Size Up Starlight

A large group of ponies had collected in front of Trixie's empty stage, seated on the grass in the early morning. Multiple voices echoed and overlapped each other incoherently as multiple curious stallions and mares discussed Trixie's previous events, and collectively wondered how she could possibly top her last act. Some ponies already took a biased skeptical view on the show before it even began, while other ponies were excited to see what Trixie could come up with next. The rest were simply there for the entertainment.

Suddenly, the lights in front of the stage dimmed, causing the early rising sun to dimly lit the stage with it's naturally red simmering haze. The chattering of the audience stopped as the sound of a fizzling was heard behind the stage. A loud bang soon followed, along with more bangs, as beautiful streaks of various colors flew up into the air and exploded into fantastic fireworks that appeared extremely bright in contrast to the early morning sky. They gasped as they stared at the flashes explode in the sky. Their attention was soon brought back to earth as an explosion of purple dust filled the stage.

When the dust dissipated, standing right in the middle of the stage, was a blue-coated mare in her now-iconic purple magician coat and hat. The fireworks stopped above, allowing the audience to focus more on the female performer standing on stage. The performer raised her hat dramatically and addressed the audience loudly.

"Come one, come all, and witness another stunning performance by the great, and powerful, Trrrixie!" The performer stood up on her hind legs, raising her front hooves to excite the audience. Most ponies began clapping as another small round of rainbow-colored fireworks set off just above the stage.

Trixie grinned as she saw the audience clapping their hooves excitedly. This was it, the stage was hers now, and the audience was caught right where she wanted them to be. She raised a quick hoof up, silencing the crowd.

"Look closely, you wonderful audience, as the great and powerful Trixie performs a spell that has since been proven impossible by any form of unicorn magic... the now patented... never-seen-before... Trixie Teacup Duplication Trick!"

The audience gasped as Trixie slowly pulled out an adorably pink little teacup from her cape. Her cape rose up as if a magical wind blew through it, showing the audience that there indeed was no other hidden teacup on her body.

"Watch, and hold your breath, as Trixie re-creates this tiny tea-cup.... OUT OF NOTHING!"

There was a loud commotion in the audience. Some ponies excitedly began discussing loudly if she could actually do it, while skeptical ponies instantly began to slander and heckle the trick as impossible. Either-way, the entire crowd was urging her on. Trixie had to raise her seemingly empty hoof to silence the crowd once again, posing dramatically as she did so.

She then appeared to focus intensely on the tea cup, slowly waving it around. She could see at the corner of her eyes that the crowd was following her cup, trying to carefully see what would happen next. This was exactly what Trixie wanted, so she made a quick movement of the teacup in front of the audience, and with a sudden puff of magic from seemingly nowhere (her horn was hidden under her hat) another duplicate teacup appeared in her other hoof. She then stood up proudly holding both teacups. The crowd went eerily silent.

A unicorn stallion in the audience suddenly stood up. "From my advanced research of magic, that puff of magic was that of an actual transfiguration spell! I can't believe it! She actually did it!"

With this, the crowd went wild. The skeptical hecklers were drowned out by the immense clapping and cheering from her audience. This was truly her best trick yet. Trixie took a polite bow in front of the audience as they cheered. "Thank you, thank you, you are such a wonderful audience!"

Trixie wished that the cheering would never end, but she had to get on with the grand finale. She couldn't lose their interest now, so she raised her hoof, again in a dramatic pose, causing the crowd to simmer down silently. The sun had risen father into the sky at this point, and the darkness had now been replaced with your average daytime visibility.

"And now, for Trixie's next trick... She will now re-perform the Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive..."

There was a quick small groan from the audience, as they had already seen this trick before.

"...On a real, breathing, Ursa Minor!" Trixie finished. It definitely got the audience's attention, as they all gasped collectively and began talking.

"Ah great," a loud orange female earth pony grumbled from within the crowd, "It's gonna be this ol' nonsense again!"

"She can't possibly!" agreed the white unicorn beside her, "After last time, too!"

Trixie smirked. "These ponies have no idea..." Trixie rose a hoof, mostly to hide her own childish giggle from the crowd, and used her magic to set off a large explosion of fireworks, this time the fireworks exploded into the shape of an Ursa Minor, crouched on all fours, appearing to roar with it's mouth open.

The loud crowd soon became silent once again when a loud tremor shoot the ground beneath them. The tables which served food on the side shook, and one gluttonous pony even dropped her bucket of hay from the mini-earthquake.

Trixie grinned at the audience as the loud tremors repeated after each other, growing more intense every time. It became obvious that something massive, absolutely massive, was walking their way...

The audience were quick to huddle each other fearfully as they heard a massive roar that shook the entire field around them. Suddenly, they saw the head of a massive dark-blue bear peep out from the tops of the trees, looking down at the audience with a wide, grizzly look. It took careful steps over the tree-line, stepping next to the stage and perching it's rear onto the ground below like a trained dog, towering over the entire stage as if it were a dollhouse, all the while staring devilishly at the ponies below. Trixie gave a subtle wink up at the 'Ursa Minor', and then turned to inspect the audience.

There were no hecklers anymore, only petrified and amazed audience-members now. Trixie grinned even further, her plan was working.

"Now that Trixie has your attention, Trixie welcomes you to her trained pet. Excuse Trixie... her trained URSA MINOR." She turned to look up at the 'Ursa Minor', "Come now, Trixie's pet! Give a terrifying roar for the audience!"

The 'Ursa Minor' looked down at the audience. It twiddled it's 'thumbs' nervously for just a quick moment before arching forwards to release a loud roar that shook the entire audience once again. Even Trixie stumbled slightly on the stage from the shaking.

The audience screamed and huddled each other tighter. They were absolutely convinced that this 'Ursa Minor' was under Trixie's control.

With a purple glow, Trixie levitated her stage curtains to reveal the same cannon that she had used in her Moonshot Manticore Mouth Dive performance. She pushed it forwards to the edge of the stage, and aimed it up at the 'Ursa Minor.'

The 'Ursa' rubbed it's 'paw' on the ground nervously. It didn't appear comfortable with the whole ordeal, but the audience was too distracted by the sharp zig-zag of teeth and permanent scowl on it's face to notice it's subtle body movements.

Trixie had finished positioning the cannon and began loading herself inside it. As she prepared, the 'Ursa' looked around at the audience shyly. Suddenly the 'Ursa' noticed a very particular purple alicorn within the audience and shivered a little, and then focused back on Trixie.

Trixie had been lighting the fire to her cannon and had no idea that the Princess of Friendship had been watching the whole time. She peeped her head out of the cannon one final time to face the audience.

"Watch in awe, as Trixie shoots herself into the gaping maws of this terrifying beast, and escapes from that box over there, completely unharmed!"

The audience, still huddled together for safety, stared on quietly.

The cannon's lit fuse began it's own countdown to launch, slowly eroding away from the tip and reaching the cannon's base. Trixie shoved herself deep into the cannon and prepared for the worst.

The 'Ursa', as practiced, opened her mouth wide open high above the stage, staying still and concentrated on the performer. Suddenly, another unexpected tremor shook the stage.

Trixie was extremely annoyed and whispered angrily from within the charging cannon. "Starlight, will you stop moving the stage? Focus!"

There was no response. Starlight Glimmer, who was disguised under her 'Ursa Minor' hologram, was frozen in place. She had obviously not caused the tremors. Her open mouth was now open in absolute shock and terror as another tremor hit the ground.

Something had approached the performance stage and casted a very, very big shadow on the whole thing. Starlight, under her disguise, had to look up to look at the eyes on this uninvited guest. The thing looked even more horrifying than her disguise did. It also looked like a giant bear, but it had a lot of folds and wrinkles, with two extremely sharp teeth that surpassed it's own jaw twice in size. It had it's own strange looking transparency to it's body, with many magical constellations floating in it's plentiful purple fur. Most frighteningly of all was the fact that this thing was standing at more than double than Starlight's height at a whopping one hundred and twenty feet when standing on it's two legs... and it didn't look very happy with the performance involving an 'Ursa Minor'.

It was an Ursa Major, and it was furious.

Suddenly, everything seemed to happen at once. The audience scattered away almost immediately at the sight of the Ursa Major, running in terror towards Ponyville, except for a very specific group of six ponies and their tiny dragon. The Ursa Major lowered a mighty claw down, smashing Trixie's stage into a smithereens with one hit. Just before the Major's massive claw struck, Trixie's cannon had shot Trixie out of the danger zone just in time, straight into the mouth of a bewildered and frozen Starlight Glimmer.

Starlight clenched her teeth tightly in terror as the stage became absolutely flattened by the massive Ursa Major claw in front of her. She backed away and suddenly felt a very strange tingly feeling tickling her tongue.

Starlight heard Trixie's frantic voice echoing inside her head, "TELEPORT TELEPORT TELEPORT TELEPORT!" Poor Trixie had been holding onto the tip of Starlight's tongue for dear life! Starlight quickly cast a teleportation spell, teleporting Trixie onto her nose for safety. She saw Trixie lay on her nose weakly, who's body was unfortunately wet and unsightly slimey now from the saliva that covered her. Trixie was just glad to be alive at this point and could barely concentrate on anything else at that moment.

Meanwhile the Ursa Major let out an ear-deafening roar towards the direction of Ponyville. As far as it was concerned, these evil ponies were using a poor Ursa Minor, one of it's kind, as some kind of plaything for a performance. It was absolutely furious, and it's eyes were red and set in an unimaginable rage. It immediately had Ponyville in it's sights and began slowly marching it's massive heavy body towards it for revenge.

Starlight, safe under the Ursa Minor disguise, watched terrified and helplessly as the Ursa Major slowly marched and smashed the ground with every step towards Ponyville. It was that moment that Starlight suddenly felt a strange feeling inside her building up, as if fueled by the intense fear of the moment mixing with a strong magic spell that she wasn't aware of. With a sudden trembling surge that shook the ground ever so gently, Starlight's entire body began to grow. Higher and higher she felt herself increase in size, which heightened her sense of danger. She watched the Ursa Major take closer steps towards Ponyville, and saw it tear off a roof from Carousel Boutique, a shop that Rarity, a friend of Twilight's, owned.

Her holographic disguise fell apart from her increased size, as she found herself growing even taller than the Ursa Major in front of her. Her hooves left large heavy imprints on the empty grass fields below her, imprints as large as streets themselves, as she soon began to cast a shadow over the Ursa Major as she stopped at two hundred feet tall. She didn't intend to start her growth, let alone stop it, she didn't seem to have any control over the growth spurt at all. But once it stopped, Starlight decided to use her situation to her advantage, to keep Ponyville safe.

To keep her friends safe.

Making one last check to see that Trixie was still safe on the bridge of her nose, Starlight then loomed over the now confused Ursa Major. The monster stopped in it's tracks, darting it's red eyes at the sudden pony-shaped shadow that covered half of Ponyvile under it. It then slowly raised it's head up to look at whatever was looming above her. The Ursa Major's view slowly began to comprehend that it was being stared down at by a giant light-pink coated pony which was, somehow, twice it's size.

"Alright, miss Major," Starlight began confidently while staring down at the bewildered Ursa Major, "We're either going to do this the easy way, or the hard way."

The Ursa Major furrowed it's ugly thick eyebrows angrily. It may have been outsized, but it seemed determined to not go down without a fight. It roared up at Starlight's face, and swung a dangerously sharp massive claw at Starlight.

Starlight jumped just in time to avoid the swing of the Ursa Major's claw, accidentally causing a large earthquake that shook a few signs off in Ponyville. She let out an honest "Oops!" and then faced the Ursa Major, lowering her head down while powering up a magic spell onto it.

The Ursa Major raised it's thick fat arms up, ready to absorb any damage thrown at it. After a few seconds of nothing hitting it, it looked at Starlight with an evil grin. That was, of course, until it realized it was floating upwards weightlessly.

Barely breaking a sweat, Starlight towered over Ponyville at two hundred feet, easily levitating up the hundred-foot Ursa Major with her magic. She took slow steps towards the edge of the Everfree forest, which barely reached up her to her calves at this point, and simply levitated the giant Ursa Major into the depths of the forest, finding a suitable cave for it to lay in peacefully.

Starlight's horn then stopped glowing from the levitation spell, and she let out a huge sigh which caused a strong gust of wind to flutter the leaves on many Everfree trees below her. She then turned around and, looking at the ground for every step she'd make, realized that a large astonished group of ponies, both from the performance and those who happened to be on the outskirts of town, were looking up at Starlight with awe and wonder. Little fillies dropped their ice cream and ponies had exited their homes to look up at this two hundred foot tall unicorn standing in front of Ponyville.

Starlight felt nervous. They didn't appear to be scared or anything, the towns-ponies just... stared up at her. She expected them to run in terror from her massive size, but somehow the lack of fear from these ponies made her feel even more awkward, because she didn't know what to say.

"Well..." Starlight began shyly, "I just wanted to say, to you all, that I'm, erm, sorry for scaring you all, and if there's anything I could..."

Before she could finished, a loud roar of cheering ponies echoed around her. These ponies weren't afraid, they were thankful! She could hear ponies calling out her name, and the realization hit her. These ponies KNEW she was still Starlight, and that they were thankful that she had just saved them from the almost-devastating Ursa Major attack. Starlight felt bashful and blushed intensely, she wasn't used to compliments, especially not from almost an entire town at once.

Meanwhile, on Starlight's furry nose, Trixie had dried herself off and was coming back to her senses. She looked over and had a great view of Ponyville from up upon Starlight's muzzle. Upon noticing that Ponyville was intact and well, she looked back between Starlight's eyes (she couldn't decide which one to look at, because they were too big) and asked, "Starlight, where did that big mean Ursa Major go?"

"Oh, well..." Starlight stuttered, still hearing the cheering happening below her hooves, "I had another random growth spurt, and I used it to my advantage to just levitate the thing back into the forest."

"Humm.." Trixie thought to herself, while making herself even more comfortable perched upon Starlight's big cute nosey, "it appears your magical abilities really do scale up with your size. But Trixie wonders, why did you grow again?"

"I've no idea, Trixie! I.. erm..." Starlight's voiced trailed off as she looked over at the other tiny pony specs on the ground still thanking her for saving them. "Okay, guys, really," she told them, "it really was nothing, you can stop thanking me now..." She turned her eyes back to Trixie, still blushing, "I really don't know."

Trixie rested her hooves behind her head, getting super comfy. "Did you eat anything strange, maybe?"

Starlight rubbed her chin, making sure not to hit anything else when putting her hoof back down. "Well, I did eat a bunch of flowers while you were gone, I was going a little nutty without food yesterday."

"Hmmm.." Trixie pondered, stressing her eyebrows thoughtfully, and then shrugged. "Trixie has no ideas."

Starlight groaned a little, but then felt something tiny poke one of her back hooves. She carefully arched downwards to look at who was poking her hoof. She gulped when she realized who it was.

It was Twilight Sparkle and her other friends.

"Oh boy." Starlight thought. She slowly turned herself around and lowered her head shamefully down near Twilight. Her head was bigger than houses and easily took up most of her friend's field of vision.

"Starlight..." Twilight asked softly, "What's... going on here?"

"Yeaah..." Starlight began silently "Well, it mighta, kinda, sorta, maybe have something to do with a spell I casted earlier to contain the magical energy of three hundred poison joke plants..."

"...And?" Twilight egged on, arching her eyebrow almost off her face.

"And it kinda maybe exploded in the library and is currently trapped inside of me, and somehow made me grow into a fifty foot... erm... two hundred foot tall unicorn."

"Uh-huh..." Twilight said with a gentle nod. She paused as if understanding it perfectly, with a neutral expression locking her face as she processed it carefully.

"UH HUH???" Twilight blurted out. "You WHAT?"

"Yeah.." Starlight said hastily while unintentionally balancing Trixie on her massive snout, "I guess I kinda really messed up again, huh?"

Twilight couldn't take this. She heaved her hoof in front of her chest and took deep breaths to try and cope with the insanity of the situation. "Four days. I've been gone for FOUR days." Twilight spluttered to herself in between panicked breaths.

"Yup..." Starlight said quietly in an embarrassed way, looking up ever so innocently. "A lot can happen in a few days."

Twilight looked extremely concerned all of a sudden. "Are you hurt? Do you feel like you're gonna explode? Do you feel weak? Have you hurt anypony by mistake? Do you feel like you're being taken over by an evil entity that slowly brainwashes you into becoming a super-evil being that will destroy everything?"

Starlight looked slightly confused from Twilight's worried rambling. "Uh, I'm going to have to check 'No' on all that. I feel fine, really. I'm just, erm, big."

"This is big, like REALLY big!" Twilight exclaimed while flailing her arms. "You won't even be able to fit inside Canterlot like this! Why didn't you tell me about this?!"

"I was... going to....?" Starlight lied adorably. Twilight groaned and face-hoofed in annoyance.

"Okay, listen," Twilight began, after calming down a little, "We'll take you to Zecora's to see if she can give you an antidote. We really can't have you being this big, it... it just won't be good for you. You can't join your friends inside buildings, you'd have to sleep outside when it rains, also you might scare everypony or accidentally hurt somepony!"

"Hey!" a random fat orange pony called out from afar, "That friend of yours just saved us all from an evil monster, give her a break!"

Fluttershy, who had been standing there this entire time, decided to speak up. "I, uhm, don't mean to interrupt you when you're upset, Twilight, but, uhm... Almost everypony in Ponyvile knows Starlight. Nopony's going to be scared of her."

Fluttershy looked up at Starlight's adorably giant face with a little shy smile, "In fact, I feel a little safe seeing one of my good friends being so big and, well, uhm, big."

Pinkie Pie bounced up from behind Twilight and landed right beside her excitedly. "Besides, don't you think it'd be cool to have a biiiig friend to play on! Imagine how fun it'd be to slide down her hair!"

"It's an absolutely fantastic and entertaining experience, better than Trixie's performances, she must admit!" Trixie called out, who was still snuggling up on Starlight's cute big nosey.

"See? Maybe you're over-reacting a little, Twilight." Pinkie Pie said confidently.

Twilight shook her head. "No no no. We're taking her straight to Zecora's, this is no way for her to live. She's our friend, not some kind of funfair ride. Come on girls, we're going to Zecora's hut right now."

"Well, I appreciate that, Twilight." Starlight admitted. "Those things you mentioned... Well I've been a little afraid that they might happen, so maybe it's best we find a cure. Do you maybe... need a lift?"

Twilight's friends seemed excited to ride on Starlight's back, but Twilight was visibly uncomfortable as Starlight levitated her onto her back.

"Come on Twilight, this really isn't thaat bad," Starlight reassured. "So I'm insanely tall. I'm sure it's temporary, and I really don't mind the attention and snuggling from ponies I trust."

"Well, it's just..." Twilight began to admit, "I'm just not used to it. I'm used to treating you as a friend and respecting your boundaries."

"I really appreciate that Twilight," Starlight said as she began walking into the Everfree Forest with her friends sitting comfortably on her back, "But you should understand that I really don't mind these things, so really, sit back and relax. I do owe you all after all the things you've done for me." Starlight stopped suddenly, giving Trixie a soft little boop with her massive hoof on her nose, "especially you, Trixie, you sweet little performer you~"

Trixie squirmed on Starlight's furry nose, enjoying the attention immensely. "Oh yes, Starlight, Trixie is more than happy to have front-row seats on the Starlight friendship express."

Starlight giggled and continued walking deeper into the Everfree forest towards Zecora's hut, taking very slow and careful steps so as to not step on anything. Deep down somewhere was the sound of a particular purple Alicorn making silent disappointed whispers to her friends about Trixie.