“Okay! Um... just... j-just stand still!” Twilight's eye twitched as strands popped out of place in her mane. “Don't move!”

“I'm not.” Maud Pie's monotone response did little to assuage Twilight's near panic. Of course, that likely had something to do with the deadpan earth pony now being nearly as tall as Princess Celestia, when she'd been roughly eye-level with Twilight when she'd entered the castle's throne room.

“Okay, okay...” Twilight nervously pranced her hooves about as she tried to focus, and to ignore the fact Maud had grown several more inches in that short time. “Wh-when did this start?”

“Half an hour ago,” Maud answered as her height settled at half-a-head taller than Celestia, for the time being. “It wasn't this fast back then.”

Twilight gulped, both thankful for this little fact, and nervous for what it meant for the near future. “Wh-what were you doing at the time?”

“I was digging a hole near Ghastly Gorge. There are some interesting rocks there.”

Twilight felt more strands of her mane pop out of place. “Rocks. Right, of course it was rocks.” She clenched her teeth in a horrible facsimile of a smile. “So, rocks did this to you?”

Maud's height jumped up yet more, now she could have stepped over Twilight without the latter needing to duck. “Well, they were glowing.”

“Glowing rocks...” Twilight giggled a bit. “Okay, sure! I believe it!”

Maud just watched the Princess of Friendship twitch as she walked around. “Think you can turn me back? It's going to get hard to identify various rocks.”

“Right!” Twilight, still looking significantly less than stable, turned back to the growing earth pony. “A counterspell should take care of things!” Her horn began to glow and some of her minor insanity seemed to fade away as she put her mind to the task. The glow intensified as she concentrated, making Maud slightly raise one of her eyebrows. Just as shadows began to grow from the horn's light, Twilight let loose with the readied spell.

Maud shifted a bit as the spell hit her. “Huh, that feels odd.”

Twilight grunted, sweat gathering on her brow. “Can't talk right now!” She forced out through clenched teeth as light surrounded Maud. “This should-”

The light suddenly exploded, the spell shattering in the process as Twilight was blasted backward, tumbling tail over teakettle. She only stopped when she hit the far wall. “Ohhh... what just...”

“I don't think it worked.”

Twilight blinked, shaking her head to clear it, and looked back toward Maud. Her eyes shrank to pinpricks when she saw Maud's head brushing the throne room's vaulted ceiling, the rest of her body filling up almost all of the room itself.

Maud shifted, the crystal floors and walls cracking at her body's lightest touch. “Any other ideas?”

Twilight gulped, her horn sparking once as she pulled a scroll and quill out of thin air. “I-I... I'm going to ask Princess Celestia. She'll know what to do!” The floor cracked again as Maud's form expanded once more, the room rapidly getting a lot more claustrophobic. “I hope...”