It is said that in times of danger, heroes will come together to face the rising tide of evil, and fight back to preserve the light. These heroes can come from the strangest of places.
This is the story of one such hero. Although she appears to be Sunny Starscout, you may be surprised to learn her true origins...
Good morning! Nice of you to stop off at my smoothie cart. It's not the biggest piece of kit, I know, but it's more than ideal for my needs and those of my customers.
What flavour? Oh, of course. I'll get that blending whilst we chat. It may take a while, but It'll be worth it, I know it.
I don't recognise you from around here. Truth be told I wasn't always a local around here either, and I don't mean it in the sense the locals used to see me as a troublemaking nuisance.
My name? I'm Sunny Starscout, nice to meet you. But I'm going to let you in on a secret, one that not many ponies know. I'm not originally from here. Crazy, right?
I wasn't even born an earth pony. That was something that came along later in my life, as crazy at it sounds.
In order to understand my story, we'll need to go backwards in time to a cold day in another land- not beyond Equestria, if that's what you're wondering.
Life often has a habit of throwing curveballs at us, if you know what I mean. Mine was no exception. I was originally one of these things sometimes referenced in pony books called a human. Not often you see one. In fact, I haven't seen one in an incredibly long time.
I was also originally their equivalent of a stallion. The exact word escapes my mind right now, as it's been an incredibly long time since I last used any of the vocabulary related to that world. One of the wildest part of life in that world was seeing this place as a fictional world. Crazy, right? As far as we were concerned, Equestria was a made up place for this TV show called My Little Pony. Seems weird saying it seeing as I'm here right now, but I'd probably best get on with the story.
I was a guy called Tom, who lived in a northern town in a place called England. It was neither too big nor too small, and that was the sort of place I liked. The type of place that doesn't swamp you in its massiveness, but at the same time isn't so small you get bored easily when you go about.
I was, on the outside, a fairly normal guy who liked the sorts of things that guys liked in that region. But at the same time, I was also a brony.
They're a subculture in the human world, consisting of people, usually adult males, who are fans of My Little Pony. Originally the term was coined to refer to fans of Friendship is Magic, but has since been applied to refer to people who like the other generations too, such as Generation 5.
Although nopony- sorry, nobody- in my group enjoyed G5 to varying degrees, I was certainly the most passionate about it. It would have been effective heresy to admit it to the people in that group, but I actually preferred G5 to G4 at points, which I guess is part of the advantage of being part of its fandom from the beginning rather than jumping onboard partway through and constantly playing catchup with the content.
And we open at one of those meetings of our group. We often used it as a place to exchange crafts, fanmade things, and generally talk about the show alongside some side debates, such as which colours for MLP characters would work best on 40K models. I was an avid painter back then. Kinda hard to do now with hooves instead of hands.
I was a conversation with another fan, and offered to purchase some memorabilia he had on sale. The items in question were a few replicas of items that belonged to Generation 5's protagonist, Sunny Starscout, namely replicas of the badges she had pinned to the strap of her bag. That was always a fun thing to get, seeing the fans work to recreate show items with their own resources. I've got them pinned to the strap now, if you'd like to see.
Sorry, I'm rambling, aren't I? Locals say I have a bad habit of talking at length about things that don't neccesarily interest other ponies. Comes with the disability, I'm afraid.
We exchanged the items, and I then popped over to the kareoke section, where one of the pegasisters was absolutely slaying it with a Pipp cosplay. This fondness for the show, and the items I had purchased, got me thinking.
What if Equestria was real?
I know many bronies speculate about what living in Equestria would actually be like and wouldn't mind exploring the place. But for me it was a bit different. I genuinely wanted to see their world, experience what living there was like, and see the incredible sites and vistas that were there to be seen. Imagine what wonders could be found off the camera when the characters were travelling about!
It sounded ridiculous, I know. I was speculating about the offscreen components of a land invented for a cartoon about talking horses intended to sell horse toys to little girls. The writing was great, don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day MLP has always partly existed to promote the toyline, much like Transformers used to be a series of 30 minute toy adds.
I got back to my home later that day and locked the door. The weather had changed, and it had started to rain. I sat down to check my phone for emails. I believe you have those in Equestria? I took a look, and the first one surprised me. At the top of the list was a message from a person marked PROTECTOR.
I suspected spam, but it was worth checking out anyway. I clicked on it and looked.
You like Sunny, right? said the message.
I was surprised. I replied, yes.
A reply appeared a few seconds later. How would you like to take her place?
I thought for a moment. This was probably just some brony tracking thing for a story. I replied yes.
The next response surprised me. Then Arise, brave hero! Take her place!
Before I had a real chance to react, there was a bolt of energy, and the buttons I had bought lit up. Before long, something began to happen.
My face felt funny. I noticed the world seemed to be getting larger around me. Audio was briefly lost for some reason, and I reached up to try and figure out why. There were no ears. But that problem resolved itself when a new set attached themselves to the top of my head, making everything incredibly loud as they rotated about like RADAR dishes.
A quick check of the front of my face revealed huge eyes, and that my mouth and nose had been replaced by a muzzle. I'd already shrunk through my clothes, which were piling up in a heap all over the place.
Next to go were my arms, which snapped to the opposite direction and seemed to be designed for four legged motion. Moments later my hands morphed into hooves, my fingers shrinking back into them and the remains hardening into a hoof.
This process repeated itself for the rear legs, as they were now, before my chest began to expand in size. My rear began to tingle as something was removed and replaced with something else, and I also gained a tail. It was purple, and seemed to stick up. My skin was itching at the same time.
I also seemed to have purple hair, and a braid, which took some getting used to. Whatever it was that was happening seemed to be over, so I shook the clothes off and galloped to the bathroom. My reduced height made everything seem massive, but I found a solution in standing on top of my toilet and looking in the mirror that way. Good thing I'd thought to close the lid that morning.
I looked in the mirror. The light blue eyes. The orange fur. Purple mane and tail, complete with braid.
Even the cutie mark was there. As bizarre as it might seem, it appears I got my wish of sorts. I was Sunny Starscout!
"Well, that was a strange day," I said, noting the voice of Vanessa Hudgens coming out of my vocal chords. My nonchalant reaction to changing species might seem odd, but I had read many stories online of this sort of thing happening, including a G5 hater who was changed into Sunny, so I knew what to expect.
What surprised me was the process was painless. I hadn't really felt anything odd at all. I'd half imagined changing into a pony would be agonisingly painful.
Before I could do any more pondering, a white light began to fill her vision. I guessed this was the 'take her place' bit. I closed my eyes to shield them, and waited to be transported to Equestria.
My whole life was about to change.