A Series of Semi-Fortunate Events

by gingersassy

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Cadance, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Other, Adventure, Shining Armor, Flash Sentry
Length: 2785

The CMC spend the night at Zecora's to learn a bit about alchemy.

This is a side story to Big Mac's Biceps, Now in Bulk

When the CMC go to Zecora's and get their cutie marks, that's a good thing, right?

Published 2014-06-30 06:10:08 UTC
Last updated 2014-07-02 23:09:49 UTC

Chapter 1: Not So Cutie After All

A Series of Semi-Fortunate Events
Chapter 1

“Do you think we’ll get our cutie marks in alchemy?” Scootaloo ponders aloud.

“I don’t know, what do you think Zecora?” Applebloom asks the smiling zebra.

“As I said, we will not mix until tomorrow, best learn the ideas first lest the actions lead to sorrow.” Zecora calmly states.

“Well alright.” Scootaloo says.

As they near the hut, Zecora ushers the three little fillies into her residence, the rucksack of apples Applebloom had insisted on bringing as snacks in tow. “When I speak I tend to rhyme, but that would make us crunched for time. If you would children take a look, one of you read aloud this book.”
. Sweetie Belle takes the book and starts reading aloud to everypony, and zebra. Excruciatingly slowly, she begins. “A beginner’s guide to ‘al chimmey’”

“It’s pronounced ‘al kimmy’ silly. Give me that book, I’ll read.” Applebloom says, and Sweetie Belle nods her head in agreement. “A beginner’s guide to alchemy…”

After finishing chapter seven, Applebloom looks up and notices both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo asleep with blankets having been draped over top of them. “They’ve been asleep for a while now, haven’t they?” Applebloom asks, to which Zecora nods. “Do you mind if I keep reading, silently then?” Zecora shakes her head no, with a smile on her face. Applebloom smiles back.

Chapter 8: On Permanent Alteration of the Living

As stated in chapter seven, the amount of time an alteration potion will last depends on how tightly connected is the potion drinker is to the binding agent. Whether this is a literal or metaphorical connection is irrelevant. Once again, we remind our readers that changing a normal pony into an alicorn is most likely impossible. This is because in order to become an alicorn, one must possess qualities of all three pony races, and so two of the following ingredients are required, a pony feather, horn dust, or the clippings of an earth pony hoofnail, but adding any extra ingredients will cause the potion to fail. There are thus three possible outcomes, only one of which tends to be beneficial. The Pegacorn is the most ill advised alteration. The horn is hollow for having the bones of a pegasus, and therefore has difficulties focusing magic, is easily broken, and no longer grows back in like the hoofnails do. The Pegearth has limited flight capabilities for having solid bones, but has no other differences, it is therefore unwise for a pegasus to use this transformation, but it has no ill effects on an earth pony, so is not unadvisable. The most useful change is between an Earcorn. The Earcorn has no negative side effects from either starting point. If it does turn out to be possible to become an alicorn via this method, it would suffer none of the consequences, and should be just as powerful as an alicorn created another way.
Ingredients;
one cup water
one leaf of elf’s ear
one petal from the flower of the poison joke plant
one fruit ripe with juice
one edible thing that represents the drinker
one of the three ingredients listed above

Stir all but the final ingredient together over an open flame. Once bubbling, add the ingredient desired. It will cool instantly. Drink immediately and drink every last drop.

Applebloom thinks to herself, what if one of the ingredients can count for two? I got it! She looks up, seeing Zecora had fallen asleep herself, and decides to take matters into her own hoofs. The only thing that she wasn’t sure where to find was the poison joke, it being one of the ingredients Zecora had not lain out. Looking for it proved not to be difficult though, Applebloom finds it in the first shelf she looks at. Gathering all the ingredients (she was glad she’d brought her hoofnail file, that way she could file Sweetie Belle’s horn a little, she wouldn’t mind, would she?) she strokes the fire that had been burning since they’d arrived. After bringing all the first ingredients together, seeing as she had already thought to use an apple as the fruit and as what she was connected to, she was a member of the apple family, through and through, bringing them to a boil. She then carefully adds some of the powder from Sweetie Belle’s horn, and quickly plucks one of Scootaloo’s feathers, and adds that as well. The potion doesn’t collapse like the book said it would if made improperly, so she dives in, drinking it all up. If something went wrong, Zecora was there to help, so she wasn’t thinking about any possible consequences.

After drinking it all up, and licking the inside of the cauldron to make sure she got every last drop, Applebloom falls back on her haunches, bringing the cauldron with her. The clanging wakes the others. Just as Applebloom was about to say something, there was a flash of light, and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo both started squealing with delight. “What?” Applebloom tries to ask, but all that comes out is a scream, pain suddenly burning through her forehead and back. The pain is so intense it causes Applebloom to flail about, knocking over premade potions that truly ought not be mixed. Two of the mixed potions create a magical fireball that gets launched at Sweetie Belle and Zecora. Sweetie Belle screams, a yellow pane of magical energy appearing in front of them. A shield? She thought. Did I make a shield? The pane then starts to bend. Wait, shields don’t bend, they shatter. She watches as the fireball starts to come to her, the, whatever it is, not shattering. The whatever it is slows the decent, then bounces back, tossing the fireball away, right towards Scootaloo. The flame hits the dumbfounded Scootaloo, and is seemingly absorbed into her.

Immediately after the chaos that only lasted less than a second, two more flashes of light appear. After the foursome comes out of their shock, they first realize, they all had cutie marks now. After a little self celebration, three of them notice the alicorn in the room.

Once Zecora gets over her shock of what she was seeing before her, it finally clicked that she should be panicking. An innocent earth pony filly just became an alicorn through alchemy, what happens when a not so innocent pony figures out how she did it. In a panic, she grabbed a sleep potion, and slammed the glass container against the floor, allowing it to shatter. A fume fills up the room, as Zecora holds her breath. She watches the three little fillies fall back asleep. She then runs off to town. Princess Celestia will know what to do, right? She thinks to herself.

Zecora runs up to the library tree at full speed, not even taking the time to open the door, she just busts through it. Twilight and Spike just stand there wide-eyed at her dramatic entrance. “Spike, take a letter to Princess Celestia, tell her to teleport here immediately, it is an emergency”

“You, you’re not rhyming.” Spike and Twilight stammer in unison.

“Because it is an emergency that is pressed for time. Take the letter, and send it to her now.

Spike nods, and takes the letter as quickly as he can, not even bothering to roll it before sending it to Celestia via his draconic messenger flame.

Celestia appears in a flash, with a worried expression on her face. Wasting no time, Zecora barks, “Teleport us to my hut now, just you and I.” Celestia nods, still wearing a look of concern, and obliges.

“You’d best have a good reason for ordering your princess around like that.” Celestia spits as she enters the hut.

“Is an earth pony that just became an alicorn through alchemy a good enough reason?” Zecora asks, pointing a hoof at the sleeping Applebloom.

Celestia just stands there speechlessly, mouth agape. Finally she says, “I will need to tell their caregivers that I must keep them away from everypony else for the time being, what will I say to them?”

“I am in their charge until noon, so you won’t have to decide too soon.” Zecora rhymes, finally calming down. With a grateful nod, Celestia teleports herself and the three little fillies to her bedroom.

Once there she starts to calm. Stepping just outside her bedroom door, she turns to the surprised guards, who thought she had already left her room, and says, “Get my sister at once, tell her it is of the utmost importance. As the guards go to fulfill her command, she turns and walks back into her room, and ponders what she’s going to have to do next.

Chapter 2: The Waiting Game

A Series of Semi-Fortunate Events
Chapter 2

Applebloom stirs, waking from the potion induced slumber, with Celestia’s sun looming close to the zenith of its arc. Looking around, she notices she’s no longer in Zecora’s hut, but rather in somepony’s bedroom, some rich pony’s bedroom. Was this Diamond Tiara’s place? No, it couldn’t be she’d been there once before and this is not what it looked like.

“I see you’ve awoken Applebloom.” Princess Celestia speaks warmly. “I’m sure you’re surprised to see me, and be here in my bedroom.” To that, the little filly nods her head. “Well to tell you the truth, if you’d take a look in the mirror, you might figure it out yourself.”

Still in shock over the fact that she was in Canterlot castle, Celestia’s bedroom no less, she obediently walks over to the mirror that Celestia had pointed a hoof to, only to be confused as to what she saw. Then a sudden look of realization hits her as she snaps out of this funk. “It worked!” she exclaims. “I’m an alicorn!”

“What, exactly worked, may I ask? How did you do this?” The princess asks, her voice cooling, but not quite cold.

“Well this potion recipe said that any extra ingredients would make the transformation spell fail, but I thought, what if one ingredient acted as two of the things needed. So I used an apple as both the fruit needed, and as the thing that represents who I am. That way I could have both a pegasus feather and horn shavings. Although I’m still not sure why a pony couldn’t just make the potion twice once getting one aspect, and again getting the other.”

“That is because the second potion would simply replace the aspect of the first.” Applebloom nods in realization. “But quickly, could you tell me where to find your parents, I know of Sweetie Belle’s parents and the Ponyville orphanage for Scootaloo, but I couldn’t find anything on your parents.” Celestia quells a magical fire that popped up on Scootaloo’s blanket, as if she was used to this happening.

“My parents died before I ever got to really know them, I kinda sorta remember my Ma in a hospital bed, singing to me, but that’s about it. After she died my big brother adopted me so I could stay at home. He said he wanted to adopt Scootaloo too now ever since he went to the orphanage to drop her off, but wouldn’t tell me why. Anyway, he has a date with Bulk Biceps at noon today at the café.”

“I’m going to let them know that you’ll be staying with me, or somepony else for a while. I’ll go to the orphanage first, to give your brother a little time on his date.”

“Wait, we’re staying here?”

“Yes.” Celestia says coldly, losing any hint of the warmth her voice once held, and disappears in a flash.

“Tia, you called for me?” Luna calls, entering the room with unnervingly Pinkie Pie like timing.

“Princess Luna!” Applebloom squeals, wondering if she was just as fun at times other than nightmare night.

“Apple… bloom?” Luna starts smilingly, then continues questioningly. Just realizing the little filly standing in front of her is an alicorn.

“Oh, heh, yea, I keep forgetting myself, I figured out how to turn myself into an alicorn with a potion. And now Celestia says I gotta stay here, although she didn’t have to say it so mean.” All of a sudden Luna sees magical fire, and immediately puts it out with a spell. “Oh yea, and Scootaloo keeps catching fire.”

“Perhaps we should wake them, no offence, but why Tia would dump you guys on me without even telling me is beyond me.”

“None taken.” At that, Luna and Applebloom wake the other two fillies, and for a while they all admired the newly acquired cutie marks. Applebloom’s looked just like Twilight Sparkle’s with a zebra striped mortar and pestle over top of it. Sweetie Belle’s was just like Shining Armor’s save the image of a spring on top of it, and Scootaloo’s looked just like Celestia’s with a phoenix burning in magic fire on top of it.

They had all agreed that Applebloom’s cutie mark had to do with magic potions, if not magic in general as well, now that she had a horn. Sweetie Belle’s took a little while, but they discovered that she could cast flexible and ‘springy’ shields that not only rivaled the effectiveness of Shining Armor’s Luna claimed, but were also quite fun (if not a bit dangerous) if cast parallel to the ground, yet she still couldn’t manage the simple levitation spell. It took them some time, however, to divine what Scootaloo’s special talent was other than catching on fire and not being burned by any fire, which they figured was useful in its own right, she’d make a great firepony that way. They only found out when Scootaloo expressed her wish to finally be able to fly. Her wings were just as big as Bulk Biceps’ and she was smaller, how come he could fly and she couldn’t? After saying this, she stretched her wings out and it became very apparent, very quickly. Suddenly, wings of green magic fire spread from her wingtips, and made wings that were just about the size of most adult pegusi’s, and they let her fly. She starts for an open window and Luna grabs her in her magic and pulls her back.

“I think Tia wanted you all here so nopony would find out about you, so it would probably be best you not do anything to be seen by the public, we don’t want people freaking out about seeing a pegasus with fire for wings, now would we?”

“No.” Scootaloo moaned.

“I’m sorry, but it’s the first precaution of Tia’s that I’ve actually agreed with in over a thousand years.”

Before anypony could point out that most of those years were spent on the moon away from her sister, there was a flash of light and Celestia reappears, her mane seemingly (and apparently literally) on fire instead of its normal luster. Noticing everypony was awake, she states, as calmly as she can, “Scootaloo, the administrators at the orphanage have been, dealt with, I heard that Big Mac would like to adopt you, but couldn’t due to legal red tape. I am bypassing that red tape, so as soon as we get the paperwork done, you are his. Furthermore, I will be sending you three to the Crystal Empire in order to practice your abilities until you are deemed in enough control to not destroy everything you come in contact with. I will also have my little cousin Léon, another alicorn, join you. Shining armor will instruct Sweetie Belle, Applebloom, and Léon in magic, and I will be having Flash Sentry teach basic flight to Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Léon. Princess Cadance will instruct Applebloom and Léon on public relations, then on controlling both flight and magic once you’ve been through the basics.”

The foursome is left speechless at this sudden inundation of information, but they aren’t lost by it. They then nod, and the (former) cutie mark crusaders find themselves in the middle of a grand hall, with magically sealed and darkened windows, and three adult ponies, and one colt. The colt and mare among them were both alicorns, and one stallion was a pegasus, while the other was a unicorn. “Welcome to the Crystal Empire, my little ponies, Auntie Celestia has told us about the day’s events, however, with the looks on your faces, maybe we should do supper first.” Cadance smiles, seeing how lit up the three little fillies’ eyes got, leading them to a surprisingly unstaffed kitchen. Cadance lights her horn, and there before them was a feast fit for a hundred stallions. “Dig in.”