Kyle took some convincing to meet up. I couldn’t convince him of the severity of my problems over the phone, he needed to see it for himself. I couldn’t invite him to my house either, as that’s the kind of thing a pupil would be well within their rights to call the police about. This meant my only option would be a public meeting place, and once I’m sure he’ll keep quiet, I’ll be able to continue my questioning back home.
I don’t know why, but something told me Kyle could be trusted to help. He seems to be into this pony stuff, so hopefully he’ll be on board with talking me through what he knows.
I spotted Kyle from my storefront table at Starbucks… he walked straight past me… “Kyle, I’m here” I can’t blame him. I was wearing shades, a beanie, and thick heavy trousers in shorts and t-shirt weather. My voice cracked to an effeminate squeak, a fact I was wilfully ignoring, I wasn’t keen to take that line of thought to its logical conclusion… one thing at a time.
Kyle circled round and tentatively took a seat opposite me. He was suspiciously regarding my attire and the hair poking out from underneath my hat. “Ok, Mr Lee what the fuck happened? I only saw you yesterday man! This looks like it’d fit right into a hangover movie.”
I didn’t waste any time with pleasantries, Kyle will have little patience for me dragging him out here if I don’t cut to the chase “The ponies you drew on the poster… where are they from?”
Kyle stalled his sentence “I… well, why you want to know? I thought you were in on the fandom? Also, you dragged me out of my first day of freedom for that?”
It was a lot to ask of him to just open up with nothing to go on… fair enough, I lowered my shades to show my impossibly enlarged green eyes “I’ve undergone some changes… and I want an expert opinion on how fucked I am.”
Kyle’s jaw hung open “Mother of god…”
I replaced my shades. “Take your time, I can’t show everything that’s happened to me, but let’s just say I’ve pieced enough together that I’m going the way of one of your doodles, so I need your help on bringing me up to speed, hopefully help me figure out a way to stop it…”
Kyle regarded me suspiciously. “So how do I know this isn’t a prank? You’re asking me to trust you an awful lot, this could be just trying to bait me into going full sperglord…”
I sighed. Stay patient with him, he has a point, I was just anxious for answers that I’d hope he would trust me straight away… rather naive in hindsight “Well Kyle, first thing, I have no idea what a sperglord is. Second, teachers who prank their kids tend to become unemployed teachers quite soon after the prank. I’m not going to do anything cruel, I promise.”
Kyle stood up from the table. “Ok then, I needs me a computer… hell Mr Lee, why didn’t you just get me to come to your house?”
That got a chuckle out of me… sadly effeminate. I flinched at the sound of my own voice. “Let’s see… teacher invites kid round to his house… alone, no reason given, kid tells parents, parents tell police, police pay teacher a visit, teacher gets taken to police station, teacher is some half-horse abomination, teacher is handed over to laboratory to be aggressively probed… for science… I like my way better”
Kyle motioned me to stand. “Point made, but now my lips are sealed… I’ll help you out, so let’s go to your base… you live forever alone, right?”
I stood and set off to the bus station. “Well not forever, but I’m by myself for the moment. Berry’s out shopping for the next few hours.”
Kyle made an unintelligible sound that could best be described as a squeal of joy “Squeeeeee! There are more of you? And it’s Berry? As in Berry Punch?”
I flinched at the noise “Kyle! Low profile please! I’ll explain when we get home… I think parts of the changes are making me get my wires crossed with names every now and then… oh, and I sometimes sing and dance spontaneously…”
The squee sound that followed from Kyle eclipsed the one that had come before… I consequently elected to not say anything else for the remainder of the journey home.
*****
The journey home was a test of my resolve to not throttle Kyle. He wouldn’t stop asking questions, but since he didn’t seem to be able to keep a lid on his excitement, I elected to keep tight lipped until we were home.
As we passed inside, the barrage started again “sowhatdidyou…” silenced by a wagging finger and a stern glare.
I closed the door “ohmygodthisisawesome…” glare again.
I stared daggers at Kyle as I slowly retrieved my spare key and turned it in the lock slowly to test his resolve… learn to wait your turn kid… it’s an important discussion skill when there’s a class of thirty or so pupils.
*Click*
“ohmigodthisisawesome!yousinganddancetoo?arethereanyothersbesidesyouandberry?”
“Kyle! Slow down” I sighed as Kyle was silenced “let me give you the events in order… please? You can ask questions after, and hopefully answer some of mine too…” as desperate as I was for answers, it made sense to give my expert all the facts, so he was able to pick out the most relevant information. Ugh, this hat was so itchy.
I tugged off my hat and shook out my… mane? Hair? Mane sounds right actually, as it was getting really long now. I should have given Kyle a warning about this first… hindsight is a wonderful thing…
I stumbled under Kyle’s over enthusiastic hug “Kyle! Teacher! Pupil! Personal space! Professionalism!” He reluctantly released me…
Kyle was staring at me awestruck “Well, /mlp/ got it wrong… irl anthro is definitely not 3DPD, you look so cute! Can I... touch your ears?”
I huffed in exasperation… “Wha? No! And speak English! Just sit down… now… I’m… look, I’m going to say something in a second to warn you of what I’m going to do next… Please don’t make any loud noises in response ok? I’m… I’m going to free up my… my tail”
To his credit, Kyle didn’t make any noise, but that was still the loudest facial expression I’ve ever seen… I went about tugging my tail out of my pants… damn, that was better. It’s really uncomfortable stuffing it down a trouser leg. A couple quick swishes fanned it out, as some of the hair had clumped together after sitting on it during the bus ride. “Much better. Now… Kyle! Eyes up here! So Kyle, I’m going to retell the events of the last two days, and then you’ll be able to ask questions, and hopefully answer some of my own questions. Deal?”
Kyle nodded. I was unsure of how much of that sentence he understood. His eyes were darting all over me. “Ok Mr Lee, Shoot”
*****
Kyle was patient and attentive during my story. Adding in corrections and small nuggets of information when appropriate. It turns out the ponies are from a kids cartoon that has something of a cult following among teenagers and adults… and those tattoos are called cutie marks, and no. Kyle was not going to see them. “So you just started singing and dancing? Right here in the living room? What did you sing?”
I nodded “pretty much. I think there were a few minutes of the both of us standing silent in shock, and then it just happened. And no, I don’t know what it was we sung…” I checked my watch… Sharon should be back soon. “So after the singing, I decided to come find you… is there anything more you can tell me?”
Kyle stood and dramatically announced “To the Internet!” one foot on my coffee table, a hand on his hip, the other hand pointing across the room at my laptop.
I had a feeling I’ll be face palming a lot over the next few hours “A simple ‘can I use your computer?’ would have done just fine, Kyle.” I stood and followed Kyle over to my laptop, punching in the password then standing to let Kyle at it. “So what are you going to show me?”
Kyle’s grin was a little menacing “Why an episode, of course... I’m thinking… Hearts and Hooves Day…” ok, I know that tone, and Kyle is officially screwing with me now.
*****
That was vying for the most uncomfortable twenty minutes of my life. “Kyle?”
“Yes, Mr Lee?” Kyle swivelled in his seat, stroking a mint green cuddly toy unicorn in his lap… where the hell did he get that from? Why would he carry that around in his backpack?
“You’re an asshole…” This wasn’t up to debate. I was making a flat, statement of fact.
“Aww, but I thought you’d like to see your canon shipping! Wouldn’t it be nice to see if we could reunite Mac with his waifu?” Kyle was drinking in my discomfort. What did I ever do to him?
“Never mind… I have two questions… One, I noticed a lot of those ponies had wings or horns… I take it I’ve got the short straw with no magic, and no flight? And two, rather than learning about which character pairs off with which… could you instead put on an episode involving Discord?” Loss of thumbs might have been tolerable with the addition of a little telekinesis, or a pair of awesome wings… what do I get? Sweet fuck all.
Kyle nods in agreement. “Yeah, you kinda dun goofed there… earth pone is shit tier unless you’ve got panka-powers… as for Discord, are you sure you wanna watch those? He kinda wrecked the S5 finale, not very well received by the fandom…”
I grunted at this “Kyle, I’m not wanting to be entertained here, I want to be informed! Now… is there anything else you could show me that might be related to transforming into a pony, or the other way around?” I folded my arms and stared Kyle down to emphasise the fact that I’d played his little ‘make teacher awkward’ game, and now I wanted info.
Kyle’s visage cracked to one of sheer horror at my sentence “if it’s transformations… then there’s… I swore I’d never watch it…”
I didn’t have time for this “Kyle! Spill it! I need the info!”
Kyle nodded solemnly, accepting this fate. “there’s… Equestria Girls.”
*****
“Well, that was awful” Sharon had arrived ten minutes into our little screening, and seemed to be coping with her predicament by hurling as much ridicule and scorn at the screen as she could muster.
She was right though, it was awful, and didn’t really give us anything useful. “Well that sucks. The show has the ponies turned to humans, which would mean we’re reverting to our original forms…” I dismissed that idea immediately “Well that idea’s junk, I have twenty five years of memories as a human, and only a few hazy dreams and visions as a pony.” Which means the information from the show is useless to us, if it doesn’t match up with what we’re going through. “Anyway Sharon, what did you buy? I’m starving!”
I passed into the kitchen to inspect the bags of food, there was also a selection of cardboard boxes that Sharon had picked up from her house. Let’s see, Muesli? Awesome, but I decided to go for a salad. The dried food will keep, but might as well eat the leafies while they’re fresh… “So what’s in the boxes, Sharon?” I called through a mouthful of lettuce.
“I’ll go one better, and show you!” Sharon began placing an assortment of tubs, valves and tubing on the kitchen workbench… it became clear what she had planned quite quickly… what was her degree in again? Organic chemistry?
I don’t have enough hours in the day for the face palming these two have the potential to invoke… “Sharon… are you planning on turning my kitchen into a distillery?”
That question got Kyle’s attention. “Holy crap, Berry Punch is gonna make booze? This is awesome!”
Sharon continued unpacking while justifying the project “I suddenly started having ideas on ways to improve my recent batch, you said that there were mental changes as well, so I think I’m being told by my new subconscious to brew!”
I was ready to start tearing chunks of my mane out “Be that as it may, we can hardly classify this as a top priority right now, and Kyle? I’m not having a minor drinking in my house!”
Sharon quipped dismissively “Oh grow up Carl, you’re only acting responsible because there’s a student in the house and you’re fearing for your professional reputation… let me illuminate something for you… you’re turning into a pinky-purple cartoon pony, and your professionalism was defenestrated the second you started prancing around the room singing about your new body… lighten up a bit and stop worrying about your job, I think that ship has already sailed.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came. With a grunt, I retrieved two bottles of beer from the fridge, and uncapped them. Handing one to Sharon, I pointed at Kyle “No drinking in my house, you hear? There’s a few meat items in the fridge that you’re welcome to, Berry and I can’t eat them.”
Kyle had the biggest grin after that short exchange. “Confound these ponies, they drive me to drink!”