//------------------------------// // Be Careful What You Wish For // Story: I Am Twilight Sparkle // by Mike the Red //------------------------------// Please allow me to introduce myself -- my name is Michael Walker and I work for a package delivery service, though I'm not at liberty to say which one. The days can be long and the work hard, but it is a job I enjoy doing. My favorite way of relaxing is playing games on my computer, a guilty pleasure which generally occupied a few hours of my day each evening after making it home from work. Sometimes the weeks could be especially long and this one was no exception as Friday night melded into very early Saturday morning, and my fatigue finally made me shut the computer down around 1:00 AM. I trudged upstairs to my bedroom, taking off my clothes and sliding them under the bed. My wife was already asleep and had been so for the past few hours, but the TV was still on. I casually took the remote and turned it off, pulling the covers aside to lay on my right side, my back to my wife. Twenty years in a dead-end marriage can break even the strongest man's affection for his wife, and mine had been broken years ago. As I lay, I made a silent wish: "I wish to experience what it would be like to be Twilight Sparkle." I fell asleep shortly thereafter, my dreams a hazy blur and unremarkable. I rarely ever have lucid dreams and most of my dreams are ones I can't or don't remember. It seemed as though I had only laid down when my wife woke me, demanding a glass of water. I was going to get up, but I turned over to look at the clock, which read 4:32 AM. "Brenda, why do you have to wake up so early?" I asked her in exasperation. For some strange reason, my voice had a much higher pitch to it than I remembered. My wife woke up with a start and hurried over to the light switch to see what was going on. When she turned on the light and saw what had happened to me, she kind of freaked out. "What -- what -- who are you?" she asked fearfully, backing slowly away from the bed. She looked for something to use as a weapon, either to attack me or defend herself. She picked up one of her shoes, wielding it like a club. "It's me, Mike -- what? What happened to my voice?" I asked rhetorically. With the light, I tried to lift the cover off me but had a hard time doing that. I lifted what was supposed to be my right arm out from under the cover and nearly freaked out at the sight of a foreleg with no hand at the end of it, just a hoof of a slightly darker purple than the lavender fur of my foreleg. "What the hay happened to my hands?!" I shrieked, the high-pitched voice making it sound more amusing than alarming. "What the fuck is going on here? You claim to be Mike, but you don't look a fucking thing like him! What the fuck are you?" she asked, her fear turning to anger. She approached me and yanked the cover off, exposing my entire body. Her eyes went very wide when she saw what I had become. I could have sworn I heard her say, "Homina, homina, homina..." I examined what I could of my body, but my tail is what caught my attention. "I think I may have been transformed into Twilight Sparkle, but -- I thought wishes never got granted, at least not as many as I have made in my entire lifetime," I mused. The Twilight voice was rather unnerving to me, especially when I heard it coming out of MY mouth! "Twilight Sparkle? What the FUCK is that?" Brenda asked angrily. "You wished to be THAT?!" "You never watched the cartoon on TV -- Twilight Sparkle is the main character. I think I can use magic ... I hope ..." "You have a horn on your head! What, are you a unicorn? Magic? Yeah, right," she said disdainfully. I concentrated, imagining the cover my wife had pulled off me moving back onto the bed. That didn't seem to work and I got a powerful headache from my effort. "I thought I was supposed to be able to use magic," I said dejectedly. "Well, how's it supposed to work?" "Did my horn glow? I was thinking my horn is supposed to glow while I'm using magic," I mused. "What's it supposed to look like?" "I don't know. Maybe if I see how it works in the cartoon, maybe I can make it work," I postulated. "When does it come on? What if it doesn't work? What then? How are you supposed to change back? Make another wish?" Brenda asked, once again becoming a bit fearful over the prospect of me losing my job. If I couldn't make magic work, I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to do much of anything, other than look like a pretty pony with a useless ornament on my forehead. "The show comes on at 9:00 AM. Let me get some more sleep; if you want some water, go get it yourself," I said and laid back down. For some strange reason, I kind of half-wished for the cover to lay itself over me again. My horn glowed and a magenta colored aura enveloped itself around the cover, pulling it over me. Brenda saw this and freaked out again. "What -- what -- you just made -- the cover -- pull itself onto you!" she squeaked in terror. "Never mind that," I said tiredly, closing my eyes again. The warmth of the cover felt nice on my fur as I quickly fell asleep again, even though the light was still on. Brenda crept over to my side of the bed and touched my horn with her fingers. The resulting shock woke me immediately. "Brenda, please don't do that -- my horn is very sensitive and it's the focus for my magic -- I can't risk losing it," I stated apprehensively. She ran her fingers up and down its length, feeling the ridges in it. She slid her hand up and down it several times, eliciting some moaning from me, sending shivers through my body. My moans became a bit more protracted and I saw my wife smiling, almost chuckling at my reaction. "Please ... Brenda ... huff ... please ... stop ..." "You look like you're enjoying that," she chuckled. "You're going to make me make a mess in the bed, and I don't have a way of cleaning the sheets," I said, still gasping for breath. She relented her pressure on my horn at that point, but unfortunately it was just a bit too late. "Oh, shit." Brenda pulled the cover off me again, exposing my shame as a big wet spot appeared on the bed behind my hindquarters. She gasped as she saw my marehood exposed as well. "Whoa, you're a real female, aren't you?" I blushed deeply at this and decided to get up at this point. I tried to stand on my hooves, though on the bed, that proved to be exceedingly difficult. The mattress was too spongy and soft and my hooves kept pushing too deeply into it for me to get my balance. I fell over a few times before I asked Brenda to put me on the floor. She wasn't strong enough to do so, so I concentrated again, picturing myself standing on the floor beside the bed. I disappeared for a second, reappearing next to the bed, but about six inches above the floor. I fell hard, which hurt quite a bit. My wife pulled the soiled sheet of the bed, wadding it up into a ball. "That looked like it hurt," she said flatly. "No, really?" I asked sarcastically as I tried to regain my hoofing. I actually levitated my body into an upright position using my magic, though I hadn't noticed it at the time. Brenda threw the balled-up sheet at me and missed, the sheet landing on the floor a little bit behind me. "Why is your body glowing like that?" she asked, her expression one of surprise. "I'm trying to stand up on all fours, and with the floor being hardwood and very slick, I keep falling flat on my belly. I can't seem to get any hoofing on it, so I guess I'm using magic to keep from falling down." At this point, I decided I was going to try to walk on all fours, which I immediately regretted. I took one step forward with my right fore-hoof, losing my balance yet again and falling on my belly. "Ouch! Damn! Why does this have to be so damned hard?" I asked in frustration. "What are you trying to do now?" Brenda asked in exasperation. "Can you be a spotter for me? I'm trying to walk here and it's proving to be more difficult than I thought." "So what do you want me to do?" "I need for you to hold me at my sides and try to keep me from falling when I take a few steps," I explained. "Okay, Mike, I'll see what I can do," she offered, walking over to where I stood. I put my weight on all fours in order to maintain my balance. "Now straddle me and hold me by my sides -- I hope I'm not too heavy for you if I fall again," I stated optimistically. I was facing the hallway, having opened the bedroom door with my telekinesis. "I thought you closed that door last night," my wife said. "I used my magic to open it. Okay, here goes nothing," I said, lifting my right foreleg and moving it forward a small step. I lifted my left hind leg and moved it forward a small step. Then my left foreleg, then my right hind leg. I slowly repeated the right front - left rear - left front - right rear movement, Brenda walking slowly beside me as I made my way down the hallway to the bathroom. My hooves made a clip-clop sound on the hardwood floor. "Okay, Brenda, I think I have this part down," I said, then looked down the stairs. "Um, I may need some help going downstairs." "Not right now, Mike," she stated flatly. I turned around and walked slightly faster, increasing the pace and taking slightly larger steps. I practiced going back and forth until I had the rhythm down and was able to trot, though it made quite a bit of noise, which woke up Xaviera and her two daughters. "What's all that noise?" Xaviera asked in an annoyed tone of voice. "I'm trying to sleep!" "I wonder what SHE'S going to think," I thought to myself. "Sorry, Xavi, I'll try to keep it down," I said in an attempt to calm her anxiety. She immediately opened her bedroom door to see who had called her by her nickname using an unfamiliar voice. Upon seeing me, she slammed her door shut. Although I couldn't see what was going on, Xaviera had pulled her cover over herself and her two daughters very tightly. "Mike, if you can use magic like that, can you fix the bathroom light?" asked Brenda. I looked up on the bathroom wall where the old light fixture had been. I had not been able to fix it as a human, but I wondered if my magic would be capable of fixing it. I opened the door to our spare bedroom, which was being used for storage at the time, finding the box with the new light fixture in it. I levitated the fixture out of the box and into the bathroom, affixing it to the base and connecting the wires, installing bulbs and the glass bulb covers. I used magic to turn on the switch and the lights came on. I then fixed the bathroom sink, stopping the leaks in it and the bathtub. I used more magic to change the color of the paint ever so slightly to a very pale lavender, which I thought was nicer than the light charcoal grey it had been. I then caused the wall and floor tiles to match the paint, as well as the floor mat, shower curtain and decorator towels, which I made a nice shade of purple, even going so far as to make an embroidered copy of my six-pointed star cutie mark on them. I decided to take a shower at this point, opening the shower curtain, hopping into the tub, turning on the water and soaping up my fur. I used my telekinetic aura to create multiple hands to work the lather into my fur, mane and tail. The warm water felt rather nice as it rinsed the soap. My hooves kept sliding on the tub floor, but I used magic to keep my balance, though working so much magic so quickly was somewhat tiring. I used my multiple magic hands to thoroughly rinse out the rest of the soap, though I had to be careful around my hindquarters as certain parts back there were very sensitive. I turned off the water and shook myself to shake out the water -- this was a mistake as once again I landed on my belly, this time in the tub. I used my multiple hands aura to lift myself out of the tub and lower myself onto the floor mat. I trotted to the hallway closet and grabbed a towel to dry myself off. "I heard a banging in there -- what happened?" Brenda asked. "I fell in the tub -- I think my ribs are bruised," I stated flatly. I trotted back into the bedroom and tried to climb back into the bed to get some more rest -- unable to do so, I once again resorted to using magic to lift myself into the bed and pull the cover back over me. Brenda had laid back down as well, so I turned off the light as well. I looked at the clock to see it read 6:03 AM and figured on getting another few hours of sleep. I had a very vivid dream about wandering around the inside of a tree with organic looking shelves carved into the inside of the trunk itself, with ambient light filtering in through ovular windows. I figured it was a library, considering the number of books, though the place had a very cozy feel to it. I thought I heard someone or somepony calling out for Twilight, though I also thought I might have seen a lavender unicorn turn around when I called her name, gasping in shock when she saw me in an exact duplicate of her body. I could feel myself giggle at her reaction, though she appeared to get angry at my reaction, glaring at me either in disapproval or embarrassment, though I couldn't tell which. I saw her mouth her own name, which struck me as utterly hilarious and I giggled again, which seemed to make her even angrier. I apologized to her for laughing and told her I was just visiting, whereupon she pleaded with me to stay. I appeared to melt away from the very organic looking library and melt into another place, which smelled of freshly baking bread -- or was it cinnamon rolls? Either way, it smelled wonderful. I looked around and saw a pink pony humming a happy tune to herself. When she caught sight of me, she made a happy sound and called my name, bouncing over to me and embracing me in a very warm hug. I could have sworn she even tried to kiss me, but I managed to push her away before her lips met mine, telling her I wasn't comfortable being quite that friendly, which made her giggle and call me a silly filly. She showed me the finished product she pulled out of one of the ovens and let me sample some -- the sweetness of the flavor was extremely intense and I thanked her for her generosity. She pleaded with me not to go, but I once again seemed to melt away. "Okay, Mike, time to get up," Brenda stated flatly. She had already woken up, taken a shower and gotten dressed. "What do you want me to do?" I asked her. "You fixed stuff in the bathroom -- I want you to fix some other stuff in the house." She led me around the house, pointing out things that needed fixing. Using my magic, I made short work of most of the items she wanted me to fix. As we progressed through the house, each thing that I fixed started her giggling, then chuckling, then outright laughing. As far as going downstairs, yes, she helped me with that, though it took a little trial and error to keep from falling down. "If I had known you being like that would have been this useful, I would have asked you to become 'Twilight Sparkle' a lot sooner!" she chuckled. Truthfully, I hadn't seen her this happy in a long time. "Is there anything else?" I asked. "I always wanted stainless steel appliances," she mused. I used my magic to change the refrigerator and stove into stainless steel models and for further effect, all the cabinet faces became stainless steel as well. I even went so far as to change the color of the paint in the kitchen to a medium silvery grey to match the rest of the decor. Brenda laughed aloud at the sight. "What about your car? How are you supposed to drive me around?" she asked. "You never got a license -- but I think I can do something to the car," I offered. I trotted outside to check out my car, though I couldn't see above the driver door. I stood next to it, placing my right fore-hoof against the left front fender. My magenta aura enveloped the entire car as I used magic to fix all of its mechanical issues, improve its fuel economy, improving the durability of many of the parts subject to normal wear and tear, changing the paint color very slightly, adding my cutie marks as a nice extra touch, changing the cloth interior to leather (also stitching my cutie mark into the seat backs of the front seats), and adding a few more details to the car. I imbued it with a lot of magic and when I was finished, I felt nearly drained. I decided to go back inside the house at this point, satisfied that I had done about as much as I could for now. Brenda was cooking breakfast at this point and Xaviera and her kids were in the kitchen, sitting at the table (which I had also changed into a stainless steel model, the chairs also stainless steel with very comfortable seat and back padding) and waiting for the first of the food. When they saw me, they too kind of freaked out, though the two year old was more curious than afraid. Her name is Samantha, and she thought I looked more like a dog than anything else. "Doggie!" she cried happily, giving me a big smile. "Sorry, Samantha, I'm not a dog," I said softly, giving her a grin. "Talking doggie!" she shouted and ran to hide behind her mother. "What are you?" Xaviera asked me. "I'm a unicorn -- I don't know if you've watched the cartoon -- My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic?" I sort of asked. "So ... you did all this?" she asked, looking all around the kitchen. Even the light fixtures in the ceiling had been changed to stainless steel. "I suppose I did go overboard a little," I chuckled nervously. "So ... you are ... Mike?" she asked, still huddling in the corner with her daughters behind her. She still eyed me warily. "I'm not going to bite, Xavi. Yeah, I'm Mike, though I'm in the body of Twilight Sparkle," I stated flatly. Her three year old, Tanisha, slowly came over to me and almost gingerly touched my tail, running her fingers through it. She then patted me on my back. She stood, facing me, and the two of us were at the same eye level. "You're a pony?" Tanisha asked me. "Yep," I said, smiling at her. She patted me on my head, running her fingers through my mane. "Careful now, don't touch my horn, okay?" "Okay," she said. "You're soft!" "I didn't know that," I replied. Samantha came over to me and climbed onto my back. "Go, doggie!" she shouted, holding tightly onto my neck. I trotted around slowly, allowing her to maintain her balance. She grabbed hold of my mane, pulling it sharply. "Ouch! Careful, please! That hurts!" Xaviera came over and pulled her two year old daughter off my back. "That's enough, Sammy," she said. She tousled my mane playfully. I giggled at this, which elicited giggles from Xaviera and her kids. Brenda grinned as well. "You want some pancakes, Mike?" my wife asked. "Yes, please," I replied. It had been awhile since I had last eaten pancakes as Brenda scarcely cooks breakfast. She was also cooking bacon, which smelled good, though I was rather apprehensive about eating meat in my new body. "How many do you want?" "I think two would be good, thanks." Brenda put two pancakes on a plate for me and set it on the floor. I found I was able to use a knife and fork with my hooves, which baffled me, though I wasn't going to question being able to use the frogs of my hooves in that fashion. I used my telekinesis to pour syrup on the pancakes, which once again freaked out Xaviera and her kids. "You -- you -- can move things -- with -- magic?" Xaviera stammered in shock. "Wow! Cool!" exclaimed Tanisha. Samantha saw my horn glow and came over to touch it. "Samantha, please don't touch my horn -- it's very sensitive," I stated softly. "Xavi, can you get her for me, please? I don't want anypony touching my horn." "Samantha! Get over here now!" her mother exclaimed sharply. The two year old whimpered as she slowly made her way back over to her mother, a fearful expression on her face. I tucked into the pancakes, noticing how much better they seemed to taste than I last remembered and how much sweeter the syrup was. I commented on this, declaring the food to be the best I've ever tasted. "Oh come on, it's not that good, is it?" Brenda asked, chuckling slightly. "It might be because I'm in a new body, though I don't recall pancakes tasting so good," I mused. "So when was the last time you ate pancakes?" asked Brenda. "Well ... it has been a long time ..." I said, letting my words trail off. I took a few more bites, savoring the food. Brenda placed a piece of bacon on the plate for me. "Um, I don't think that's a good idea, Brenda," I said apprehensively. "Why not? I know you like bacon, especially burnt bacon." "Yeah, but I'm in a pony's body now -- I don't think I'm supposed to eat meat, even if it is bacon." Gingerly, I broke off a very small piece and gave it the taste test. I spat it out back onto the plate. "I'm definitely NOT supposed to eat meat." "What did it taste like?" Brenda asked, almost laughing. "It tasted like ... grease at its worst, though the carbonized flavor came through strong. The greasiness is overpowering, though. Not a good taste, I can guar-on-tee you that," I stated flatly. "Have you tried eating grass yet?" asked Brenda, trying to stifle giggles. "I suppose I ought to give it a try, since ponies are herbivores," I replied thoughtfully. "I think cellulose is needed as a digestive aid." I trotted from the kitchen to the downstairs room, though taking the stairs down was going to be a problem. Brenda had helped me earlier on the stairs, but going solo was going to be more difficult. I resolved to practice going up and down until I mastered it, but until then, I decided to teleport down the five steps, then go through the back door and teleport up the five steps to the back yard itself. I noticed our central air unit, and decided to repair it as well as the roof of our storage shed, which had lost some shingles due to prolonged exposure to the elements. I was noticed by a neighbor's dog, which yapped at me. "Hush now, I don't want anypony noticing me," I said softly to the dog, which turned his head a little to the side and gave me a soft almost whimpering noise. I could have sworn I heard him say something to me. "What was that?" "What are you? I've never seen anything like you before," the dog said. "I'm a pony, but that's not important. Try not to attract attention to me, okay?" "Okay," the dog replied and laid back down to get some sleep. I trotted around the yard a little, finding a taller patch of grass and took a bite. The flavor was not impressive, but not a bad taste either. I chewed on it a bit and swallowed, then ate some more. There seemed to be a saltiness to it, but I chalked it up to pony taste buds being different from human ones. I felt the need to relieve myself, so I looked around to make sure nopony was watching me as I squatted behind the shed and emptied my bladder, lifting my tail to make sure I didn't accidentally wet it in the process. I dumped a couple of horseapples as well, the experience being an unusual one. I was tempted to stretch out my legs for a gallop, but saw someone walking down the street behind our back yard, so I went back into the house. "What were you doing back there?" Brenda asked. "Did you try tasting the grass?" "I fixed our central air unit and the roof of the storage shed, and yes, I tried eating some grass. Not tasty, but not bad, either. So what now?" "How long are you going to be like that? Can you turn back?" "I don't know, Brenda. I don't know if I'll be lucky enough to have a second wish granted -- I might be stuck like this for the rest of my life, however long that may be." "How are we supposed to pay the bills? How am I supposed to get to work? You can't drive the car like that!" she exclaimed, exasperation making its return to her voice. "I suppose I could teleport you to work, though a fifteen mile jaunt with a full sized human might tax my magic a bit," I mused. "You wanna give it a try?" "Um, I dunno about that, Mike -- what if it fails?" "Hmm. I don't know what would happen if an attempt to teleport fails. I'm scared to find out," I stated hesitantly. "As far as getting to work, I suppose Katrina might be able to take you." "That's true. But you still owe money on that car! How are you supposed to do your job like that? If you can't drive your car to work, you can't drive a company van at your job! How are you supposed to do anything in your new form?" "Let me try something, Brenda," I said, using my telekinesis to levitate a folding chair over to me. These chairs were part of a set for a folding table and one of them was in pretty bad shape. I don't know why we hadn't thrown it away, but I decided to try something different with my magic. Still keeping the chair aloft with my aura, I used a different kind of magic to turn it into solid gold. The chair got considerably smaller as its atomic structure changed, then it fell to the floor. Brenda gasped in astonishment at the change to it. She went over to it and picked it up. "Did -- you -- just -- change --" "Into solid gold, yes. We can sell it for scrap gold and get some money that way," I chuckled. She ran over to me and hugged me tightly, laughing aloud again. "So you can do that to the tree stump outside?" "Yeah, I guess so," I said. I was halfway wondering if showing her that was such a good idea. She ran outside, calling for me to follow her to the tree stump. Climbing the five steps to the back yard seemed to be easier than going down as I slowly trotted to the large tree stump. I enveloped it in my magenta aura, channeling magic through my horn and tried to alter the atomic structure of the stump into gold, though considering the size of the stump and the complexity of the organic material, this proved to be considerably more difficult than just a metal folding chair. Part of the stump was changing but part of it wasn't. I was baffled by this, but levitated the gold out of the remainder of the stump. "Why didn't the whole thing change?" Brenda asked quizzically. She seemed to be disappointed by my effort. "Don't let your greed color your opinion of my effort -- this took quite a lot of magic to do and I'm going to need to recover for awhile. I'm surprised it worked at all, given the tree stump is organic and much larger than one of those chairs," I explained. "Well, thanks for doing your best, Mike." She tried to lift the gold part of the stump, but it proved to be excessively heavy for her. "How much does this thing weigh?" she asked in exasperation. "Probably about a hundred pounds or so, I think," I stated flatly. I used my telekinesis on it, which further impressed my wife. I brought it into the house, setting it on the basement floor. "So how am I supposed to take some of it to sell?" "Pure gold is very soft -- you should be able to take a hammer and chisel to it, and break some of it off. I would suggest you take no more than a pound at a time to sell, so you don't arouse suspicion of its origin," I hypothesized. "We don't have a chisel, do we?" "We have a saw in the shed. You can cut some off that way," I grinned. I chuckled as I witnessed my wife run faster than I've ever seen her run before. She got the key to the lock on the shed, got a saw from out of the shed, then ran back to the large chunk of gold on the floor, frantically sawing away at it, cutting off relatively small pieces to be sold for scrap. I think I saw dollar signs flash in her eyes as she did this. I shook my head in disbelief at the sight. "Be careful of how much you try to sell -- you don't want the IRS to come knocking at the door, and you don't want to have people asking you questions as to where you got the gold," I cautioned her. I think she completely ignored my warning as she took her largest purse, putting several good-sized chunks into it, then called Katrina to take her to some of those scrap gold buying places in town. Since Katrina lives less than half a mile away from our house, she arrived in less than five minutes. "Thanks, Mike! I'll be back later on! Looks like I'm going to the boat!" she laughed as she headed out the door. "Save some of that money so we can pay off the house, Brenda!" I said loudly, exasperation tinging my words. Xaviera came downstairs to watch TV with her daughters and saw the large chunk of gold on the floor, gold dust scattered around on the floor around it, and the small saw which Brenda had used to hack away at the gold. "Is that what I think it is?" asked Xaviera as she examined it. She touched it, feeling the somewhat sharp edges. She tried to lift it, but even in its deformed state, it was still too heavy for her to lift. "Was my mama trying to cut some of it off?" "Yeah, she took several pieces of it with her. She's going to sell it and gamble away some of the money -- hopefully not all of it," I grumbled. "I'm going back upstairs to get some more sleep -- using so much magic has taken a lot out of me and I need to recover." I trotted up to the master bedroom and tried to jump up onto the bed, but came up short. I fell hard again and this time it hurt quite a bit more than last time. I rose to my hooves slowly, cursing my luck. Thankfully, nothing was broken, but it hurt like Tartarus. I decided to teleport onto the bed at this point and lay down again to get some more rest.