//------------------------------// // The Wheel // Story: Through Alien Lives // by Woorali //------------------------------// “CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS…bzt…Vrs! Klik!” the spell hit the odd, off-white unicorn foal. She absorbed it all! Worse, I could sense the spell altering itself within her. “Uh, Sweetie Belle? You okay?” the earth pony said. The pegasus also looked alarmed by the change. “I am optimizing thought streams as part of before-mentioned cutie mark acquisition. Do not mind me, Applebloom, Scootaloo.” Sweetie Belle replied. Instead of expanding my own mind, I managed to expand hers. This would be interesting. “What?” the two young ones asked in unison. “Oh. Sorry! What I meant was, I am concentrating on creating a system by which we may locate our talents. In the mean time, I invented a game. We are going to need some string, a ball, three helmets, a stick, and one blackboard…” I listened, trying to keep track. The mind-expansion spell itself would need to be tweaked a little. She was all over the place. From what I could tell, the spell could only change one pony to assist in mind expansion, and one had to be very careful to keep control of it. From the confused looks on Applebloom’s and Scootaloo’s faces, I judged the mind expansion itself to be far greater than I anticipated. The pony minds must be smaller and more efficient than their brains’ true potential! “You’re not a dictionary, Sweetie Belle. You’re a calculator!” Applebloom screeched, jumping away from her unicorn friend. “What? I just pointed out that Rarity’s designs could be improved by twenty percent, like Rainbow Dash says. Back me up, Scootaloo!” Sweetie actually looked hurt, and I decided to terminate the experiment. Conflicts between friends and mind expansion spells could be tracked back to me. Not to mention, she looked a little like a young changeling grub that lost its mineral supplement. I hated that look. “You just invented a new level of egghead, Sweetie Belle. I didn’t even know you could use math like that. But, yeah, Rainbow Dash did say Rarity should work more on coolness levels…” Sootaloo smiled at her friend. Perhaps, this would turn out alright, even if I did not intervene. “Well, One-Stone of the diamond dogs predicted that math could be used to invent anything!” the unicorn said, fluffing her mane. “Wait…you mean the same One-Stone that visited my sister’s farm?” Applebloom put a hoof against Sweetie Belle’s head. “I thought you didn’t pay attention when Granny Smith told us that story!” “I didn’t. I remember opening a book about him when we tried to be librarians. He was the first Chair of Thauma-Physical Mathematics, ever!” she smiled, and I mentally cursed. Ponies did not have memories like this. Hopefully, her friends would ignore this. “You’re sayin’ you just remembered a book you opened once?” this Applebloom and her questions! “Yes! It’s amazing! Wait, girls. I am detecting a slight charge of magic around my horn. Maybe...bzzt.” I turned off the spell as quickly as I could. Then, I ran. If the foal discovered me, after I experimented on her, the ponies would kill me! After all, they would not trust the word of a changeling that my work would not harm her. Still, as I passed by a gaudily decorated fashion shop, I wondered if my next experiment would be safer. Tomorrow, I would test the spell on the owner of this place. Surely, whoever they were, nopony would notice the difference. They almost never wore clothing, after all… “Heya, Woog! You left in a hurry! Don’t worry. I don’t care that you like Queen Chryssie! I could tell you didn’t want us to hurt her. Oh, and I wanted to follow you around some more and be your friend and set up a party!” The stream of words from the pink creature made me jump. How did she find me? Perhaps, it would be safer to accept that she is just Pinkie Pie, I realized, as I watched her jumping around me even as I trotted at a brisk pace. “Yes, well. Changelings are a lot like ponies, and Chrysalis is only trying to help her subjects. I just don’t like hurting anypony.” I said, trying to process the barrage one sentence at a time. “Or, you could be a changeling!” she giggled. “Don’t worry, silly. Even if you were a changeling, which you’re not, I’d still throw you a Welcome to Ponyville Woorali Mirrortelling Hooves Party! I couldn’t find out where you stayed, so I decided to just have the party be in the main square! That way, everypony could come!” Pinkie Pie cheered, and performed a loop in midair I thought only a pegasus or a changeling could manage. “What if I don’t want a party?” I asked, smiling. My disguise stood up against many ponies, so far, but I was not a betting changeling. “Listen here, mister! I don’t mind keeping quiet because you don’t like singing, but if I don’t party sometime tonight, boom, there’ll be a hundred Pinkie Pies everywhere!” she grabbed my neck and indicated the whole of Ponyville with a sweep of her leg. “Just imagine! Pinkies, Pinkies everywhere…” “Yes, that would be…bad.” I agreed, nodding and trying not to imagine that much chaos in one place. Pinkie Pie smiled, let go, and walked alongside me like nothing happened. Pony culture’s tolerance for strangeness exceeded even Queen Chrysalis’. How could that be possible, I wondered. They live together by choice, they have nothing to hold them together should their neighbors hate them… And yet, this strange pony is one of the Elements of Harmony, and friends with Fluttershy, the one creature I could scare half to death? “So, where are you going?” “I don’t know, Pinkie Pie. I like to walk around when I am thinking. What about you? Don’t you work?” I replied, hoping she would leave me alone. In my reduced state, I could not think very efficiently, and I needed to, if I was going to perfect the Hive spell. “The Cakes let me have the day off. Something about Equestrian labor law.” She pronounced ‘Equestrian labor law’ with the same tone Twilight used when discussing the wedding. So, maybe Pinkie Pie hated Celestia… “Oh! I guess you wanna be left alone, right? Sorry! I keep forgetting that friendship lesson! Just come over to the square around sundown. We’ll have so much fun!” watching Pinkie Pie run off to do whatever it is Pinkie Pie does with her free time, I wondered how such a creature kept her sanity around ponies. Maybe, that is why I enjoyed her company enough not to break my disguise and tear her to shreds. We were similar. Looking up at the sky, I considered transforming into a pegasus and stretching my wings for the few hours that it would take Celestia’s ball to travel all the way to the western edge of Equestria. That would be even better than trotting around on the ground for my thinking. Still, as calming and friendly as this place was, I lived in the midst of my Queen Chrysalis’ greatest enemies. They joked about changelings, but underneath it all, I knew them. A fish struggles from a sea serpent’s mouth. A rabbit runs from the paws of the manticore. I could not risk creating another disguise, especially not just so I could be comfortable.