When the smoke cleared, Zecora was just...gone. In the place where she once stood, there remained a huge pile of ribcages and skulls.

"This cain't be, this just cain't. Is Zecora really...gone?" Apple Bloom muttered, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Wow, I had no idea zebras had this many bones inside them," Sweetie Belle squeaked, walking over and tentatively prodding at the pile of bones.

"Wait a minute...this is a joke, right? We aren't really this stupid, are we?" Scootaloo asked rhetorically.

The three fillies turned their heads as they heard a deep, rich laugh start to rise from the floorboards. To their surprise, Zecora pushed a trap door open and climbed out into the open. "It appears you've seen right through my ruse, your trust I did not mean to abuse. It happened on the last moon, I was visited by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They paid me many bits to participate in their dirty tricks. Had I known you would react this way, I never would have accepted their pay."

"So they were lying! Argh, I knew it!" Scootaloo fumed, gnashing her teeth.

"Um, so you don't need to rhyme all the time and it won't kill ya?" Apple Bloom asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"No we don't, I'm sorry. It's just a cultural thing, you heard the story," Zecora replied, though she could not help but continue rhyming even as she attempted to reassure the young filly.

"Ohhh, we just gotta get them back for this, you know that, right?" Sweetie Belle said, scrunching up her face. The three Cutie Mark Crusaders exchanged knowing looks and nodded to one another.

Back in town, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were sitting at a table outside the local Cold Pone Creamery, eating sundaes and enjoying the afternoon's sunny weather. Diamond Tiara had their signature Maud Pie Mojo® and Silver Spoon was enjoying a traditional banana split.

"Can you believe those goofy blank flanks bought that ridiculous story we made up?" Diamond Tiara smirked, dipping a spoon into the slowly melting ice cream.

"No way! Ah, I was sure I overdid it when I made Zecora explode and almost gave away the ending, but they've been gone all day! By now, I'm sure that Zecora has blown up into a million pieces and scared them out of their tiny little minds! Ha-haha-ha!" Silver giggled until her sides hurt, and she pantomimed a zebra exploding again, to Diamond Tiara's amusement.

They didn't notice the three filly-shaped shadows slowly stalking towards them...

"Well if it isn't Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, thanks for ruining our afternoon!" Scootaloo said, curiously speaking in rhyme.

"Ugh, what do you blank flanks want? How did your trip to Zecora's go?" Diamond Tiara sneered in reply.

"That's just it, it's the strangest occurrence. We saw her explode, and in a flash of transference—we found ourselves afflicted: to speak in couplets we are addicted!" Apple Bloom explained, her cadence quickening as she spoke.

Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon squinted hard at the Cutie Mark Crusaders, then huddled up.
"You think they're messing with our heads?" Diamond Tiara whispered.
"Maybe. Hard to say for sure, those three attract magical curses like moths to a flame," Silver Spoon hissed back.
"So what do we do, play along?"
"At least until we figure out their angle."
"That shouldn't take too long, they're dumb as babies!"
"You're so smart, D.T."
"I know it, marefriend. Alright, let's get this over with."

"Ahem," Diamond Tiara cleared her throat, "Zecora's speech impediment somehow transferred to you after she 'exploded,' you say?"

"Yes, that's what we're saying," Sweetie Belle chirped. And then exploded.

The remaining four fillies stared at the gigantic pile of bones that was once Sweetie Belle.

"OH MY CELESTIA, WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" Silver Spoon screamed, hairs popping out of her braids.

"Oh no, the vulnerability to speaking in normal speech patterns must have transferred along as well! Ah'm too young to die, Ah don't wanna go to– to Tartarus!" Apple Bloom panicked and then too burst into a gout of dozens of skeletons.

Diamond Tiara was trembling, on the verge of losing her very sanity and ending up in the asylum alongside her mother. "No...this can't be happening. This isn't real."

"Oh no, my friends are all dead. All they had to do was rhyme instead," Scootaloo said, tears streaming down her face. "Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, I fear that I, too, may join them soon. I'm worried you may now be infected, but heed my words and be protected: you need not share our fates, just make sure you always...um..."

Scootaloo trailed off, her eyes unfocusing as she gazed intensely past Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. "Welp, I'm boned," she said, followed by a loud 'pop,' and femurs raining from the sky.

"I don't wanna die!" Diamond Tiara wailed, then quickly added, "Um, I really like pizza pie!"

"C'mon D.T. let's go see Twilight, I'm sure she can resolve our plight!" Silver Spoon rhymed through her tears in a show of quick-wits, her vocabulary sharpened from years of debutante schooling.

Together the two set off down the road to Twilight's castle, crying and carrying on the whole way.

Meanwhile...

A lone white hoof stuck out from one of the piles of bones. The rest of Sweetie Belle soon followed. Apple Bloom emerged from her little pyramid of spinal columns, and Scootaloo dug her way out of tibia mountain. "Hehe, can't believe they really fell for that, even knowing the whole time it was a farce," Sweetie Belle snickered.

"Ah'm just amazed Zecora had so many bones layin' about that we could borrow. It sure is gonna be rough havin' to cart all these back to her hut," Apple Bloom said with a wide grin.

"Bah who cares, it was all worth it if those two learn not to mess with us anymore," Scootaloo chuckled dismissively.

"Yeah, they'll think twice next time they have a...bone to pick with us," Sweetie Belle remarked, donning a pair of sunglasses.

"YEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" The Cutie Mark Crusaders triumphantly screamed in unison.

The Real End This Time!

Author's Note

Er, yeah, don't worry y'all, Zecora was fine the whole time! Everypony was fine, the whole time! Even Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon!