Pinkie Paladin

by Artgineer

Companions

Twilight Sparkle heard the sound of breaking glass and then felt the impact of her body hitting new ground. A dull pain shot through her new form, but was quickly gone as she got to her feet. She shook the dizziness from her head and instinctively rubbed her eyes as she tried to get used to this form again.

She looked down at the body that the this world had given her and immediately noticed that she was a bit taller than she remembered. She had two legs built for bipedal, plantigrade movement like she recalled from her days in the human school. She had two higher limbs on her long torso that she remembered were arms and, yes, they ended in groups of intricate joints made for manipulating the world around her that were known as fingers. Her snout, no, her nose was smaller and her mouth didn't protruded from her face at all.

Twilight took a deep breath and tried to remember how to walk in this strange form. Her first steps were as awkward as she feared; first she put her left foot forward, then flailed for balance, then her right foot went forward, and then muscle memory kicked in. She got used to not having two of her legs a bit faster than before. Twilight wasn't sure whether or not to be proud of this.

Her clothing felt heavy and almost stifling. Looking at her body she saw it was covered by not only plain fabrics, but some sort of hard, skin-like material that encased her torso and partly covered the upper part of her legs with a skirt. Her feet were encased in boots made of the same material. She frowned at how heavy and hot it was, but the thought of having to see her toes (a sort of useless set of fingers on her new feet) and her relatively hairless body (how did humans manage to stay warm?) kept her from taking off this strange outfit.

Twilight turned her head and started looking for her friends. New forms or not, she should have been able to recognize them, right? The mirror couldn't have sent her into this world alone, could it?

A high, haughty voice assured her this fear was misplaced. “Twilight, what is all this?” it asked from just outside Twilight's peripheral.

The source of the voice came into Twilight's vision and caused her to reel back for a moment. The voice was that of Rarity, a beautiful and talented white unicorn she was proud to call her friend, but the form it came out of was monstrous! A hulking frame with bulging muscles that stretched its sickly and scarred skin tight looked at her with violet eyes that held nothing but fear and horrible tusks that promised violence. Her hair was no longer the perfectly styled purple mane she knew, but a sort of strip of coarse, black hair on the very top of her head. What clothing she had clearly had once been a military uniform, but had been torn and left much of her arms and midriff exposed while lacking any sort of armor.

Twilight held up a hand and spoke slowly and calmly, “Rarity, you're fine. I think something may have gone wrong with the mirror's magic, but everything is going to be fine.”

Rarity felt her new face with both hands before pulling them away from her features and gawking at them in horror and disgust. These were not her perfectly manicured hooves, but the terrible claws of some hideous ape thing! Some sickening mix of outrage and dread filled her stomach as she half growled and half pleaded Twilight, “A mirror! Bring me a mirror!”

Twilight replied in terror, “I don't think that's a very good idea. Honestly, it's not that bad! Who knows? Maybe you're normal in this world? I mean, who doesn't like a strong mare?”

“Mirror!” Rarity roared, “Now!”

Another familiar voice sounded from behind Rarity, “Found one! Look how small my nose is! How do ponies here smell anything? Do they even smell anything? OOOH! I have spider thingies on my front hooves! Can I – YES! I CAN CONTROL THEM! THEY'RE SO COOL!”

Rarity twisted around to look at whoever answered her question. This creature was knelt over a shard of a broken mirror looking at the fine, delicate features of her own face. Her curly, red hair had incredible volume and sharp contrast with her big, blue eyes and fair skin. She wore shiny, metal armor and a dark blue cape.

The armored girl looked up at Rarity and Twilight with a great smile on her face. “Isn't this so cool?” she asked as she lifted some of her hair to one side, “Look! I still have pointy ears, but my hooves are now these weird... hand... thingies!”

Twilight sighed and covered her eyes with one hand. This was Pinkie Pie. It had to be Pinkie Pie. Who else could it be but Pinkie Pie? As sure as the sky was blue, this was Pinkie Pie.

Right after that thought crossed her mind, Twilight looked up and took in her surroundings. Yes, the sky was blue in this world and the grass she was standing on was green. Oddly enough, she only counted two of her friends among her and not the five she expected. Worse yet, scattered around the grass were small, reptilian creatures that Twilight didn't recognize.

These creatures all had red or orange scales and long tails relative to their height. If they were standing, Twilight expected that none of them would even come up to her waist. One of them had wings, but the other five did not. None of them were moving or even making noise.

She was shaken from her thoughts by a terrible scream. Before she even looked to the source of the sound, Twilight knew what it was. Clearly, Rarity had looked at her reflection.

“Oh no no no!” Rarity cried, “This can't be me! There must have been some kind of mistake!” She sobbed and then took a deep breath and declared, “Of all the things that could have happened this is the worst... possible... thing!”

Pinkie patted her on the shoulder and said, “Oh, come on Rarity, cheer up! It's not that bad. I mean, my hair looks pretty silly and Twilight looks like she's made out of chocolate. I think you look really cool!”

Twilight took a look into the broken piece of mirror and saw a woman with raven hair and brown eyes looking back at her. Her smooth skin was dark compared to Pinkie's and she had some particularly dark spots, she assumed they were freckles, going across the bridge of her nose, which she noticed wasn't as pointy as Pinkie's. Her ears were still as round as she remembered them being in her previous human form.

Twilight gave an annoyed look to her energetic friend and told her, “Pinkie, I'm not chocolate. I think that some humans just look like this. I mean, you're kind of light, but do you think that means you're made of vanilla?”

Pinkie gasped and took off one of her gauntlets to see the light flesh underneath. Slowly, she brought her own hand closer to her mouth and parted her lips. Before she could maim herself out of curiosity and gluttony though, Twilight grabbed her exposed hand and lowered it slowly to Pinkie's lap.

“The answer is no,” Twilight assured her.

Rarity stopped sobbing just long enough to notice the motionless creatures around her. She asked, “What are these? They almost look like dragons.”

Pinkie hopped to her feet and saw another one several paces away from the ones that surrounded them. It seemed trapped under the intricately carved frame of a full length mirror, but there was no mirror inside. She took a few clumsy steps towards it on her new legs and asked, “Hey, does this thing look familiar to anypony else?”

Twilight and Rarity walked across the soft grass, careful not to step on the strange reptiles and gasped. It was almost an exact replica of the mirror they had run though, but instead of dragons it featured great unicorn wizards of the past. Twilight recognized one of them as Starswirl the Bearded and the thought of such a powerful magic-user crafting such a gateway flooded her mind with a thousand questions, the most prevalent of which being, “Why?”

Rarity lifted the mirror frame and looked disgusted at the sight of the poor creature underneath. It had clearly been crushed by some great force and was no longer among the living. She turned the frame over a few times and could not find even a single speck of glass left on it.

Pinkie tried not to look horrified by such an image and tried not to think about whether the other little creatures had met the same fate as she looked to something else, anything else, and saw a treasure chest another few paces away. She approached it and called the others over.

Twilight grabbed the broken piece of mirror before joining her two friends around the chest. Upon opening it, they found a large assortment of equipment and a note that Rarity read aloud.

Equestrian heroes,

Thank you all for heeding the call to action. Within this chest should be enough equipment for the six of you. Meet me in the town of Greenest to the north, just along the road. Tell no one of your mission or homeland. Beware the Cult of the Dragon.

Signed,

Leosin Erlanthar

Pinkie tilted her head and arched an eyebrow. “Who's Leosin?” She asked as she drew a shining sword and metal shield from the chest.

Twilight answered, “He must be one of our contacts. The letter said we would find friends in Greenest. We should take what we need from the chest and get there as soon as we can,” she took a deep breath before concluding, “I think that something has gone wrong.”

Rarity spoke up through her sorrow, “It seems like what's in the chest was meant for all of us. We should take it with us for when we meet the others.”

Twilight pulled a bow and quiver from the chest and used an arrow to point at the unfortunate creature that was under the mirror's frame. “If we meet the others,” she said with a heavy heart.

---

Fluttershy couldn't take her eyes off her new reflection. The shard of glass she had woken up next to was clearly from a mirror and it clearly showed what her new body looked like (how could a mirror lie?), but it was too frightening to be real. She gazed at the shard, terrified of the golden dragon-like monster that stared back.

Despite her monstrous new body, Fluttershy's clothes were actually quite nice; a white cassock with a long shirt of painted blue scale mail over it covered much of her new form. The cassock even had a hood that she pulled up in order to hide her terrifying, scaly face from any onlookers.

A voice with a heavy but familiar accent shook her from the waking nightmare as it asked, “Sugar cube, are you alright? You've been looking at that mirror shard for a long time now.”

Fluttershy didn't answer, she didn't know how. She only looked down at the little figure leading their march. She knew this must be Applejack, but somehow she always though of that mare as bigger and stronger than her. Now Applejack barely passed her knees and her flaxen hair was much shorter. Not much else could be told through the former farm mare's elaborate costume and make up.

Another small creature dashed past Fluttershy and started walking alongside Applejack. “She's fine,” this robed creature answered, “Now let's hurry up and find the others. I think that Rarity's screaming came from this way.”

As much as Fluttershy wanted to think that this other human or humanoid or human-like thing was her friend Rainbow Dash, she almost couldn't. How could this small, scrawny thing clad in lavender silk, this thing that looked it had never even seen the sun possibly be the pegasus she once knew? How could it be the mare who taught her so much about courage and flew so close to Celestia's precious sun?

The thought occurred to Fluttershy as she passes some particularly tall grass that perhaps she was simply larger than before. She looked at her new claws and hoped in secret that was not the case. Big ponies have to take care of those weaker than they are, and she could barely lift a bunny back home. What did she know about strength? What could she know?

Applejack continued, “I'm just worried is all. I mean, she hasn't said a thing since she got a look at herself. Who knows what could be going through her head? It's a lot to take in.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and said, “Not sure if you noticed, AJ, but we're not exactly in much better shape. Last time I checked, I could fly. How are we supposed to get anywhere with only two le-!”

She was cut short by a sudden trip to the ground. Her face met the soft earth and in almost no time, she looked up with a mouthful grass. As she spit it out and complained that even the plants in this world tasted wrong, Applejack looked at what tripped her.

Before the three of them was the motionless body of some kind of reptilian monster. If it were standing, it would have been even shorter than her two friends, but something told her it would not be getting up in a hurry. She pulled her friends away from the creature as she realized what it was.

“It's a kobold,” Fluttershy told them, “They're very rare in Equestria, but sometimes they fight with diamond dogs for control of their mines. Nopony knows much about them,” a thought suddenly crossed her mind, “could this be where they come from?”

Rainbow Dash and AJ looked up at their large friend and then looked at the kobold. Both swallowed hard as they surveyed the area and saw several more bodies similar to the one that they just found.

AJ tugged on Fluttershy's arm and said, “I reckon we oughta skedaddle. Wouldn't wanna spend more time here than we have to.”

Rainbow Dash tiled her head and asked, “Do you mean around the kobolds or in this world?”

“Yes,” AJ answered.

Author's Note:

I'm iffy about some of the dialog in this chapter. What do you guys think?
Another chapter should be up next week.