiked muzzle.
“... Ah'm hungry,” the new dragon announced, vitality suddenly returning to her voice. Spike snorted, covering his mouth to try to hold in his snickering.
“Okay, this is getting ridiculous,” the little purple dragon said.
Applejack flicked her heavy new tail sharply, then prodded at one of the golden-yellow spines along its length.
“This is a little... strange,” the earth dragon mumbled.
“Now Spike, when you said Rarity turned into a dragon...” Applejack said, choosing her words carefully. “Did y'all mean in the fanciful sense or the lit.. lit.... regular sense.”
“Uh...” Spike scratched his chin.
“Nevermind Ah got a pretty good idea which one it is,” Applejack said. She held her claw up in front of her draconic snout and stretched each digit one by one.
“You know if you're still hungry...” Spike said, feeling the quiet rumble of his stomach.
“Now hold on a minute there,” Applejack said. “We can't just go 'round Ponyville infectin' everypony with dragon, or whatever this is. You need to tell me what's goin' on 'round here.”
“You think I know?” Spike asked. His focus was down the road toward Sugarcube Corner.
“Spike this is important. Now c'mon, ah've got time to listen,” Applejack said, lowering her head to look him in the eye. “How 'bout you start with what happened at Rarity's.”
“Augh can't we talk about this over lunch. I'm going to starve!”
“Focus Spike,” Applejack said firmly, narrowing her eyes. “Ah'll get you somethin' to eat, soon as you talk.”
Spike threw up his hands. “Ugh fine!”
* * *
A chime rang out from the Ponyville clock tower, letting Fluttershy know that she was late. She hurried her strides, closing the distance to Carousel Boutique.
“Oh dear oh dear, I hope Rarity won't be mad,” Fluttershy said to herself as she trotted up the walk. She'd been late before, and Rarity had not been upset those times. Today felt different though, the meek pegasus could hear the unicorn wailing in grief upstairs.
“That's not a good sign,” Fluttershy said. She could feel little beads of sweat popping out beneath her forelock as she nervously studied the door. She whined softly, torn between knocking on the door and fleeing to the safety of her grove. But if Rarity was mad now...
Fluttershy reached out, tapping the door ever so slightly with her hoof. The sound was so silent it could have blended with the lightest drops of a spring shower. It brought no response from inside. Again she knocked, this time a little louder.
“Don't worry I'm coming!” somepony called from inside.
“It's no rush,” Fluttershy said, though it was doubtful she was heard over the harried scampering inside. The door cracked open just slightly, an emerald eye peering forth through the narrow gap. Fluttershy bit her lip. Her ears folded flat against her skull and she found herself backing away.
“Eep!” Fluttershy squeaked, suddenly finding herself backed up against the railing.
“Oh hey Fluttershy!” Sweetie Belle said, swinging the door open. The little white dragon pranced out onto the porch. She was taller now, able to look the visiting pegasus almost right in the eye. Pink and purple spikes that matched her curly mane ran along the center of the little dragon's neck and back. Her tail was long and slender, ending with swept, razory curved flukes. One was cotton candy pink and the other a soft rosy purple.
“Sw-Sweetie Belle?” Fluttershy croaked out, her eyes wide as saucers.
“Yup! Rarity's upstairs. She says she has to cancel spa day on account of us looking like 'unseemly brutes unfit for public viewing'” Sweetie Belle said, doing her best impression of the uptight seamstress.
“Sweetie Belle?” Fluttershy asked again, still staring.
“That's my name!” she answered, grinning. “Oh, and she says she's 'mort...morti...' uhm... cannot receive guests.”
The little dragon's head sank. “You can stay if you want though,” she said. “Rarity's just been screaming all day and it's no fun.”
“Uhm... well... okay... if you want,” Fluttershy said. Immediately Sweetie Belle hopped up, bouncing a little circle around her.
“Yay! Company!”
“Aww you're so cute,” Fluttershy said, a simpering smile forming on her face. Sweetie Belle was absolutely beaming from ear to ear.
“Do you wanna play a game?” Sweetie Belle asked, sitting on her haunches in front of the yellow mare.
“Oh yes of course, you make such a cute little dragon Sweetie Belle. C'mere you,” Fluttershy teasingly pounced her, embracing her tightly.
Sweetie Belle grinned warmly. “Oh, hey look!” the little dragon said, pointing up at Fluttershy beneath the shadow of spreading wings.
* * *
“Alright so let me see if Ah got this straight,” Applejack the dragoness said. She was pacing circles around Spike, trying to re-acclimate herself to her recently altered limbs. Spike was flopped on the belly, dramatically stretching his right claw toward distant Sugarcube Corner like a wayward traveler, clawing and scraping his way across the desert to an oasis. The two of them had found the relative shelter behind a carpenter pony's shop, safe for now from prying eyes.
“I told you all I know!” Spike pleaded.
“An' we've got to get to the bottom of this. Now y'all said Rarity turned into a dragon right after you touched her cheek right? An' Ah turned when you got on my back...” Applejack said.
“Yes that's what happened, now lets get lunch!”
Applejack's eyes lit up with an idea. “Spike are you contagious?”
“What? You mean like a cold?” Spike asked, looking up at her from his place on the ground.”I don't think so. I mean Twilight turned and I didn't touch her.”
The pliable jagged spikes along Applejack's spine all seemed to go rigid for a moment at this new revelation. That mare was always getting herself into the strangest sorts of trouble.
“Well when did that happen?” Applejack asked, trying to sort through all the details. “Before or after Rarity?”
“Before,” Spike said, scrambling to his feet, “but after breakfast. Then the mail came. Twilight was in the basement with all her fancy sciency stuff. So I took her the mail, and then started chores. When she didn't come up for brunch I went down to get her. She's always losing track of time down there. One time, I fell asleep after dinner, and when I woke up she was still down there working on some spinning light thing. And I'd slept for a day and a half! This other time-”
“Spike? Spike!” Applejack had to practically roar to get the young dragon's attention.
“Yeah?” Spike asked, looking up.
“Dragons, Spike, when did Twilight turn into a dragon,” she asked, tapping him lightly on the head with one claw.
“Oh, I found her that way when I went to get her for brunch!”
“Well what'd she have to say for herself?” Applejack asked, frowning.
“Nothing,” Spike said. “She's been sleeping and I can't get her to wake up.”
“What? Why? Is she okay? She's not hurt is she?” Applejack asked, feeling just the slightest twinge of panic rising in the back of her mind.
“No,” Spike said, crossing his arms. “Just full. She ate my entire stash of gems and fell asleep. So I went to Rarity for help.”
“Uh huh, Rarity?” Applejack asked, panic quickly dissolving beneath a heavy tide of skepticism. “Now Rarity's great an' all but she's not really the best in a crisis Spike.”
“Well, you know... I figured it looked like magic, maybe another unicorn could help?” Spike offered, grinning nervously.
“So it had nothin' to do with the fact that Twi ate all yer gems, an' Rarity's place is chock full of the little sparklers?”
Spike looked away. “Well who was I supposed to go to?”
“Did ya tell the princess yet? Ah suspect that's a good place to start.”
“I... I thought she'd be too busy. This seems like something we can fix without bothering her.”
“Spike, the princess takes Twi's letters about friendship magic all the time. She's very obviously got some time on her hooves. Ah think she'd want to know that her star pupil's suddenly sprouted scales.”
“Okay so I was hungry!” Spike confessed, dropping to his knees bawling. “Rarity has so many extra gems. I thought she might give me a few to tide me over. I just wanted one little sapphire...”
Applejack sighed heavily. “Well lets send a letter to the princess.”
“My paper's back at Books and Branches,” Spike said.
“Alright, let's go,” Applejack said, nudging the little dragon back to his feet.
“Where are we going?” Spike asked, still sniffling a little.
“To send a letter to Princess Celestia,” Applejack said, “and to find ya some of those gems. Now hop on.”
Applejack adjusted her hat, and then looked down at her scaly belly, scratching the broad chest scales with her slender claws. A subtle churn somewhere beneath brought to mind her own appetite. She could really go for a golden delicious or two, or perhaps a delicious golden diamond? It seemed a little... unnatural to the traditional earth pony's sensibilities, but the impulse was an undeniable presence. Perhaps she'd sample just one or two small gems to sate her appetite while Twilight and the princess worked on a cure.
“Uhm.. AJ? The library is the other way,” Spike said, tapping on the sunset-scaled dragon's back to get her attention.
Applejack didn't immediately respond, but kept walking along the backs of buildings, avoiding staying in plain sight for too long..
“Rarity's got paper for her designs and her place is closer,” she said at last. Her tone seemed a little... anxious, Spike thought.
“Now Rarity you listen up! Ah'm comin' in there whether ya like it or not!” Applejack felt like a right foal, was having a shouting match with the shut door. She'd knocked twice so far without an answer from Rarity and something about blossoming scales and claws had put the new dragoness in no mood to deal with Rarity's latest existential crisis.
“Why don't we just go inside?” Spike grumbled from atop her back.
“But I’m so hungry... can’t you just break it down,” Spike said, flopping on his back to stare at the sky.
The library wasn't that far away, but something about the thought of all those gems on the other side of the fragile wooden door made Applejack eager to stay. She could knock the door down, the wall if needed, Rarity would understand... Applejack shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.
“C'mon Rarity, Spike told me what happened already. We're here to help.”
The door swung open with a soft click. Sweetie Belle held the knob in one claw, looking up at Applejack in fascination.
“Rarity says we're closed for the day,” Sweetie Belle said, measuring Applejack's response.
“Sweetie Belle?” Applejack said, recoiling in surprise. She twisted her neck around, her transformation making it easy to look Spike right in the eye. “I thought you said it was just Rarity.”
“It was,” Spike said, peeking over Applejack's broad shoulders. “Woah! Hi Sweetie Belle!”
“Hi Spike!” Sweetie Belle waved a claw, grinning. “I'm a dragon too now!”
“Oh trust me, we can tell,” Applejack said, looking back down at the little filly-turned-dragon. Swathes of the ruined gown were wrapped tightly around her altered frame, torn to shreds by her increased size.
Spike hopped down to get a closer look and smiled hopefully.
“Do you have gems? We're starving!”
“Now wait just a minute Spike, when did all this happen Sweetie Belle?” Applejack asked, pointing a slender yellow talon at Sweetie.
“Well...” Sweetie Belle said, stalling as she tried to straighten out her story. “So there I was in the kitchen, when all of a sudden Rarity starts screaming 'Out! Out!' and then she started crying, so I figured she was in trouble! So I crept down the hall, and jumped out! There was a HUGE fire-breathing dragon! And I yelled 'Don't worry Rarity! I'll save you!' And then I attacked!”
The cotton candy colored spikes on the little dragoness's spine began to sway pendulously with each wave of her arms. Gesturing wildly in the whims of her creativity, Sweetie Belle danced clumsily around the porch.
“Take this! And that!” she shouted, wielding her imaginary hoof like a rapier toward Spike. Caught off-guard by his sudden involvement in Sweetie Belle's epic battle, the baby dragon stumbled back and tripped over Applejack's claw. He landed flat on his back.
“Take this you ruff... ruffi... bad guy!” Sweetie Belle shouted, sailing through the air. She pancaked Spike, hard.
“Oomph!” Sweetie Belle grunted in unison with her surprised victim. She rolled off of the winded dragon and onto her back. Spike stood, staggering until he found refuge against Applejack's foreleg. The bigger dragon watched the proceedings with a soft grin on her face.
“Easy there Sugarcube,” Applejack said, stifling a chuckle. “Now, Ah think we both know that's not what happened. This is important, okay?”
Still flat on her back, Sweetie Belle frowned and sighed heavily. “Rarity was coming up the stairs to her room and I tripped and rolled down into her. I woke up at the bottom of the stairs like this. Now she's afraid of me.”
“Aww I'm sorry Sweetie Belle,” Applejack said, fighting back a growing sense of indignation toward Rarity as Sweetie Belle began to sniffle, her cute little muzzle scrunching up at the unpleasant memory. Applejack could feel a cold growl creeping up her throat.
“Applejack?” quavered Sweetie Belle.
Applejack looked down to meet Sweetie Belle's worried gaze.
“Oh uh... Ah'm just a little hungry, sorry 'bout that,” Applejack said hurriedly, stilling the growl. It was partly true, she thought. Normally her temper wasn't quite so difficult to control.
“We've got lots of gems,” Sweetie Belle said, patting her stomach. With a silken groan, the remnants of the dress yielded to the inevitable. Seams parted and the soft fabric gave way to free the little dragoness’ gem-swollen belly.
“Stupid gown,” she muttered, picking a few of the larger shredded rags off her scaly belly. “Rarity will be soooo angry.”
Applejack thought a moment, looking down at the two youngsters in her company. Sweetie was trying to roll back onto her belly, and Spike was doing his desert island routine again, making grasping motions toward one of Rarity's gem-studded hats. Even Applejack had to admit she'd taken notice of the ruby's scarlet glinting like a ripe red delicious atop a feather bedecked hat. Eating the hat did not seem nearly so far beyond the pale as it should have been. The orange dragoness grimaced. Desperate to avoid what was quickly beginning to seem like the inevitable, Applejack spoke up.
“Sweetie Belle why don't you take Spike and get him something to eat. Something that's not part of one of Rarity's fancy get-ups, okay?”
With a renewed sense of purpose, Sweetie Belle sprang back to life, hopping up off the ground with a smile. “Okay I can do that!”
“Ah'm gonna go have a talk with your sister. Where is she now?” Applejack asked.
“She's upstairs with Fluttershy,” Sweetie announced. Applejack flinched like her new tail had just been slammed in the door.
“Fluttershy's here too?” Applejack trying to smooth down the rising spikes on her back with willpower alone. Having no luck with that, she stroked them back like an unruly strand of mane with a sweep of her claws
“Yeah! She and Rarity go to the spa every week,” Sweetie Belle explained.
Compelled to explore the horrible possibilities all the way to the bitter end, Applejack prompted, “Is she a dragon too?”
“Yeah but she really doesn't like it.” The little dragoness shook her head. “Not at all. She started freaking out and ran upstairs to hide. I tried to warn her that Rarity was already hiding in there but I don't think she could hear me over all the screaming. I didn't know even know Fluttershy could scream that loud!”
“And they're both in the bedroom upstairs?” the orange dragoness asked, hoping beyond hope that the former pegasus hadn’t fled into town.
“Yup! Fluttershy's on the bed, and Rarity's under it, and they won't. Come. Out.” Sweetie Belle's slender-bladed tail tip flicked sharply against the ground with each word. She huffed, slouching her weight onto her forelegs til her belly was pressed to the floor and she flopped to the ground in a sprawl.
“That's weird, why not?” Spike asked.
“Rarity says she's a monster,” Sweetie Belle mumbled.
“And Fluttershy?” Spike asked.
Applejack's claw smacked into her own face as she shook her head. “Ah'll handle it, you two stay out of trouble.”
The stairs felt awfully narrow to the frustrated dragon as she scrambled up each step. The clacking of new class on the wooden floor was still taking some getting used to. The way the digits parted slightly as she put her weight on each altered foot; the ease of gripping the wooden steps with her talons. It was hard to avoid putting fresh gouges in the wood, but Rarity and Fluttershy had already left plenty. Shortly she found herself at another locked door.
“Rarity!” Applejack called, knocking. It was irresponsible, what the unicorn had done to her own kin, but the orange dragoness was raised better than to barge in unannounced. She wasn't born in a barn, just near one.
“Don't come in!” Rarity shouted, her voice cracking.
“Ah have to,” Applejack said sternly. “Now come open this door.”
Applejack could hear something bulky shifting beyond the door. In her mind’s eye Applejack could imagine Rarity gesturing with one white-scaled paw, the other pressed to her forehead, as the distressed fashionista cried out, “No! I can't possibly bear the humiliation! I won't be seen in the light!”
“Applejack there's a monster under the bed!” Fluttershy gasped out. Applejack rolled her eyes, having just barely heard the pegasus' warning over Rarity's wailing.
Applejack snorted through foreign nostrils, surprising herself when it produced a little puff of smoke. Moving carefully so as to not scrape up anything with her sharp-tipped horns, the dragoness put one ear to the door.
“So you're not comin' out?”
“No! Never again!” Rarity bawled.
“That's all Ah needed to hear,” Applejack said, stepping away from the door.
“...wait! Applejack?” Rarity peeked out from beneath the bed. The growling presence on the other side of her bedroom door had suddenly gone silent. Rarity knew the farmer mare better than to think she'd gone. Applejack was persistent. It wasn't like her to leave...
“Applejack what are you doing out there?” Rarity called, her tears drying up. She scrambled forward on her belly, poking her head out. The door was still shut.
Atop the bed, a sunny-scaled dragoness stared down at the back of Rarity's head in wild-eyed terror. With her eyes growing wider by the shadonw, Fluttershy let out a quiet squeak of horror. The bat-winged dragoness took a few steps back, nearly treading upon her long, serpentine tail with a shaking hindfoot.
The door burst off its hinges from the force of Applejack’s charge. It clattered across the floor, ruined. Rarity shielded her face with her forelegs. Fluttershy stiffened up like a statue, wings flaring on instinct to steady her as she reared up onto her muscular hind legs. The former pegasus inhaled sharply, as though to let out a banshee-like wail, but the sound never came. Instead, the yellow dragoness wilted like a scorched daffodil, her head pointing skyward for a moment as she let out all her air and then sank heavily into the sheets of the bed.
“My door! How brutish!” Rarity barked, quickly retreating to the darkness under the bed. “I told you not to come in. Honestly Applejack! Your manners are wont for improvement.”
“Now listen, you,” Applejack growled, her tail snapping against the ground. “You left yer little sister out there all upset. That's not right. Now Ah want you to come out from under there, and behave like an adult.”
“No. I won't,” Rarity said, huffing. Applejack couldn't see her, but she was sure the former unicorn was turning her nose up. The farmer peered under the bed to see Rarity's slitted sapphire eyes reflecting back at her.
“This whole dragon thing's got everypony, not just you,” Applejack said, hoping to coax out her prissy friend. She was strongly considering coming back with a broom to poke and prod until the uptight unicorn dragon had no other recourse but to emerge.
“I don't care,” Rarity said calmly.
Applejack could tell Rarity was in for the long haul. She stood up and searched the room, quickly finding something she was fairly certain the seamstress would care about: about a dozen purple gems carefully laid out in a velvet case on the nightstand.
“Say Rarity, what're these?” Applejack asked, stuffing a claw full of the bright purple gems under the bed where Rarity could see. Even in the dark the amethyst continued to sparkle from inner lights, crackling like distant exploding stars.
“Th-those are my Sparking Amethyst!” Rarity said. “They're very rare, perfect for my new evening wear. They'll be all the rage in Canterlot this autumn I just know it... Applejack I must insist you put those down at once.”
Applejack lay on her back, her tail swishing back and forth in slow, deliberate strokes. She tilted her head, watching an upside-down image of Rarity. The unicorn dragon furrowed her brow in confusion. Applejack grinned, holding one of the gems up to the light between two talons. Her beak-like snout parted as she licked the surface of the shimmering gem. The taste was tantalizing to the hungry dragoness. She clutched the case of gems tighter against her side like a bowl of freshly popped corn.
“...you wouldn't!” Rarity gasped, her own claws digging into the floor as she looked on in horror.
“Wouldn't Ah?” Applejack smirked. She tossed it up into the air and caught it in her mouth like a grape. It crunched easily beneath the force of her draconic jaws. The flavor was surprisingly bright, pouring down her throat like fresh squeezed juice. The delicacy only served to wet the dragoness's appetite further. She'd downed a second before she noticed Rarity was standing next to her now, screaming for her to stop, and a third before the snowy-scaled dragon tackled her, bringing the meal to a violent halt.
After a very brief struggle, Applejack retrieved her hat, quickly finding herself in a staring contest with a very angry white dragoness.
“You... you... you you … you ATE my Sparking Amethyst! Three of them! Gone forever! Do you know how hard these are to find?” Rarity looked forlornly at the velvet case's three empty sockets.
“And they were delicious, Ah'm sure you can find more... but ya only have one little sister. Now, march yerself downstairs, and apologize to Sweetie Belle. Ya called her a monster and then locked her out of yer room for an hour and she's goin' through the same thing you are.” Applejack was practically growling by the end of her lecture. Rarity withered miserably under Applejack's stern gaze.
“I suppose I... should... go see how Sweetie Belle is doing...” Rarity said with her beak-like muzzle pointed at the ground. Her eyes strained upward but were only able to rise to about Applejack's chest.
“That's more like it,” Applejack said with a satisfied nod. Rarity scurried down the stairs with what grace she could still manage, leaving the farmer to deal with the pink and yellow heap on the bed.
Applejack made her appearance in the kitchen not long after. She halted at the foot of the stairs to straighten her hat, still trying to get used to way it rested against her horns. Fluttershy was not with her.
“Ah left her a note, thought it best to let her sleep it off,” Applejack said in answer to the questioning faces all turned toward her.
“Oh, that's good,” Rarity said. She was meticulously snipping bits of cloth off of Sweetie Belle. The dragoness’ careful claws placed the few surviving pins into a jar. The cloth went into a hamper to be washed and evaluated later. For her part, the young dragoness was smiling now, enjoying the attention despite the bizarre situation.
“I sent a letter to the princess just like you said,” Spike said. Gems were disappearing from his bowl, one by one into the baby dragon's mouth.
“Speaking of letters,” Rarity said, combing her claws through Sweetie Belle's mane. “I was just wondering Applejack... you see there are no quills in my bedroom.”
Rarity stopped what she was doing and looked questioningly at the other adult dragon. For a moment Applejack just stared back, waiting for a question.
“Oh,” she said, realization dawning in her slitted emerald eyes. “Just used some of that makeup you've got lying around.”
“I see, well that was very resourceful, good thinking, Applejack.” Rarity's voice struggled to maintain its poise. Her right eyelid twitched for a moment before she returned to grooming Sweetie Belle.
“Uh huh, thanks...” Applejack said, aware now that this was probably not an appropriate use in the eyes of Ponyville’s most cultured female.
“Say, Spike...” Applejack said, eyeing his bowl of colorful gems. She could still taste the sweet flavor of the Sparking Amethyst lingering in the cleft of her bifurcated tongue.
“Want some?” Spike asked, pushing the bowl over to her. Needing no further invitation, Applejack lowered her muzzle to delve into the bowl of shimmering delights. She wolfed down several mouthfuls that seemed far juicier than something made of crystal had any right to be. It was hard to stop, but she resisted the urge to gorge herself, stopping with a fourth (or was it fifth?) foray back into the bowl.
“Okay,” Applejack said, pushing the bowl away, but keeping her eye on it. “I think we should go over to Twilight's, and see if she can fix this... whatever this is that's going on.”
“Is she a dragon too?” Rarity asked.
“Yup!” Spike said, fishing the bowl back away from Applejack. “Since this morning.”
“So it's very important, that none of us go infectin' anypony else,” Applejack said. “The less movin' around the better. So we're gonna go together to see Twilight. Sweetie Belle, Ah need you to stay here with Fluttershy. Make sure when she wakes up that she doesn't leave, ya got that?”
Sweetie Belle nodded sharply. “I'm on it! Should I get Scootaloo and Apple Bloom to come help?”
“No, you need to stay here too,” Rarity said. “Watch the shop, make sure the door stays locked. Okay?”
“Okay,” Sweetie Belle said. She scampered over to the stairs and took position like a guard dog. Rarity cringed inwardly at the thought of leaving her there alone... unsupervised... with the kitchen.
A thin shaft of light fell across Applejack’s eye, narrowing her already thin-slitted pupil further as she peered out into the streets of Ponyville. It was only a short trot to Books and Branches through the center of town, through a bustling market, brimming with shopping ponies. Of course, there were other ways to get to Twilight Sparkle’s, but the orange dragoness could only imagine the havoc a small parade of dragons would cause, even in the sparsest edges of town. It had been hard enough avoiding detection when she had made the short jaunt to Rarity’s with Spike.
“Uh... Ah’m thinkin’ maybe we should wait ‘til after dark,” Applejack said, looking out through the crack in the door at the passing ponies. Behind her, she could hear Rarity heave a sigh of relief.
“Applejack, I was thinking,” Rarity said. Applejack could feel the spines on her neck begin to rise. Rarity had been doing a lot of thinking, mostly about ways to avoid stepping out the front door.
“Yes?” Applejack asked curtly. She tried to be civil, but her voice betrayed her. Rarity feigned injury at the other dragoness’s tone but carried on despite the rebuff.
“I’m just not sure it’s best for Fluttershy, that she be left here alone with Sweetie Belle. What if she thinks we’ve abandoned her?” Rarity asked, looking woefully toward the stairs at the pegasus dragon’s imagined plight. Sweetie Belle was still on guard duty in her own way, sleeping peacefully on the bottom steps.
Applejack could only sigh when she looked up and saw the hopefully expression on Rarity’s face. There was a quiet moment as the two locked eyes. Rarity forced a smile that withered under Applejack’s unyielding scowl.
“Rarity?”
“Yes, Applejack?” Rarity asked, brightening.
“You’re coming with me to Twilight’s,” the farmer said flatly.
“But Applejack!” Rarity protested, her ears drooping as her voice rose into a plaintive whine. She opened her mouth to speak again but the orange dragon’s paw pushed her jaw shut before she could get out another word.
“Sweetie Belle promised not to try to cook anythin’. Nopony’s coming to buy a gown this late at night and we couldn’t let ‘em in anyway. Yer scales aren’t gonna reflect the moonlight any more than mine. And last of all, Fluttershy thinks you’re the monster that lives under her bed, and ain’t gonna be sore that we ran off while she was sleepin’. Got it?”
Rarity wilted against the table, toying with her mane and trying not to pout too visibly. By then Applejack felt like biting something in half, but didn’t want to encourage any further complaints on the unicorn dragon’s part.
“Rares, Ah need you for this okay?” Applejack said, putting her claw lightly on the seamstress’s shoulder. “Ah don’t have a clue how Twi’s gonna be. Might not be able to handle her alone.”
Rarity lifted her head slightly, forcing a weak smile for Applejack’s sake. It lasted only a moment and she slumped back to the table, crossing her eyes to look down the center of her slender muzzle toward the spike on its tip. She groaned miserably, staring at it until her eyes began to water from the strain.
* * *
Proper motivation. That was all Rarity had needed. Creeping through town in the moonlight, Rarity was a swift, snowy blur. Disappearing into shadows like a ninja, the seamstress’ attentiveness to details was serving her well. She heard every approaching hoofbeat, noticed every lit window. Ears perked, eyes wide and sharp, Rarity was the essence of alertness. Applejack had never seen her so focused on anything that wasn’t made of cloth. Or maybe gold, the farmer thought, entertaining past experiences with the fussy mare. Abruptly the earth dragon found she had lost track of Rarity somewhere in the dark.
“Rarity?” Applejack whispered into the shadows. No response.
“I don’t see her anywhere,” said Spike from his perch atop the farmer’s shoulder.
Applejack suddenly found herself caught in the grip of magic, lifted off her feet like a ragdoll and yanked backward through a dark doorway. The door snapped shut as though it had devoured her. Through the soft cloud of blue magic Applejack could make out Rarity’s altered face. One sharp-taloned digit was pointed skyward, pressed to her sleek white muzzle.
“Shhh,” Rarity hissed, eyes narrowing. Applejack’s face twisted up in pain, her eyes watering.
“Mah tail,” she whined, fighting back the urge to snarl in the other dragon’s face.
“Oh,” Rarity said, features softening. The door swung open just long enough for the orange dragon to free her smashed tail spade. Bright orange scales tumbled from the wound like sparks off a blacksmith’s hammer, quickly becoming lost in the darkness of the...
“This is a coal shed,” Applejack said, looking around. “This is a coal shed. Rarity, why are we in a coal shed?”
Rarity was smudged with black coal dust from the tip of her horn to the edge of her bladed tail. She lifted a paw toward the door. “It’s not safe out there!”
Spike slid to the ground and put his face up against a knothole in the door.
“I think somepony’s coming,” he said.
“An entire procession!” Rarity hissed. She lowered her head, peering through a crack just over Spike’s shoulder. “Just look at those cheap knock-off boots. I bet you can hear that awful clacking from here to Sugarcube Corner.”
“Yeah those are... boots...” the tiny purple dragon said, looking up at her. Even covered in coal dust, Rarity’s soft white scales seemed to glow in the silver moonlight that filtered in between the planks of the cheaply made door.
“More like poorly dressed up clogs if you ask me,” Rarity said, oblivious. Applejack stifled a chuckle. She was the patient sort, more than happy to wait out the passing crowd in the snug coal shed. Idly she flicked a few more damaged scales loose from her injury, watching them drop like little golden tears.
“Any sign of ‘em?” the farmer asked after a while.
“It’s hard to say,” Rarity replied quietly, straining to better align her slitted pupil with the crack in the door. “It’s so dark out there...”
Without warning the shed door swung open. The creaking hinges seemed like the only sound in the world and went on for what felt like hours. A wide-eyed Rarity found herself nearly muzzle-to-muzzle with a minty green earth pony. For a moment the shocked stallion just stood there, staring slack-jawed at the trio of dragons hunkered down in his coal shed. It probably didn’t help that every spike along the considerable length of Applejack’s spine stood upright at once. Astounded silence was thicker in the air than the coal dust that had once been the most noticeable component of the rickety enclosure’s atmosphere.
Spike was the first to speak, pointing an accusatory finger at the wide-eyed stallion. “Hey! This is our hiding spot. Find your own.”
The stallion nodded mechanically, slowly pushing the door back shut until the latch clicked. He turned stiffly, took a few very careful, deliberate steps away,, and then ran screaming into the night.
“That could’ve gone better,” Applejack grumbled, pushing the door back open. “C’mon, let’s go. Jig’s up.”
* * *
Twilight Sparkle woke up in near complete and utter darkness. The torches on the walls burned low, barely more than embers casting feeble, ruddy light in the quiet of the library. The young magician bit her tongue, heart racing as she realized she’d slept the entire day away. Her schedule! So many boxes had gone unchecked, haunting the page with their emptiness. She scrambled in the dark to get her legs beneath her and reached out with her magic, brightening the halls as every torch and candle flared with renewed vigor.
Automatically her paw went to her muzzle. It was sticking out further than normal, and shaped wrong too. Black taloned digits covered in smooth lavender scales gripped Twilight’s snout. She put her altered forefoot back on the ground, staring down at her reptilian form as the strange memories of the day, what little of it she had been awake to experience, came flooding back to her. There was breakfast, her package, notes from a few books, correspondence with the magic school, Spike coming to check on her...
“Spike?” Twilight Sparkle called. Where was he? She rose from her haunches and took a few steps, wobbling like a newborn foal on her unfamiliar limbs. Weight shifted strangely in her scaled belly.
Oh, right, Spike’s gems. I ate them all, she thought. He’d been pulling her tail and complaining about it the whole time. That explained the long nap, and probably also Spike’s disappearance.
“He’s probably over at Rarity’s eating her out of house and home,” Twilight said to the empty library, but the books did not answer. It was an odd feeling, not having somepony to talk to.
“Well at least this will be interesting,” the former-unicorn said, slouching back onto her haunches. She picked up one foreleg and then the other, slowly rising to a bipedal--! The windows rattled as she crashed back to the floor.
“Four legs still,” Twilight mumbled, seeing stars. Reaching out with her magic again, she called an old book down from the top shelf. It floated over to her reading desk and opened to an arbitrary page as the old leather cover settled onto the polished mahogany. Surrounded by a soft purple glow, the pages flipped on their own as the unicorn dragon read.
“Modern Magical Maladies,” Twilight said to herself. “This seems good a place to start as any. Let’s see.... do I have a fever?”
Twilight put the back of her paw against her forehead, just above her horn. She didn’t feel like she had a fever. She held her altered forefoot up to get a better look at it. A new idea was forming in the studious dragoness’s mind. She reached up to the book’s pedastol and turned the page by paw like she’d seen Spike do thousands of times before.
“Hmm,” Twilight said, holding up the shredded remains of a dozen or so pages she’d just ripped from the cover. “Well, that is harder than it looks.”
She dropped the damaged pages onto the open book, then lifted them up into the air again with her familiar magic. Her altered foot went back to the ground, where it belonged. Carefully she smoothed each page, fixing the tears and gluing them back into the cover. She’d just finished the last one when someone knocked at the door.
“Oh for goodness sake, I live here!” Spike said, pulling the door open. “Twilight! We’ve got company!”
Twilight hurried into the foyer to meet her guests. Rarity and Applejack sat side by side on the rug behind Spike. Twilight beamed, brimming with excitement over the unexpected arrival of her friends.
“Rarity! Applejack! It’s very nice to see you,” Twilight said, greeting them by rote.
Compelled to return the greeting by her courteous nature Rarity answered, “Uhm, it’s nice to see you too, Twilight.”
“Twi, you can see that we’re dragons, right?” Applejack asked, amazed at Twilight’s business-as-usual demeanor.
Applejack and Rarity both raised a paw, pointing accusingly at Spike with a single talon each.
“Oh that’s neat. How did you do that?” Twilight asked brightly. She lifted her paw off the ground and tried to mimic the gesture. “That’s very useful, more specific than a hoof.”
A clipboard found its way into the space in front of Twilight. Her quill scratched furiously across the blank page.
“I wonder what’s causing this,” Twilight said, blinking her slitted purple eyes as she looked from Rarity to Applejack and back.
“We were hoping you could explain that to us,” Rarity offered. “Seeing as you were the first to change and all. You uh, can fix this, right Twilight?”
The blackened seamstress tried to muster an encouraging smile, but she was forcing a nightmarish, sharp-toothed cheshire grin that could have sent the bravest of souls running to hide in the coal shed she had crawled out of. Twilight stopped her habitual pacing, brought up short by the sight of Rarity’s pointed teeth.
“Of course!” Twilight said warmly. “It might take a few weeks though.”
“WEEKS?! Twilight that simply will not do,” Rarity said, wide-eyed. “I have a fashion line to finish in time for all the spring galas.”
“Also we’re kind of contagious,” Applejack said, pointing at Spike again. “Specially this little guy.”
“Well that can’t be good,” Twilight said, wrinkling her nose. “How contagious?”
“Twilight I’m afraid you’re missing the real problem here. I can’t possibly be expected to work under these conditions! Deadlines loom! You understand deadlines and schedules of course,” Rarity whined. She grabbed Twilight’s shoulders and began shaking her wildly back and forth. Her voice cracked with desperation. “Tell me you understand!”
Applejack pried the bawling fashionista off Twilight. “Tell her how it went, Spike.”
“Well I got Applejack and Rarity,” Spike said, thinking back. “Then Rarity got Sweetie Belle and Sweetie Belle got Fluttershy. It was really quick too. I just tapped Rarity on the nose.”
Rarity nodded solemnly, tears still running down her face.. Twilight whisked through the pages of Modern Magical Maladies, reading silently while the others watched.
“Well, the bad news is it’s probably going to stay that contagious,” Twilight said slowly as she read. She brightened. “But we can have a slumber party! It’ll be great, we’ll go get Sweetie Belle and Fluttershy and you can all stay with me while I work on the cure! Won’t that be fun?”
Applejack’s eyes glazed over, scenes from her last overnight experience with Rarity and Twilight Sparkle playing through her head like grainy old horror movies. Shrill screaming broke the earth dragon out of her thoughts. Her head instinctively turned toward Rarity.
"What?" The prissy dressmaker asked as she met Applejack's gaze with confusion. Her expression soured with realization.
“Well it’s not me!” Rarity huffed and crossed her arms, turning her nose up at Applejack.
Twilight hurried to a window. “Wow, what’s going on out there?”
Applejack felt her blood run cold. “Uh, Twilight? Just how contagious do you think this is?”
“Oh, extremely,” she said, craning her neck to try to see what was going on just a few buildings down. “We need to make sure we don’t touch anypony.”
“Uh, what about scales? Like, one’s we’ve... shed,” the farmer asked, wincing on the last word.
“They’d be contagious too, but probably only for a day or so,” Twilight said. “Why?”
“Uh oh,” Applejack swallowed hard. “We might have a little bigger problem then.”
“That’s at least three,” Spike said from his perch in the windowsill. He was flat on his back, using his belly as a desk for his tally sheet. “It’s definitely spreading.”
Applejack peered past the little dragon. In the dim reflection of the window she could see her own slitted emerald eyes looking back at her. “That ain’t normal,” she said, turning her head sideways to get a better view. Spike poked at the reflection with his quill.
“We should go out there,” Applejack said, looking over her shoulder at Twilight. The lavender dragoness had her snout buried in a book. She shook her head without looking up.
“We have to enforce a quarantine. It’s the only way to keep the contagion from spreading,” she said.
AJ pried the book down to get her friend’s full attention. “But it has spread,” she said. “And Ah don’t feel right about leaving Fluttershy all alone at Carousel Boo... Bow... Err... Rarity’s.”
“Sweetie Belle is there too,” Spike pointed out.
“And that’s not puttin’ mah mind at ease either,” Applejack said, biting her lip.
Twilight frowned, avoiding Applejack’s searching eyes. “But the quarantine-”
“-will be a lot easier to enforce if everypony knows about it,” Applejack said firmly. “Now Ah’m going to go out there and round up all the dragons, and Ah’m gonna go get Fluttershy and Sweetie Belle.”
Twilight looked outside into the dark. “I thought for sure the others would all see that they needed to stay inside...”
“Twilight we dern near spread the thing to nearly every single one of our closest friends ‘fore we figured out how it was gettin’ around,” Applejack said, joining her at the window. “Ah’ll be goin’ now. You best get ready for kin and company.”
Twilight frowned into the darkness. She didn't look up until Applejack had opened the front door. "You're right. It's probably for the best... Just be careful okay?"
“Will do!” Applejack saluted her and hurried out into the dark.
“I hope she comes back soon,” Twilight said, still unsure of her decision to let Applejack go out. It was a breach of quarantine but Applejack wasn’t the compromising sort when she had her mind set to something. Either was it was too late, she was long gone.
“I hope Rarity gets out of the shower soon,” Spike said, grumbling. “It’s been over half an hour. She’s going to use up all the hot water.”
“She’ll be out soon,” Twilight said, summoning a few more books down from the highest shelves. “Also, when did you start worrying about bathing?”
“Hmmmph. I wouldn't be so sure about that. I heard her say something about ‘scrubbing til the soot and the scales come off.’ Believe me they don’t come off easy." It was about then that Spike realized he no longer had an audience. Twilight was thoroughly engrossed in her book. "So what are you reading?”
“It’s a book on dragon magic,” Twilight said, holding it up so he could see the cover. She took a special sort of joy in holding it up in her clawed hand without the aid of telekinesis. “I’m getting better at it.”
“At what? Reading?" Spike asked skeptically. "Twilight you’re the champ!"
“The claws!” she said, wiggling her taloned digits.
“Oh, right. Hey Twilight? Don’t ask how I know, but whatever you do don’t try picking your nose,” Spike said. There was a moment of awkward silence as the librarian stared back at him with her nose wrinkled in distaste. “Trust me on this.”
“Right...” she said and burrowed back into the book.
Spike made another tally on his page as a hulking figure, too large to be a pony, walked past the window. “When did you get a bunch of dragon books?”
“After you went off on your quest,” she said. “I felt bad that I couldn’t answer your questions.”
“You said there weren’t any.”
“Somepony up in Glendale wrote some,” she said, scanning across the page. She lowered the book and looked at Spike. “According to this, a dragon’s magic is in their fire. That must be why Princess Celestia’s letters always come in a puff of fire.”
“Yeah they don’t exactly taste good. I wish she wouldn’t write during meals,” Spike grumbled.
“Do you know any other spells?” Twilight asked. She went over to the window where he was lounging and took a look at his tally sheet.
“I can make gems disappear,” he said and chuckled. Twilight frowned.
“This is very serious Spike,” she said sternly. She was slipping into a lecturing tone. “We have a responsibility here. Princess Celestia will be counting on us to see Ponyville through this disaster.”
“Aww c’mon Twilight, you know I’d say something if I learned a new trick,” the little dragon said, scratching his chin. “Besides, how bad could it be?”
“How bad could it be?” Twilight echoed pensively. She took to pacing laps around the foyer. The familiar rhythmic clop of this particular ritual had been replaced with a steady tempo of claws clicking against the wooden floor. At last she stopped. “Really bad.”
“Huh?”
“Well first off the more ponies that become infected, the harder it will be to impose quarantine, and dragons are bigger than ponies. We don’t have the infrastructure to feed that many dragons. We’ll have to ration.”
Charts and tables were already forming in her mind. They’d find their way to paper soon enough. For now, her first concern was a cure.
“We need to find out where this all began,” she said. She went to the basement with Spike hurrying along after her.
“What's a ration?” he asked.
“You know, rationing,” she said. “Careful selection of who gets how much food based on need and availability. We have to make our food stores last as long as possible or we’ll have serious problems underhoof this winter.”
The basement door was ajar, though Twilight couldn’t remember leaving it open. In fact, she couldn’t remember leaving the basement at all. That was the last place she’d been before waking up in the hall with a belly full of gems. Still full of gems, rather. The thought of them reminded her of just how full she was and made her feel groggy. Spike’s propensity for long naps was suddenly making a lot of sense to her.
The basement lab was dark, and the candles refused to answer the call of Twilight’s magic. She plucked one from the wall and blew a thin stream of violet flame across the wick. It had the desired effect. The rest of the candles sprang to life, a sympathetic reaction of the magic lying dormant with them.
“Sometimes they need a little kick-start,” Twilight explained as she circled down toward the lab area. Much to her surprise, a dragon was waiting for them, snoozing lightly on her back between a thaumic retrospector and a magicite transductor.
Her scales were gray as stone, and broad, feathered wings stretched out as they approached. Slender spikes the color of straw ran along her spine to the golden spade of her draconic tail. She stretched languidly as she yawned and rose from her makeshift bed among the scientific equipment.
“Good morning Twilight Sparkle!” The gray dragon exclaimed, waving.
“It’s... the mailmare?” Spike said, unsure. Derpy nodded emphatically. She was beaming with pride.
“It’s night, actually,” Twilight said.
The mailmare's wings drooped. “The mail’s gonna be late...”
“I’m sure that will be fine,” Twilight said. Derpy's presence in her lab was a variable she hadn't counted on. It was fortuitous and gave her a starting point to work from. “We have very important work to do tonight and you can really help us out. Do you remember if there was anything strange about when you arrived this morning?”
“Uh huh, I brought you some packages and when you opened that one you turned into a dragon,” Derpy stretched out a slate grey talon toward a crumpled box on Twilight’s workbench. There, amongst a rainbow assortment of potions, was a small stone. It was vaguely round, and no larger than a tennis ball but the surface was marred with tiny craters, giving it a meteoric look. It seemed to be enveloped in fire, but the desk didn’t burn, and it was cool to the touch. The flames cycled through a broad spectrum of colors. At the moment it had settled on an otherworldly lime green. Beside it was a small bowl It was made of the same dark material and had many chambers of various sizes in it. The one in the center looked about the right size. Colorful flames lit up in all the chambers when Twilight dropped the burning stone into the middle section of the bowl.
“It came from the Canterlot archives,” the mailmare said, nodding. “And it wasn’t on fire when I delivered it. Promise!”
“That's very interesting. Can you breathe fire, Derpy?” Twilight asked. She looked back over her shoulder at her visitor.
“Of course she can, she’s a dragon,” Spike said, looking up at the mailmare turned postal dragon. Derpy shook her head ‘no’.
“Watch,” she said. She blew a stream of bubbles directly into Spike’s face.
“Ack!” Spike shielded his eyes and ended up choking on one of the bubbles. Derpy hopped after the few that didn’t burst against the little dragon’s face and bit each one of them out of the sky.
“Please be careful Derpy,” Twilight said. Immediately the mail dragon stopped, grinning sheepishly.
“They’re so fun though!” She answered cheerfully. “I can’t wait to show Dinky.”
Twilight flinched visibly. Her ears drooped back. “About that...” she started.
“Yoo hoo!” Rarity called from the ramp. “Oh my, is that the mailmare?”
“Yes ma’am!” Derpy saluted. “Neither snow nor rain nor blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight! ...no... Rain nor sleet nor scale or claw... wait no.... Well the mail will go through regardless!”
“Listen, Derpy, we need you to stay with us tonight,” Twilight said gently. “Until we can find out what’s turning everypony into dragons.”
“I have to go home and pick up Dinky,” Derpy said matter-of-factly.
“You can’t, not tonight,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “Is she at a friend’s? She’ll have to stay there tonight.”
Derpy drooped, whining softly. “But... Muffin...” Her eyes were starting to shimmer with tears.
“It’ll be fine, just until we can get this straightened out,” Twilight said, trying to reassure the young mother.
“What if you can’t?” Spike asked.
Twilight thought about it a moment and opened her mouth to speak.
“She can!” Rarity jumped in, shooting Twilight a look of warning. “Of course she can.”
“Oh, uh, right. Certainly!” Twilight said. She forced an optimistic smile with practiced ease. Derpy tried to return the grin, but the gesture was halfhearted.
“I think we will all feel better after a nice home-cooked dinner,” Rarity said, looking toward the distant door. Something about the dingy basement lab left her quite uncomfortable. “I’ll get started on that right away. And Miss uhm, Derpy, can come and... uhm, watch?”
Derpy gave her a doleful look.
Rarity gathered her courage. "or maybe... help?"
The mailmare's spirits immediately began to lift. “I make awesome macaroni!” she said cheerfully.
“Oh how... uhm... well it doesn’t exactly sound like fine dining does it?” Rarity asked. She chuckled nervously at the thought.
“Kitchen’s upstairs,” the baby dragon said. His trusty steed jerked to life, galloping toward the promise of food.
“Wait! Wait for me!” Rarity called desperately, scurrying after them.
At last Twilight was alone again, and the meteoric bowl of fire was a siren call to her inquisitive nature. She was too smart for that. A little glass dome fit neatly over it. A protective ward was etched into the surface, trapping the magic inside.
“Now then, where did you come from?” she asked, squinting at it through the glass. The answers were unlikely to come from the stone itself, but the books so often spoke to her. She had so few on dragons, and only the one on dragon magic. There would be more in the Canterlot archives, but they were out of reach. It was too bad really, she’d have her brother’s support, and the wellspring of Celestia’s knowledge. It wouldn’t be too hard to sneak out, particularly with her warp spell. Of course, if she was thinking about it...
* * *
The warm, tantalizing smell of fresh, buttery muffins drew Applejack toward the kitchen. Inside she found a trio of dragons gathered around the table. Two were eating, trading stories with their mouths full of muffins and macaroni. Rarity, however, was timidly prodding one of the strange hybrid creations of sweet bread and cheesy pasta as if she thought it might bite.
“Oh, Applejack, you’re back!” Rarity said, eager to excuse herself from the table. “Where are Fluttershy and Sweetie Belle?”
“They weren’t there. Why’s Twilight on the roof?” Applejack asked.
“Wh-What?” Rarity stammered.
“Yeah she’s on the roof screaming,” the farmer said, pointing skyward. “Creatin’ a real ruckus.”
“Who’s on the roof?” Spike asked, stuffing an entire muffin into his mouth.
“Fluttershy and Sweetie Belle,” Derpy added helpfully.
“No it’s definitely Twilight,” Applejack said. “Screaming at everypony to go inside. Ah don’t think it’s helpin’ much.”
“Nevermind that,” Rarity said, vying for Applejack’s attention. “What do you mean ‘they weren’t there?’ Applejack?”
“Just that,” Applejack said. She shrugged. “Fluttershy and Sweetie Belle were gone. Not a soul inside. Ah didn’t see a note either.”
“G-gone?” Rarity stuttered, eyes widening. “They can’t be gone! Where are they?!”
“How in the hay should Ah know?” she asked with narrowed eyes. She was unappreciative of Rarity’s accusatory tone.
“Please! You have to help me find Sweetie Belle! I’m responsible for her, my parents will be furious!” Rarity clung to Applejack, bawling and shouting lamentations toward the ceiling.
“Alright that’s enough,” Applejack said after a minute or so. “Listen, this ain’t workin’. First, Ah’m gonna have one of those muffins.”
On cue Derpy held one aloft. Rarity stared horrified at the nightmarish appetizer. A sticky glob of cheese teetered on the brink and fell, tumbling end over end until it landed on the tablecloth in a gooey heap.
"It's manticoroni," Spike explained.
“Are you... sure... Applejack?” Rarity asked, unable to take her eyes off the new blemish.
“Yup, Ah’m gonna eat. And then we’re gonna go get everyp- err everydragon together--”
“Finally! Sheesh!” Spike shouted, throwing his hands up.
“--and then we’re all gonna go out to Sweet Apple Acres until we can fix this mess. And Ah’m relatively sure Twilight’s not gettin’ anything done up there on the roof. Screaming.”
Applejack stood at her bedroom window, surveying the sprawling encampment of displaced dragons. It had sprung up overnight, faster than Granny Smith could say ‘The Timber Wolves are Howlin’!’ The rusty orange dragoness tried hard not to think of what it would mean for the farm if a harvest as important as the Zap Apples came along while the crisis was yet unresolved. It would be worse than those Flim-Flam brothers, that was certain. She grimaced. The sun was starting to come up. Well past time for the hard working farmponies to begin their daily chores. Dragons were beginning to peek out of their tents, feeling the sunlight on their new scales for the first time. For the moment things seemed peaceful. It was a nice morning, warm and bright. The dew was slowly burning from the grass. Not that Applejac expected there would be much grass within a few hours. Not with all those claws scraping through it. But it would grow back. The farmmare was sure of that.
Life on the farm had a way of providing perspective. It was slow, steady, and productive and Applejack knew it well. Buildings could be repaired; orchards replanted and regrown. Patience and hard work could fix anything. Her patience was about to be tested.
A commotion at the front door shook Applejack out of her early morning revelry. From her vantage point she could see Twilight Sparkle trying to talk her way into the farm house. A dragonized Granny Smith was blocking her way, swinging a frying pan with reckless abandon. So far Twilight was fending off all of the blows with a levitated book, but the lavender dragoness was losing ground.
“I’ll teach you to come around here you big nasty brute!” Granny Smith shouted. Another swing went wide, spinning the elderly dragoness on her heels. She ended up on her belly, snout inches away from Spike’s feet.
“Uh... Granny Smith?” Spike asked.
“Hello Spike, how’re you this mornin’?” she asked. She picked herself up and dusted herself off.
Spike retrieved Granny Smith’s frying pan and offered it up to her. “You dropped this,” he said, smiling in his usual gregarious way.
The old dragon smiled warmly as she accepted it. “Thank ya kindly,” she said. “Such a good boy.” She patted him lightly on the head. Her expression darkened as she turned her attention back to Twilight Sparkle.
“Spiiiike!” Twilight lamented, cowering away.
Spike flinched visibly as the first swing glanced off Twilight’s head and sent her staggering with stars in her eyes. “Oops...”
“Nasty brute!” Granny Smith shouted, taking another clumsy swing at the bedraggled unicorn dragon.
“Granny!” Applejack barked.
Granny Smith stopped and looked up at the window. “What’s that dearie?”
Applejack shook her head in dismay. “Ah told y’all last night we’re all dragons now,” she said sternly.
The old mare's eyes lit up. “Sakes alive! Another one! Don’t make me come up there! Out! Out!”
“Granny Ah live here,” Applejack protested, but it was no use. Her grandmother had vanished and she could already hear the old dragon scrambling up the stairs.
“It’s okay Twilight, she’s gone,” Spike was saying. Twilight had donned her spellbook like a helmet, and peeked out from beneath the wrinkled pages.
“Y’all reckon you could do me a favor?” Applejack asked. She cast a worried look toward her bedroom door and swallowed hard. When she looked forward she was snout to snout with Twilight Sparkle and the wooden floor beneath her claws has been replaced with cool grass.
“Thanks,” she answered. “Ya’ll sleep comfortably?”
Spike was grinning ear to ear. “We sure did! I got to camp out! I never get to camp out!”
Twilight nodded, trying to ignore the ringing in her ears from Granny Smith’s savage beating. “Yes, and best of all, we can check that off the Fun Things We Haven’t Done Yet list. Did we bring that?”
“No, we get to do it again though, right?” Spike asked, eagerly.
Twilight beamed. “Of course! When we get to go back home we’ll add it to the Things To Do Again list.”
“Twilight, that optimism of yours is more stubborn than a lazy mule,” Applejack said, grinning.
For a moment there was silence as Twilight's well-practiced mind started whirring away, trying to make sense of the farmer's statement. Applejack was grinning in earnest so the unicorn smiled back and said “Why thank you Applejack! I think."
“What she means is you’re handling all this very well,” Rarity said, poking her head out of her tent. She looked back and forth warily before emerging to her shoulders.
“Now there’s a horse of a different color,” Applejack said, winking. The others stared back blankly.
“Rarity was always a different color than Twilight,” Spike offered.
“Technically white is all colors,” Twilight chimed in.
Applejack groaned, looking to the heavens for some kind of mercy. "Nevermind," she said. “Twilight, how’s that readin’ up doing for a cure?”
“Well we might have a bigger problem than that,” the unicorn answered. Applejack’s ears drooped. “But I have a solution!”
“You can change us back?!” Rarity asked, leaping out of her tent. “Please please please change us back. I can’t sleep on the ground like that! I only had three pillows last night!”
Spike was already scurrying toward the farmhouse. “I can get you more pillows!” Twilight pulled him back to her side.
“Sorry Rarity,” she said. "Not yet. But we have a food shortage to deal with.”
“Ah was thinkin’ about that earlier,” Applejack said, prodding at her belly with a taloned digit. “Been thinkin’ about that a lot, actually.”
“Dragons eat a lot more than ponies,” Twilight explained. “Spike’s not even full grown and he probably eats as much as Big Mac!”
The youngest dragon threw his hands up. “I keep telling you! Gems! It takes forever to fill up on salads. I gotta have ‘em!”
“Precisely!” Twilight said, clasping her paws together. She started to pull them apart but found the digits had interlocked. She scowled and tugged harder to no avail.
“Let go,” Spike advised. And she did exactly that. The soft purple aura holding her book aloft blinked out of existence and dropped it onto Spike’s head. He caught it, staggering under the impact until he fell against Rarity’s forelegs. When it slid down off his eyes he gazed up at her dreamily.
“Sorry Spike!” Twilight said, shaking her foreclaws free of each other.
The little dragon had a distant look on his face. “For what?”
“Aww my poor little Spikey Wikey,” Rarity said, scooping him up. Twilight frowned at him and started to reach out to take him back.
Applejack, however, was simply satisfied to have the dressmaker occupied. “So what’s the plan Twi?”
In answer Twilight produced an apple from her ill-fitting saddle bags and placed it on a stump. “Stand back,” she said. The unicorn dragon leaned down until the tip of her horn was inches from the fruit. Magic washed over it, pouring off the sides in sheets. Even when the aura had faded the bright sheen remained.
The crestfallen farmer eyed the altered fruit warily. “Ah dunno... this seems unnatural.”
“Part of a balanced diet!” Twilight said. “Try it.”
“Idea!” Rarity sang brightly. “Twilight you and I simply must talk this spring. I'm envisioning a whole new line! It will be magnificent!”
“You don’t wear food,” Applejack said flatly. She sniffed at the crystallized apple and took a bite.
“Well?” Twilight asked, atwitter with anticipation as her friend chewed up her new creation.
“Well... it’s alright,” she said. “Just what we need though, okay? Ah want to get this straightened out. Can’t plant crystal seeds.”
“Or can we?!” Rarity asked. Twilight shook her head. Rarity slouched, pointing. “...but we can always plant more apple trees, can’t we Applejack?” she asked, quickly perking up.
“Ah don’t like that look in yer eye Rares,” Applejack said warily.
“There’s probably room behind the boutique for some nice fruit-bearing trees. Apples... oranges.... plums have such a nice color...”
“You mean plum?” Applejack asked dryly.
“Crystal plums. They’d absolutely dazzle in Canterlot!”
“Rarity it takes years and years to grow a proper tree, and lots of care and attention to get all the fruit to come out right. Why, last Zap Apple season--”
“No. Rarity this ain’t the time or place!” Applejack frowned, glaring Rarity down.
“But...”
Applejack lashed her tail against the ground and gave the dressmaker a stern look. “No.”
Rarity slunk away, pouting.
“Okay well I’m sure you’ll be busy here,” Twilight said, and started away as well.
“What? Where are you goin’?”
“To the library to work on the cure of course,” Twilight said cheerfully. “Don’t worry I’ll be back before the dinner rush.”
“What about the quarantine?”
“I’ll be careful,” she said. With a flash of light she was gone.
“Uhm... I’ll just go help Rarity look for Sweetie Belle,” Spike said. A moment later Twilight reappeared in a flash of light, snatched Spike up by the nape, and vanished just as quickly, leaving Applejack staring at the empty space.
“... Ah’d never get used to that,” she said. “Now, where is that Apple Bloom. Granny Smith?” she called up to the window. A jar of preserves sailed past her head in answer. “Nevermind, Ah’ll find her!” A hammer thudded into the ground at her feet. “Woo wee, time to skeedaddle!”
Rarity hadn’t made it far. The white dragon was easy to spot snaking through the orchard going to a tremendous effort to avoid muddy spots.
“Rarity!” Applejack calle as she ran to catch up. “Wait for me! We gotta find our sisters!”
It was quiet. Too quiet. A bush rustled with a rush of air as Daring Do slipped from her hiding place. She was the wind itself, hurtling through the air like an equine comet, blades of grass bending in reverence as she passed by. The slightest miscalculation or hesitation would mean certain death for the adventurous mare but she was secure in her aerial prowess.
Darkness loomed over the little town. Everywhere she looked doors were locked and shutters were drawn. She lit in the shadows, peering out into the moonlight. Rocks and trees cast long shadows in the desolate town, painting hulking monsters with gnarled claws grasping out from the darkness. From her corner of her eye she caught a little twinkle of light. She turned and it winked out, but she had seen it: the subtle haze of a unicorn’s magic gripping the blinds, pulling them shut.
Daring pushed her hat up and crept up on the window. There was the tiniest crack of light exposed beneath the blinds. She peered through, bracing for what horrors might lie within.
“What do you see! What do you see?!” a voice called from behind her. She turned heard head to silence Meal Worm with a steely-eyed glare but the diamond dog started prancing anxiously in place.
“Shhh!!” Daring put her hoof to her mouth to silence her noisy companion.
“I wanna look!”
“Quiet!”
“Is she in there?!”
“I’m trying to find out!” Daring hissed. Her meddlesome companion quieted, the brave adventurer put her nose back to the window, peering into the bleakness that was the library. There were books aplenty, neatly shelved on every wall. Candles burned dim on every wall. “Sorcery!”
Meal Worm's babbling mouth sprang to action. “Oh! oh! Is it a sorcerer?! Or a warlock! I bet it’s a warlock!”
“I see something... I think it’s a...” Daring narrowed her eyes. Something was moving along the back wall, but it was so dark. It lumbered back and forth, then turned its fiery gaze toward the window. “Woah...”
Meal Worm hopped up and down. “Whaaaat? What is it?! Tell meee!”
“A dragon!” Daring announced. “This could be trouble. Twilight Sparkle could be facing certain death!”
“Woah! Spike’s a supervillain? He must be using his dragon magic to control Twilight! All this time! That’s why she carries him around so much!”
“Or maybe he’s just slow on those stubby little legs,” Daring said, looking back through the crack. The shadowy dragon was gone, perhaps retreated into its vile lair. “This one was a lot bigger. Twilight might really be in trouble!”
“Oh boy another story!” Meal Worm cheered. ‘Daring’ put her hoof to her forehead and shook her head. She floated off the ground and hovered a few inches above her faithful companion. Pinkie looked up at her expectantly. She was wearing two floppy gray ears made from socks, a red linen shirt that was several sizes too large, and her usual indomitable grin that hadn't gone away despite Dash's coaching. “Wait! Where are you going?”
“To save Twilight of course!” Dash said as she floated up to the balcony and peeked over the edge. No monsters. Her heart sank a little as she adjusted her authentic pith helmet. There would be no heroism on the balcony.
“Wait for me!” Pinkie shouted, tugging at Dash’s grey-toned tail.
“Ow! Hey! That’s real!” Dash protested. She yanked it out of Pinkie's grasp with both hooves.
“Oh, right!” Pinkie giggled bashfully into her hoof, trying to avoid looking directly into Dash’s angry gaze. “Sorry!”
Dash's attention turned back to the task before her. “I’ll be back. Just.. wait here Pinkie.”
“Meal Worm!” Pinkie corrected, grinning with her tongue out.
“Right,” Dash said flatly. She rolled her eyes and hopped up onto the balcony deck. A lockpick from her vest slid gently into the keyhole.
Ting!
It snapped in half before the pegasus had even begun to work at the tumblers. Dash frowned, then plucked a feather from her wing and set at it again. It crumpled against the unforgiving metal.
“Hmm... wait--” She pivoted around and lashed out with her hind hooves. The door burst open from the impact, shuddering after it slammed into the wall. It creaked plaintively as it started to swing shut, but the sound was lost to a triumphant surge in the music as the intrepid Daring Do strode across the hearth with determination burning in her eyes. Into the darkness she plunged; down, down down into the yawning lair of the beast. She swooped past mighty towers of books and doorways leading to dark dungeons, ancient temples, the guest bathroom, and Twilight’s linen closet.
Daring blasted through the dungeon door, tearing it from its hinges. She leapt atop it as it began to rattle and slide. Torches whizzed by overhead, faster and faster as she descended down the spiral steps into the darkness below. She crouched low, feeling the wind rush through her mane and tug at her wings. Over the din she could hear anguished cries echoing through the cavernous dungeon. All at once the stairs ran out! Daring flung herself from the door mere seconds before it slammed into the wall and shattered into kindling. She twisted skyward, hooves tucked against her belly as she bled speed in a tight loop and landed nimbly on all four hooves. Now she was alone in the lair of the beast, stalking it through a labyrinth of sinister devices. The adventurer’s mind was filled with horrifying visions of Twilight Sparkle beset with the perils of these fiendish instruments of dark science. At last it stood before her, the great purple dragon. In the shadows Daring could see its bright glowing eyes. It was hunched over a table, tinkering with an ancient artifact with a toothsome grin on its face.
“Hey!” Daring called. “What have you done with Twilight Sparkle?!”
The dragon lifted its head and looked wide-eyed at the intruder. Its ears folded back. “Wha? Daring Do?!”
“That’s right!” Daring shouted, putting her hoof forward. She lifted her head high and proud. “Now give up Twilight Sparkle and maybe, just maybe I'll let you live!” She rose into the air, jaw set, fire in her eyes.
“Wait!” the dragon called, raising its paw in defense.
There was little room in Daring's heart for mercy, least of all for monsters. The dragon roared its pain as the pegasus crashed into its belly full force. The beast staggered back, groaning in anguish from the hero’s stunning blow. Daring lit nimbly on her hooves, then raised her claw to stri- “Wait,” Dash uttered, staring at her altered limb.
Dash held the altered limb before her eyes, skin crawling as slender new digits curled and uncurled. “But I don’t have claws...” She lifted her other forelimb and found that this was definitely no longer the case. She felt the floor falling away as her head grew toward the ceiling. Her mind spun wildly, trying to make sense of things. The new digits, her burgeoning snout, the feeling of her wings tripling in size, blue and bold as the night sky. She stumbled on draconic hindlegs and flopped back to all fours.
“You! What did you- hey!” Her pith helmet tumbled across her eyes, upset from its perch by two slender horns. Dash brushed it off with her new claws. “What did you do to me, dragon?!”
“I tried to warn you!” Twilight groaned, clutching her aching stomach. “Ugh you got me good.”
“Yeah I did,” the new dragon boasted with a toothsome grin of her own. “Now, change me back. I’ll let you go if you hand over Twilight Sparkle.”
“I’m Twilight Sparkle!” Twilight shouted in indignation. She lashed her tail sharply against the ground.
“Gryphonfeathers! Twilight’s a uni-” Dash’s eyes fixed on the purple dragon’s horn. “Oops?” she said, grinning sheepishly.
“Oops? What’s got into you?! You broke down my door, punched me in the stomach, and trashed half my lab!” Twilight struggled to her feet, dusting herself off. A soft nimbus of purple magic rose around her horn and started to collect the books and tools from the desk that broke her fall.
“I was in-character,” Dash said, retrieving her hat before Twilight’s magic could make off with it.
“Quite a character,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “I have almost found a cure!”
Dash tilted her head. “A cure for what?”
“This!” Twilight said, gesturing to Dash and back to herself.
“Oh, that. How?” Dash asked.
Twilight lifted the artifact off the table with both hands, holding it up for Ponyville's newest dragon to see. It was a clay bowl with seven little chambers. Flames burned within them, each a different color. Twilight smiled a little as she watched the little lights dancing in Rainbow Dash’s eyes. This was an artifact just like the ones from her Daring Do books. “Your adventure weekend got a little more real didn’t it?” the unicorn dragon asked.
Dash nodded numbly, mystified. “How can I help?!” she asked, eager to remain a part of the excitement.
“I need to get this to Sweet Apple Acres,” Twilight said. She grinned with pride as she studied her handiwork. “I’m worried the flames will go out if I try to warp with it. They’re not regular fires. It’s dragon magic.”
Dash leaned in for a closer look. “Just like Spike’s letter-sending trick.”
“Exactly,” Twilight said with a nod of affirmation. “You can fly it right over, no worry of them blowing out as long as take it slow. Just.. don’t drop them, okay? I don’t even want to think about what that might do.”
“You can count on me!” Dash said, saluting.
“I knew I could.” Twilight smiled as she placed the little bowl of fire into Dash’s eager claws.
Dash's eyes lit up and she ran a claw through her mane groaning. “Oh wait! Meal Worm is still outside!”
“Meal Worm...?” asked Twilight, frowning a little at Dash.
“Pinkie Pie,” the blue dragon corrected. “She’s Meal Worm from Daring Do and the Raven’s Clock.”
“Oh that Meal Worm,” Twilight said, nodding her understanding.
Outside they found Pinkie Pie. On the roof. “Oh hey! Dragons!” she shouted when she saw them.
“Pinkie!” Twilight called. “It’s us.”
Pinkie waved. “Hi there! Just a sec!” She turned to the broken door. “Dash!” she called. “Dashie! There’s real live dragons out here! And one looks just like you!"
“She always breaks character,” Dash lamented quietly. She waved to the mare on the roof. “Hey! It’s us! Come down”
“Just a sec!” Pinkie called down. “Don’t go anywhere! You have to stay you just have to!”
“Right...” Dash grumbled.
Pinkie disappeared into the library’s upper floor. From outside the two dragons could hear “DASH! DAAAASH!” bouncing off all the walls of the empty building, eventually echoing out through the broken door.
Twilight scratched her head. “How did she even get up there?”
Dash shrugged her wings. “I ‘unno,” she mumbled, straightening her pith helmet. Just then Pinkie emerged from the front door.
“She was here a minute ago...” the pink mare said, kicking at the dirt.
“I’m here right now,” Dash said and shook her head in dismay.
“Pinkie, it’s us,” said Twilight, circling around so that her friend could see her better in the evening light. “There’s a spell turning everyone into dragons. Over half of Ponyville is affected already!”
Pinkie looked up, eyes widening in wonder.
“All it takes is a single touch,” Twilight explained. “So be caref-”
Pinkie rushed by her and tackled Dash, giving her a big hug as scales sprouted all over her. The bowl slipped from Dash’s hand and was caught, inches from the ground, by Twilight’s magic. Dash scrambled to get her pith helmet out of her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief when she found the fiery relic floating over Twilight's shoulder, well out of harm's way.
“Pinkie!” the former unicorn barked. “Why did you do that? You almost smashed the relic!”
“Ooooh, neat!” the new dragon cheered, bounding over to get a better look at the colorful dragon artifact.
“I’m taking it to Sweet Apple Acres!” Dash said, retrieving it from where it hovered.
Twilight sighed as she looked the new Pinkie Pie up and down. “Well now you’re infected too,” she said.
“I am,” Pinkie said, smiling. “I couldn’t let you all be alone! What if you couldn’t find a cure? It would be awful to be separated like that! So we all stick together!”
Twilight huffed. “That was reckless!”
Pinkie looked her right in the eye. “Friends. Stick. Together.”
“Well,” Twilight said, trying to relax a little. She brushed her mane out of her face. “I guess I can’t argue with that... logic.”
“And this is so cool!” Pinkie said, giggling as she bounced about. “I’ve never been a dragon before!”
“I know right! So awesome!” Dash said, mirroring her friend’s enthusiasm. Twilight smiled a little, but the day was beginning to take its toll on her.
“Just remember,” she said. “It’s very important that you get that to Sweet Apple Acres. Okay Dash?”
“Right!” Dash said. She took to the sky on leathery wings. “C’mon Meal Worm!”
Twilight grabbed hold of the pink dragon’s tail before she could get too far down the road. Pinkie made one last bound forward, snapped straight, and flopped to her belly. “Oh no, you’re staying right here,” Twilight said.
Pinkie’s eyes watered . “I want to go on the adventure!”
“We’re going. I promise. We just don’t want to spread this around. I’m going to get Spike and then we’ll go. Got it?”
Pinkie nodded. “Got it!”
For a moment the librarian just sat there amongst the heaps of books on the library floor. The place looked ransacked. Nearly everything had found its way to the floor in Daring Dash’s heroic rescue attempt. “Spiiike!” Twilight called. She shook her head in dismay and mumbled her thoughts aloud. “He’s going to have a lot of work to do when this is over.”
Rainbow Dash had to keep one claw on her pith helmet to keep it from being snatched off by the wind. Designed with a pegasus in mind, it was fit poorly on the courageous dragoness. Her other claw cradled the fiery relic tightly against her chest. She could see Everfree passing by far below. Countless wonders were lost within those dark woods. The relic would not be one of them. She tightened her grip on it and swooped down to get a better look. The Everfree Forest’s dark paths and whispered legends called out to the courageous of heart, offering adventure and glory to anypony daring enough to cross into its foreboding domain. The siren song sang true to the blue dragon, but the call of duty roared louder.
Dash banked sharply, using her draconic tail as a rudder to twist her trajectory toward Sweet Apple Acres. A second later and she would have missed the little flicker of orange and white through the canopy. Wings flared and she came to an abrupt halt, hanging still in the air. A terrified scream reached her ears. Her mind raced, heart pounding. She held the relic up and looked into its prismatic flames. What would it mean for her friends if the relic were lost? What would it mean for those below if she went on her way?
“I’m coming!” she shouted, already diving toward bleak forest. With her precious cargo tucked tightly against her side, the blue dragon hurtled earthward, rolling slowly to search through the gaps in the dark and foreboding canopy. She tucked her wings tight against her back and picked up speed, the wind raging past her ear-fins. Like an avenging thunderbolt she lanced through the treacherous canopy, sinister trees clawing at her face, her chest, trying to pry the relic from her grasp, but the intrepid Daring Do would not give it up. Her wings snapped open at the last possible instant and she hurtled a mere claw’s length off the forest floor, bleeding her momentum. There in the dark Daring Do found her friends, dragons all, fleeing a terror that lurked in the emerald gloom beyond. She whistled past them so quickly as to not be recognized, turned skyward and stalled, dropping lightly onto her powerful hind claws to face the mighty beast.
“Why don’t you pick on somepony your own size!” Daring Do shouted up in defiance. She was a mere speck in comparison, a tiny bit of blue before a veritable mountain of oak and pine. The timberwolf lumbered to a halt, confounded by its unyielding prey. Venom drooled from its oaken jaws as it clawed up the ground, snarling at the immutable blue insect before it.
“He’s ten times yer size!” Applejack called from behind.
“Applejack?!” Daring shot her a warning look. “I’m trying to be heroic here!”
“Dash? Is that you?” Applejack said as she hurried to the blue dragon’s side.
The once-pegasus lifted her pith helmet. “Daring Do, at your service,” she announced. She bowed with a flourish, spreading her leathery wings.
“Look out!” Applejack shouted.
“Huh?” Daring looked up far too late. The timberwolf swiped, plucking her from the ground like an errant weed. “Let me down!” she protested, claws scrabbling at the monster’s wooden limb as she struggled desperately for her freedom.
Applejack’s powerful bulk was a striking presence of bright orange against the earthen tones of the forest as she snarled up at the arboreal nightmare. . Her tail cracked again the timberwolf’s paw like a whip, splintering its armor and scattering it through the murky underbrush. The timberwolf roared in fury, rearing up on its haunches to swat at its adversary with Dash still tightly checked in its vice-like grip.
Squirming and clawing, the blue dragon found herself no closer to freedom. If only she had still been a pegasus she could have slipped so easily from its clumsy grasp. But she was not; she was a dragon. Inspiration sparkled in her mischievous eyes. She took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and roared. Lightning crackled in her throat and forked from her tongue, lancing into the monster’s face. Its head twitched wildly as lightning crawled across its face leaving charred trails in its white-hot wake. The monster weakened, and the former pegasus seized the advantaged. She slipped deftly from its gnarled claw and strafed along its back, spraying crackling white lightning everywhere. The timberwolf bolted for cover and was not pursued.
“You alright Rainbow Dash?” Applejack called up to her.
The blue dragon didn’t answer at first. With hawk-like intensity, her eyes searched the forest floor until she found it; the little bowl of colorful flames, resting against the trunk of a tree. “Yeah I’m fine,” she said, almost an afterthought as she descended on the precious artifact.
Applejack plodded over. “What’s that...?” she asked, peering into the fiery myriad of color.
Dash was giddy. “A Drafernicus Relic,” she exclaimed. “Real live dragon magic!”
“Did Twilight give you that?”
Dash nodded, tucking it back against her chest as she lifted into the air. “I have to deliver it to her at Sweet Apple Acres!”
Applejack looked down the path toward home. Rarity and the young’uns were well out of sight by then. Likely almost to the eastern orchard, she figured. “Go on ahead Rainbow Dash, Ah’ll catch up.”
Dash was giving her a quizzical look. “Wait. Why are you out here anyway?”
“It’s kind of a long story Rainbow...” a weary Applejack answered.
Dash sank back to the earth, crossing her arms over her chest. “Start talkin’.”
Applejack groaned. “Fine. Sweetie Belle got turned into a dragon and she went looking for Fluttershy because Fluttershy ran away because she was a dragon too and Sweetie Belle couldn’t find her so she went to find her friends and they all went running into Everfree Forest because they thought Zecora could fix them up.”
Dash narrowed her eyes. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
Applejack huffed, puffing a bit of smoke out from the corners of her mouth. “Ah know,” she drawled plaintively. “Now if that’s a cure we should get it to Twilight now and be done with all this mess.”
“Right!” Dash leaped back into the air and was off like a shot, weaving between trees at death-defying speeds. In her mind she could see Daring Do, caught up in the relic’s spell. A sandy-scaled dragon racing through the dark Everfree Forest with a horde of monstrous nightmares on her tail. “They’ll never catch me...”
Dash had the entire flight to Sweet Apple Acres to consider the many and varied ways she could make her entrance, but no amount of planning could have prepared her for the sight that lay waiting over the last ridge. Hundreds of dragons milled about in the orchards and in front of the old red barn. They were gathered in little clusters, talking and playing. Little gouts of colorful flame rose from the crowds as new dragons tested their fiery talents.
Dash finally came across her friends and swooped down for a landing, her flashy entrance routine long-forgotten. “You guys really went all out...” she said numbly.
Twilight shrugged and then took the relic from the former pegasus’ claw. “Of course we did,” she said. “We had to evacuate all of Ponyville to stop the contagion from spreading.”
“Yeah...” Dash said distantly, turning a slow circle to take it all in. Many of the nearby trees had been converted to crystal fruits. A dragonized Big Mac lead a small team gathering them up into bushels. Beneath a colorful tent, Cheerilee watched over the newly scaled young of Ponyville.
“Isn’t it neat?” Pinkie Pie cheered as she bounced in a circle around Twilight. The former unicorn had her spellbook open on a little podium. “Twilight’s gonna fix it all though. Isn’t that right?”
Spike was perched on Twilight’s shoulder “You bet!” he said, giving Pinkie a thumbs up. She promptly halted in her tracks and immediately started fumbling with her new digits, trying to replicate the young dragon’s gesture. Pinkie’s task was quickly abandoned when Twilight lifted the relic up and the colorful flames caught her eye. The pink dragon leaned way over the podium to get a better look, nearly collapsing it beneath her weight.
“Careful Pinkie!” Twilight scolded. She cradled the bowl away from her reckless friend to protect it..
Pinkie grinned. “It’s so pretty! How does it work?”
Twilight smiled brightly. “I’m glad you asked! You see--”
“Oh! I know this one!” Dash interrupted. “Each color is a different type of dragon magic. Dragon spells are cast with fire, so the different colors are sort of like building blocks. You combine little spells to make big spells!” Dash tossed her hands up, wiggling her fingers as though sprinkling magic dust over the bowl.
Twilight looked up from her work in surprise. “That’s... well that’s right,” she said. “You’ve been studying I see.”
Dash beamed with pride and puffed her chest out a bit. “Well duh!”
“Okay I think we’re ready to get started!” Twilight announced. Yet she was still thumbing through the pages of her spellbook.
“That’s great Twilight, really,” Applejack said, sauntering up.
“Hey you made it!” Dash remarked.
Applejack shot her a look. “Course I did,” she said. “Takes more than a timberwolf to stop me from gettin’ home.”
A wide-eyed Twilight looked up at her. “There were timberwolves?”
“Not in Sweet Apple Acres,” Applejack said, putting her mind at ease. “Now let’s get this started. The sooner we clean up this mess the better. Granny Smith hasn’t let a soul into the house, and Winona’s been barkin’ at Big Mac since the sun came up. Poor thing’s nearly lost her voice.”
Dash looked up the hillside where Applejack’s dog gave chaster after Big Mac, now resorting to a halfhearted growl any time the red dragon looked down at her. He shook his head in dismay and went back to his work.
“Stand back everypony, this is about to get fiery!” Twilight announced, holding the bowl above her head.
“Wait, what?” Dash said, eyes widening.
Twilight glanced back down at her book, then took a deep breath.
“Uh... Twilight...? You’re not gonna...”
But it was too late for words. Twilight drew on the glowing magic in the bowl, making the flames flicker and dance before Rainbow Dash’s horrified eyes as the lavender courted disaster. Dash did the only thing she could-- she sprang. Cyan and purple blurred into one as the ex-pegasus tackled her friend, sending them both tumbling off the podium. The unicorn-dragon choked violet embers into Dash’s face as the wind was knocked from her lungs. Dash was back on her feet in a fraction of a second. A desperate counter-lunge brought her beneath the skyward bowl and she caught it inches off the ground, saving it from being reduced to a heap of colorful-burning shards.
“Rainbow Dash!” Applejack barked, clawing at the ground. “Are you crazy?!”
Twilight just wheezed as she struggled to rise to all fours.
“Me?!” Dash yelped, pointing to her chest. “Twilight’s the crazy one! She almost turned herself to stone!”
Twilight had regained her composure enough to snatch the fiery bowl back from Rainbow Dash. “I was not! The book said fire to fire.”
Dash was nodding along. “Yeah, for dragon magic! Not for a Drafernicus Relic!”
Twilight arched her brow. “A what?”
Dash looked around and found that all eyes were on her. “What? It’s a Drafernicus Relic,” she pointed at the artifact now clutched firmly in Twilight’s hand. Blank looks surrounded her in the gathering crowd. She heaved a sigh of frustration.
“Go on...” Applejack prompted.
Dash looked back and forth between them and warily began. “It’s a dragon relic. From thousands of years ago. There was this tribe of ancient diamond dogs right? And they stole this gem. A heart gem. They were special to the dragons. The dragons buried them with their kings when they died. Well the diamond dogs got one, and the dragon king was really angry about it and demanded it be returned. But the diamond dogs’ chief wanted something in return. Dragon magic! So the dragon king’s magician hatched a plan: he crafted the Drafernicus Relic. And when the diamond dogs’ chief set fire to it, it turned his entire body to stone, and he would remain that way until the heart gem was returned. Unfortunately the chief’s son didn’t know this, and said the gem had brought a curse upon their tribe, so he threw it into a river that ran deep into the ground, and the diamond dogs must toil through the centuries to find it and restore their ancient ruler to his throne.”
More blank stares. Pinkie was slack-jawed and bleary-eyed Twilight looked as though she’d just been woken in the middle of the night. Applejack’s snout was scrunched up as though someone had suggested she switch to oranges.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Dash asked, taking a nervous step back.
Applejack was the first to speak up. “Uh, Dash? Where’d you hear all that?”
The blue dragon glared at her skeptics, pointing an accusatory claw. “Hey you asked! It’s from Daring Do. The new book came out last month: Daring Do and the Dragon’s Curse.”
Her announcement was met with a chorus of groans. Applejack shook her head and buried her face in her palm, peering between her fingers at Dash. The pegasus-dragon simply fumed.
“Dash... That’s just a book you know,” Twilight said gently.
“What? I know that. That’s from the book,” Dash pointed an accusatory talon at the relic.
Twilight looked down at it for a moment. “Well it’s probably similar,” she admitted.
“No, it’s from the book,” Dash insisted, growing visibly agitated. “It’s the Drafernicus Relic. I thought it looked cool so I ordered one from a catalog I found in the library. I didn’t think it would actually work. How was I supposed to know?”
Twilight looked visibly shaken. “What kind of catalog?” Applejack asked, looking from the magician to the former-pegasus.
Dash scratched her chin and shrugged her wings. “Magic Monthly or something like that. There was all kinds of cool stuff in there. So I ordered a few things and had them sent to the library.”
“You did WHAT?! Twilight shouted.
“I have everything sent there,” Dash explained. “Somepony keeps trying to leave packages on my front porch.”
Derpy waved from the crowd, her daughter was huddled against her side. “Delivery to the door!” she called cheerfully.
“It’s made of clouds! They fall right through!” Dash shot back. Derpy blushed and shied away.
“Dash! Dash that’s a REAL magic catalog! Those aren’t decorations!”
“Oops.”
“Oh! Oooh! Next time I want to order something!” Pinkie shouted, dancing back and forth on her hindpaws.
Twilight groaned. “Okay Dash, how does it work in the book?” she held out the Drafernicus Relic. Dash took a deep breath, and blew the fires out.
I am writing to inform you about a recent outbreak of a magical disease in Ponyville. Rest assured that it has been dealt with and everypony is safe and sound! A patron of the library accidentally ordered a powerful magical artifact from the Canterlot Archives. When it was delivered it started a contagion that turned almost the entire town into dragons. Fortunately the Apples were able to help us establish a quarantine and I was able to cure everypony using the same relic that began the epidemic. It was very exciting, just like an adventure out of a Daring Do book. All in all it was a very eventful weekend!
Your Faithful Student,
Twilight Sparkle
No sooner had Spike sent the letter than an involuntary belch of fire brought another into existence. The lavender unicorn snatched it up with her magic and unrolled the parchment.
Dear Twilight,
I am glad to hear you had an exciting weekend. We have had an exciting weekend as well! Please bring the relic to Canterlot. Tell Spike I said hello.
Yours,
Princess Celestia
Twilight stared at the princess’s odd and prompt reply, her brow furrowed in puzzlement “That’s kind of stra-- Oh...” She held up her newly formed claw, then groaned at the ceiling as she crumpled the letter in her hand.
“Oh yeah,” Spike said, laughing sheepishly. “I sent a letter to the princess letting her know how things were going...”
