Something about her little chat with Sunset stuck in Wallflower’s mind far beyond that afternoon. It wasn’t until a few days passed that she realized fully the implications when Sunset said she didn’t forget Wallflower anymore.
Maybe Sunset was just being nice, or maybe she had forgotten she forgot. Wallflower initially brushed it off as such, content to let things take the same course they had for years. Just one little oddity in her very unusual life.
Yet, it was not the only one. And as the oddities began to pile, it dawned on Wallflower that their little exchange over fanfic art wasn’t an oddity at all. It was part of a pattern.
She didn’t really know when it began. Wallflower puzzled the pieces on her way to class, clutching her backpack with brow furrowed in thought. Little moments of the past month began coming back to her. In a frustrated mood Adagio had made to slam their door, but caught it when she noticed Wallflower in the way. It wasn’t too strange – the girls had gotten used to her presence. Same as when Applejack yelled from the hallway if Wallflower (by name!) wanted anything from the deli.
…Same as when the professor called on her in class. Wallflower shrank beneath her desk, and after several long seconds he called on someone else. Doubtless, he forgot all about her. That was how it worked.
…And when the bus driver saw her running to catch up and waited. And when the girl who sat next to her all semester turned, wrinkled her nose, and told Wallflower to start wearing deodorant.
Wallflower could be noticed, when some turn of chance or action drew attention to her. None of these events were impossible.
She looked up, jerked abruptly from her musings by the close passing of other students. She’d walked most of the way on the wrong side of the path, against the flow of traffic. Yet no one had collided with her. Passerbies stepped around her, many sending curious or contemptuous glances as they walked. At her greasy hair, her stained clothes, her dirty nails…
Rare shame welled up within Wallflower. Like right after the memory stone incident, when Sunset brought her to face what she had become. Alone in a crowd, awkward and rat-haired.
It was bright outside. The building she approached had an open door, and the inside seemed dark and crowded. A hundred voices blurred together – were they talking about her? Wallflower hung her head, took in her body. Old T-shirt with holes in the armpits, stained jeans, stupid plastic yellow flip-flops.
She looked away, but that gave no comfort. A few were staring at her. The rest had to be stealing glances. Maybe just because she stopped outside and was gazing in with terror – no. They stared because she was pathetic, scrawny, smelly…
Wallflower turned from the path and began to sprint, blindly racing with animal instinct to the one person who could save her.
“Twilight, dearie? You have a friend here, I think you better go see her.”
Something about her mother’s choice of words paused Twilight’s protests about being interrupted. She opened her mouth and closed her book. “Okay, Mom.”
She climbed down from the family library, descending two stories of plush stairs, skidding a little in her high socks as she came to the hardwood floor of the second parlor. Her mother had discreetly moved to the kitchen, leaving Twilight face-to-face and alone with her friend.
Wallflower was a mess. She sat on a foyer chair, hunched and breathing heavily as though she had run the eight blocks from Canterlot College to here. Her eyes were red, her breaths sobbing, and a trembling grip of the fingers marked her as being in the middle of a panic attack.
Twilight would know. She had many herself, back at Crystal Prep.
“Wallflower! Hey, c’mon.” Twilight wasted no time with greetings, instead kneeling to put herself at eye level. “What’s up?”
Thoughts of death and vampires clouded her mind in the torturous few seconds before Wallflower answered. Twilight held her breath, and the smaller girl finally managed to scream, “I’m visible!”
Twilight sighed with guilty relief. She gave a weak smile, defaulting to logic. “Well, yeah. You never were invisible, you’re just perceived as being part of the background so–”
“No, no!” Wallflower shrieked, slapping her hand out like a child having a tantrum. “They can see me. They’re looking at me, and they’re laughing! The memory stone is wearing off, and I need you to fix it. Even your mother could see me, and she remembered my name!”
“Okay, slow down.” Twilight offered her embroidered silk handkerchief for the tears, then winced as Wallflower instead blew her nose. “Nobody’s fixing anything, okay? Not without some tests. I still have the results from when I measured your magic, let’s see what it looks like now.”
The promise of action seemed to mollify Wallflower. She allowed Twilight to fetch her water and drink it, resting a few minutes before rising to change locations. They exited the side door, heading for the concrete laboratory that was Twilight’s pride and joy.
They passed a pink, purple-haired girl sunning herself by Twilight’s pool.
“Ignore her,” Twilight said grumpily. “That’s Starlight Glimmer, my second cousin. Freeloading with us as part of her parole from now until doomsday.”
“Only until I find a job that can handle me!” the girl yelled back.
“Exactly!” Twilight replied, quickly shepherding Wallflower onwards. A keycard, thumbprint, and saliva test gained access, and the lamps came on as Twilight walked in. White flared across her glasses, and despite the gravity of the situation Twilight could not help but grin.
“Alright, Wallflower. Let’s science.”
For Twilight, the next two hours were very interesting. Countless tests created an ever more clear picture of data, painted in graphs and figures. Everything from vital signs to brainwave stimulation, with metal bowl on the head and limbs strapped down so any incidental spasms don’t harm the subject. All in the name of science.
And friendship, of course.
Wallflower submitted willingly. Twilight had tested all her Equestria-touched friends at one point or another, and all had displayed substantial reservations about her methods. Such stress made the tests unreliable… Twilight had wanted to sedate them for the procedures, but Mom said no. Wallflower’s cool acceptance of everything, motivated doubtless by her own need to know, would serve as a useful variable even if nothing else came of this.
Wallflower knew the tests took time. Perhaps she was too lost with her own worries to notice the hesitation that slipped onto Twilight’s face early in the process. The numbers were clear, but the picture not yet complete. Changing Wallflower’s perception could alter the results.
There… was also the little fact that Twilight was not good at breaking bad news.
When the tests were done, Twilight turned back to her logic. After all, it was not so bad.
She theatrically cleared her throat as Wallflower sat up on the testing table. “Honestly, it’s about what I expected. Overuse of the memory stone flooded your body with its magic. Now, three to four years down the road, with no means of replacement it’s finally starting to die down. Measuring such things is a bit more theory than fact, but every way I know how to look at you says you’ve got maybe half the magic you had last time.”
Twilight pushed up her glasses, unable to resist the smile of a fresh theory. “Now that I think about it, you’ve probably been losing magic for a while. I remember you saying you lived in Applejack’s dorm all freshman year and she never noticed you. One year later, we’re all besties. Now you’ve found you’re not stuck in the background, and probably by next year you’ll–”
Wallflower nodded, but Twilight’s smile fell as the words spilled out. “Fix it.”
“You are being fixed. Your body is returning to its natural level of cognitive attraction.”
“No, fix me the other way.” Wallflower leaned in, looking urgently to Twilight. “Give me my superpowers back.”
A low note of panic ticked in Twilight’s heart, and her voice cracked on the first word. “Those aren’t superpowers, they’re the side effects of an alien substance our bodies aren’t designed to handle.”
“Like Spider-Man, or Rockhoof’s shovel.” Wallflower grinned with too many teeth. “Come on, you’re a mad scientist. Hook me up. I know you have something that can suck in magic, you used it during the Crystal Prep games.”
Twilight folded her arms, scratching at the elbows of her lab coat. “I may be a mad scientist, but I’m also an ethical one. I have no idea how to measure magic quantities to be both safe and effective, and no idea what side effects it might cause. Last time it turned me into a monster until the magic drained out, and that might have been the best possible result.”
“But my body is used to it,” Wallflower said, leaning forwards. “I’ve been harboring Equestrian magic for a long time. Won’t it just refuel what’s there?”
Twilight shook her head. “Probably, but that could be even worse. Like I said, I have no reliable means of measuring a dose and no idea what enhancing your powers will do to you. You could completely disappear from human perception and memory.”
Wallflower cheerfully kicked out her legs. “Well! Many questions, and we won’t know the answers unless we science. I’ll be your ginneau pig for the first magical transfer in history!”
“The second,” Twilight said tersely. “And I don’t even use ginneau pigs as ginneau pigs, let alone people.”
She swallowed, forcing herself to meet Wallflower’s gaze. “Let alone my friends.”
Wallflower gave a breathless chuckle, glossy-eyed with unshed tears. “Twilight, it’s because we’re friends that I need you to do this. I need to be forgettable again.”
“Why?”
“Because look at me!” Wallflower shrieked, then frantically went on. “I saved lives with those powers. With them, I’m a hero. Without them, I’m nothing! A dumb, doofy girl. Too lazy to buy new clothes or do laundry every week. C-plus grades, an undecided major, one shower a week because derpa-der, nobody sees me so who cares! This is all I have, all that I’m good at, all that makes me worthwhile! I–”
Twilight’s hand snaked out and slapped her hard across the cheek.
They paused, staring to each other for one second before Twilight twitched her fingers. “Ow.”
“That hurt,” Twilight said, stumbling onwards. “B-but not as much as hearing you say those things. We’re your friends, Wallflower. We know you’re worthwhile.”
“We’re only friends because of the hunting,” Wallflower mewled. “And I’m usless without my powers.”
Twilight took Wallflower’s hands in her own. “Friendship isn’t about being useful. It’s about being friends! The greatest science of all is friendship. You learn, experiment, grow, and change.”
She paused, letting out a bashful giggle. “Look, I don’t talk much about my Crystal Prep years, but I was invisible myself for most of them. No one cared about me, no one looked twice at me. Unless Principal Cinch needed to trot out her prodigy student for some contest or ceremony, but that was worst of all. I hated being noticed – empty praise from greedy adults and bullying from the students. Life was better when I was invisible, staying in my lab or the science room so no one would think about me.”
A swallow. “You know what came next, more or less. I’m still really, really shy around strangers, but I found friends. I found reasons to stand up and face the world, to become part of it rather than a recluse looking out. And yes, I had to change. Change is scary, but it’s how we grow.”
Wallflower started sniffling, and without hesitation Twilight handed over her other handkerchief. “But I’ll be no good. You guys need me.”
“We’ll get by,” Twilight promised. “And we won’t abandon you.”
“I want to be useful.”
“Then find something you can do to help. None of us have superpowers – you don’t need them.”
“But I suck,” Wallflower mumbled. “I’m gross, I dress like a hobo…”
“Change, adapt,” Twilight coached. “Shower more and borrow Adagio’s shampoo. I’ll take you clothes shopping… actually, let’s bring everyone. I only know sweater vests and lab gear. At the end of this, you’ll be someone who wants to be seen.”
Wallflower gave a breathy little chuckle. She dabbed at her eyes with steady fingers. “I don’t think I’ll ever get that far.”
“Fine: you’ll be someone who isn’t embarrassed to be seen. Who doesn’t need anonymity to feel comfortable. And we’ll help you with whatever you need.”
“You sure there’s no… safe infusion?” Wallflower asked very softly, one last time. “Something with, you know, acceptable risk?”
Twilight replied, just as quietly. “Not without the chance that we’ll forget all about you. That’s not acceptable at all.”
Wallflower all but fell from the table, burying her face in Twilight’s chest. She sobbed, but no tears came. Green hands clutched the back of Twilight’s coat.
“I’m still pretty scared,” Wallflower whispered.
“Change is scary.” Twilight wrapped her arms around the smaller girl, steadying and embracing her. “But I promise you, it’ll get less scary as you go on.”
“…With all of us coming along on your way.”