//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: EG Mermaids: Just add Magic // by Ctmaley //------------------------------// The girls had gone to the beach for the start of summer. It was a nice day, the sun was shining and it wasn't too hot. They picked a spot on the beach, to set their things down.  Rarity had made them all new bikinis, Rare's bikini was white & dark purple, Twi's was purple & magenta, Sunset's was red, Pinkie's was teal, Flutter's was light green, Rainbow's was blue & red and AJ's was yellow. Sunset & Pinkie were holding a large yellow & blue inflatable raft for them to lay on in the ocean, Fluttershy was opening a package she brought. "What do you have there, Flutter's?" asked Rainbow. "This." answered Fluttershy, she pulled out a mermaid tail from the package. The mermaid tail had yellow scales with pink fins. "Pretty." said Pinkie. "I read about these mermaid tails that can help you swim better, so I wanted to try it." said Fluttershy. “Cool.” said Rainbow. “How much did that thing cost?” asked Applejack. ”Oh not much.” answered Fluttershy. “Shy?” said Sunset. “500.” said Fluttershy. “WHAT!” said Twilight. “I don’t spend a lot and have a bunch saved up.” said Fluttershy. Fluttershy got her tail with help from Sunset & Pinkie, Applejack carried Shy two the water. Sunset, Pinkie & Fluttershy sat on the inflatable raft, when they were far enough out. Fluttershy put on a mask & dived into the water.  While she was swimming, dolphins swam to her and bumped her, the dolphins chirped and she petted each of their heads. One of the dolphins pushed her back into shy’s chest & stomach, shy grabbed the dolphin's fin and it pulled shy through the water. Fluttershy looked down and saw something sparkling in on the ocean floor. Fluttershy’s geode glew and her yellow aura went through the dolphin and it took shy to the surface.  “There’s something on the ocean floor, can you take me to it?”Fluttershy asked, the dolphins chirped in response. Fluttershy took a breath and was taken to the floor, what Fluttershy saw was a silver shard. Fluttershy grabbed it and was taken to Sunset & Pinkie. Sunset & Pinkie were reading Powergirls comics on the raft. “I see you made friends.” said Sunset, when she came back. “Look at what I found.” said Fluttershy, showing them the shard. “Oh sparkly.” said Pinkie, taking it. “What do you think it is?” asked Fluttershy. “I don’t know, I kinda looks like a pearl.” said Sunset. The shard started glowing white. “Um it’s glowing.” said Pinkie. The rainbooms geodes all started glowing a little in reaction to the pearl shard, but none of them noticed, the shard let out a small flash of light and the geodes got brighter. When the flash of light from the pearl went away, the geodes stopped glowing. “Shy, what happened to your hair?” Sunset asked, noticing Fluttershy hair gained teal & purple stripes. “Same with yours.” said Fluttershy. Pinkie’s hair gained a light blue stripe and Sunset’s a orange stripe. “It’s like when we pony up our hair gains more color.” said Pinkie. “We gotta get back to the others.” said Sunset. Fluttershy sat on the raft & went to remove her tail, but she couldn’t. “We have a problem.” said Fluttershy. “What?” asked Sunset. “I can’t remove my tail.” said Fluttershy. Pinkie dipped her legs in the water and they morphed into a pink tail with light blue fins, Sunset did the same & her legs morphed into a red tail with orange fins. “This shard turned us into mermaids!” Pinkie yelled. “Do you think the others changed?” asked Fluttershy. “I assume, since the three of us changed.” said Sunset. “So we got four mermaids stuck on the beach.” said Pinkie. “How do we get back on land?” said Fluttershy. One of the Dolphins brought Fluttershy’s fake tail up to them. “So much for the tail I bought.” said Fluttershy. “Now you got a real one.” said Pinkie. The girls paddled back to shore when they touched the beach, their tails turned back into legs. “Pheww, so we regain our legs when we’re out of the water.” Sunset said.  The three regrouped with the others, Applejack’s hair gained a red stripe, Rarity’s hair gained a yellow stripe, Twilight’s hair gained a teal stripe & Rainbow’s remained unchanged. “Girls!” said Pinkie. “Have fun in the ocean?” asked Twilight. “It was interesting.” said Fluttershy. “What happened to your tail?” asked Rainbow. “Fluttershy found this pearl shard & it turned us into mermaids.” said Sunset. “Seriously?” asked Applejack. “Yes all three of us gained real tails in the ocean, but they changed back to legs on land.” answered Sunset. “And have you noticed our hair has changed?” asked Pinkie. “What do we do?” asked Twilight. “Tell Princess Twilight.” answered Sunset, who reached for her book. Hey Twilight.” Sunset said. “Sunset! How is the summer vacation going?” asked Princess Twilight. “Interesting.” answered Sunset. “What happened?” asked Princess Twilight. “We've been turned into mermaids.” answered Sunset. “Are you serious?” asked Princess Twilight. “Yes.” answered Sunset. “How did this happen?” asked Princess Twilight. “Fluttershy found this pearl shard in the ocean and we’ve been turned into mermaids.” answered Sunset. “That’s a piece of Queen Novo’s pearl of transformation which turns those affected into sea ponies & in your case mermaids.” said Princess Twilight. “How did this get here?” asked Sunset. “Maybe an underwater portal? You said portals to Equestria can open in random places.” answered Princess Twilight. “Our tails can morph back into legs on land.” said Sunset. “That sounds like what happens to the sea ponies, when they leave the ocean the turn into hippogriffs.” said Princess Twilight. “How do we change back?” asked Sunset. “Since you can also harness the element of magic & are a powerful unicorn when over here. You probably can connect with the shard and turn all of you back into regular humans.” said Princess Twilight. “What she’s saying?” asked Rarity. “She says that I can probably turn us all back into regular people.” answered Sunset. “But we just got our tails, Fluttershy’s the only one who’s swam with a tail and Rare, Twi, AJ & Dahsie haven’t gotten to see their tails yet. “I’m good without it.” said Applejack. Pinkie wrapped her arm around Applejack, “At least experience it once.” said Pinkie. “I want to.” said Rainbow. “Sounds fun.” said Twilight. “It was weird at first swimming with one, but you get used to it.” said Fluttershy. “Alright.” said Applejack. “This is crazy.” said Rarity. “We're not ordinary girls.” said Pinkie. Sunset wrote back. “We're going to take our tails for a spin.” said Sunset. “Myself & the others over here experienced it and it was fun, go ahead.” said Princess Twilight. “What do we do with the pearl shard?” asked Sunset. “Hide it, in your bag and then keep it safe somewhere.”' answered Princess Twilight. The rainbooms walked into the ocean and they gained their tails, Rarity’s tail was white with purple fins, Applejack’s tail was orange with yellow fins, Twilight’s tail was purple with magenta fins & Rainbow’s tail was blue with red & green fins. The rainbooms quickly realized they could also breath underwater, the dolphins from before returned with more of them and they all twirled around the rainbooms. The girls followed suit, they twisted & twirled as well. Rainbow wanted to see how far down they could go, so they traveled 80 meters down before surfacing. “This is AWESOME!” cheered Pinkie. “It’s really fun.” said Twilight. “I could stay here for hours.” said Fluttershy. “AJ, what do you think?” asked Rainbow. “I like it.” said Applejack. “I knew you would.” said Pinkie. “Are we keeping the tails?” asked Rarity. “I want to keep mine.” said Fluttershy. “Same.” said Pinkie “We have to be careful not to let people know.” said Sunset. “Why? People already have seen us use magic and know that it exists.” said Rainbow. “People probably would hound us if they knew we had the power to turn people into merpeople.” said Sunset. “Speaking of which.” said Twilight, pointing towards a group of people approaching on jet skis. “Dive.” said Rainbow. The girls dove underwater to avoid detection, they swam under the pier. “Okay, almost hit by a bunch of jet skis.” said Rarity. “We need to get back to our stuff.” said Rainbow. They waited 10 minutes and when the coast was clear, they got back on land and thankfully all of their things along with the pearl shard was still in their spot. They put their stuff in Rarity’s RV and had lunch at one of the restaurants on the pier. They were sitting in a table with a curved booth, during lunch they chatted about multiple things. Fluttershy’s mind drifted back to the sea, being a mermaid and her legs then turned into her tail. Sunset felt Shy’s tail brush her leg, she looked down and noticed. “Shy your tail’s out.” said Sunset. “What?” said Fluttershy, coming out of her thoughts. “Hide it.” said Rainbow. “With what?” asked Twilight. “I thought our tails came out in the water.” said Rarity. “I was just thinking about the sea & being a mermaid and my body made my tail appear.” said Fluttershy. “Well think about having legs.” said Sunset. Fluttershy did and her tail turned into her legs. “There.” Fluttershy said. “It was hard enough to keep this a secret, now with a thought are tails can appear.” said Applejack. After lunch they returned to the ocean for more exploring, the sea creatures were happy to see their mermaid friends again. The dolphins challenged Rainbow, Pinkie & AJ to a race to which the mermaids accepted. The other 4 were exploring sea caves & the ocean floor, Twilight & Sunset found a few fish fossils, Fluttershy & Rarity were watching a school of colorful fish. Fluttershy & Rarity found some green sea flowers and after the race Applejack joined Shy & Rare. Brightly colored fish swam around AJ & Rare, the fashionista grabbed AJ and pulled her into a kiss. One of the dolphins wanting to be petted swam in between them, breaking up their kiss.  Rarity smiled and petted the dolphin’s head, Twilight & Sunset found a family of baby turtles. One of the baby turtles had its head stuck in coral, the momma turtle saw the mermaids and motioned for help. Twilight wrapped her magic around the baby turtle and slowly pulled her out, the turtles smiled at the two mermaids and left. Pinkie was looking into small coral caves and a couple of electric eels popped out, not happy being distrubed. Pinkie held her hands in front of face expecting to get stunned, then blue sparks came out of her hands making the eels stop. Pinkie looked confused and her hands made the sparks appear again. The eels went back into their home, Pinkie gathered the group together and showed them what she could do, surprising the others. The rest tried to make electricity appear like Pinkie, but couldn’t. Rarity waved her hands and froze a small bit of ice around them. Sunset was able to heat up the water and Fluttershy made water bubbles turn into different shapes. They all resurfaced. “We got mermaid powers!” said Pinkie. “Not all of us.” said Rainbow. “Rarity has cryokinesis, Fluttershy has hydrokinesis, Pinkie has electrokinesis & Sunset has Pyrokinesis.” said Twilight. “Why only them?” asked Rainbow. “I don’t know, maybe we all have something.” answered Twilight. “Well I like to know.” Rainbow said and she threw her hands up and the wind lifted Rainbow up and she fell back into the water. The slash of water made Applejack jump and balls of yellow light came out of her hands. “Whoa, what was that?” asked Dash. “There you go dash, you have aerokinesis & AJ can generate & manipulate light.” said Sunset. “AWESOME!” said Rainbow and she did a backflip jump.