Princess Celestia had dropped me and my foals off not far from the Golden Oaks Library. I knocked on the front door hurriedly, as I was anxious to meet Twilight once again and tell her everything that had transpired. My guess is that she would be shocked to discover that Trollestia had been posing as Discord all this time.
"Twilight Sparkle! Twilight!" I shouted gleefully. "May I come in?" I asked. She looked at me quizzically.
"Do I know you?" she asked.
"Princess Celestia brought me and my foals here from Earth," I said.
"Wait -- you came from Earth? The only time I remember anypony from there was -- are you telling me you're Michael?" she asked incredulously.
"Yes, Twilight!"
"Sure, come on in! So why are you a purple unicorn, and a female one at that? Hey, one of those foals ..."
"Twilight, may I present EJ and Stephanie Sparkle," I beamed.
"Mommy!" EJ shouted as he ran up to her and hugged her.
"EJ? I'm not your mommy, EJ, she is," Twilight said, pointing a hoof at me.
"You're not my mommy? Why not? When my daddy brought me to see you, you told me you were!" he said, tears starting to well up in his eyes.
"EJ, come here," I said. "You actually have two mommies!" I grinned. "Me and her!" I pointed a hoof back at Twilight. She looked flabbergasted. Addressing Twilight, I said, "I hate to tell him what happened to his daddy, though."
"Umm, Michael, what do his initials stand for?"
"Well, since Trollestia was posing as Discord even though I didn't know it at the time, "Discord" said the "E" was for "Equanimity" -- I added the "J" for Jeffrey -- and he also carries your family name of Sparkle, as I was in a copy of your body when I gave birth to him -- unfortunately, this means he thinks you're his mommy, even though I was the one who gave birth to him. I apologize for doing that, but I never thought I'd be given the opportunity to spend the rest of my life among everypony here. I look forward to making friends with everypony!" I said excitedly.
"You didn't -- you did? I thought you said Discord was the father," she said quizzically. Her expression showed how puzzled she was by their appearance.
"Yeah, I thought so too, until Princess Celestia revealed the truth -- Trollestia was posing as Discord the entire time. It turns out I was artificially inseminated using a basting brush with semen from a Royal Guard unicorn."
"It better not be my BBBFF! Did you ever find out who it was?" Twilight was shocked to hear of the impersonation.
"I suppose Celestia might know, because I sure don't."
"Why'd you give Stephanie the name of Sparkle?"
"I was in an exact copy of your body when I gave birth to her, so technically, she has your genetic coding -- she will grow up to be a powerful magic user. I am going to need some help in keeping after her, as I never got much experience in certain matters of foal-rearing. Worse still was the fact that Trollestia took my foals out of my hooves shortly after I gave birth to them."
"WHAT? She did? WHY?"
"I have no idea -- I guess she was so desperate for foals, she was willing to put all of humanity at risk just so she could have a couple of foals to raise as her own. At least she won't be bothering anypony for a long time, since she's now in Celestia's dungeon. Even so, I will still need help in raising my foals."
"You said your wife had children -- didn't you help raise them?"
"Yeah, but she took care of certain matters regarding their hygiene and cleanliness she did not want me involved in, as all of her children were through previous relationships, and she had none by me."
"Ah, so you're new to this sort of thing. Don't worry, we'll help out as much as we can. By the way, I see you have a new body -- I trust you have figured a name for your new appearance? Or do you still want to be called Michael?"
"Michael is my human name, and I gave up my humanity a long time ago. I have picked out a new name for myself, one which is pretty simple and should be easy to remember. My new name is Purple Dix-sept."
A smile came across Twilight's face when she heard me say my new unicorn name. "Ah, French for the cutie mark number you have. Very clever! But how did you manage to get a number for your cutie mark?"
"I have had a fascination bordering on obsession with numbers ever since I was a small child -- and the number I carry as my cutie mark is my absolute favorite number, one which I consider to be the luckiest of all lucky numbers. If you would rather not call me by the full name I have chosen, I suppose you could call me PD7 as a nick-name," I offered, still smiling.
"PD7. PD7. That bounces right off the tongue, PD7! I like it!" she chuckled.
"Now why do I have a bad feeling about that nickname?" I wondered to myself. "Everypony's gonna call me that from here on out -- I guess I'm gonna have to get used to being called that."
"Something troubling you, PD7?" Twilight asked, giving me another quizzical glance.
"Just thinking about telling you my new nickname," I said softly.
"What do you mean?"
"I fear I might regret allowing everypony to call me PD7," I said.
"Well, you could choose a different name, as I'm the only pony you've told about your new name," she suggested. "How does 'Amethyst Shadow' sound to you?"
"That sounds cool, I like that!" I smiled. "Sounds a lot better than what I chose."
"Very well then! Amethyst Shadow it is! I shall tell everypony in Ponyville about it, and I will also have Spike send a letter to Princess Celestia announcing your arrival and welcoming!" she beamed.
"Mommy, you changed your name?" EJ asked me.
"EJ, Twilight seems to have better judgment than me when it comes to picking out good names. So I will now be called 'Amethyst Shadow' from here on out -- but you can still call me 'mommy'."
"I have two mommies!" he beamed. "So where's my daddy?"
"Your daddy has gone away on vacation for a very long time, EJ -- maybe some day, you might get to meet him. Don't worry, we'll help out as much as we can to make you happy," I said, smiling at him.
"Okay, mommy. Do I have new friends to play with?"
"Hey, Twilight, where are the Cutie Mark Crusaders? He's about their age, I think..."
"You've been gone for awhile, Ammy, he's too young to play with them. However, there are plenty of other foals his age -- the Cake Twins are about his age, so if we take him over to Sugarcube Corner, he'll have a couple of new friends to play with."
"You called me Ammy? How cute -- I didn't know you could come up with a nickname that quickly for me!" I chuckled.
"Don't be too surprised if I lapse into calling you PD7, Ammy!" she laughed. "By the way, how much magic do you have to work with?"
"It would appear that I have the full range of magic you have, Twilight -- but when I was in Trixie's body, it seemed as though something was blocking almost all of what I could do, short of telekinesis and illusion magic. Worse still, it seemed to me as though I was tone-deaf in her body. I wonder if that might have been Trollestia's work, or if Trixie really is tone-deaf."
"I saw you wearing that amulet when you were in Trixie's body -- didn't that thing have a corrupting influence on you?"
"Well, it made me feel very powerful, but somehow I seemed to be able to control it, rather than letting it control me."
"Trixie was not so lucky herself, but we tricked her into taking it off," Twilight mused. "Why do you mention tone-deafness?"
"I like to sing, and I have certain songs that I absolutely love singing along to!" I smiled.
"Really? Care to give me a demonstration?"
"I need my karaoke machine," I said. "I left it behind on Earth." My ears drooped.
"Karaoke machine? What's that?"
"It's a machine that allows me to sing the lead vocals to pre-recorded music -- with the lyrics appearing on the screen. It would be easier for me to show you what it looks like than for me to explain everything about it to you. I don't know if I can teleport it from Earth to here, but I will give that a try." I concentrated, thinking about where my machine was, and imagined wrapping it in my aura. My horn glowed a brilliant blue color as almost immediately the machine appeared about three feet to my right.
"Wow! I didn't know you could do THAT!" Twilight exclaimed. "Please let me examine this device!"
"If you have a power source, I can turn it on and start singing my favorite song," I offered.
"Okay, let me find an outlet for it. I want to hear this!" she smiled and found an outlet for me to plug in the machine. I turned it on and allowed it to start the first song. I picked up the microphone and pushed the switch to turn it on.
"Test, test -- okay, it's working properly," I said. The first song in the queue was "Wake Up John" which I sang perfectly. My new body had a deeper voice, more of a contralto than a mezzo-soprano. I was pleased by my vocal range and resonance. Twilight was quite impressed by the performance, even though the song was just two minutes long. She was furiously taking notes while I performed the song, and Spike and EJ watched in fascination.
"What other songs are on that machine?" Twilight asked. She looked as though she wanted to give it a try.
"I have my entire music library saved to the hard drive," I grinned. "More than 15,000 songs!"
Twilight's jaw dropped. Then a very big smile plastered itself on her face. "I WANNA DO THAT!!" she shouted gleefully.
"Ooh, a karaoke party, great idea!" I beamed. Pinkie Pie had been in the vicinity -- I wasn't exactly sure why, but for some reason or other, at the mention of a party, she just showed up out of the blue.
"Hey, did somepony mention a party? Hey, wait! You're NEW here! Wow! Oh, look how pretty you are! Hey, you have foals! Wow! Never seen -- aww, look at the little one! She is SOOOO CUTE!!"
"The little one in question is named Stephanie Sparkle," I offered.
"Twilight! You never told me you had foals!" Pinkie exclaimed.
"No, wait! I'm not the real mother! The deep purple unicorn here is the real mother! She gave Stephanie my family name because -- Amethyst Shadow -- was in MY body when she gave birth to her!"
"Oh, you're ... Amethyst Shadow? Wow! Cool name! So these foals are ones YOU gave birth to? What were you doing in Twilight's body?"
"Pinkie, quite a lot has happened over the past four years or so, and I would love to tell you everything, but I would need for everypony here to listen to my story so I only have to tell it once. Other than that, yeah, I AM the mare who gave birth to EJ and Stephanie. And Twilight's the one who came up with my name, you can thank her for giving me that new cool name."