//------------------------------//
// Chapter 9: Even Rocky Had a Montage 
// Story: Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail 
// by Lithl 
//------------------------------//

Stargate Command Mess Hall
Sweetie Belle stood before her first class of unicorns: a dozen ponies-turned-human-turned-pony who had no memory of how to be a pony. General Landry allowed that teaching a smaller class would likely be more effective, and so he had Sweetie, Twilight, and Spike prioritize members of actual field teams, over ponies who were meant to be support staff.

The group was spread out, occupying maybe half of the tables in the base's mess hall. Since lunch had just ended, the serving line was largely clear; a few bowls of fruit had been left out for anyone who needed a snack between meals, with apples, peaches, and the like.

Sweetie's task was to get this class back to combat readiness before the end of the month, at least as far as their magical abilities were concerned. Two more classes of unicorns needed to be capable of performing the tasks they had been hired for by the end of June. And here she was, barely more than a filly.

"Okay, everypony, your attention please!" Sweetie called out to get the attention of the ponies sitting around the mess hall tables. A few off-duty human personnel stood around the edge of the room, not getting in the way, but curious about "magic class."

One pony raised his hoof, a stallion with a teal coat and black mane, wearing round glasses in addition to the modified PT gear that had become standard attire among the pony personnel. Sweetie nodded to him and he said, "So, when do we get our magic wands?" A laugh made its way around the room, and Sweetie even let herself have a small chuckle.

But they were here to work, and she needed to get the respect of these military types as quick as possible. Sweetie walked up to the joker and asked, "What's your name?"

"I'm Airman—"

Sweetie interrupted him by reaching up and flicking the tip of his horn with her hoof, causing him to recoil and cry out in surprise.

"Your 'wand,' mister Potter," Sweetie tried to do her best Alan Rickman impression as she walked back to the "head" of her class, "is firmly attached to your forehead. It's also sensitive, and becomes more sensitive while casting a spell." Once she turned back to the room she was addressing, she said, "The class clown can tell you what it feels like to get your horn hit while not channeling any magic. The pain increases with increased power flowing through it, potentially to debilitating levels. I suppose that means rule number one as a unicorn in combat is to avoid letting your horn get hit."

Sweetie levitated apples out of one of the bowls of fruit, placing one in front of each of her students. "Levitation is the most basic spell a unicorn can cast," she explained, "and as I hope you can imagine, it can be extremely versatile. Just off the top of my head, consider the ability to shoot a gun from behind total cover, or precisely placing a grenade where you want it to go off!

"In Equestria, spells are graded with levels, called 'alliterations.' By convention, each spell is given an alliterative name of a length corresponding to its level. 'Mythal's Muffling' would be a double-alliteration spell, for example, 'Redbelly's Resonance Recognition' would be a triple-alliteration spell, and so on," Sweetie drew on her recent escapades for examples. "Spells with greater alliteration levels are, generally, more difficult and require more power, although there is some overlap. Levitation is often considered to be a zero-alliteration spell, although manipulating greater mass requires additional power, and manipulating a larger number of individual objects at once requires more concentration."

Sweetie began running the unicorns through the basics of channeling magical energy and directing it into a spell, recalling her lessons at Ponyville Elementary. By the time the kitchen staff began setting up for dinner, none of the apples had lifted from where Sweetie had placed them at the start of class, but at least most of her students could channel magic on command.



Stargate Command Gym
The gym was filled with winged ponies, which would have been a curious sight just a week ago. More curious, however, was the array of pony-sized school desks that had been set up for Twilight's class.

"Where in the world did these come from?" Carter wondered aloud.

Princess Twilight glanced away from the whiteboard that had been set up at the "head" of the classroom. "Oh! Don't worry, Rainbow Dash, they're an aetheric construct I'm maintaining for the purpose of flight class," she said. As she talked, she continued to draw diagrams on the whiteboard with a pair of markers grasped in her magical aura.

A titter worked its way through the crowd of pegasi at the name Twilight used for the lieutenant colonel, and Sam's brow furrowed in consternation. Realizing her mistake, the princess blushed slightly and apologized, "I'm sorry, you said you preferred to be called Doctor Carter earlier. I will try to remember that in the future." To the whole group, she said, "Please, everypony, take a seat, and we can get started!"

The pegasi obediently filled the desks, although their amusement at Carter's expense didn't die down quickly and Carter took her seat with more than a little grumbling. Twilight either didn't notice or didn't react to her discomfort as she floated pencils and legal pads to each desk as they did so. When every seat was filled, one stallion spoke up, "I thought this was supposed to be a flight class. Why are we sitting at desks?" He had a grey coat, with a dark brown mane and tail, and a close-cropped moustache.

Twilight smiled. "That's an excellent question, mister...?"

"Lieutenant Anser, ma'am," the stallion supplied.

"Well, Lieutenant Anser, I find that it's vitally important to start from fundamentals whenever learning a new subject," the princess began. "Since all of you have been living as a flightless species for decades, we're going to start with the basic forces of flight: thrust, drag, gravity, and lift," she pointed to a diagram of air flowing around a bird's – or perhaps a pegasi's – wing that she had drawn on the whiteboard, "and if you study hard, hopefully we will be able to build up to practical exercises within three weeks."

Twilight's new students looked at each other, uncertain. Lieutenant Anser spoke up again, "Uh... ma'am? We're in the Air Force."

The other pegasi murmured in agreement, many nodding their heads.

Twilight blinked in confusion. "I thought humans couldn't fly?" She asked. "How do you get in the air to exert an air force?"

Anser cocked an eyebrow. "With... planes? You know, flying machines?"

Twilight turned back to the diagrams she'd drawn, tapping her chin with one hoof. "I think I need to modify my lesson plan..." she muttered to herself.



NORAD Softball Field
A group of earth ponies slowly walked onto NORAD's softball field less than a mile down the road from Stargate Command, with Spike leading them. Daniel stepped up next to him and began, "So, Mister Thed'ragon—"

"Please, just 'Spike' will do fine."

"Okay, Spike. Ah don't understand exactly what is it we're gonna do out here?" Daniel asked.

"Well, I'm not an earth pony, so I can't demonstrate any earth pony magic," Spike replied. "Twilight could, but she's going to be tied up teaching the pegasi how to fly. However, a fair amount of earth pony magic, and probably all of it you'd use in a military context, is essentially an enhancement of normal physical tasks."

With a belch of green flames that set most of the ponies behind him back on their heels at the unexpected sight, a well-used softcover book materialized from within the fire, dropping into Spike's waiting claws. Daniel was close enough to see the faded image on the cover, a golden pegasus wearing a pith helmet escaping from crocodiles.

"What's the circumference of this field?" Spike asked.

"Ah dunno," Daniel shrugged, "a third of a kilometer?"

"And how good are humans at running?"

Another earth pony in the group spoke up, a yellow stallion with a close-cropped red mane, "In Basic, we had to run two miles, timed. The men had to meet 16 minutes, 45 seconds, and the women had to meet 19 minutes, 45 seconds."

Spike cocked an eye ridge at Daniel. Starting to get an idea of what Spike had in mind, she responded, "Between nine and ten laps."

"Okay, everypony!" Spike called to the group. "I want you to start galloping around this field—"

"Two miles? Easy!" A mare in the back of the group called out. "Most of us got Warhawk or Thunderbolt in Basic!"

Spike bared his teeth in an expression that could charitably be called a smile. "Oh, no. As useful as speed can be, today you're going to test the limits of your endurance," he said with some schadenfreude. "It's your first day, so let's say... one hour sustained gallop. Each time I see somepony drop below a gallop, I'll add five minutes for everypony."

Silence reigned. The mare who had spoken up paled slightly as she realized what she was about to get into. "Well?" Spike asked. "Get to it!" he waved his book towards the first base foul line, as he made his own way toward second base.

After a short hesitation, the group of ponies began moving, quickly increasing speed to a gallop by the time they reached the foul line and turned towards home base.

When Spike reached second base, he sat down on the cushion, opening his book and beginning to read. He glanced up every now and then, monitoring the pace of the ponies doing laps.



Stargate Command Security Station
On the closed circuit televisions, General Landry and two members of base security watched all of the pony classes taking place.

Sweetie Belle seemed to have a good read on her class, and while it didn't appear that her students were making progress in leaps and bounds in their first session together, the encouragement she offered them with their achievements suggested things were progressing as well as could be expected.

Twilight's flight class had a turbulent start, but once the princess moved on from the basics of flight physics to the basics of actually using wings, things became much smoother. As it turned out, she had had some prior experience being transformed into something like a human, and was able to leverage the memory of that experience into helping the pegasi figure out how to properly control their wing muscles.

There was little of note in Spike's earth pony class, consisting of nothing but laps around the softball field. One of the security officers had the bright idea to send someone to set up a seismometer near the running ponies; once the group had settled into a coherent tempo, the readings from the seismometer registered the thundering hooves as a small earthquake.

An hour after the exercise began, though, Spike showed no sign of telling the ponies to stop.

"Sir? Should I send a runner to remind them of the time?" one of the security officers asked Landry.

"Put a medical team on standby in the area in case any of them drop from exhaustion, but let Thed'ragon teach his class how he will," the general replied. "It's not like they have anything to do when they stop and come back here."



NORAD Softball Field
As the sun began to dip towards the horizon, Spike turned the last page of his book and stood up, stretching his arms and legs. With a gout of emerald flame, the book disappeared, and the thundering tempo established by the group of galloping earth ponies faltered, uncertain whether that was a signal that they were done for the day.

"It's okay, you guys can stop now!" Spike called as he began walking towards the road.

When the group finally slowed to a walk, they joined Spike on the edge of the field. "I thought you said we'd be running for an hour?" the mare from before asked. "I've barely broken a sweat!"

"I lied," Spike admitted. "I didn't keep track of time at all, and just had you run until I was done with my book." He looked up to the sun and said, "I'd estimate you were running for at least three hours, though, and as you say, you're all barely sweating.

"Lesson one, earth ponies: your endurance is more a product of your expectations than your actual physical abilities. If you believe you can keep going, you probably can keep going. It works in reverse, too: if you think you've hit your limit, you'll feel exhausted and stretched thin, even if an analysis of your body's available energy says otherwise." Spike may not have been Twilight, but it was difficult to avoid picking up the mannerisms of someone you've lived with for a majority of your life. For Spike, this showed when he tried to explain something in-depth, and he instinctively dropped into a tone that was a perfect mirror to Twilight's lectures. "Of course, the downside to that phenomenal endurance is that it's possible for it to exceed your actual ability, such as when you're injured or sick," he added. "Though rare, Equestria has had unfortunate cases such as owners of small farms getting sick or understaffed during harvest time, and then literally working themselves to death."

Spike turned to Daniel and said, "As a matter of fact, I recall a year when you very nearly did exactly that. Your brother broke a rib and smartly opted out of helping with the harvest. Instead of hiring a farmhoof to cover for him, you decided to try and harvest the entire orchard yourself. Twilight and the rest of your friends intervened to help, and it probably saved your life."

"As simultaneously touching and horrifying as that sounds," Daniel said with a frown, "I don't remember any of that. That's not my life."

Leading the group up the road back to Cheyenne Mountain, Spike nodded. "Of course," he granted, "I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Simply an anecdote of the possibilities."



As summer rolled over Colorado, the pony classes continued in Cheyenne Mountain.

Before long, Sweetie's students could levitate at will, most of them able to manipulate up to three objects simultaneously, for a total of around half their own body mass. To Sweetie's delight, Mitchell retained her talent for telekinetic multitasking that had served Rarity so well as a clothier.

Unfortunately, Sweetie's knowledge was lacking when it came to combat magic. Between class sessions, Sweetie had Twilight teach her a single-alliteration energy blast and a single-alliteration shield spell that she could in turn teach her students, at least to those who would likely see combat. They wouldn't be sufficient for winning a duel between master sorceresses in Equestria, but they would be an additional tool to help the Stargate teams in the field.

Unbeknownst to either Sweetie or the princess, several of the base scientists – including some that had become unicorns and some that had not transformed at all – began studying unicorn magic for an explanation of its mechanism. The telekinesis Sweetie had started with was an excellent benchmark, considering the amount of data the SGC had collected over the years on the telekinetic abilities of near-ascended humans.

The pegasi in Twilight's class quickly grew accustomed to using their wings, each able to exert enough lift force to clear the entirety of the base gym in a single leap. True flight had not yet been achieved, however to the delight of many – and to the consternation of both human and pony biologists alike – the pegasi learned to use their feathers for manipulation in many ways similar to the hands they had lost. Door knobs were no longer frustrating obstacles, and writing reports and emails were no longer relegated to voice-to-text programs. They had minimal grip strength and couldn't lift anything especially heavy with their feathers, but many found it an acceptable compromise.

Bra'tac requested to join in on the pegasi lessons once she had recovered enough to be released from the care of Doctor Lam, and Landry happily granted the request; Bra'tac would be able to pass on the things she learned to the Free Jaffa Nation, so letting her into Twilight's class was almost as good as getting Twilight to agree to teach the Jaffa. Of course, she lagged behind the rest of the class due to her delayed start, but Bra'tac more than made up for that with dogged determination.

Spike occasionally lamented being unable to instruct his students in what he called "more impressive" earth pony magic, but his students and anyone who watched their lessons in person or on recording had trouble believing that the exercises he was putting them through were demonstrating less impressive feats of the earth pony tribe. According to many, by far the most extraordinary thing Spike had had the earth ponies do was when he was trying to demonstrate the limits of their strength; almost any group of five earth ponies was capable of lifting the Stargate, and those numbers were mostly due to its unwieldy size. Of course they couldn't remove it from the base's embarkation room, as the only exit that the gate could fit through was in the ceiling and out the top of the mountain, but the demonstration was impressive nonetheless.

Unfortunately, with all of her teammates learning how to be a pony, Vala had little to do when she was finally released from the infirmary. Watching the classes only provided so much distraction, and she ultimately secluded herself in her quarters, coming out only for meals.

Outside Cheyenne Mountain, the world continued to turn. While the existence of the transformations had already been revealed to the world, official sources had been vague on the exact nature of the pandemic. It was only a matter of time, however, until photos of transformation victims began to spread across the internet and the airwaves. One news organization had even managed to get their hands on a collection of photos documenting one individual's progression from man to stallion over the entire period of transformation.

There was a period of uproar and outcry in the public, with people claiming that the military had lied to them. Congress even formed a special committee to investigate the matter... except the committee's membership had been specially selected from among the congressmen and women who had already been read in on the Stargate program. The closed-door meetings with Air Force officials were used to keep Congress in the loop on the issue, rather than to investigate the possibility of wrongdoing by any parties involved.

Eventually, contact with Atlantis was even reestablished. The expedition team reported that none of their members had suffered from the transformation, and they had no reports of any such transformations in the Pegasus galaxy. "A shame," one of the technicians in the SGC Control Room had remarked at the time, "it would have been all too perfect to have a bunch of people in Pegasus turn into pegasi."

Uncertain why the people in the Pegasus galaxy hadn't changed, Landry ordered a halt on travel through the Midway Station until the pony situation was handled. Since the Apollo's arrival hadn't triggered anything, he allowed that using Daedalus-class ships to ferry people and goods between the galaxies would still be permitted, but that meant a round trip of more than a month, instead of an hour.

All things must eventually end, of course. And the SGC's pony retraining was no exception.

"Okay, Princess," General Landry said, "tell me about the Tree of Harmony."