A Pie by any Other Name

Mathematics of magic and emotion. Citrus and its uses. A wrong step in the incorrect direction. A long awaited kiss. Hello and goodbye. A monologue for two. A resolution made to be broken. The beginnings of a plan.

Twilight frantically consulted her many books on what to do. The spell that had constructed itself out of the incoherent nonsense of the misfired memory altering spell was a potent one for sure, but its counter spell could be as easy as a spark from the horn for all Twilight knew. The issue was that to find the counter spell you first needed the spell.

Most spells had premade counter spells - or in some cases a simple waveform of magic that when introduced to the fabric of the spell would cause the whole thing to resolve itself to a tidy zero whilst still technically being in place. The issue was which this spell would need.

If a spell needed a waveform and you fed it a counter charm, it might cause an instability in the matrixes of the spells, resulting in catastrophic failure; meanwhile the introduction of magic waveform to a spell that wanted a counter charm might result in an excitation of the spell, causing longer lasting and father-reaching consequences than the spell initially intended - either of which for a mental alteration spell of any sort was very bad news.

Twilight scanned page after page of spells for anything that was a convoluted as what she had just fired off. She didn't need an apple to match with her apple, but she did at least need a fruit. Apples to oranges, in this case, would work quite nicely. Unfortunately there was a distinct lack of any fruit, much less citrus. The pages turned up useless coconuts, unhelpful carrots, laughable lettuce, and a few cashews that tried their best but fell a tad short.

In sum total, though many spells - including that inventive number Starlight had tried a while back - had been designed to control ponies over the years, none had approached the impractical redundancies that were the scourge of memory alteration spells that were missing their major components. Twilight did find a variety of instructional manuscripts talking about how to reverse engineer a spell from its counter and other on the arduous journey of finding a counter to a known spell - but none of them suited her needs.

She looked up at Pinkie, tears pooling in her eyes as she found herself truly at a loss.

Twilight wanted to undo her mistake. She wanted to cast the actual spell on herself and throw herself down on her bed to sleep away any malingering memories that tried to prick their way through the spell. She wanted to escape the pain that was seeing Pinkie with somepony else.

Then it struck her.

The spell that had been cast in place of the spell she had wanted was, by fair assessment, a mind control spell of the highest order. It was so overly complicated that it likely would never truly be countered. It was so unrecognizable as a spell that few who found it would be able to decipher what it had become from the arcane signature it left. It was, in short, a perfect excuse - an opportunity. It was the lemons life had presented with a pound of sugar and a convenient jug filled with water.

Twilight's mind was suddenly less filled with concern about how to remove the effect she had brought upon Pinkie, and suddenly focused on how it might be... used? No, that was to prickly a word. Taken advantage of? Certainly not! No... no, her mind was focused on how the spell might be applied to her benefit. That was it!

Pinkie had, before being turned into an unwitting - and arguably unwilling - test subject, expressed a desire to make Twilight happy. Pinkie had, one way or another, told Twilight that she had noticed Twilight being unhappy and had wanted to fix that. Pinkie, being who she was, didn't know what the cause might have been for her friend's state, but had resolved to be the solution.

Ordinarily Twilight knew that Pinkie would never have agreed to do anything of the sort of thing that Twilight needed her to do to make the glum alicorn feel better. Now? Well, now Pinkie was under a spell that there was no known counter to. There was no way to undo the spell, but there were ways that the spell could be applied to achieve the goal Pinkie had set out to accomplish.

"Pinkie..." Twilight began, unsure how this newly concocted spell might work, "Can you hear me?" She waved a hoof in front of the mare, who remained unresponsive. Twilight pressed her lips into a frown and consulted the now defaced spell circle as it appeared in the book. The cut-off complexities of the spell provided for various unfulfilled sums. Things were disorderly to an extreme degree in the original spell - now they were an absolute mess.

Twilight pulled out her blackboard while, setting the original book away without a thought, and brought out a piece of normal chalk to etch out the remade circle. She sorted out the components that had been used - redrawing the circle to focus around the new center as opposed to the nonfunctional original center that had done - as far as Twilight could tell - nothing.

Running the numbers and reading the glyphs as best she could in the way the magic flowed, Twilight arrived at what the new spell was, and quickly turned back towards Pinkie, armed with her new knowledge and a curiosity that needed to be sated.

Lighting her horn, she shot a bolt of energy into Pinkie. The spell that had been formed, by what Twilight could figure, was a sort of unfocussed puppet spell - an admittedly well studied form of mind control magic - that lacked the strings or controls. It did, however, coincidentally have a neat slot in its matrix for a mage to insert a strand of magic into to assume control.

Usually that slot wasn't empty and instead was the part of the spell into which memories were listed that were to be altered and how to alter them, but with the fracture having worked out how it did, it became a sort of handle onto which Twilight could grasp with her magic.

Feeling the new handle in her magic, she turned it this way and that, and found Pinkie following with great ease the tugging at her very mind and - quite possibly - soul. Twilight nodded, reassessing her situation as she released her hold on Pinkie, quickly drawing on the spells of others to make her own.

Lacking a controlling mechanism that was reliable was a problem, but she could insert what essentially was a gearbox into the hole in the spell's mechanism and achieve much the same effect - turning the improvised, unfocused, puppet spell into a sort of automated version of itself. One with levers ready to be pulled, but still independent enough that Pinkie could sing a legally distinct song about a lack of tethers.

A few circles on her board, a few moments of consideration, and a consultation with a diagram of a toy hot air balloon's remote control later and Twilight had her spell matrix prepared. She quickly shoved the blackboard away and took a breath, focusing her mental energies on the task at hoof.

Drawing in the magical energies she needed, she formed a complex system in her mind, which she then moved from her mental space into a physical apparition, and then into the empty slot in Pinkie's spell matrix. A few pieces of fine tuning and a few more added words and Twilight let out a sigh, releasing her magical hold as the newly inserted magical mechanism wormed its way into the home that seemed ready made for it.

Focusing one more time, Twilight reached out and looked over Pinkie with a scanning spell. There it was, the marvelously convoluted spell. A quick identification spell later, and Twilight couldn't help but laugh. A spell that, in all honesty, was majority memory alteration with a mind control gearbox added in for good measure somehow registered in her identification spell's eye as a sort of cosmetic spell.

The thought that this spell - which effectively turned the pony subjected to it into a walking puppet that would obediently follow any command given - had the same arcane signature wafting off of it as a good illusory snout job had was, quite frankly, hilarious.

It was just the sort of joke Twilight would expect Pinkie to love.

With barely any effort, Twilight set Pinkie into motion - giving a spark of magic into the inserted magical gearbox. Pinkie wiggled from head to tail before bursting out in laughter. Twilight couldn't help but join in the face of Pinkie's infectious joy.

"I don't even know what I'm laughing at!" Pinkie howled, flicking a tear away from her eyes as she slowly calmed down. Twilight smiled at this, something in her stirring in a way that it never had before. Something in Twilight whispered just low enough that she couldn't make out what it said, but the feeling behind its metaphorical words was plain to understand.

"You said you wanted to make me happy earlier?" Twilight asked with a smile hiding the anxiety that was rapidly building up inside of her. Pinkie, having calmed down from her laughter, nodded exuberantly. Twilight took in a breath, and then metaphorically flicked a lever in Pinkie.

"Kiss me, Pinkie." She said, the air suddenly feeling a lot thicker as she stood there. Pinkie didn't move for a second, and then all at once zipped up to Twilight and delivered a deep kiss to the alicorn. Twilight was shocked - not the least because it seemed Pinkie was completely wrapped around her head - but quickly found herself melting into the kiss with a contended sigh. It felt right kissing the other mare, and it set off fireworks of joy inside Twilight's mind.

It was a simple locking of the lips, and yet it felt so amazing - Twilight could hardly believe that it was this good! Moreover, it only seemed to be getting better! Neither Pinkie nor Twilight were doing anything to make that especially true beyond snogging their hearts out, but the longer the kiss lingered the better and better it felt, the more passions it stirred up, and the deeper the desire it satisfied.

Twilight found every worry, every stress, and every anxiety suddenly so much more irrelevant as she kissed the pink mare - unconsciously letting her eyes roll back while her eyelids fluttered madly. Her heart felt as if it was racing yet standing still all at once. She felt release of something deep down - something that she had never known had been restrained. It was... well - at the risk of irritating mages everywhere - it felt magical.

They stayed like that for but a short moment, but the time seemed to stretch to an immense length. It felt as though the kiss lasted years on end, that they had grown old with their lips locked together and had lived a splendid life alone in some sequestered corner of Equestria.

Reality, in response, tapped its foot impatiently whilst looking at its watch with an expression of unparalleled condescension - waiting not so patiently for Twilight to get back with the program.

Pinkie pulled away from the kiss two seconds after starting it, giving Twilight a broad smile. Twilight, dumbstruck and blushing from the kiss she had spent many a night fantasizing about, stood there with her mouth hanging open. Pinkie, being who she was, put a hoof under Twilight's chin.

"Gee, thanks, Pinkie; that was a really great kiss!" Pinkie said out the side of her mouth in a terrible impression of Twilight while moving the loose jaw up and down in time with the words. Twilight, broken from her revelry, shook her head before focusing on Pinkie, who was giggling at the flustered librarian princess.

"Y-yes... thank you, Pinkie, that was... I... thank you!" She said finally, unsuccessfully hiding her blush. Pinkie's smile only seemed to grow.

"Glad to help make you a happier camper!" Pinkie chirped with all the jubilant energies Twilight was accustomed from the mare. "Anything else you'd need from me to be happy? Another kiss?"

"N-n-n-no! No no no no no! That's quite alright, Pinkie!" Twilight stammered, pushing Pinkie with great speed and force down and through the many halls and turns - not to mention stairs - before unceremoniously depositing her outside the castle's door. "Thank you so much, my door is always open, be sure to come by any time!" Twilight called after her before slamming the door and falling against it in a huff.

She panicked slightly before she groped about with her magic and found Pinkie still just outside. With a flick, Twilight stopped Pinkie from being perfectly obedient, but kept the 'Pinkie' lever on, along with the 'Rationalize everything that just happened' lever. Twilight took a deep breath in and out before laughing giddily to herself.

She could hardly believe herself! She had actually gone through with it! This wasn't a dream was it? Teleporting in a random book, Twilight quickly read a line, closed the book while keeping the page marked, and then reopened it to find the line quite the same and just as easy to read*. It wasn't a dream!
*Due to the constant fear of things being dreams, Luna had, at various moments, told the ponies of Equestria how to tell if they were indeed dreaming at any given point in time. Among such methods were focusing on faces for shifting details, attempting to count a group of sheep - who’d never enter the dreams of ponies who weren’t shepherds, or reading the same phrase in a book multiple times since in a dream it would change each time it was read. Quite useful suggestions if you are ever worried about the integrity of your consciousness.

Whether to her greatest joy or absolute horror, Twilight realized that - despite everything that had just happened - she was quite thoroughly awake. Pinkie was, in effect, a puppet ready to have her strings taken control of and it wasn't a dream. None of this was a dream! Twilight could just scream - though whether out of joy or fear was not so clear.

She paced about in front of the door, her mind racing in circles as she tried to make sense of it all, and there was a good bit to be made sense of.

Twilight had, with the purest intentions, thought to cure herself of her broken heart by systematically cutting out the thought of loving Pinkie from her memory and essence. "I wanted to be done with it," she muttered to herself - as was her wont - "but because of a mistake..." she trailed off, her thought scaring her thoroughly.

"Pinkie is..." She could cry and leap for joy all in one at the dawning realization. Pinkie was, because of the minor mishap with the spell, completely open to Twilight's control. Twilight could make the wonderful mare do whatever she wanted, and Pinkie would just... do it.

Nothing was off the table, at least as far as the spell was concerned. It was as if Twilight had with two spells turned Pinkie from a thoroughly independent mare into a mare who could, with but a breeze of thaumatic particles, be turned into whatever Twilight cared for.

Pinkie was still in there, she was just completely bent to the power of the spell that she had absorbed. The arcane gearbox and lever system in her mind was - for all intents and purposes - the new mind. Pinkie's brain was subjugated to the extent that it could never recover unless a powerful enough counter charm or specific waveform of magic could be found to undo it.

Twilight shook her head, clearing her thoughts only to martial them into a different order.

No, Pinkie was not at Twilight's whim - though honesty begged to differ - Twilight had just, by means of an accident, impaired Pinkie, but instead of keeping her in that state had set up a bypass in the mare's mind so that she wouldn't be a vegetable whilst Twilight sorted out the problem. That was it, yes!

Twilight was trying to sort out the problem she had created in the mare, and to do so required the utmost care. She didn't want to concern anypony - least of all Pinkie's family. The situation was well in hoof, the gearbox was a work around and was, therefore, temporary yet necessary.

One day very soon Twilight would remove that spell and the other in one fell swoop, curing Pinkie of the situation Twilight had put the mare into. She'd concoct a spell that'd undo the accidental one Pinkie had absorbed, but that might take months!

Yes, that was it, not 'one day very soon' at all, it would be months! Possibly even years if things didn't pan out according to Twilight's desires! In that time it would be impractical to keep Pinkie in the state the spell put her in - that would just be beyond cruel. No, Twilight had to put in a spell that would allow Pinkie to live a normal life in the mean time - it just made sense.

Twilight nodded to herself, "I need time, but Pinkie as a stationary pony without the ability to fend for herself just wouldn't do." She said to herself.

"But are we going to disclose to others that Pinkie isn't really Pinkie but a magical force inside Pinkie that thinks it is Pinkie but isn't really Pinkie?" She replied.

"What? No! Of course not, don't be daft!" She chided herself. "For one, that's too confusing. For second, functionally its identical! Pinkie, in all technicalities, might not currently be 'Pinkius Primus', but its sort of a sort of 'Turing's Construct' of Pinkie Pie."

"What, you're bringing up 'Turing's Construct' now?" She scoffed at herself, pointing an accusing hoof at her unreasonable self. "You know well that 'Turing's Construct' does not apply here. She is not, as it would be correctly pointed out, a construct!"

"Yes, but the mind piloting her body is!" Twilight countered. "Functionally, Pinkie Pie is comatose and we have to fix that! Until then, what is the harm in letting Pinkie walk about in a state where an accurate version of Pinkie is present who can be filled in - magically I might add - on all events from her entrance into the comatose state to her leaving of said state."

"But doesn't she deserve to know?"

"No! I mean, Yes! But no..." Twilight floundered, trying to get out an explanation, "Look, Pinkie Pie doesn't need to know though she has a right to know. Yes, its her we're talking about, so she probably could be argued to have the distinct right of knowing she is, herself, in a coma. However, we also have to consider that this might put an undo stress on her. She's working just fine, but it is a closely run thing. She could tip over at any moment!"

"Uh... we made the spell, that isn't going to happen." Twilight pointed out.

"Yes, but this is Pinkie Pie!"

"Fair point."

"Exactly!" Twilight said in exasperated and thoroughly stressed tones. "We just don't know!"

"We could guess."

"Guess at another pony's health‽ Are you insane‽"

"I don't know, you tell me." Twilight said to herself.

"No... no, what we need to do is... is..." Twilight searched desperately for what to do. "We need to not kiss Pinkie again." She said firmly. "Yes, we need to not take advantage of this situation. We need to take this very seriously and to look into how to help her as best we are able. We have, what, two weeks?"

"Two weeks and three days if we're lucky."

"Shoot, not much time..." Twilight tapped her chin with a hoof in thought as her eyes darted about the castle floor in thought. "We might just be able to stretch it a bit longer by using a time dilation spell, but that can get a bit messy."

"Best if we don't mess with time. Last time we did that we got a different hair style and an eyepatch."

"It was a pretty nice eyepatch though." Another Twilight admitted.

"SHUT UP!" The two other Twilights shouted in unison, banishing the third to the shadow realms with impunity.

"So it's a matter of working quickly. We can work hard an spend as much time on the problem - put a blackboard in the bathroom and another right by the bed." Twilight said, already mentally counting her chalkboards. "That leaves an extra two, including the one that already has the spell written on it."

"Good, good..." Twilight muttered, closing her eyes as she took a steadying breath. "I got this, I got this..." She said, returning to herself as she collected her disparate thoughts. "Time to get to work."