The Adventures of Chaos and Nightmares

Later that day, after the girls’ hilarious sleepover pillow fight, Screwy said to Twinkle, “Come on. You and I are going to have a talk.” She pointed to a random room and led Twinkle inside.

Once they made it inside and locked the door, Twinkle asked, “So what is it?” She looked scared. She had a pretty good idea what it was.

“I want answers. And you’re going to give them to me-- honest answers. Understood?

Twinkle sighs and nods, knowing there was no way out of it now. “Understood,” although she still looked scared. Hopefully Screwball won’t tell anypony or, she gulped as she thought of an even worse scenario, any draconequus.

Screwy took notice of her scared expression, and softened her expression. “Hey, don’t worry. Whatever we talk about in this here won’t leave this room. I’ll even put up a sound barrier,” she said and cast the spell.

“Pinkie promise?” Twinkle asked, knowing if anyone, pony or not, chaos powers or not, broke a pinkie promise, all she’d have to do would be tell Pinkie Pie, and whoever had broken it would be sorry.

Screwy nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“Okay,” Twinkle sighed. “Now what did you want to know?

“Well,” Screwy started. “Why were you so scared earlier when I asked you what Zany did? And how come you two have been acting different around each other ever since that crazy incident with Jewel a while back?”

Twinkle actually looked surprised at that second question. “You’ve . . . noticed?”

Screwball nods. “And I want to know why.”

Twinkle takes a deep breath. “Well, in answer to your first question, I didn’t answer because we both did something, not just Zany. And what we did . . . Well maybe I’d better start at the beginning. This will answer your second question too.”

“Okay.”

“You see, that, in the process of escaping from those awful ponies, Applespike had used a marshmallow bomb in my tower. So once we knew that Jewel was safe, I made Zany clean it up, and he did, but, um, we kind of ended up dueling right there in my tower.”

Screwball sighs. “Of course you did.”

Twinkle chuckles. “Yeah. That was fun. Probably our best duel ever, because nopony interrupted us. Although, nopony won either...” she trailed off.

“And,” Screwy prompted.

“And if you want to get right down to it, it kind of ended when Zany turned my horn into an upside-down vanilla ice cream cone.”

Screwy snorted. “Of course Zany would do that. Wait did you say kind of? And I thought you said nopony won. If he took your horn, doesn’t that mean he wins?

“I’m getting there. I said nopony won because because I got my horn back, but the duel didn’t continue from there. And I said it kind of ended because technically getting my horn back would count as my turn.”

Screwy nodded. “I guess that does make sense. But did you say you got your horn back? How in Equestria did you do that? And how come you said you didn’t finish the duel? I can’t believe you two actually had the chance to finish one of your contests, and then just didn’t.”

Twinkle took a deep breath. She knew this was it. It was time to tell the truth. “Well, I kissed Zany, and that’s how I got my horn back."

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I KISSED ZANY, AND THAT’S HOW I GOT MY HORN BACK!” she yelled this time.

Screwy gasped. “WHAT?!”

A blushing Twinkle didn’t answer, but instead kept going. “And then he kissed me, and then we kissed again, and then Mom and Uncle Discord walked in on us, and Discord got really mad, and Mom just stared at us, and then Zany teleported us home, and then--”

“Okay I get the idea,” said Screwy. But if Dad and your mother saw you, how come neither of them ever brought it up, or more specifically, how come Dad didn’t come home and flip out on Zany at the dinner table?”

Twinkle sighed. “Because I got Zany to cast a spell on them so they’d forget about it.”

“Oh. That makes sense. Wait, does that mean that Jewel or Applespike or anypony else doesn’t know about this?”

“Yeah, just you,” Twinkle answered.

Screwy nodded. “Okay, but my second question? What were you doing that made you take so long earlier?”

“Well, like I said, I ran into Zany and got distracted. I was originally going to try to distract him because he was heading straight for our flag, but then we started talking about that day, and I kind of forgot. And then-” she blushed. “Well, you know.”

“Ahh,” Screwy nodded. It all made sense now. “I see. So,” she asked slyly, “any other big secrets you hiding?”

At that, Twinkle froze. “Wh-what?”

Screwball smirked. “Oh you don’t think I know you’ve been hiding what your cutie mark really means this whole time.”

Twinkle groans. “Look Screwy, I’m really not allowed to tell anypony. Not even my mom knows what I can do. Only Princess Celestia and Luna and Jewel know what my talent is.”

Oh, okay,” Screwy said, disappointed. “Wait, did you say Jewel knows but not your mother?”

Twinkle sighs. “I guess you’re gonna find out tonight after all. Lucky you. But you can’t tell anypony. Seriously, this is even more important to keep a secret than me and Zany. So my special talent is dreamwalking. I can navigate the dream realm and visit ponies’ dreams, just like Princess Luna. That’s why she took me as her student instead of Princess Celestia. The only reason Jewel knows is because I had to enter her dream and talk to her last month to help her escape from those model ponies.”

“Okay, but why can’t you tell your mother?”

Twinkle sighed again. “The princesses don’t want anypony knowing until I can control my power better.”

Screwy nods. “All right. You should probably listen to them. Anyway, let’s go to bed now, okay? She deactivated the sound barrier, and pointed to the Screwy’s old bedroom, where they were having their sleepover.”

Twinkle yawned and agreed. “Yeah.”