Trading Places, part 3

Trading Places, part 3

As Cheerilee Wandered from stall to stall the strange saddle on her back continued to glow with an eerie light, totally unbeknownst to it's wearer. And as she passed each vendor's table, something odd seemed to occur with every trade that was occurring. As the teach pony walked past Surprise's booth, the white Pegasus was trying to make a bargain with Locket, over a piece of merchandise.

"Hey, Surprise? You got any roman candles in your inventory?" The pony jailer asked coyly, looking through the stock of practical jokes. "I'd love for my boyfriend to get a really big BANG out of our reunion!"

"Naw, 'fraid I don't have any fireworks in my stock, Locket." The insane mare replied with a giggle. "Though if I do have anything ya want, I'd love ta trade for a pizza... cause I'm really hungry!"

But as the pink earth pony passed by, her saddle flashed with an eerie light. Suddenly, Locket was hurled into the air, and began to explode into a series of explosions, much to the surprise of all the ponies around her. And before Surprise even had a chance to react, the white Pegasus instantly changed into a pizza with Surprise's white wings. The bizarre food dish flew off by itself, without the saddle-wearing pony even noticing.

"Huh, now where did my friends get to?" Cheerilee asked in annoyance, looking around the bazaar as she trotted along her way. "I wanted to show them my new saddle!"

As she walked past Hollywood's table, Ribbon was still haggling with the flutter pony over another article of clothing.

"All right Hollywood, you got to admit this purple Rarity number is worthy of a trade." She declared, pulling another outfit out of her bag. "Certainly this would be worth a needle and spool of that rainbow thread!"

"Ha! Rainbow thread is far to valuable to trade for what you hold!" Holly replied with a laugh. "The only piece of enchanted clothing I'd trade that for  would be a rainbow thread scarf that knits itself!"

As soon as the two mares had finished speaking, the saddle flashed again. With a loud  *poof!*, Ribbon became a spool of rainbow thread with a needle, and Hollywood was transformed into a rainbow-colored scarf. The earth pony with two pigtails barely noticed, as the needle and thread floated up, and began to knit the scarf longer and longer.

"LOCKET! RIBBON!" She called out in frustration, the saddle's enchantment making her totally oblivious to the chaos around her. "Oh dear, where could they have gone?!?"

As the hours passed, a sense of Chaos presided over whole whole swap meet, as trades suddenly came to life everywhere the confused teacher went, and behind it all, and old human witch was cackling manically, pleased with all the anarchy her actions had brought about.

"Yes! Yes! look at this little ponies run around in fear and panic!"  The old hag roared, as her two daughters looked on with evil grins. "This'll be a swap meet those ponies will never forget!"

"Yeah, you really showed them, Hydia!" Draggle, the taller daughter, agreed. "You gave em what they traded for, but not the way they really wanted it!"

"Yeah, and the saddle absorbed a little energy each time it carried out a trade!" Reeka agreed. "We'll have enough magic to power our spells for years!"

And as the three witches were gloating about their success, it was then that the magic began to loose it's hold on miss Cheerilee.

"Huh? Wait a minute!" The pink mare said groggily, shaking her head as if coming out of a daze. "What they hay is going...."

The earth pony teacher was greeted by the sight of a flying pizza with wings zooming away from a hungry Pegasus, a rainbow scarf was wrapping some poor pony up like a mummy, while a floating spool and thread knitted her a matching sweater, while a screaming Pegasus seemed to be spinning and exploding in midair endlessly. As the other ponies around her screamed and ran in every direction, the stunned pony could only stand there, her jaw hanging open, and eye twitching, unable to take in everything around her.

"Did I... did I just miss something?"