Strawberry Time: A RariTwi Exquisite Corpse

by SigmasonicX

Rating: teen
Tags: Daring Do, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Night Glider, Trixie, Mystery, Comedy, Rarity, Adventure
Length: 13811

Rarity awakens to discover time has stopped for everyone but her... and a growing number of other ponies... and strawberries...

Rarity awakens to discover time has stopped for everyone but her and her love, Twilight Sparkle. And also Trixie. And a growing number of other ponies. And strawberries.

An exquisite corpse is a form of collaborative art where each participant only knows about part of the whole work, and must complete their part with limited context. In this case, each writer only had access to the previous chapter, resulting in the story getting confused, yet still moving forward undeterred. The exception is me having full context when helping out the others.

Participating writers were me, The Red Parade, Gearcrow, WiseLlama, Cynewulf, Ruby, trAce, Lingo, Lopunny, Undome Tinwe, and Nonchalant.

Published 2024-05-10 17:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-05-10 17:00:00 UTC

1. Together Alone (SigmasonicX)

The sun shined gently through Rarity’s blinds as she sat up and stretched her legs. Sighing contentedly, she slipped out of bed with more vigor than usual, smiling at how she felt so well rested this early in the morning. This would be a good day.

She opened the blinds to greet the world, only to fall back in surprise at the sight before her. Staring inside with wide unblinking eyes and a friendly smile, a pink mare floated in the air right in front of the second-story window.

“Pinkie Pie!” Rarity exclaimed as she slowly got up, calming her jackhammer heart. “What on Earth are you doing?”

Pinkie Pie didn’t respond. In fact, she didn’t even twitch.

Rarity squinted, then waved her hoof. With a shrug, she stepped away and moved on with her morning routine. While Pinkie was surely behind this, that was likely a balloon and not the real thing. Something along the lines of, “I just wanted my friends to wake up to a smiling face!” she imagined.

Heading into the ladies’ room, Rarity turned the sink knob only to frown as nothing happened. She tried every knob and switch to no avail, as there was no water flowing anywhere.

“Well never mind about this being a good day. I suppose I’ll need Applejack to take a look at this,” she said to herself. She checked the sunlight again. “It is early. I could sneak over to Twilight’s castle—and it is made of magic crystals, so surely there won’t be plumbing problems there too.”

With a dramatic sigh, she trotted downstairs and toward the exit, only to do a double take at what she saw in the kitchen. Sweetie Belle balanced precariously on a stool in front of the stove with a flame lit and, above it, she was using her magic to upend a jug of cooking oil. She was going to set the whole room ablaze!

Screaming, Rarity dashed forward and pulled Sweetie away from the stove, leaving behind a stream of oil from the jug. “Sweetie! How many times do I have to warn you?!”

She blinked as she looked at the motionless filly in her magical grip, who was still squinting and sticking her tongue out in concentration. Not knowing what else to do, Rarity gently placed her upright on the ground. Hesitantly, she touched Sweetie’s face with her hoof.

This was no balloon. On top of that, there were other oddities about. Now that she actually looked, the flame wasn’t flickering or moving at all. And all that oil… it was just hanging there in the air.

Rarity’s neck stiffened. Something was terribly wrong. She fell onto her haunches, which startled her into scrambling toward the door. She pulled it open, but then with a second thought, she rushed back into the kitchen and used a rag to soak up all the floating oil. Then she ran through the door, fearful of what she’d find outside.

“Twilight!” Rarity screamed as she hurdled through the door. “Twi—mmph!”

A small blue bird floating in the air rudely interrupted her and the unicorn found herself coughing up feathers. Giving the uncaring and spit-covered creature an angry glare, she resumed her mad dash.

The streets outside were frozen with scattered ponies going about their day—one or two appearing to be glancing at the airborne Pinkie Pie—and the sunlight indicated it was around seven in the morning. Ponyville looked warm and inviting as always, but as the only one moving in this photograph of a town, Rarity couldn’t help but be unnerved.

Grunting in a way she didn’t care others heard, Rarity galloped toward Twilight’s castle. Once it came into view, Rarity breathed in deeply and resumed yelling out her love’s name. “TWIIILIIIGHT! TWI—”

“Rarity!” a voice called.

Rarity skidded to a stop and turned wildly to find Twilight Sparkle standing in a nearby field with a small machine of some kind floating in her magic. The princess looked a bit frazzled, but she smiled warmly and, more importantly, she was moving!

Twilight’s eyes darted away from Rarity then back. “So, you’re probably wondering what’s going on, and—”

Before the alicorn could continue, Rarity leapt toward her and the two mares embraced. “Darling, thank goodness! I don’t know what I would have done if I was the only one stuck like this. What in Equestria is happening?”

Twilight pulled back from the hug and winced. “Yeah, about that. I was really hoping I could resolve this before you woke up, but, uh…” She scratched the back of her head. “I kind of messed up a spell.”

All fear melted away from Rarity in an instant and she narrowed her eyes with an unimpressed expression. “Darling, seriously?” She played with the curls of her mane. “I thought you were past this sort of magical mishap.”

Twilight’s head sank. “I did too. I really thought I had it under control, but this is an under-researched field, and I messed up. I’m really sorry.”

Rarity lifted her chin with a soft smile. “Now now, enough of that. Tell me, what were you trying to do?”

The princess’s cheeks turned red at the contact. “Well, you see, you were telling me about how you wished there were more hours in the day so we could spend them together. I realized actually adding more hours would be a bad idea, but I could instead make a pocket dimension where time moved more slowly. A place for just the two of us.”

Rarity’s eyes shimmed and she put a hoof to her chest. “Aww, that’s quite sweet. Though this spell stopping time in our normal dimension is a bit less sweet.”

Twilight shook her head. “Actually, time didn’t stop. It’s just really slow. For us, it’s been about five hours since this incident started, and for everyone else, roughly 25 seconds have passed. The world is moving at one seven-hundred-twentieth speed.”

Rarity waved her hoof. “Yes, yes, slowing down time is less sweet.” She tilted her head. “I’m tempted to ask if you have a way to fix this, but from the way you spoke earlier, it sounds like that isn’t the case?”

Twilight hummed. “Well, I do know how to fix this, but it’s complicated and there’s a very real risk of damaging spacetime itself.”

“Not something we want, I assume.”

“Indeed, buuuuut…” Twilight forced a smile “... Good news! It’s going to wear off on its own. These readings prove it!” She showed the device to Rarity as though she’d be able to verify the readings herself. “We just need to wait for three hours to pass in normal time.”

Rarity put her hooves together. “Well that doesn’t sound so bad. Three hours… but wait, you said it would be that times seven-twenty…”

“Yeah, that’s the bad news. It’ll be ninety days, or about three months.”

Rather than looking perturbed, Rarity smiled and tapped her chin. “Three months… three months alone together… a three month vacation!”

Twilight blinked. “Rarity, you’re really OK with this?”

“Well I certainly would have preferred being able to prepare, but we might as well take advantage of the opportunity.”

“Oh…” Twilight sat on her haunches. “Oh wow, so we’re really doing this, then. Three months, just you and me. Things within our general physiomagical fields will move relative to us, so food and water won’t be a huge issue. Well, water pipes will be a problem, but I have a spell for that. Oh, and we don’t have to stay in Ponyville! We can take this opportunity to tour Equestria. We can even go into dangerous areas without fear of danger! Wow, the possibilities really are endless! I don’t even know what to do first.”

Rarity giggled and fluttered her eyelashes. “Well, I have an idea. How about we do what this spell was intended for?”

Twilight’s face flushed red. “I, uh, what do you mean?” she said in a way that indicated she knew exactly what Rarity meant.

“A pocket dimension just for us? So we can spend more time together? You and I both know the best way to use that.” The unicorn walked past Twilight and stroked her neck with her tail.

Twilight laughed lightly, “Well, I can’t deny that.” She turned and kissed Rarity’s collar. “To the castle, then?”

Rarity squeaked in response, neither a yes nor a no. Twilight’s kisses traveled up her love’s neck until their lips met, and then…

A voice scoffed—a third voice! “Twilight Sparkle, what in Equestria are you doing in public? The Great and Powerful Trixie didn’t raise you to be so uncouth.”

Frozen mid-kiss like the ponies around them, Rarity and Twilight slowly turned their eyes to see Trixie, newly married wife of Celestia and self-proclaimed stepmother to Twilight Sparkle, sitting on a bench mere feet away from them, shaking her head over a warm cup of cocoa. “I knew that Rarity mare was trouble, but your mother likes her, Celestia knows why.”

Rarity was the first to speak. “Trixie?! How—what—how?!”

“A mother has eyes on the back of her head, you know,” Trixie said as she serenely drank from her cocoa.

Twilight frowned. “Trixie, for the last time, you are in no way my mother!” Disregarding the offended gasp she heard, Twilight continued, “What Rarity meant is, this spell is supposed to slow down everything except me and her! How are you here?”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Well, if that’s what this is, you didn’t do a very good job. I was on my way to your castle to make you some breakfast, and I saw at least one other creature moving.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Trixie, it’s past noon for us, why would you—no, never mind.” She waved her machine over the blue unicorn, making it beep rapidly. “Are you kidding me? These readings…”

“Maybe if you weren’t busy smooching,” Trixie said with an extra dose of sass, “you’d have figured this out. But don’t worry.” She patted Twilight’s head, which the alicorn quickly pulled away from. “Mommy’s here now.”

Rarity leaned over to Twilight. “So, what do we have to do to end the spell early?”

Twilight snorted. “We find the spell’s locus somewhere in town, potentially defeat any time elementals drawn by the magic, untangle the strings of time woven into it, and hope we don’t end up in a reality where we’re all shrimp.”

Rarity nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

The princess and her beloved set forth, followed closely by their self-appointed chaperone.

6. (Ruby)

The strawberry blobs around Ponyville started to.... move? One by one, they all writhed and slowly started inching around, some going towards the castle, some towards the quintet of ponies standing near the castle. And they were standing still.

"Darling, I think you both will have to stay for a little longer," Rarity said, a shrill tone to her voice.

A.K Yearling nervously scoffed, "You think?"

Why are they moving now? What could have prompted them to start moving, and towards them and the castle no less? Twilight attempted to think about such a prospect, but after agonizing pain shot through her head, she fell back into a daze, the world becoming a blur.

Nightglider shot a look to Trixie and said, "Keep Twilight steady, I have to see what's going on with them," and jumped off the balcony, flying around to Flower Emporium.

Trixie, lifting Twilight with magic, eyed her. "Trixie does not wish to be mean, but what is she doing?"

"If I know her, she's thinking about everything and nothing at all," Rarity said, eyeing Twilight's dazed form. "Don't mind her, darling, we need to find a way to get this open."

Twilight's mind kept going back and forth between her abilities and what magic was. Did any of this even matter anymore? The limits have been broken. What's to stop the life she made from expanding into more than just Ponyville? What's to stop them from waltzing into Manehatten and ordering a hay burger with extra sesame see-

Twilight's stomach growled. Oh great, a concussion, existential dread, and now hunger? Frustrated, Twilight decided to try and push through it and focus back on the task at hand.

Author's Note

This author grew too busy to finish her chapter, and as such, the next writer received some details of chapter 5 to provide enough context to continue the story.

2. Time Moved Slowly Then (The Red Parade)

Night Glider liked to think of herself as a brave mare.

After all, she was always searching for that next thrill, the next something to get her blood pumping and her heart racing. Jump off a low-level cloud to see how low she could get before she hit the ground? Sounds fun. Spend weeks foraging through the forest to try and catch a rare and endangered bird? Sure thing. Set off by herself to start a new life in a village run by a sketchy and suspicious unicorn? In hindsight, that one was a mistake.

She liked to think that in another life she could be a Wonderbolt, or some kind of stunt mare. She relished adrenaline, and absolutely loved when something sent it rushing to her brain.

But this… This was the bad kind of adrenaline.

Night smacked her lips and fidgeted nervously in her chair. Stupid, stupid, stupid, why did you listen to Sugar? Of course this was going to be a bad idea?

“Uh… You okay?’

“Fine!” Night squeaked.

The other mare peered down at her over the edge of her ruby red glasses. “You don’t look it.”

Night swallowed and tried to smile, slicking back her mane with a hoof. “Y-Yup! I’m all good over here!”

The other mare frowned, tapping the edge of the table. “You know if you’re uncomfortable, we could always–”

“No! Nope, nu-uh, it’s fine!” Night smiled wide. “I’m… I’m so happy to be here right now.”

A very long pause wedged itself in between the two.

“You know who I am, don’t you–”

“-- I know exactly who you are, I’m so sorry.”

A.K. Yearling shrugged, taking off her glasses and slipping them into her pocket. “I mean, I figured.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird! I’m so sorry. I love your work,” Night muttered, reaching for her water glass.

“Thanks. It is always nice to meet a fan, and hey, don’t worry about it. You’re a far cry from the weirdest one I’ve ever met.” Yearling flashed her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

It seemed to work, as some of the tension seemed to leave Night Glider’s shoulders. “Can I ask what someone like you is doing on a blind date project?”

Yearling’s breath hitched. “Uh… Research. For a novel.”

“Oh.” Night Glider deflated slightly.

“But I mean, dates are fun anyways!” Yearling quickly followed. “I haven’t been on one in… in a while. Figured I had to see if I still had the charm, you know?”

“O-Oh!”

You idiot, Yearling thought to herself. Why did you think this would be a good idea? Why would anyone want to date someone so asocial, beat-up, and old as you are?

“Well, uh, hey. Even if you aren’t really looking for… you know, I’d still love to get to know you better!” Night said. “I mean, I know you’re famous, but still. I really wouldn’t mind getting to know you on a more personal level.”

Yearling blinked. “Not many people do nowadays,” she whispered.

Night Glider couldn’t help but feel sad at that, although she could sense Yearling didn’t want her pity. Despite it all, she could understand how she felt: her life had been a slew of relationships that failed for one reason or another: Trixie was trying to guilt-trip Starlight, Rolling Thunder was insane, Featherbangs wasn’t what she was looking for, and while Derpy was great, the two mutually agreed that neither was right for the other.

It was often a difficult path to walk when one was faced down by failure at every turn.

“Our food’s taking a while to show up,” Yearling said, glancing towards the kitchen.

Night Glider shrugged and hopped out of her seat, going over to the counter. She pressed down on the bell a few times, calling out towards the back. “Hey, you guys good back there?”

She paused, looking down at the bell. Slowly, she pushed the button down again, but no sound came out. “Woah…”

Yearling raised an eyebrow and went over, glancing through the window into the kitchen proper. A chef was flipping an egg, the cashier was shouting something, and a buscolt was about to drop a plate. But she quickly pieced together what was wrong: the egg was frozen mid-flip, the cashier stood like a statue, and the falling plate was suspended in the air. “Woah.”

She stood up and ran out the door, looking up and down the street to see more of the same: ponies everywhere were frozen mid-stride, and even the birds above had decided to remain absolutely still despite being in the middle of a flight.

“Uh, that’s a new one,” Night Glider said as she followed Yearling outside. “What could that possibly be about?”

Yearling tapped her chin, moving up the street. “No idea. This would have to be the result of something powerful, something with a lot of magic…” She paused to examine a street performer with a fiddle, eyes hidden beneath the brim of her white hat. “I mean, the last time something like this happened we all ended up in a dimension as shrimp… Hopefully that doesn’t happen again?”

Night Glider paused to duck under a turquoise pegasus. “Wait, shrimp? What do you mean?”

“Uh… Long story. But, I wonder if…” Yearling glanced underneath her cloak and into her small purse, where a few gems were rattling about. One tiny red one was pulsing slightly, confirming her suspicions. “Drat! I thought I had more time,” she muttered.

“Mrs. Yearling, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, but I think we’re going to unintentionally play a part in all of this.” Yearling tightened the strap on her bag. “We better find out what’s causing this… Stay with me, until I figure out what’s going–”

Glancing backwards, Yearling caught a hint of blush on Night Glider’s cheeks before the other mare turned away. “Y-Yeah! I mean, I’ll be fine! I’m trained in first-aid and, uh, rescue!”

“S-Sure.” Yearling shook her head to try and clear her thoughts. A flush of warmth ran through her cheeks. What is wrong with you?!

“...Trixie, stop that!”

“Twilight Sparkle! Would you ever speak to your mother like that?”

“You’re not my mom!”

“Technically–”

“Wait!”

Abruptly, three unicorns came around the corner and almost ran into the two pegasi. “Oh! More ponies?”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Dear, I thought you said–”

“Well clearly I was wrong!” Twilight grumbled. “Look, this is all falling apart rapidly. I’m terribly sorry about all this… Wait, A.K. Yearling?”

“Twilight Sparkle. I should have known you’d be involved in this somehow,” Yearling muttered, instinctively taking a defensive stance in front of Night Glider.

Woah, Night thought. She’s really, really cool…

“This was all just an accident,” Twilight grumbled. “I cast a spell to try and freeze time and… I may have overcompensated a little bit. So most of Equestria is stuck like this until we can find the spell’s locus and reverse it. Although… I’m not really sure why you two weren’t affected either.”

“Don’t forget about Trixie! Trixie’s here too!”

“Trixie?!”

“Oh no! You?!”

“Wait!”

Everyone paused as Twilight squinted up into the air. “Do you smell that?”

The others exchanged glances, confused.

“It smells like…” Twilight frowned, lighting up her horn. “...Strawberries.”

3. Seeking Strawberries (Gearcrow)

Twilight Sparkle was sniffing the air like a bloodhound, horn alight with magic, and while Trixie looked thoroughly unimpressed, Rarity and A. K. Yearling both stood patiently with expressions of tense expectation on their faces. They seemed not exactly comfortable, but definitely used to this sort of thing. Night Glider just felt confused, which made her feel embarrassed and a little bit small.

She tried to take a deep breath, but if something smelled like strawberries, it must have been incredibly faint, because she couldn’t smell anything at all.

“Uhm,” she ventured, feeling nervous about interrupting Twilight Sparkle’s concentration while also not wishing to be entirely left out of the loop. “Are you looking for something that’s supposed to smell like strawberries? Because otherwise it might just be the restaurant right there. We just left it.”

Trixie scoffed and rolled her eyes, but Twilight Sparkle just turned and looked at her as if noticing her for the first time. Night Glider didn’t really think of Twilight as a real princess, because, well, she was just normal pony size. Even if she was an alicorn, she just wasn’t very imposing. Being stared down as she was at that moment though she felt a powerful need to revisit her clearly erroneous opinion.

“You’re Night Glider, right? From Our Town?”

Night Glider grimaced but nodded. “Yeah, but we don’t call it that anymore. Plus, I kinda moved to Cloudsdale because of…”

Trixie cleared her throat loudly to interrupt. “Yes, fascinating, I’m sure, but maybe we should focus on…” she gestured around vaguely at everything. “Trixie isn’t planning on spending the rest of her magnificent life stuck in a time lock with nopony to perform for. And I guess it’d be a shame if I never got to speak to Starlight again. I’d have to keep her like a statue outside my wagon. Actually…” she rubbed her chin with a hoof as if considering doing just that.

Yearling took a step towards Twilight Sparkle with all the confidence of a well-seasoned adventurer. “Night Glider is right though. What’s all this about smelling Strawberries? I can’t smell anything. Plus, you mentioned something about a locus for your time freezing spell, right? I’m assuming if we find it and destroy it, time will return to normal.”

“More or less…” Twilight said, eyeing Yearling suspiciously. “Why are the two of you able to move though? You should have been frozen just like everypony else.”

Night Glider felt her heart skip a beat at the sight of the author face to face with the princess and decided, foolishly, that standing back meekly was probably not going to impress her blind-date.

“We were on a date!” she blurted out, before reddening like a beat plucked freshly from the ground.

“Okay…” Twilight said.

“I just meant,” Night Glider continued, ignoring the slightly embarrassed and questioning looks the others were giving her, “maybe there was something about A. K. Yearling, uhm, about you I mean,” she shifted her focus from Twilight Sparkle to the author. “And since I was sitting near you, maybe it affected me as well?”

A. K. Yearling nodded. “I do have an artifact in my bag that protects me from being cursed. That must have been it.”

“See,” Night Glider said, “no need for unnecessary suspicions.”

Twilight Sparkle seemed to take that in stride. “That’s fair, I guess. As for the Strawberries...”

“I think I’ll answer that,” Rarity said, making Twilight Sparkle wince and look away guiltily. “The ‘Time Freezing’ spell my darlingest Twilight here attempted was meant to preserve a basket of strawberries we picked earlier today. However,” she said, eyeing the sheepish looking princess with some venom, “the strawberries instead grew to the size of a small boulder, came alive, and rampaged through my boutique! Oh, and everything but the strawberries, Twilight, myself, and Trixie–who unfortunately happened to be in the boutique at the time–froze instead.”

“Trixie’s presence is always a blessing,” Trixie said, tossing her mane back while pointedly looking away from Rarity, and Night Glider found herself giggling. A. K. Yearling was smiling as well.

“Well, we should probably try to track down these rampaging strawberries then, before they cause any actual harm.” When she noticed Rarity’s darkening expression, she quickly added “aside from your boutique, of course.”

“Since I seem to be the only one who can smell the strawberries, I’ll lead the way,” Twilight Sparkle said, starting off down the street away from the restaurant.

“Maybe you’re just having a stroke,” Trixie offered.

Rarity looked deeply disappointed and shook her head. “That’s burnt toast, Trixie.”

Night Glider giggled again and fell in beside A. K. Yearling, the two of them trailing behind the others by a few steps.

She felt a little bit less awkward about walking next to her now than she had felt at dinner, which was probably just because the focus had been shifted from “going on a date” to “going on an adventure”. Yearling for sure seemed more comfortable as well.

“Sorry for being such a fan at dinner,” she said, feeling perhaps a bit more self-conscious than was warranted. Yearling laughed and shook her head.

“Sorry for showing up in disguise and trying to trick you. I’m not sure how I thought that would work.”

“No, I get it. It makes sense. You’d probably get a lot of weirdos showing up otherwise.”

“Yeah… Not that I think you’re a weirdo though!”

It looked to Night Glider as if Yearling was blushing just a little, which made her face heat up as well. She looked away and was about to tell the author that she was glad for the date despite everything when they were interrupted by Twilight Sparkle yelling and the wall of a nearby store crumbling as a giant strawberry came barreling out onto the street.

The strawberry grabbed hold of Trixie and hoisted her screaming into the air, swinging her this way and that while Rarity was trying to push a large board off of Twilight Sparkle’s back.

“Do something!” Trixie yelled, seemingly more scared than in actual pain.

“I’m trying!” Rarity yelled back, helping the clearly dazed princess back to her feet. “Just distract it or something in the meantime!”

Even at a distance, Night Glider could see the absolute daggers that Trixie was staring at Rarity. The stage magician was about to say something else but instead yelped with surprise as the strawberry holding her staggered backwards and almost fell over.

Yearling had rushed forward and flown up to kick the strawberry square in the face with her hindlegs. Meanwhile, Night Glider had just stood there, too surprised to act. That wasn’t anything to be ashamed of though, right? She wasn’t an adventurer like the others. They couldn’t very well expect her to…

Another strawberry came rushing down the street towards Yearling, and before she could even think, Night Glider grabbed a broken board from the crumbled wall and leapt into the air towards the new arrival. She closed her eyes and swung the board as hard as she could towards the Strawberry. Oh, sweet Celestia, please don’t let me miss!

4. The Quest (WiseLlama)

She missed.

It was bad luck, really. Night Glider was poised for success, on her way to deliver a mighty blow to the face of the strawberry monstrosity with her trusty plank. Sadly, a vicious pebble on the road put an end to her heroic ambitions. She crashed head first into the ground.

Now sitting on her bottom and nursing her sore muzzle as well as her bruised ego, Night Glider could only watch in horror as the strawberry abomination loomed over her with a menacing scowl.

Night Glider closed her eyes and put her hooves up in a semblance of protection, waiting for her imminent demise. When nothing happened, she tentatively glanced at the creature in-between her hooves, only to find it staring back at her. As if it were studying her with curiosity.

She didn’t have much time to ponder as A.K. Yearling came out of nowhere, and, like a wrestler throwing themself into the ring, she RKOed the strawberry with a well-delivered hoof to the stomach.

She turned to Night Glider, running a hoof through her mane. “That was brave of you, but you should leave the fighting to the professionals. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Despite feeling thankful towards her savior, Night Glider frowned at her date. She knew Yearling was right; she had messed up and almost got killed. However, she couldn't shake off the sting from the pointed remark.

Still, when Yearling offered a helping hoof, she took it, allowing the other mare to pull her to her hooves.

“Quite a first date, huh?”

Night Glider chuckled. “Yeah, you could say that.”

A bit farther off, Trixie was still struggling against her own adversary, until finally Twilight, who had recovered from the wall collapsing on her, came to her rescue. She unleashed a magic beam at the strawberry, missing Trixie's face by a mere inch, allowing the unicorn to drop safely to the ground as the mutant fruit fled in terror.

“Took you long enough! And you almost hit Trixie in the face!” she shouted in frustration.

“Sorry, my vision’s kinda blurry,” Twilight said, sheepish.

Rarity rolled her eyes at Trixie’s ungratefulness. “Are you okay, honey?” she asked Twilight. “It looks like you received quite a nasty bump to the head.” Gently, she ran a hoof through her marefriend's mane, parting the strands to reveal a small, bleeding wound. “Perhaps you should rest for a moment before we resume our search for those creatures. It looks like you might have a concussion,” she suggested, concern evident in her voice.

“No!” She shook her head, a wince of pain following the brisk movement. “We have to find them quickly before they do more damage.”

“What’s the point of finding them if you’re not in good shape to confront them. Just listen to your marefriend, Princess,” Yearling agreed. “The rest of us can take care of those things.”

“No, this is my mess, and I will fix it!” Twilight asserted firmly.

“Say, guys,” Night Glider interrupted. “Something weird just happened with the strawberry. It had a chance to attack me back then, but it didn’t. It just stared at me.”

“So?” Trixie questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, I was thinking. How do we know they’re evil? Maybe they’re just confused… like newborns waking up in a strange, unfamiliar world.”

A.K. Yearling raised an eyebrow at her. “What are you suggesting, then? We invite them around a campfire, crack jokes and sing songs to teach them the value of friendship?”

“Those ruffians destroyed my boutique. They have to be evil.”

“What I’m saying is maybe they just didn’t know what they were doing. It’s just a boutique—”

Rarity just stared coldly at Night Glider with death in her eyes.

“Um, I, huh, I mean, never mind. Forget I said anything.”

Twilight appeared lost in contemplation at Night Glider's theory. She scratched her cheek absentmindedly, murmuring words under her breath that the others couldn't quite discern, catching only snippets. “No... impossible... couldn't... theoretically…”

“What is it, Princess?” A.K. Yearling inquired.

“I mean, what if Night Glider is right about this?” She rubbed her head, still feeling dizzy from the pain. “What if those things are sentient? That would mean… that I’ve inadvertently brought life into this world! From a failed time spell? With my own horn. I created life? How is that possible?”

Despite her fresh injury, Twilight sprang to her hooves, a look of intense focus on her face. “This is truly baffling! This power…” She looked at her hooves as if in awe.

She looked up at the rest of the group, her eyes intense and piercing. “That would make me a god.”

There followed a brief moment where no one said anything. Night Glider coughed, as if to fill the awkward silence. Then Rarity spoke up, her voice laced with concern, “I believe my dear Twilight hit her head even harder than I thought. Come here, love.” With gentle insistence, she led Twilight to a nearby bench with a strange commemorative plaque in memory of a deceased boy, where the poor princess kept on rambling with a vacant expression on her face.

“Is she… going to be okay?” Night Glider wondered aloud.

“Meh, Trixie supposes she'll be fine,” she remarked nonchalantly. “Especially considering how many times that mare has been hit in the head over the years. Trixie even contributed to some of those hits,” she declared with misplaced pride.

“Well, what do we do now? Without the Princess, who else can break the spell? Everyone else is frozen,” Night Glider despaired. “How long will we need to wait for the Princess to get better? Hours? Days? Weeks?!”

“Hold on, hold on. We have two unicorns here. Can’t either of you do something about this?” Yearling asked.

“Although Trixie is very powerful indeed, I don’t think I can undo an alicorn’s spell.”

“What about you, Rarity?” Yearling turned to her

She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

Twilight broke through, her voice still unsteady from the daze she was in. “We should go to the library… The answer lies in books… Always… The locus… The spell… Someone did something to it…”

She passed out.

“Twilight! Wake up, darling!” Rarity shook her gently.

Twilight stirred, squinting as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. “Why is it so bright?” she mumbled weakly.

Rarity shook her harder. “Don't go towards the light, dear! Come back!” she cried out.

Twilight groaned, attempting to stop the shaking. “No, I mean there's literally a big bright shining light over there in the distance.”

“Oh my Celestia, she’s going delirious!”

“No wait, guys, she’s right.” Night Glider pointed behind them.

Rarity and the others turned to see a distant, bright, radiant orb in the sky. It could have been mistaken for the sun if not for its low altitude and the peculiar sensation that it seemed almost... alive.

“That must be... the locus. We need to find the counter-spell and use it on that orb,” Twilight declared, attempting to stand but stumbling back into Rarity's embrace.

“Oh no, you’re not!” Rarity protested. “You’re staying here to rest.”

“But we need her for the counter-spell,” Yearling pointed out.

“Then I’ll carry her,” Rarity resolved.

“Don’t be stupid. There must be a chariot somewhere we can use to transport the Princess,” Yearling suggested.

Rarity hesitated but ultimately nodded. They exchanged determined looks, except for Twilight, who stared blankly with half-closed eyes at the ground.

“Twilight mentioned the library. So let’s go there first! Follow me,” Yearling commanded, taking the lead.

And so they embarked on their quest, unaware of a shadow lurking behind them, watching them carefully from the dark alleys...

5. Five Against the Strawberry Menace (Cynewulf)

Perhaps she existed as an echo in the back of Night Glider’s mind, like a kind of psycho-thaumic echo. Perhaps it was just imagination, running parallel and unchecked, unnoticed in the fading adrenaline rush of confrontation somewhere in Trixie’s mind. Perhaps she was in between the pages of the book in A.K. Yearling’s head. Perhaps she was safe in the folds of covers and comforters of Rarity’s soft bed. Perhaps she was still in her own head—Twilight knew nothing and understood less, for something was coming over her.

Life! She’d made life! Maybe! The horrible gelatinous strawberry horrors were alive and maybe even sapient, and she’d made them! Independent of her own will, they could do… anything! Currently, they were invading her beloved town, but they could do a lot of other things, potentially.

“I think,” she said thickly, her head throbbing with the pain of revelation (and also head trauma from a previous misadventure), “I think if I think too much about what magic is and how it works, I think I will go mad with horror. I don’t want to be an emmanetized exemplar of godlike power.”

Rarity whined. “Night Glider, did you have to mention the strawberry thing stopping when it looked at you? I know we’re kind of banking on it potentially being alive and able to reason, or whatever, but… She’s saying horrid things!”

Trixie grunted and shifted her magical hold on the now floating form of Twilight. “The Great and Overencumbered Trixie does not appreciate the Princess’ eldritch grumblings. How long until we reach this library?”

“It’s just around the, uh, the…” Night Glider stopped dead in her tracks, dismayed.

The castle at the heart of Ponyville was under siege. Strawberry blobs writhed and oozed all over it, blocking the windows and doors, as if they could absorb the very walls and bring the whole structure down if they tried hard enough. She swallowed. “It’s under all that,” she finished.

“For crying out loud!” Yearling threw up her hooves. “The whole town is frozen, the princess is on cloud cuckoo-land, only two of us can fight, we need to get into those books to find out what happened to the damn spell! ARGH!”

Night Glider scooted back, dismayed and a little ashamed. She’d tried! She would have had that last one too, if she hadn’t have slipped at just the last moment…

Yearling took a deep breath and looked over at her apologetically. “Sorry. We need cool heads right now.” She looked to the others. “Alright, let’s set the princess down and think. Any ideas?”

Around her the world spun. The world tilted sharpish on a precarious axis, it hung over a roiling abyss. What exactly was magic and how did it work? What had robbed her weaving of its intention? What exactly did Celestia keep in that one closet on the twenty ninth floor, right wing, eighteenth door from the stairwell, the red and green doored one with the golden filigree and the writing she found no other version of which hurt to look at? Why were there two Rarities until she squinted her eyes hard and her brain hurt more?

The only thing that made sense as her friends squabbled was the shadowy presence watching from the roof of the Quills And Sofas And Hardhats store with its lambent eyes and skulking. That made a lot of sense. Of course someone else was here, that was reasonable. Twilight was a creature who lived inside of a world constructed by weaves of understandable logicks, and one of them was the mid-act turn, wherein the status quo was interrupted by an unforeseen happening or personage, and she accepted this because she had to, and because she had a concussion, probably.

“...That’s not a bad idea, Trixie,” Yearling said grudgingly. “They’ve been mostly aggressive so far towards anything loud and moving.”

“The Great and Superfluous Trixie is good at both Loudness and at Velocity!”

Twilight swallowed and said with a bit of a lilt, “I don’t think you’re superfluous, Trixie. You’re a very skilled pony.”

“I think she thinks that word means something else, dear,” Rarity said, and patted her marefriend’s mane while giving them all a worried look. “That would leave me pulling Twilight’s weight on my own. I’m not sure if I can make it across the square as fast without Trixie.”

“Then we’ll carry her without magic,” Night Glider cut in. “I can do that, I know I can.”

Life from Magic wasn’t unheard of, but did that make it normal? Twilight’s mind was in a thousand pieces on the rocks of an alien reality beneath her own. She had studied magic, but had she ever considered that absolutely none of it made a lick of academic sense? It had seemed so reasonable and systematic and understandable before, and now she— (Wait, Trixie asked, what does superfluous mean then?)—wasn’t sure, what did anything mean? Except for the menacing, yet promising spectre that had crossed over to the Flower Trio’s Flower Emporium and slipped slightly as it ducked under the attack of one of the strawberry jam oozes and flew (Jumped?) onto the Ponyville Non-Quill Stationary Station, because that made sense and she understood the significance of that. But magic was just, bullshit, honestly, she had no idea what was up with that. Why was she making strawberry jam monsters? Whose idea was that? How the—

“Alright, girls,” Yearling said, a hint of steel in her voice. “One push and we’re in, and we figure out what went wrong, and we solve this, and Night Glider and I get back to doing what we were doing, which I cannot stress enough, was going to be romantic and definitely planned well.”

“I didn’t expect anything elsewise,” Night Glider said, encouragingly. “Though, I mean, improvising a date isn’t that bad.”

“Oh, completely,” Rarity agreed.

“What matters is getting to the books.” Yearling said, cutting them both off from further commentary. “No more Jam monsters. On the count of—”

And that was when Twilight, concussion and existential dread and all, looked up and said in a bewildered tone, “Wait, aren’t you going to—” at the same time as the streets erupted in a tide of gelatinous strawberry menace from below.

7. Berried in the Stacks (trAce)

“It’s not happening.” A.K. Yearling stepped back from the castle door to catch her breath. “Any entrances that wouldn’t have gotten locked up by time?”

“The library has a reading window,” Rarity offered. “Twilight insists it has to stay closed at all times, but I open it when I can. Honestly, the dear needs fresh air and she’s not getting it any other –”

In a flash, A.K. spread her wings and dipped around the edge of the castle’s trunk.

“It’s still open!”

The four hurried after A.K. to the open window and she started ferrying everypony up one-by-one. When she got down to the last passenger, she braced her hooves under the pained alicorn’s forelegs.

“Gonna lift you up now. How’s it feeling?”

“Buh.” Twilight was still not in the greatest shape to form words and amazingly, she knew it. As she was lifted off the ground, Twilight’s eyes drifted to Ponyville in the distance—or more specifically, the fruit that now oozed from its streets. Strawberry creatures spread out from the site of their creation to cover the small field between the town and her castle.

Ooh, toast. With strawberry jam spread.

All of a sudden, Twilight’s world contracted a severe case of vertigo, causing Twilight to crash into the floor of her library.

“Oh Celestia,” A.K.’s voice said from somewhere. “I’m so sorry, Princess. We couldn’t both fit through the window, so I put you in first and tried to balance you on the sill.”

“Toast,” Twilight mumbled.

A.K. blinked. “...Agreed.” The pegasus looked up at their companions. “We should barricade the front door to keep them from– nevermind. Time spell. Any other plans?”

Rarity sidled up to Twilight and cupped her marefriend’s cheeks. “Darling, I know it hurts, but we need your beautiful brainpower right now. How can we make time move again? Or make the strawberries stop moving.”

Five hundred possibilities flashed through Twilight’s head—half of them accompanied by spikes of pain. She grit her teeth and pushed through, creating a clearer image in her mind with each wave.

“Count… –erspell,” she finally pushed out.

“Twilight Sparkle, we are in a library!” Trixie shouted from far too close. “It could take us days to find the right spellbook!”

“Five… zero four.”

“...Gluey Decimal system?” A.K. asked.

Twilight put a hoof over her eyes and nodded. “Five ze– gruh. Zero four.”

Rarity planted a gentle kiss on Twilight’s forehead and stood, marching over to the small library desk in the corner. Quickly scanning the notes pinned to its surface, she spotted the paper she knew Twilight trusted her to find.

“Five oh four, books about magic.” Her eyes shifted over a few inches to the library map. “Shelves eleven through fifteen.”

“That’s still way too many!” Trixie protested.

“Not if we split up the work. A.K. look through those first two shelves. I’ll look on shelves thirteen and fourteen, and Trixie? You get the last one.” Happy with her quick decision-making, Rarity smugly set about her portion of the work.

She tried to, at least.

“Oh ponyfeathers!” Rarity cursed as her magic failed to find purchase on Indigo’s Insane Incantations, 2nd Edition. “Of course we can’t read the books, the time stop is still active!”

Protests and hurried re-planning from her companions flowed into Twilight’s ears as she struggled to mentally catch up to what she was hearing. That thing, what she had heard. It was…

“Wrong,” she said. “Speed… speedreading spell. Scans books. Don’t need… open. I can –” Lighting up her horn caused another lance of pain to shoot through her head.

Rarity was suddenly next to her, supporting her marefriend’s slumped form. “You will sit here and rest, dear. After teaching Trixie the spell.”

“Trixie?” the showmare gasped. “I mean– Of course the Humble and Selfless Trixie will shoulder the burden of saving the day!”

Twilight shook her head. “Nuh. Last time–”

“That was one time! And the museum really should have had better security!”

The pair stared at Trixie. “Really?” Rarity sighed.

“Erm, th-the Penitent and Apologetic Trixie regrets her actions that day!”

Rarity massaged the bridge of her nose. “Given the circumstances, it’s the best chance we’ve got, dear.”

Twilight tried to protest again, but any words she had were erased by another bout of head pain. She rode it out, grinding her teeth until the lightning subsided and she was left with only one word.

“Fine.”

🝯 🝯 🝯 🝯 🝯

Night Glider soared over the roofs of Ponyville, eyes glued to the mass of shifting fruit below. A few lonely beacons of color peaked out from the sea of red—ponies frozen in time, now unknowingly overrun by shambling fruit.

A shiver ran up her spine. “And I thought cutie mark theft was the worst it could get. Freaky.”

In no time at all, the green roof of Ponyville’s Flower Emporium rose into view. Pausing for just a moment to visualize her path, Night Glider dropped into a nosedive. Flaring her wings just before plunging into the berry horde, she sailed perfectly through the building’s open door to perch on a display table.

Despite the open door, the interior of the shop was surprisingly clear of the creatures that raged outside. Night Glider cautiously hopped down to the floor and glanced at the other ponies present.

“Sorry, gals.” She lifted a hoof to boop the nose of a cream-colored mare with a rose cutie mark, then paused. “Do you think I’m coming off too strong? I’m sure Miss Yearling can take care of herself, not to mention the others that are with her… but abandoning your date isn’t a great look, is it?.” She cringed. “I hope she doesn’t hold it against me.”

The mare didn’t respond.

“You gotta admit it’s a memorable first date, though.” Night Glider chuckled. “There’s gotta be some kinda mulligan for magical catastrophes, right? I should ask. I can’t let her just slip out of my hooves—she’s too cute.” She finally followed through on the boop, tapping the mare’s warm nose just as something coughed behind the pegasus.

A quick check revealed a large unfrozen plant moved a leafy appendage to pound at its… chest? A few more hacking coughs and the verbal vegetation spit up a bushel of strawberries right before Night Glider’s eyes. After figuring out their directions, each berry immediately started dragging themselves toward the door.

“...Why is magic so weird?”

8. Berried in the Stacks (Lingo)

Nightglider had questions. Her questions had questions. And no small number of those questions were in regards to the plant in the corner of the room. Now, she was in a flower shop, so there was no shortage of plants inside.

However, few plants were known to cough up a bushel of strawberries as if they were choking on them. Probably none, but it was far from the strangest thing going on at the moment.

Nightglider gave Roseluck's frozen form one last affectionate glance before she glanced out the door, spying the freshly coughed-up berries joining the rest of their brethren. In the streets, they seamlessly became part of a horde of ghastly oozing red strawberry creatures.

Thank goodness the townsfolk were all frozen by the time spell, else the panic would have been uproarious.

She attempted to close the door, but confirmed it to be impossible thanks to the spell. She made due by taking the strangely not-frozen plant and placing it stalwartly in the doorway, doing her best to somehow protect her rose-colored date.

“Uh.. don't move. Ok?” said the pegasus.

“Sure ok.” said the plant.

Nodding as much to herself as the flora, she settled in to continue admiring how adorable her date was.

Back at the castle, Trixie was going over the speed-reading spell in her head a few times, trying to commit it to memory. With Twilight still out of commission, it was up to her to SAVE THE DAY.

And to do that, she needed to read a shelf of books without being able to physically open any of them. She had to find the counterspell they needed to get time moving again.

As Trixie psyched herself up like she was about to go on for a big show, Rarity was worrying and pestering over her marefriend's condition. Pain still rolled over the alicorn's mind in waves, making her grit her teeth.

The other occupant of the room kept an anxious eye on the field between the castle and town, which was steadily filling with ooze creatures. Their numbers were the most dense near ground zero in town, but it was hard to tell if they were increasing in number or just spreading apart more.

“How's it going Tricky?” she called back into the room.

“It's Trixie. The Great and Powerful Trixie! Who is also humble and selfless, and also sorry for her past misdoings!”

Twilight groaned and clutched her head at the volume of Trixie's grandstanding. Rarity shot Trixie another look and did what she could to sooth her paramour.

“Right, well, Trixie thinks she can do it. And thinking is half of doing, so Trixie is essentially half way to saving the day already.” She said with a huff.

“Stand aside, mere mortals and also Twilight. This is going to be a cinch.”

She rose onto her back legs in a dramatic stance, casting the spell at the relevant section of books and hoping to Celestia that she could back up her showboating this time.

Back in the flower shop, Nightglider debated with herself between staying put or leaving her date and joining the others at the castle, if they had even managed to get inside.

Sure her date was frozen in time, but it still felt wrong to leave again during their first date. Well, she wasn't really leaving her alone, as a few other ponies were also frozen in the room. But still.

The ominously not-frozen plant in the doorway didn't help either, as she kept feeling like it was watching her.

The decision became significantly easier to make after she heard an explosion from the direction of the castle. With one last suspicious glance at the plant, she took off into the air and toward the castle. She made the journey in a wide circle, in case some of the creatures tried to follow from the ground.

Unbeknownst to her, a very different creature observed her flight. The whole situation in town was absurd, but it had the possibility of being highly advantageous to it.

9. Of Books and Berries (Lopunny)

After a few minute’s flight, the Castle of Friendship was finally in reach, the crystal exterior glinting in the light of the never setting sun. Night Glider wished she could take a few minutes to admire the sight, but given that time was stopped for most of the world, she, ironically, simply couldn’t afford the delay. Beginning her descent, the rushing of wind through her ears began to die down, and a few new sounds met the pegasus’ ears. Namely, the sound of arguing, or at least, impassioned voices of varying levels of familiarity. She almost went down to head to the door, but realized that, given the nature of stopped time, and the door she’d been unable to close earlier, she’d have to find a different entrance.

Mentally, the mare made a note to thank that peculiar talking plant for blocking the door to protect Roseluck.

Finding a balcony to land on, Night Glider let out a soft sigh of relief upon seeing the door to the castle interior had been left open before this whole debacle. After taking a moment to wipe her hooves on the entry mat out of habit, she entered into the castle halls, hearing the voices begin to raise in volume again, ringing off the walls as she approached.

“...can’t just put an explosion into every spell, Trixie!” A voice called out that Night Glider intimately remembered as belonging to Starlight Glimmer.

“Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie doesn’t see why not, considering it’s her magic that will be saving the day here!” A vaguely familiar voice retorted; maybe it was the pony who’d come to the Sunset Festival with Starlight a couple years back?

“On a normal spell, maybe we can put up with it - but something of this level just isn’t safe!”

Well, at least that explained the explosion she’d heard earlier. Finally reaching the halls outside the main library, Night Glider’s hooves clip-clopped loudly, acoustics echoing to her ears and causing the conversation to cut short. For a moment, she wondered if maybe she’d been intruding on something she wasn’t supposed to, but the realization struck that most everypony else had been frozen in time, and they likely weren’t expecting anyone else to come by. That explanation made a lot more sense.

“Uh... hello?” Night Glider peeked her head around the entrance, doing her best to hide the annoyance in her voice. Just because she was upset that her first date with Roseluck had been interrupted, didn’t mean she had to be rude to the only creatures who might know what was going on. More importantly, they were the only creatures who might know how to fix it, and that mattered much more than the spark of frustration in her chest.

“Night Glider? Is that you? How are - how did you - what are you doing here?” Starlight galloped over, seemingly dropping whatever argument she’d been having before, much to the apparent relief of some of the other ponies in the room. In particular, it looked as though Princess Twilight herself was in immense pain, the way she’d been holding her head as she lay down on a velvet couch. Next to her, another pony, completely gray and oddly textured, slowly and stiffly made to take care of the princess, machine-like in her methods. She looked familiar, too, much like the princess’ marefriend Rarity, but from what Night Glider had known of the pony, Rarity would never have allowed herself to look so disheveled, and her colors were far different.

“Hey, Starlight! I’m here because I heard an explosion, actually, and with the whole... you know,” she began, sweeping a hoof in a vague motion, as if to say ‘everything’, “I figured there was something related, and maybe somepony else who wasn’t a statue.”

“They’re not statues,” Starlight replied with a sigh, one hoof covering her face in a frustrated motion. As she did, Night Glider noticed what seemed almost like a spark of some kind coming from her horn, but didn’t get a chance to say anything before the other familiar pony spoke up - Trixie, she believed was her name.

“They’re frozen in time. Big difference. And, not to worry, as the Great and Powerful Trixie has everything under control! She’ll be able to fix this whole problem in no time at all!”

“Absolutely not!” Starlight turned and snapped before Night Glider could even respond. “You are not casting that spell unless you take the explosions out of it!”

“Explosions? Like the one I heard earlier?”

“The very same,” Trixie responded with a smug smile and a hoof to her chest, as if proud of the fact. “We couldn’t open any of the books in the library because of the whole ‘time’ thing, so I went to the effort of casting a speed reading spell to peruse the contents of every single book in here!”

“...And you failed, and it exploded?” Night Glider asked, noting another spark from Starlight’s horn and a twitch from the gray unicorn.

“What? No, of course not. I succeeded, and know the exact spell that will fix everything!” Trixie stated, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“So... why did the spell explode then? Did it partially backfire or something? I don’t really know much about magic,” the pegasus spoke with a confused curiosity as she sat down on the floor, “so I think I must be missing something.”

Starlight let out an exasperated sigh, removing her forehoof from her face before responding herself. “Trixie apparently puts that explosion in all of her spells now. Every. Single. One. No matter what.”

“Of course I do! Everything benefits from explosions and fireworks!” Trixie scoffed, flipping her mane back with one hoof, once again acting as though her words were the only sane ones being spoken. “Besides, how else would the crowd know to be impressed? Explosion.”

Night Glider stared at Trixie.

Starlight Glimmer stared at Trixie.

The gray pony who looked suspiciously like Rarity, if Rarity were covered horn to hoof in a layer of soot, stared at Trixie.

Princess Twilight groaned, covering her ears.

“So... you’re putting an explosion into a spell to resume the flow of time? Won’t that like, explode time?” Night Glider felt that spark of frustration growing to a small ember inside her, and willed it to cool down. “This doesn’t really need to be for show, does it? It’s not like anyone who’s frozen in time is going to know.”

“W-well... We would know! And I can’t just let this whole thing go without spectacle - I wouldn’t be the Great and Powerful Trixie if my spells weren’t Great and Powerful!”

“You’re casting a spell to literally move time. I cannot think of anything more Great or Powerful than that,” Night Glider responded, not noticing the nervous cough and sheepish look on Starlight Glimmer’s face. “So can you please just cast the spell without theatrics, so I can get back to my first date with the mare I put a lot of effort into impressing?”

“You simply don’t understand!” Trixie stood on her hind legs for a moment, waving her forelegs in the aforementioned theatrics. “It’s a matter of principle! Honor! Greatness! And...”

“And?”

“And,” Trixie’s voice lowered as she dropped back to all fours, “I maybe can’t cast spells without it.”

The loud jolt sparking out of Starlight’s horn was more than enough indication that this was a big point of tension.

“I don’t understand, I really don’t. When I first taught you magic, you were teleporting magical Cutie Maps and turning food into teacups with ease! Why can’t you just go back to doing that?”

“It’s not that, Starlight! Sure, spells I already knew, pre-established spells, I can cast just fine, but this is something entirely different! Whenever I make new spells for my show, I have to put in some kind of fireworks, or explosions, or something, or else it just... doesn’t work! And this is a whole new spell! There’s almost fifteen different spells going into this, you know. The explosion is what holds it all together!”

“You can’t... you can’t cast your own spells without explosions.” The fire roared in desperation to get out, barely held in by sheer force of will, but Night Glider kept her expression calm and stoic. Probably.

“...No.”

“So why doesn’t Starlight do it?” It was the obvious question, but even she had an idea nagging at the back of her mind towards why that might be. Given the sigh from Starlight in response, the pegasus was all but certain she had it right.

“I would if I could, but that’s part of why we’re in this mess. When time stopped, Twilight and I were working on some magical theories. As luck would have it, this happened right when we were both putting our magic to work, and given that time stopped, it just bounced right back at us.” Starlight shook her head, looking empathetically over at the Princess of Friendship, completely out of commission. “Twilight got the worst of it, since it was her spell to begin with, but my horn is gonna be shot for a while. Hence the... you know.”

Hooves gently and deliberately placed at her forehead, Night Glider rubbed her temples as she put the scene together. “So you two can’t cast the spell, and Trixie here can’t cast it without exploding all of time itself. Why not her?” She pointed a hoof at the unicorn that was almost certainly Rarity, who slowly turned to face the group, eyes lingering a bit on Trixie. And with all that soot, and her mane in such a mess, the pegasus began to realize why she was acting the way she was, and why she was on the opposite side of the room as Trixie, likely to keep her own flame of anger from incinerating the magician on the spot.

“My magic is very... specialized, you see. I’m good at what I do, and anything related to fashion is likely within my reach, but fixing what’s been broken here isn’t something I can mend with a needle and thread, darling.” Her voice was a near whisper, and Night Glider struggled to strain her ears to hear. “And that is why we are at an impasse. You wouldn’t happen to know any other unicorns who managed to somehow avoid being frozen in time, would you?”

Despite the sarcastic jest, no one had a real response to the conundrum, instead sitting in silence. Night Glider took the moment to gather her thoughts. Did that plant count? It was certainly magic. And none of this explained the strawberry oozes spreading throughout Ponyville. “Do we know who caused all of this?”

No sooner did the words escape her muzzle than a bright flash of light filled the room, alongside the telltale crackle of some kind of teleportation spell. “Alright,” a male voice with a drawl filled the silence as Night Glider covered her eyes from the flash with a wing, “Who’s the genius who decided to give more strawberries to the Smooze?!” Exasperation clung to each word, and as Night Glider moved her feathers to take a look, she saw an upright, two legged chimera of a creature standing before her. He looked like he was a foal’s toy, made of mix and match parts from a dozen different species, yet in the back of her head, she remembered seeing him once before, at that same Sunset Festival she’d met Trixie.

“Discord? Oh, thank goodness, you’re here, now you can help us with...” Starlight’s voice, at first full of relief, trailed off as each word tinged with confusion. “The Smooze? Strawberries? What does that have to do with anything? We’re just trying to figure out how to get time moving again, then we can worry about those-”

“What does it have to do with anything?” He interrupted, his voice taking on the same bewilderment Trixie had earlier, “It has everything to do with everything!” A clawed hand pinched at the bridge of his nose, his other hand snapping once, and with the snap, a pair of scissors appeared, cutting a hole into... the air itself? Once the hole had been finished, the scissors disappeared, and the hole revealed itself to be a window to Ponyville square, where Night Glider had been just moments ago.

The visages of ponies frozen in place, unmoving amidst whatever activities they’d been performing came into view as the window moved to different viewpoints, but more importantly, it showed the strawberry ooze creatures she’d seen running through the streets. Starlight and Trixie gasped at the sight, as each ooze ransacked stalls and storefronts, looking for something, as if by a second sense.

“The Smooze and I were having a wonderful impromptu visit, walking through Ponyville, seeing the sights, when somehow, he ingested a strawberry! He’s deathly allergic, as you can plainly see here,” Discord stated, waving a clawed hand as the image in the viewpoint changed to a larger, red tinged ooze creature. It had a mouth but no eyes, much like the miniature oozes that were terrorizing the town, but it looked almost sick, and as some of the oozes came back, Night Glider’s eyes widened as she realized how they were multiplying.

The smaller oozes, each carrying a strawberry inside themselves, jumped into the larger one, causing a gurgle and the whole being to visibly shake. After a moment, multiple oozes split off from the main... host? Body? Whatever it was, there were more being created than had come by to begin with.

“I was going to get the spare medicine I keep in my house - Celestia’s sake, though, I need to do some reorganizing,” he said, something eerily feeling wrong with his body. Night Glider realized after a moment that all of his body parts had been shifted - legs in place of arms, tail in place of horns, and he, with one hand on the back of where his tail should have been, began to shift his body around like a toy cube until it resembled the original once more.

“But now I see that even though I went to all the trouble of stopping time to make sure this didn’t get worse, someone managed to get another strawberry into the poor Smooze! Now this medicine isn’t going to be enough - say, you five wouldn’t happen to have an industrial sized sifter, would you? No? No, of course not, I’ll have to go find mine,” he spoke with an exasperated sigh, putting away the comically large Epipen he’d somehow acquired before pulling out a pair of scissors from thin air once more. “Now, you all might want to go ahead and get yourselves out of here. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to lug that thing back here, but it is not going to be easy.”

“Discord, wait-”

Starlight tried to interrupt, holding out a hoof, but Discord had already cut a hole into the air, tearing some other kind of portal open as he stepped through. “No time! I’ve got to find that sifter before this gets even worse. I don’t even want to think about how much rice we’ll need in that case,” he spoke, his body visibly shuddering before he stepped into the portal, which disappeared immediately behind him, leaving only the ‘window’ he’d made earlier.

Night Glider sat in silence, staring between the space Discord had been in previously, the baffled Starlight Glimmer, and the seemingly unaffected Trixie. After a moment of grappling with herself, she finally spoke up.

“This wouldn’t be a bad time to bring up the magical, talking plant that interrupted my date with Roseluck by spitting out strawberries, would it?”

10. The Battle Of Carousel Boutique (Undome Tinwe)

Starlight stared at Night Glider.

Twilight stared at Starlight.

Rarity stared at the Smooze through the viewing portal Discord had left behind, watching in horror as the tainted monstrosity slowly advanced towards a time-stopped Carousel Boutique.

Trixie's horn glowed. "So, is it time for Trixie's grand finale?" she asked, grinning.

"No!" Everypony in the room turned their attention back on the showmare.

"If Discord's the one that stopped time, then he can fix it when he gets back with the sifter for the Smooze," Twilight said. "There's no need for us to restart it. Probably."

"I would very much appreciate it if we ceased with the magical experiments for the day," Rarity said, wincing as she caught sight of her entirely-gray self in a nearby mirror. "However, if any of you feel like making up for endangering my store, might I suggest we hurry over to make a final, valiant defence against the encroaching horror?"

Night Glider raised up a defensive wing. "Hey, I was just trying to enjoy a nice date with Roseluck until the thing with the talking strawberry plant and then the time stop." Her eyes narrowed on the two depowered mages. "Care to explain that one?"

Starlight cleared her throat, pawing awkwardly at the ground with her hoof. "In our defence, we figured it was harmless and we were a little busy trying to re-colorfy Rarity. How were we supposed to know that the Smooze was in town and deathly allergic to strawberries?" As if in response, the great pile of sludge split off two more red, strawberry-hearted slimes growing the army that was minutes away from consuming Rarity home.

"Can we please continue the discussion of blame at a later time?" Rarity interrupted, sounding increasingly hysterical. "The Smooze is about to consume all that I hold dear and I would very much like that to not happen. Especially while I'm still drained of all colour."

Twilight's ears drooped. "But... I'm here."

Rarity's expression softened. "And I love you very much, my dear, but I am rather cross at all that's happened today. So, if you would?"

Starlight sighed. "Twilight and I still don't won't have our magic back until Discord breaks the time stop and the spell we were casting completes."

"Twilight is still an alicorn, and you're clever," Rarity said shortly. "Now, shall we?"

"Can Trixie use explosions?" Trixie asked, vibrating with excitement.

Rarity smiled grimly. "As long as they don't damage my shop, then please, indulge to your heart's content."

Trixie's eyes lit up. "Then onwards, soldiers! To our last stand, as we beat back the advancing horde under Trixie's auspicious leadership!"

Rarity raised an eyebrow at that, but didn't comment, simply following behind as Trixie burst through the doors of the Castle of Friendship and into the time-stopped wasteland that awaited them.

Ponyville was still frozen in a tableau of a normal day, which is to say that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were covered in tree sap running away from a flaming trebuchet on a distant hill, the two flower ponies that Night Glider wasn't dating were panicking at a snake that had gotten loose from Trixie's wagon, and an onslaught of red slimy things were still spreading over the land like a plague.

Twilight and Night Glider flew above the three ground-bound ponies calling out the safest path through the chaos, leading them past stained pools that looked like blood if blood looked like strawberry jam. Along the way, they also had to dodge several airborne volleys as some of the closer infected Smoozes tried to shoot them down.

Eventually, though, they made their way to Carousel Boutique, still thankfully unslimed, taking a moment to catch their breaths as they gazed up at the veritable flood about to descend on them.

“We just need to hold out until Discord gets back, which hopefully won’t be too long,” Twilight said as the anaphylactic Smoozed inches closer. “Ready?”

“Ready.” Rarity shifted into a fighting stance. Her magic might only be for fashion, but if the Smooze thought it could rampage through her dresses, it was going to catch some hooves.

“Ready.” Despite definitely not being at fault, Starlight was always ready to help out a friend, magic or no magic.

“Sure.” Night Glider had decided that if things with Roseluck went well, she was definitely not moving to Ponyville.

“For Equestria!” Trixie declared, fireworks shooting off behind her. “Charge, my loyal steeds!”

The others rolled their eyes at her, but didn’t have much time to do more before the Smooze and his spawns descended.

Years later, Trixie would regale her audience with tales of the heroic last stand of Trixie’s Quintet as they defended Ponyville from the endless waves of the bestial Smooze.

She would speak of how they all fought bravely, except for Twilight Sparkle, who was completely useless without her magic. An illusion spell would show the five armoured in beautiful gold and crystal armour stamped with Trixie’s cutie mark, wielding elaborate weapons as they fought back the vicious, deadly invaders with skill and strength.

Of course, Trixie fought the hardest, raining fire and destruction upon their foes with an epic barrage of spells unlike the world had any seen, lighting up the night until it was as day, and vaporizing the masses of ooze that continually reformed, two more spawning from every one defeated.

Long did they fight, utilizing bravery and cunning in equal measure. With time frozen, it was impossible to tell how long the battle lasted exactly, but it was definitely very, very long.

And then, at dawn of the fifth day (somehow the Sun still rose despite being frozen in her retelling), they looked to the east, broken and bloodied, and saw…

A slash of light folded in on itself to reveal the Lord of Chaos riding a rocking horse.

“About time,” Twilight muttered as she casually slammed on the ground with her Earth Pony strength, sending a shockwave out that threw back a hundred advancing slimes. “It’s been almost fifteen minutes!”

“Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva!” Discord declared, ignoring Twilight, holding up an industrial-size sifter large enough to blot out the sun. He charged forwards, swaying back and forth as the rocking horse rocked, before passing it through the main body of the Smooze.

The five ponies looked away from the horrific sight. Unfortunately, that didn't stop them from hearing whatever was happening.

"Darling," Rarity said to Twilight afterwards. "You wouldn't happen to know a good memory-erasing spell, would you?"

"Not one that I can ethically cast," Twilight replied sadly.

"Unfortunate," Rarity murmured. She chanced a glance around her.

The once-red tide was now a "normal" neon green, as the pieces of the Smooze were moving back towards the main body and being absorbed. Next to it, Discord was casually picking strawberries from the sifter and eating them, watching as his friend put itself together.

"I-Is it over?" Trixie asked from behind the bush she was hiding in.

Starlight sighed. "Yes, Trixie, it's safe now. Probably."

Trixie leapt out dramatically, striking a pose. "Was there ever any doubt?" she declared. "Trixie's Quintet saves the day yet again due to her amazing leadership skills."

Twilight stared at Trixie. "Nope, not today," she said to herself. "Just focus on fixing Time itself and forget about Trixie, Twilight. You can be the bigger mare."

The princess went up to Discord. "So, is the crisis over?" she asked. "Can we get out of the time stop yet?"

Discord grinned, putting away the sifter. "Why, of course, my dear Twilight."

He snapped his fingers.

11. Begin Again (Now in glorious Technicolor!) (nonchalant)

“Wait, wait, let us get re—”

Whatever Twilight was about to say was sharply cut off as time reasserted itself with a deep, lurching scraping sound. The magic built up around the horns of Twilight and Starlight flared suddenly, resuming its flow, and splashed back against the fabric of reality.

Both mares grunted and bent down with the pain of a malformed spell rebounding and dissipating. Rarity immediately rounded on Discord.

“What was that? You did just resume time, right?” she asked.

Discord scoffed, waving the claw he’d just snapped with (it was still smoking lightly.)

“Please, it’s not my fault your accomplished Princess and her perpetual grad student can’t perfectly resume the formation of a mental spell matrix in the time it takes me to snap time back into motion,” he said. “Besides, a little magical splashback never killed anyone.”

A pause.

“Much.”

As much as Rarity evidently wanted to continue tearing into the draconequus, a wing lightly brushed along her back and made her pause. Twilight was shaking her head and shrugging. “It’s not like we don’t know what we’re getting into whenever Discord gets pulled into the crisis of the week,” she said, “and really, we’re fine. We’ll just have to try again when things are…” she grimaced. “Quieter.”

There was an awkward silence as everyone watched the Smooze finish up reconstituting itself a ways away from the group, and somehow visibly sit down to catch its breath.

Eventually Night Glider spoke up. “So, uh, everypony… Princess… not that it hasn’t been a very interesting time, but I think I’m going to head back to Roseluck now. She must be at least a little bit confused.” She stretched her wings. “I’ll, ah, see if we can handle the talking strawberry plant for you, though. Her friends might find it interesting once they stop screaming about it.”

Some awkward goodbyes were exchanged, and Night Glider waved sheepishly at the Smooze as she left. It was the only one who heard her mutter “Rosie, we have got to get you out of this town.”

Trixie pointed at Rarity. “So… on to the next problem?” she smiled tightly. “Trixie has been working on her magic precisely for situations like this one!”

Just as Starlight began to nod encouragingly, both Rarity and Twilight raised a hoof to object, canted ever so slightly towards Discord.

“For a delicate matter such as thi—”

“Discord is surely more experi—”

“Nonsense!” Discord waved his tail airily, cutting them off. “It would be harmless to let Trixie try her hoof at this. I’ll be right here in case anything goes wrong.”

A bright orange vest, hard-hat, clipboard, and safety goggles all languidly slid from unbeing onto his frame. “That’s a Spirit of Chaos guarantee,” he winked.

The Smooze burbled quietly by the door. Everyone looked over and saw it adjusting itself, looking contrite.

“Oh, right!” Rarity said. “I’m so sorry you got caught up in all of this. It must have been incredibly distressing.”

The Smooze made a placating gesture, then gestured at the Boutique.

“Not at all! You were not yourself. While I might have gotten a little… defensive of my shop, I never held it against you personally,” Rarity assured. “I’d be delighted to converse with you another time, especially if you have need of my expertise.”

Twilight walked up next to the monochromatic mare. “Rarity is right,” she said, “this was absolutely not your fault, and we deeply apologise for the hardship. Next time you’re in town I would love to know, so that we can show you proper Ponyville hospitality.”

A magenta glow quickly formed around Starlight and Trixie’s mouths, just barely opened to mention something about the frightening regularity with which incidents happened in the small village.

Some pleasantries later the Smooze was merrily on its way, ambling towards the train station.

A throat cleared. Everyone turned towards Trixie.

“Soooooo….” she ventured.

Rarity looked at Discord. Then Twilight. Then Trixie.

“I suppose—” she began.

“Thank you thank you thank you! You’re not going to regret this!” Trixie squealed.

Everypony else stood back a ways, letting Trixie take centre stage. Rarity shuffled on her hooves, eyeing Discord, who was now fiddling with a lanyard he’d spun into place around his neck. She coughed, politely.

“What? Oh! Right, supervising! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and all that,” Discord said.

Forgoing the fanfare for once, Trixie took a deep breath. All the beings in the room felt the gathering of magic around her horn, and they also felt the way a tinge of chaotic energy wove into the pattern she was crafting. A vibrant, multicoloured tendril snaked out towards Rarity, slowly but surely.

Discord, who’d been playing a losing game of cat’s cradle with his lanyard, turned to properly look at the illusionist’s spell.

The light grew and grew, obscuring Rarity entirely for several seconds. There was no speaking, and only the measured breathing on Trixie’s part broke the silence. Eventually the spell tapered off, and as everypony’s eyes adjusted again they beheld… a perfectly normal looking Rarity.

“Did it work?” the once-again-purple-maned unicorn asked. “My mane seems to be the appropriate colour!”

Starlight gave her a quick once-over, leaning in to peer closely at Rarity’s eyes.

“I think it worked!” she said. She then whipped around to Trixie, and repeated with more enthusiasm. “I think it worked!”

“Please, there was never any doubt,” Trixie said. Her enthusiasm and joy at the praise may have been given away by her eyes, but no-one called her out on it. “Simply let the record show that I did this when Twilight Sparkle could not.”

Twilight had walked up to Rarity and was worriedly checking her over completely, horn sparking with diagnostic spells and energy scans. “Seriously, Trixie, thank you. So long as Rarity’s alright I don’t mind that someone else was her knight in shining armour.”

“Darling, does that mean you won’t be trying on that bodyguard outfit I made up for you?” Rarity asked cheekily, trying to peer around Twilight to inspect her own tail.

“Wha—uhh, I mean, of course, Rarity! I’d be happy to!” Twilight replied all too eagerly.

Rarity didn’t reply, but her self-satisfied smirk was audible.

A small gong sounded, and everypony turned to Discord. Of course, he was just pulling a tattered brown robe around himself and bowing in Trixie’s direction. “You are proving yourself a competent student of our ways, young one,” he rasped.

Trixie smiled sheepishly, scuffing the floor with a hoof. “Well, Trixie’s been dabbling, it’s nothing serious.”

“Ah, but it could be,” Discord continued, reaching into one sleeve to produce…

A colourful punch card.

“See, this counts as your first Feat of Chaos! Just twelve more and you get a free gift basket!”

Trixie considered it, then nodded solemnly. She took the card in her magic and made it disappear into the folds of her cloak.

Rarity nudged Twilight with her shoulder. “Should we be concerned?” she asked.

“Hmm, I’m sure Starlight will keep an eye on them,” Twilight replied. “Honestly, I just want to go back to the castle and throw out any strawberries we have in the kitchen right now.”

Rarity hummed in agreement, then raised her voice. “Alright then, crisis averted! All other crises will simply have to wait. Everycreature out, if you please!”

The other three, who’d started conspiring (or at least, conversing in a way that invited suspicion from passerby) looked up at the duo and nodded, waving and marching off out of the boutique with their heads still pressed closely together.

Rarity sighed with the weariness of one who knows the evils they’ve unleashed are barely better than those they’ve put away.

“We’re going to regret this, aren’t we darling?”

“Yes. Yes we are.”