Poison Joke Prank Pastries
Poison Joke Prank Pastries
by Twippledash
"Hi, Pinkie!" Rainbow Dash said, flying through an open window into Sugarcube Corner's kitchen where her energetic friend was already waiting for her.
"Hi, Rainbow Dash!" Pinkie Pie said, bouncing right next to the pegasus as she landed.
"I heard you were looking for me, so what is it? Some new recipe you want me to taste test? Or—" Rainbow stopped abruptly as she was looking around the kitchen for any clues, and noticed several blue flowers lying on the table. She instinctively took a few steps away from them, and asked, "Uh, Pinkie? Why do you have poison joke in your kitchen?"
"Why do I have everything else in my kitchen? To eat them, of course! I already ate a few of them!"
"You—what?!" Rainbow Dash looked incredulous, and even slightly disgusted. "You ate poison joke? Just like that? Are you crazy?!"
"I get called crazy a lot, so I guess I am," Pinkie answered, bouncing around.
Rainbow facehoofed and said, "I didn't mean it like that..." She looked back at Pinkie. "I mean, I know about plants as little as Applejack knows about flying, but even I know better than to just eat any random flower found in Everfree Forest."
"But it wasn't just any random flower," Pinkie said, stopping for a moment to look at Rainbow. "We already knew what poison joke does!"
"Correction: we knew what it does when touched," Rainbow said. "But we didn't know what it does when eaten."
Pinkie rolled her eyes. "Duh! I'm not as stupid as I may seem. I asked Zecora, and according to her eating poison joke doesn't have any side effects besides the jokes. And the same herbal bath cure still works!"
Rainbow sighed inwardly in relief, seeing her friend was not indeed as stupid as she thought. She still looked at Pinkie questioningly, and asked, "How does that even work? I mean, taking a bath to cure something you've taken internally."
Pinkie shrugged. "I dunno. Guess it's just magic or something."
"Yeah. Magic. The universal explanation to everything..." Rainbow muttered. "Anyway, I guess it's nice to know all that about poison joke," she said. "But you still haven't said what did you call me in here for?"
"That wasn't all, there's more still," Pinkie said. "What I also found out, is that the joke was near instantaneous when I ate the plant. Earlier I ate some, waited for just a few minutes—and poof! My teeth disappeared and I couldn't chew any of my candies anymore and my speech sounded funny!"
"So? I see your teeth are back in your mouth now, so you likely took that herbal bath afterwards," Rainbow said, raising an eyebrow. "But could you finally tell how that all concerns me? You're not about to do some poison joke tests on me, are you?"
Pinkie giggled and rolled her eyes again. "No, silly!" She grabbed Rainbow Dash on her cheeks and pushed her nose onto hers as she continued, "Look, there's an opportunity for a prank never done anywhere in Ponyville right in front of you! Don't you see it?"
"Right now, I can't see anything but you in front of me," Rainbow said a bit frustrated. She pushed away the pink pony invading her personal space, and stopped to think for a few moments. Soon her eyes widened in realization, and she said, "Oh! So you mean we could put some poison joke into cupcakes or whatever you have, and whoever eats them will get affected, right then and there?"
Pinkie nodded vigorously, now bouncing around the kitchen enthusiastically. "And we could call them 'poison joke prank pastries'!"
Rainbow grinned widely. "Awesome! Let's do that!" She looked around the kitchen, grimacing as she remembered her previous not-so-successful attempts in baking, and added, "Eh... you can do the baking part though. I'll just help around, giving you ingredients and stuff."
An hour later the two mares finally finished their baking. They had two trays on the kitchen table, one with a dozen of cupcakes, and other with a dozen of muffins. Each and every one of them had a generous amount of powdered poison joke added, though it was impossible to discern them from normal pastries without taking a bite and seeing whether it had any strange effects.
Somehow they both managed to refrain from eating any batter during their baking for once, so neither of them was affected by the poison joke at the moment. Their hooves were covered in poison joke batter though, but they both knew from previous experience that just external contact would not have any effect until after several hours.
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie looked at each other, both having a wide smile on their face. Pinkie said, "We should test the results to see we put enough poison joke into them. Then we can go pranking the others!"
Rainbow nodded in agreement. "I assume you have that herbal bath prepared already?"
"Sure do!" Pinkie then bumped one of the trays, causing a single cupcake to fly up towards her. She opened her mouth wide open and swallowed the cupcake as a whole.
Rainbow followed suit, picking up one of the muffins instead, and ate it in a few bites. "These taste just as delicious as your muffins always do. I wouldn't be able to distinguish these from normal ones, even though I know these have poison joke added!"
While they waited for the effects to kick in, they discussed about what they would be doing next and who should be their prank victims. They didn't have to wait long though; after just three minutes of waiting, Pinkie's mane and tail suddenly deflated and started hanging straight down, in addition to her coat and mane turning into a slightly darker shade.
"Huh?" Rainbow looked at the straight maned Pinkie next to her, and said, "That brings back quite bad memories... Please tell me that was just the poison joke acting, and that this is not about to be a repeat of that one time we held you that surprise birthday party." She shuddered at the thought of Pinkie's "party" with inanimate objects as her substitute guests. She would never admit it to anypony, but she had been absolutely terrified of her friend's sudden change of mood at some points, and would not want anything to remind her of those few hours of that day.
"Yup!" Pinkie said, still as cheerily as ever. "I normally have my hair down only when I'm really, really, really depressed, and at the moment I'm not feeling sad at all!"
"Good to hear," Rainbow said, though she was still feeling a bit uneasy around her. Rainbow's mood brightened soon though, as she saw Pinkie bouncing around as cheerily as ever—although it was quite strange to see her straight mane and tail flopping around, instead of her normal, puffy hair bouncing in sync with her.
Just a few seconds later Rainbow Dash experienced the effects of poison joke, too. She didn't even notice anything until Pinkie started giggling uncontrollably, just looking at her back. Rainbow turned her head around, seeing what was wrong; her wings were ridiculously out of proportions. She flared her wings open, almost losing her balance in the process. She saw that her right wing was as tiny as Scootaloo's, while her left wing had grown up and looked like it could have belonged to Princess Celestia, save for the color.
Pinkie couldn't hold her laughter longer, and she fell on the floor laughing out loud. Rainbow just sighed and said, "Not. Funny. Why does something bad always happens to my wings?" She tried to fly, but just a single flap of her wings quickly threw her off balance, causing her to fall on the floor with Pinkie. "I don't like anypony or anything messing with my wings. I'm going to take that bath, right now."
"Okie dokie," Pinkie said and stood up, now managing to control her laughter again. "I'm coming too, I love having my hair puffy!"
"Yeah," Rainbow said, "and seeing your hair down like that is actually quite unnerving..."
After taking a quick bath to wash off the poison joke effects from themselves, Rainbow and Pinkie returned to the kitchen to retrieve their poison joke prank pastries. They decided to start with some of the bakery customers, and they already had the curing bath prepared, just in case some of their victims would freak out and needed a quick remedy.
"So, who's going to be our first target?" Rainbow silently asked Pinkie, as they both looked around the bakery with a few customers sitting here and there.
"Hmm..." Pinkie carefully looked around, trying to decide a good victim for them. She noticed a gray pegasus on one table in the corner eating a muffin, her eyes brightening. "Ooh, I know!" She pointed towards her chosen target, and said, "Derpy! She's so obsessed with muffins that she wouldn't have second thoughts if we give her a free sample!"
Rainbow smirked. "Great! One free muffin for Derpy, coming up," she said and flew back into the kitchen. A moment later she flew back, holding a muffin on her hoof.
They approached Derpy, trying to act as naturally and inconspicuous as they could. Derpy was still completely oblivious about their intents as she looked back at them—or one of her eyes looked at them, other was apparently still looking at the muffin she was eating—and smiled, waving a hoof at them.
"Hi, Derpy!" Pinkie said cheerily. "Would you like another muffin? It's on the house, for you're one of our best customers!"
Derpy's smile turned into a wide grin, and her eyes widened as her gaze drifted from Pinkie to the delicious looking muffin Rainbow Dash was offering for her. "Free muffin? For me? I love muffins!" she exclaimed and grabbed the pastry from Rainbow's hoof.
"Yeah, we know," Rainbow said. "And that's exactly why we're giving you this gift." She tried to hold her laughter as she watched their first victim devour the poison joke muffin in just a few seconds. Now all it took was to wait for a few minutes for the joke to take effect.
Pinkie couldn't hold her laughter for any longer; she started to giggle uncontrollably, gaining a few strange looks from the customers around the bakery. They shrugged it off quickly, thinking it was just one of her usual laughter fits she got now and then without any apparent reason. Derpy was still looking at her with a questioning expression on her face, but she just shrugged and ate the rest of her normal muffin she had been eating before getting pranked.
After a minute Pinkie was still giggling, and Derpy asked Rainbow Dash with a concerned tone, "Is everything okay with her? What is she laughing at?"
"Oh, you'll see soon enough," Rainbow said smirking, getting even more confused look from Derpy as a result.
"What? I don't—" Derpy started, stopping abruptly, blinking her eyes a few times. "Huh?" She looked around the bakery. "What... What happened to my eyes?!" She hurriedly looked back at Rainbow. She could immediately tell what was her problem; her eyes were normal, not pointing in different directions like Derpy's eyes usually were.
Rainbow held her laughter and said, "Uh, them are completely normal..."
"Normal?!" Derpy exclaimed. "But I can't look at two things at once! What's the use for having two eyes without being able to look in two directions?" She sobbed, clearly starting to panic.
"Er..." Rainbow fidgeted, feeling quite uncomfortable—she couldn't argue with Derpy's logic, as strange as it sounded, and didn't think the situation was funny anymore. She looked around the bakery nervously, noting that Derpy's frantic shouting had already attracted attention of every pony in the dining room. Normally she wouldn't mind getting attention, but now she felt really awkward, standing there next to the sobbing pegasus and Pinkie.
Even Pinkie had stopped giggling as soon as she noticed that Derpy was breaking down. "Um, Dashie? I think this went too far for her, and we should just fix her up right away. Pranks are no fun if they make ponies cry."
"Yeah, I agree," Rainbow said to Pinkie, then turning back at the sobbing pegasus. "Hey, Derpy?"
"Hm?" Derpy raised her head, looking at Rainbow with her uncharacteristically straight eyes. Her eyes were welled up with tears, and she looked absolutely broken.
"Come with us, we can fix your eyes," Rainbow said compassionately, putting a hoof on the other pegasus' shoulder.
"Yeah," Pinkie said, "it was supposed to be just a harmless prank with some poison joke, but a prank is no good prank if in the end it doesn't make everypony smile." She flashed a wide smile at Derpy.
Derpy's mood brightened at her friends' words. "This was just a prank, with poison joke? Wasn't that the plant that played jokes on ponies when touched?" Her knowing about poison joke didn't really surprise either one of the pranksters; poison joke and its effects had become a well known information among the ponies of Ponyville after a recent storm in Everfree Forest that had uprooted several plants, and winds had blown them all around Ponyville. Obviously dozens of curious ponies were affected by the jokes that day, and the spa had offered a free herbal bath for everypony affected to cure the strange ailments. Needless to say, the whole village had been in a chaotic state that one day. Derpy put a slight smile on her face, and asked hopefully, "And you say you can fix it?"
"Uh-huh!" Pinkie nodded, still having a smile on her face. "Just come with us and take a quick dip in a herbal bath and you'll be as good as new!" As she started bouncing towards her bathroom, Derpy and Rainbow followed her. Derpy was walking quite unsteadily due to her being unaccustomed to her modified eyesight, but she was still able to walk almost straight with some assistance from her rainbow-maned friend.
As they were leaving the dining room, Rainbow Dash turned back for a moment, and announced to the quite confused looking customers, "Nothing more to see here! Everything is under control, and you can continue doing whatever you were doing before." With that she went upstairs after her two friends.
After fixing Derpy and making sure she didn't hold any ill feelings, Pinkie and Rainbow gave her a normal blueberry muffin as an apology, which she gratefully accepted. Now the two friends were once again in the Sugarcube Corner's kitchen, pondering what they should be doing next.
"I'm sure we'll get some laughs out of this eventually," Pinkie said. "We should just try a different target!"
"Yeah," Rainbow replied, "I guess Derpy was just a little too simple to connect that free muffin to her sudden ailment, causing her to freak out. And maybe she is just a bit too sensitive too, so playing that kind of prank on her was probably not the brightest idea in the first place."
"Should we pick another one from here?" Pinkie motioned towards the few ponies still in the bakery.
Rainbow looked at the ponies in the bakery, noticing that they were mostly the same as when they were pranking Derpy. She pursed her lips and said, "Nah. We should go somewhere else. I doubt any of these ponies would accept our free gifts after witnessing our prank to Derpy."
"Guess you're right," Pinkie said, giving a quick frown, and then taking an exaggerated thinking posture. "Hmm... I know! We should go prank Twilight!" Pinkie exclaimed, already packing their poison joke prank pastries into two pastry boxes, muffins into one and cupcakes in the other, so they could carry them around easily. "Ooh, and Spike too!" she added before picking up one of the boxes, throwing it on her back.
"Awesome! So let's head to the library!" Rainbow placed the other box on her back, and headed out of the kitchen. As she and Pinkie entered the main dining room of Sugarcube Corner, they were greeted by a few scornful looks given by the customers—they had heard quite much everything after Derpy inadvertently caught their attentions, and now they all knew about Rainbow and Pinkie's latest prank with poison joke. Rainbow flew straight through the room towards the exit door, while Pinkie was bouncing casually in her usual manner, and couldn't care less about the looks she got.
It took just a few minutes of trotting—or bouncing in Pinkie's case—through Ponyville, and they were finally standing by the tree-library. Pinkie was already bouncing towards the door, but Rainbow stopped her just before she was about to push the door open and jump in.
"Wait," the pegasus said, "it may be better if you go alone. Twilight's not as gullible as Derpy was, and I think she would start suspecting something if we both show up out of nowhere and offer her free cupcakes. But if you go alone giving free samples, it's nothing out of ordinary." She looked around, noticing some thick bushes by the library, below an open window. She motioned towards the bushes and added, "I'll be right there, watching through the window." With that she flew into said bushes, leaving Pinkie alone by Twilight's doorstep.
"Okie dokie," Pinkie said after her. She pushed the library door open and skipped inside, taking a look around. She saw Rainbow already peeking carefully through the window, and spotted their chosen prank victim at the other side of the room, looking through some bookshelves.
"Hi Twilight!" Pinkie said. "Whatcha doing?"
The unicorn in question flinched at the sudden voice and turned towards Pinkie. "Oh, hi Pinkie Pie," she said. "Nothing important really. Just wondering where Spike has put that transformation spell book I've been referring to quite a lot lately. I asked him to put in on the shelf last night, and now I can't find it anywhere." She continued her search through the bookshelf.
"You mean this book?" Pinkie said, voice slightly muffled by the book she was holding in her mouth.
"Huh?" Twilight turned around once again, seeing Pinkie with the book she'd been searching. "Yes! Where did you—"
"Under 'T', silly!" Pinkie said cheerily, nodding towards a shelf on her left.
"Oh, okay," Twilight said. "Though it was supposed to be in this specific advanced magic section, not among the basic spell books... Well, thank you anyway." She shook her head and levitated the book from Pinkie's mouth onto a nearby table, now noticing the pastry box still lying on Pinkie's back. She cocked her head questioningly and asked, "What's with the box? And what brought you here anyway?"
"I made a batch of cupcakes with some new flavorings!" Pinkie answered, bucking her hips upwards causing the box to fly off and fall onto the table next to Twilight's book. She flicked the box open, revealing the eleven cupcakes still left there. "And I'd like to give you as a good friend a free sample!"
Twilight smiled and levitated one of the cupcakes, scrutinizing it closely. "Well, that was really thoughtful of you," she said. "So what's this new flavor you mentioned?"
"It's a surprise!"
Twilight rolled her eyes. "I guess I won't get an answer until I taste it myself," she said, still just looking at the cupcake warily.
"Nope!" Pinkie said. "Don't worry though; it's not filled with hot sauce like the ones I made last week, if that's what you're thinking about."
Twilight grimaced at the memory still freshly in her mind; she had tasted one of those cupcakes, and her mouth had felt like it was on fire for the next fifteen minutes, not to mention that her tongue had been numb for the rest of the day after that. "Well, I guess it's okay then," she finally said, taking a careful bite out of the cupcake she'd been levitating in front of her. Seeing that the taste was indeed pleasant and not at all spicy, she continued eating the cupcake with brighter mood.
After finishing eating the cupcake, Twilight savored the taste for a moment, until finally turning back to Pinkie. "I'm sorry, but I didn't notice any difference from your regular cupcakes," she said. "I mean, these are delicious, but I just don't get it. What was this new flavor you told me about?"
"A poison joke flavor!" Rainbow exclaimed, flying in through the open window where she had been hiding patiently and listening to Pinkie and Twilight's conversation.
Twilight jumped in surprise as the pegasus landed in front of her. It took the unicorn a few seconds to fully process what Rainbow had said. "Huh? Poison joke?! You must be joking..." She turned her gaze from Rainbow back at the widely grinning pink pony who just gave her that cupcake. "Please tell me she's joking," she said, though Pinkie's expression already told her Rainbow Dash indeed had told the truth.
"I could tell you that, but I don't like lying to my friends," Pinkie said, shrugging nonchalantly.
Twilight promptly facehoofed and said, "Ugh, I can't believe you successfully pranked me again. This was, what, sixth time this month?" She shook her head and sighed in defeat. "Okay, you two won again. And according to what I've researched since that poison joke incident here in Ponyville a few weeks ago, getting some internally would trigger the joke effect in just a few minutes—but I assume you knew that already, didn't you?" she asked, making an inquisitive look at the other two mares.
"Yeppers!"
"Heh, yeah," Rainbow Dash said, "Pinkie actually did some research beforehoof for once."
"Yes, I know Pinkie is not stupid," Twilight replied to Rainbow. "From what I've learned, she's actually quite a genius in the inside. She's just always too enthusiastic and energetic to convey her point to the others, and her general randomness makes her hard to take seriously." She turned at the pink pony in question, and added, "Not that that's a bad thing. I like you and the others just the way you are." She glanced at the cupcake box still lying on a table next to them and sighed. "Anyway, that poison joke should kick in any moment now..."
Just as she finished saying that, her horn suddenly started growing in length. It kept stretching, until it was like a long spear sticking from Twilight's forehead, about eight feet in length. The poison joke added a final touch by putting several blue spots along the whole length of the horn.
"Oh, very funny. No jokes about me being 'horny' or anything, if you please?" Twilight muttered as the other two were laughing next to her. She tried a simple levitation spell, and to her chagrin it failed. The poison joke absorbed almost all of the magic before it reached her horn, causing just a few tiny sparks to emerge from it. As she turned her head to look at Rainbow and Pinkie, the added weight on her forehead caused her to involuntarily bob her head downwards, accidentally poking Rainbow Dash with the tip of her horn.
"Ow!" the pegasus exclaimed, stopping her laughter immediately and flying a few feet away from Twilight. "Hey! Watch where you point that thing!"
"You have nopony but yourselves to blame for it," Twilight replied gruffly, taking a few steps backwards nevertheless, so she wouldn't accidentally stab anypony. "By the way," she said, "you do have the cure for this ready too, right?"
Pinkie Pie stopped laughing in an instant, and said, "Don't worry, Twilight! I stashed several bags of poison joke curing herbal bath ingredients all around Ponyville last week, just in case of another poison joke emergency!" She zipped past the unicorn to the other end of the room, and pulled off a loose board on the library's wall under the stairs. She picked a small brown bag from behind it, closed the hole again, and tossed the bag to Twilight.
"Oh, thanks," Twilight said, letting the pouch to fall in front of her. "I didn't even know I had that kind of hidden compartment under the stairs... Anyway, I'll go take that bath now to get this ridiculously long horn back to normal, and to get my magic back." She picked up the herbal bath bag in her mouth and started trotting upstairs, being careful not to impale any objects or walls with her spear-like horn. She stopped in the middle of the stairs, carefully turned back at the other two mares, and said, "And I'd suggest you to stop pranking with poison joke; it works really unpredictably, and we don't really know what's the worst that could happen." With that she continued going upstairs towards her bathroom.
"Pfft... Like we're going to stop now that we finally got our first good laugh," Rainbow Dash said after Twilight closed the bathroom door behind her, so she couldn't hear her anymore.
"Yup!" Pinkie said, suddenly having a series of twitches all over her body. "Ooh, my Pinkie Sense is saying something! Let's see..." She paused for a moment to interpret the Pinkie sense combo she just experienced. "Aha! A dragon is about to enter the house! And since there is only one dragon in Ponyville I know about, that can only mean our next prank victim is coming in!"
Two seconds later library's door was opened, and Twilight's baby dragon assistant stepped inside. Spike looked around the library after closing the door behind him, and saw the two visitors. Pinkie was bouncing on place, while Rainbow was floating a few feet overhead.
"Hi Rainbow, Pinkie," Spike said. "What are you doing here?"
"Just giving out some free cupcakes and muffins for our bestest friends!" Pinkie said, grabbing another cupcake from the open box on the table, hoofing it over to Spike. "Would you like one?"
"Oh, would I!" Spike exclaimed. "These are the best snacks I know of, aside from gems of course." He grabbed the cupcake Pinkie was holding for him, and gobbled it down as a whole. "You have more?" he asked hungrily.
"Sure we do," Rainbow Dash said, tossing a muffin for him from the other box. She closed both of the pastry boxes, and added, "But no more than that; we'd like to have enough for the others too."
"Aw," Spike said, grabbing the muffing and eating it in a few bites. After the last bite he looked around the library, and noticed something—or rather somepony—was missing. "Where's Twilight?"
"She had to go upstairs for a moment," Rainbow answered. "She should be back soon."
The two mares and a dragon continued their conversation, Rainbow and Pinkie suppressing their laughter in anticipation to see what effect the joke would have on Spike. Ten minutes passed, and still nothing out of ordinary had happened. Finally Rainbow Dash grew impatient, and turned at her pink friend.
"Shouldn't it have worked already?" she asked, confused.
"Yup." Pinkie nodded, also being confused enough to stay still for once.
"Uh, what are you talking about?" Spike asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly.
"Poison joke," Twilight Sparkle's voice sounded from upstairs, as she emerged from the bathroom and started trotting back down, her horn back to normal once again.
"Huh?" Spike looked at her, confused. "What anything has to do with poison joke?"
"We put some in those cupcakes and muffins, for Celestia's sake!" Rainbow exclaimed. "And you should have been affected minutes ago!"
"Just so you know," Twilight said as Spike was still trying to follow up what exactly was happening, "poison joke does not work on dragons, baby or not. I thought you knew dragons were immune, or at least highly resistant, to nearly all forms of natural magic." She gave a stern look at the two pranksters, and added, "Besides, I suggested you to stop playing with the poison joke, and I really meant it. Like I said, we don't know the limits of its magic, and—"
She stopped talking abruptly, and looked thoughtful for a moment. "That reminds me," she continued, mostly to herself, "I have yet to extensively test its effects, and I have some poison joke stashed in my basement just for that purpose..." She trotted towards the wooden door, leading to said basement. "Spike, take care of the library for a while," she said, trotting through the door and was about to close it, before turning back and adding, "Oh, and could you please send that package of my latest research notes—that box on the table I told you about before—to Princess Celestia, so she can examine and archive them. I just finished quadruple-checking those notes." She turned towards the basement again, and then closed the door behind her.
The two mares and the dragon still on the ground floor looked blankly after her, wondering her quick change in attitude. Rainbow Dash broke the silence after a moment, and said to the other two, "I though she was going to give some lecture on how dangerous poison joke could be, or something... Not that I complain about getting away without being lectured, mind you."
"Yeah. I could tell she definitely was going to give you a good lecture or two," Spike said, scratching his head. He shrugged nonchalantly and continued, "Don't worry though; she just had one of her sudden 'mode switches' and changed from a lecture mode to a research mode. That's completely normal of her." He started to walk upstairs, but stopped after a few steps to recall what actually happened during the last few moments. He turned back to Pinkie and Rainbow. "Wait a minute... You were just trying to prank me again, weren't you?"
"Well, duh! Isn't it obvious by now," Pinkie said, with an exaggerated eye roll. "But since the joke doesn't work on you, and we pranked Twilight already, we should get going to prank somewhere else now."
"Yeah, let's go!" Rainbow affirmed, picking up one of the pastry boxes, and flying out through the same window she flew into the library. Pinkie picked another box from the table and put in on her back. She followed the pegasus outside, easily bouncing through the open window, and leaving the still slightly confused dragon alone in the library.
"So, who's our next prey?" Rainbow asked, flying a few feet in the air, and looking around for suitable targets. She and Pinkie were a good distance away from the library already, flying and bouncing around aimlessly for the time being.
Pinkie was bouncing next to her, now having both of their pastry boxes somehow balanced on her back—Rainbow Dash had tossed the one she was carrying for Pinkie to carry. "We could go for anypony we want," she said, "except Twilight or Derpy since we pranked them already. How about Rarity? Or Applejack? Or Berry Punch? Or Fluttershy? Or—wait, no, not Fluttershy! But whatcha think about—"
"Them!" Rainbow Dash interrupted, pointing a hoof towards nearby field. Pinkie stopped talking and looked at the way the pegasus was pointing, seeing two fillies around a tree, and third one up on a branch of said tree. "Three for the price of one. Awesome!" Rainbow said, and zoomed towards the three fillies in question.
"Hi girls," she said, landing beside the two ground-bound fillies, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. They acknowledged her presence and responded with their own greetings, but Rainbow was already looking up the tree they were standing by. She saw the third Crusader looking down from a branch, about ten feet off the ground. Scootaloo looked back down at her and waved frantically.
"Rainbow Dash!" the pegasus filly shouted at her, visibly excited to have a chance to talk with her idol once again. "What are you doing here?" she asked, fluttering her wings to keep balance on the branch she was standing on, looking down at the others.
"Just hanging out with Pinkie," Rainbow answered, flying up to the same elevation as Scootaloo. "Better question is: what are you doing here, up in this tree with your friends watching?"
"Having flight practice!" Scootaloo exclaimed, bouncing up and fluttering mid-air for a second before landing back on the tree branch. She wobbled a bit almost slipping off, but managed to regain her balance with another flutter of her tiny wings. "You wanna see?"
"You can fly?" Rainbow asked, taken aback by the sudden revelation. "Why didn't you tell me earlier? I thought you'd come at me the moment you got your wings to carry you. Did you fly up here all by yourself?"
"Well... no." Scootaloo grinned sheepishly. "I just climbed up here." She saw Rainbow frowning at her, and added, "Maybe 'flight practice' isn't really the right word here; I haven't been really flying any more than short flutters yet, but I have been getting a lot better at gliding lately!" She looked down at her friends and Pinkie, who had joined them by now, all of them looking up at her expectantly. "But that's a step towards real flying, right Rainbow Dash?" she said with a grin, looking back at the other pegasus.
"Sure it is, Scoot," Rainbow said dismissively. "Now why don't you glide down there with Pinkie and your friends; we've got a little surprise for you three."
"A surprise? Ooh, what is it?!" The young pegasus once again fluttered her wings excitedly. "Is it a present for us? Maybe some—"
"You'll see," Rainbow interrupted with a smirk. "Just come down with us and we'll show you what the surprise is." She flew down and landed next to the other two fillies and Pinkie, leaving Scootaloo to get down on her own.
The excited filly didn't waste time, and jumped off the branch immediately after Rainbow Dash had left her side. She glided down in a wide spiral around the tree, gaining more and more speed as she descended, and finally getting a touchdown next to the other ponies. Her landing wasn't as graceful as her gliding was; once her hooves touched the ground, she tumbled forward due to her momentum, rolling several few feet before coming to a stop against another tree.
"Eheh," she chucked nervously, propped against the tree upside down. She flipped around and stood on her hooves, as the other four ponies watched her amused. "Yeah... landing may need some more practice still," she said embarrassed, but quickly perked up. "So, what's the surprise, Rainbow Dash?"
"It's—"
"Cupcakes and muffins!" Pinkie interrupted, somehow setting the pastry boxes on the ground and opening them in a blink of an eye. "Just one muffin and one cupcake to—what?" She stopped suddenly and looked at the two open boxes. Instead of having muffins in one, and cupcakes in the other, the latter was instead filled with a few stacks of hoof-written papers. "What happened to the cupcakes?" she asked, turning towards Rainbow Dash with a pout.
The pegasus looked quite surprised as well, but offered an explanation nevertheless, "I guess either of us picked a wrong box at the library. Doesn't matter though; we still got almost full box of muffins left! Besides, it's not like we've lost the cupcakes forever—we can still retrieve them and return this box to Twilight on our way back."
"Yeah!" Pinkie perked up, and continued talking to the fillies like nothing had happened. "So, no cupcakes, but you'll get two muffins each to compensate. No more than two though; we still got a few friends to share these with!"
"What ya say?" Apple Bloom asked her her two friends. "Maybe we should leave the flight instructor cutie marks for now, and try to get some muffin eatin' cutie marks?"
The other two fillies nodded in approval, and immediately all three had grabbed their pastries, leaving just three muffins left in the box. In a minute, they all had finished eating, and were now asking for more.
"These are delicious!" Sweetie Belle said with a high pitched voice. "Can we have just one more? Please?" she asked Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, having a wide grin on her face. Despite having problems in resisting the filly's pleads, Rainbow finally shook her head.
"Sorry, nope. You heard Pinkie," she said. "Only two for each. And don't try to look adorable—that doesn't work for me."
"Aww..." The three fillies all pouted in unison.
Two minutes passed, as the two mares and three fillies had some conversation together. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were enthusiastically telling them about what they've been doing lately to get their cutie marks, and Scootaloo was eager to tell Rainbow Dash how she had improved in flying—or gliding—during the last week.
Next moment, a bright flash emanated from the yellow filly's flanks. They all looked down at the source, and saw what it was; a muffin cutie mark had appeared on Apple Bloom. A blueberry muffin, with clearly visible bright blue spots on top. The two grownup mares tried to stifle their laugh, as they knew well enough it was just the poison joke acting.
"Apple Bloom! You got your cutie mark!" Scootaloo exclaimed immediately after the mark had appeared.
"Yeah! Ah... Ah guess I did!" Apple Bloom stammered, not really knowing what to say now that she had finally achieved her goal of getting a cutie mark. She looked up at Sweetie Belle, seeing something strange about her friend, and asked, "Uh, Sweetie Belle?"
"Yeah?"
"What happened to your mane? It looks... odd."
"Huh?" The white unicorn lifted a hoof to her mane. "Ew! It's all sticky!" She pulled her hoof off her mane and shook it, a sticky lump of pink hair was stuck on it. "It feels like... like..." She stood thoughtful for a moment, then tentatively licked the hair stuck on her hoof. "Cotton candy?!"
Now Rainbow Dash couldn't hold her laughter anymore, and was now openly laughing at the fillies. Pinkie bounced excitedly at Sweetie Belle and said, "Ooh! Cotton candy! Can I have some? Can I, can I, can I?!"
"What?!" The unicorn backed away from the over-enthusiastic Pinkie, as she had already grabbed one sizable chunk out of her cotton candy mane, and was already trying to take another one. "No! Stay away from my mane!"
"I gotta agree with her here, Pinkie," Rainbow said, managing to control her laughter once again. "We don't know if the damage to her mane will be lasting if you just eat it away now."
"Aww... but it tasted so good..." Pinkie Pie pouted, having eaten the first hoofful already. Then she suddenly bounced up again. "Oh well! I have a plenty of cotton candy at home! And cookies! And ice cream! Ooh, and—"
"What's going on?" Scootaloo interrupted, having been aside since the poison joke started to show its effects. "I mean, how did Sweetie Belle's mane suddenly turn into cotton candy?"
They all looked at the orange pegasus, with varying expressions of their faces. Rainbow and Pinkie were taken aback, even if they knew about the poison joke. The two young fillies were almost ready to run away.
"And why are you looking at me so strangely?" Scootaloo asked.
"Y-y-your h-head!" Sweetie Belle stammered.
"Hm?" The pegasus in question raised her hoof, and felt around her head, noticing nothing different. "What about it?"
"It's gone!" Apple Bloom replied, both confused and frightened.
"Gone?" Scootaloo asked, even more confused than before. "What you mean?"
"She means exactly what she says!" Pinkie said, taking a mirror from nowhere and was now holding it in front of Scootaloo.
Scootaloo looked into the mirror, confused at first. After initial confusion she could see what made others act so weirdly; her head was literally missing, or rather invisible, as she could confirm that her head was still on it's place by touching it with her hooves. What was left, was just a stump of her neck attached to her unaffected body. The cutting surface was—thankfully—not a bloody mess as one would expect to see if one's head got severed. On the contrary, it was neatly covered in the same orange fur as her body otherwise was, with an addition to tiny blue spots on it. After a moment, the last of her confusion gave way to a fright. She was about to start screaming in panic, until Apple Bloom finally realized what was happening.
"Wait... those blue spots," Apple Bloom said, looking at what was left of Scootaloo's neck. "Ah recognize 'em. Ya put poison joke in those muffins, didn't ya?" She looked at the two grownup mares accusingly.
"Your 'cutie mark' quite much answered that question already," Rainbow Dash said, chuckling. The yellow filly glanced at her flanks, just too see that her cupcake cutie mark had vanished, and another one had appeared in its place; a blue poison joke flower.
"Yeah, and now that you've got your laughs," Apple Bloom said blatantly, "would ya kindly change us back to normal. Ah don't think Sweetie likes her new edible mane"—she looked at the unicorn, who was still keeping her distance from Pinkie, then back at the pranksters—"and, in mah opinion, Scootaloo is kinda creepy without her head on."
"Yeah, yeah," Rainbow Dash said, "though I think that 'headless horse' look of Scootaloo is actually quite rad." She ignored a stern look the yellow filly was giving her. "Besides, didn't you always want a cutie mark? Now you have one," she teased the filly.
"Ah did, and I do," Apple Bloom answered. "But not one like this, changin' every once in a while." The cutie mark changed once again, emphasizing her point. She looked at the new mark confusedly. "What the hay is that thing it's showin' now anyway?"
"Er..." Rainbow Dash said, a tint of red appearing on her cheeks as she looked at the new mark. She looked around, and saw the other two fillies looking at the same cutie mark, as confused as Apple Bloom herself was. Or at least Sweetie Belle looked confused; she couldn't really tell anything about Scootaloo's facial expressions, her head being invisible and all. Pinkie just glanced at the new mark, lost it again immediately afterwards, and fell on the ground laughing.
"Yeah, what is that?" Sweetie Belle asked.
Pinkie stifled her giggles and started, "It's—"
"—something you'll learn when you're older!" Rainbow hastily interrupted, putting a hoof on Pinkie's mouth. "It's not really anything fillies of your age should be concerned about!"
"Do ya know what it is, Scootaloo?" Apple Bloom asked the invisible-headed filly.
"Wha, huh?" The pegasus started and, judging by her body movements and audible ear flaps, shook her head. "Uh... no. No! I have no idea what it is, either! No way!"
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow at her blatant lies, wondering where the filly could have found that kind of information. She decided to shrug it off, and said, "Okay, well, as fun as this all has been, I guess that's enough." She called her friend, "Pinkie! Do you have some poison joke cure stashed around here somewhere?"
"Sure I do!" Pinkie chirped, her latest laughter fit cutting off abruptly. "Right in this tree, in fact." She put her hoof deep into a large knothole, and soon pulled it out with a brown pouch, similar to the one in Twilight's library. "But where are we gonna set up the bath? I don't have any bathtubs stashed around this part of Ponyville! Oh, I should really put more of those around, in case of a bath emergency!"
"You have bathtubs stashed around Ponyville, too?" Rainbow asked incredulously.
"Of course!" Pinkie said, "You never know when you're about to get splashed by a glob of mud and need a bath suddenly. Or, well, my pinkie sense does actually inform me in advance about incoming bath emergencies, but even I can't always do anything before it's too late!"
"You're so random... whatever." Rainbow Dash shook her head, trying her best to just ignore her friend's randomness. She thought for a moment, before giving a suggestion, "Maybe we don't need a bath necessarily? Maybe a shower would do instead?" With that she was already up in the air, and returned a few seconds later with a rain cloud in tow. "Throw the cure up here, and I'll set up a shower for these fillies!"
"Okie dokie!" Pinkie tossed the bag up at the pegasus, who in turn started to mix the cure into the cloud. Pinkie turned her face back down, and looked at the three fillies. The two fillies with visible heads had a frown on their faces, and she could imagine that the pegasus had one on hers, too.
"Hey, what's with the sad frowny-frown-faces? Turn those frowns upside down!" Pinkie said with a wide grin, bouncing towards the three fillies and trying to cheer them up. Sweetie Belle took a few steps backwards, still not entirely trusting Pinkie wouldn't try to eat her mane. "At least you got a pair of tasty muffins each, and I'm sure you'll laugh at this all afterwards!"
"Ah guess," Apple Bloom said, managing to put on a small smile. Then she turned her head upwards, where the pegasus was setting up the cloud right above them, and yelled, "Now get on with it, Rainbow Dash!"
"Yeah, yeah, in a moment," the pegasus answered, having finally put all of the herbal mixture into the cloud. "Get out of the way, Pinkie, unless you want to get wet, too. A poison joke curing shower coming down right... now!" She started jumping on the cloud, causing a cascade of water to pour on the trio of fillies.
Having emptied the cloud from all of the excess water, she bucked it once to make it dissipate into thin air, and then flew back on the ground to see if it worked. She saw the three fillies, all soaking wet, shaking themselves to get most of the water off. She could see that Scootaloo's head was back in place, Apple Bloom's flank was once again blank, and Sweetie Belle's mane seemed normal, even if it was straightened due to the rain.
"Well, it seems we're all back to normal," Apple Bloom said after inspecting the other two, as well as her own flanks. "Even the part of your mane Pinkie just ate seems to be back in place," she added to Sweetie Belle.
"Thank Celestia for that," Sweetie said with a relieved sigh. "If my sister had seen me with a partially eaten mane, she would have gone ballistic on me."
"Now, does anypony want a third muffin?" Rainbow asked with a grin. She looked at the three fillies, all still dripping the rainwater. "Anyone?"
"Nice try," Apple Bloom said. "Not goin' to work second time though. Not today at least."
"Well, it was worth a try." Rainbow shrugged. "You three surely gave much better laughs than any of the others we've pranked already." She turned to her friend. "So, what you say we go meet Rarity next?" she asked, bobbing her head towards the Carousel Boutique, clearly in sight not too far away.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Sweetie Belle said. "You know how my big sis can be when she's upset."
"Nah, we can handle her," Pinkie Pie answered picking up their boxes and throwing them on her back. She turned at Rainbow Dash and said, "Alright, let's go!" She waved a goodbye at the trio of fillies. "See you later! Come to the Sugarcube Corner tomorrow, and I'll give each of you one non-poison-joked cupcake for free!"
"Bye! Stay cool," Rainbow Dash said to the fillies, then turning around and flying after the bouncing pink pony. A second later she turned back, and faced the pegasus filly again. "By the way, Scoots, keep up the good work with your flight practice," she said to her. "I promise that once you manage to come up to my doorstep using only your own wings, you'll get some lessons from the best flier in Equestria!" she added with a wink. Scootaloo was about to give an excited fanfillyesque reply, but the other pegasus had already looped around mid-air, heading after Pinkie Pie.
"I know how to handle this," the rainbow-maned pegasus said, hiding behind some bushes next to the Carousel Boutique. "Do you have some paper, a quill or a pencil, and a small package for the muffin somewhere?"
"Here you go!" Pinkie hoofed over the said items to her. Rainbow Dash didn't even question where she'd got them, and couldn't care less at the moment anyway.
"Thanks, Pinkie," Rainbow said, starting to scribble a short letter onto the piece of paper Pinkie had provided her, trying to use as clear and sophisticated mouthwriting as she could. After finishing, she put one of their muffins into the new package, and showed the letter to Pinkie Pie:
Dear Rarity
Here is a little gift for you, the most beautiful mare I have ever laid my eyes on.
Yours truly,
A secret admirer
"I'm sure she'll take this bait." Rainbow Dash smirked.
"Ooh, and we should put these with it, and she's sure to gobble the bait as a whole!" Pinkie added, pulling a bunch of colorful flowers out of nowhere, and putting them on the package.
"Great!" the pegasus dropped her letter on top of the pile, and took it with her forehooves, flying to the boutique's front door. She set the package down and pressed the doorbell, hearing the tune Rarity used as her boutique's ring tone. A blink of an eye later she was already hiding behind the bushes with her pink friend.
Soon the top half of the door opened, and Rarity peeked outside. She looked around, seeing nopony, and then looked on the doorstep, seeing the package, flowers, and the letter lying there. She looked at them warily, levitating the flowers on her eye level, and inspecting the bouquet closely.
"I think she's expecting a prank," Rainbow Dash whispered to the other prankster. "Remember those times we've left flowers with sneezing powder on her doorstep?"
"Yup, but this prank is more indiscernible than those," Pinkie whispered back. "There's no way, no how, she would be able to notice anything strange before eating the muffin, no matter how closely she inspects any of those—look! now she's reading that letter!"
At the door, the white unicorn was levitating the piece of paper in front of her, and seemed to get excited at the thought of a "secret admirer" giving her gifts. She looked around again, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever had left the package and the flowers at her doorstep. Not seeing anypony, she levitated up the box, too, and then turned back inside, closing the door behind her.
The two pranksters discreetly, but quickly, moved below one of the boutique's windows to spy the results. They peeked inside, and saw Rarity putting the flowers into a vase, and then examining their muffin as warily as she did the bouquet earlier. She took a careful bite out of it, and another one, and another, until after several bites she had finally eaten it entirely. She then trotted into another room, out of the view of the prankster ponies.
"So, whatcha think will happen to her?" Pinkie Pie whispered to the pegasus, pulling herself down, so she couldn't be seen from the inside.
Rainbow Dash too stayed low below the window frame, and answered with a whisper, "Knowing her, probably something that will just make her look hideous." She grinned and added, "But in her case, the fun part is not the joke itself, but her reactions to it. What you think it'll be?"
"Maybe her mane will stick out, making her look like a giant porcupine!" Pinkie exclaimed silently. She gasped, and continued, "Or her head will grow humongously-ginormous! Or her legs will turn backwards! Or she'll turn into a zombie-pony! Ooh, that would be—"
"Okay, I get it," her friend interrupted. "Though that zombie-pony thing sounds quite cool. Well, let's wait and we'll see soon enough!"
After two more minutes of waiting and hushed chattering, they could hear a shrill and nearly ear shattering scream from inside the boutique.
"That's our cue," Rainbow Dash said, with a wide grin. She flew at the front door and pressed the doorbell. Pinkie followed close behind.
They heard some frantic movements from inside, and then an answer, "I'm not home! Uh, I mean, I'm home, but the Boutique is closed today! Come back tomorrow, please!"
"It's just us, Rarity: Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie," Rainbow Dash replied, with a wink to the pink pony next to her.
"Oh, well, uhm..." they heard her muttering from the inside. "Could you just come back tomorrow? Or later tonight? I'm kind of busy right now."
"We heard you scream and decided to come and see what's wrong," Pinkie chirped.
"Oh, ehehe..." Rarity chuckled nervously on the other side of the door. "Uh... I just... saw a huge stain in one of my best dresses!" They heard more nervous chuckling. "Yes, nothing else. Just a dirty dress, that's all! Ahahah..."
"Come now, Rarity, you're not fooling anypony there," the pegasus said. "Besides, we know there's something wrong with you."
"How can you be so sure, darling," the unicorn asked incredulously, still not opening the door.
"We saw you eat that muffin we put on your doorstep," Rainbow Dash answered. "And we happen to know it was filled with poison joke powder!"
"You... WHAT?!" The top half of the door suddenly slammed open, and would have hit Rainbow Dash's head, had she not ducked quickly. A fuming white unicorn poked her head out and yelled, "So you're what caused my gorgeous mane an tail to turn into a—a green disorderly mess!" Sure enough, her mane had changed from its normal violet color to a sickly green. And her mane looked like it had been put into a blender, being several magnitudes more tangled than any mane they had ever seen before.
"Come in you two, now! Before anypony else sees me!" Rarity fumed at the pranksters, gritting her teeth, and flicked the bottom half of her door open hastily. After they all were inside, she slammed the doors shut, and added with a loud snort, "And you're not going anywhere until you fix this!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down Rarity," Rainbow Dash said, backing away from the unicorn, who acted like she could explode any second—and her mane and tail looked like they had exploded at least twice already, in addition to having a bottle of green dye mixed into them. "It's just poison joke, and I'm sure Pinkie has some cure stashed around here, too." the pegasus added. She turned at the pink pony, and asked, "Right, Pinkie?"
"Way ahead of you," Pinkie said, already holding a herbal mixture pouch in her mouth. Rarity yanked the bag from her with magic, and huffed before trotting upstairs to set up a bath.
"And like I said already, you stay here until I fix my coiffure, and give you permission to leave," she said without looking at the others.
"Aw, come on," the rainbow-maned pegasus said with a moan. "You always take ages to prettify yourself. Couldn't you just take that bath quickly to see it works, and let us go?"
"Well," Rarity said, stopping in the middle of the stairs, and letting her anger to diminish somewhat. "I could ask you some favors to make up for that lost time. I wasn't actually lying when I said I was busy today; I have an important order for new dress designs from one of the finest boutiques in Canterlot. But, I'll let you go this time, just to get you away from distracting me." She paused for a moment, before continuing menacingly, "But if this 'cure' is just another prank, you better watch your hides once I get my hooves on you next time." She shot a poisonous glare at the pranksters, before disappearing into her bathroom.
Rainbow Dash shook her head, and said to Pinkie, "Wow, has she been taking lessons from Fluttershy? That stare of hers was intense, not nearly as bad as Shy's when she's in a right mood, but still..."
"Yeah..." Pinkie blinked her eyes, and then bounced up and towards the exit. "You heard what she said, though! We're free to go!"
"Right, let's go!" Rainbow exclaimed and flew at the door, before stopping and asking her friend with a hint of worry in her voice, "That was a real cure, wasn't it? I really don't want to meet her really angry again—it was bad enough that one time I left you two stranded into that desert once." She shuddered at the memory of Rarity's wrath after that one time.
"Yup, it was," Pinkie Pie confirmed. She smirked at the pegasus, and taunted, "Are you scared of her, you little scaredy scare-pants?"
"What? Of course not!" Rainbow Dash defended, trying to sound as convincing as she could. "Let's just go already, okay? How many of those muffins we have left?"
"Just two," Pinkie answered. "Whaddya say we go to Applejack next, and stop by the library on the way to get our cupcakes back?"
"Good idea. There should be a plenty of them left—assuming Spike hasn't eaten all of them..."
"Oh, you two again," Twilight Sparkle said, as she turned around to see who had come into her library. She was apparently done with her poison joke experiments by now, and had changed back to her default reading mode. "What do you want this time?"
"What we would want, is you to eat one of these muffins of ours," Rainbow Dash answered nonchalantly, getting a deadpan look from the unicorn. "But I know you wouldn't fall into the same trick again, so instead we just came to retrieve our cupcakes we left here by mistake."
Twilight looked at the two ponies confusedly, then looked around the library, before saying, "I haven't seen your cupcakes around here. Are you sure you left them here?"
"Yup," Pinkie said, throwing the other box filled with the hoofwritten notes onto a table, and opened it. "We took this box instead, filled with papers with all kinds of sciency stuff on them!"
The unicorn looked at the contents, even more confused than before. "These are my notes, and Spike was supposed to send these to the Princess." She turned around, and shouted, "Spike!"
"Yeah, Twilight?" sounded an answer from upstairs as the dragon emerged from the bedroom, and started walking down the stairs.
"Didn't I tell you to send these research notes to Princess Celestia?" Twilight asked him.
"Those which were packed on the table? Yeah, I almost forgot, but I sent them just before you came back from the basement, about ten minutes ago."
"But if the notes are here," Twilight thought aloud, "then what did you send to the Prin—" She paused, and could almost feel the pieces fall into their places in her brain. "So... you two left you poison joke cupcakes here, and took a similar package with my notes with you, correct?" she asked the two pranksters.
"Correct," Rainbow answered, having a good idea already about what had happened to their cupcakes, and she tried her best to hold down her laughter.
"And Spike sent a package to the Princess..." She turned at her dragon assistant, and asked, "Did you check what was inside that box right before you sent it?"
"Uh... no I didn't," Spike answered. "Though it was on the same table as the last time I had seen its contents, so I assumed it was the same package."
Twilight's face blanched and eyes widened in realization. "No, this can't be true... Spike!" she called hastily. "Take a letter to the Princess, pronto!" The dragon assistant was already one step ahead of the frantic unicorn, having a quill and an unrolled scroll in his claws. "Tell her not to eat those cupcakes in that package! Ohh... I hope we're not too late..."
Princess Celestia was in her private tower in the Canterlot Castle, minding her own business for the time being, as a wisp of smoke suddenly appeared through a window. It quickly materialized into a small, nondescript box, and the Princess instinctively levitated it with her magic.
She levitated the box and opened it, expecting to see stacks of research notes her protege student had said she would send to her sometime that day. As she opened the package, she was quite surprised to see not some stacks of papers, but ten masterfully baked cupcakes. She looked around the box, but didn't see any notes or anything, besides the cupcakes.
Maybe her notes are not ready yet, and she sent these cupcakes instead so I wouldn't be so hard on her for being slightly off schedule, she thought and lifted one cupcake from the box, setting the rest on a table next to her. She should know that's not necessary; I would never punish her for such small mistakes. She smiled and shook her head slowly, before taking a bite out of the one cupcake she was holding with her magic.
Or maybe she just sent these to me as a gift, she thought, taking another bite of the cupcake. She knows I just can't resist any kinds of baked goods, after all. A few bites more, and she had finally finished eating the first cupcake. She decided to take another one now, and then closed the box and levitated in onto her nightstand to leave the rest for later.
A few minutes later she had eaten the second cupcake, and thought to go check whether there were any important matters around the Castle happening during her break. On the way out of her bedchamber, she passed by a full body mirror and glanced at her reflection, just as she always did.
A few steps later she stopped dead in her tracks, and took a few steps back to stand right in front of the mirror. She blinked her eyes a few times, not believing what she saw. She then looked down at her chest and forelegs directly, confirming what she saw in the mirror; her coat had somehow turned entirely to a bright pink color.
She kept her calm, not letting any irrational thoughts to faze her mind—she had seen a lot during her millenia long life, and this one was quite low on the list of strangest things she has ever witnessed or experienced. That didn't help with her confusion, though. She started to wonder when did this happen, and more importantly, how.
She thought back what she'd been doing, and when she'd last seen herself white. She always passed that mirror when coming in or leaving her bedchamber, and couldn't have missed it if she was pink whenever she last came in. Now that she thought about it, she had seen her white hooves a few moments ago, when eating those cupcakes Twilight had sent—
Cupcakes? She knew of several possible magical enchantments, or magical ingredients, that could be put on any edible objects, most of which would then activate onto the one eating said food. Twilight, having studied magic for years, would definitely know about those enchantments, and would even know how to cast most of the enchantment spells.
She discarded that though; Twilight wasn't a type to do that kind of prank to anypony, least on her own mentor. But still, she couldn't think of any other possible source for her sudden, obviously magical color change than those cupcakes. Then again, Twilight didn't actually send any letters or packages herself—it was always her assistant Spike, and he could have got the orders to send that package from anypony.
She looked suspiciously at the box she'd received from Twilight, and took one more cupcake for a closer scrutinizing. She cast a spell that would reveal any enchantments on it, but didn't notice a trace of any kind of unicorn magic put on it. She cast another, more delicate spell on the pastry, discerning any separate ingredients used in baking of the pastry: flour, sugar, water, poison joke, eggs—she paused, and re-cast the spell to confirm what she had found out. Indeed, there was a generous amount of poison joke baked into the cupcake, and her current ailment definitely was typical to what the poison joke could cause.
Having finally found out the cause, she let out a short chuckle. Not many ponies had the nerve to play pranks on a princess, as mostly everypony treated her with due respect and insisted in doing everything on her behalf. Truth be told, she was tired of all that pampering, and found this kind of a distraction actually quite refreshing. And now she had a good reason to take a refreshing herbal bath to boot, to get the ailment cured.
What still puzzled her, was that she still couldn't believe that Twilight of all ponies would have had courage to do that kind of prank to her; Twilight always avoided doing anything that might upset her in the slightest. Princess Celestia finally came to the conclusion that it was probably some of her friends. Most likely Pinkie Pie or Rainbow Dash—or maybe both—judging by what Twilight has told her about her friends' pranking habits, and what the princess has witnessed herself before.
She sat in front of her desk, drew two empty scrolls and a quill from one of the drawers, dipped the quill into an inkwell, and started writing into the first scroll. She wrote an order to her servants to prepare a herbal bath in her private bathroom, with accurate specifications on what to put into the bath, and teleported the scroll downstairs on the desk of one of her secretaries. That taken care of, she unrolled the other scroll, and started to write a letter to her faithful student.
A few minutes later, she rolled up the letter, put her personal royal seal on it, and sent it with her magic for Spike to receive. She stood up and headed towards her bathroom, where the bath she ordered should already be ready by now—her servants never wasted any time once they get an order from the Princess. She glanced back at the box of poison joked cupcakes, and smiled mischievously.
I got to ask whether Luna would like a cupcake or two once she wakes up. That would be a nice payback for all those times she has teased me in my dreams, she thought with a devious chuckle, before disappearing into a stairwell leading into the bathroom.
"Ready!" Spike said, finishing the letter she was writing.
"So what are you waiting for?!" Twilight asked frantically. "Send it!"
"Okay, just—" Spike started, his sentence interrupted by a slight nauseating feel. A second later he burped, letting out a burst of green flames, and a scroll with a royal seal materialized from within the fire.
"Too late..." Twilight said weakly and put her face into her forehooves.
"Hey, don't worry, Twi," Rainbow Dash said, lightly jabbing the unicorn with her hoof. "I'm sure she's not angry or anything. Remember all the times you've been worried you've disappointed the Princess? And how many times out of those she had actually been disappointed in you?"
"Ooh! I love guessing games!" Pinkie bounced up excitedly. "Uh, she's been worried about that at least eleven times, or a full dozen if you count this one time! And the Princess's been disappointed in Twilight... uh... never?" she answered, finishing with a slightly questioning tone with a tilt of her head.
"It wasn't actually a game, Pinkie," the pegasus said, turning back at the unicorn. "But yeah, that was my point anyway; she has never been angry at you, no matter what you've done. So there is no reason to believe she would be angry this time either!"
Twilight took a deep breath, and answered, "I hope you're right..." She levitated the arrived scroll, breaking the seal and rolling it open in front of her. She held it mid-air with her levitation, so that Spike and the other two ponies present would be able to read along with her.
My faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,
I don't know whether it was from you, or from some of your friends, but I received this box with some cupcakes in it. You may or may not know that those cupcakes had some poison joke baked into them.
Yes, I ate some of them, and got affected by the jokes. And even though I love this new pink look of mine, I would still prefer the white coat I had previously, so I am going to take a bath to cancel the effects right after sending this letter to you.
Also, don't worry. I am not angry in the slightest. In fact, that was actually quite a refreshing change to my daily routines, so if anything, I should thank you for sending those cupcakes. They were delicious.
Your mentor,
Princess Celestia
"See," Rainbow Dash said, after they all had finished reading the letter, "I told you there was no reason to worry!"
Twilight, now visibly relieved, said, "Yeah, I guess you were right. I do worry too much sometimes."
"Does this mean we wont get the cupcakes back?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"Yes," Twilight said sternly. "And I'm not going to ask her to send the rest of those back after what you've done so far. Besides, if I recall correctly, I recommended you to stop playing pranks with those poison joke filled pastries."
"You're not fun, Twilight," the pegasus said, leaving towards the door. "Come on Pinkie, we still have those two muffins left."
"Okie dokie!" the pink pony said bouncing after her, now with only one box left on her back, the one filled with papers now lying on Twilight's table. The two ponies left the library and closed the door, leaving Twilight and Spike by themselves.
"So, now that we're going to give that one muffin to Applejack, we still have one left," Rainbow Dash said, as she and Pinkie were trotting and bouncing, respectively, the dirt road down towards the Sweet Apple Acres. "Any ideas whom to give that?"
"Hmm... Oh, I know!" Pinkie Pie bounced excitedly several feet into air. "We could have a race to the Sweet Apple Acres!"
"Okay, I'm in. But what exactly does that have to do with the last muffin?" Rainbow asked.
"Duh, loser gets to eat it and walk through Ponyville into Sugarcube Corner with whatever joke it gives."
"Deal!" the pegasus agreed without a second thought; she was always ready for a little bet now and then. She spit on her hoof and stretched it out towards Pinkie Pie, who in turn mirrored the gesture, and they bumped their hooves together. Rainbow Dash stretched her wings already, ready to zoom off, until a thought occurred her mind. She asked, "How about the rules? First of all; am I allowed to use wings, or is this just a hoof race?"
The pink pony giggled. "Of course you can use wings! It wouldn't be a fair race otherwise! Actually, it may not be fair race even then!"
Rainbow snorted at the mention of her not being a match for Pinkie on a wingless race. She knew it was true, though; Pinkie Pie, despite being overly obsessed with sweets, was one of the fastest and athletic runners there was, if not the fastest. She would never admit it, but to be honest, Pinkie could give her a run for her bits even if she was allowed to use wings and her friend was running on hoof. She agreed nevertheless, and continued asking, "Okay. Two more questions: where's the goal? And what about that box you're carrying? Are you going to carry it during the race?"
"That was three questions, silly," Pinkie said. "Goal is at the gate to the Sweet Apple Acres, and did you think I'd leave this box out here? Of course I'll bring it with us!"
"Uh... right," Rainbow answered. She was all for a race, but having Pinkie too much handicapped just didn't feel right. She shook the thought off quickly—that handicapping was all self-imposed, and Pinkie herself agreed with these rules anyway, so she shouldn't have anything to complain. "Alright! Let's go on three!" She and Pinkie both took their starting positions. "One..." She stretched her wings open. "Two..." They both crouched down, ready to shoot off. "Three!"
The pegasus took off like a bullet, leaving her opponent in the dust—or so she thought. When she glanced back, she could see Pinkie running almost by her side. A second glance a moment ago, and she suddenly couldn't see her anywhere. She looked all around confusedly, but couldn't see her friend anywhere. She knew Pinkie well enough though, knowing that her disappearing was probably just one of her tricks to try to distract her, and decided to continue flying towards their goal without slowing down.
"What took you so long?"
"Wha—huh? How did you get here?! I didn't see you passing me at any point!"
"I took a scenic route around the lake," Pinkie Pie said.
"You took a detour around the lake, and still arrived before me?!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed, completely baffled. "But the lake was at least a mile off course! There's no way you could have run that fast!"
"There isn't?" the pink pony said. "Sorry about that then! I would have run slower if I knew it wasn't possible for me to run that fast!"
"Just how—" the pegasus started, but then hung her head in defeat. She knew better that to start arguing with Pinkie about what is possible and what is not. Even better ponies in that stuff, namely Twilight, have failed to understand how that pink bundle of endless energy worked. "You know what, just forget it," she finally said.
"Okie do—wait a sec. I'm not forgetting about our bet! You lost, and you still have to eat that poison joke muffin and walk through Ponyville!"
"I didn't mean—ugh, whatever..." Rainbow Dash said shaking her head, already getting quite tired of getting into any kind of arguments with her friend—there was a limit to how much Pinkie-randomness she could tolerate at any given time, and she was already alarmingly close to breaking that limit for the day. "Let's just get to the Applejack first, so we can get over with this all."
Pinkie Pie agreed, and they started trotting among the numerous apple trees. It was in the middle of the applebuck season, so in order to find Applejack they would just have to follow the clear line through the orchards, having trees full of apples on their left side, and already bucked empty trees on their right.
A few minutes later they heard a telltale thud of hooves against a tree trunk, followed by the sound of apples falling into baskets. The sounds repeated, and soon they saw the pony they were looking for, about to move onto the next tree in the row. Her brother, Big Macintosh, was emptying the baskets into a cart, and then started hauling the now full cart of apples back towards the farmhouse. Pinkie and Rainbow were arriving towards Applejack, right as she was setting baskets under the next tree, facing away from them.
"Hi, AJ."
"Hiya!"
"Well, howdy y'all!" the apple farmer answered, turning around to see the two arrivals, sweating from a full day's worth of work. "I guess it's due time for a little break anyway, so I might as well have a little chat. What brings ya here today?" she asked, ceasing her applebucking for the time being.
"Just came to see how you're doing here," Rainbow Dash said.
"And to give you something to eat!" Pinkie slid the package from her back onto the grass, and kicked it open to reveal the two muffins still left inside. "I bet you haven't eaten anything but maybe apples since breakfast!"
"Well, that's mighty kind of ya," Applejack said, picking up one muffin from the box. Then she stopped, just looking at the muffin on her hoof. "But I'm just thinking... is this some kind of prank again?" Applejack asked incredulously, looking back at the other two ponies. "Ya know I don't trust ya none when y'all come here together out of nowhere, just to give me a free muffin. Especially considerin' yer reputation as the well known prankster pair in Ponyville."
"Come now, Applejack," Pinkie said. "We've baked these just for you and our other friends, and you're the last one to have one. Or don't you like them?" she asked with a slight pout.
"No it's not that!" Applejack said, then continued unsurely, "I'd like to trust ya, but it's just that yer—"
"Look," Rainbow Dash interrupted, picking up the last muffin. "I can eat this other one, if that makes you convinced there is no hot sauce or anything of the likes inside. I was going to eat it anyway." She then proceeded to eat the muffing in a few bites, leaving only some crumbs on her hoof. "See? Nothing. We're not always pranking. Sometimes it's just cool to be kind to the others too, you know?"
"Alright, I'm convinced," Applejack said, finally taking a bite out of her muffin. "Okay, mah apologies. This indeed is a darn fine muffin," she admitted, eating the rest in a few more bites.
"And now that you have finished eating it—" Rainbow Dash started, with a grin.
"—we can say you were right! It was a prank muffin!" Pinkie Pie finished.
"Huh? It was?" the farmer asked, clearly confused. "But what was the prank then? Ah didn't notice nothin' strange in it. Besides, she ate one, too!" she said, nodding at the pegasus.
Rainbow sighed, and said, "Yeah. Yeah I did. And I know I'm going to be affected just like you are going to." She glanced at Pinkie. "It was just a little bet between the two of us." She lowered her voice, and continued, "A bet which I lost."
"Okay, that explains ya eating one, too," Applejack said, putting two and two together in her mind. "But I still don't get what the prank was supposed to be?"
"You'll see in a few minutes," Rainbow answered. The said minutes passed quickly, with Applejack getting more and more confused, trying to get out the information from the pranksters. Soon enough, they all could clearly see the effects on Rainbow Dash.
"Uh..." she said, "okay, this feels weird. Like, really weird."
Applejack looked at her, eyes wide open. "What the hay?" she said. "I get this is just yer prank, but just how in Tartarus did ya manage to put that kind of an effect in a simple muffin?"
Pinkie was laughing, as expected. "Y-you look r-r-ridiculous!" she managed to exclaim amidst her laughter.
"Yeah, I can imagine..." the pegasus said. She flapped her wings, which were now attached to her head right where her ears normally were. Her ears in turn were on her back, at the same place where her wings normally connected to her body. She was surprised to see that her wings worked anyway, and even more surprised to see that she could actually fly—though it felt quite uncomfortable to have her body lifted from her head, so she preferred to stay on ground. "Well, could be worse... Anyway, it's your turn to get poison joked, Appleflank! "
"Wait, poison joked?" Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow. "Ya put poison joke in those muffins? Well, that explains it then, I guess," she said. Right after finishing that sentence, she felt the effects of the poison joke herself. She promptly fell on her rump as her legs suddenly failed to support her. She rose up and stood unsteadily, her hind legs faltering under the weight; her hind legs had turned into thin sticks, barely strong enough to support her own body weight. "Whoa nelly! These things're quite wobbly."
Pinkie fell back on the ground, laughing even harder now that both of her friends present had been affected by the poison joke. She tried to say something, but only another laughter fit burst out every time she opened her mouth.
"Hey, how are 'Bucky McGillicuddy' and 'Kicks McGee' feeling now," Rainbow Dash said with a snark. "Guess you won't be bucking much trees with those sticks, huh?"
"Very funny, Rainbow," Applejack deadpanned, trying to retain her balance with her thin hind legs. "Now, could ya be so kind and turn these back. Ah hate to be a spoilsport, but I really have to continue applebuckin' soon, as these apples here ain't gonna pick up themselves."
"Yeah, yeah. We have to wait until Pinkie here can stand up again, though. Only she knows where she's hidden all those bags with poison joke cure, and I bet she has several hidden stashes on your orchards too," Rainbow said, nodding at her other friend, who was still laughing uncontrollably on the ground. She continued for a whole minute, until she finally started to calm down, her laughter subsiding into constant giggling.
"O-oh-okay, okay!" Pinkie finally managed to say. She went behind a nearby tree, and dug feet deep into the ground. A moment later her head emerged from the hole, with a small, brown bag in between her teeth."Here you go!" she threw the small pouch to Applejack. "You needed a bath anyway; you smell quite sweaty, you know?"
"Ain't nothing wrong with a little sweat now and then. It's just a sign of a good, hard, day's work," Applejack replied. She complied anyway, and started walking towards her house, with quite a wobbly gait.
Once Applejack was out of sight, Pinkie turned back at Rainbow Dash. "Now back to the Sugarcube Corner, and you'll have to walk all the way to there! No flying!" she said, already bouncing back towards Ponyville.
Rainbow took a deep sigh and relented. "I guess you're not leaving me alone until I embarrass myself publicly once again..."
"Nope! A bet's a bet, and you have to suffer the consequences!"
Rainbow's ears on her back drooped in defeat, and she tucked her wings at the sides of her head. She started to walk on Pinkie's side back to the Ponyville. "Alright then, let's go. And then I've had enough about pranking for at least a week..."
"Celestia!" the sound of a royal Canterlot voice echoed in the hallways of Canterlot Castle. "Where are thou hiding?!"
Princess Celestia chuckled behind a stone pillar, just outside the bedroom of her sister, who was now roaming through the hallway, looking for her. She had the box of cupcakes next to her, with half a dozen cupcakes left.
"We do not know how thou did it, but bring our royal mane and tail back this instant!"
Author's Note
At first this story was supposed to be a short, 2000-5000 word story with the random idea of Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash going for another pranking spree, including poison joke this time. As you can see, the story length practically exploded in my hands, and the story just kept bloating until it was about 15,000 words. I hope it wasn't too boring or repetitive to read all the way through.
Thank you for reading if you got this far! Please leave a comment below, telling what you liked/disliked about this story, or just to leave some random thoughts.
