> Intertwined Reflections: That Time Everypony Swapped Bodies > by ThistleRose > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1: That time everypony swapped bodies > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 🪄Chapter 1🪄 These aren't my hooves (This story is set sometime during season 5!) Trixie sat in her caravan, very much looking like a cat who was born in a wet cardboard box all alone.  It had been several months since her second encounter with Twilight in ponyville. She had fled after being humiliated and it was safe to say she didn’t plan to return any time soon. She had seen in all the papers about Twilight’s coronation and ascension to a Princess. Trixie, of course, didn’t particularly care that Twilight was the princess of friendship. She thought she was still just a stupid horse with a STUPID mane and a STUPID temperament about being FRIENDS with ANYONE and she was STUPID and PRETTY and STUPID. Grr. How she despised her so. The rain was pouring outside and the magician had been caught in the huge thunderstorm that was sweeping over central Equestria. Her hat and cloak were ruined, and lying in the corner in a messy heap. As she tried her best to use her simple spell to dry her hair (it wasn’t really working), she let out a groan.  “I don’t understand it, Trixie!” she said, looking over at her mirror. “Didn’t the world get the memo that Trixie was going out today? Did nopony care that Trixie might get a little soggy?”  “I know! Honestly, the AUDACITY of these pegasi!” the mirror Trixie replied back. The mirror Trixie was, of course, just Trixie pretending to be somepony else (that somepony else also being Trixie.) “Do they KNOW how difficult it is to be ME? The Great and Powerful Trixie may be both great and powerful… but it can be a lonely life…” she lamented, looking at the mirror. As much as she hated to admit it… in this current moment, she looked like a wreck. It hadn’t been only living on the road. She had barely been able to do any performances at all thanks to her failed takeover of ponyville being in all the papers. She had scored a few lucky hits with younger pony’s birthday parties, with little fillies seemingly the only ponies that didn’t hate her. The worst thing was… she had brought it all onto herself. She let out a huff of frustration. She still didn’t feel like she deserved all of… this. ““If only there were a way for them to really see what it’s like to be Trixie …” she moaned to her mirror. “But there is a way!” “Really? What-” Trixie was intrigued, before realising that her response hadn’t actually been from her. It had been from the mirror. Without her talking. She moved her head left and right. The mirror version didn't move, and instead was just simply smirking. “Greetings, Trixie!” Mirror Trix said. “You’re probably wondering… how did I get-” SMASH Trixie had just thrown a bottle of cider at the mirror. Surprisingly, it was only the bottle that smashed, and not the mirror. Mirror Trix giggled. “Aw! How sweet! Its been Aeons since i’ve tasted cider” “WHO are YOU to impersonate ME! There is only ONE Trixie Lulamoon, and it is MOI!” Trixie growled, and stomped up to the mirror. Upon arriving, she looked ‘herself’ up and down. The creature imitating her appearance was in a much better state than her. A freshly cut and combed mane, flawless eyeshadow, a well rested face… “Although…  I must say, mysterious mirror entity that is copying my appearance… you do look rather alluring…” she admitted. Wow.  “I do, don’t I? Anyway! I was just passing by your mirror when I heard you groaning and moaning, so I decided to see if I could help!” “What do you mean, passing by my mirror? The only thing on the other side of this mirror is my draw of unused cloaks and mouldy props” Trixie tilted her head, eyes narrowing. Maybe this WAS some sort of trick. “Are you some sort of demon?” “Okay!” Mirror Trixie stamped down her hoof. “New rule! Any more questions, and I don’t grant your wish!”  “But weren’t you just going to explain how you-” “Trixie! You are testing my patience~” Trixie shut herself up, but still seemed suspicious.  “Since I am feeling… shall we say, mischievous today… I’m going to put a little curse on all the mirrors in Equestria! Your wish will be granted, Trixie! Everypony will learn what life is like in somepony else’s hooves”. “... What does that mean?” She asked her reflection. Mirror trixie just winked, some sparkles flying out of her closed eye and making the mirror shimmer for a few moments… before Trixie was left looking at her normal reflection once more. She stared at herself for a few more moments… then shrugged. “Probably just some sort of hallucination.” said Trixie, and went over to put her cloak away. Her fur did prickle a bit as she turned back around, and got a passing glance at the mirror. She felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach as she looked into it. Trixie blinked. In an instant, she had the sensation of being blasted by a ferocious gust of wind and having all air removed from her lungs. Then, in the same instant, she was suddenly slammed into the floor before springing back up into a standing position. It was the most disorienting moment of her life.  As the blink ended and she opened her eyes again, she fell to the ground with a cry of panic. What was this? Was that mirror demon real? Where was she even!? The room that she had appeared in was huge, with tall blue crystalline walls with huge crystal support beams. The floor was cold and upon closer inspection was made of rocks too. The sudden shift from her quaint wooden caravan into this palace looking place was quite the shock to the system. It took a few moments for Trixie to steady herself, but she managed to get to her hooves. She felt… weird. Taller.  Warning bells really started to go off when she saw the dark purple bangs flop down over her eyes. “What?” she exclaimed out loud, flicking the strange manecut out of her face, only to get yet another jumpscare. That wasn’t her voice!? She looked at her hooves. Her purple hooves…  “T-These aren’t my hooves!?” She felt the wings on her back. The panic started to rise, she quickly ran over to the mirror and shot the hardest look she had ever looked in her life at it. Twilight Sparkle stared back. She was Twilight Sparkle. Before she even had time to process any of this, the door swung open and RainbowDash entered. “Twiiilight… how long are you going to be? We were meant to leave four minutes ago! Four whole minutes! Fluts is getting a bit twitchy!” She said, glancing back at the hallway.  Trixie could gently hear fluttershy talking to a rabbit down the corridor. She was Twilight! They had switched places! How! And now she had to deal with her annoying friends!? “Twi? Helloooo? Anypony home?” said RainbowDash, tapping her hoof impatiently. Trixie snapped back to it. Quick! Think quickly Trixie! What would Twilight say in this situation! “... Have you tried using friendship?” Trixie replied slowly. Rainbow looked back at her with unamused confusion.  “What?” “You know. Friendship. You know me! The Great and Powerful-” she stopped herself just before she gave the game away. RainbowDash just looked confused. “T-Twilight sparkle! I love friendship! It’s magic!” RainbowDash stared at her, and then her eyes moved over to the huge pile of books by her bed, most of them still open. “... You haven’t slept, have you” AHA! Trixie had a golden ticket! There was no possible way she could- “No, I slept quite well.” Trixie realised how stupid that response had been. She visibly tensed, her wings accidentally fwoofing out.  RainbowDash’s head tilted like a dog who had just been told it was adopted (as most dogs are).  “Are you… feeling alright?” Trixie’s bottom lip wobbled. She was NOT feeling alright. And that was the first time that she could remember anyone actually asking her that. She looked back at the mirror at the unfamiliar appearance in front of her. “N-No…” she said, with a slight whimper. “Do you… want to talk about it?” Trixie was frozen once more. Did she want to talk about it? If they found out who she REALLY was… that would make everything a lot more complicated. She looked back at RainbowDash, who was showing… concern? Real concern?? For her. Trixie. Somepony was acting caring towards Trixie.  If Trixie told her, she would just be met with the usual dismissal and or aggression she was used to. So it wouldn’t hurt to lie for just a little bit as she got her bearings, right? Trixie smiled. “N-No, not really. But thank you for asking! The happy and friendfull Twilight loves you!” RainbowDash zoomed over and gave her a hug. “Love you too, Twi! Don’t worry about it, we’ll head out to the farm now. See you there later! Or not!” RainbowDash gave one last squeeze, and flapped out of the room! Trixie stood there, motionless, staring at the empty doorframe, then back at herself in the mirror. A smirk crossed her face, and she gently bumped up her mane with her hoof.  “Maybe I could get used to this…” she said out loud to her reflection… It was then that a thought teleported into her brain as she looked into her own new eyes. One that mildly concerned her (but not enough for her to actually act on anything just yet). If I’m here… then where is Twilight?   “GUUUAUUAUAUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Twilight leapt back like a cat who had just set off a fire alarm. Where was she!? And whose voice was that? Who was screaming? AHH! What was GOING ON!? One moment, she was getting ready to head over to the farm for a picnic, and was just checking herself in the mirror. Next, she was here. Wherever here was! She took a moment to regulate her breathing, but it was so obvious something was wrong. Something was really very VERY wrong. She felt so weak. So thirsty. So… itchy!? She gave her side a quick scratch, before taking in her surroundings. She was in a tiny, shabby caravan, with food wrappers and dirty clothes strewn about everywhere. The place looked a bit like a bomb had hit it. But the small context clues around her (mainly all of the various magic show debris) told her who’s caravan it was. “Trrrrrixies home?” she said, letting out a squeak. Her voice had automatically done that little trill that Trixie’s did when saying her name. It sounded exactly like her too! She finally looked at the mirror, and her worst fears had been realised. Trixie looked back. She was Trixie. The panic and fear started to rise up in her throat as she started to hyperventilate. Head whipping too and fro, she tried to find an exit, but was cut off by hearing a cackling laugh.  “Oh dear, Twilight… what an awful state you’ve got yourself in!” She looked around. Who was that!? It sounded like… In the mirror, Twilight could see… herself? As in, a horse that looked like the princess of friendship Twilight Sparkle.  It had to be Trixie, surely! Twilight growled.  “Trixie! What in e-equestria have you done!?” she roared, stamping her hoof down. “Swap us back RIGHT now!” “I’m not Trixie” Twilight paused. “You’re… not?” “No. I’m a creature of reflections. And the one who’s body you inhabit made a little wish upon a star, shall we say~” “She…” Twilight’s ears flattened back. “She… wanted to be… me?” “Well, not exactly. She wanted someone to know how tricky it was to be her.” Mirror ‘twilight’ replied, inspecting her hooves nonchalantly as she spoke. “And I thought to myself… why, these strange material beings must often think that! So I used a litttttle bit of magic to curse every reflective surface in Equestria! Now if two ponies look at the mirror and blink at the same time… SNAP! Swapped!” “You… Y-You can’t do this!” Twilight was already in tears. “I-I don’t want to be Trixie! Put me back!” “Sorry, kiddo, no can do! You’ll both have to look at a mirror at the same time again! And just hope that nopony else is doing their mane… or having a cry… or just taking in what a sad worthless pathetic little magician they are…”  That last one seemed pointed. “Well! Must be off! I’m sure we’ll talk again soon, Trixie Sparkle!” “W-WAIT! YOU CAN’T JUST-” The shimmering reflection of herself dissipated.  Twilight was left looking at a miserable Trixie, with tears of overwhelming stress slowly dripping down her cheeks as she sank down to the floor, head in hooves. After a few moments of desperate panicking, she managed to get herself up off the floor to really take in her surroundings. The caravan was… well, it was a complete state. She shuddered; did Trixie really live like this? What had she been doing all of this time? Her eyes were drawn to a partially ripped wall calendar. There were so many plans written in scrawled sharpie. Twilight’s stomach twinged a little as she saw most of them were crossed out with red markers. She levitated the page up (noting that it was a lot more effort to use her magic than usual). For the last few months, it had all been the same; a few tiny bookings here and there… but nothing to really live off. Despite Trixie deserving it… Twilight was to blame for this. She thought back to what the strange mirror entity had said to her. ‘Worthless pathetic little magician they are…’ She looked back into the mirror, at the dishevelled unicorn in front of her. Trixie really hadn’t been taking care of herself, had she?  She sighed. She had more than just this bodyswap to fix, didn’t she? “Right…” she said to herself. Having a different voice was… disconcerting… but she could deal with that later. “Come on, Twilight. You just need to get back to ponyville and sort this mess out before.” She took a single step and her hoof landed in a four day old sandwich. She grimaced. “... Maybe I should clean her caravan first.” She carefully started to move some things off the floor, anxious in the back of her mind about what the mirror entity had said about ‘every mirror is Equestria…” “And… you’re sure she’s okay?” Fluttershy asked nervously as RainbowDash told her of the strange interaction she had just had with Twilight. “Yeah, well, no, but I know if it was REAL bad, she’d just tell us. Probably just having a stress over the font changing in a book she liked or something” she said, rolling her eyes a little. Fluttershy glared at her. “W-Which is something she cares about alot! So its okay for her to be sad!” Fluttershy’s expression softened, and gave her a little nudge. “Good save.” she said quietly. RainbowDash grinned, blushing a tiny bit as she looked away awkwardly.  The pair of ponies had only been a couple for a few weeks, and were still trying to figure everything out. It had surprisingly been Fluttershy who instigated the relationship, but only after she had accidentally told RainbowDash that she ‘liked how she smelt after she had been exercising’,. It had been an embarrassing couple of minutes, but it was a freudian slip that had led to both of their first kisses. From there, they had been on a couple of cute dates, but as per Fluttershy’s request, they had been taking it very slowly. And for once, RainbowDash didn’t mind not breaking the sound barrier.  “A-Anyway!” RainbowDash got into the air again as per usual. “I’m going to go quickly grab that weird Manehatten cider that AJ was wanting me to get, I’ll be right back!” She said, giving Fluttershy a small kiss on the forehead before zooming off. Fluttershy giggled. How had she managed to pull this one off? She went back to tending to Angel, who was making a fuss about not wanting to eat a carrot because it was too orange. She was happily humming to herself, but was interrupted by a loud screech coming from RainbowDash’s room in the castle! Fluttershy’s ears shot up. Oh no! Was she ok? She quickly shot up and ran towards the room, where the now hysterical crying from RainbowDash was emanating from. “D-Dash!” she stuttered as the mare went into the room to see RainbowDash on the floor, staring and sobbing at the Mirror. “WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME! FLUTTERSHY! HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I’M HIDEOUS!” RainbowDash wailed in a uncharacteristic dramatic fashion, launching herself and grabbing onto Fluts for dear life. Fluttershy was a little stunlocked by this, before gently patting Rainbowdash on the back of the mane. She wasn’t usually to fussed about her appearance. “Shhh… Its ok! I promise, your hair looks lovely today! I-It, uhm… kind of looks the same as it always does…” She said, looking down into the matted and messy mane. ‘She really does need to wash it more…’ she thought to herself. She gave her a small kiss on the muzzle. “It’s all going to be-” “F-FLUTTERSHY!?” RainbowDash suddenly scampered away. Fluttershy’s heart dropped. Was that the wrong thing to do? Was that without consent? Oh no… oh no no no n o no no no … her wings clamped to her side. “D-Dashie! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, it's before you… i thought-” she said, her words tumbling out of her mouth before she could properly stitch them together.  RainbowDash’s wings, on the other hand, seemed to be randomly jerking in different directions without much rhyme or reason.  “I-I’m not RAINBOWDASH! Uwuagh! Its me! Rarity!” Fluttershy blinked at her. RainbowDash loved pranks. But the delivery and wildness seemed a bit much even for her.  But it was also ludicrous. “Uhm…” she said, not knowing how to take this right now. “No you’re not-” “I AM! I SWEAR! SOMETHINGS GONE TERRIBLY WRONG! I’M ALL-” She ran a hoof through her mane and gagged. She looked like she was going to throw up. “G-Greasy! I can’t be seen outside like this! What if somepony realises it is me! They see Rarity like THIS!? That would be the WORST! POSSIBLE! THING! EVER!” Okay, that was Rarity. Fluttershy let out a squeak of discomfort. Rarity was, of course, known for her style and looks. Keeping up good appearances is her main priority.  “U-Uhm, ok! Ok, uhm..” Fluttershy slowly started to approach the sobbing mess. What was she meant to do!? Her girlfriend was suddenly NOT her girlfriend but instead one of her other friends! What sort of magic was going on? “D-Do you know how this happened?” she asked slowly. Rarity shook her head. “N-No! One moment I was brushing my mane in the mirror to get ready for Applejack’s picnic and then SUDDENLY I look like a horrible disgusting unwashed disgrace of a-” Rarity stopped herself as she found herself the sudden target of Fluttershy’s stare. “DON’T! Say that about my girlfriend.” she said firmly. Rarity nodded briskly. The stare finished, and Fluts shrank back down to her usual demeanour.  “Sorry, darling… You know I like to keep myself well maintained…” Hearing RainbowDash say darling in that tone was disconcerting. “I-Its ok. Uhm. Well. I think the…” she looked at the door. Twilight would know what to do. “I-I’ll go get Twilight. She’ll know what to do! B-Be right back!” She said, and gave Rarity an awkward pat on the head as she went back to sobbing.  Fluttershy hurried out, taking a moment to breathe as she left the room. If Rarity was here as RainbowDash… that would mean that RainbowDash would be wherever Rarity is? Oh goodness… she probably wasn’t taking this very well, was she? She could be rather rash sometimes… she just hoped that rarity’s boutique hadn’t been demolished by the time she checked in.  Carefully clipclopping over to Twilights room, she stuck her head through the still open door. ‘Uhm… Twi…’ she mumbled.  Twilight didn’t seem to be paying attention to the door, instead she seemed to be rummaging through her closet?  To Fluttershy, this was strange; Twilight  never tended to dress up fancy unless it was a big event. Mabye AJ’s picnic WAS a big event. Oh no mabye she should have thought of a cool dress to bring oh no oh no fluttershy you idiot you messed it all UP- No. No time for panic. Fluts was about to enter when Twilight started to mutter to herself. “Who needs this much clothes? Does she not have even a single cloak? How is she meant to wow her… oh, yes. Right. Wings. Can’t have a cloak and wings! Unless… WING HOLES! HA!” She said, pulling out a simple black cloak from the closet, draping it over herself happily Fluttershy’s legs started to wobble. That wasn’t Twilight, was it? The creature that looked like Twilight was gladly strutting too and fro, looking in the mirror as herself.  A changeling? No, it couldn’t be. A changeling wouldn’t act like this if it thought it was alone. This HAD to be another pony who had somehow been swapped! But who!? “Hehe… Ahem… I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL ALICORN, TWILIGHT SPARKLE! ALL SHAL BASK IN MY GLORY!” Okay it was Trixie. … It was Trixie. Fluttershy let out a squeak of shock, which caused Trixie’s head to shoot round. Luckily, Fluttershy managed to zip behind the door before she was seen! Shoot… Shoot shoot SHOOT! She needed to get out of here, with Rainbow- No, RARITY in hoof! She scuttled back into the room. “R-Rarity, we h-have to go! Trixie is-” The newly turned pegasus wasn’t here. But she could hear running water- “A-Are you having a shower!?” she looked over to the ensuite door.  “Yes, I’ll just be a minute, darling! I just need to get all of the dirt and grime out of RainbowDash’s mane! W-Won’t be a moment!” The shrillness of her voice made it sound like she was on the edge of one huge breakdown, which was fair enough I suppose in this situation. “B-But, T-Twilight! Sh… S-She’s Trixie.” The water stopped abruptly. The door swung open and a sopping wet ‘RainbowDash’ stepped out, barely able to see through her damp hair. “She’s WHO!?” “W-We need to go! N-Now! We need to g-get to the picnic! E-Everypony else will be there, we, w-we can start making a plan!” “But I need to check on the Boutique! W-Who knows what RainbowDash may have done! She might have set the whole place on fire! Fluttershy was about to defend her girlfriend again, but to be honest, she couldn’t guarantee the entire building wasn’t destroyed by now. “B-Blow dry your mane and then we will run, ok!” Rarity nodded and went back inside the bathroom. Fluttershy nervously stood by the door, holding it closed. She could only hope that Trixie didn’t realise what was going on and barge on in. Trixie was bad enough as a regular Unicorn, but as an Alicorn? Ponyville would surely be in ruin! Through the streets they dashed, Rarity frequently tripping over. As they went, it was becoming clear that whatever this phenomenon was, it was happening alot. Many confused residents were panicking. Lyra was talking to Bonbon about how she was a colt in Manehattan about to have a job interview, HollyDash was panicking about where her son was, and Derpy Hooves was flying around in a circle above. Although thinking about it that might be normal.  But through the chaos, Fluttershy could hear a common theme. Mirrors. Rarity had been swapped after looking at a mirror. Trixie was in a room with a mirror. She gulped. She was going to have to be the one to fix this, wasn’t she? There was something that made fluttershy uniquely equipped to try and keep everything calm here.  She ran her tongue along her pointed teeth with unease. > Chapter 2: That time the girls had to beat up an Alicorn > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 🎇CHAPTER 2 🎇 We don’t want a fight CURRENT STATUS Twilight inhabits Trixie Trixie inhabits Twilight  RainbowDash inhabits Rarity Rarity inhabits RainbowDash “What. The Fuck.” RainbowDash sat covered in a pile of ribbons, fabric, needles and other sewing equipment, staring at her newly pristine hooves. The sudden swap had shocked her so much that she had collapsed back into one of Rarity’s shelves. She looked up at the mirror to confirm her horrified suspicion.  She was Rarity. “N-No!? W-What? I’m HER!?” Everything felt wrong. The familiar comforting feeling of her wings at her side had of course vanished, and there was a strange feeling flowing through her. It kind of felt like the feeling of drinking cold water on a hot day, and the coldness spreading around one’s body. Only it was always there, shimmering in the background, all coming to a point on her forehead. Gingerly, RainbowDash held her pale hoof and placed it on her new horn. She let out a little wince as it sparked. Where was Fluttershy. She needed Fluttershy. Fluttershy would- Okay well she wouldn’t know what to do, but she’d do that thing of hurriedly scrambling to make her feel better. She needed to get back to Fluttershy, who was most likely at the castle! Cautiously, she managed to get up onto her hooves and surveyed her surroundings. She was in Rarity’s bedroom, which was luckily not an unfamiliar place for her; she had been called in for emergency dress support many times (even though she didn’t particularly know why it was HER that was needed). She slowly moved towards the door, her legs feeling weird and soft. Pausing, she felt her mane. It felt so… clean. She shuddered; Rarity always had so much product in her hair. Sure, it made it look lovely, but it was WAY more effort than RainbowDash was willing to put in. This was all so wrong.  And if she was Rarity… wouldn’t that mean that… Rarity was her? Thoughts of Rarity’s reaction and Fluttershy trying to comfort her flooded her mind. She needed to get to the Castle. She could feel her pulse rise rapidly as she managed to stumble out into the main corridor of the upstairs.  “A-Anypony? Hello?” she called out, voice quivering. Her ear flicked in discomfort at hearing Rarity’s voice come out through her own.  “You alright Rarity?” Sweetie Belle trotted out of her room, looking concerned. “Uhhm… you don’t look so good” she commented upon seeing her ‘sisters’ discomfort. “I’m… Not…” she said, looking down at Sweetie Belle. Something about seeing her looking up at her like Scootaloo would usually look up at her sent all the blood running to her head. She stumbled to and fro for a moment… then crashed down onto the floor.  Rainbow felt herself get shaken in an attempt to wake her, but her head was still swimming. “Uhm… Is that you, RainbowDash?” “So you’re telling me you somehow switched bodies with Dash? How is that even possible!” “I don’t know, Sweets. But we are going to try and collect the elements together all in one place to try and figure out a plan to stop this dreadful mess!” It was that last voice that made her eyes shoot open. It was her own voice! It was a strange sensation, lying on the floor and seeing yourself look down upon you. Well, you but with… a cleaner mane? Carefully, RainbowDash rolled onto her front, and stared with wide eyes at Rarity, who in turn stared back. Both of them were locked in a strange existential staring contest. RainbowDash’s eyes then turned to see- “Fluts!” She shot up and hugged her tight, causing the usual squeak of shock from Fluttershy as she awkwardly hugged back. “Please, RainbowDash! Be a little bit more delicate with my body!” Rarity piped up nervously. “You’re going to ruin my mane!” “Oh PLEASE!” She turned, glaring at Rarity. “The first thing you did with my AWESOME body was have a SHOWER!” “Well, my DEAR! Your mane was REVOLTING! I can barely understand how you can cope with yourself!” She replied indignantly.  “Please stop fighting…” mumbled Fluttershy.  Fluttershy’s brain was, as most ponies were right now, in a flurry. It was made especially complicated since her girlfriend was kind of infront of her twice, and all she wanted right now was a hug from her. Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t think of anything more stressful. Upon her request, the pair stopped arguing and looked to her. Both still seemed real upset. Fluttershy blinked a few times before realising they were waiting for her to say something. “O-Oh! Uhm… W-Why is… are you-” she looked behind her. Nopony there. She looked back. “W-Why are you looking at me?”  “Because you’re in the right body, and thus you must help keep us right!” Said Rarity with a soft smile. RainbowDash growled at her (It was odd to hear rarity’s voice growling), before nodding at Fluttershy. “Uhm.. what about-” Fluttershy looked down at Sweetie Belle. “W-What? Me? Uhm, I’m like, 10 years old?” she protested. “R-Right”. Fluttershy gulped. She WAS going to have to be in charge. Shoot. They didn’t even know about THAT thing yet! “U-Uhm.. I think we should go to t-the picnic and m-meet with… the others… Th-Then we need to try and… m-make sure that Trixie doesn’t do anything ridiculous.” “Waitwaitwaitwaitwait-” Rainbowdash shook her head quickly, her curled hair bouncing everywhere. “Trixie?” “Uhm… Yes… she has… s-swapped placed with Twilight.” replied Fluttershy meekly. “Well then why are we even still here? We need to get to the farm! NOW!” she declared, and leapt into the air… before crashing down painfully onto her front, winding herself. “OW!” Rarity rolled her eyes as she trotted past, reminding her that “I’ve got your wings, dear.” She looked over to Sweetie Belle. “Sweetie, can you warn your little crusader friends not to look into any mirrors? I would hate for any of you little ones to find yourself halfway across the continent in the body of a divorced father”. Sweetie Belle shuddered, and nodded. “W-Will do! Right away!”  She glanced between RainbowDash and Rarity. “Golly this is confusing… S-Stay safe, sis!”  She galloped away out the door towards their treehouse. Fluttershy gingerly led the way to the farm, the two swapped ponies behind her continuing to bicker. “You’re slouching too much!” Rarity complained, moving over and using a hoof to try and Adjust RainbowDash’s posture. Rainbow shuffled away as they walked, scowling. “How can you not slouch with the weight of the mane spray in this thing?” she replied, purposefully ruffling up the perfect curls in her mane. “The nerve! How can you EXIST with a mane this messy? You look like you were dragged through a bush backwards, and then pushed through it again twice as hard!” “Uhm…” Fluttershy looked back at Rarity. “I… I quite like how messy it is.” “HA! See! My girls got my back!” Said RainbowDash in jubilation, and sidled up to give her a kiss on the cheek. She gave a little squeak and shook her head, keeping her at wings length by extending her wing, pushing the unicorn away. RainbowDash looked crestfallen, but understood. “N-Not until we’ve sorted out all of… this…” she insisted. RainbowDash nodded, and gave an apologetic glance at Rarity. Rarity returned a sad smile. “Sorry, Fluts.” said Rainbow, and the trio remained in an awkward silence until they finally arrived at the picnic. “Hnnnnn……………… Grrrrnnnhhh…………” Twilight was dragging along Trixie’s caravan with all of her might, but it was proving quite the challenge. She had done a quick spring clean of the inside as the idea of moving a cart that horrible made her feel sick to her stomach. She wished she had the lack of empathy that some ponies had and just left the caravan where it was, but Trixie was already essentially homeless. It would hurt everypony even more if Trixie was left without a roof. She had been travelling for about an hour now, and wasn’t having the best time of it. She had worked out roughly where she was thanks to some handy signs, and thus knew it would take another few hours to get to ponyville. She hadn’t seen any other signs of anypony swapping, but she was still worried about the possibility.  Her worst fears would be realised as she passed through a small village of a few cottages and a tiny market store. From the market store ran Lyra Heartstrings, looking incredibly stressed out. “I-I don’t know y’all!” “Lyra! What's gotten into you!?” A green earth pony came out of the store looking perplexed. “Y-You love the book club!” “A’h can barely read!” she wailed, and ran straight into Twilight. Twilight staggered back a little.  “Lyra! Are you ok?” She asked with concern, the small crumbs of concern eating away at the back of her mind. She then realised that she looked and sounded like Trixie. And thus Lyra’s reaction was to scream. “N-NO! N-NOT YOU!” “W-Wait! Lyra! It’s me! Twilight! I promise!” she said, trying her best to reassure her.  Lyra paused, her breathing still quite quick. She looked around at the other ponies staring at the pair.  “Y-You… got swapped too?” she said quickly. Too? Oh no. It was spreading. “Y-Yes! Uhm… who are you?” Twilight said, nodding. “A-AppleBloom!” Twilight’s heart quickened. AppleBloom?? “No! Oh this is bad… this is real bad…” she said, placing a hoof to her temple. “This is going to get out of control SO quickly.” “D-Do you not know what's going on!?” replied AppleBloom, who looked like she was going to break down.  “I do. S-Sort of. Were you looking in a mirror when you swapped places?” She said, trying to remain as calm as possible. “N-No… But ah was lookin at the lake…” It was all reflective surfaces??  “Okay. Come on, Ly… A-AppleBloom. Sorry. Lets get back to Ponyville, there must be some way I can fix this mess.” AppleBloom nodded. “U-Uhm… Twilight… is my horn meant to feel this…” She tilted her head, trying her best to look up at the horn that was on the corner of her upper peripheral vision. “Sparky?” she asked, tapping it. Sparks flew out which knocked her back onto her hind quarters.  “Y-You’ll get used to it. Come on.” she said, offering a hoof to help her up. The unicorn hesitated, but took it. “... You don’t look very good as Trixie.” She said as they started to move. “Well..." she said, frowning. "At least I'm not a filly" "Hey!" "Sorry." AppleJack and PinkiePie sat there, listening to Fluttershy, Rarity and RainbowDash explain what was going on. Well, they could only guess what was really going on, but they were doing their best. AppleJack looked horrified at this, and was giving a few awkward glances to Rainbowdash, who was avoiding eye contact with everypony. PinkiePie, on the other hand, thought that this was great fun.  “And, uhm… that's where we are now.” Fluttershy finished. Immediately, Pinkiepie had bounced over and was circling Rarity and AppleJack. “THIS IS SO COOL! You get to be somepony else! That's AWESOME! RARITY can you fly? Have you tried flying? You can fly Rarity! And RAINBOW! You can make things float with your HEAD! I wish I had some sort of magic power! Alas, all i can do is make things appear with my mind when i need them! Anyway this is SO COOL I want to swap with Luna i would look SO cool with-” AppleJack placed a hoof on her shoulder to calm her down a bit. Pinkiepie smiled apologetically to the exhausted looking swapped ponies.  “Well, sounds like we need to head over to Twi’s castle and make sure Trixie doesn’t destroy it.” she said, getting to her hooves.  “Uhm… I don’t wish to be a stick in the mud, but how are we exactly meant to stop her?” Asked Rarity, who’s wings were still twitching naturally from time to time. “Yeah! Since we don’t have the best flyer in Equestria on our side, there's no hope at all!” Said RainbowDash, looking forlornly at her wings, stuck on somepony else's body.  “I don’t think it should be too much of a worry,” Said Rarity, looking back at her wings, “If I can barely use these things, then I don’t think we have to worry too much about Trixie, since she won’t know the more… destructive of Twilight’s spells. “HEY! They have NAMES!” RainbowDash interjected. “Who?” Rarity looked over in confusion. “Uhh, my Wings? Windbreaker and Skyslasher?? And DON’T you dare disrespect them like that again!” Rarity rolled her eyes.  “Fine.” “Right then. Let's get going. Come on girls, we got a princess to catch!” Said AppleJack confidently. Pinkiepie nodded like a bobble head and started bouncing around, talking about all the ponies she’d like to be. Fluttershy was beyond relieved that AppleJack was still in the correct body. This meant she could shrink back into being a supporting role. It was where she was most comfortable. But, she did need to remind everypony of one very important thing. “R-Remember, everypony… nobody look into any mirrors, please…” - “TRIXIE! WE KNOW YOU’RE IN HERE!” AppleJack was leading the pack as they entered the castle. “JUST COME DOWN HERE AND MEET US SO WE DON’T GOT TO GET VIOLENT!”  AppleJack’s southern twang reverberated around the empty halls as the uneven clip clops of the 5 moved towards Twilight’s bedroom.  Slowly the door creaked open, and the smugly smiling form of Twilight Sparkle came around the corner. AppleJack tensed. It looked just like Twilight. But she could tell from the expression who the pony really was. “So! You worked out my little secret…” Trixie said menacingly as she grinned and stretched her wings out wide. Her right eye twitched a little.  Fluttershy frowned. She knew all to well that the eye twitch that was a tell of Twilight’s, meaning that she was suppressing an emotion, so it would only make sense that Trixie may inherit some of her traits. “We sure did!” RainbowDash came to the front. “And let me tell you, you are in WAY over your head.” “Really? Because it seems to me like I’m more great and powerful than I EVER could have dreamed to be!” She said, her horn glowing. Rainbowdash was surrounded by the purple magic aura and she was flung into the air.  “WUWUAGGHH!” She cried out, trying her best to flap her non-existent wings to stop her from Rainbow Crashing into the floor. Luckily, AJ was there and managed to catch her. “Trixie, will you just be reasonable for once!?” Rarity moved forward now, but AJ placed a hoof across her chest to stop her from moving closer. “Trixie. We don’t want a fight. Please. Whatever magic it is that’s caused you to swap with Twi also swapped RainbowDash and Rarity.” AppleJack said Firmly, but appeared to be ready to leap at her at a moments notice. This shut Trixie up. It had spread!? “Oh shoot, that’s probably-” she said, glancing behind her. “I assumed that she just meant me-” AppleJack raised an eyebrow. “Want to run that one by me again? Who’s she” Fluttershy was standing right behind AppleJack, peeking around the corner of her huge frame. Seeing Twilight act so… well, arrogant… was very disconcerting.  “Well! The great and powerful Trixie was merely lamenting on how hard of a life she had… then MIRROR Trixie went and made me swap with this beautiful and pretty princess!” She declared happily. All the others glanced between each other. Did she just say- “So you’re telling me…” It was Rarity this time, who marched forward. “YOU’RE to blame for all of this? You did this to ME!?” “Well, in some ways… no?” she said hopefully, smiling sheepishly. Fluttershy let out a little squeak as Rarity started to growl, her wings fwoofing out to a full spread.  “I’m going to fucking destory you” she said, and before anypony could do anything to stop her, Rarity launched herself at Trixie. Trixie leapt out of the way, and used her magic to once again push the newly turned pegasus into a wall with a loud thunk.  That was it. “THAT'S IT!” RainbowDash snarled, and got into an aggressive stance. AppleJack was already in one, and PinkiePie had already summoned a Party Cannon. Fluttershy stayed at the back, quietly whimpering. “P-Please… can’t we… uhm… r-resolve this… without any…” It was too late. AppleJack rushed in, and immediately got out her Lasso and started twirling it above her. RainbowDash didn’t really know how to use magic properly, so just stood still and strained. She tried her best to emulate what it felt like to tense one's jaw and make the blood rush to one’s head, but instead of her body, she used her innate magic. It started to work, and her horn began to spark, but Trixie had already risen up into the air with her new wings, and was charging up a spell. PinkiePie fired off the party cannon, but Trixie had managed to manoeuvre herself out of the way in time. “DARN YOU, MISFIRING ARTILLERY!!” The wall to the side of her was covered in streamers and confetti. It would take spike HOURS to clean all this up! Where even was spike? The author doesn’t know. Rarity had managed to get to her hooves again, and was looking back at her wings. “Come on, girls! You can do THIS!” she hissed at them, and began to flap with them. Steadily she began to rise. “Uhmm,, they’re BOYS!?” Snapped Rainbowdash, who had just managed to let off a small magical beam at Trixie. “AHA! TAKE THAT, TRIX-” Trixie had responded with a beam of her own, which blasted RainbowDash all the way down to the end of the corridor, straight past Fluttershy. “EEK! R-RAIR- RAIN BO- BOW!” She said, getting flustered and confused again. Trixie had just hurt her! Her eyebrow furrowed, and she glared at the alicorn. AppleJack let off a Lassoo, and managed to catch Trixie right over the head. This dragged her down onto the floor, but before AppleJack could consolidate, Trixie shot off another spell! It hit AppleJack directly in the muzzle, to which she appeared to vanish, all that was left being her hat. “N-NOOOO!!!” Cried out Rarity, who lost all composure. She shot over to the hat and dropped to her hind legs, already starting to bawl her eyes out. “S-SHE WAS SO YOUNG! SO HANDSOME!” “Uhm… Rain-Rarity-” A high pitched voice came from under the hat. Rarity’s crying stopped immediately as she lifted the hat up. AppleJack was fine, she was just about an inch tall. “Don’t worry ‘bout me! You need to catch that alicorn!” She squeaked up angrily at Rarity. Rarity nodded, and put the hat back down over her. “WAIT DON’T JUST-” AppleJack couldn’t protest as the leather walls were placed around her once more. PinkiePie had sprung up, and with Trixie distracted by the hilarious idea of a tiny AppleJack managed to get off a good kick to the muzzle, causing her to do a full spin. Trixie replied quickly, shooting off a whole number of beams towards her and Rarity. They all missed, but the crystalline nature of the castle meant they shot around everywhere, bouncing off walls and almost hitting herself on many occasion. “GET HERRRRRRRR!”” Pinkiepie grabbed onto her wings and held them together, as Rarity managed to swipe her legs. This disarmed Trixie for long enough for her to be pinned down, but Trixie was still an Alicorn and being an alicorn meant she was stronger than an average pony. Unfortunately, the abnormally strong one among them was currently the size of a flea. “RELEASE ME AT ONCE! I DIDN’T MEAN TO CAUSE THIS MESS! I JUST WANTED TWILIGHT TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FELT!” hissed Trixie, still firing off spells wildly. A few of them hit the pair, and their grip loosened. “WELL THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST COME AND TALK TO US??? LIKE A NORMAL PONY???” Pinkiepie Screeched back. Trixie was just about to break free when- CCRRASSSHHHH! The vase smashed over Trixie’s head, knocking her out cold. Her body went limp and she flopped back onto the floor. Pinkiepie and Rarity blinked at each other, then looked up at the ceiling.  Fluttershy had silently flown up with one of the many vases that lined the corridors of the castle, and dropped it down onto Trixie. She smiled, a little proud of herself. “S-Sometimes… i-it pays to be quiet…” she said, before quickly (well… as quickly as fluttershy would go) flew down the corridor to the still stirring RainbowDash.  “Did I… win?” She asked, her mane now in a frazzled mess (causing much dismay from Rarity).  “U-Uhm…” she said, looking back at the wrecked hallway, then back at her wrecked (sort of) girlfriend. “Yes. I think so” she said softly, and went in to give her a little peck on the cheek. She stopped before touching, and glanced back at Rarity.  Rarity smiled, and gave a little nod of permission. Fluttershy smiled back, and proceeded to give RainbowDash a kiss on the cheek. After a few minutes, AppleJack was back to regular size, and the gang had reconveined in the main hall. Trixie was on the table, still out cold and bound together with AppleJack’s lasso. Rarity had found one of their magic nullifiers from the dungeon. They had never had to use the dungeon before, but it was important that it was there for times like these. The small cone had been fit on the Alicorn’s horn, meaning that when she did eventually wake up, she wouldn’t be able to do much damage. They had just finished tying her up when the main door opened, revealing a scared looking Lyra and an exhausted looking… Trixie!? “I-I’m here! I-Is everypony safe? Oh I… what have you done to my body?” ‘Trixie’ said. Everypony took a moment to register, before everypony sighed in one big sigh of relief.  “Twilight!” PinkiePie immediately attached herself to Twilight, squeezing her super tight. “P-PINKIE! PLEASE! T-TRIXIE DOESN’T EAT WELL HER BONES ARE BRITTLE!” “Hehe! Sorry!” ‘Lyra’ waddled in, and immediately started crying when she saw AppleJack. “S-SIS!!!” she wailed, immediately falling to her hooves and hugging onto AJ’s forlegs. “U-Uh… Lyra?” She said, dumbfounded. Twilight gave a sad little smile as she came on in. “It’s AppleBloom” AppleJack looked between the full grown adult pony infront of her, and then at one of her best friends inhabiting the bodies of one of her least favourite ponies of all time. She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Sure… sure it is…” she said in defeat, and sat down to hug the mint green unicorn in front of her. “There there girl… you’re big sis is here…” she said softly, squeezing her tight (but not too tight applejack could probably break all of her bones). “A-Are you… you?” “Yeah, Blooms.. I’m me…” Twilight tried to not shed a tear as she watched the strange display of sisterly affection, and went over to the table where Trixie lay, still unconscious. It was… disconcerting to say the least.  Twilight sat at her chair, and just stared for a moment. Strange, morbid thoughts were flying through her mind. Is this what it would be like to see your own dead body? She decided to shake that thought from her mind for now, and instead, let herself get caught up with the happenings. Everypony sat in their correct seats, with AppleBloom sitting squeezed in tight nexto her sister for support and comfort. “I spoke to this strange… mirror entity. A-And from what i understand, If anypony looks into a mirror at the same time as somepony else, no matter where they are, there is a chance they’ll swap bodies. W-Which is what happened to us.”  Everypony shared nervous looks and sat in worried silence. Rarity eventually piped up. “Well then… why don’t we all just look into mirrors at the same time again? I could get back to my beautiful body that way.” “It ain't worth the risk, Rarity” AppleJack piped up. “We saw with Blooms and Twi that there doesn’t seem to be much of a distance issue. What if one of us gets sent into the other side of Equestria? Then that’ll make fixin’ this whole disaster a whole other kettle of apples.” Nobody questioned her countryisms at this point.  “Then… I think we need to do what we always do…” said fluttershy quietly. Twilight looked at her, head tilted. Everypony was looking at fluttershy. Oh, Uhm… Fluttershy tapped her hooves together awkwardly whilst looking at the floor. “... read books until we can work out what is going on.” Everyone exclaimed in realisation, nodding. Fluttershy smiled weakly. “Good idea, fluts! To the-” “AUuuuhghhh…” Trixie was waking up! Twilight thought she would be more prepared for this. She wasn’t.  She carefully moved down off her chair so she could be eye level with the tablebound Trix.  Trixie woke up to see… herself. Looking VERY unamused. “... Oh my goodness…” She managed to wiggle her way onto her front, her eyes lighting up. “I never KNEW Trixie was this beautiful!”  Twilight was… stunned. Of all the things that she expected to hear her own voice say… that was not… one of… She paused for a moment. Trixie WAS kind of… NO! Nononon not now. NOT! Now. She would deal with that later. “You have A LOT of explaining to do'' Twilight hissed, clopping a hoof down beside Trixie’s head. Trixie gulped.  “Well… you see…” Trixie explained her whole interaction with the mirror entity, the whole time avoiding eye contact with anypony. Twilight could feel her anger rising, but the emotions were a mixed up bubbling cauldron of anxiety. Hearing bad news coming out of your own mouth but in somebody else’s way of speaking was making her feel a little nauseous. “And then… I think somebody hit me with a vase? And then I woke up here! Seeing the hottest horse in all of Equestria standing right infront of me!” she finished, sticking her tongue out. “... are you enjoying that you can just make me say whatever you want?” asked Twilight with an exhausted groan. “Oh, Twilight… you have no idea~” “Right.” Twilight stood back. “I’m… going to release you now. And you’re going to help us.” There were sudden cries of protests from all of her friends. “Darling, are you sure that's wise?” Rarity piped up. Twilight was surprised that RainbowDash would be the cautious one, before having to remind herself that wasn’t Rainbow. That was Rarity. Celestia, this was going to get confusing. Some may say it already was confusing.  “And in return, we won’t tell anypony that this whole mess is your fault.”  Trixie stared with wide eyes. Of all things she had expected to hear… this was certainly not one of them. “You’d… really… me? You want… me?” “Well, as much as it pains me to say,” Twilight started, already feeling that this was going to send Trixie’s ego to the stratosphere, “ you’re the most powerful one of us here magically now.” Trixie’s eyes sparkled a little.  “... I’ll help you if you say the line.” “What line!?” “You know what line.” Twilight blinked, before groaning loudly. Through gritted teeth, she said: “You are the most great and powerful.” “YIPPEEE!!!!!! SHE SAID IT! SHE SAID ITTTTTTTT! TWILIGHT CALLED ME GREAT AND POWERFUL! SHE SAID THE LINEEEEEEEE! WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Trixie exclaimed, and started wiggling in her place. Twilight growled. “Right, everypony. Let's get down to research. Trixie, I’ll free you out when it's time to leave.” “WHAT!? Why don’t you want me to help research with your silly books?” “Can you read, Trixie.” There was a long pause. “If there are pictures, yes!” “...” “...” “... fine.” Twilight released her, and she did a big stretch in a cat like way, her wings extending fully out. “Thank you so much, my beloved-” “Shut up, Trixie, and get to the library.” “Anyting for my princess~” “TRIXIE!” She cackled a little, but started to move with the others towards the library. AppleJack stayed right at her side, and whispered: “Any funny business, and I'm going to kick your rear all the way to appleoosia. Got it?” As Twilight was about to leave with them she felt a small tug on her strange blue tail. Turning round, she saw Fluttershy. “Hi! I’m sorry about RainbowDash… I can’t even imagine how awful that must feel for you.” “I-Its ok… uhm… there's something else I wanted to talk to you about.” she said, cutting her off a bit. She looked even more sheepish than usual. Twilight frowned. This was clearly something that Fluttershy didn’t want anypony to know. “Of course! Whats up!” she said, trying to be as supportive as possible, well aware her current appearance would probably be freaking her out a little. “Well… uhm… I think I… I think I might have to…” she shuffled uncomfortably. “I m-might have to… t-take the lead on this mission.” “Really?” Fluttershy had never volunteered for anything like this.  “Uhm… it's about… y-you know how you said that ponies only swapped places when they are looking at their reflection?” “Yes?” “Well…” she said, and gulped. “You see…” “I haven’t got a reflection.” > Chapter 3: That time Trixie was the key to saving the world > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 💎CHAPTER 3 💎 A Monumental Shopping List CURRENT STATUS Twilight inhabits Trixie Trixie inhabits Twilight  RainbowDash inhabits Rarity Rarity inhabits RainbowDash AppleBloom inhabits Lyra Heartstrings “You don’t have a reflection?” Twilight was confused.  “N-No.” she said, nervously shuffling. “N-Not…” she was speaking really slowly, as if getting each and every syllable out was taking a great monumental effort. “Not since that… I-Incident with the bats…” Realisation struck Twilight like a runaway freight train and she could feel her stomach tie itself into unsteadying knots as she absorbed what Fluttershy was saying. “B-But my spell… it reversed it!” she said, trying to convince herself more than anything. Fluttershy gave a sad smile as she shook her head, and opened her mouth wide. Her fangs remained, razor sharp and tinted very slightly red.  “You’re…” “A vampire.” she confirmed quietly. Twilight placed her head to the floor in angry guilt, pointed at herself.  “How did I never notice…” she mumbled to herself. “Well… I don’t really open my mouth that much when I speak. But Twilight… P-Please don’t tell the others. E-Especially RainbowDash.” “Fluts!” Twilight said, sitting down and placing a hoof on her shoulder, slightly hurt. “W-Why didn’t you tell anypony? We could have helped you! We could have figured out a way to fix it! We’re all here, you know that-” Twilight said, but Fluttershy quickly shook her head again. “I-I’ve already looked everywhere. E-Even… places I really shouldn’t have looked” she replied, avoiding eye contact. What did that mean? “B-But there’s no cure. And I didn’t want anypony to treat me any differently. So it was easier just to… not tell anypony.” she finished, awkwardly rubbing her hooves together. Twilight felt like a failure. She had failed Fluttershy in ways she didn’t even realise. This had already been a horrible day, and this was making it so much worse. And there was one question that had surfaced that she didn’t really want to know the answer to. “And how do you…” she glanced at Fluttershy’s fangs. “You know…” Fluttershy smiled a tiny bit. “T-Toby was kind enough to let me feed of him when I need to.” “Who’s toby?” “You know the friendly bear who lives near my cottage?” Right. Fluttershy loved bears. “And does that do the job?” Twilight asked delicately. “J-Just about. I’ve only lost control once. On m-my first week after the spell.” she said shamefully. “L-Luckily, Zekora was the pony I went after, and she has all sorts of protections… She  gave me a potion to drink t-that helps keep the craving down.” So Zekora knew too. Twilight nodded. Zekora was trustworthy and thus she understood why she hadn’t revealed her secret to anypony. “But what I don’t understand is why this means you think you should take the lead… I know how much you hate having to do that.” Twilight pointed out. “Twi… I don’t h-have a reflection. That means I can’t swap with anypony else.” The cogs turned in Twilight’s brain enough to understand.  “Which means that we don’t have to worry about you swapping with anypony and having to re-explain everything! Fluttershy! You’re a GENIUS!” She said, smiling wide and giving her a tight hug. Fluttershy squeaked and wormed her way out of it, leaving Twilight looking crestfallen. “Uhm… Y-You still… l-look like… Trixie…” “Shoot. Sorry, forgot… heh” she said awkwardly. “W-Well… thank you for telling me. I appreciate it alot.” “I-I’m only doing it b-because I need RainbowDash back.” she said. “But… she hasn’t gone?” “You know what I mean.” She reinstated firmly, eyes watering a bit. “I want t-to be able to be sad and crawl into her arms and cry and for her to hug me and not worry about if it’s Rarity or if it’s actually her but a unicorn and this is all just. A lot and. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do…” she said, eventually breaking down as she lay on the floor, hooves over her head as she trembled.  Twilight was caught at an impasse. She couldn’t help her. Even her girlfriend couldn’t really help her.  “… would you like me to get AppleJack?” Fluttershy didn’t look up but nodded briskly.  “Okay. I’ll go get her. I will tell her it’s just about Dashie. AppleJack had been the pony who supported Fluttershy the most when she was in her multiple year long ‘I like RainbowDash but can’t tell her” phase, and had often comforted her at a low. It would certainly be more helpful than a pony who looked like Trixie.  “Come on now, Trixie.” Said AppleJack as she lead Trixie through the hallway towards the main library. Trixie happily trotted along, occasionally flexing her wings to show off a bit. AppleJack didn’t like this one bit. Not only was Trixie inhabiting the body of one of her best friends, she was also inhabiting the body of one of the most powerful creatures in all of Equestria. She was just glad that she was too inexperienced to actually use said magic in any useful way.  Trixie, on the other hoof, was having the time of her life. Not only did Twilight know she had her body, not ONLY was she now one of the most powerful creatures in all of Equestria, she was in the unique position of being able to fawn over the body of her favourite pony of all time: herself! The fact that her arch nemesis currently inhabited that body was just the icing on the cake~ “Hey! AJ!” Speak of the devil~ Trixie turned and WOW… What a sight. Herself! She stuck out her tongue as Twilight approached. Twilight rolled her eyes. “What's up?” asked AppleJack.  “Well, Fluttershy, she…” she said, getting momentarily distracted by Trixie looking right at her. “What's wrong, Twilight?” “... Fluttershy isn’t taking this very well, and I think she’d mostly just… like a hug from you right now.” Twilight said delicately. AppleJack nodded, a little confused. “Of course. But why wouldn’t she…” she started, but looked back at the others. RainbowDash seemed to be having the exact same thought. “... S-She’s having trouble, uhm…” Twilight paused too. An uncomfortable understanding covered the room, with AppleJack nodding and moving through to the main hallway, past everypony else. Trixie could see RainbowDash’s eyes tear up a little as she turned and hurriedly left. Rarity let out a sad little sigh and followed up after her. Twilight glanced back at AppleJack as she walked into the library, with AppleBloom awkwardly following Trixie. Trixie blinked a few times. She was now alone. Everypony had forgotten about her. She could just leave. Fly off into the sunset. But something was stopping her… This WAS her fault. She had caused the horrible uncomfortable situation. And if this issue was brought up by just two ponies swapping, she couldn’t even start to comprehend how much of a mess the whole continent was in now. She didn’t want to be here anymore. She turned to leave- “And where do you think YOU’RE going?”  Pinkie Pie was right up in her face.  “You’re staying right here, missy!” she said, scowling at her.  “Trixie wasn’t going anywhere.” she insisted. PinkiePie’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve got my eyes on you…” She said, placing her forehead on her muzzle. “I can see that.” she said awkwardly, and tried to move back. Pinkie Pie stayed ‘glued’ on. She walked backwards a little and only when she turned did Pinkie unstick. “Hehe… you may think you are great and powerful! But you forget! You’re dealing with the number one party pony in- oh is thAOKJHWOAHA!” Trixie’s ear flicked as she turned around to see Pinkie Pie was on the floor, seemingly in shock! Huh?? She looked around rapidly. Was she ok? She saw an open door. Oh no. She very carefully peeked round the door. It was Twilight’s room, the mirror being opposite the door. Pinkie had looked in a mirror. She quickly used her magic to slam the door shut, and turned to face ‘PinkiePie’, who lay on the floor, looking at her hooves in fascinated shock. She wanted to cry for help… But why would she? None of these ponies cared about her. Why should she even bother? Trixie was competent! She could handle this herself! She didn’t need their help. Trixie was an alicorn princess now! And they didn’t need anypony's help! “W-Who are you!” she asked sharply.  The pink horse looked up at Trixie, blinking a few times. A smile spread across her way in a very disconcerting way. “I’m… P-PinkiePie!” “...Yes, I’m aware. But who are you? As in, who’s brain do you have?” “I told you! It’s me! Pinkie!” she said, bouncing up onto her hooves.  “But… you looked into a mirror,” said Trixie, slowly. “Doesn’t that mean you’d swap bodies with somepony?” “... Yeah! I thought so too! I… just got a bit of a fright, that's all!” she said happily. “You’d be frightened if you looked in a mirror knowing you could suddenly be in somepony else's body!” she said, and started bouncing off towards the library. The way she bounced was definitely Pinkie Pie.  “Come on! Let's go!” she said excitedly. “We aren’t going to solve this on our own, Twi!” “...I’m Trixie.” she said suspiciously. “Hehe! I know! Just trying to make sure you’re paying attention!” she giggled, and finished bouncing into the library. Trixie stood there for a few moments. That was… Odd. Then again, it was PinkiePie.  Nothing was off limits. Shrugging, Trixie followed her into the library. It was probably nothing to worry about. I’m sure. Twilight was sitting with RainbowDash, who was gently crying into her. Twilight had an arm around her, and was shhhhing her to try and calm her down.  “It’s all going to be ok. We are going to sort this, RainbowDash” She said, giving the unnatural unicorn a squeeze. It didn’t seem to help. “S-She doesn’t even want to l-look at me.” she whispered. Twilight could feel her heart break at hearing that. The worst thing was that she didn’t even know what to say to comfort her… because it was at least partially true. Rarity had already grabbed a book and started reading, but her eyes kept on glancing up to the pair of them, her bottom lip trembling.  Auuughhghghhhhh… “Come on, everypony!” PinkiePie had bounded in. “I know you’re all sad, and this is stressful! This is very NOT very fun at all! But if we all work together, we can do it! I know we can! And if anypony needs anything at all, just give Pinkie a call!” she said. Everypony gave a little smile. “She’s right.” said Twilight, standing up. “We need to fix this! Let's get to researching!” she said, and went over to the ‘ancient equestrian magic’ section.  RainbowDash wiped away her tears (being confused momentarily at why they seemed to be black (then remembering about Rairity’s mascara)) and shuffled over to one of the bookshelves. She was a terrible reader, but she’d do it for fluttershy. Anything to make her not have to suffer like this. Trixie came in a little later than everyone else, still a bit unnerved by what had happened out in the hallway. “Ah. Trixie.” Twilight called out, and trotted on over to her. Trixie took a deep breath, and then smirked as per.  “Aaaand what can I do for you?” she said, laying down comfortably. “I must say, Twilight, your body feels wonderful! You aren’t tired all the time and your bones don’t hurt!” “Trixie, your body feels like you only eat pop tarts.” Twilight replied, already tired of this. “And so what if I do?” Trixie asked innocently. She saw nothing wrong with this. “And- may I ask, why is your fur so…itchy?” She asked, giving her side a little scratch as she sat down. “Fleas” she said with a smile. Twilight froze. She tried to tell if Trixie was joking or not. Trixie was doing her ‘clearly you don’t have an oat fryer’ face. She was unreadable. Aloof. An Enigma. “...I am showering before we leave.” She shuddered. “Anyway… I need to… well…” Twilight was having trouble getting the words out. “Go on, Twilight… Spit it out!” she said, sticking her tongue out again. Twilight gave a little growl. “If this is going to work… there is quite a big possibility I’m going to have to teach you advanced magic. A-And If i do, please, please will you do as you’re told? All of Equestria is at stake.” she said, almost pleadingly. Trixie’s smile only grew wider, and her tail twitched a few times out of excitement. “You mean.. I get to learn truly amazing magic!?” “...Yes.” “Taught by Twilight Sparkle?!”  “...Yes?” “Personally?” “How else did you think I’d be doing it?” asked Twilight, growing weary of this already. “YIPPEE!” She exclaimed, leaping up into the air with a powerful flap of her wings which sent a few papers flying. She did a full spin in the air before landing comfortably on her haunches. PinkiePie applauded. “I’d love that more than anything!” Twilight was taken aback from her incredibly animated response. “Uhm… Ok. Uhm-” She looked away awkwardly and pointed at the bookshelf. “Can you check the book on everfree forest there? I have a slight hunch…” she said, before returning back to the book that she was reading. “Anything for you, My-” “Trixie.” “Hehe~ Sure, professor!” “...” That one she could accept.  “Howdy, bud!” AppleJack came into the main hall where fluttershy was curled up in a small quivering ball. “Heard you were needin’ a hug?”  The ball nodded, and AppleJack obliged, sitting back against one of the chairs and embracing Fluttershy fully, who curled up and continued to sob quietly. AppleJack was much, much taller than fluttershy, a whole head taller. Fluttershy looked about the size of a filly compared to her. “... Twi told me about how you were feelin’ about RainbowDash.” she said sadly. “It’s… well, safe to say it ain’t the best situation now, is it. Not for anypony.”  Fluttershy let out a sad little giggle, shaking her head. “I w-want to…” she started slowly. “I want to tell her everythings going t-to be fine… B-But I don’t… She looks like Rarity… A-And Rarity was b-being quite mean about R-RainbowDash’s mane…” she mumbled softly.  AppleJack let out a little laugh. “Eyup. She can be a bit of a diva about her mane. It’s her pride and joy, after all.” She said, looking up and around at the room. Fluttershy’s ear twitched. She would never tell AppleJack, but thanks to being part fruit bat, her hearing was greatly enhanced. This means she could hear her heartbeat. And her heartbeat had gotten quicker as soon as she started talking about Rarity. Fluttershy would usually never pursue something like this; she didn’t really feel good about exploiting something she had no control over. However… she had just crossed the huge step of actually telling somepony about her condition. And curiosity was eating away at her… She wasn’t going to pursue… but she would give it a little push. “I-It’s… j-just so hard seeing somepony you love acting so… n-not like themselves” she managed to stutter out. “Eyup… It sure is…” she said sadly. There was a moment of pause, before AppleJack tensed a bit. Fluttershy heard her heart rate begin to rapidly increase. Fluttershy let out a little smile, before it dropped as the anxious pit in her stomach enveloped her whole being. She felt so horrible and guilty. How could she do that!? “Shoot-” Said AppleJack, laughing at herself a little. “Well, guess the opal’s out the sack now, aint it?” she said, giving a little sigh. Fluttershy looked up at her with wide eyes. “You… have a thing for… Rarity?” “Guess you could say that” she said, smiling. “Why didn’t you ever tell me!” “Well… I guess because I didn’t really think it was too relevant. You were loosin’ sleep over Dashie. I wasn’t about Rares.” “How long..?” “Goin on three years now.” she said, shrugging a little. “But to be honest… I’m not too keen to pursue it. I’m perfectly happy with how things are between us now. No point in riskin’ anything that could cause undue stress on anypony.” “B-But…” Fluttershy was about to point out the hypocrisy, but applejack put a hoof to her lips. “Especially not now with this whole disaster goin on.” Fluttershy buried her head back into her fuzzy chest. She was talking sense. “I-I won’t tell anypony.” “Thanks, Fluttershy. I appreciate that.” The guilty hole in Fluttershy’s stomach was starting to eat away at her. Part of her felt almost obliged to tell AppleJack about her vampirism… She shrank back down. She just couldn’t do it. It had been several hours of research by this point, and everypony was getting exhausted. RainbowDash had already given up and was idly practising making small objects float with her new magic. Rarity was much the same, working out how to use her new wings. Occasionally the duo would give little tips and suggestions, but it was incredibly awkward to do so.  AppleBloom was asleep in the corner, her horn occasionally sparking with the uncontrolled magic it contained. AppleJack was beside her, gently patting her back in comfort. Fluttershy had rejoined the group too, and was idly colouring a comfort colouring book in the corner. Only Twilight, Trixie and PinkiePie were actively searching (although Pinkie was mostly just looking through to see if there were cool pictures with nice colours). It was Twilight who finally got some sort of an answer. “Aha!” She looked down at the notebook. “I’ve got it! The mirror pool!” PinkiePie’s ears flattened down. “Oh nOoo… not the mirror pool… That was one of the scariest days of my life! I almost got zapped into oblivion by Twilight!” she said, a little bit of shudder in her voice. Twilight looked a little guilty at this. She did… kind of do that. Anyway- “Y-Yeah. Anyway… I think it has to do with it! According to this book on the everfree forest, the mirror pool has some sort of connection to a so-called ‘mirror dimension’! It's like a type of pathway between worlds that lies within mirrors. When I travelled to the world that Sunset Shimmer lives in, I used a mirror and travelled through the mirror dimension to get there! And so far it's the closest thing I can think of to this ‘mirror entity’.” She said. “Well we know where that is! Let's get going!” Said AppleJack. Everypony else nodded in agreement. AppleJack looked down at the green unicorn beside her and smiled gently.  “Come on now. Time to wake up.” “Huh… oh…” said AppleBloom, sitting up. She gingerly felt the horn on her head. “So it wasn’t all just a bad dream…” “I’m afraid not, sugarcube. Now… I need you to head to your lil’ crusader treehouse. Hopefully your friends will know where your body is, and you can try and stay safe there. Okay?” “Siss… I wanna go with you!” she protested. “I’m not a little filly! I’m… uhm… however old Lyra Heartstrings is!” “AppleBloom…” AppleJack gave her one of her stares. “Please. I can’t have anythin’ else bad happen to you today, ok? We don’t know what we’re gonna find at that mirror pool. Please.” Sadly, the unicorn nodded. “Thanks so much, hun. I’ll walk you there on the way to the forest.” AppleJack gave her a pat on the head.  As everypony prepared to leave, Trixie went up to Twilight. “Well Twilight! This has turned into quite the unexpected collaboration, hasn’t it?” She said, wrapping a wing around Twi and holding her hoof up into the air in front of her, as if they were standing over a huge open landscape and Trixie was declaring it to be hers. “Together we will be UNSTOPPABLE!” “Trixie,,, I just want to get this over with. We’ll all get back to our own bodies, and then you’ll be on your way.” Trixie’s eye twitched a little, and her smile dropped. “Oh! I… I see.” She said, quickly stopping the embrace. She stood there awkwardly for a few moments. “You… Wouldn’t want Trixie around to… help with… anything? I can be very helpful, you see!” Twilight could feel a small twig in her mind snap. The build up stress and frustration of this day had finally come to a head. “Trixie.” Twilight turned to face her.  “The last two times you’ve come here, you’ve done nothing but cause dismay and destruction. And now you’ve thrown the whole of Equestria into turmoil. To be honest, you’re lucky that you’re in my body, otherwise you would be held in the dungeon. Nopony wants you around.”  The whole room had gone silent, staring at the pair of swapped mares. Trixie felt her heart slowly start to crack. Receiving that devastating of a verbal attack from her own voice and from Twilight was more than she could handle right now. Twilight felt a tiny bit bad but was too worked up to apologise right now. “... I’ll see you all outside.” she said shortly, and left. The tension in the room was palpable as Trixie glanced around at the others. Everypony was looking at her with various degrees of sympathy.  “... What are you all looking at? Come on! We have a job t-to do!” Trixie declared, trying her best to maintain composure. Everypony slowly turned away and got back to preparing. Trixie let out a big sigh, and left the room. Out in the hallway, she slid down against a wall, staring at her strange and unfamiliar hooves. Even when she was Twilight Sparkle, the princess of friendship… Nopony wanted her around. The sound of tears splashing onto the cold hard floor echoed through the corridors.  The mane 6, plus Trixie, were trudging through the everfree forest. PinkiePie was in front, happily bouncing as she went, describing the last time she had been to the mirror pool. “It was SO COOL! When I came out of the pool it was like BAM! TWO PINKIES! There's usually only ONE! And then we had the amazing idea of making even MORE pinkie pies! And so we had SO MANY PINKIE PIES it was like heaven in Equestria! Twilight DID have to destroy most of them… which was needed! But also quite sad… but it's ok! They’re all still alive in the mirror pool! That's what I like to think anyway!” Twilight smiled to herself as PinkiePie rambled. She loved the energy that she had in everything that she did. Some may find her annoying, but the constant vibrating bubble of excitement and energy really did do wonders to keep her spirits up. Every now and again, she would glance back at Trixie. She hadn’t said anything since they left the castle, which really wasn’t like her. A guilty twinge set itself comfortably into her stomach. She needed to apologise to her… Just not now.  Fluttershy and RainbowDash were together at the back, both very awkwardly walking next to each other, avoiding eye contact. Occasionally their eyes would meet, and they would smile awkwardly. Both wanted support and affection from the other, but it just felt wrong. Rarity was much the same. Occasionally, she would jump up into the air and fly a few metres above the group, letting out a little laugh of joy as she did. RainbowDash and Fluttershy would always look up at her forlornly, both looking at the body they wanted (in different ways of course).  “Aaaaaaand here it is! The mirror pool cave entrance!” Pinkiepie said happily as she bounced up to it, but stopped bouncing a few metres away. She tilted her head in confusion. “Oh! Nevermind! This is some sort of weird force field instead! Teehee!”  “Force field!?” Twilight had remembered putting a rock over the entrance with the help of big mac, but she hadn’t cast any spells on it! She quickly pushed past the others and got to the front. The rock was no longer there. Instead, a shimmering blue magical barrier covered the entrance to the cave. Panic began to rise in her as she prodded it with her hoof. It zapped her pretty badly, causing her to cry out in pain “N-No!” she exclaimed, stumbling back a little. “What is it, Twi?” asked AppleJack, moving closer to make sure the unicorn didn’t collapse. “It’s starswirl’s impenetrable barrier…” She said quietly, managing to steady herself. “N-Nopony is getting into that c-cave! T-The only way past is a…” she said, before shutting her eyes in regret. She looked to Trixie. “... Trixie.” The alicorn hadn’t really been listening, but ears perked up a little as she was addressed. “Yes?”  “I need you to teleport past the barrier.” Twilight asked slowly. Trixie blinked, before a smile formed on her face. A chance to prove herself! Only problem is she had no idea how to use teleportation magic. “Of course!” she said, and moved towards the translucent barrier. “Teleportation spell… GO” she declared, standing proudly. … … “Teleportation spell……….. GO!”  She remained in place. “Trixie… you don’t know how to teleport, do you?” Said Fluttershy quietly. “SHHH! This is my process. Teleportation spell… GO!” Twilight was on the floor, head in hooved, mumbling to herself as Trixie continued to (in vain) teleport through the barrier.  Fluttershy’s eyes were starting to water. She had hoped that everything would be back to normal today. It seemed like that might be a fantasy.  RainbowDash could see how much she was struggling. She couldn’t take it. “Rarity.” she said quietly. “W-We need to help her.” “I know…” she said, looking at the quivering pegasus. “But what can we do?” The pair looked at eachother, and nodded. Slowly, they both sat down next to Fluts and embraced her. Fluttershy started shaking as she began to cry again, but having both of them there seemed to be at least some comfort. AJ stood next to the suffering Twilight for comfort as Pinkie repeatedly zapped herself trying to get in.  “It was much less tricky the last time I was here…” Eventually, Twilight stood up. “O-Okay girls! I know what to do.” she said. “I-It won’t be easy, but there is a way to break the barrier. W-We will need some very hard to find ingredients, though.” “How hard? I’ve got lots of rock candy!” Piped up Pinkie after her fourteenth time getting zapped. “Even harder than that.” Twilight replied with an affectionate roll of her eyes.  “We will need four different things to cast the spell correctly…” “One: Some infernal metal from the depths of Tartarus”. “Two: Never melt ice from the mountaintop glaciers of Yak-Yakistan” “Three: A 7 carat ruby from the dragonlands” “Four: A drop of alicorn blood.” There was a stunned silence as Twilight finished.  “Oh, so just a simple trip to the farmers market then?” Said Rainbowdash, who started laughing in tired disbelief. “My… This IS a monumental shopping list…” Muttered Rarity. “How in the hay are we meant to get all of that?” asked AppleJack. She didn’t even know where they would begin to find that sorta stuff. “Well…” Twilight gave a little sigh. “We already have the blood of an alicorn. Well, I mean, we can GET the blood of an alicorn.” “Excuse me! This is MY blood! You can’t have it!” Trixie protested. “Actually, it's MY blood. You’re just borrowing it.” Twilight snapped back, which shut Trixie up pretty quick.  “Anyway… I know the way to Tartarus. I can head there. But I’ll need powerful magic to get in… and somepony to distract cerberus…” she said, looking at Trixie and Pinkie Pie. “I’m the pony for that! I’m so distracted, you didn’t even realise I stole AppleJack’s hat four minutes ago!” she said, frisbeeing the hat back onto AppleJack’s head perfectly. She was right. Nobody had noticed. Trixie looked at Twilight looking at her. She blinked. She looked behind her. Who did she- OH! Her head turned back round, and she was smirking again. Twilight groaned internally. “So what you’re saying is… we get to go on a road trip… Together?” “... Yes.” Twilight said. “B-But I want to make it clear that-” “YIPEE!!!!!!!!!!” Trixie took off into the sky again, spinning around. PinkiePie cheered as well, unsure why this was so momentous but hey! Smiles go for miles!  Twilight facehoofed. She would deal with that later. “A-Anyway… For YakYakistan, we would need some ponies to head up to the peaks of the mountains to gather some of the ice. The terrain means that it would be best for Pegasi to go… not to mention the dangerous creatures that a certain somepony I know would be perfect to handle” she said, looking over at Fluttershy and Rarity. “O-Oh.” Said Rarity, looking at her wings. “I suppose that makes sense…” “Y-Yes, I’d be… able to do that.” she said, looking at Rarity. In the body of her girlfriend. “I-I’m sure we’ll… uhm…” She looked away awkwardly.  RainbowDash’s uneasy feeling in her stomach doubled. “Which leaves the Ruby…” Finished Twilight. “Usually, I’d suggest the dragon lands obviously, but I don’t know that it would be the best Idea to go to, seeing as there is a chance that Ponies may have swapped with Dragons. And since Spike is off…” she looked into the camera. “Somewhere…” she looked back at the ponies. “I think we need to work out a plan B…” “... I know where we can get one.” Rarity piped up. “R-Really?” Said Twilight in surprise.  “Yes. In my vault at the Manehattan central bank. I had been saving it for a big piece but….” she looked away forlornly. “I SUPPOSE that this is important enough for me to part with it.” “Perfect! Well then you- Well… not you. R-RainbowDash and AppleJack can head there!” RainbowDash nodded glumly, with AppleJack just staring for a few moments, thoughts of her affection for the unicorn body’s usual occupant running rampant. “Eyup…”  “Uhm… I guess I can do that.” said RainbowDash, looking over at Fluttershy sadly.  “O-Okay. T-Thats settled then.” Twilight stood up, and gave a little recap. “So Me, Trixie and Pinkie will head to Tartarus. RainbowDash and AppleJack will head to Manehatten to get the ruby out of the vault. And Fluttershy and Rarity will head up north to YakYakistan to retrieve some of the ice there.”  Everypony nodded.  “T-This isn’t going to be easy. But I know we can do it. Together. And seeing the barrier confirms to me that It has to be something to do with the mirror pool.” They had their goal. They had their quest. They had their teams. What could possibly go wrong? > Chapter 4: That time Fluttershy and Rarity climbed a mountain > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ⛰️ Chapter 4 ⛰️ What I See in Her CURRENT STATUS Twilight inhabits Trixie Trixie inhabits Twilight  Rainbow Dash inhabits Rarity Rarity inhabits Rainbow Dash PinkiePie inhabits PinkiePie TW: Minor Injury detail + Blood The first leg of Fluttershy and Rarity’s journey had been without much conversation, to say the least. Despite Rarity promising that she was getting the hand of ‘this whole flying buisness after 2 days in Rainbow Dash’s body, Fluttershy insisted that they just walk. This was partially to avoid any crashes, and partly because Fluttershy had been so anxious that she was having trouble getting her wings to unlock from their clamped position on the side of her body. This wasn’t something she was too ready to admit to rarity. As warned by Twilight, they had done their best to avoid contact with anypony, mostly taking the backroads or even going through the forests sometimes. The few ponies they had spoken to had mostly asked them questions of ‘when is this all going to get fixed’ and 'where is Twilight?” and “Have you seen my foal?”. All they could do was remind ponies not to look into mirrors and that everything was going to be sorted out soon. Rarity had tried to strike up conversation a couple of times but Fluttershy had answered pretty shortly for most of the attempts, always avoiding eye contact. Rarity couldn’t blame her.  It was after their third long day on the road that we find our duo now, setting up a small camp for the night. The camp was a very small cave on the side of a mountain pass. It was a well used area, with the charcoal of previous traveller’s campfires piled up in the middle of a few battered logs that could be leant against.  Fluttershy had suddenly volunteered to find some more firewood with some urgency in her voice, which left Rarity with the usually trivial but currently monumental task of actually starting a fire. She didn’t assume anything of Fluttershy; she knew there would be alot on her mind right now. “Come on now… you can do it…” she whispered as she rotated the stick with her hooves, partially at the small wisps of smoke that were starting to form and partially and partially at herself. She was still a little unsteady with her blue pegasus hooves, which caused the stick to fumble out of her hooves once again. “DAMN IT!” She cried out in frustration, throwing the stick against the cave wall, only for it to fly back and hit her on the forehead. Ow.  She sat down grumpily, forelegs crossed, and stared at the unlit campfire as if staring at it really intensely would cause it to spontaneously combust. Of course, if she still had access to her magic, she would be able to simply cast a basic sparking spell and effortlessly light the campfire in front of her. As she thought of it, her wings shuffled uncomfortably on her back. Craning her neck round, she fully stretched out her left wing, carefully brushing through the feathers with a hoof. Each one was unique and beautiful, all moulding together to create the elegant wing that supported the pegasi when she flew. Passing the hoof through was a strange sensation akin to having somepony stroke your head, which each individual feather touched sending a little quiver down the bones in the wings and straight to Rarity’s spine. She smiled a little. She couldn’t deny that her wings were magnificent. But even as she fawned a little over the wings, the messy outcrop of mane flopped down and covered her vision.  “Eeaugh…” she grumbled, moving it out of the way. Even after just two days of travelling, it was once again a greasy mess. She had been forced to use all of her special dry shampoo the day before just to make it look somewhat presentable, and now she was left with just a brush. She grabbed it out of her little daybag, and started to brush the birds nest that rested atop her hornless head. The mane hair kept on getting caught in knots, causing it to tug quite badly, and the lack of levitation magic meant she was having to bend back at awkward angles.  She gave up on the mane for now, and started on the tail. Her tail was even worse. Whenever Rarity would walk, her mane would always be held high and proud behind her. Rainbow Dash on the other hand seemed to just let it drag along the floor, leaving it coated in mud and dirt and sticks and leaves and all sorts of nasties. Her brief shower had helped a little, but it still felt like dragging an unwashed towel behind you as you walked. She gave a grumble as she heard the gently hoofsteps of Fluttershy’s return. The fox stood at the water's edge, slowly drinking up the clean water from the small forest stream. It stood there in near perfect tranquillity, only stopping as it heard a small rustle coming from the woods around it. Its ear swivelled, and looked up in that direction. It wasn’t able to see anything. And that's because the creature that had made the noise was now hovering directly behind it. The fox didn’t have time to react as the creature descended on it, pinning it down with unnatural strength. The fox started screeching, struggling and wriggling, managing to slash a few times at the limbs of the creature, but once it looked up and was caught in its gaze, the fox fell silent, and could do nothing but stare. The gently glowing red eyes looked sad, tears pooling at the corners as the fanged creature opened its jaws. “I-I’m sorry…” Fluttershy, in full batpony form, bit down harshly into the fox’s neck with her razor sharp fangs. The fox let out another cry and started to thrash again but it was quickly neutralised by whatever toxin was in Fluttershy’s saliva, causing the fox to relax its body and for the blood to flow. Fluttershy drank with eyes squeezed shut as tight as they would go. She hated this so much. Just as she had reached an acceptable level, she had to use all of her willpower to release the creature, throwing her head back into the air and gulping down the remains of her ‘meal’, tears flowing down her cheeks. The fox lay there, eyes wide, but still breathing. Fluttershy quickly applied a bandage to the puncture wounds, and left the fox where it lay as she stumbled towards the water. She was coughing, flecks of blood coming out and covering the rocks by the stream. Gently, she put her own head down to the very same spot the fox had been drinking from, washing the taste out of her tongue as well as cleaning the blood away from the corners. The water now in her system, she fell over onto her side, breathing heavily as her form shrank. Her leathery wings grew feathers once more, her rough pointed ears became ponylike again, and the colour of her fur became more vibrant. She was a pegasus once more.  Fluttershy refused to kill. She knew that in nature there would be no life without death, and that predators hunting prey was an uncontrollable reality. But that was nature. Not whatever she was. She looked up at the fox where she lay, whose chest was still gently rising and falling. It would be ok. It had to be. She had never lost enough control to fully drain a creature before, but this was probably her closest call. She had started to get the horrible empty feeling inside yesterday as they were travelling, and had managed to ignore it. But today, she had spent the entirety of the afternoon thinking about the neck of a mare she had seen in one of the villages they had passed. Usually, it would take a couple of weeks before she needed to feed when paired with Zekora’s potion. But she was all out, and Zekora had been unnervingly absent from her home in the everfree forest when they had gone for a quick visit before departing. Part of her wanted to warn Rarity, but a much louder anxious part of her was just telling her that if she admitted it, everypony would hate and shun her. So it was easier to lie.  It always seemed easier to lie.  After a few moments of lying still, the pegasus rose to her hooves, strangely feeling weaker. It was a strange paradox, as the more starved vampire gets, the more she grows stronger. She quickly gathered up some firewood, and moved back towards the camp. Oh how little she wished to go back to the camp right now. Because that's where Rarity was. In the body of her girlfriend. Ugh. This sucked. “Evening, my darling…” she said, grunting a little as she continued to try and get her rainbow tail in some sort of straight line. Fluttershy gave a mumbled greeting, dumping down the firewood next to the not lit fire.  “Uhm… did you manage to start the fire?” She said quietly. Rarity looked up at her with an unamused expression.  “Oh, uhm… sorry.” She said, “D-Do you mind if I have a go?”  “Of course.” She said, passing over the small fire starting kit they had.  It took a little while, but Fluttershy eventually got the fire started. Rarity smiled at her with genuine gratitude.  “Thank you so much!” She said, shuffling over and laying down next to the fire. “It’s been SUCH a long day. I would have hated to sleep in the cold.”  Fluttershy smiled and looked away shyly. It was good to feel needed. After a few moments of gathering together some of the berries and oats she had brought for food, she sat down opposite her, idly munching as the fire started to take hold and really start crackling.  Rarity continued to brush. “Honestly… it’s like she never even tries to stay clean!” She said, laughing a little in exasperation.  “She is a bit messy…” Fluttershy admitted, looking over the fire at Rarity. Her heart was filled with that sense of longing again, inflamed by how close her desire seemed to be. She was almost just sitting across the fire pit from her. But almost wasn’t enough. It wasn’t her.  On her worst days, even before they were dating, Rainbow Dash would always be there by her side. Despite her cockyness and incessant need to always be the quickest and the best, she always had time to slow down for Fluttershy. And since they had been dating, there was no more comforting feeling than waking up from a nightmare to see Rainbow Dash there, ready to squeeze her at a moment's notice.  Fluttershy could never get over how… cool she was. Ever since she was a filly, she had always been in quiet awe of her speed, and she had obsessed for hours over her beautiful multi colored mane. She had even gone through a phase of trying to dye her mane like hers (it didn’t go well and required a lot time and patience to get rid of. Why do you think she had to use tail extensions sometimes?). Rainbow Dash hadn’t known how to respond most of the time, so just thanked her and hugged her. This was all that Fluttershy wanted.   And on those nights where her brain was loud, she still couldn’t believe that the mare she had fawned over her whole life was the one’s eyes she would find herself getting lost in when she awoke.  The mare who promised she would never leave. Which made it all the more painful that those same eyes that looked up at her now had somepony else behind them. Fluttershy could fear herself start to spiral, so she turned around and prepared to lie down. She didn’t want to get deep with Rarity. In any other circumstance she would love to. But not today. Not whilst she- “Honestly…” Rarity continued. “With the amount of dirt in this mane I don’t understand how she can even fly around! She doesn’t do anything to take care of her appearance, does she? Always so concerned with going fast and breaking things instead of slowing down and appreciating the little things…” she let out a small grunt of frustration as she tugged on a particularly Nasty knot.  “I can’t say I understand what you see in her, Fluttershy.”  Rarity had just been speaking her mind in an exhausted stream of frustrated consciousness, and hadn’t even realised that she’d said what she had just said.  She was so focused on brushing that she hadn’t seen Fluttershy stop moving. Or seeing her stand up. Or notice until it was far too late that she was standing right beside her, her eyes almost flashing red with rage.  “Well maybe it’s not something you could ever understand.” She hissed. Rarity was taken aback, gears clicking into place as she realised what had slipped out.  “F-Fluttershy, I-“  “Maybe you could never understand what it’s like to be afraid of every little creak of the floorboards. Every pitter patter of rain on the window. Every passing glance from anypony. To only be able to have normal conversations with animals. Too anxious to speak up.” She began, getting closer and closer to Rarity, who had shrunk back.  “And then for somepony who’s brave and fearless and fast and cool to swoop in and convince you that everything’s going to be ok. Who will protect you and keep you safe. W-Who inspires you to be proud of yourself. W-Who helps you express yourself and be who you want to be. Who you can in turn motivate to get even bigger and brighter and stronger and faster…” She continued, her already tearful eyes starting to overwhelm her.  “Somepony who will always be by your side, no matter how much of a monster you are.”  She didn’t mean to say that last part. Rarity looked terrified, eyes wide with shock.  Rarity, with the face of Rainbow Dash. Looking terrified.  Fluttershy fell backwards into a sitting position. The face looking back at her had floored her.  She found her anger flipping inwards, becoming a destructive force of self immolating despair. She managed to get one more tiny squeak of a sentence out.  “S-Somepony who promised they’d never leave me.” Fluttershy curled herself into a tiny ball, her wings spreading out to cover herself as a safety blanket. Her wings compressed her body as much as it could to help with the breakdown, but no amount of self-inflicted hugs could save her from this one.  The cave was silent, with only the gently crackling of the fire and stuttering breaths of a stunned Rarity.  “Fluttershy…” she mumbled, at a complete loss for words. She sat there beside her for a few minutes, letting her cry, staring out of the cave entrance. She had definitely gone too far.  Rarity knew WHY she had said it. She was exhausted after a long day in the wrong body, and Rainbow Dash’s mane was a disaster zone in itself most days. It was the result of all of the frustration and uncertainty of the last few days… sprinkled with a tiny crumb of Rarity's true feelings. She loved Rainbow Dash, of course. She was a loyal and strong friend, who would help Rarity with anything no matter what (although she still flexed her right to complain about it) and no matter how much they would bicker, it would never come from a place of hatred. But she did have a hard time seeing why anypony would be interested in such a pony as her romantically.  Until today.  She scratched the floor a bit. She could just wait until tomorrow to talk to her. Stalling was only going to make things worse.  “F-Fluttershy. I’m going to place my hoof on your back, okay?” She said, looking down at the quivering mess. The mess didn’t respond; it just carried on sobbing. Taking this as a yes, Rarity carefully placed the hoof on her back, and gently stroked her fur.  “I am…” she started, pausing a bit to take a deep breath. “I must admit… I personally do not find Rainbowdash to be that… desirable… however… I now understand why she means so much to you.” She said slowly and softly. Fluttershy’s sobs slowed down, signalling that she was listening.  “… I am so sorry that I said those things. You are one of my best friends.I have no right to say those kinds of things about the Pony you love. And dare I say… you’ve helped me understand.” She said, letting out a little chuckle. “For Somepony of your temperament… Rainbow Dash is the perfect match for you. I’m sorry that I was too blinded by my own vanity to see that.” Fluttershy looked a lot calmer now, but she stayed in her little safety ball for the time being. She seemed to enjoy the gently stroking on the back… so much so that she eventually spoke. “W… Would I be able to get a hug please, Rarity?” Rarity had been zoned out, but upon hearing the request she smiled softly. “Of course.” She slid down beside her, and wrapped her forelegs around fluttershy. Getting an idea from when she had seen Rainbow Dash use her wings before, she spread them and wrapped around Fluts too, creating a sort of outer shell for her. Fluttershy mumbled a little thanks. “I may not be Rainbow Dash, but I can promise that I’m not going anywhere. I would do anything for you.” She paused, smiling a tiny bit.  “Except kiss you. You can save that for her.”  Fluttershy laughed a little, nodding her head.  “… T-thank you…” she said softly. “I-I’m sorry for bellowing at you…” “Don’t worry about it, darling. It's been a bad couple of days.”  “It… sure has…” she said, her breathing quickly growing softer as she passed into the realm of sleep. Rarity smiled weakly. That poor girl…  She never ceased to amaze her.  It had been another relatively uneventful day of travelling for the most part, but the atmosphere between them was a lot lighter. The pair had eventually reached the Crystal Empire, where they had found the streets mostly deserted. Checking in with the castle, they found that Cadence had been unlucky enough to have been caught by the curse. A simple flower pony from Manehatten was now the princess of love, and was clearly having quite a bit of trouble with it. Shining Armour had picked up the mantle of temporary leader, and was doing a decent job rationing out supplies and keeping everypony calm. After a quick restock of supplies and getting some winter coats (Which Rarity spent HOURS on, since she now had to account for having wings), the pair had set off on their journey to the northern border of the crystal empire. “W-What if we run into any Yaks? They aren’t the friendliest of creatures…” asked Fluttershy worriedly, looking up at the huge mountain range in front of the pair of them. They had met the Yak’s briefly before, but it was mainly PinkiePie’s genius intervention that saved them from all out war.  “Don’t be ridiculous, darling!” Rarity reassured her. “First of all, they barely ever leave their village! Secondly, we have something they don’t!”  “... anxiety?” “No, Fluttershy… WINGS!” she said, spreading out her wings proudly. She had gotten much more used to them. “Oh… uhm… yes. Wings.” She said, glancing back at her own pair. She spread them out and flapped them a little too. She was glad that they were functional again; her fear levels were directly tied to wing usefulness levels.  “Okay… Two Mares versus a mountain… One nervous, one in the wrong body…” declared Rarity. “How hard can it be?”  “D-Do you want an answer to that question?” groaned Fluttershy as the pair set up the mountain.  The first section of the mountain pass was relatively stable, with only a few tricky spots that required their wings. The winds had started to pick up, which had knocked over Fluttershy a few times. Rarity was always there to help her up. Eventually the pair got to a particularly tricky crossing; where there had previously been a rope bridge over a large ravine was now a few loose bits of rope attached to wooden sticks, waving in the breeze. “Okay… The wind seems especially strong here. Think we can manage it?” Asked Rarity, glancing back at Fluttershy. She peered over the edge… it was pretty deep. “J-Just a hop, skip and a jump, right?” she said, giving a little smile. This smile was quickly overshadowed, however, by the actual shadow that blocked out the sun. Both ponies turned to stare up at the huge yak behind them, who was grinning wide. “Well well well… What have we got here?” the Yak said in an accent that definitely wasn’t a native YakYakistan one. Behind him, two earth ponies came round, also sneering. Rarity’s eyebrow furrowed in recognition. The dark glasses on one and fedora on the other… Dr Caballeron’s henchponies!  If these were his henchponies, then would have to mean… “Dr Caballeron!” Growled Rarity. “I see you’ve become a victim of this Equestria wide curse too, then?”  “I certainly have! And look at how much more POWERFUL I have become! There is no Daring Do to save you this time, elements of harmony!” The Pony turned Yak chuckled. “Now I’d think it would be wise for you to hand over all of your possessions and come with us! Just THINK of the ransom money!” Fluttershy’s wings were firmly clamped on her sides now, her back hoof slipping as she went back, nearly sending her over the edge. “Just because you’re a little larger now doesn’t mean that you’re any less destructible!” Rarity declared, arching her back a little, wings spread wide in a show of intimidation. Fluttershy winced as she saw Rarity’s expression. Rainbow Dash would have been able to dispatch these villains without a second thought. But Rarity… “Heh… I am no fool, RainbowWing… I know how easily you would be able to defeat me… which is why I believe it would be better if you weren’t you” He stomped his oversized hoof on the floor, and without a moment's notice, his henchman had whipped out- Mirrors. It was a chaotic moment. Rarity had screamed, immediately covering her eyes. Dr Caballeron had charged forward, seemingly looking to push Rarity off the cliff edge. Fluttershy was staring directly at the mirrors. The lack of reflection stared back. Almost in slow motion, her eyes darted to Rarity, about to get hit by the huge creature. The sight of the blue pegasus in danger lit something in Fluttershy, and before she could even realise what she was doing, she had launched herself towards Rarity with speed that she didn’t know she had. The impact of her light body was just enough to push her out of the way. The yak didn’t have much control over his body, and was sent skidding off the edge of the ravine, only managing to stop himself falling off by grabbing onto a small outcropping of rock (that quickly began to break under the weight on the yak).  “A-Are you still-” Fluttershy started but was cut off by Rarity’s reply. “Y-Yes! I’m still Rarity!” she said, still not opening her eyes. Fluttershy looked up at the two henchponies, who seemed to be paralysed through indecision. They would also soon be paralysed by the devilish glare that Fluttershy gave them as she marched up to them, and took their mirrors, tossing them into the ravine. “Come on.” She hissed. “L-Lets save your boss.” Rarity heard the mirrors smashing in the echoing depths of the icy ravine, and opened her eyes to see the two henchponies trying to drag up the huge yak who was quivering on the edge of oblivion. Fluttershy was there, eye twitching and panting a little, trying to get her wings to move properly. But she couldn’t. “R-Rain.. b-bow…” she started, looking at Rarity. That wasn’t her. But she still knew she could do it. “Y-You need to save him!” “Why? H-He tried to kill me!” Rarity protested. “B-Because n-no matter how much I hate him, that's not his body! T-That's someyak with a family! I-Its not fair on him i-if he doesn’t have a body to go back to!” Rarity looked between Fluttershy and the Yak, before nodding with determination. “Right.” She spread her wings, and flapped down to the Yaks back legs and started pushing. The crosswinds were harsh, but she was just about able to stay steady. There was a lack of coordination between the henchpoines and Rarity. Flutteshy waited for somepony to take charge and help coordinate. Oh wait she was the only one there. “O-Okay! Uhm… Push on the count of three! One… Two… Three!”  Rarity and the henchpoines helped along, and between them, the three were able to get Dr Caballeron back onto stable ground. He lay there on his yak back, staring up at the ceiling, painting.  Fluttershy hugged Rarity tight as she resurfaced. “T-That was amazing!” “It rather was, wasn’t it? I’m surprised I actually managed that without dropping him down into the ravine…” she said, flexing her forleg in surprise.  “Why…” The pair of pegasi looked over at the rescued yak. “Why did you save me?” “Oh darling… We didn’t save you.” Rarity said smugly. “We saved whoever’s body that is. And rest assured…” She scooped up fluttershy by the waist (which made her blush a tiny bit) and flapped up into the air, managing to stay afloat despite the wind. “When this is all sorted, the girls and I will be SURE to track you down and get you all thrown in the deepest dungeon in canterlot!” “Y-Yeah!! W-With minimal sunlight!” chimed in Fluttershy. You go girl. They left the dumbfounded villains on their side of the ravine, and landed safely on the other side. Fluttershy smiled wide, and moved on for a few more hoofsteps before collapsing in a pile of snow. That had been enough adrenaline for a whole YEAR! “You ok?” Rarity gave her a nudge with a hoof. “I’m fine! I will be ok, I-I mean. I just need a minute… or ten…” “You deserve it! I’ve never seen you so brave before! Running straight into those mirrors… Were you not worried that you would get sent halfway around the world?”  Flutteshy stayed silent for a few moments. She could just tell her… “N-No. I knew I’d be ok. I’ve gotten quite good at running with my eyes shut.” This wasn’t a lie. She was good at running with her eyes shut.  “You never cease to amaze me, Fluttershy! Come on! We aren’t too far away from the peaks!” Nice save. It took them a couple more hours to reach the desired peak, but once they got there, they had a chance to have a proper rest. The landscape around them was dramatic and fierce with jagged rocks spiking up everywhere, some torchlight from various Yak tribes glowing up through the now gently falling snow. It was a wonderful sight. But Fluttershy had the inclination in the back of her head that things could, and would, start going wrong pretty quickly as she pointed out the huge clouds in the distance which were slowly but surely making their way towards them. “T-That looks like a Blizzard… not even the Wonderbolts could control that monster.” she whimpered. “Well we better get this ice quick then!” Replied Rarity, and after a few more minutes journey they were at the glacier. “How did Twilight say we get the ice?” Asked Rarity, searching through her little pack to try and rediscover the instructions. “Uhm… I think she said just to… bash it with a rock.”  “That she did.”  Both stood there awkwardly, with Fluttershy eventually looking at Rarity. “You’re… the strong one now, remember?”  “OH! Oh yes, sorry.” Rarity found a sizable rock, and started bashing down at the glacier in a circle. With time and effort, she managed to cut out a sizable chunk of the ice. The ice shimmered with a magical quality as she held it up to the obscured sunlight. There was frosty vapour coming from it, but she could tell that it wasn’t melting. “Aaand that's us done!” Said Rarity with joy. She carefully put the ice in the special container they had brought (it was just tupperware from Sugarcube Corner), and looked to Fluttershy. “Well! What's the plan now! Back to ponyville?” “Uhm…” Fluttershy was staring just above her, and pointed with a hoof. “We should probably get away from that.” Rarity turned to see the blizzard clouds were approaching FAR quicker than expected.  “Yes, yes that seems like a good idea.” She said, and the pair hurriedly started running! Doing their best not to slip on the ice, they journeyed down the mountain, the snowfall getting greater with every passing moment.  Soon, visibility was starting to rapidly deteriorate, but not before Fluttershy’s enhanced ears picked something up. The sound of a door opening and shutting in the wind. “W-WAIT!” She called through the snow, standing on Rarity’s tail to stop her from moving. “T-Theres some sort of building nearby!” “How can you tell? I can barely see my own hoof!” “I-I just can! Come with m-me!” Fluttershy’s ears swivelled as she guided Rarity along, being careful not to accidentally send them off any cliff edges.  Eventually she found it, the stone building coming into view. It looked like some sort of abandoned fort, with a large oak door that was almost coming off its hinges. It didn’t seem to offer too much protection from the elements, but it would have to be enough. The pair entered, and together managed to slam the door shut behind them, blocking it with a small dresser.  “T-There! A basement hatch!”  Rarity spotted, and the two descended down into the basement. “D-Do you…”  “Yes yes, I’ve got one here!” Rarity pulled out the lantern, and managed to light it. It was a simple magic light with an internal crystal to power it. It was a small room, with four basic beds that were probably once upon a time used for whoever was guarding this place. There were small chests at the base of each bed, and a small door to the right of the room that Rarity could only assume was the bathroom. “We should be safe here until the blizzard passes!” she said with relief and shuffled over to one of the old beds. “I can’t imagine these will be too comfortable, but it's al… ways…” she had started her sentence, and then lay on one of the beds, passing out from exhaustion almost immediately.  Fluttershy smiled weakly at seeing her splat onto that bed like a tomato dropped from a four story building.  With a stretch, she looked at the door. She should probably check what's in there right? As she approached the door, her tail twitched a little in pride. She had done it! That was one item down, two more to go! She wondered how the others were getting on with their quests…