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                         Ticklish                          
                        -by Bandy-                         
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  Silence, Shouting, Moaning, a Cheer, then More Silence   
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Silence, Shouting, Moaning, a Cheer, then More Silence
Silence
There was silence.
In the clubhouse of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, silence was a thing as foreign as any asteroid up in the night sky. Be it laughter or heated arguments or the general sounds of fillyhood, the sturdy box of a clubhouse was always emanating the sounds of some grand, whimsical adventure being cooked up by its occupants.
Which was why said occupants were so shocked to look up and find themselves deep in the throes of a complete and utter blackout. “Whoa,” Apple Bloom muttered to herself upon noticing the harsh, almost oppressive stillness, “this silence is givin’ me the heebie-jeebies. Hey Scoots,” she turned to her fellow Crusader, deciding to break the soundless steel curtain, “did y’all think of anything we could do today to try an’ get our cutie marks?”
The pegasus she addressed, still lying boredly on her side and absentmindedly blowing a strand of mane out of her face, gave her a bemused look. “If I had thought of an idea, I would’ve told you already.”
One down, one to go, thought the yellow Crusader. “Sweetie, did you-”
“No, Bloom,” came the slightly annoyed response. “There’s a reason we’re all just sitting here, you know.”
Apple Bloom sighed dejectedly. “Yeah, Ah know. It’s just—Ah’m gettin’ restless, you know?” She stood up and shook her legs around, vainly hoping that the pseudo-exercise might help her unwind.
It didn’t.
“Ah just need to go out and do something, anything.” Apple Bloom was by no means a lazy pony, and when it came to vegging out and doing nothing, she was far less equipped than her two friends to handle the stress that came along with it.
“Wait, I think I have an idea!” No sooner did the words leave Sweetie Belle’s mouth than an astonished yellow filly shot to her side. Unfortunately for both, the earth pony misjudged the distance between them, and before either of them knew what had happened they were on the floor in a heap, giggling stupidly.
“So what’s the idea? Huh? Huh? Huh?” Apple Bloom’s overenthusiastic drawl made poor Sweetie flinch.
More giggles could be heard, this time from Scootaloo. “Gah! Get offa me, AB!” Sweetie Belle yelped as she attempted to reestablish her lost personal space. Only after successfully prying the crazy earth pony off Sweetie Belle would she continue. “Geez, some ponies need to learn to calm down.”
“Yeah yeah—what’s the idea?” A new vigour coursed through Apple Bloom’s veins. Striking dramatic poses, she practically shouted, “Are we gonna go on a big ol’ adventure and fight villains and save princes and fight more villains and save Equestria?” With the last two words she seemed to spout pegasus wings and flutter into the air, only to realize mid-flight that she was an earth pony and tumble to the ground, shaking the clubhouse like it was the epicentre of an earthquake.
“No, I thought we could go try picking berries. There are some ripe bushes over by the lake.”
Every last flight of fancy—each one tirelessly constructed into majestic, sweeping worlds of intricate detail and potential—shattered in Apple Bloom’s young mind. Her eye twitched of its own accord. “That’s it? How are picking berries gonna get us our cutie marks?”
“It won’t. Me and Scoots are hungry.” Casting a glance at the winged Crusader, Apple Bloom saw her nodding her head in agreement.
“B-but—we met up really early this morning! It can’t be lunch time already!” Desperately hoping to prove her compatriots wrong, she dashed to the window and stuck her head out towards the sky. Sure enough, there sat the sun at the apex of its daily arc.
“Shoot!” the filly cried, retreating back into the clubhouse and half-heartedly kicking at the floor. “Ah can’t believe we spent an entire mornin’ doin’ nothing!” She stopped kicking at the floorboards, instead turning to stomping on them weakly. “An entire mornin’ we could’ve spent getting our cutie marks!”
Turning away from her friends, she went to stare wistfully out the window at her house. The way the sun shone down on the fire-red walls made the paint gleam just like a shiny new apple, fresh from the tree. She sighed. Ah jes’ wish we could do somethin’. Suddenly, some movement near the Apple family abode caught her eye. She brightened briefly, thinking it might be something of value. As it came into focus, though, she sagged once again. Jes’ AJ and Mac workin’. Drat.
“Ah’m sure glad Ah don’t have to do any chores to do today,” the filly muttered aimlessly. “S’gettin’ real hot out.”
“Why don’t we go swim in the lake for a while?” tossed out Sweetie. “It’s not like we’re doing much here anyway.”
At the mention of the word ‘lake’ Scootaloo stiffened, suddenly on edge. “Wait, the Ponyville Lake?”
“I don’t know of any other lakes within trotting distance.”
“But...” The curious, half-frightened tone of the pegasus’ voice put the two other Crusaders on edge almost instantly. Since when was Scootaloo one to back down from a challenge? What was she, some sort of chicken? “Isn’t that where... you know... seaponies live?” The last words slithered out of her lips, hissed so quietly that nopony could possibly hear them.
“What?”
“I said seaponies!” Scootaloo’s voice crescendoed violently, turning the other two CMC’s manes into unrecognizable balls of fuzz in the sonic wake. “You know, ‘swim in the ocean, breathe underwater, have fins’ seaponies!”
“Wait a minute!” Apple Bloom jumped in front of her friends, eager to be heard. “If there are really seaponies in the lake, that means we can go meet them and explore!” The light bulbs in her head flickered to life, spelling out ‘Adventure’ in bright neon colors. “We could get our cutie marks fer’ seapony exploration!”
The fillies’ faces brightened at this revelation, but fell just as quickly as their stomachs added discontented grumbling to the conversation. The chance of receiving their cutie marks at long last clearly enticed the other two, but their grumbling stomachs still swayed them in the direction of food. “That sounds great, Bloom,” Sweetie grumbled, “but can’t it wait ‘til after lunch?”
“That’s the best part! Those berry bushes y’all talked about are on the way there! We’ll eat while we walk, and have our cutie marks by the time we get back for supper!” The way Apple Bloom was convincing her friends, she should have earned her cutie mark in commercial advertising.
The thought of finally earning her badge of ponydom was too sweet an offer for Scootaloo to pass up. “Okay fine, I’m in.” Leaning in close and poking the earth pony in the chest, she added, “Just be sure we get those berries.” Rubbing her belly, she added, “I’m famished.”
The two turned to the last remaining dissenter. Faced full-blast with two pleading sets of eyes, Sweetie Belle quickly relented, fighting over her yellow friend’s squeals of delight to add, “Okay, okay. Let’s do it.”
The yellow filly’s smile was an infectious disease, easily carrying over to her two compatriots. In valiant tradition they pulled each other close and let loose a barbaric yawp that shook the very tree they stood in (as well as the molars of anypony in a two mile radius). “Cutie Mark Crusaders Seapony Explorers, yay!”
Silence.
There was silence.
Tense, smothering silence.
The lake pushed tiny swells against its grassy shores, steadily and quietly, completely oblivious to the town-destroying danger that lay within its cool waters. Animals lucky enough to sense the imminent catastrophe waiting to happen fled from the area, making a beeline for the treeline nearby, lest they be caught in the natural disaster that was sure to befall whatever poor, stupid creatures stayed behind.
A single bubble floated to the surface from somewhere deep within the lake. Carried within it was the sound of fillyish laughter—a final warning for any remaining animals to leave now or suffer the consequences. The whole lake became blanketed in a thick deadness, broken only by the occasional rustling of leaves.
Suddenly, the fish began to dart about, deftly avoiding some unforeseen terror as it rose to the surface. In a cinema-esque entrance worthy of a cheaply made horror movie, three seaweed-shrouded shapes broke the surface of the water, squealing and squirming, shattering the quiet like it was a glass window hit by a baseball. As the algae-coated creatures paddled their way to shore, shedding some of the green moss that clung to their black skin, one of them let out an annoyed huff.
“Cutie Mark Crusaders Seapony Explorers? This was not one of our best ideas.”
Another one piped up. “Hey, it was Apple Bloom’s idea to go exploring at the bottom of a lake.”
As they came ashore and shook themselves free of any lingering lakewater, they finally got a good look at themselves. “Gals...” one spoke, “we look like lake monsters.”
A quick snort turned into hearty laughter, which soon spread rapidly to the remaining two. Soon all three were rolling on the grass, giggling hysterically at their monstrous appearances. So fun was their little romp that it took almost a whole minute for Apple Bloom to realize that the suit was chafing her worse than a cheese grater.
“Hey,” she chirped, “let’s get outta all this junk.” Fighting to rid herself of all the green lichen that clung to her, she barked, “A little help please?”
With her friends helping her, she began to shed her reptilian skin, revealing a pristine (if not dripping wet) yellow coat followed by a delicate mane, unkempt by the repetitive tugging at the waterlogged shell. Finally, the two managed to yank the inky-black wetsuit off its head, revealing one very wet, very disappointed Apple Bloom. “Well, Ah guess that was a bust.” Turning a disdainful eye at the lake, she guffawed. “There weren’t even any seaponies in there!”
“I guess they’re just a myth after all, Scootaloo.” Sweetie, still struggling in her wetsuit, glared harshly at her pegasus friend.
“Hey! I’m just as peeved as you that they aren’t real! Don’t go blaming all this on me now!” The two were at each other’s throats by this point, anger dripping from their eyes like the water dripping from their manes. The scene looked almost comical—two fillies, wriggling and squirming to get out of their skin-tight suits, each trying to out-glare the other with fiery stares that could easily have melted the rubber latex right off their bodies.
Not wanting the situation to escalate, Apple Bloom jumped in to intervene just before Sweetie and Scootaloo began hurling insults. “Both of y’all! Stop that right now! Ah know that this wasn’t the most successful crusade ever-”
“I’ll say.”
“-but we can’t jes’ go for each other’s throats fer’ no reason! What kind of friends would we be then?” Apple Bloom didn’t like pulling the out the friendship card to resolve an argument, but sometimes it was the only effective way to keep the other two from tearing each other to bits every couple of days.
As much as she hated using it, though, it was pretty darn good at resolving these kinds of disputes peacefully. “...You’re right,” Scootaloo finally relented, the mad glint in her eye dulling to a guilty smile. “I shouldn’t have snapped like that.” She looked down, apology mixing with the tiniest bit of disappointment. “I just really wanted to see the seaponies.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” retorted Sweetie. “I was the one being a meanie, not you. We’re friends, and we shouldn’t fight.”
“Yeah, but I don’t deserve the apology—I was just taking out my anger on you.”
“Well I still apologized, so accept it already!”
“I apologized first. That means you have to accept mine.”
“Nuh-uh! I apologized better!”
“I apologized better times two!”
“I apologized better times infinity!”
“Girls!” Apple Bloom’s shrill shriek cut through the air, silencing the arguers and bowing the nearby trees. The stern ‘I’m very disappointed in you’ look she gave was enough to make the two back down, for now at least. “Apologize nicely.”
Not wanting any further retribution from the stern Apple, Sweetie Belle and Scoots nodded shakily before turning to each other, each muttering ‘I’m sorry’ in an almost scared whimper.
“That’s better.” Apple Bloom’s face immediately lightened up. “Now, let’s go back to mah house before mah family calls out a search party for us.” Tossing the rubbery skin over her back she turned and made for the thin, winding trail leading back towards town.
“Wait a minute, Apple Bloom.” Turning, the yellow filly saw Scootaloo, who had already wriggled out of her skin-tight synthetic, fruitlessly tugging at the clinging wetsuit still secured around the unicorn’s body. “A little help here?” came a muffled voice from inside the tangle of figure-hugging synthetics. Apple Bloom rolled her eyes at the scene, but shrugged off her own suit and trotted over to help her friend nonetheless. All the while, the pegasus was still trying to yank the clingy thing off over Sweetie’s head. She would have succeeded too, if not for the horn blocking its passage.
Eyeing the situation carefully, Apple Bloom stopped her winged friend. “We’re gonna need to pull on this together if we’re gonna have any chance of gettin’ it offa her.” Scootaloo nodded, and together they took up positions on either side of the trapped unicorn’s head.
“Alright Sweetie Belle,” Apple Bloom cooed in her most comforting voice. “This might hurt.”
Wait, what do you mean it might h-” The rest of the sentence became a gasp of pain as the two fillies both grabbed a protruding edge of wetsuit with their teeth and pulled for all they were worth. The tightly-wrapped suit clung at Sweetie’s fur and mane, taking a few stray strands with it as it slowly, painfully slid off of her. It was slow and arduous, but they were making progress—after a minute of struggling; only the collar remained affixed to Sweetie’s head, stubbornly refusing to budge from its pony captive.
“Come—on—you—blasted—thing—get—off!” Each word brought another frustrated grunt from Apple Bloom as she fought to remove the wetsuit. Every pull brought her a fraction of an inch closer to success. Each centimetre became a fierce battle, every give of the fabric a vicious war. “Pull harder Scoots! We’re almost-”
As the fabric finally lost the fight, giving way with a wet popping sound, Apple Bloom opened her mouth in surprise as all of her momentum picked her up and lifted her back. She opened her mouth to shout out, letting go of the rubbery skin as she shot backwards.
And that was when her lips brushed against Sweetie Belle’s horn.
The unicorn let out another cry, not in pain at having her mane ripped out by her well-meaning “friends,” but in shock at the sudden explosion of sensation that high-dived from the very tip of her horn right into the core of her brain, belly-flopping across her thoughts and sending a ripple of knee-wobbling lightning through her legs.
Her friends were immediately on their hooves, running back to her and kneeling at her side. “Did we hurt ya, Sweets? Dangit, Ah shouldn’t have yanked so darn hard.” Any anger she held for herself instantly morphed into concern for her friend. “Ah didn’t mean to, Ah’m so so sorry!”
The only response she got was a half-strained gurgle, followed by a weak, “Whoa...”
“Whoa?” Apple Bloom cocked her head, inquisitive at her friend’s word choice. She looked into the unicorn’s eyes, expecting to find the same youthful exuberance that she always saw. Instead, all she found was a bleary, confused, green-tinted haze. “Sweetie, did y’all hit yer head er somethin’?”
It took her a moment to reply. “No... just—wow, that’s all.”
“Wow? Scoots, Ah think she hit her head. Go get nurse Redheart-”
“Wait!” Sweetie Belle suddenly shot up, eyes wide. “I’m fine, really. It’s just that—well, Apple Bloom, when you and Scoots were trying to get that wetsuit offa me, your lips kinda... brushed against my horn.”
“... So?”
“So” the filly finally balked, only continuing once her face had turned the same color as a tomato. “It felt really funny. Like, good funny.” A harsh, horrendously awkward silence filled the placid air as the other two fillies attempted to wrap their minds around their friend’s words.
“So, lemme get this straight. If Ah do this-” Apple Bloom wiggled her hoof around the young unicorn’s horn, but before she could get a firm grip on the magical appendage Sweetie shrunk away with a sharp cry.
“Y-yeah, like that.”
Now, Apple Bloom was not a mean pony. Her sister and brother had always taught her to be as nice and respectful as a pony could be. But standing there, seeing what how flustered she could make her friend at the flick of a hoof, made every last lesson of respect go out the window. She turned a sideways glance to Scootaloo, who was eyeing her with the same devious smirk.
Nodding in unspoken agreement they turned toward their helpless quarry, still floundering on the grass, cheeks flushed with a redness than would put hot lava to shame. “Uh—girls? Why are you smiling like that?” She received no reply. “Seriously, you’re starting to creep me out-”
Her words were cut off by her own squeal as her friends descended on her, laughing with glee as they each rubbed her horn, unknowingly turning Sweetie’s cognitive thinking skills into tapioca pudding.
“G-girls, seri—aah—ously, q-quit—” Sweetie Belle tried in vain to wave her friends off before they turned the frightful buzz in her head into a full-blown earthquake.
Alas, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom were too engrossed in their torturer's glee to realize that this harmless prank had gone a bit too far for comfort. Their maniacal giggles drowned out Sweetie Belle’s stuttering pleas.
"Heh, who woulda figured? Sweetie Belle's ticklish on her horn! I wonder if all unicorns get like that."
An errant swipe from Apple Bloom sent Sweetie’s leg into spasms. Her exaggerated grimace as another ripple of magic energy shot through her brain only egged the pegasus to repeat the action, turning the isolated jolt into a rhythmic hammer pounding against her skull. The sensation turned into a sharp, angry headache that somehow managed to be just as indescribably good as it was indescribably bad.
“Hey, Scootaloo. Do what I’m doing for a second. Just look at Sweetie’s leg! She looks like Winona when she’s getting her belly rubbed right now!”
“I see it too! That’s so cute!”
“Girls... ‘s-not...” Sweetie Belle trailed off as her brain began to shut down and surrender itself to the injection of hormones and Celestia-knew what else in her head. The dog-like kicking degraded into nothing more than feeble twitching as pinpricks of magical energy pinched at her fur and sent it standing on end.
Her mouth opened, and she let out a moan before she could stop herself. Her cheeks burned an even brighter crimson as she tried and failed to suppress another. Her miniature hips unconsciously began to buck upwards as another hot spark of pleasure imploded inside her.
Her horn, still reeling from all the sudden contact, came to life in the form of a thin glow of green, anchoring itself at the base and working its way up towards the tip. Despite it being near-translucent enough for Apple Bloom and Scootaloo to miss it completely, the amplified aura ramped up the merest tremble in Sweetie's body to a bone-rattling crescendo.
She grit her teeth. "What in t-the...?" Her eyes tried to focus above her, but only succeeded in rolling back lazily as another magic-induced meteor slammed into her body.
The fresh wave refused to pass, though, instead sapping the air from her lungs and reducing her panting to frenzied, manic gasps. More energy piled in on her like weights compressing her racing heart. The shimmering light glazing her horn began to flicker erratically like a faulty light bulb, compressed waves of trapped build-up slamming against it in a desperate bid for freedom.
Her head wanted to burst. Pieces of agonizing pleasure shattered and flung themselves against the walls of her skull, screaming all the while for a way to end the ‘tickling’ that was squeezing her brain like a juicer. As the sensation hit a tipping point and rushed to the surface of her skin, she felt like her entire body would just up and explode with sheer pleasure.
And boy did it.
The young unicorn's horn flared with a sudden shot of magic, enveloping the three ponies in a harsh light. Before Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had a chance to react, a shower of bright green sparks spiralled up from the base and exploded upwards in a miniature pyrotechnics display that sent the two Crusaders scrambling back on their haunches.
Sweetie Belle screamed, her body wracked with amazing, mind-numbing ecstasy as a million tons of pressure finally, mercifully, lifted from her head. She moaned as she remembered how to breathe again, charged bursts of concentrated pleasure shooting out of her and turning her young, agile mind into magic fondue.
By the time the flow finally receded, the unicorn had been reduced to a quivering ball, mewling and kicking about feebly, still enthralled in the magical orgasm that had just overtaken her. Her horn felt as if it had been shoved into boiling-hot iron then doused in ice water all at the same time. The craziest part of it all was that it actually felt pretty darn good.
Meanwhile, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had finally managed to regain their bearings on the whole situation.
"What... what in the high hay was that?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. Let's do it again!"
"No!"
A beleaguered Sweetie Belle jumped to her hooves, only to plop back down onto her haunches a moment later, clutching her head. "Please, not again, for the love of Celestia, not again."
Seeing their friend in distress spurred the two unfazed Crusaders into motion. They ran to either side of Sweetie Belle, draping their hooves around her for support. "You okay sugarcube? That was some mighty freaky stuff that just happened there."
"Yeah... yeah, I'm alright. That was... really weird."
"We're real sorry, honest," Scootaloo chimed in. "We just thought you were ticklish there."
"Yeah, that wasn't tickling. That was weird and kinda bad and kinda good and... yeah. Weird."
Despite the circumstances around their escapade, the three still managed a hearty giggle.
"I suppose it would have hurt. I mean, you shot fireworks out of your horn and stuff. Was that some new spell that we accidentally triggered or something?"
Sweetie Belle tossed Scootaloo an odd look. "Fireworks?" She followed her friend's hoof, currently directed up towards the air above her. Sure enough, the last traces of the magically-induced pyrotechnics still sat thick in the air, staining the sky a dampened shade of green.
"Whoa."
"Yeah."
"That is so... cool!"
Her previous fatigue utterly and completely forgotten, Sweetie Belle hopped to her feet and marvelled at what an amazing spectacle she had unknowingly produced. "Maybe that's some super-secret unicorn power! Whenever somepony rubs one's horn, it makes fireworks shoot out!"
"Discovering super-secret unicorn powers?" Scootaloo buzzed her miniscule wings excitedly. "That sounds like an adventure to me!"
"Well, we won't discover anything if we just stand here gawking—we need to test this out on some other unicorns before we start shouting to the heavens about secret powers and all that hoopla."
"Ooh, ooh! Let's go see if the same thing happens to Rarity!"
"Yeah!"
Author's Note
Edited by the fabulous faqqots Starfall (https://www.fimfiction.net/user/Starfall) and Manjack40 (https://www.fimfiction.net/user/manjack40).