Simply Magic

“Spike, grab her!” you yell as you tackle Twilight, pinning her down. Spike, breaking out of his stupor, rushes forward and tackles Twilight as well. “And whatever you do, don’t let her use her horn!” You leave Spike to handle her while you rush back to your cabinets to grab some ingredients.

“Roger!” Spike, grunting, grapples her head with one arm while his other claw holds onto her horn, gaining leverage over her head and blocking her magic. Below him, Twilight struggles fruitlessly to pull herself out of his grasp and cast a spell again.

While Spike is keeping Sparklebutt in a headlock, you ran with an armful of jars to the cauldron at the center of the room. “Oh, man. This is bad, Spike,” you say as you start pouring equal portions of each liquid from their respective jar into the pot. “She-she read my journal of forbidden knowledge-” You take out your wand and screw on a fire-focus orb "-but it's fine, as long as she didn't read that far..."

"We will cast this forsaken world in eternal darkness!" Twilight yells as dark magic leaks out of the base of her horn.

"How fast can this horse read?!"

“Uggh… What’s happening to her, Steve?” Spike grunts, wrestling Twilight down every time she tries to swat him off.

“It’s something called the warp-effect, Spike; you-you start to hear voices inside your head; start seeing weird shit going on around you,” you answer. “Pretty self-explanatory, Spike. Reading this journal is equivalent to taking a psychedelic.”

“Woah,” Spike cries out, panicking when Twilight, instead, lifts Spike off the ground to shake him out of his headlock. In full banshee mode, Twilight screeches as she ran about the lab, ramming into walls and bookshelves in an attempt to shake Spike off her face. “Steve! Ow- Whatever it is- oof- you’re doing, hurray-ay!”

“Just don’t let go, Spike!"

“Get your bucking claws off me, you damn dirty lizard! Twilight yells.

Mane frayed and fur matted with sweat from her rampage, Twilight plops down onto her flank and chooses to wrestle his claws off of her instead.

“Twilight, please listen!” Spike pleads. “You gotta stop this. Snap out of it!”

"I'll have your head, lizard, in the name of our-oof!"

“Dammit, Spike!” you scold him while holding down the trashing pony’s rear legs. “That magic-of-friendship monologue is not gonna work here."

"Did you get it, Steve? The cure?"

“Got it in my coat pocket. Now, help me out here… hmph!” You lift the crazy mare by her legs a few inches off the ground once you got a solid grip on them and watch Spike stand up and adjust his headlock, despite Twilight failed attempts to shake both of you off. “We gotta get her upstairs to the bathroom, quick.”

Kicking open the bathroom door, you left Spike to deal with Twilight while you prepare the bath. “Don’t lose your grip this time, Spike.” Satisfied with the steaming, but comfortable water, you dump the cure into the rising water and start swirling the water with your hands, watching as bubbles formed on the surface. Satisfied, you grab Sparkle out of Spike’s headlock and dump her into the bath. “Alright, now, Spike. We-we gotta start scrubbing her. I’ll take the top; y-you take the bottom.”

“Alright, Steve, I’ll… wait, what?” Spike stops, letting Twilight flail her hind legs he’s holding onto.

“What are you standing there for, Spike? Consent? Come on, we gotta scrub this stuff into her fur if we wanna help her!” You grunt as you work the lather into her mane. You can feel that her struggle is weakening a bit, but just to be sure, you dunk her head under the water to rinse before scrubbing her again.

“Steve! Isn’t this… This is just a regular bubble bath!” Spike says indignantly, watching the foam and bubbles coming out of the water.

“Well, no duh, Spike. What does it look like to you?” You shot back.

“I don’t know. I thought the cure would be a potion; a pill? Something other than this!”

“Look, I know this may seem like a joke, but trust me on this, Spike,” you say with a reassuring smile. “Sometimes a nice bath can come a long way to help relax a stressed mind, Spike.” You had moved onto scrubbing Twilight’s shoulders, giving them a firm massage each time you emphasized a point.

Twilight, meanwhile, lets a tiny squeak from your ministration.

“See? It’s fine, Spike. The stuff I mixed into the water was a little something I call purifying bath salt; I’ll-I’ll bet you this-this will be the best bath our precious little princess here will ever have.” You pat Twilight on the head for good measure, noticing how tranquil she is at the moment, eyes closed and relaxing in a bath like any other day. “Now finish the job, Spike. Just scrub the lather into her fur.”

“Like this?” Spike asks, taking one leg now that Twilight’s calmed down and gently washing it.

“Be a little bit rougher. Yeah, that's it. And remember, Spike, you gotta really scrub it in. Everywhere,” you emphasize with the straightest face you can muster.

“Everywhere?”Spike repeats, pausing his ministration as a large blush appears.

“Yes, Spike. Sh-she uh... might go into relapse unless we-we make sure her entire body i-is… huh?” You notice the purple pony stirring.

“Wah… Where am I...?” Below you, Twilight is snapping out of her hallucination.

She sits up, her back to your side of the bathtub. "Steve? What's going on?” Twilight looks around the bathroom, while you just stare at her with a frown, remembering how she broke into your lab, snooped through your research notes, and started this whole mess.

“Just a little, relaxation therapy for little miss hard worker here, Twilight,” you answer with a now comforting smile. “Just sit back and enjoy this new “bath salt” I made. Works to really purify and relax deep down to your very soul."

“Well, this is quite relaxing.” Twilight slowly lays back and sifts through the bounty of bubbles in the bath. “And it does smells really nice. You gotta lend me some more next time.”

“You got it, Twi,” you say, giving her a thumbs up. “Anyway, I’ll-I’ll let Spike finish things here.” You leave for the door, but on the way, you place a hand on Spike’s shoulder and lean down close to his ear. “Remember: Everywhere.” You walk forward and out the door, stopping just out of view.

“Spike? You're really scrubbing hard into my fur- Ow!” You listen in with a smile. “Woah, hold on! I think I can do this myself… Ah! Spike, no! Ahhhh!”

“It’s for your own good, Twilight!”

You hear what ensues in the bathroom: water splashing everywhere, the intense scrubbing of a sponge on fur, and Twilight screams of panic. You walk away with a peaceful smile. That’ll teach her not to trespass into your lab again.