After finding a new and strange mushroom in a cave, Ninroot decides to take the mushroom from the cave to study and grow it.
One day when she was scouting the everfree forest for unknown plants Ninroot came upon a somewhat large cave with a strange glowing, transparent mushroom in the far corner. Since Ninroot couldn't find that in any of her plant journals she decided to up root it and take it home with her to study and grow enough to sell to the ponies of Ponyville, but when she brings the glowing mushroom back Techie is suspicious about its appearance.
Ninroot always loved going out into the everfree forest by her and Techie's home. It was the time she had to herself the time she had to study her plants, even though she loved Techie Hoof, every ounce and a while she needed a break from him. Every few weeks or so she would venture the everfree forest hoping to find a new species of plant or to just see something new for a change. While she was walking she always saw an odd looking path leading off the known course through the everfree, she always wondered what that path led to. She figured she would go a few steps down the path and if she couldn't find anything she would turn back and return home. When she started to walk down the path she already found things that gained her interest, she even found an odd cross species of a daisy and a tulip. As she went further into the path she found a large cave entrance she had never seen this cave before not even from a higher point of view. Since she found so much new things within the new path she decided to venture into the cave to see what else she could find, as she went into the cave she spotted something very odd, it was a patch of glowing transparent mushrooms. She never saw this type of fungi before or ever, seeing this she pulled out her journal with a large list of foreign plants and native plants. Oddly enough she couldn't find anything on glowing transparent plants. She did know it was normal for some species of fungi to glow but was very rare she decided to uproot the mushrooms with great care and put them in a small bag she kept plants she found in her trips. With that she put the bag away and hurried home to show Techie her discoveries.
When she got home she saw Techie on the side of the house welding some metal parts together.
"Techie!" She yelled getting his attention. He looked up to see Ninroot waving at him with a large grin on her face looking like she had something to tell him.
"Nin your back! Took you longer though." He said with as he put his melding tool down. He walked over to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "So what'd you find today?"
"Well I decided to take a different path today and-" She was stopped mid sentence.
"You took a different path Nin? Don't you know how dangerous that could have been?" He said in a strict way.
"Well yes but it was so worth it, I mean look what I found!" She said pulling out the bag, she showed him the odd daisy/tulip flower, the she showed him what she wanted to show him from the beginning. As she pulled out the mushroom Techie's face turned more serious. He grabbed that from her and looked at it closely.
"Nin don't you know what this mushroom is or what it can do!?" Haven't you heard of the story of the mare who went into a cave with magic mushrooms in it alone and came out... pregnant!?" He said with concern in his voice.
"Yes I've heard of that story and first of all that said cave was towards the north and was deeper than the cave I was in, plus the mushrooms you mention have magic orbs coming out of them plus its surroundings and itself have a warm temperature. This was smaller, didn't have any orbs flying out of it or was warm in anyway." She said with a reassuring tone. "And why would you be worried if I came back pregnant?" She joked.
"Well uh heh uh-uh well, you know um." He stuttered while blushing.
"I'm only kidding!" She said with a kiss to follow. Afterwards they head into the cabin. Ninroot went straight to her workplace in the back of the cabin. She put the mushrooms on her workbench and picked off a piece and started to cut it in half. After hours of dissecting she came across a lump looking thing in the stem of the plant when she went in to cut it open a burst of red dust went in her face, which made her gag and sneeze.
"Oh goodness that smells... good?" She said with sudden curiosity. She went up closer to get a better view of what she just popped open. She went in a little closer and smelt a little more of the dust. "Smells like... sugar." She put tweezers in the dust sack and licked the dust off the tweezers. "It tastes like sugar even. Hmm" She was tired at this point so she decided to rap it up and go to bed.
Ninroot was always the first to wake up in the morning, she was an early riser. Without waking Techie she got out of their bed and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She was half asleep so her vision was blurred. When she opened her mouth to start brushing she saw something odd. She quickly rubbed her eyes and saw that she had two really pointy fangs big enough to still be seen when she closed her mouth. She gasped and fell back knocking some objects you would find in any other bathroom like shampoo and soap. This woke Techie since he was a light sleeper he saw Ninroot leaning on the wall with her hoof covering her mouth, he quickly went to check on her.
"Nin! Are you ok? What happened?" He said while helping her up
"Yeah I'm fine just." She paused to think of a cover up. "I just tripped is all"
"Well alright." Said Techie with suspicion. As the day went on they did what they would normally do, only Ninroot talked less and was more silently awkward. Later that day Techie got a letter from the cross eyed mailmare and read it. After reading it he went to tell Ninroot what it said. Ninroot was working on the same mushroom she was working on yesterday trying to figure out if this plant had something to do with her teeth. "Hey Nin!" He called on the other side of the door "Can I come in? I need to tell you something."
Ninroot panicked "Sure come in!" She yelled nervously. "What is it?" She asked dumbly.
"It's my boss in Manehatten, he wants me to go there to help with some employment difficulties, one of the many jobs you get when you're the son of a dead business owner I guess, so I'll be gone for a few days. Ok?"
"OK do what you got to do I'll be fine." She replied trying not to open her mouth as often.
"Are you sure Nin? You've been acting... funny." He said with concern in his voice.
"Yeah I'll be fine, go handle your business." She said with a nervous grin. Techie noticed this but he just figured it was that time of the month again so he didn't fuss about it. He quickly got everything packed up and was ready to go. He kissed Nin goodbye but as he went out the door he was debating with himself whether if he felt something pointy in her mouth or not.
Since he was gone Ninroot could finally get back to work in peace, since it was late when he left she was cut short of her work time so she went to bed. What she would see next would make her fear the future relationship she would have with her mate but would also make her fear herself.
Ninroot was sleeping but she peacefully like she had no care in the world, until she woke up she got up and rubbed her eyes with her hoof and let off a faint little yawn. It was about midnight, around the time she would get a drink of water and would go to the bathroom. She then got out of the bed but she felt something very odd brush up against her, she knew it was just the backboards of the bed but she felt not her back but different limbs touch the backboard. What really sent a chill down her spin was that the limbs were attached to her back, noticing this she dashed to the bathroom mirror and looked into its reflection, what she found shocked her she saw the fangs she had from the other day longer she was furrier and her eyes were different still the same color but shaped oddly like a bat's. But what really made her frightened was when she turned around she saw two bat like wings on her back, she screamed and started to cry.
"Oh Celestia why!? What Happened to me!? She howled. she was too panicky to think of a solution but some how she remembered the story Techie told her a while back how Fluttershy was turned into a vampire pony and her friends turned her back to normal. She figured she would go to Twilight's hoping to find a cure for her appearance. It was still midnight so she could go out without anypony noticing her. She went outside and tried to fly with her new found wings but since they were still to new to her she fell flat on her face. So she decided to run the way there but as she passed sweet apple acres she then got a sudden lust for apples but shook it off she was more worried about a cure instead of some stupid apples.
When she got the the library Twilight lived in she banged on the door she saw a light in the window glow on and with her bat sensitive ears heard hoof steps on the stairs. Twilight opened the door and was startled by what she saw, but was hushed by Ninroot.
"Twilight, I need your help!" Ninroot whispers.Twilight noticing this welcomes her in. "Look Twi I really need your help here, Techie told me that you and your friends cured Fluttershy with a spell, I need that spell. Please! Techie doesn't know yet I don't want him to be..." She paused "Scared of me."
"I'm sure he wouldn't think any different of you if he saw you like this. But if you insist I'll help you, but." Twilight said while getting out a book with a spell in it.
"What" Ninroot asked with hopeful eyes.
"I'll need to bind you down." Twilight responded.
"Why." Asked Ninroot with a suspicious face.
"Well the process of the spell can make you... A bit violent so for safety's sake I need to bind you down." Said Twilight while grabbing a rope.
"I don't care Do what you have to do to make me look normal again!" Ninroot exclaimed. After some time tying Ninroot down Twilight was ready to do the spell she had done to Fluttershy a few months ago. She did all the steps correctly, had every single detail together for the spell to work together. A flash went through the entire library, when they were able to see each other Twilight was surprised to see Ninroot unchanged not even a single hair was changed. Ninroot untied herself to look in a mirror, Twilight tried to stop her but when NInroot saw her reflection she quickly broke down into tears and trembled to the ground.
"Hey Ninroot it's ok I'm sure-" she as interrupted by Ninroot shoving her away.
"Get away from me you moron!" She yelled while getting up
"Ninroot calm down!" Yelled Twilight, Ninroot turned to her and hissed at her in a threatening manner. She then stopped and shook her head and looked at Twilight knowing what she did but was to scared to mention it. Tears suddenly appeared in her eyes.
"I-I'm so sorry I-" She dashed out of the library going back to the cabin. When she got back she threw herself on the bed and violently screamed and cried, breaking objects and random furniture. She was not only saddened by the fact the spell didn't work but she knew Techie would come home and see her like this and would leave her. Leave her to be alone like this. The only thing she wanted to do now was just let the sadness take her so she instinctively got into a bat like position hanging from a beam on the ceiling.
For days she stayed like that only coming out of her position to get food but she only ate the apples from sweet apple acres. Awaiting the day for Techie to come home to see the monstrosity shes become.
A few days pass and Techie arrives at the train station hoping to see his mate waiting for him with a loving greeting but was surprised to see Twilight waiting for him. He still remembered when Twilight tried to stop Ninroot's business from growing but he wasn't one to hold grudges.
"Techie! I have to tell you something! It's about Ninroot!" She said while running towards him.
"What!? What happened?" He asked with concern.
"Well- uh *sigh* I can't tell you it's best if you see for your self." She said with a frown. "Just so you know, I did the best I could." Hearing that Techie was panicking about what trouble Ninroot could be in, or if she was in a much more worse situation. He dashed back to the cabin even teleporting half way there. When he arrived at the cabin he opened the door to see a dark and cluttered home, he knew Ninroot never liked the house like that. As he looked around he saw something that startled him, he saw a pony sized light brown thing hanging from the ceiling. He went towards it and poked at it with his hoof. Suddenly it started to slowly open. He saw the wings separate from the mass, he then saw something that shocked him. He saw the head of his mate poke out from the mass and look at him with those violet bat like eyes.
"What the hell!" Techie said still staring at his girlfriend's head staring at him.
"Go ahead and say it Techie, say I'm scaring you and run away!" Said Ninroot with a menacing voice.
"Ninroot? I-is that y-you?" He asked, Ninroot got out of the position she was in to get a right side up look at her mate.
"Yes it's me Techie, your "Lover" the one you used to love with a passion." Said Ninroot in the same voice.
"What do you mean Nin? I still love you don't think I don't." He said with a caring expression trying to get close to Ninroot.
"What! A-aren't you scared?" She asked surprised.
"No, of course not Nin I love you I would never be scared of you, no matter what you look like. Besides I think you look even better."
Ninroot started to blush and said "I-I do? How, how could a beast like me look beautiful?" She said turning away from Techie.
"Well first your eyes are more enchanting, and I don't care about looks I love what makes you, you Nin nothing could ever change that." He said in a soft voice.
"R-really? You think my eyes are enchanting?" She asked looking at him.
"They were the first things I noticed about you when I first saw you." He drew closer to her as she did as well. They both start to kiss, Ninroots wings flapping pleasantly and gently caught Techie's eyes. "Wow! You have wings? That's, that's awesome!" He exclaimed as he examined her wings.
Ninroot again started to blush "They are something are they?" She said with a grin
"Quite a colorful language you have Techie," She said.
"Well when you're in Manehatten for a while you tend to pick up some traits." He answered jokingly. After that Ninroot became more comfortable about how she looked even though she was a bat pony, in fact she was ready to face the crowd even in her bat form. Of course she wanted Techie to go with her for support, but what they didn't know is that bat ponies are frowned upon in the pony community. When they got to the town everypony did nothing but stare at the two, scattered whispering could be heard and suddenly Techie and Ninroot heard a voice call out
"Ugh a bat pony! What a freak! and another voice pitched in
"Freaky ugly beast!" Ninroot hid behind Techie as he stopped staring at the crowd. He then started to talk.
"So what if shes a bat pony! So what if shes different! Some of you ponies make me sick! Acting all high and mighty! Acting like you're better than others! Well I don't care what you say or do! This bat pony is not just any bat pony shes my bat pony! And you ponies have no right to judge her in anyway! This bat pony used to be and still is Ninroot the kind, loving and caring filly I call my girlfriend, you all may now her from her shop, I know her for being my girlfriend! So if you have anything to say you can take it up with me because I'm all ears! Yeah shes different but you're no better to call it out like some circus act! Shes still a living pony she still has feelings!" And with that they turned away to head back towards the cabin. Leaving the crowd behind them.
The next day Ninroot went out on one of her walks but this time she didn't go to the everfree she went to town confident that Teky's speech made some sort of change. When she arrived in the town to her surprise no pony stared in fact ponies were actually greeting her like they would when she was a normal pony. And for a while she felt like a normal pony. Since she was comfortable with showing herself in public she re opened her shop. She was even taking lessons from Rainbow Dash on how to fly and learn to use her new wings. Her and Teky grew closer together and their love increased majorly, it grew to the point where Techie Hoof proposed to Ninroot which accepted and soon got married. They still live together happy as can be.
