Despite the sanctuary, having been forced to give up their natural food source the vampire fruit bats died piteously of starvation, and when Applejack abashedly mentioned it, that should have been the first clue to Twilight that she should pause whatever research project she'd jumped to and revisit her spell and it's ramifications. Sadly, she did not.
Much like the debacle when she'd returned the excess Pinkie Pies to the mirror pond, only for them to drown under it's surface and force her to entomb the whole sordid scene with a largish rock, or the time her errant spell had released omnivorous parasprites first onto Ponyville and then (with Pinkie's help) into the Everfree forest and the world at large thereafter, she treated it as out of sight and out of mind. It was a fact that she craved novelty and even though all the spells surrounding it were botched to some greater or lesser degree, she simply noted their failure with disinterest and resumed chasing after more luciferous pursuits without considering that one enchantment that had so callously changed her gentle friend's whole nature.
Problems ignored, though, more often than not come home to roost and it was so in this case as well.
"Princess, please! You have to help. I can't go on like this. My crop is utterly ruined and I know it's those vampire fruit bats who're behind it!" Golden Harvest plead, bowed down and on her knees as befitted a supplicant to a princess.
Twilight, being princess of nothing but a termite infested library that quaked and creaked in the gentlest of breezes was having no part of her pomp and a hazy aura of magic hoisted her roughly to her hooves as she assessed the mare before her. She hadn't been the first who'd brought various unexplained crop failures before her in the days following the incident, and given the extent of the troubles, she was unlikely to be the last.
"I just don't understand." Twilight paced the well trodden library floor before the carrot topped mare who'd sought her counsel, "The vampire fruit bats are gone, down to the very last pup. I'm not proud of that fact, but it's true. Whatever's causing your carrot blight, it can't be them."
"Then how do you explain this?" The carrot farmer demanded and flung a limp and grayed bunch of carrots to the ground before her, each one resembling a deflated balloon and bearing an evenly set pair of puncture marks.
With a start, Twilight hoofed the desiccated carrot carcasses to face her. One thing was obvious, though, "It couldn't be a fruit bat anyway, the fang marks are too far apart. It's the same sort of thing that Pumpkin Patch showed me yesterday. Whatever did this was big, maybe as big as a pony."
Golden Harvest shuddered in fear as she stalked out of the library, head drooped, shoulders raised and eyes searching fearfully for the unseen menace that had sucked the pulp from her very livelihood. Fluttershy nodded to her as she passed by, on the way into the library to consult with her friend about the odd happenings and offer her opinion on just what errant creature may be at fault.
Like a carpenter whose only approach to shore up an unsound structure is to nail on board after board until the conglomeration holds fast, Twilight Sparkle was looking to her spellbook for help and only briefly looked up as her friend entered her home. Fluttershy waited politely in the doorway to be acknowledged. When she wasn't, she shyly cleared her throat and eventually resorted to the admission, "It was me, Twilight. I'm the one who's been ruining everypony's crops."
"Do you actually remember raiding everypony's farms or are you feeling guilty about before? I told you that wasn't your fault, you know that right? If anypony's to blame it's me."
"I know, I guess, but I still feel like I'm responsible."
Twilight finally put aside the book and eyed her warily, a mental checklist being consulted. Bat wings? Not a feather out of place. Big fluffy ears? No. Red eyes? Uncheck. Fangs? Negatory. Insatiable desire to drain fruit of it's life's juices? Untested.
"Hmm...I can see why you might think that, but unless you actually remember mauling everypony's crops, I'd really like some more concrete evidence." Twilight said as she casually arranged a centerpiece of oranges, pears and a couple juicy pineapples on the table while carefully observing Fluttershy's reaction. Aside from an eyeroll at the obvious ploy, the pale yellow pegasus was uneffected.
"Okay Twilight, I admit I don't remember doing anything out of the ordinary, but who else could it have been?" Fluttershy demanded, "I'm the only one who's been transformed into a big juice sucking, fruit devouring monster lately, so it just stands to reason..."
"No!" Twilight harshly interrupted, her wings splayed in vehement protest, "Without evidence I just can't believe you'd do such a thing. My spell should have easily put a stop to the vampire fruit bat's insatiable hunger, so whatever it is that's going on, I don't think it's your fault."
"Well...Okay, if you really think so. But, what do you think it is, then?"
"I...I don't know." Twilight admitted, "But I have a plan."
Not surprisingly, Twilight Sparkle's plan involved copious amounts of magic. Ironically the unicorn had thought the earlier spell's failure on two grounds, the eventual starvation of the fruit bats and the hybridization of her dear friend, had taught her a lesson about careful spell craft. She even told her friends just that when they were all gathered around the heaped up pile of hexed produce that was to serve as bait.
"I thought this through a little better this time," She said, indicating the heap of vegetable matter in the vacant farm field, "Gathered here is a representation of each of the cultivated crops growing in Ponyville. They're each treated with a spell that should put any creature who tries to take a bite of them off of our crops for good."
"Darling, isn't that likely to simply starve the wretched little creatures?" Rarity asked from the gathered circle of friends.
"Oh, no." Fluttershy volunteered, "Not this time. It should just redirect their hunger to uncultivated crops like the fruits and vegetables that grow in the Everfree forest. That's really where the vampire fruit bats belong after all. They're not meant to be farm pests in the first place."
"That's right, I've put a failsafe into the spell this time that essentially forces them to look for alternate food sources. The way it's written, I don't think it could even let them starve if they wanted to." Twilight beamed at her clever work.
"If it even is the vampire fruit bats." Rainbow Dash skeptically pointed out, "You said it was something big and I thought Applejack said they were all dead."
"Maybe some of them escaped?" Fluttershy peeped a sad little squeak in remembrance of the creature's terrible fate.
Rarity muttered a "Good riddance." under her breath, to which Applejack nodded her agreement. Generosity aside, the icky creatures creeped her right out. Even giving them this veritable cornucopia didn't sit well with her. Though having a spell on it would prevent her from being able to eat it without ill effect, she eyed a juicy plum hungrily, unconsciously reaching out to flick a trickle of condensation of it's smooth, dark flesh, she licked her lips. The plum, though, deflated, it's innards having already been consumed.
"What the buck?" Rainbow Dash swore, taking a swipe at the pony high pile of vegetable matter only for the glancing blow to reduce that side to withered husks.
"Wow, that's really something!" Pinkie prodded a large watermelon with her hoof only for it to likewise collapse under her weight and send her tumbling forward into the sticky pile. She emerged wearing both a confused grin and a cantaloupe rind that looked for all the world like a tiara, "Whoever did this must have snuck right in under our noses, and they had to be good, too, because I sure didn't see anypony but the six of us piling up this fruit salad."
All eyes shifted to Fluttershy who shrunk under the suspicious glares.
"That proves it!" Pinkie concluded.
"Proves what now?" AJ asked, puzzled.
"That it could be none other..." Pinkie paused dramatically, "Than the ghosts of the vampire fruit bats! Dun dun DUN!"
"There's no such thing as ghosts." Twilight asserted, "They're just an old pony's tale. More likely..."
"That's what you said about curses." Pinkie singsonged with a knowing nod.
"There isn't any such thing as curses!"
"Have you forgotten about the time you said Pinkie sense was impossible?" Rainbow Dash piled on, but the newly minted alicorn was having none of it. A flare of her wings and a brief burst of magical light and accompanying loud pop refocused her friends wandering attention.
"More likely," She continued in a forcefully even tone, "The effects of the spell weren't fully reversed. I'm sorry Fluttershy, but until we get this sorted out, I think maybe you should be quarantined."
"Oh my, is that...is that really necessary Twilight? I don't remember eating any of that. It's an awful lot, I'm not even sure if I could eat it all." She mewled and looked pitifully towards the ground.
"I just want to make sure you're safe if the spell progresses, and you didn't remember eating the apples last time, right? But if you did, the spell that was on them was meant for bats. I don't know how it will effect ponies. It's just too dangerous to let you roam until I can do some proper research on the matter and get this all sorted out." The bookish unicorn gently stated.
"But how am I going to look after my little friends if I'm cooped inside my house?"
"Darling," Rarity stepped forward, bolstered by a nod from Rainbow Dash and Applejack that said they knew where she was going and were totally on board, "We'll stay with you every second until this whole travesty properly resolved, once and for all."
"I 'spect we can all pitch in and look after your little friends and you can just take it easy, alright sugarcube?"
"Yeah!" Pinkie chimed in, "It'll be like a slumber party, but with more bats!"
The plan was quickly agreed to and after discretely taking blood and tissue samples from the afflicted mare, the five friends headed to Fluttershy's cottage while Twilight headed to the library with an all nighter seemingly in the works.
It wasn't to be, however. No matter how she looked at the samples she could find no sign of mutation, latent magic or residue of the same. She even tested clean for chaos magic, which Twilight felt guilty for even checking. It seemed like with Discord being free she lazily jumped to the conclusion that he was responsible for every little thing. Often he was, she reminded herself, but she was supposed to trust her 'friend' enough that he wasn't top of the usual suspect list.
In the end there was only one conclusion to be reached. Whomever it was, it simply couldn't be Fluttershy and so she took off in a trot to give her friends the good and the bad news.
Even in the purple light of dusk, Twilight could tell something was wrong far before she reached the cottage. For one, the gentle chirping of the birds roosting for the night and the hubbub of woodland creatures tucking in or heading out were still and mute. The usual din around the cottage wasn't something she'd ever noticed until now, when it was gone and silent as a grave. As she got closer, the ground became littered with lumps and bundles of rags, that upon closer inspection turned out to be pelts and other grisly remains. The whole beloved menagerie seemed to have been consumed like so many juice boxes and discarded as rubbish.
Twilight steeled herself. She was an optimist, and more often than not oblivious to fairly obvious prompts that trouble was on the horizon, but this time she knew what she would find and she knew it was entirely her fault.
The trap spell that simultaneously made cultivated crops distasteful and drove the afflicted to find another food source? She'd turned her gentle friend into a carnivore, her pets being the closest alternative nutrition. The fact that her other friends had neither stopped Fluttershy or come running to report her actions? Twilight shuddered, indeed she knew what she would find as she kicked in the cottage door, musing on which side she would come down on? Would she try to cure Fluttershy and cover up the whole sad affair or would she be too far gone and have to be put down too? She could see either being likely as she scanned the darkened living room and finally picked out a pair of frightened blue eyes peeking out from a hiding spot beneath a desk.
"I know what happened, I don't know how, or why, but I think I can still help you if you let me." She stated resolutely. The reaction from beneath the desk wasn't what she expected, however. A harsh, shushing whisper cut across the dark.
"No, it's not what you think, the girls..." Fluttershy started to whisper, then broke down in quiet convulsions before she could finish.
"I...I know, Fluttershy, I know, but it's not your fault, it's mine, totally mine." Twilight sniffled, "But if you can forgive me, I'll do anything I can to help you through this, not that I deserve your forgiveness, I don't even know how I'll be able to live after this, but...but I have a responsibility, first and foremost, to see you freed from this...this...curse! Because yes, it's definitely a curse, I just don't understand it, I was so sure this time that you weren't effected anymore, I don't get it!"
During her whole monologue, the demure yellow pegasus was cowering, motioning with quick jabs of her hooves for Twilight to leave and hissing like a tea kettle with a broken whistle. Finally she met her friend's eyes with a harsh, tear filled glare and broke her silence, "Twilight! Listen to me for once and just leave! Run and don't look back! The girls are...oh, my!"
In the dark room the satisfaction of a mystery finally put to rest mixed with the boundless fear of an irredeemably hopeless situation. Fear beyond fear, the sort so primal and intractable that the only coherent thought that formed in Twilight Sparkle's head was a chastisement as the four pairs of red eyes slowly opened and slavering fangs glinted in the moonlight while four feral bat ponies descended from the rafters, "Damn it Sparkle, don't you ever get tired of being wrong?"
The hellish years that followed, the crucible of the vampire hunts, the generations of timberwolf pony hybrids that did vicious battle for the survival of their race, the zompony apocalypse that finally brought a kind of peace to the land of Equestria at long last, all of that could have been avoided if one little alicorn hadn't tried to treat every problem like a nail.
In the Library, a purple alicorn sat with a furrowed brow, a roughly bound manuscript in her hooves.
"So what did you think?" A tom-coltish voice enthusiastically demanded.
"Fine, Rainbow Dash, I get it. I'll be more careful with my spells from now on. You got your point across even without that heavy hooved ending. Just, I don't know, could you please not write me into your fanfics anymore?"
Rainbow Dash was crestfallen, "But did you think it was okay? I was trying to do something beyond Daring Do fanfiction, like a real piece of literature. Applejack helped me with the ending, I don't really get the last line, but Rarity thought it was clever, so I left it in."
"It's...it's a little grimmer than my usual taste in literature runs." Twilight Sparkle admitted.
"I was going for edgy."
The librarian princess rubbed her forehead and sighed a ragged sigh, "Maybe...maybe you could change the names?" Then she got up and handed the bundle of papers back to her friend, pulling her into a lingering hug, "If what had happened in that story really happened...Well I'm glad I didn't really turn anypony into a vampire."
"Except Fluttershy."
"Yeah...Well, permanently, I mean."
"Oh, if you liked that, wait 'til I finish the sequel! Fluttershy gets superpowers and since she's the only pony left who knows the terrible secret behind the Vampony attacks, she has to take them all down!" Rainbow enthusiastically gushed, "She kills me with a sword in like, chapter three, but y'know, that's the way it goes with vamponies, and I come back as queen of the Vamponies at the end anyway."
Twilight rolled her eyes and let Rainbow slip from her loose embrace. In the future, she resolved to be much more careful with her magic and while she never did bring about a Zompony apocolypse, she really didn't live up to her vow, either. Only a week after, she accidentally turned Pinkie Pie into a white pegasus which was quite a surprise to all involved.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading.
Sorry for ending on a stupid pun, I just couldn't help it.
