//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Paws and Effect // Story: Sunset Shimmer is Also a Cat Now // by Shadowmane PX-41 //------------------------------// As Sunset prowled down the path in her new cat clothes, the first girl she came across on her travels was dressed in a pink shirt with a picture of four lemon slices across it, a pair of black trousers that went down to her ankles, and a pair of pink headphones with slices of pie on each of the speakers. A small smile popped onto her face as she walked forward. "Hi, there!" Sunset beamed and pounced on the girl, rolling across the floor. "Meow!" "Whoa!" Lemon Zest's eyes widened at the sight of the girl. "Sunset? Sunset Shimmer?" "I remember you from yesterday. You're one of those cute girls who were playing around in cat clothes." Sunset stood up and helped Lemon back onto her feet. "Lemon Zest, isn't it?" "Yeah. From Crystal Prep. You've met me before." Lemon dusted herself off. "Once at the Friendship Games where I was a fun raver girl, did awesomely at the Academic Decathlon and Speed Skating, and then one of the girls who made Twilight into a super-creepy and horrific monstrosity because some old hag wanted to win the contest by any means necessary. And we met again when we were trying to make that super-fun music video and raise that money for Camp Everfree and our awesome party on that yacht." She grinned. "Y'know, we really should hang out more. You and your friends know how to have a good time." "We should!" Sunset smiled. "But we've always got our own plans and stuff to attend to. Me and my friends especially. Heck, there's not a day where we don't have something going on." "Tell me about it." Lemon smiled and put a hand behind Sunset's back. "Indigo and Sunny are always too busy with their sport and drama classes to do something cool with me. And don't even get me started on Sugarcoat and Sour. Those two need to get out a bit more. I think all that time in class is starting to get to their heads." She shuddered slightly. "Sour more than anyone." "Yeah." Sunset nodded. "So, what were you and your friends doing dressed up at cats in the first place? Is that a whole new trend going around these days? Did Rarity have another one of those things where she comes up with a trend on the fly and then suddenly, everyone wants to get in on it?" "Nah. Rarity's a cool girl and all, but this style's all us." Lemon. "Well, technically, it was all Sunny's idea. And to be fair, that was pretty random and spontaneous with how she came up with it, but I still thought it was pretty neat." "Oh. So, she just did it like that too? That's kinda why I went with it too." Sunset gently brushed her slender tail and bushy cat ears. "I kinda like it, though. Even though this is kinda my first day in it and all." "Oh, being a cat's pretty awesome. Especially if you're a super-nimble ninja girl like Sunny is." Lemon Zest started to walk down the path, taking Sunset with her. "I tell ya, it's like she took some super-secret classes she's not allowed to say. But she was wall jumping and crouching on top of streetlights, it was pretty rad. Really added to the immersion. Actually, what is immersion? I don't really pay attention to those kinda big words. Raving's more of my thing. I just know the words because Mr. Svengallop won't stop DRILLING them into my head in english class..." "Wait, for real?" Sunset asked. "Yeah. He's always going on and on about how great he is and how the others should look up to him an—" "Not your english class, Lemon. About Sunny Flare being that agile." Sunset was quick to cut Lemon off with a simple wave of the hand. "Did she really say stuff like that?" "Well, it kinda gets a little bit lost along the way. You just really have to see Sunny for yourself. She can do all the super-cool jumping stuff," Lemon said. "But I wouldn't be surprised if she actually did take one of those classes." "I see. So what are you doing today, Lemon?" Sunset lifted a brow. "Meh. Not really much. Kinda like most of the time when I'm off Crystal Prep. I just take my headphones out and see what the world's gotta offer." Lemon slipped the aforementioned headphones off. "You wanna try them on, Sunset? Gotta warn you, though. They're pretty good at blasting out beats." "Sure. What've you—" Sunset felt the headphones immediately land on her ears. Within seconds, her eardrums were deafened with what could only be described as a car crash and an electrical grid meltdown at the same time, along with some drums being played in the background. That wasn't exactly accurate, but it was the best she could come up with other the cacophony of noise pulsing through the speakers. "Pretty good, aren't they?" Lemon asked after she took the headphones off. "Twilight was pretty awestruck as well. I bet that shocked look on her face after a couple seconds means that she loved 'em." "I'm sure she was pretty awestruck too. Just... not in that way." Sunset's pupils diluted as Lemon put the headphones back on her own head. She wondered how Lemon hadn't completely lost her hearing with how loud and screechy the music was. "These beats are pretty sick, eh? They're from that awesome new band I saw the other day." Lemon spoke loudly, as the headphones were covering out all other noise; including her own. "Something about nine inch nails or something like that. I don't know about you, but the band name could be better. Kinda along the lines of long and hard, or sharp and pointy. I mean, who's gonna wanna support a band that's literally just named after a bunch of nails? Unless there's a hammer involved in there somewhere, I don't really see the point of the name." "Oh, it's just a band name. Nothing really that serious or anything. Heck, my friend, Pinkie Pie's been into this pretty weird sounding band recently that I don't really remember the name of." Sunset tipped her hand. "But that's enough about me and my love for heavy metal and stuff. What're you going to do today, Sunset?" Lemon slipped her headphones off of her ears and hung them around her neck, like an open collar. "I know you didn't just put on that catsuit just because we were playing with Sugar and Sour yesterday. So tell me. What's going on?" "Oh. Well, I was just going to give my friends a little bit of a surprise with this suit." Sunset looked down at herself, and the paw gloves around her hands. "Just a little hello, some playing around with them, making them think I actually have turned into a cat. Maybe some playing with Rarity's fabrics and eating some fish from the fridge, drinking some milk from a bowl if there's time. But there may or may not be time. I dunno. It depends on whether or not the girls are in or not." Sunset shrugged. "Sounds good. Mind if I tag along?" Lemon asked, tugging gently on Sunset's sleeves. "I've still got my cat stuff from yesterday. And my house is just up the road. I could make a quick pit-stop to grab 'em, then we can totally say hi to your friends. K?" "I don't see why not," said Sunset. "I'm sure everything would be much more fun if you tagged along for the ride. Plus, I kinda need someone to break me into this whole 'being a cat for the day' kinda thing." "Sure. I'd be glad to give you a hand, Sunset." Lemon patted Sunset's back. "Plus, if anything, I kinda wanna be a cat again. One day wasn't enough for me, especially if it was just a big prank on two of CPA's stuffiest and grumpiest students in the end." Lemon Zest and Sunset Shimmer eventually arrived at a large, three storey house, with all of the third floor windows wide open and wind blowing through them. There were faint traces of music, mostly stuff playing on the radio at the top, but apart from that, the rest of the house was indistinguishable from the others. There was a small garden leading up to the door, but it was mostly filled with grass and almost no flowers. In fact, there wasn't really much of anything in the garden or around it, and it more so looked like the grass had been bent out of shaped and kicked around, making a rather distorted pattern of flattened blades. "Check it, Sunset. My pad." Lemon vaulted herself over the gate and landed on the pavement. "Oh, and I'm sorry about the lack of flowers or stuff like that. I kinda had 'em for a while, but I wasn't really much of a flower girl myself. So, I just gave them to Sunny." She opened the gate up for Sunset. "She didn't mind much." "Oh, it's fine. Really." Sunset walked through the gate and shut it behind her, watching as Lemon charged into the door and up the stairs. She followed closely behind, catching glimpses of the living room and kitchen on her way up. The kitchen was fine, but the living room had almost zero furniture save for the couches at the wall and a wall-mounted TV. There were a few speakers by the TV, but they were also hanging from the walls. Almost as if it was more of a large, empty dancefloor if any. "Huh. Guess it fits her," she said as she went upstairs to the second floor. On Sunset's travels up, she saw a few doors on her path, all leading to a few extra rooms that she had not expected to see today. There was a makeshift dance studio room complete with wall rails and mirrors stretching along it; a little video game room with a TV, some consoles, and a high quality set of headphones; a bedroom for two people—which she believed to be Lemon's parents' bedroom; and a spare room for if Lemon ever had any guests over. Just as Sunset went up to the final floor and saw Lemon's bedroom door marked with stickers, she watched as the girl launched herself out of it with her own tail, paw gloves, and cat ears. It was almost blinding how fast she was moving. "Ta-da!" Lemon threw her arms out and pulled Sunset into a tight hug. "Now, we're BKs!" "B...Ks?" Sunset parroted. "Best Kitties!" Lemon purred and gently batted at Sunset's cheeks playfully. "And now, we're more than ready to get out there and have fun. Even though cats sleep more than they actually get out, but we're not like those peasant cats. We're the much better kind who play more than sleep!" She bounced on the spot. Sunset laughed at the sight and watched as Lemon prowled down the stairs, stretching her arms and legs out as she climbed down on all fours. The more that she watched her playing, the more and more that she got an impressions that she and Pinkie Pie would get along. They were pretty much the same, minus the headphones and screeching mess of music that she liked listening to. "C'mon, Sunset! Come on down!" Lemon waved. "Oh, but not on both legs, silly. Can you do it like I did?" "I'll try." Sunset assumed the position, limbered up, and put her first hand down on the step. She followed with her other one and arched herself over the top step, beginning to crawl down. Admittedly, she had never tried going down the stairs this way, and found it a bit more of a hefty chore than she had imagined what with balance any everything, but eventually, she got a good rhythm and started to pick up the pace, finally arriving at Lemon's feet. "How's that?" "There ya go. You're learning. And what a fun way to learn it is, eh?" Lemon winked at Sunset and nudged her shoulder lightly. "Now, before we go out there, do you want something to eat? I've still got a bit of Sugarcoat's sushi from yesterday. It's still pretty good as it is, what with it being floor sushi and all." "I... think I'll pass." Sunset lifted a paw. "But thanks for the offer anyways." She continued to follow Lemon downstairs, crawl-climbing down again instead walking down it normally. "Ah, c'mon, Sunset. Floor food isn't that bad," said Lemon as they made it to the bottom floor. "In fact, in video games, floor food usually brings the main character back to full health most of the time. Indy can vouch for that." "Indy?" Sunset asked. "Yeah. Indy. Indigo Zap. Crystal Prep's ace in the hole when it comes to sports." Lemon finally stood back up and went towards the fridge in her kitchen. "She's the captain of every team at Crystal Prep, and she was the number one pick out of the top twelve who qualified for the Friendship Games last year." "Kinda sounds like somebody I know." Sunset leaned against a wall and smirked casually, seeing Rainbow Dash's face appear on the girl she was thinking about." "I kinda wish she could've made it to that music video thing we did too, but she was on vacation with her parents at the time." Lemon pulled out some salmon and seaweed rolls and popped a few into her mouth. "When she showed me some of her photos, I was SUPER JEALOUS. And don't even get me started on the theme park she went to. She is a lucky girl." Her voice was muffled slightly by the food, but she still cleared herself a path in her mouth so her voice was still comprehensible. "Mmm." Sunset watched as Lemon finished off her fish-based snack and came back to her side. "But let's not focus too much on Indy. She's pretty awesome and she knows it, but it's not all about her. Instead, let's talk about who you're gonna see first. And by the way, who are you going to see first?" "Hmm..." Sunset looked outside and watched the sun's rays twinkling down on the grassy patches outside. She hadn't thought about who she was going to see first out of her circle of friends, only that she was going to see as many of them as she could before the day was over. "Maybe Rarity first. Just came to my head." "Rarity, eh?" Lemon's smile grew ever wider. "You think she'll do opera for us if we put our paws on her clothes? She kinda sounds like she has the voice to do that kinda thing." "Well, let's just say that Rarity's a little bit... too advanced for drama class." Sunset walked over to the door, swishing her new tail with each and every step. "Come on, Lemon. Let's say hi to her." "A'ight. Let's go!" Lemon ran out of the house on all fours again, leaping over the gate this time and landing graciously on her feet. "And on the way, we can think of some clever cat names. Then, we'll really be adding to the experience. "Yeah. I was thinking on Sunset Mittens or Catset Shimmer. But I could always use a second opinion." Sunset still walked through the gate normally. "Like, what do you think sounds good for me?" "Well... Maybe something like Fluffset Shimmer, because you're so fluffy with that extra fur. Ooh! Ooh! Or maybe we could go with a little bit of a title and call you a Furever Friend, and still call you Sunset after that," said Lemon as they headed off down the path. "But then there's always the chance that we could do something else and change your name entirely. Like Early Fur or Cat Drag. Y'know, because you're a cat and everything. The possibilities are endless!" "Yeah." Sunset felt something warm in her heart, knowing that this would be an even better day than she had thought.