//------------------------------// // Party // Story: Iron Mountain // by computerneek //------------------------------// Twilight finds herself unexpectedly in the Everfree Forest, specifically Froggy Bottom Bog.  She knows it was her teleport curse that brought her here, though she doesn’t remember anything about before she was teleported.  She does, however, know that she had heard something about a party before she vanished again.  Now that she’s all caked in mud, she imagines showing up to the party- and shudders at the thought.  “I better go find a shower before I end up at the party-”WHOOM! Funny.  Most of the time, she hasn’t a clue what happened before she arrived, but this time, she does know.  The party is just outside the Everfree crater- and the thing in it has finally been unearthed, rising out as a great big pile of weapons.  Of course, Pinkie had thrown a party in its shadow while it tracked giant monsters falling out of the sky, blowing them away with the massive bolts of light she’d seen some of them produce.  Nopony paid any attention to that, though- all attention was on the party, to which everypony was invited- and everypony attended, as well.  At least, she assumes such, from the background hash of colored pony- at least thrice Ponyville’s entire population- all around the events of focus.  This focus…  RIS agent Bonbon and her friend Lyra (She’d learned of them since becoming a Princess), the Crusaders, Zecora, and Diamond Tiara…  Not a good combination. As is soon evident, as time begins flowing.  Diamond Tiara appears to be picking on the Crusaders, though her words- other than containing a lot of “blank-flank”- are indeterminate.  The Crusaders are infuriated by whatever it is she’s saying, producing a massive shockwave of magic.  Pinkie’s multilayered cake then opens a toothed mouth to emit a roar, and the jug of- is that poison joke?- Zecora is holding falls on Diamond Tiara’s head, turning her into another cake-monster.  The crusaders simply scream now, forgetting all about magic. But at least there’s somepony with some sense.  Lyra flares her now-visible wings, casting massive blasts of magic that encapsulate the cakes, flinging them into Zecora’s cauldron, where they turn into Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, there to fade out of focus while attention shifts to Lyra’s wings.  Bonbon hardly bats an eyelash at that- but when the Crusaders show their full Alicorn forms to apologize, the agent facehooves and faints.  Rather typical of the RIS to simply shut down when they run into something that disobeys every rule they know, other than Discord himself.  An inordinate amount of uneventful time later, she finally appears on scene herself- right in the middle of everything, covered in mud.  That’s not even the worst part; it seems she’s come alongside an explosion of mud, spraying over everything in sight and turning the background mass of pony brown. Bonbon startles awake at the mess, sharing a look with Twilight before they both turn to Zeus- who is trotting up to them, somehow completely clean.  She and Bonbon yell at him together.  “You did this…  Twilight!” She isn’t exactly sure why she yelled her own name at Zeus, but she did.  Then, she does it again- only it sounds less like herself, and a rock drives into her side- “GAAH!”  Twilight leaps awake, scoring almost ten feet before she hits the floor. Rainbow, still standing next to the bed with a hoof outstretched, blinks.  “Wow.  You’re going to miss Pinkie’s party, Twilight!” “Party?” Twilight asks, alarmed- but only briefly.  She’s clean, and in her bedroom in the Crystal Castle.  That must have been a dream, albeit a weird one.  “Where?” “In Sugarcube Corner, sugarcube,” Applejack states.  “Zeus warned us you’d sleep in.” Rarity smiles.  “It’s looking to launch any minute now.  Come on- let’s get our seats!” Twilight nods.  “Yes- we can teleport, right?” “I’ll handle that,” Rarity chuckles- and her wings fade out.  “Zeus would appreciate not being identified by name while we’re there.”  Only then does Twilight realize they’d been visible ever since she awoke, with all five- no, four of her five- friends around, Pinkie being the only one missing. Twilight quickly glances over herself, finding nothing.  Rarity is nothing if not thorough.  “I’m ready.” Two seconds later, they’re all seated in a booth in Sugarcube Corner, Discord’s voice carrying gently across the partition behind Twilight. “...  When did you become a unicorn…?” Twilight’s eyes widen like platters, Rarity’s look holding her question in as she listens to the silence that takes over- especially once Pinkie locates her own horn.  Twilight manages to wait for the applause- in which Fluttershy is loudest, with Lyra a close second from all the way across the shop- before she drops her jaw.  “What did I just hear…?”  She watches Mrs. Cake trotting over, the entire shop somehow all decorated for a party…  Is that a bucket she saw under that table, before the tablecloth covered it? “Welcome to your congratulations-on-becoming-a-unicorn party,” Mrs. Cake states, from out of Twilight’s visual field, to Pinkie, also out of her visual field. Twilight turns back to her friends.  “Am I hearing this correctly…?” Rainbow only nods- and Twilight then notices the empty space between her and Applejack.  The empty space sized just right for another pony, even though Pinkie’s still staring off into space. She notices the space in time for it to be suddenly filled by a familiar pegasus stallion and his apple sundae, which he takes a very calm bite of.  “Yes, you’re hearing this correctly.  Pinkie Pie has become a unicorn, Bonbon has become a pegasus.  The latter is taking it in stride, while the former seems to be having issues with shock.  Yes, I’ve heard Zeus performed both transformations last night.” Twilight stares at him for a second.  “Wait, what?” Zeus shrugs.  “The party is aimed at Pinkie- she’ll need it to make the adjustment, and Bonbon seems to have a hidden shy side that wouldn’t take too well to such a party directed towards her.” Rarity watches Pinkie do her best impression of an inanimate object for some time more.  “What do you think is gonna happen?” “She’s gonna be like Discord,” Rainbow pipes up, to a couple nods. The electric blue pegasus scowls slightly, finishing his next bite of sundae- with just the right hint of apple, he decides.  Interesting what technology can do.  “Nah,” he finally mutters.  “She won’t really be all that different, until somepony starts teaching her spells- at which point she will likely only be better with what she already does.”  He smiles calmly at Twilight.  “You see, she was already a unicorn.” “What?” Everypony present asks- including Pinkie, now leaning against the table.  Discord’s head rises silently above the partition, interest drawn. “Or so Zeus tells me,” he states.  “Apparently, her horn grew on the inside of her skull instead.  Normally, this is a deadly birth defect- but it also disfigured, resulting in some interesting brain damage that instead created the Pinkie we know today.  As is typical of the pony brain, the undamaged portions learned to get over it and made up for what was lost- but she’s always had some kind of magic.  Now that her horn is where it’s supposed to be, the only real difference should be in the level of control she’s able to garnish from her power- from the power she’s always had.” Silence holds for a second. Discord nods gently.  “Where is this Zeus pony?” he asks.  “I would like to meet him.”  Even he had never been able to change somepony’s breed before- and although he’d been aware of Pinkie’s situation, he hadn’t been able to figure out exactly what was wrong, nor correct it. “He kinda comes and goes,” Zeus states, shaking his head gently.  “I never know when he’s going to show up, he just does.” Discord scowls at this.  “Well, whenever you see him next, tell him this sundae he ordered me is simply divine.”  He drops back below the partition to take another bite. Pinkie shakes herself out, and turns to the room at large.  “Well then…   Let’s get this party STARTED!”  The room explodes into applause. Across the room, where Zeus had relayed the entire conversation to a couple friends through their coms, the cream pegasus blinks, turning to look at her minty unicorn friend.  “How’d he do that?” Six hours later, two pegasi land gently on a cloud, high above Ponyville. “That was fun!” Bonbon practically bounces on the cloud. Lyra laughs gently.  It had been fun, playing tag through the sky with her friend.  It had taken her some effort to make it fair; it had become readily apparent that her alicorn wings allowed her to attain much higher speeds than Bonbon could, despite the similarity in skill levels.  “So I’m curious,” she begins, “what the RIS is going to have to say about this?” Bonbon’s bouncing stops very suddenly- and the cloud also stops shaking.  “The RIS?” she asks, and scowls down at Ponyville.  “I won’t mention it,” she states.  “If they ask, it was the result of a monster bite from the Everfree.” Lyra nods slowly.  “Of course, your unicorn friend helped treat the wound and draw out the venom when you got home, but the magic of the transformation was too powerful for her to stop.” The cream pegasus nods at her minty pegasus friend.  “Sounds good.” “Either that, or it was some experimental spell backfiring on Celestia knows what accidental situation, turning us both into pegasi,” Lyra smiles.  “We simply have no idea what happened when I tried testing out that old replication spell I’d found on a scroll hidden in a tree by the everfree.  Of course, the scroll was destroyed in the explosion from the candies we were trying to duplicate, to simplify the candy shop operations- and with the loss of my horn, I can’t remember the spell either.” Bonbon blinks.  “Wow, that’s…  That’s a good one.”  Lyra’s facial expressions had done the story justice.  “Though, it wouldn’t explain why you were still a unicorn during the party today.” Poof!  The electric blue pegasus appears on the cloud near them.  “That’s an easy one,” he states.  “The magic backlash dug into the earth pony first, as she was closer- maybe holding the tray of candies.  Thus, by the time it reached the casting unicorn, the blast had weakened- long enough for her innate unicorn magic to resist subversion for several hours.”  He smiles gently.  “That’s the main reason it takes so much power- ponies’ magic facilities don’t like being changed.  As for what happened during that spell, perhaps it was a combination of events- primarily, one of those rare but powerful surges in the local magic field I just read about in Advanced Magic, Volume VII:  Natural Boosters.  The rest of it could be interference from the nearby Thaumatorium Tear- an extremely powerful and somewhat dangerous magic artifact I found in Advanced Magic, Volume V:  Powering Up.” “Thaumawhatnow?” Bonbon asks. “Thaumatorium tear?” Lyra asks.  “Are you sure about that?” He nods.  “Just found one eighty-seven point four meters directly below the point where the Golden Oak Library’s front door once stood.” Bonbon pauses.  “I’m pretty sure that’s on the list of items I’m required to report,” she states. “It’s number sixteen, yes,” Zeus answers swiftly.  “Say, the specific feedback from the spell suggested its location, but you haven’t dug it up yet?  That is how they’re discovered, usually.” “Usually?  How did you find it?” “Ground-penetrating radar, a technology absent in Equestrian society, designed to identify solids, liquids, and voids present in the terrain underneath.  Early GPR systems were used in finding oil deposits for liquid-fueled machinery and fault lines to be aware of in construction, among other things.  Once the tear was located, it only took a light scanning spell for positive identification.” He pauses to take a bite out of an apple sundae he hadn’t had a moment before.  “Would you like one?”