How's This For A Stinging Sensation?
Author's Note
An extra special thanks to TheBritishPony for helping me come up with the title!
Discovery of the Century
The bald faced hornet: nature's sickest joke. Although it belongs to the same family as the yellow jacket, it's still commonly known as the hornet which doesn't lose its stinger when it stings someone who's unlucky or foolish enough to invoke its wrath.
However, there are times when merely stinging the target isn't enough. Sometimes, the target is too determined to fulfill its goals and refuses to back off.
“Alright, everything's in place!”
Such as Twilight Sparkle, who found one of the hornets in her room. Its slick black body and white face, which looked more like a mask the more Twilight looked at it, caught her eye instantly. That and the buzzing that came packaged with the winged menace. Normally, she would've grabbed something and turned the hornet into a sight that would make Fluttershy faint. However, with Starlight and Spike out shopping in Canterlot, it was the perfect time to experiment with something like this! After all, Twilight had never examined a hornet before.
So, with a lab coat, a can of RAID in case of an emergency, and protective face gear, Twilight got to work.
Experiment 1: Enlargement
Twilight took a few steps back. The hornet was motionless on a small, glass table. It seemed oddly content with looking at its reflection.
Zap
In the blink of an eye, the hornet went from the size of, well, a hornet, to the size of a medium-sized dog. It looked at Twilight with the sort of reaction one would expect: anger. It walked over to the can of RAID and crushed it, which resulted in an explosion.
Twilight, for her part, deflected the bits of shrapnel which flew her way. When she looked back up though, she saw that the hornet had set its sights on her. Before she knew it, Twilight was tackled to the ground by the dog-sized insect.
Then came the full fury of a hornet.
“OHSWEETCELESTIA!”
Experiment 2: Duplication
Several volatile spells which caused several hundred bits worth of damage, three noise complaints, and a lot of ointment later, Twilight was ready to try her next experiment—and now with more protective gear.
“This knight armor should work!” She did a happy (and very noisy) dance—which the hornet didn't hear from behind its protective barrier.
Yes, despite her protective armor, Twilight felt the need to barricade herself from the tiny menace.
Twilight prepared her spell; focusing her sights on the hornet. Carefully, she cast the slender beam of magic, which pierced the barrier, and hit the insect. To her delight, the hornet spawned a copy of itself.
Then another.
And another.
Before Twilight knew it, the side she was barricaded from was filled to the brim with hornets.
And they kept coming.
“Oh no, oh no, OH NO!” Twilight ran back and forth as her barrier cracked. Within a few seconds, it shattered—and out poured half a room's worth of hornets.
Twilight helplessly flailed her legs as she was engulfed in a wave of stinger-equipped insects—none of which seemed particularly pleased at the inclusion of the equine in their posse. Eventually, she crashed through the door and felt the fury of several stingers as some of the hornet clones found out that they could crawl through the small holes on her helmet.
“I SHOULD'VE USED DUCT TAPE!”
Experiment 3: Metallic
And so, after Twilight had rid her castle of the excess hornets—save for one particularly agile one which flew out of an open window, she returned to her laboratory. The original hornet (at least, she believed it to be the original) was back on its little table and a new and improved barrier stood between the two of them.
Twilight, on the other hand, had duct tape over her knight's helmet—and a pair of military grade night vision goggles. Something that she attempted to learn to operate as she applied more ointment to her body.
And her face.
But, after what felt like an eternity, Twilight was back in the game. She flicked on her goggles and prepared herself for the next experiment.
“Okay, focus,” Twilight told herself. “You've done this before. Just remember what you did when Spike wanted to dress up as Iron Stallion.”
It took several seconds, but eventually Twilight fired off a silver beam that enveloped the hornet and, ever so slowly, turned its body into steel.
“I did it!” Twilight cheered. She happily danced around, the sound of her armor clanging on the ground. Not that she cared as she was filled with levels of joy that she once thought only Pinkie Pie could be capable of.
WHAM!
As quickly as the joy filled her though, it left. Twilight felt herself go flying through her door, something that had taken a very long time to fix, and land on the floor with a thud. She looked up and saw that her attacker was the hornet.
And as is the case with any hornet, especially the one she happened to be experimenting on, it did what hornet’s do when they feel threatened.
It stung her with its metallic stinger.
“OHSWEETMETALLICCELESTIA!”
Experiment 4: Shrink
One tetanus shot later, Twilight returned to her laboratory. She immediately applied an extra strength steel-resistance spell on the barrier and fell onto the ground. “Ugh… you're the worst, hornet,” she grumbled from within her suit of armor.
The hornet stared at its reflection.
Twilight rolled her eyes and brought over a new spell book. She flipped through it and eventually slammed a hoof down onto a random spell.
“Shrink Spell: Basic.” Twilight shut the book and sat up. She fired off a beam of magic, which shrunk the hornet to the size of a gnat. It flew around for a bit and, eventually, landed back on the table.
“Well… at least it didn't backfire on me,” Twilight mused. She monitored the hornet for a few minutes. Indeed, the life and times of a gnat-sized hornet were… fascinating. At least, if you consider sitting on a table and looking at your own reflection fascinating. After a bit of watching the little insect, Twilight stretched her legs. She yawned and looked back over at the table.
To her astonishment, it was gone.
“Figures…” Twilight flicked on her goggles, if only to counteract the burden that was duct tape, and scanned the room. It didn't take long for her to find the hornet though, because within a few seconds of turning on her goggles, the insect landed on them.
“AH-HAH!” Twilight said. She fired off a regrowth spell, which hit the hornet.
And her goggles.
And the duct tape.
But not the helmet.
“Oh…” The goggles and duct tape fell to the ground, having regrown to the size that they were prior to being exposed to the mandatory industrial pony-sized reduction spell; which was a size meant for a minotaur.
The hornet, meanwhile, looked at the opening in Twilight’s helmet.
Then several windows shattered as screams of pain filled the air.
Experiment 5: Dancer
Twilight threw her fifty-ninth tube of ointment behind her. She had discarded her armor in favor of a hi-tech piece of equipment known as a stereo and trotted back into her laboratory. She set the item down onto a nearby table and hooked it up to an electrical outlet. She put a tape inside of the stereo and hit play, at which point Cotton-Eye Joe started to play. She immediately cast a spell on the hornet and waited.
It didn't take long for the hornet to start dancing. It moved its legs rapidly and spun around a few times as the music filled the room.
Before she knew it, Twilight herself has begun to dance. She took down the magical barrier and made her way over to the insect and the two began to dance together. Twilight took the hornet by one of its small legs and spun around in the air. Likewise, the hornet did the same; albeit with Twilight doing the majority of the work.
However, in her state of musical euphoria, Twilight reached out to spin her partner around once more, but instead ended up grabbing the stinger. Within the blink of an eye, the atmosphere of the laboratory went from that of a folk song to that of fifteen minutes ago.
Twilight reeled in pain. She shook her hoof wildly and watched as her dancing partner reverted back to normal as the dancing spell wore off. The hornet turned around and looked at her with as much visible disdain as a hornet could convey.
Then it made Twilight do a completely different dance.
“IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR COTTON-EYE JOE, I’D NOT BE IN SO MUCH PAIN!”
Experiment 6: Immolation
Once Twilight had managed to lure the hornet back onto its side of the laboratory and got it to stay there, she reinstated the barrier and took a break.
A break that involved the usual application of ointment and shedding of many tears.
But that had since past. It was now the present and Twilight had finished her preparations for the sixth experiment.
“Okay, the king-sized fire extinguishers are in place, as are the fire hoses and emergency water cannons that Pinkie loaned me.” Twilight levitated over her spell book and read over her next spell, which involved turning the hornet into a living wildfire—something that wasn't explicitly stated in the book.
“This is stupid, but I must know if it'll work on insects!” Twilight tossed the book aside and cast the spell on the hornet. An orange, wavy beam shot out of her horn and wrapped around the hornet and, after several seconds of swirling around, the insect burst into flames
As did the rest of that side of the lab.
“OHNO!” Twilight shrieked. She took down the top portion of the barrier, which resulted in an eruption of flames. She angled the cannons and fired them off.
Eventually, through the power of summoning extra-strength magic rain clouds, the fire was put out. The majority of the laboratory, along with the armor, which looked like it had become a beginner's attempt at making a branding iron, was gone.
Exhausted, and covered in soot, Twilight walked out of the smoke-filled laboratory and into her back-up lab: her bedroom. “Well… at least it worked,” she said as she entered it. She sat down on the floor and stared at it.
A few moments later, the hornet, which was still ablaze, flew over to Twilight and stung her in retaliation for setting it on fire.
“OHSWEETDAYBREAKER!”
Experiment 7: Transformation
Twilight opted to forego the ointment after she got the flaming hornet back behind a barrier in favor of bandaging her injury, after which she prepared for her seventh, and final, experiment.
“Okay, let's see here,” Twilight said as she looked over a spell. “Focus on your deepest desires and the feeling that drives you to overtake whatever stands on your way.”
The instructions sent a chill down Twilight's spine. They weren't like any of the other instructions that were given to cast spells she had seen in her time. At least, spells that weren't a part of some forbidden school of magic. Alas, this was the only spell that didn't turn the hornet into some carnivorous predator. So, she had to make do with it.
This is probably going to end poorly, Twilight thought, but science demands that I find out what will happen! Confidently, Twilight took a few steps back and took a few deep breaths before casting the spell. A red beam of magic flew out of her horn and devoured the hornet. A few moments later, the barrier shattered and the hornet shot out of the room.
“OHNO, NO, NO!” Twilight screamed. She ran out of her room and chased after the insect, which stretched in every which way, as though it were made of silly putty.
After a while though, the contortion ceased and the hornet started to change in a far less extreme way. Its coloration turned from its usual black and white to looking more like a weathered brick, its body elongated, and its antenna grew—but at the cost of its stinger, which fell off.
Twilight felt her blood run cold as she saw the hornet begin to finish its transformation and exit the castle. She ran out the front door and directly into Starlight.
“Oh, hello, Twilight!” Starlight said, surprised. “What's wrong?”
“W-Where did it go?” Twilight asked as she frantically looked around for the insect. “I must undo what I've caused!”
Starlight gulped. “Do… I dare ask what you've done?”
Before Twilight could speak, something caught her eye. A sight which made her pupils shrink and her eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.
Not far from Starlight's head, she saw it. The insect fluttered in place, seemingly mocking her, before it flew away into the wild blue yonder.
Twilight stood motionless as reality set in. It was too late. The hornet had completed its transformation.
Without a care in the world, the hornet, now fully transformed into a cockroach, flew off to the castle of the royal sisters; eager for something to eat.
And something to conquer.
