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Back on Earth...
God damn, this was one terrible week.
My name is Chris. I live in a very old town in the U.S., that I really don’t want to name right now, as it, probably, no longer exists by the time someone reads this. It’s been about five days since the transformations happened, and the government sent actual military soldiers and scientists to come and contain what they call a ‘pathogenic virus’. This virus tends to turn people into cartoon ponies. Magical cartoon ponies.
I don’t know who actually started this freaky outbreak of the virus, but apparently my friend, Nolan, who tends to be called now as Mystery Glass, seems to know about everything about it. Three days into the outbreak, he wanted me to go drop him off at the towns only alleyway to meet a pony who, apparently, was from a whole other world. A world that shouldn’t exist. This world was supposed to be all colors and script writing by a bunch of normal people working for a company called Hasbro. Who knew that the world exists. For all I know, maybe other worlds exist too that are on T.V.
I was one of the few that got a ‘slow down’ vaccine that slows the process of the virus. Really, it only slowed it down by about two days. Now here I am, on four legs and covered in red fur and, guess what, a dark red and pink striped mane. At least i’m still a guy. I’m worried about Nolan dealing with his own, without permission sex change. I’m surprised he brushed it off pretty well, but something still seems pretty off. He literally told me to call him by a girls name, without hesitation. Sigh.
The military isn’t getting any slack either. When they tried to contain it, they only caught it themselves. I gotta say, it was a mixture of hilariously funny and cute to see these small creatures in U.S. military clothes and guns strapped onto their necks. Slightly jarring, as well. Never the less, it started to spread all over. Canada and Mexico announced that they were closing their borders to the U.S., and all other countries forbade immigration to the U.S. until the situation was under control. Of course, thanks to unknown reasons, they still caught the virus. It’s like the Black Plague all over again, except everyone is turning into ponies instead of dying, as well as it spreading beyond borders. It’s wildfire.
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when the whole town was encased in a huge pink bubble.
Back in the present, day five, I was doing my best at walking back to my home after going out to the grocery store, which was surprisingly still open, and buying a whole new stock of food, either greens or fruits. It was on my back, and I didn’t really even feel the weight back there. I guess being a normal pony had its advantages too. Or at least as normal as you can get.
During the ‘walk’, The town shook for ten seconds, and then the bubble flew over head, encasing the town from front to back in that amount of time. Pony people were screaming, but I just stood there with my mouth agape at the scene. I first thought it was the military, pulling another grand master scheme to see if they still can’t contain it, but then I realised that, well, military can’t just magically pull over a giant pink bubble over the town in ten seconds flat. Especially without hands.
Then the ground shook once more, and my mind was blown.
I ran down the street, heading towards my house, which was at the end of town. The ground was still shaking, but I managed to keep my balance all the way there.
We were in the air.
The whole town was lifted off the ground, leaving an upside down dome of ground under us that was pulled from the earth itself, and lifted into the air. I stared at the ground that was slowly disappearing below us as we were lifted beyond the cloud layer, and finally stopping. I collapse onto the ground, my hooves folding under me. I just sat there, staring at the clouds below me.
This week just never gets better.
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Back in Equestria...
Ashley:
What a crazy dream...
I was waking up on top of a really soft couch, under a blanket. I must have fallen asleep while watching T.V....
I sit up, and am hit with a huge wave of pain in my back and underside. I reach behind myself to massage the pain away, to find that I had two large, feathered lumps in my back.
Oh... so it wasn’t a dream.
My wings were cramped from sleeping on them for who knows how long. I stared at my technicolor hooves, and sigh. This nightmare will never end.
Now where am I?
I looked around the room, which looked really fluffy. The floor looked like it was made out of clouds. Sports equipment, soccer balls, tennis rackets, and more were scattered around the floor. Whoever owned this place, was both a sports enthusiast but also was really lazy, or as most lazy people would say, ‘never had the time to clean up’.
I had to say though, blue was a favorite color. Everything had this weird look to it, and what I meant about this, it that everything had this tint of sky blue. I sat up properly, and looked along the walls. There was a poster that had three ponies flying at what looked like remarkable speeds in these blue and yellow skin tight suits with flight goggles on. It looked really inspirational, with storm clouds behind them, and at the bottom of the poster, it said in emblazoned letters, “Wonderbolts”.
I guess they are a... group of really famous athletes? It certainly looked like one of those posters back home, featuring football players and other sporting people.
There was a window at the far wall, and I jumped off the couch to walk over. The floor felt like I was walking on a soft blanket that was being held at four corners to support me, so it didn’t sink into my weight and let me fall through. It felt really good.
I stepped up to the window, and see nothing but clouds. I could see the ground from here, but I was so far up that it was faded from loose clouds. I was up in the air. And then I realised that I was in a house floating on top of several clouds. Rainbows were connected here and there from cloud to cloud. It was the most colorful thing I ever saw. I could have puked rainbows at that point.
Then I heard hoofsteps from behind me, and the illusion was broken, instead replaced with fear. I turn around, and am met with a cyan blue pony with seven different colors in her hair, mimicking a rainbow. She had this ridiculous grin on her face as she trotted up to me.
“You sleep like a log, sister. You feeling alright from last night?”
Last night. I start to remember the shadows that tried to pluck me from the ground and carry me to who knows where. I remember rainbows. She must have saved me from that cloud of black.
I hesitate to speak. “I-I’m fine. Uhm, who are you? Where am I?”
The rainbow pegasus widens her grin, and expresses something I know too well. Ego.
“You haven't heard of me? The fasted flyer in all of ponyville? Hay, in the whole world?”
I pick my words carefully. Or not. “No.”
She frowns at my serious answer, and says. “You must be living under a rock, or something. I’m Rainbow Dash!” she says this like it meant something, but I just stand there. She starts to flap her wings and, to my amazement, actually starts to lift off the ground. I thought that those tiny things were incapable of lifting up anypony’s body. She zooms past my head, hitting 0 to sixty in a second, making me sick from the effect. She lifts off into the sky through the window, leaving a streak of rainbow in her wake.
I was amazed by how well this pony could fly. The rainbows were what flipped my brain over. She was going so fast, that her rainbow tail left behind eye shadows in full color. It was the most colorful and beautiful thing I have ever seen. Ever since I got here, all I saw was colors, but this just is near impossible to describe.
After the color lightshow, Rainbow Dash flies back into the room through the same window, sending a blast of cut air my way, blowing back my hair. She lands perfectly on the cloud floor, and ruffles her wings before placing them back on their sides. Wow.
I stutter out words. “W-wow... how do you do that?”
She grins at me once again, and says, “Easy! I’m just awesome!”
I notice that my mouth was agape is astonishment, and I try to regain my composure. “Uh...could you...”
She looks at me with her sparkling purple/pink eyes. “Yeah? Spit it out then.”
“Teach me how to fly?”
She kind of looks at me funny, with a face of disbelief. “You mean you don’t know how to fly? Did you go to flight school?”
“Flight school?”
She facehoofs. “I don’t know where you came from, but I guess I can give you a couple of tricks to get you going.”
I smile in excitement, letting out an unsuppressed, unattended squee. She rolls her eyes, but still holds a smile. Throughout the next few hours, Rainbow Dash teaches me the basics of flight. Constantly flap your wings in a steady rhythm, burn the tempo into your mind, and don’t misjudge the power of your wings. According to her, wings are really powerful tools of flight. They can lift a pegasus into the air in one full flap of them both. I still don’t understand the basics of how such small wings can lift such large bodies, but I didn’t care.
Flying was the best thing ever.
For a long time, I didn’t know how hard it was to stand, walk around, and more. Gravity was non-existent when in the air, letting me go as far up and down, left to right, forward and backward, anywhere as far as I wanted. When I landed, gravity took effect again, and I collapsed onto the ground in a heap. I felt like an anchor was wrapped up all around me.
When I first actually took off, however, it was surprisingly easy to master. Even Rainbow Dash was surprised at my first attempt. She said that most ponies that didn’t learn to fly, and just started out, tend to have trouble even getting off the ground. It just felt natural to fly.
In any case, it was an interesting few hours, until a familiar looking unicorn decided to grow her own weird butterfly wings and yell at me.
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Nolan/Mystery Glass:
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
For one hour, one full blasted hour, no one seemed to even have a glimmer of an idea where Maro- Ashley was. Applebloom decided to go and check back at her farm, and left me alone in a bustling small town full of technicolor cartoon ponies with magical properties. Great.
I gave up for the first time in many years. I just felt depressed. She was my responsibility, and now she is probably in a ditch somewhere, scared out of her mind or worse, taken by the Cloud, which I have yet to even see yet. I headed back to Berry Punch’s fruit drink bar, and order a simple apple cider. I’ve mastered the weird way of holding things with your hooves, as it turns out, you can actually bend the hooves to cup them in it. It feels like holding something without thumbs.
I sat at a table nearest to the window next to the entrance, sipping at the sweet and slightly tangy apple cider. Holy crap, is there alcohol in here? It caused me to feel a bit buzzed. Good thing I can hold my cider we-
What?
Where did that come from?
As far as I know, I never had any apple related drink ever since I was a kid. I look back at the time when I first tasted apples, the freshness, the whole bright red apple, grown from cared apple trees at the farm, I can remember the yellowish magic that was blanketed over it.
Okay... now I know something is wrong. I don’t think I was ever eating an apple via magic. The farm? I don’t remember any farm... except what my brain is telling me. I think of the farm that I apparently bought the apple from. It had a sign, labeling it as... Sweet Apple Acres.
No... no that can’t be right.
“...miss?”
There is no such thing as a farm back home that was called Sweet Apple Acres. There was the one here that was called that... but I remember something. An old green pony, an orange filly, her older brother...
“...miss, are you alright?”
I remember my father, a slight off white/yellow tinted coat of fur, unicorn, buying my first apple from the older lime green mare... what was her name? Granny... Smith? I think that was it. She was a kind mare. Taking care of these children on her own, my father said.
“Miss!”
I yelp in surprise, breaking from my weird mixed memories. Were they memories? I can’t think about it right now, as there seems to be a purple unicorn waving her hooves in front of my face. I reacquire my posture in the altered chair, and look at her. She has a mostly deep dark blue mane, with a small stripe of purple next to a larger hot pink stripe. Everything else is purple.
She looks concerned, and says, “You seemed to be lost in thought there for a while! I just wanted to ask, you have a strange aura of magic around you. I have not seen anything like it before, what is it?”
I blink at her. “Uh... magic? I don’t see anything...”
She looks at me like i’m trying to hide something. “You don’t feel it? That’s strange... you seem to be a bright pony though. My name is Twilight Sparkle, by the way. May I say who you are?”
I awkwardly answer her. “Oh, well, i’m Mystery Glass.”
She nods with a smile on her muzzle. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Mystery Glass! Could you stop by my tree for a minute, I want to see what this magic is. It seems really powerful! Did you do it? What does it do?”
I just answer her blatantly. “I didn’t do it. I can’t even use magic.”
She giggles at me. “Don’t be silly! You’re a unicorn! All unicorns can use magic. Are you saying you don’t know how to use it?”
“I guess.”
“That won’t do! Tell you what, i’ll lend you a few books on basic spells, and how to control magic. I kept most of my textbooks ever since I was a filly in magic school. Follow me.”
She turns around, and then I notice something I never seen before as of yet. Not only did she have a horn, but also wings. She had both of those weird little limbs sticking out of her. I get up and follow her, astonished by her extra limbs on her back.
She begins to talk as we step outside and start heading through town. Ponies look our way in interest, looking at Twilight with a confused but star struck look on their face, then at me like i’m one lucky mare. Okay...
We reach a really tall tree near the plaza, that seems to have been repurposed for living inside of it. From the looks of it, it was hollowed out, built on, and furnished. Strange place to live, as it is very unique from the building style of all the other houses. Out front it has a sign that has nothing written on it, but instead an open book, blank.
“I lived here for a while, still do actually, before I was turned into an alicorn.”
“A-Alicorn?”
She looks back at me, with a skeptical look in her eye, then worried. “Sorry... but have you bonked your head? Everyone should know what an alicorn is.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what it is.”
Twilight sighs, and turns around to face me. “An alicorn is a rare and magical race of ponies that lived thousands of years. Alicorns are created to rule over pony kingdoms and huge cities, as they are the most powerful and influential ponies. Celestia chose me, her faithful student, to become the princess of magic, my element of harmony.”
Oh, that’s right. Celestia was the ruler over Equestria, and all the ponies that live in it. She has a sister as well, Luna, I believe. She was banished to the moon after she became Nightmare Moon, a second personality that is a basic villain, wants to be the supreme ruler, do it her way, etcetera. Huh. I didn’t know those ponies were an actual race, not just powerful ponies.
Twilight continues to walk towards the tree, and I follow. Her horn glows purple, and so does the doorknob on the door, which opens up gracefully. We enter the tree, and I see books literally coming out of the walls. The walls were carved into bookshelves, and there was no space where a book isn’t. Some books are piled up on each other as well.
Twilight speaks up. “Spike! Where are you?”
A slightly rough but young boy’s voice echos from upstairs. “Arggh... Twilight?”
I go wide eyed when I see a tiny dragon walk to the stairs heading down towards us. “W-whoa! A dragon?!”
Twilight grins at me, making me nervous. “Don’t worry, Spike is just a baby dragon. He can’t hurt a fly, even if he wanted to. Spike, could you collect Basic Charms and Magic for Beginners?”
Spike looks at me briefly, then back at Twilight, who says, “Yes Spike, it’s for her.”
The baby dragon called spike drops down the stairs, and I see him completely. He has purple scales, and green sharp eyes. He has fangs sticking out of his mouth, and his stomach is a leathery light green. He has these green half circles on his head, that follow down his spine and tail, as well as lime green whiskers sticking out from the back of his cheeks.
He grabs a rolling wall ladder with his clawed hands and drags it over to a bookshelf casually, climbs up the ladder, and picks out a book. He climbs down the ladder a few steps, and pulls out another book, stacking it on top of the other. He climbs back down, and hands Twilight the books. “Here you go, Twilight. Who’s she?”
“Spike, I’d like you to meet our guest, Mystery Glass. Mystery, this is Spike.”
I stare the baby dragon with slight fear in my eyes. He stares up at me. “Geeze, you look like Fluttershy when she sees a fully grown dragon.”
Twilight frowns at Spike. “Spike, don’t be rude.”
Spike frowns at Twilight, then at me. “Sorry.”
I finally say, “It’s alright, it’s uh... good to meet you, Spike.”
“Likewise!”
Outside, I hear a loud obnoxious sound and two ponies yelling and chasing after it.
“<:: aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa ::>”
“Get out of the way! Move!”
“Doctor, it’s heading for the forest!”
“Oh no you don’t!”
Everyone in the room looks at the door, and I head over to look out the window. I could vaguely see what looks like a rusted gold upside down trash can with a plunger and egg beater on its front moving towards the Everfree forest, pursued by none other than Time Turner and Ditzy.
They disappear before Twilight and Spike join me at the window, and I just blurt out. “Huh, that’s something you don’t see everyday.”
Spike shrugs and Twilight walks over to the two books on the floor. Her horn glows a sparkling purple, and so do the books which in turn start to hover above the ground. Surprised, I just yelp in slight terror from the unfamiliar talent. Twilight looks at me like i’m an alien, which I guess I would be. No time to explain that, though.
Twilight opens the books with her sparkling magic, and the “Magic for Beginners” floats over to me. Twilight says, “You should start with this. It’s elementary, so it should be easy to understand. Just follow the instructions, and-”
Before she could finish the sentence, I read the first few pages alarmingly fast, and understood the basics quickly. What it said, is that I had to focus on the space where I horn is, and not be the magic, but command the magic. It’s like a separate mind in my head that does what I tell it to do, and soon enough the book, and several other small objects near me started to glow a bright pale yellow, and float above the ground. I could faintly feel my own horn vibrate from the strain.
Twilight looks at me with fascination. “Interesting, it took me a week to master just floating one object, but you're doing it like it's second nature. Are you sure you don’t know how to use magic? It looks to me you’ve been doing it since you were a filly.”
I look at her with confusion. I do remember something. Magic, it was hard to learn, I wasn’t very good at it, but for some reason I was good at... revealing things.
Reveal.
My horn sparks a bright light, and suddenly several multicolored hoof shaped prints are seen everywhere. The most prominent were purple ones and smaller, three toed purple ones. I could see yellow, white, cyan blue, and several other colors in there as well. All of them hoof prints.
Twilight and Spike look at the floor with interest, Twilight looking quite impressed, while Spike looked terrified from the massive amount of colors. Twilight looks at me with a smile on her face. “Amazing! What kind of spell is this? All these shapes look like hoofprints, did you make it yourself?”
I did, when I was practicing levitation, I accidentally mixed the wrong kinds of elements together-
Wait, what am I remembering again? Magic? I never used magic in my life, up until now.
Yes you have.
I didn’t
Oh, yes you have.
Shut up!
Nah, I don’t think so.
I noticed I fell onto the floor, holding my head with me fore hooves. Twilight was standing over me, hovering behind her was a glass of water, and Spike was nowhere to be seen.
I look up at the strange sight known as an Alicorn and say, “What happened?”
She looks at me filled with concern, but then happiness. “You’re awake! I thought you went into a coma from the massive amount of magic you were emitting.”
“Excuse me?” I say, confused once again.
Twilight moves out of the way for me to sit properly, and she places the water next to me. I’m on a bean bag chair, with a table next to it. She turns to me, and says, “Well, you started muttering about practice, and you started to glow slightly. You looked like you were in a lot of pain, so I casted a Disperse Magic spell. You fell over, out cold.”
I sit back in the chair, surprisingly I could still sit like a human, but I had to be slouched back so my back had to be what I was sitting on. Did that really happen? I wonder what Ashley-
Ashley!
“Oh no, I forgot!”
Twilight was heading towards the kitchen when she turns with concern on her face. “What is it? What did you forget?”
I get up from the bean bag chair, and look out the window, looking at everything I could. “My assistant, Maroon, is missing. I woke up and she’s gone. Have you seen her?” I say, as I turn to face Twilight.
She frowns at me, and she lifts up her left fore hoof and taps it on her chin. “Well, Rainbow Dash said she rescued somepony from a cloud of black, and said she was taking her to her cloud. Could that be her?”
“What did she look like?” I said.
She continues to tap her chin, then raises it up for a second, then puts it back down when she says. “Maroon colored, wings, kinda smaller than you. Messy hair as well.”
My eyes go wide. “That’s her! Where is this Rainbow Dash’s house? I need to get to her, her and Rainbow Dash are in danger.”
Twilight looks a bit worried. “Danger? Is that cloud coming back?”
“Possibly, and more would too. Wait, did you say she lives on a cloud?”
Twilight nods. “Most pegasi live in Cloudsdale, or live in cloud houses. You’re sure are quite the alien to our land, aren't you?”
I cringe at the alien word, and panic slightly. Did she know? She can’t be, but could be suspicious from all my questions. Horsefeathers. I say, “Just tell me how to get there.”
Twilight bites her lip. That’s not good. “Well... first off it’s made of clouds. Only pegasi can walk on clouds. Second, it’s in the sky, so you’d need either a balloon or wings to get up there. Unless...”
“Unless what?” I say, impatient.
She looks at the assortments of books in her walls. “A long time ago, when we went to Cloudsdale with Rainbow Dash, I set up a few spells to help us walk on the clouds temporarily. I could help you with the cloud walking, but the transport I can’t. No balloons are available today.”
I stomp my hooves. “This is really important. There has to be some way.”
She picks out a book from the wall, and looks through it. “There was a spell I found that can give a pony huge butterfly wings, but I’m not too sure if it’s safe to use anymore. I only used it once, and that was when I was just the average unicorn. I don’t know what will happen with this new power, and if I can even cast it after all these months.”
I look at the book she’s reading, and then outside. This is too important, I have to bring her back to safety. “Just do it, i’ll worry about any side effects.”
Twilight shuts the book, and turns to me. “Are you sure? It could backfire, and you could be blown out of the tree to who knows where.”
“Again, just do it.”
“...Alright, if you say so.”
Twilight plants her hooves to the ground, and closes her eyes. Her horn glows a bright purple, and a stream of blue flows out of the tip. Then another. It flows slowly but flowingly towards me, then starts to spin around me in a double helix formation. It soon envelops me whole, into a big cocoon of blue. I feel my back tingle, and I hear a loud *bang* from outside the cocoon, then it all goes white.
…
…
I stand there on top of a black scorch mark, and Twilight opens her eyes, astonished. “It... it worked!”
I look behind me, and see large, colorful butterfly wings on my back. I could feel them, and I could flap them down to precise movements. I was in a trance from all the colors, I continued to flap them, and felt the ground below me fall away as I float into the air. I break the trance, and panic from the lack of ground under my feet, and I fall to the ground. Twilight was really happy about her work. “I can’t believe I did that with no practice! It’s perfect! I got to write that down somewhere!” and she hurries to get parchment with ink and a feather.
I just ask, “Where is her house?”
She looks at me with a twinkle in her eye. “What? Oh, Rainbow Dash’s house, it’s just outside of town, you won’t miss it. Nice to meet you!” and with that, she is lost in her research notes. I head for the door, and step outside with the large butterfly wings filtering the sun’s light everywhere, forming green and pink and blue and so many more colored light everywhere. I begin to flap them, and take off. It was surprisingly easy. Maybe that spell gave the ability to temporarily know how to fly? Ah well, time to get to what’s at hand. I flap them rhythmically, and head towards the huge cloud with a house and rainbows all over it.
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The floating island was encased in the pink bubble, and the human ponies were frightened. The bubble began to thicken, turning deep enough to no longer be translucent. When the town screamed, so did others on the other side, as the floating land was transported to a whole new world.
Just right above a little town called Ponyville.