Chapters It was a calm clear day in Equestria. Birds were chirping, dogs were barking, and cows were talking about the weather.
Everypony was ready for the best day ever.
That was unfortunate.
Applejack was the first of the elements to arise from bed as she had a south field to harvest.
After loading the baskets into the cart, she greeted Big Macintosh who had agreed to help out.
"I am just so excited to get to the field. Aren't you excited?" She said unusually fast, "I haven't been this excited since that time you bet I couldn't buck all the trees in the east orchard, and I did, and you had to do my chores for a week."
"Eeyup," was all her brother said in reply, tho he took a mental note to keep an eye on her.
Just down the road was a small cottage. Inside a butter yellow pegasus was just waking up.
After feeding her animals she scooped up her grocery list, strapped on her saddle bag, and grabbed her pet bunny.
"Hold on tight," she warned, "Mommas gonna stretch her wings."
Angel bunny barely stood a chance as Fluttershy shot out the front door and did 3 loops followed by a barrel role, before aiming to Ponyville and accelerating to top speed.
Breaking the sound barrier just over the dress shop woke the local tailor. Who's attention to detail left her suspicious.
"My goodness Opal," She commented, "What in the hay is Rainbow dash doing up so early? Thats not like her. Why I'm more confused than a model at a photo shoot with too many photographers."
Opal just licked her paw and cast her cynical gaze to the sweet shop down the street. Where a very pink pony was just starting her day.
Pinkie made her way to the kitchen to start frosting cupcakes. Only to find that the vanilla frosting had run out.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed, "Of all the worst things that could happen! This is, the..! worst..! possible..! THING!!"
"We have more fronting in the back." assured Mrs. Cake with a worried look on her face, "We just got our delivery. I'll get it for you."
"Thank you, dear," said Pinkie, and she set to work without another word.
At the front of the store Mr. Cake unlocked the door just in time for Twilight to come in.
"Good morning," he said in his usual friendly tone, "What can I do for you?"
Twilight was speaking in a hushed whisper, "I'm here to pick up my order for this afternoon. I'm not too early am I, Oh I hope I'm not too early. I'm sorry."
"Your just in time," he assured scratching his head at her strange demeanor, "just frosted it myself, Its over here, and don't worry, Pinkie didn't see."
"Oh, thank you," Twi was still whispering, "I hope it wasn't too much trouble."
"No trouble at all," He laughed, "happy to help a valued customer. Especially the princess of friendship."
"Oh, thank you so much," She finally perked up a bit, but still below even her par.
"Don't mention it." He took her bits and handed her order over.
Just above in the clouds, Rainbow dash was still asleep.
It didn't take long before the town ponies started wondering about the mane 6, Rainbow was the only one observing the status quo and who knew what would happen when she woke up.
Mr. Cake in particular felt he had to get to the bottom of what was going on. His pastry chef was being a total drama queen, and his normally chatty favorite customer was shying away.
He wasn't sure how to go about it, but he knew something had to be done. So he invited all the freind's of the elements that he knew to Sugarcube Corner for a meeting.
"I bet your all wondering why I gathered you here." Said Mr. Cake to the room.
"Are you experimenting with a new recipe?" asked Spike hopefully.
"I'm afraid it's a bit more serious." he replied. "I think somebody put a spell on Pinkie and Twilight, and I hear tell their other friends are acting funny as well."
"Eeyup," interjected Big Macintosh.
"So what do we do?" asked Starlight Glimmer.
"That's why I called a meeting," replied Mr. Cake, "I really don't know. I was hoping somepony else had an idea, the floor is open for suggestion."
"I could send a letter to the princes." Spike offered.
"That's a good start," Mr. Cake agreed, "Dose anypony have a clue what happened to them?"
The room was awash with wild theories ranging from something in the watter to Discord playing around.
"I resent that" came a voice from the ceiling.
"Discord, you made it," said Tree Huger, "Radical."
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," said the draconequus as he flew down to a chair, "and thank you so much for letting me know our good friend -my best friend- was in trouble, I'm sure the rest of you think I did it."
"Nah," came Apple Blooms soft southern drawl, "I knew better," the crusaders all nodded.
"We wanted to invite you too," added Sweetie belle, "We didn't know how to reach you."
"Well isn't that swell?" he replied, "Its a good thing you called me, I assure you I would never do anything to Fluttershy like this, however, we are looking for somepony capable of chaos based magic, that rules out all the unicorns in town."
"And you have an Idea who it is?" asked Mr. Cake.
"I do," Discord confirmed, "Unfortunately, its a list."
"Then we better get that letter to the Princess and start looking that list over." Mr Cake said.
"Oh, yes," Discord agreed, tho most of the room detected sarcasm, "Celestia will save us,"
"You got a better idea?" asked Scootaloo.
"Oh, my, no." he admitted,"I do agree she needs to be brought in, I just don't expect her to Know the answer right away. She may be the most powerful one, but shes still just a pony, she knows little of Chaos,"
3- What to do, what to do?
"I couldn't possibly, oh how do I get out of here?" Starlight muttered to herself.
The former queen of the changelings was staring her down, and the whole room was now staring at her angrily, convinced she was to blame for the whole mess, and not even the princesses could help her.
For the first time since her graduation, starlight felt as tho she had no hope. She had proven herself a leader, but who was she to lead? She truly felt alone.
"I already got us out," came Discords usually snide tone, "You can open your eyes."
Starlight slowly opened her eyes revealing a totally different room.
It seemed to be an unfamiliar living room. Perfectly normal aside from the furniture on the ceiling, floating furniture, stairway that went nowhere... OK, normal isn't the word, must be Discords place.
"But, how..?" she started talking but was cut off.
"Oh, Starlight, even you should be familiar with a teleportation spell." Discord but in.
"I mean how were you not effected by that brainwashing spell?" she retorted.
Discord let out his usual chuckle, clearly amused at her bewilderment. His face went serious before he spoke. "If that vile insect thinks she can pull the wool over MY eyes she has QUITE another thing coming. Give me 10 minutes and Ill have the others back too so we can so we can fix this mess and get Fluttershy back."
"What others?" asked Starlight.
"Well, I couldn't take the whole room but we need help. This kind of counter spell requires a close connection," Discord explained, "so I brought Tree Huger, and those little crusader foals."
"Will they really be able to help?" She asked.
"I'm not sure yet but they were the obvious picks," he assured.
"How so?" Starlight was skeptical, she didn't really know Tree Huger, only heard Fluttershy speak fondly of her, and the crusaders were just foals.
"They were closest to us." Discord teased, "Its also a good sample group of friends, Treesie and I are friends with Fluttershy, and if I'm not mistaken the foals are sisters of three other elements, not to mention your connection to Twilight."
"That only leaves Pinkie," Starlight was astonished, "and she's friends with everypony. Discord, your a genius."
"Well I know I'm a genius," Discord grinned, but it quickly faded into a serious expression, "but this one was just luck, I don't like getting by on luck. We Need a to do something, and, as much as I hate to admit it, I cant just snap this away. My plan started with getting us here and ends when the team has their correct memories back. So if you have any ideas how we can stop Chrysalis, you can think them threw while I'm in the other room, but the real question is if its worth trying to realign the elements first."
"Not going to be easy, we still don't know that much about changelings," Starlight rubbed a hoof on her chin, "Any way we could get in touch with Thorax?"
But Discord had already left the room. Leaving Starlight with her thoughts.
This had to be easier than they were making it, they beat her when she had an entire army, and a magic absorbing throne. Now shes on her own. She had to be vulnerable. She had to have a weakness. There had to be a way to stop her.
But how? If Celestia and Luna had already failed. How could starlight hope to succeed?
How about the other problem. How exactly were the elements 'mixed up'?
Sure, Twilight had been acting all shy, But that dosn't really mean anything. Come to think of it tho, she also wasnt interested in reading. Not even her new Daring Doo book. That was concerning.
Her only ideas now were a) Get in touch with Thorax and hope he had an idea, or b) Get Twilight back and hope she had an idea.
Starlight concluded that she had no ideas, hopefully Discord had one.
Author's Note
Just want to say, I am no writer. This is a hobby of mine when I cant sleep after a late shift. Until now I never let anyone else read what I wrote.
This was going to be a one shot, to see if anyone liked my writing and if it was worth posting, but it grew a little. Still working on the end but I don't plan to drag it out too long.
I hope people like what I have so far, and whats to come.
4- We have a plan... Sorta.
Rainbow dash was in the middle of an AMAZING book about the history of pony agriculture when she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Sawdust, the local carpenter. Rainbow seemed to remember he liked watching her in the park, he was a nice guy. It did seem a little strange, all she liked to do in the park was read, right? Why would he watch that?
The stallion cleared his throat prompting Rainbow to look his way.
"Aren't you going to show your friend how its done?" He was pointing to Fluttershy, "You must have already shown her a few tricks the way shes flying today."
"I have no idea what your talking about," She turned back to her book, "Now if you'll excuse me."
The stallion gave a confused expression but gave up and walked away.
His brief expression closely matched that of Starlight. Only hers wasn't shaken off so easily. Discord didn't have any ideas to stop Chrysalis, however, he knew the exact counter spell to fix the girls, once Chrysalis wasn't able to stop them.
It was actually a simple potion, but it HAD to be put in the effected ponies hoof by somepony they shared a connection with. Hence the luck at finding a group. The connection didn't have to be strong, but it had to be irrefutable.
In a shocking twist, Discord laid out the plan with him giving the potion to Pinkie, and Tree Huger administering Fluttershy's dose.
"Trust me I don't like it," explained the moping spirit of chaos, "but the connection must be irrefutable, and I cant be sure it would work with me handing 2 potions out," he was dramatically waving his arms around, reminiscent of Rarity, or was that Pinkie? The spell had Starlight all confused, "Treesie and Fluttershy are good friends, not as good as I, but I cant refute it, however, Pinkie being friends with everypony is refutable."
"So, Whats your connection?" Starlight had to ask.
"Why," He acted as tho offended, "our love of chocolate milk filled cotton candy clouds, of course."
"Of coarse," Starlight sighed.
The only thing left was stopping the dethroned monarch. Getting in touch with Thorax wasn't going to happen. Chrysalis had made sure that line was cut, and bringing Twilight back couldn't be done until after the fact, 'The Casters Defeat' was another requirement for the potion to work.
"Wait a minute," Starlight had just come to a realization, "Didn't we defeat her once already?"
Discord started to laugh at the naive comment, but then scratched his chin. It seemed he remembered something about the origin of this spell that applied to this.
"You may actually have a point," Discord admitted, "Legend has it this spell was created as an act of revenge, but it was easily fixed by finding a pony that played a part in the initial incident."
"So we can get the elements help," Starlight said, "I don't think we can do this without them, unless I'm allowed to blow her head off..." Starlight secretly hoped the room cheered for it.
"As much as I like that idea," Discord smiled, "It wouldn't be very reformed of us."
"I hate to throw off the vibe," Tree Huger interrupted the shared thought of squashing the insect in the way, "aren't you a wanted criminal?"
"Oh yea," Starlight moaned, "We cant just walk into the park and hand out drinks."
Author's Note
Things after witch you do not want to hear the word sorta.
Could be worse.
Your going to live........
5- Whats gotten into the townsponies?
Pinkie was confused, she was really happy to be with her friends, but she didn't know how to express it, she just looked to her friends. Rarity seemed confused as well.
Rarity was indeed as confused as a photographer in a tornado, she didn't even know where these vaguely county analogies were coming from. Perhaps if she weren't a city pony they would be full blown countrieisms.
That would be worse than a blown seem on the day of the show. Oh, she couldn't take it anymore, but she had no idea how else to show her displeasure at the situation.
She was overwhelmed with the sense that everything was as normal as a designer coming out with a new line. Even that made her uneasy, things with her friends were always great, but normal wasn't the word.
She could tell Pinkie and Twilight were also troubled, and Rainbow couldn't focus on her book ever since that handsome stallion with the silver saw-blade shaped mane talked to her.
Only Apple Jack and Fluttershy didn't look confused, and AJ was too busy cheering Fluttershy on.
She decided to see if Twilight had anything to say on the issue.
"Um, Twilight," She started, "Is it just me or is everything too normal? Its bothering me more than a popped stitch."
"Oh, um, I guess so," Twilight whispered. "I mean, something seems off, if that's what you mean. because feeling this normal doesn't seem normal."
"I know," Rarity agreed, "Do you think somepony has put a spell on us?"
"Oh, I don't know," Twilight said softly, "who would do that?"
"Discord, Trixie, Queen Chrysalis, and Starlight to name a few." Rarity rattled off the names off the top of her heads of magical ponies that may be pulling a prank, or take revenge.
"That seems unlikely," Twilight said.
"Not really," Rainbow butted in, "The Ponies around are acting as if were acting strange, when they like watching ponies read."
"No, he likes watching you fly," Pinkie corrected, being the one who knew what everypony liked.
"Since when do I fly at the park?" Asked Rainbow, "I'm too busy reading."
"Reading is for eggheads like Twilight," interrupted Rumble, "Can you help me? My brother is busy and I need a few pointers on my new move."
"Why don't you ask Fluttershy?" Rainbow asked.
"Because shes not a Wanderboldt," Rumble looked around the park, "OK good one guys, the gig is up, you can switch back now."
"What are you talking about?" Rarity asked, "Your making as much sense as a parka in a summer line."
"I'm sorry," said Twilight, "I didn't know I was tricking you, I'll try not to."
"OK, I'm officially freaked out," Rumble was slowly backing away, "Bye." He turned and flew away at full speed.
"Well, we better go study up on why everypony is acting so weird," Rainbow suggested, "Its bothering me that everypony thinks I'm into flying."
"OK," Twilight gave in easily, "But I don't think anything is really wrong, so I don't see why we have to read, but I wont argue."
"I'll take any chance to study," Rainbow was getting excited.
"Why that's as normal as a hat in spring," Rarity was getting really tired of the random citieisms as she decided to call the dreadful things. They couldn't be normal.
They had her more frustrated than a tailor trying to do a fitting for somepony that can't stay still.
Applejack was having more fun than that time she met Twilight, and it happened to be her family reunion, so she got to introduce her new friend to the whole apple family right away, and she even stayed for brunch, but really. Who could top that?
All her friends were doing their favorite things and they were all together. What could be better?
She was too busy cheering for Fluttershy to notice anything else.
Like the rest of her friends leaving. For one.
Or the aerial performer being replaced by a group of napkins folding themselves in mid air. It was still dazzling.
"But, where are the others?" Starlight asked frantically, "Weren't you all a the park?"
"Ah thought we were," Said Applejack noticing her new setting.
"Whats going on," Asked Fluttershy, "Weren't we just at the park?"
"This wont do," Said Discord dramatically, "We need all of them. Where did the other 4 go?"
"They went to Twilight's library," Fluttershy announced.
"How did you notice that but I didn't?" Applejack asked.
"Gotta pay attention to everything to stay safe in the air," She replied.
"WOW! Fluttershy!" Applejack started bouncing, "That's amazing."
"OK, New plan," Starlight suggested, "We teleport to Twilight's castle, its gotta be safe enough inside, and were that much closer to Chrysalis to defeat her again."
"Fair enough, But we better move quickly." Replied Discord snapping his fingers.
In a flash the whole group was sitting around a table at Twilight's library. The missing 4 with the exception of Twilight had their noses deep in books. Twilight seemed to be trying to find motivation to pick her book up.
"Alright," announced Discord, "Lets all hand out the Potions."
Each member of the group approached their intended recipient, who all surprisingly took the bottle and drank without question. Within moments everypony was back to their old self.
"What happened?" asked Twilight, "Were you trying to pull a fast one, Discord?"
"As much as I would love to take credit, I'm not the only pest out there." He smiled.
"So, who?" Asked Fluttershy back to her adorable whisper.
"Who do you think?" From out of nowhere Chrysalis appeared, not even bothering with the Celestia ruse.
"Ya know," Twilight said, "I'm getting sick of this one. Where did you take the princesses this time?"
"How rude," Chrysalis scoffed, "Like I'd tell you."
"So, what are you after?" Asked Twilight.
"I'm here to make Starlight as miserable as possible." She chuckled, "Don't you know what revenge is? I think I'll start by putting you all back, only Ill shuffle it differently this time."
The insects horn began to glow until it was stricken by a bolt from Discords finger gun.
"I've allowed this to go on for far too long," said the exasperated spirit of chaos, "I actually believed you had a plan, there was room for so much more chaos in there," he approached the stunned bug queen and took her by the horn, she seemed unable to move. "I don't need you to tell me where they are." he waved his lion paw in front of her eyes, "The title Lord of Chaos mean anything to you, I did have to earn it." Within moments a parchment appeared in Discords paw, he passed it to Starlight, "Here's a map to find them in.... The crystal caves below Canterlot, you really have NO imagination."
"You'll pay for thi..." Chrysalis' new vow of revenge was cut off by Twilight hitting her with a spell breaking her horn off. She quickly ran away.
"Twilight!" Starlight gasped.
"I know, I cant believe I missed either," Twilight said, "That was supposed to blow her head off."
They both laughed, "I got this." Starlight ran outside and cast a magic beam to the vacant field Chrysalis was heading toward.
"What spell is that?" Twilight inquired.
"Just a little stabilized lightning." Starlight replied as a nearly straight electric beam hit the field continuously.
The small figure that was clearly Chrysalis was visibly distracted by this bolt, slowing her pace and drawing near it. As she made contact there was a loud POP! and the bolt flashed before going out and letting the charred chitin fall to the ground.
"If we would have known we could do that this would have been over quicker." Discord scoffed.
"Well I'm very proud of both of you for not resorting directly to such means." said Twilight wearing her pleased face, witch quickly turned into a scowl. "Even I have to admit that was less trouble than seeing her next revenge scheme."
"So what became of Chrysalis?" asked Celestia trying to piece the whole thing together.
Twilight and Starlight looked at each other. Neither was sure weather or not to admit the truth.
"Shes um," Starlight thought for a moment, then decided to go with her gut, "She's dead." Her gut said not to go into detail.
"OH." Celestia was surprised, "I didn't think you would... I'm saddened by this but am glad the threat to Equestria is neutralized. Now tell me. What is the nature of this spell Chrysalis used on the elements? How did it mix them up without effecting their cutie marks?"
Discord cleared his throat, "The spell had 2 effects, first was to take the most prevalent personality traits and randomly distribute them among the group. The second is to keep the effected in the dark. No matter how much they try to figure out whats wrong they are overwhelmed by the thought 'Everything is normal', thus, they are not themselves, but everything is normal. Only the most perceptive ponies can even get an inclination that anything is wrong. These bunch did well to even end up looking into it, even if that did complicate the cure. However, the only way it effects talent is when the trait is an interest, that you already studied. Example, Fluttershy got Rainbows interest in flight. She may not be a natural but she did go to flight school. The spell made it as tho she had that interest all along and applied that learning more."
"So that explains the notes we all took." Twilight said, "Here's the most useful part... 'The most likely spell is the entireum normalus described in the unabridged tome of normality, the causes everything to be normal, so long as normality is normal. Based on this we can determine that everything is normal, meaning that nothing is abnormal. In conclusion, everything is normal.' "
"Who wrote that and how is it useful?" asked Rainbow.
"You, and it at least it mentions a spell," Twilight explained, "Rarity took second place but her notes were full of sewing analogies, I didn't even take any!"
"Yes, the spell takes the trait away, so when Rainbow got your love of books, you lost all interest in them." Discord explained.'
"I guess that only leaves one thing," Celestia said, "What was her master plan? How was she going to spin this in her advantage?"
"That's hard to say," Starlight admitted.
"I think I have an idea," Discord, chimed in, "She was under the impression that, since she was taking all the love that was normally distributed among the hive, she was more powerful than any of us, and could just continue tormenting Starlight like a toy."
"Luckily she has powerful friends," Celestia smiled, knowing full well how easily he could of taken over Equestria with the groundwork Chrysalis laid out. She wouldn't mention it tho.
"Is sure is," Was all Discord would say to that. He wasn't going to mention it either.
What would Discord want with Equestria? He had Fluttershy.
Twilight had been looking forward to a picnic with her friends all day, tho, something felt off.
She felt as tho she had done something wrong, but didn't know what.
Had she forgotten something? No, Spike was nice enough to make that check list and go over it with her. Was she rude to Mr. Cake? He didn't act like it.
So why did things feel wrong? She assured herself she was being silly as she reached the park where her friends were waiting.
'See, everything is fine.' she told herself as she saw her friends waiting. 'AJ is jumping around excited, just like normal. Fluttershy is doing tricks like she always dose, as rarity watches and cheers her on like she always dose. Pinkie is on her fainting couch, oh no, something dramatic happened. Celestia is in her chariot overhead, moving toward town. and last but not least Rainbow has her nose in a history book.' She was being silly, everything was normal.
She walked up and joined her friends trying not to interrupt any of them.
Back at Sugarcube Corner things were not going well. Discords list was a mile long and no leads were found in narrowing it down.
Everypony was relieved when they heard Celestias chariot land outside.
"Thank you so much for coming, your majesty," Said Mr. Cake greeting her at the door. "We Don't even know where to begin figuring out how to reverse this spell, we don't even have a clue who would have done this."
"I believe I may be able to help with that," said the large white pony, "I already know who it was."
"Oh, my, princess," Said Discord, "you impress even me." The tone in his voice said he knew something the others didn't
The white Alicorn laughed, "Its simple," She said, her voice beginning to hiss, "It was ME!"
The white coat of the princess was transformed into a black chitin, and her flowing hair turned a sickly green.
"Queen Chrysalis?!?" said Starlight shocked.
"I told you I'd be back for revenge," She hissed, "and now with all the elements mixed up, and the princesses tied up, Nopony will stop me,"
"You wont get away for long. There's no way you can replace Luna and Celestia, and ponies have already noticed the elements acting odd." Starlight called back.
"Oh, I have a plan for that," Chrysalis laughed. "and your not going to like it." in a flash she turned back into the princess of the sun,
Starlight looked around the room and everyone else had a blank look, but was staring in wrapped attention at the imposter.
"STARLIGHT GLIMMER!" She shouted, "as if breaking into the castle library of forbidden spells wasn't bad enough, you kidnapped my sister when she tried to stop you, What have you to say for yourself?"