Arcane energy filled Twilight’s laboratory, the crackle of spell energy joining the hum of her equipment to form a constant ambience of mad science in the basement room. She stood in the middle of a large circle on the floor, engraved painstakingly with runes throughout, and gathered energy in her horn, preparing to release the spell that would finally prove her friends – no, her doubters – wrong. One she saw the world from that untouchable viewpoint, once she could see and understand everything as only a perfect organism could, then their objections would fall away, their complaints would be silenced, their fears pushed aside as they saw her genius for what it was! Saw the truth!

They said she had an “obsession”.

The foals.

It was no obsession. What she had was a vision, and the will to bring it about. And now, in the final moments before the spell’s release, she savored the realization that it would all come to pass. That nothing could stop it now. That she was right.

White light surged from her eyes and spiraled outward from her horn, striking and blending with the arcane diagram surrounding her, then surging inwards around her body. She felt it lift her, suspending her in the air with its sheer power, and the shuddered as the changes began to occur.

Half an hour later, she was reconsidering her ideas about peaches being the ultimate life form.

She was definitely wondering why she thought it was a good idea to become one.

It wasn’t as though it were painful or anything. She didn’t think she could even feel pain this way. She was still aware of her surroundings, and her intellect didn’t seem impaired – decisions to transform herself into a fruit notwithstanding.

Seriously, where had that idea even come from? Maybe... Maybe she should take Pinkie and Rarity up on that offer to introduce her to their therapist. If the doctor was good enough to handle those two extremes, that had to be seen as solid praise.

Twilight would have shaken her head to clear her thoughts, but at the moment, she didn’t have one.

Well, she would probably be stuck here lying on the floor of the lab for a few more hours until the spell wore off, so she might as well catalogue how, precisely, it feels to be a peach. Well, first was the lack of magic. That she had noticed right away – the first thing that came to her once she realized she wasn’t achieving enlightenment as part of some fruit-based higher order. She’d tried to cast the counterspell only to realize that she no longer had a horn with which to focus her magic.

That still left the more mundane senses, however. First, she could actually see and hear clearly, though she had absolutely no idea how. Magic, apparently. She also retained a sense of touch, which hadn’t surprised her, but probably should have. It was oddly muted, however. While she could feel that she was sitting on the floor, and identify that it was wooden, there was never discomfort from remaining in the same position. Similarly, she could feel, vaguely, the ambient temperature of the room, but somehow suspected that were she near a fire, the heat wouldn’t bother her. It was as though there was simply an upper limit on what a peach could experience.

Twilight briefly considered what else could constitute “experiencing being a peach”, and quickly concluded that she’d pretty well covered all her bases already. Well, there was the strange fact that she was apparently smelling and tasting herself constantly – the scent and taste of peaches was all-encompassing, which normally she would have considered quite the blessing if not for the fact that, like any scent or taste, you eventually grew accustomed to it and ceased to even notice.

Which left her with... lying on the floor, apparently. It wasn’t as if anything else could really happen.

The door at the top of her stairs creaked open.

“Twilight?” Spike called out, cautiously.

Oh, buck. This could go bad very quickly. Okay, stay calm. Spike hates the basement. He says it smells funny and the restraints on the table make him nervous. Maybe he won’t even come down here.

“Twilight, we’re all really worried about you.” The sound of his footsteps began making its way down the stairs.

Right. He’s coming down here. Okay, maybe I can work with this. I just need to get his attention. A little magical display should... oh, right, no horn. Kind of obvious there, Twilight.

“Rarity and Pinkie think you should talk to this doctor they visit. They said it would help you get over this fixation.”

IT IS NOT A- Okay, yeah, I’m currently a peach. It’s probably a fixation. Right, need to catch his attention. Spike! SPIKE! SPIII... Oh yeah. No mouth, lungs, or vocal chords. Maybe he’ll overlook me.

“Twilight?” The little dragon stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked around. “Huh. Wonder where she went.”

Just stay there. Just stay there and ignore the delicious peach on the ground. That’s an idea. Maybe he won’t eat something he finds on the ground.

Twilight considered her own thoughts for a moment.

Oh Celestia I am screwed.

“Weird.” Spike finished his brief exploration of the library’s basement at the edge of Twilight’s ritual circle. “Wonder what this was for? Probably trying to make a bunch of clone peaches or something.”

He bent down and snatched up the lone peach sitting in the middle of the circle.

Oh no... Spike...

“Well, Twilight.”

Spike, it’s me!

“One less peach for you.”

SPIKE!

Spike tossed the peach into his mouth, and immediately Twilight regretted ever convincing the young dragon to chew his food properly. Again, her senses were dulled and she felt no actual pain, but that didn’t make the sensation of her body being torn apart any less alarming. No less disturbing was the fact that she was still conscious. She wasn’t certain if it was a side effect of the spell, or simply the fact that she was currently a fruit, but regardless of the source, she seemed to be in this for the duration.

As she progressed further, she realized it was growing warmer – much warmer. She’d always idly wondered how a dragon could possibly eat anything it cared to, and now it seemed she’d found her answer. Going by the heat rising alongside the acidity, it seemed a dragon’s stomach was as much an organic furnace as anything else.

She wondered how much longer her awareness would last.

Fortunately, it wasn’t long enough for her to ponder the answer.

******

A few hours later, Spike had given up the search for Twilight and made his way to Sweet Apple Acres, and the Cutie Mark Crusader Clubhouse.

“Ya’ll ever get Twilight off of that peach kick?” Applebloom asked as she measured out a length of rope for whatever contraption was supposed to help them earn their cutie marks this time.

Spike shrugged. “I guess so. She locked herself in the basement for a while, cackling about ‘showing everypony the truth’, but when I went down to talk to her she was gone.”

“Is she going crazy again?” Scootaloo asked, and then sighed at Spike’s nod. “How bad is it this time?”

“Well, probably going crazy. And not a huge one.” He tilted a hand back and forth indifferently. “Maybe ‘every other Tuesday’ levels of- ooh.”

Spike winced and clutched his stomach.

Sweetie Belle sat up from the pile of crayons and glue she had somehow wound up under. “Something wrong, Spike?”

“I dunno. Been feeling kind of funny ever since I ate the last peach Twilight left in the basement. Ugh.” He dropped down to sit on the floor. “And now it hurts.”

“Maybe she used it in an experiment?” Sweetie offered.

“Or booby-trapped it, since it was her last one and all?” Applebloom added.

“I dunno, girls – oh man, ow – neither of those really sound like Twilight.”

“Maybe it was–”

Scootaloo didn’t get to finish her thought, as that was the precise moment Twilight’s transformation spell ran out, and her compressed mass suddenly regained its former volume. Unfortunately, that mass was currently inside a young dragon less than a third its size.

With a strangled sound, Spike suddenly collapsed backward, blood flowing from his mouth as his stomach suddenly ballooned to triple its usual size. The three fillies were too shocked to move for a moment, but soon rushed in to help their dragon friend in any way they could. Their efforts accomplished nothing, however, as it was not long before the spell finished collapsing, and the mass within Spike became too much for his body to contain and his abdomen ruptured, spraying all three fillies – and a majority of the tree house – with blood and, bizarrely, peach juice. What was left of Spike was lying in a pile of his own organs and the mangled remains of what would later be identified as Twilight Sparkle.

The screams from the three fillies drew Applejack’s attention, and while they were quickly taken from the scene, it was several hours before Sweetie Belle could stop screaming. The clubhouse was torn down and burned after the funeral for both Twilight and Spike, though how the accident occurred nopony could precisely say. The best guess anyone had was that Twilight attempted some sort of teleportation spell that accidentally placed her inside her target rather than near him.

As for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, they lost a friend, but gained years of therapy and night terrors to bond over.

Author's Note

CUTIE MARK CRUSADER TRAUMATIC MEMORY REPRESSERS, YAY