Twilight was sitting at her desk, writing in her diary. She closed her mouth and wrote a few additional words on the paper, then opened her mouth again.
"I don't know what you hoped to learn about me by sneaking into my bedroom, but I don't think you will learn anything useful. Diaries are not exactly known for holding national secrets..." she said and paused, reflecting. "... okay, that is not strictly true, there ARE some people who are irresponsible enough to put such sensitive data into their personal journals, but I am not one of them."
Twilight spend another minute in silence as she added a few more lines. When no response came, she put down her quill and turned around, facing the unassuming fern sitting in the corner of her room.
Then she waited a little more.
Then she coughed. "... so, uh... you can transform into yourself, Chrysalis. And you should know that this room is screened against teleportation, so yeah... that exit won't work for you. I also don't feel any potent magic emanating from you, so I'm guessing you didn't get to absorb any meaningful amount of love to put up much of a fight..."
Twilight waited a bit more. The fern still did not move. Twilight sighed. "Oh, come on! This fern was not here ten minutes ago! You're also not a surprise present from Starlight because she always without fail adds a note in the ledger regarding any and every purchase of goods that are given to me or to the school, even if she pays it out of her personal fund! So stop playing around, Chrysalis!"
Twilight stood up and prodded the plant with a hoof, imagining herself jabbing Chrysalis forcefully on the chest. "The jig is up, so QUIT IT!" she yelled.
Continued lack of response provoked a growl from Twilight. She aimed her hoof lower and almost punched the pot that was housing the plant. It made a loud 'CLONK!' sound, tipped over, and landed a moment later with a quieter 'clunk'.
...and the contents of the pot spilled out. A small patch of dirt covered a portion of Twilight's bedroom's floor.
Twilight paused.
"The potted plant... separated into three," Twilight whispered to herself, forgetting to turn on her Inner Monologue when she was no longer addressing anypony in particular. "The dirt and the plant and the pot are all separate now... if it was Chrysalis, then she would turn again into changeling, with her guts spilled out. But it didn't."
Twilight took another minute trying to agree the things she could see with the things she knew, and another thing has dawned on her. "Wait," she said, putting a hoof to her face, "A changeling can't change their mass very much. Why was my first thought 'Chrysalis' when I noticed this fern? I should have remembered that. I am better than this..."
She put the dirt and the plant back into the pot. Nothing was broken, so there was not even a need for a measly mending spell. Twilight then has put her diary into a specific spot in the giant bookshelf covering one full wall of her bedroom, making sure it blended in with other deliberately-boring and similarly-colored titles.
Then Twilight left the room. "Maybe Trixie will know something about this. Her ledger-discipline is a lot worse than Starlight's..."
A long moment has passed.
Once it was absolutely sure that it was safe to do so, Twilight's writing desk loudly sighed in relief.
Twilight felt exhausted; the last ten hours of trying to figure out Pinkie's 'Pinkie Sense' haven't been forgotten yet by her sore body. Keeping her head low, she was slowly walking in the general direction of her house, trying to avoid ponies that were laughing and enjoying the sunny weather with their friends; she really wasn't in the mood and suspected that dealing with them would only make her more frustrated.
Her mood suddenly picked up, when she remembered about the very interesting book she had bought recently. Her walk quickly became springier, and less forced, as she grew giddy, looking forward to the moment when she will finally get her hooves on it and once again sink into the story she fell in love with.
Not even five minutes have passed before her daydreaming was cut short: surprised by a loud noise, Twilight panicked and accidentally ran into a lamp post, getting stunned for a good few seconds. When she came to her senses, she heard the noise repeat itself again and again, and realized it was some frustrated mare's angry shouts, coming from the front of a house, whose side she was now standing at.
"FIT, DARN YOU! WHY THE HAY WON'T YOU FIT?!"
The voice sounded familiar. Twilight rounded the corner of the building to see its owner, whose words now must've been heard by everypony in a thousand-foot radius – and they were; as soon as she passed the corner, she noticed a dozen-or-so other curious ponies looking in unison at a grey pegasus that was apparently wrestling with a piano.
Twilight did a double take; she realized that the foul-mouthed, blond-maned pegasus was actually trying to fit the piano through a door… its wide side facing forwards, which was almost twice as wide as the doorframe.
Seeing her derped eyes, she knew it was Ditzy Doo, a mail-pony that she has already met on number of occasions, mainly while receiving the many books she ordered.
The small crowd – that kept growing with every passing second – didn't even try to help her; they just watched her: some of them with looks of concern on their faces, but most of them with wide, amused grins. One mother that was passing with her children covered their ears from another wave of crude insults that came from the now-furious mare.
Ditzy finally looked at the gathering, apparently unable to ignore its presence any longer. She addressed it, trying to remain calm, with little success:
"And you: why the hay are you just standing there? I could've used some help over here!"
Twilight caught herself staring at Ditzy along with the others. She felt embarrassed for she silently criticized the crowd's behavior in her head, while she was doing the same. Ponies reacted to Ditzy's question with a murmur of voices; a few walked away, and another few tried to do something about it, but apparently didn't feel bold enough, so they continued their – now sheepish – stance. Ditzy squinted her eyes in further anger.
"BUCK YOU! I DON'T NEED ANY HELP ANYWAY!"
She pressed her back legs on the piano and strained her muscles. Her front legs slipped and she ended up landing on her face.
"DARN IT!" she shouted more in anger than in pain, and started spitting out the dirt that got into her mouth.
"Hey Ditzy, maybe I can help?"
The pegasus stopped spitting and looked up at Twilight with a confused look on her face.
"Do I know you?" she asked, her eyebrow crooked.
"… Oh! Um, yes, I mean – you might not remember me, but you're delivering me the books I order on a regular basis, and…"
"Ah, right: The Bookworm. God only knows how many times I strained my back from carrying those massive tomes. Girl, do you want me to get osteoporosis before I hit 30?"
Twilight stopped herself from explaining Ditzy what osteoporosis actually is.
"No… but I can help you with that piano, if you want."
She, too tried to ignore the crowd; being under the stares of a few dozen ponies made her feel uneasy. Ditzy, still thinking about Twilight's offer, seemed not to notice this.
"Help all you want, but you should know that the owner of this house is an idiot; he assured me that the piano is just the right size to fit through the door… right size my flank, if you ask me…"
She snorted sarcastically and gave the piano a little kick with her back leg.
"Um…" Twilight wondered how to tell Ditzy about her little mistake without insulting her; coming up with no ideas, she raised the slightly-damaged piano with her magic, rotated it 90 degrees, and levitated it gently into the house. Ditzy was watching this, slack-jawed and her eyes wide. She stood like that for nearly a minute – then she finally spoke:
"…Oh no, please don't tell me that I… oh GOD!!!"
Ditzy lied on the ground with her face buried in her hooves. She couldn't hide her blushing, though, which was clearly visible despite the gray fuzz covering her muzzle.
"… -oh-god-oh-god-oh-god-oh-god-…"
Twilight glared at the ponies that were still watching. She tried asking them politely to leave Ditzy alone; only a few ponies left, reluctantly. The second time, she tried to sound more firmly, and gave them an order to leave… with little success. Seeing Ditzy's borderline embarrassment and the crowd's lack of tact, she finally lost her patience.
Her horn started to glow with a purple light that a moment later wrapped itself around her neck and jaw. She opened her mouth, took a deep breath and…
"FOR THE LOVE OF CELESTIA, LEAVE HER ALONE!!!"
Twilight's magically enhanced voice exploded with force that sent spectators' manes flapping, as if they were caught in a strong wind. They were in such a shock, that it took them ten seconds of stunned silence before they finally came to their senses and slowly walked away, trying to pretend that nothing has happened.
"Thank you," she whispered when the last of the ponies disappeared behind the corner. She turned to the pegasus, that was still on the ground, gaping at her with wide-opened eyes. Her jaw was once more hanging low, giving Twilight a nice view of her tonsils.
Twilight's mind was still drifting around the book that she so much craved to read, but she didn't want to leave Ditzy like this. Feeling a bit awkward, she tried to help the mail-pony get back on her hooves.
"So… who ordered that piano?" she didn't really care about the answer; she just asked the question to take Ditzy's mind off recent events. I'll just make sure she'll be alright, and then off to my QUIET house, to read in solitude, she thought.
Ditzy looked at her weird, brooding over the question for a while, before answering: "Dunno… some brown colt with a hourglass cutie mark. Can't really remember the name."
"Oh? Well that's too bad… Where is he?"
"Dunno where he is, but I do know he's not here. I was just supposed to arrive here and deliver the piano inside and be done with it."
"He left the door unlocked or did he leave the keys under the doormat, or something?"
"Nah; neither," she replied. "His roommate let me in."
She looked at one of the upper windows of the house. Twilight followed her gaze and noticed a blue mare with a short mane divided into two stripes of different colors: white and blue. She was apparently observing them for the entire time, amused curiosity visible on her face.
"Bitch…" said Ditzy, while glaring at her nemesis for another few seconds and then turned to Twilight: "She opened the door for me and didn't lift a hoof to help me since. She perfectly knew about my… mistake, and yet did not say a word to correct me and save me all this embarrassment. She just chuckled – I had no idea what it meant at the time. Then the crowd started showing up. You know the rest of the story."
"So, you have any other things to deliver?" asked Twilight, feeling no need to talk any longer, knowing that Ditzy will be all right. By this point her book was practically calling out for her in her head: 'Read me, God dammit!'
"That was the very last delivery – and thank God, because I do not think I could withstand one more adventure today… just few hours ago I accidentally dropped other piano, an anvil and another few things while helping with their air transport… I hear they landed on some poor mare… I mean OUCH! Can you imagine that? Thankfully I also heard she's fine now, so there's that."
Not as fine as I'd like to be, Twilight thought, that painful event still fresh in her mind.
"So… I guess you'd like to go home now and rest, right?"
"Well DUH!" Ditzy said sarcastically and blushed slightly a moment later.
"I mean… sorry if I seem rude to you, but you know… had a really friggin' bad day, and… you know how it goes."
"Yes, I do. So… see ya!" Twilight waved her hoof and started to turn around…
"WAIT!"
Twilight got startled for the second time in the last few minutes, but managed this time not to collide with anything. She turned around, seeing one of Ditzy's eyes focused on her, while the other was still glaring at the hated mare in the window.
"It feels kinda awkward, but I just never really remembered the recipient name section on your mail, even though I must've delivered already dozens of books to you, and I know you only as 'The Bookworm'… Do you mind telling me your name?"
Twilight's racing heart started calming down; for a moment she expected something more… serious.
"No, not at all," she answered, "My name is Twilight. Twilight Sparkle."
"It was nice to have met you, Twilight," said Ditzy and reached out with her hoof.
Twilight looked at it, then at Ditzy's crazy eyes, her face beaming with gratitude, which in turn made HER smile.
"Yeah," she said and shook Ditzy's hoof, for a few seconds completely forgetting about the beloved book waiting for her at home.
Rainbow arrived through the window. "Hey Pinkie what's up?"
"Ahhhh!"
"...what?"
"Ahhh!"
"Did I destroy something again?"
"AAAAAAH!"
"I do not see any damage to the window sill..."
"AAAAH!"
"No, seriously, what did I destroy?"
Pinkie kept screaming while pointing at Rainbow from her bathtub. Rainbow stood in the window, looking around, still confused. Pinkie hid deeper under the bubbles. "AAAAH!"
"...is there something on my face?"
Rainbow looked into the mirror. "Nope." She turned to still-screaming-Pinkie. "No, seriously, Pinks, what is up with you. Is it something with me or is it something with you?"
Pinkie took a deep breath and said one word before resuming her screaming:
"I'm naked!"
Okay, that's two words.
Rainbow scratched her head in confusion. "...and?"
"And you are here and you can't see me nakies!"
Rainbow Dash groaned. "Pinks! We don't normally wear clothes! I thought you already knew that!"
"Yeah I knew that but I am not even wearing my fur right now!"
"What."
Rainbow looked at the towel-hanger. Pinkie's fur was hanging from it. "Ack!" Rainbow flinched when she finally noticed it, and when she noticed that Pinkie's pink fur on her body was not actually her fur but her pink skin. "What the--"
"Now, unicorn! Put away your horn and walk out of the building with your head up and your hooves down!"
"Uh, Hitch?"
"I mean with your head down and your hooves up! Just look on the ground and follow my voice! Don't you dare look at me, and nopony will be hurt, you got that?"
The girls inside the house were panicking.
Correction: Girl. One of them.
Specifically: Sunny. Izzy was gullibly (and innocently) calm and upbeat.
"This is bad this is bad this is bad This Is BadTHIS IS SO BAD!"
Sunny was running all around the room, her hooves moving so fast that they almost made the floor-boards smoke.
"Why so scared, ol' buddy ol' chum?" Izzy said with a grin, putting her arm over Sunny's shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
Sunny pushed her away. "WE JUST MET!"
Izzy shrugged. "Eh, you already talked more to me during those few minutes that I knew you, than my closest unicorn 'friends' talked to me during all the years I knew them. By comparison, to them, we are BFFs!"
Izzy patted Sunny's back. She could feel Sunny's shoulders rapidly rising and falling with her every panicked breath. "So, again my friend: Why So Serious?"
"DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING?! HITCH AND SPROUT – THOSE TWO GUYS OUT THERE – THEY THINK THAT YOU HAVE KIDNAPPED ME! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THEY WILL DO RIGHT NOW, GIVEN WHAT THEY BELIEVE ABOUT YOU?"
"Oh! Oh! Oh! I know! They will play tag and then tie me up like some calf and then they will brand me as the criminal!" Sunny's teeth were showing. Then she deflated when she heard what her mouth said. "Wait... Don't brands hurt? They're those red-hot metal sticks that put something like burn-scar cutie marks on you, right?"
"No, I mean yes, I mean you are correct, but that is not what Hitch and Sprout will do! They will most likely instead do something else that is just as awful: They will find reinforcements and they will surround the house and–"
Izzy snorted. "Just like they 'surrounded' us right now? With just two ponies? Will they bring another two to make the 'surrounding-ness' complete?"
"No, more than two. A lot more. And I believe siege engines, though not sure..."
"Hah! Then three more ponies instead? HA! They aren't the most sparkly guys in the woods! Their brains lack any light! There is nothing upstairs! I wouldn't worry about them! They are not capable of inventing any sort of plan which threatens us in any way wait what did you say about engines–"
"I am not worried about ME, Izzy! I am worried about YOU!"
"Huh?"
"They do not see you as a person! They were raised to believe that you are a heartless monster! A unicorn!"
"What? But Unicorns are not monsters! We are ponies just like you!"
"Not to THEM! They were conditioned their whole lifes to believe that unicorns are nothing but blood-thirsty beasts!"
Sunny looked seriously Izzy in the eyes. "And they are not dumb, you know... And do you know what Good and Smart ponies like them do to beasts that hurt innocents, right? Beasts who they believe you are a member of? ...do you?"
Woosh. Rainbow shot like an arrow, blowing Pinkie’s mane. As she flew, she glanced backwards. Heh! I already left her in the dust! Can’t even see–
“Hi Dashie!”
“OHMYGOSHWHATTHEHELL?!”
When Rainbow looked again to the front, not to crash into anything, she met snout-to-snout with the grinning, giggling, pink party planner. Pinkie Pie was running backwards with not even a slightest sign of effort. “So why did you want to race all of a sudden?” she asked conversationally, and did a backflip as she leaped over a wide-eyed Mr. Waddle who was crossing the street. “Oh and hi Mister Waddle! Snazzy bowtie you have there! Bye Mister Waddle!” She turned again to Rainbow. “So?”
“How are you keeping up with me backwards! How did you dodge him without even looking! Where did you get that baguette from! Are you seriously making a sandwich right now??”
“Yup!” Munch. “Want some?”
They both were still on the move, though they kept more-or-less the same distance from each other the whole time, with Pinkie two or three meters ahead of Rainbow.
“NO!” Rainbow shouted and zoomed a bit ahead, forcing Pinkie to look forwards (towards the direction of the race) now. Instead of simply turning forwards, Pinkie rotated her head a hundred and eighty degrees, while her rump still pointed in the direction of the run. She kept smiling as if it was perfectly normal.
“AAAAAAAH!” Rainbow zipped and zoomed around Pinkie, who’s head kept following her flight. Instead of snapping, Pinkie’s neck just kept twisting and twisting and rotating like a rubber wire, or a drill, or something.
When Rainbow stopped in place, Pinkie did so too, still two-or-three meters from her friend.
[Cottage]
Rainbow looked around. They ended up next to Fluttershy’s. When she looked back towards Pinkie, Pinkie was no more. Again, sigh.
“Hee hee hee! I look just like you! But Pink!”
When Rainbow jerked her head towards the voice, she saw Pinkie (now with her long twisted neck), sitting on the ground, in front of a giraffe who kept looking down curiously at the long necked pink pony. The giraffe looked worried, and began poking Pinkie’s corkscrew-neck with its snout, tenderly, as if Pinkie was injured.”
“Oh! Don’t worry girl! It just looks bad, but it doesn’t actually hurt at all!” Pinkie patted the side of the giraffe's head with reassurance.
“And WHY exactly? And HOW?”
“Huh?” Pinkie turned to Rainbow (while still patting the yellow longhorse). Her eyebrow was raised. “You said something, Dashie?”
Rainbow looked confused and angry. “Why are you not dead?”
“Peg your bardon– haha, oops, spoonerism! You know what I mean! ‘Beg your pardon’! That’s what I meant in case you don’t know what I meant!“
Rainbow took a few deep breaths with her eyes closed and the bridge of her snout pinched between the tips of her front hooves. Then she rotated her eyeballs and aimed their pupils at the rose-coloured nightmare. “Pinkie, your neck is broken. Your spine. Your spine is in pieces right now. Ponies normally do not live long when a thing like that happens to them.” She leaned towards the other mare. “So how are you still alive?”
“Would you believe me if I said ‘magic’?” the baker asked innocently.
“No. Twilight said she looked at it and specifically said it is not magic.”
“Or maybe it is just, maybe, some extra-magical magic that she can’t detect or– OH HI FLUTTERSHY!”
Apparently the “your friends dropped with a visit” message from the critters finally reached the yellow pegasus.
“Hi Pinkie– [Oops] AAAAAAAAH!” Fluttershy saw Pinkie’s grievous wound. Pinkie’s casual smile didn’t cut it. The pegasus shrieked, scaring away her critters, and fainted.
Pinkie looked at the immobile body of her friend. “Uh… oopsie?”
***
Dr. Horse assured Pinkie and Rainbow that Fluttershy did not hit her head as she dropped to the ground, and that she would fully recover in just an hour. Fluttershush woke up before even they managed to carry her twenty paces, and assured them that she’s okay, but they took her to the horsepital nevertheless, in case some not-obvious brain damage happened during the fall, or before it, due to shock.
“Pinkie, wasn’t your neck all twisted up and long just a few minutes ago?” Shy asked after hesitation, unsure.
“Nopey-lopey! That was just your imagination!”
Pinkie and Rainbow decided that it was too risky to make Fluttershy consider the body-horror as anything other than a dream.
“O-okay…”
The baker and the athlete spent the remaining hour playing with Fluttershy some Animal Crossing on one of the hospital’s game consoles. (“No-no, Dashie! Those racing derby games are a bit too exciting for Fluttershy right now! Let’s play something relaxing!” - “Sigh, okay…”)
By the time Fluttershy started fake-boasting about the size of the fish her game-character has caught, they decided she’s good enough to go. Dr. Horse seemed to agree.
They were out of hospital.
Rainbow looked at Pinkie. “Alright, you are really good at distracting me, but don’t think I forgot about our little conversation. You still didn’t tell me how you do all those things you do.”
“What things?” Fluttershy asked and yawned. Sitting in the hospital bed made her a bit drowsy.
[Clothing]
“You know, like, twisting her neck and–” she heard Fluttershy’s gasp and quickly backtracked “--I mean! Like instantly pulling clothing out of nowhere as if by magic! Even though she does not have a horn! Pinks! I need distraction! Play along!”
“Like for examp– …oh, well… um....” Fluttershy blinked when she turned towards the Pink blur in the edge of her vision. Pinkie indeed played along and, a bit desperate, in haste, took dozens of random gardening accessories from the random nearby garden and put them on her head and shoulders as a… well… calling it a “costume” would have been too generous…
They stood opposite to each other for a few awkward seconds. The coil of a gardening hose that was sitting on top of Pinkie’s head fell to the ground.
“Let’s… change the subject, you, uh, what do you th–... uh, you want to?” Fluttershy clumsily offered.
“Yes! Let’s!” Pinkie gladly accepted and shook off all the random things off of herself like a wet dog. A watering can that had her rump squeezed into it flew to the side and smashed through the window of the garden-side house.
