Applejack brushed the sweat from her brow and maneuvered the tweezers over the patch of splinters, which was insanely difficult considering she had hooves.
"Okay..." Applejack mumbled to herself, concentrating hard on the movement of the tweezers. She reached over and removed one of the offending irritations, earning an accidental kick to the stomach for her efforts.
"Sorry..." Winona apologized.
"It's.... it's okay... sugercube." The doubled over Applejack wheezed. Her dog certainly had a lot of kick in her. "Just try not to kick while Ahm down here like this."
After the fight in the apple fields earlier Applejack and her siblings had gone all the way back to their house with their injured dog-turned-pony on Big Macintosh's back. After a quick towel off the group was now crowded around the family couch in the living room, Winona sitting rather uncomfortably between them, not used to the attention or the fact that she had to sit up.
"So mah dog could talk all this time?" Applejack questioned. During the walk back to the house, Applebloom had been going over words and phrases with Winona and she had taken to it quite quickly, speaking in complete, fluent sentences.
"Ah've always been able tah talk." Winona answered, speaking with the same accent as her owners. "Y'all haven't been listening hard enough."
"Apparently." Big Mac deadpanned.
"This is awesome!" Applebloom jumped up and down in joy, but stopped suddenly and looked to her sister. "Do pets normally turn into ponies? Have ya'll been hiding this from me this whole time?"
"Calm down, Applebloom." Her big sister said. "And no, pets do not turn into ponies."
"Yeah!" Winona chimed in. "Ah've never seen a dog turn into a pony!" She froze and put on the same, puzzled expression Applebloom had. "At least Ah don't think."
"Okay... one final splinter..."
Winona flinched. "Ah!"
"Hurg!"
After one last, swift kick to the stomach, Applejack was face down on the ground, moaning pitifully into the carpet. Winona drew her legs away slowly from her fallen owner and up on to the couch, slightly embarrassed.
Big Macintosh whistled in an impressed tone. "Pretty strong."
Applejack wheezed as she pushed herself off the ground through nothing but pure willpower. "Has tah be, Ah trained her myself." She managed to get to her hooves and carelessly tossed her tweezers away, now that the surprisingly painful job was done.
Winona jumped off the couch and hugged Applejack. "Thank you! Thank you, thank you!"
"Yeah, yeah, just don't lick me anymore." She gently pushed Winona away. Applebloom began circling the pony, rapidly firing off questions. "How far can you smell? Can you see colors? Why do you always howl at the moon?"
"I don't know, but ponies can probably smell me from miles away." She answered each of Applebloom's questions just as quickly as they were asked. "I don't see colors, I see ponies, and the last one..." She stopped. "I have no idea."
Macintosh stepped beside his sister. "It's like another Applebloom."
"Only furrier."
"She's still our Winona though; a part of the family."
Applejack nodded silently.
"...What are we gonna do now?" He asked.
"Ah'll probably go into town and take her with me, try and figure out this mess."
A chiming filled the room and a familiar, aged voice cried out. "Lunch time! Come and get it!"
"...Right after lunch." Applejack continued. "Come on, Applebloom. Winona, Ah guess you're finally allowed to sit at the dinner table."
Their attention was suddenly drawn to Winona who was gasping loudly and pointing to the window. A small brown Squirrel sat on the windowsill, peering in at the large, strange creatures.
"Squirrel!" She shouted excitedly and charged at the window.
"Winona, wait!"
It was too late. Winona had jumped into the air and lunged at the squirrel. The rodent quickly ran away and out of sight. Unable to stop in midair, Winona slammed into the hard glass without enough momentum to break through, and slid down the side with a long *Squeak*, slumping onto the ground.
Nopony said a word.
"Uh..." Big Macintosh started.
"...And right after Winona wakes up."
***
The sun was high in the sky and shone down on the group at Fluttershy's house. Everypony at Fluttershy's house was busy tending to the injuries of the animal-ponies and trying to fix some of the gaping holes in Fluttershy's walls.
"Come on guys, let me go!"
"No way!"
"I'm sorry, but you'll just have to stay there."
"I'm tremendously sorry, really!"
"Ugh, what a dreadful thing to do. You should be ashamed."
"Ha, ha, looks like the pigeon's wings are clipped."
"Twilight come on! You know I didn't mean to do it!"
Twilight shook her head. "Sorry Owlowiscious, but I think it's for the best if you stay there."
Twilight stepped back from Owlowiscious, who was currently tied to one of the massive trees around Fluttershy's house, and went back to continue her work. The Pegasus strained uncomfortably against the ropes and looked sadly at his owner.
"Twilight please!" He pleaded. "You have to believe that I didn't mean to do it."
She nodded slowly. "That may be, but I think it would be for the best if you just stayed back for a while."
"But it was simply an accident!"
Angel glared at the Pegasus. "Yes, because trying to eat one of the mouse-ponies can be called an accident."
"It was!"
"Oh certainly." Opal sarcastically stated. "It was especially an accident when we caught you sucking on the ponies head."
"It's alright, Mr. Whiskers." Fluttershy camly comforted the trembling, very wet pony. She dried him slowly with a towel. "He can't hurt you anymore."
"I wasn't hurting him, it was a moment of weakness okay?!" Owlowiscious shouted at them. "I haven't eaten since this morning. And why are you worrying about me when you should be worrying about Opal?" He realized.
Everypony turned to her with suspecting eyes.
"Ugh!" She mock-vomited. She was lounging in the sun, watching everypony else. "Do you really think I would eat these... these filthy, disgusting vermin?!"
"Vermin...?" Fluttershy squeaked quietly.
"THAT'S IT!" Angel got up from his job of pulling the fish-ponies out of the water, accidently letting go of one and sending it into the water again with a big splash. He marched slowly towards Opal, rage in his eyes. "I'll turn you into a set of boots!"
"Angel no!" Fluttershy jumped on to the earth pony, attempting to slow, or weigh, him down, but doing little more than make him only slightly heavier, as if he had put on a coat. "I can't let you do this!"
Rarity shrugged, she was starting to become more and more exasperated by her pet's harsh words. "I'm afraid it's true, I don't think Opal has ever eaten anything that hasn't come out of a can before." She looked over to Opal. "Do you even know what a mouse looks like?"
For a moment Opal seemed to show genuine confusion but shook it off quickly and replaced it with her usual 'sarcasm-face'. "Of course I do. I see them every time you're up on the table shrieking."
"...Right..." Rarity spoke through gritted teeth. "Anyway, what are you doing exactly? You really should be helping."
"I am." She answered. "I'm providing support."
"..."
"Woo." Opal waved a hoof unenthusiastically in the air, her voice monotonous. "You're all doing great."
Rarity returned to her work, grumbling all the way about her lazy cat. Work continued silently after that and eventually everypony began to make progress. The animal-ponies listened intently to Angel and Fluttershy's every word and began to calm down, some even starting to utter a few words or attempt to help their caretaker. Owlowiscious stayed tied to the tree, occasionally asking the others if he could be released yet, only to receive a 'later' or 'not now'. And Twilight used her failsafe spell to repair any of the magical damage. Unfortunately, the failsafe spell failed to affect anything else and the others had to calm her down before she made a few holes in the walls with her head.
The group sat down under Owlowiscious's tree and admired their work.
"Can you guys let me down now?" A bored Owlowiscious pleaded again. "Please?"
"Alright fine." Twilight's horn began to glow and all of the knots on the ropes became undone. Owlowiscious sunk to the ground beside them. "Ow..."
Fluttershy finished talking to a small group of her animals and walked over to the others. "I can't thank you all enough."
"Then don't." Opal said but she was ignored.
Twilight nodded. "It's okay Fluttershy. It's what friends do."
"Then how about you help me?!" A voice shouted to them.
"...What?" Twilight stood up and looked around. "Who said that?"
"I did!" The familiar voice shouted again. I sounded like it was getting closer.
Rarity pointed. "Look!"
A strange, dark shape was visible in the distance, moving towards them at a slow pace up the dirt road. A hoof was in the air, waving energetically at them.
"Who or what is that?" Opal asked.
Fluttershy lifted herself into the air with a small flap of her yellow wings. She stared and squinted at the shape in the distance. She gasped in surprise.
"It's Rainbow Dash! And I think she's hurt!"
Twilight quickly jumped to her hooves and ran out to meet the shape with everypony else following behind. The closer Twilight got, the clearer she was able to see her friend's familiar rainbow palette as well as the fact that she wasn't alone. In fact, Rainbow Dash wasn't walking towards them at all. She was being carried by somepony else. She was draped over the back of a large Pegasus with dark green fur who stepped slowly towards everypony.
"Rainbow... Dash?" Twilight's hopeful greeting turned to confusion as she noticed the Pegasus's current state.
"Who is that?" Rarity whispered, pointing at the green Pegasus.
"Ugh, finally!" Dash groaned, throwing her arms up in exasperation. "It literally took forever to get here on hoof." She poked the side of the Pegasus. "Down, Tank."
"Tank?!" Twilight said.
Tank silently complied and slowly knelt down so Dash could maneuver herself off his back. She stumbled over to the group, specifically Twilight, obvious anger on her face.
"Um...what happened?" Twilight started.
"Everything." Dash cut her off quickly. "All of the storm clouds I carefully pushed around are now scattered around Equestria by a magical wave that hit Tank." She pointed to Tank who wasn't doing anything at the moment, only silently watching everypony else. "Not only is all of my hard work gone but I was dragged to the ground by my significantly larger tortoise, straining my wings in the process, I broke one of my legs on the landing and worst of all it took literally three hours for Tank to carry me all this way!"
Twilight wasn't sure how to react. "Rainbow, I didn't know, I'm so sorry!"
Dash growled. "You should be!"
With amazing vigor and despite a broken leg Rainbow Dash, screaming a fierce battle cry, leapt into the air and down onto the confused and startled unicorn. Everypony else arrived just in time to see the fight break out, Rainbow Dash waving her hooves frantically at her friend and Twilight trying to hold her back.
"Dash, please calm down!"
"I'll calm down when I break one of your legs!"
Fluttershy looked on, Opal joining her as the last to arrive on the scene.
"Oh my goodness!" Fluttershy gasped. She turned to Opal for help. "What should we do?"
"Right now?" Opal answered with a low laugh, holding her back with a hoof. "We can just sit back and enjoy the show."