Trick-or-Treat and Unicorn Jinx
Knock, knock.
"Trick or Treat!"
"Thank you!"
Knock, knock.
"Trick or Treat!"
"Thank you!"
Knock, knock.
"Trick or Treat!"
"Thank you!"
Knock, knock.
"Trick or Treat - oh." Sunny frowned as she noticed the porch light on the house was out. Turning to her friends, she shrugged and said, "Guess this pony's not giving out candy."
"Not just them," Zipp noticed, pointing to the rest of the houses on the block. "Seems like everypony's packing up and going inside." She looked down at the bucket in her hooves, filled with treats. " Guess we should go home, too. But at least we got a lot of good candy this year!" she added, holding up a hooffull of candy as evidence before shoving it in her mouth.
"A lot?" Izzy frowned at her candy. "This is barely anything! You know, if you don't sacrifice half of your candy to the nightmare pony, then she'll come back and eat you! And if you don't eat at least one piece of candy the hour for the next ten days after you sacrifice your candy, then you'll get the jinxies!" She stuck out her quivering lower lip. "Every year, all us in Bridlewood don't get much candy, so by the time we're done warding of the jinxies, there's none left for the rest of the year." She sighed and set down her candy bucket, looking mournfully at the snacks inside. "I was hoping that, in Maretime Bay, things might be different - there might be more ponies giving out candy. But I guess that I'll just have to live out another candy-less year." She let out one, large, suffering sigh.
"You know, Izzy," Zipp said slowly, "maybe... maybe there is a way to get more candy."
The unicorn's head shot up, her eyes filling with sparkles. "What?"
"I mean," the pegasus said, shifting uncomfortably as her friends turned to stare at her with confused looks on their faces, "we'll have to pull a few strings. And a couple of costumes... And we'll all have to work together. But..."
"Yes!" Izzy shrieked, leaping forward and pulling Zipp into a crushing hug. "Thank you, Zipp! Thank you so much!"
"So," Hitch said, raising one of his eyebrows suspiciously, Sparky climbing onto his back, unnoticed, to grab Hitch's sheriff badge and start using his dragon fire to turn it into a dozen different things, "how exactly are you planning to do this?"
Zipp looked around at Pipp, Sunny, and Hitch, who all looked like they didn't believe her at all, and then at Izzy, who was staring at her with shining eyes filled with so much hope that it was honestly kind of crazy, and she sighed.
"All right. Here's the plan."
One year later...
"This is so exciting!" Izzy shrieked, once again in her costume that resembled all of her friends. She was vibrating with excitement so much that Jazz could scarcely give her her hooficures. The earth pony groaned and blew her mane out of her face, which was getting more and more frizzled with every stressful second.
"For the last time, Izzy, stay still!" Jazz told the unicorn, which granted her about three milliseconds of peace before Izzy began to jump up and down again.
"We're finally going to best the nightmare pony! I'm finally going to get my candy!" Izzy cried, her horn singing with her emotions running high. Unbeknownst to the purple pony, who had her eyes closed and was dancing in a circle, all of the pumpkin decorations set out in Mane Melody to celebrate the holiday rose off the floor and flew over Jazz's head (she barely ducked out of the way in time) and began to dance in a circle around Izzy. "This is going to be the best Nightmare Night ever!"
The door opened, and as soon as Izzy opened her eyes, the pumpkins clattered to the floor. "Heya, heya, Pipp!" she said cheerfully, dancing towards the popstar pegasus, who was dressed as a fashionable witch. "Aren't you sooo excited for tonight? It's going to be the-"
"The best Nightmare Night ever, I know, I know," Pipp sighed, rolling her eyes.
"Woah!" Izzy gasped, her eyes sparkling. In a stage whisper, she asked, "Can you read my mind now? Is that part of your costume? Because it is so cool-"
"No, because it's all you've been talking about for the past month," Pipp said, rolling her eyes. Sometimes, her unicorn friend could be a little bit much. "Now come on, we're going to be late!" She scanned the room and frowned. "Why are the decorations all messed up? Jazz, what-"
The earth pony frantically shook her head, and Pipp got the message. "What an amazing, uh, touch! I love what you've done with the place!" She leaped over to the door, saying, "Come on, we're going to be late!"
"Wait a minute, Izzy!" Jazz cried, leaping forward and grabbing one of Izzy's hooves. "I haven't finished your hooficure yet! Come back here!"
"Ah, calm down, Jazzy," Izzy said cheerfully, sitting down in the hooficure chair again and offering her unfinished hoof to the earth pony. "Just make it quick! I want to get my candy!"
"You'd think that was all that mattered in the world," Jazz muttered to herself as she hurriedly finished Izzy's hoof.
"Thanks, Jazz! Oh my glitter, they look so good!" Izzy squealed, leaping up and bouncing out the door. Pipp cast a worried look at Jazz.
"You've got your hooves full there, don't you?" Jazz asked, pointing after Izzy.
Pipp gave a nervous laugh. "Oh, yeah. This is certainly going to be an interesting Nightmare Night."
"Operation: Candy Bucket is a go. All ponies are in place. The night seems generally clear, with no interference with drone systems so far, all drones are in position, and lights should be turning on in three... two... one..."
"Heya, heya, Zipp!" Izzy said cheerfully, making the pegasus scream and leap about a foot in the air, flapping her wings so that she didn't fall.
"Izzy! How many times do I have to tell you not to scare me like that?" the pegasus demanded. Her costume was doubling as her detective gear, and she frowned at Izzy, who was wearing the same costume again. In Zephyr Heights, Nightmare Night was one of the most important nights of the year, and anypony who reused a costume from a previous year was instantly frowned upon.
"Sorry, Zipp! But I'm just so excited!" Izzy gave her a massive grin as the pegasus landed in front of Izzy, pushing up her visor so that she could see the unicorn better. "I just wanted to thank you for doing this for me. I really appreciate that you're doing so much for me."
"Of course, Izzy," Zipp said, slightly uncomfortably. She didn't like talking about feelings that much. "You're my friend."
She squealed. "This is so exciting!"
Zipp rolled her eyes and sighed, before gasping and leaping into the air, pulling her visor over her eyes again. "Porch lights are on! Trick-or-treating officially begins now! Operation: Candy Bucket is a go! Everypony, move, move, move!"
Izzy, Sunny, Hitch, Pipp, and Sparky all nodded and dashed off to the first house.
"Izzy!" Zipp called through her communication system with the other ponies. She could speak to the others through the earpieces that they wore. "Don't bother walking to each house - teleport to each house."
The unicorn nodded, and as soon as the four ponies got their candy, she lit up her horn and teleported them directly to the porch of the next house.
"Trick-or-treat!"
"Thank you!"
"Hitch!" Zipp called as the ponies finished hitting every single house once and ducked into a hidden alleyway. "Get Sparky ready for Operation: Costume Change!"
The sheriff grabbed his baby dragon and whispered into his ear, "Okay, Sparkeroni. We've practiced for this, and now you've got to change all my friends' costumes into something else without roasting them. You think you can do that?" Sparky nodded confidently and belched a purple-pink flame at each pony, which transformed their costumes into something new and unique - Izzy was now a fairy with wings made of open books, Sunny a massive strawberry, Pipp a spooky ghost, and Hitch an artist with a tilted barret on his head and a curly black mustache.
"Get all the houses again!" Zipp ordered through all of their earpieces. "Go, go, go! We've only got an hour left!"
Every time they managed to fill their candy buckets, Sunny would lead them to her smoothie cart, and the ponies would dump their candy inside, where nopony would find it. And every time there were too many foals in front of them that slowed down their progress, Pipp would do her 'influencer stuff' that would distract the Pippsqueaks long enough for Sunny, Izzy, and Hitch to get ahead again.
They managed to get through two more costume changes before they had to start seeking out the homes that still had candy, and that was when Zipp's drones came into play. She scanned the city from the air, marking out the houses that still had their porch lights on, and called out the address to her friends. Izzy would teleport them there, and they would grab their candy and be off.
It was nearing midnight before they finally caved in, and Operation: Candy Bucket came to a close.
"Oh my glitter," Pipp whispered in a hushed voice as Sunny and Hitch dragged up the last load of candy from the smoothie cart into the Brighthouse. "Look at all this candy, Pippsqueaks!" she told her fans watching on her live stream. "This is what happens when you go trick-or-treating with your friends! A totally spooktacular Nightmare Night, am I right, ponies?"
"Sure," Sunny said weakly, ducking away from the miniature smoothie cart and dragging herself over to the couch, where she and Hitch promptly collapsed.
"According to my calculations," Zipp muttered hovering above the massive pile of candy, "we collected more candy than this entire town could have collected in one round!"
"Candy!" Izzy popped up in the middle of the heap, shoving chocolate into her mouth. She began to swim through the treats, singing, "Candy, candy, candy, candy, candy, candy-"
"This is crazy," Pipp said, putting her phone away and cradling a sleeping Sparky in her hooves. "What are we even going to do with all this candy?"
"And more importantly," Zipp muttered to herself, "should we do it again next year?"
All four ponies turned to look at Izzy, who was shaking off her last costume of the night. She noticed her friends staring at her and asked, "What?"
"Do you want to do this every year, Izzy?" Pipp asked, staggering over to where Sunny and Hitch were so that she could sit down and give her exhausted hooves a rest. She set Sparky down on a collection of pillows before curling up next to him, lying her head on her hooves with a sigh.
Izzy studied her tired friends, then the massive pile of candy in front of her. "Hm... no," she decided.
"Really?" Her friends all sat up, staring at her with identical, confused looks. "But you love candy so much," Pipp pointed out. "We know how much you like to have some for yourself-"
"And I do love candy!" Izzy assured them. "But I barely had time to actually enjoy the holiday! I was so busy trying to get the most out of the night as possible, I forgot what was really important to me - spending time with you ponies! All this candy is great, but I'd rather hang out with my best friends."
"Aw, Izzy," Pipp said, smothering a massive yawn. "Me, t-t-too."
"Yeah..." Sunny muttered, barely awake. "Whatever... Izzy... said..." She fell asleep with a snore, the rest of her friends a heartbeat after her. Izzy giggled and leaped into the pile of candy one last time before she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, with dreams of sweets and sugar dancing in her head.
Author's Note
I know Halloween was, like, a week ago, but I just felt like writing this, so here we are.
Just so you know, I still need more writers for a community fanfic that I am hoping to write! You can find some details over here.
If any of you know Ashley H, creator of the audio drama Rememberance, she is in need of some support lately, so if you would like to head on over to her Youtube page, please offer her all the kindness and friendship that you can give! I personally find it sad that a community centered around a show about harmony and friendship can be so cruel at times, and we can't lose yet another creator because of some nasty comments. So let's help her out!
Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!