It's Just a Joke, Right?

Twilight Sparkle.

Known for many things: defeating Nightmare Moon, defeating Discord, defeating Sombra, defeating Sunset Shimmer, and most recently, defeating Tirek. But the thing she is most known for is...

The Element of Magic. She held the element of Magic, the most powerful Element of Harmony in her soul. Not literally, of course, but she was chosen to bear it. Along with her five other friends, she fights evil to save Equestria as we know it.

And now she's a princess. The princess of friendship, to be exact, with a new kingdom and everything. That was really hard to get used to. Especially the part of getting used to her new home. Yep. Twilight practically lives in her castle now because Tirek burned down her library. Let's put emphasis on the her, because that was her home. She slept, read, ate, she did everything there, mostly. So watching one of the most important things of your life burning to a pile of ash was not something that, as Pinkie would say, make you "smile,smile,smile!". It took a while, but luckily Twilight got used to the crystal pillas of her beautiful castle.

Now, another problem has arisen to Twilight's attention. It isn't a good-turned evil sister of the alicorn who rose the sun who wants to make the night last forever, or a chaotic creature who originally just wanted to reign Equestria in eternal chaotic madness.

It isn't even a problem that can move or talk.

It's Poison Joke.

Yes, Poison Joke. A blue flower that just adores to play practical magic jokes on you that can only be cured with a magic brew stirred up by the only known zebra who lives in the Everfree Forest, which is full of creepy crawly monsters that either aren't as scary as they look or want to behead you on sight. It might seem like a pain to get, but nopony really would want the joker plant, as it just makes you look like a fool until you find Zecora.

So how could it be such a problem?

Well, there is a select few ponies, about a quarter or even more of the population in Equestria, that don't know about Zecora so they don't bother going to get cured. And, with further investigation, the ruler Celestia realized that if not taken care of, poison joke infected ponies can become quite the jokesters. Jokesters that, are making Ponyville and Cloudsdale the laughing stock of Equestria.

What makes it worse is that the jokester ponies aren't even sorry if they mentally hurt the pony. They are delirious and don't know what they're doing. They try to convince you to stand in the plant, that it's so fun! Then, you're one of them, and you don't have a clue what you're doing either.

So guess who got infected first?

Trixie, of course! Who else?

Ponies realized it when a handful of poniesi came out with rainbow coats and/or rainbow manes multiple times. They managed to cure her but a couple pegasi got infected before she awoke out of her delirious daze. She had no memory of what she did, but she was obviously the start of the poison-joke-pocalyspe, as Pinkie had dubbed it. Twilight was grateful Pinkie wasn't infected. How would you tell if Pinkie was infected?

Twilight had to get to the bottom of this. To be the savior of Equestria once again! She then remembered she wouldn't be anywhere without her friends and she clearly couldn't do this alone, so she arranged a friendship meeting at her castle.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

As her wings closed and her horn's aura dropped, she felt the clatter of the feather pen hit her foreleg. "I sure hope Celestia will get this letter," she stated to no pony in particular, "otherwise she might not know my friends and I are on the case."

She trusted the words she said, but something rang in her mind, a call, a word, only one word: examine.

At that point she knew what to do.