There was a thunderous amount of noise coming up the stairs. Somehow, despite their obvious stomping, I could hear them talking. Three voices echoed through the halls. A colt and two fillies walked into the room stopping at the door. Kristen struggled to get herself back to a semi-presentable shape, not that it was working all that well. Gentle got to her hooves and I slid to the floor.
The unicorn colt, who was the tallest of the group, had pale yellow fur, and a deep purple mane with two seperate stripes of near white, that ran the length of his chin length hair. It was mostly straight but looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a while. The two fillies piled in behind him, the earth pony having pink fur and red mane with a deeper red highlight on the ends and the other, a pegasus, having very pale cream fur and copper brown mane. The colt looked at us, before shrugging and walking away, but the two fillies came up to our group.
“Hello, Gentle,” said the pink filly. “Where did you get all these animals?”
“Delver, uh, found them in the western forrest,” said Gentle. “They seem to be domesticated and, um, they need homes. The red one is spoken for.”
“Do you think we can have one each?” asked the pink filly. “I know that Gilded will say yes, and she can’t say no if I just show up with one.”
“Fond, you should ask first,” said the lighter filly. “Gilded lets you get away with too much.”
“Penny, you worry too much,” said Fond. “Which one do you like the most?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Penny. “The blue cat looks cute.”
<So I am cute now is it?> said Robert. <Just a kid so I’ll forgive her.>
<Robert,> Mary said. <Be nice.>
<Who said I wasn’t being so,> said Robert.
<Yeah he said he was going to forgive the pony,> said Zack.
“They sure are talkative,” said Fond. “Gentle, can you understand what they are saying.”
“Yeah,” said Gentle. “It is a little hard to keep up with them though. They talk pretty fast.”
<We do? Weird,> I said.
<Oh come on at least one of us likes to ramble a lot,> said Ty. <I mean I could be the only one that causes that. Sure I tend to ramble. Is there too many people here now. I think I am doing it again. Sorry really stressed.>
“At least one of them is a bit worried right now,” said Gentle. She levitated Ty over to her and rubbed their assumed head.
<That feels nice,> said Ty. <Do you think it is having fur that makes this nicer?>
<Maybe,> Kristen said. <Maybe it is just we are different now. Maybe the changes effected our minds more than it seems.>
“Well hopefully finding a home will help that,” said Fond. “Maybe I could take that one too. The two of them are rather cute if you ask me. Maybe it would be best to keep them together as they are the same type of critter.”
<Possibly,> said Robert responding to Kirsten. <Either way, I want to check out the cute little pegasus. Make sure I am fine with being her pet.>
<I want to get to know Fond,> said Ty. <If she wants to take both Alice and I, then it only makes sense to see if they are nice. Or gentle, or, well, good enough. Alice is going to need a lot of help and care, and while I can transform into one of the others easily enough, I still would rather not find myself stuck in my base form with such a slow speed.>
<Dear, I think we may all need to take a bit of a rest,> said Mary. <You are getting a little rambly there, Ty. And Kristen, you are still shaking. I can tell that Alice is starting to reach her limit to, and frankly there has just been too much already for me and it isn’t even lunch yet.>
“They are all a bit razzled,” said Gentle. “I don’t see, um, what the harm is if you are all calm and gentle with them.”
“We’ll be careful,” said Fond. She walked closer to Gentle and sat down on the floor. I knew she was waiting for me to come to her and despite the fact that I could feel the stress building up in my system, I wobbled over to her and sat between her forelegs. “Hello little one. You are a really interesting critter. I have never seen anything like you.”
I looked at Gentle hoping she would explain but she didn’t seem to notice. Laying my head on her foreleg, I tried to calm my heart.. Something was eating at me that I couldn’t place and my head had started to hurt.
Penny had sat down and Robert, as well as Zack, had gone over to her. Zack stayed a bit behind Robert, letting Penny gently reach out to pet him. He must have decided that she was nice enough, as he moved forward letting her hoof slide down his back to the base of his tail. It must have felt good as he arched his back and I could hear a soft purr coming from him.
“Do you want to come look at them, Brilliant?” asked Gentle.
“No, I don’t want Gleaming getting any ideas about getting me a pet to teach me responsibility,” said Brilliant.
<Sounds like my kind of guy,> said Zack, laughing.
<Sounds like a spoiled brat to me,> said Mary.
<Well no one is asking you,> said Zack.
<Please don’t start arguing,> I mumbled. <I have a headache.>
“Oh no. Alice you should have said something,” said Gentle. “I’ll go get you some water. I bet you are dehydrated. Be nice while I am gone.”
“Of course,” said Fond. “And we will make sure these little guys don’t make a mess either.”
<I think she has more to worry about that from the foals than us,> said Mary. <I think I am going to go with her and watch Glitter work.>
<Don’t be gone too long,> I said. <It doesn’t feel right to separate yet.>
Mary nodded and then left with Gentle. Ty who had been put down, came over to Fond and I and pushed his way into snuggling with me. I didn’t quite understand how he was so much stronger than me, if he was supposed to be a copy of me, but it wasn’t like I had been resisting his efforts. Fond took turns petting the both of us. The magic fingers that ponies seemed to have at the end of their hooves felt so nice on my short fur.
Kristen came up to Penny, sitting next to Zack, and Zack ran his short stubby arms as far down her back as he could. Kristen seemed to like it as each time his hand made it down her back she sighed. Zack had been a lot better than I had expected with all of this and it was interesting to see him be so gentle with someone else.
“Are you certain you don’t want to give these cuties pets?” asked Penny. “They are so nice. This one is purring so hard.”
She was right, Robert had been purring far louder than I thought he would have been able to or would have wanted to. His face looked like he was enjoying her pets as he had flopped down between her legs and his little tongue was sticking out of his mouth a bit.
“Look, I just don’t want to,” said Brilliant. “Besides we should all be reviewing our homework. You know be responsible.”
“Says the pony who is trying to avoid any responsibility by avoiding petting some cute animals,” said Fond. “You just don’t want to get attached because you want to go to Canterlot to study.”
“Of course I do,” said Brilliant. “It is where Gleaming studied and it is the place where I will best be able to master my talent.”
“I’ll miss you,” said Penny.
“It isn’t certain he will leave yet,” said Fond.
Brilliant only snorted and went back to his work. My headache was starting to get out of hand and I squeezed my eyes shut trying to shut out the light which had started to hurt. Ty must have noticed, as they rubbed their version of my head against mine gently. It was nice but it didn’t do anything to help the headache.
Gentle came back into the room levitating a pitcher, a cup, and a set of saucers. She set one of the saucers next to Kristen and the cup in front of Zack. A saucer levitated over to Robert and then one for Ty and myself. She then filled each carefully with water starting with mine. I lapped at it, trying to get as much of it as possible. It seemed to be helping a bit as with each bit of water I got in my headache lessened.
There was more footsteps coming up the distant stairs. It was surprising how well I could hear any more. Must have been my large ears. I was pretty certain it was Gleaming and someone else that was headed down the hallway based on their voices. The second voice was rough and deep sounding. I couldn’t really make out his words though from that distance.
“So these are them,” said Gleaming as she walked into the room. “I told you they weren’t like any summon I had ever seen. They seem to speak differently too.”
“Hmmm,” said the blond furred earth pony. His mane was long and in a pony tail and was orange with a streak of red in it. “Well they are definitely summons. That much is easy enough. A Kucheat, Rokon, Kolink, and two Ashimari. I think the proper answer is to try to send them home. You are certain no one in town summoned them. To be fair the only other I can think of is Plantnium Punch but she is smart enough to not do such a thing. I don’t think we even have books here for the foals to have learned from.”
“Please, be gentle with them,” said Gentle. “I, uh, don’t want to see them hurt again.”
“The banishing ritual doesn’t hurt the summon. Lets start with those two,” said the earth pony stalion. He walked over to Ty and I and started to chant something I didn’t understand. Ty started to squirm next to me and I felt something wash over me. For a moment I worried that I was really going to be banished to some other realm. That was until the pain started. It was like every inch of me was trying to be torn apart piece by piece. I couldn’t help the scream that came out of my mouth.
“Stop,” shouted Fond. “Your hurting her.”
I couldn’t help the shaking that had taken over me. The stallion had stopped chanting. I couldn’t see and my head hurt all the more. I could hear growls and some rufling around me. Surely, the others would attack this stallion.
“That shouldn’t have done that,” said the stallion. “I can only hope that means they some how aren’t summons, unless somepony has figured a way to anchor them to Equis. I may need to contact the College.”
“Can’t you tell us anything else?” asked Gleaming. “How could this be? What is that one? I don’t remember there being anything about shapeshifting summons.”
“I have no idea,” said the Stallion. “Look I have caused enough harm to day. I am going to check over the books and draft a letter to the College. For now try to keep them calm and happy. They are still potentially dangerous.”
<Alice, are you there honey?> asked Kristen. I tried to nod but it only sent my head spinning. <Don’t move too much. Gentle will check you out. Just rest.>
<Should we rough this guy up?> asked Zack.
<No, he didn’t mean to hurt Alice,> said Robert. <Besides we kinda need their help and there is no way attacking one of them is going to help with that.>
“Please don’t do anything rash,” said Gentle. “Fond, I need to check on Alice. Um, if that is alright with you.”
I was picked up and I could feel Gentle place her head against my chest. My heart was still a bit erratic and my head felt like someone was trying to dig their way out of it.
“Is she going to be alright?” asked Fond.
“I don’t, uh, know,” said Gentle. “Her heart is beating weird and I think we need to, um, get some more fluids in her.”
“Gleaming, can I go with Gentle to help her? I want to be there to take care of, uh, Alice, right?” asked Fond.
“I don’t see why not. I know you won’t be able to pay attention, even if I kept you here. Just keep working on your essay okay,” said Gleaming. “Just try not to get in her way, and if Gentle says you have to go so she can work, you need to listen.”
“Thank you,” said Fond.
I was slipped into Gentle’s pack and the straps were chinched tighter than they had been earlier. There was no way I was slipping out this time. I couldn’t hold my head up and I laid limply against Gentle. I passed out before she had gathered the others together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I woke in a pool of warm water. It felt exquisite. My body still ached but my head had stopped hurting so much. The water wasn’t all that deep as I could feel the bottom of the tub I seemed to be in. Opening my eyes turned out to be a mistake, the bright lights sending waves of pain through my head. I suddenly felt rather dizzy and I fell into the water. My head was mostly submerged and I couldn’t breathe but it didn’t seem to be a pressing issue.
A pair of hooves picked my head up and then scooted something under my chin. It held my head up above the water. The hooves then stroked down my back and lingered at the place where my neck and body joined. There was a ruffle of flesh that spread out from there, like I was wearing some sort of collar and yet I could feel all the sensations that came with it being a part of me. It was rather sensitive to the pony’s motions.
“How long do you think she will be out like this?” asked Fond. “I’m worried. What are we supposed to do with a seal?”
“I don’t know,” said Gentle. “I think she needs to have a constant source of water. She gets dehydrated so easily.”
“Could we make a pool for her?” asked Gentle. “I mean a pond would be a nice addition to the town I think and she could swim there as long as she wants.”
“I think that is a great idea,” said Gentle. “But I don’t know if we have the ponypower to do such a big project right now.”
“I bet that Gilded could hire some outside help. Mayor Note has a few projects she wanted to get set up, so some hired help would be good,” said Fond. “I heard her, Gilded, and Cracked talking about having found a good place to put in a mine nearby.”
<A pond would be nice,> I said quietly. <this feels wonderful.>
“Oh good you are awake,” said Gentle.
“What did she say?” asked Fond.
“She says a pond would be nice,” said Gentle. “Until then maybe this wash tub will do. It is definitely big enough for her to stay in.”
<Where are the others?> I asked.
“They are downstairs,” said Gentle. “A few of them wanted to met the rest of the town.”
I nodded just barely. I felt the weariness of my body creep up on me and I found it hard to fight off the sleep it brought. I had rather disjointed visions during my sleep. Mostly of a world I had never seen. One that seemed almost absurd to me with other strange monsters I didn’t recognize. Was this the world of the Pokemon or just some strange fever dream I was having. Still it didn’t wake me and I found my slipping through many dreams.