Four hours.
FOUR HOURS.
OF READING.
I guess on the bright side, we haven't seen hide nor hair of either Discord or Nightmare Moon. The sun's still been going up and down randomly, but I don't think either of them are around here anymore.
I wonder what they're up to…
"Any luck Pinkie?" Apple-Twi asks Flutter-Pie.
"Nah, no mind swap stuff. All I found so far was something about mind switching…"
"What?! Where?!"
"Hmm…" Flutter-Pie walks over to a pile of discarded books and scrolls. She bites a dusty old tome by the spine, tucks it under a wing, and walks over a bunch of books on the floor to Apple-Twi, who meets her halfway. She manages to hand Apple-Twi the book with her wing.
HER WING.
What the fuck.
She mastered flight and she can use wings for holding stuff? Right after being mind swapped? Why can't I do that shit?
"Mind switched!" She says… somehow correcting my thoughts! Now that's a little creepy.
"Ummm, you know that switching and swapping are the same thing right?" I ask.
"Hehehehe… I dunno."
"PRINCESS!" Apple-Twi gets everyone's attention with that.
Celestia, Shiny, and Cutlass all come galloping upstairs. A quick look over the balcony railing shows me how hard they were looking. They managed to make an ever bigger mess than we did! The vast carpeted floor has been covered with wall-to-wall books and papers.
"What have you found?" Celestia asks.
"I think this will do it. It's actually called 'Mind-Switch'." Apple-Twi announces.
Shiny walks up to look at the book. "Where'd you find it?"
Flutter-Pie shouts, "It was in a book about teleportation!"
Celestia sticks her nose in the book. "Ah, this is rather complex… should not be too hard for me, though." She looks up at us with an encouraging little smile. "Alright, Twilight, you have been switched with Applejack, correct?"
"Um…" Apple-Twi starts.
"Not exactly, Princess," says Rari-Jack as she steps next to Apple-Twi.
"Oh… my. This might not be as easy as I thought," Celestia mutters.
It took about half an hour to get them straightened out. They were all pretty much triple-swapped so it was a little confusing.
Apple-Twi and Rari-Jack were the first to get switched, so Applejack was the first to be normal again. She celebrated by bucking the side of a bookshelf. Coulda sworn I heard something fall off of it. She said it was the closest thing she could get to a tree at the moment.
Twilight actually didn't do much when she got back to normal. She just lit up her horn to make sure it still worked and that was that.
Fluttershy started preening her feathers. I'm assuming Pinkie messed them up or something.
And actually, Pinkie got to be Rarity for a bit. She pranced around with her nose in the air like a high class snob. It was kinda funny. Rarity (who was still in Pinkie's body at the time) didn't take too kindly to that, and mocked Pinkie as best as she could, which only made her laugh. And wouldn't you know it, Pinkie somehow managed to master magic too. For a good minute, she was teleporting around the library so fast we couldn't keep our eyes on her.
Rarity and Pinkie were the last to get switched. Rarity managed to conjure a hair brush out of nowhere and started brushing her hair… she's still doing it now. And finally, Pinkie celebrated by bouncing. Yep, that's it, just bouncing.
"Well, glad to see you're all back to normal. How are you feeling Celestia?" I ask.
"I am quite alright," she lies with a little smile under tired eyes.
"Well I hate to ask but…"
Shiny trots up and cuts me off.
"Alright! Now that everypony else is normal – except for you, uh, Rainbow… whoever – you can find a spell to grow my horn back! Right? Um, your highness!"
"I am afraid not, Shining."
"What?! How come?"
"Because, you cannot simply 'grow back' what you have not actually lost."
"Come again?"
Celestia breathes a small but ragged sigh of irritation for having to spell out this explanation for him. "Discord did not simply remove your horn, he sort of… just relocated it."
"Huh?"
"It has not actually been disconnected from you, despite the fact that it is clearly no longer on your body."
"Oh… so… if it's still connected to me, I should still be able to use it!"
"Well… no. Twilight, would you care to explain?"
"Sure, princess." Twilight turns to her brother. "You see, big brother, our horns are simply a focal point, that we can direct the magical energy in our bodies through, with the brain. So even though, as Princess Celestia says, your horn hasn't actually been removed, it's still not physically on your head. So you can't focus your magic, the magic in your body, through it." She looks to Celestia for approval and gets a slight nod from her.
"Aww…" Shiny grumbles.
"Didn't they teach you this stuff at the academy?" Twi asks.
"Yeah, I never paid much attention," he says, smiling smugly.
"A shining example of my Royal Guard," Celestia quips.
LOL
Shiny gives me a dirty look for laughing at that.
"...HAHAhahaha... ha… heh… um… ahem… sorry."
Seriously, the guards suck.
"Princess, if you don't mind me asking," Twilight starts, making a point of ignoring me, "How did you know how Discord does that? Even I never got a chance to study it when he did it to me… last time."
"Oh, he did it to me once…" A tiny smirk graces Celestia's lips as she looks off somewhere, wistfully. But for only a split second, then her smile is gone again. "…Long ago."
"Um, Celestia?" I ask.
"Yes, Church?"
"Do you think you could do one more swap?" I look up to her with a big dumb smile, and my best puppy dog eyes.
"For you?" Celestia asks. "Hmm, I am not sure it would be that easy. Let us see what the book has to say." She walks over to the book again, it's sitting on a little wooden table that was dragged over just for it.
She looks up at me for a second, then goes back to reading. She flips pages back and forth a couple times as well.
"Did you say there is no magic in your world?"
"Not that I know of…"
"Hmm, well, we can try. But first, I do need to know a bit of who you were… so I am going to need to take a look… in there," she points to my head.
"Well… ok…"
With that she actually rests that huge pointy thing on top of my head. She lights it up and I close my eyes. After a few seconds of feeling nothing, I look at her, still concentrating. She stops and backs up.
"Interesting," Celestia notes. "I could only get bits and pieces, but all that I saw definitely belonged to Rainbow Dash."
She walks back to the book and flips some pages. "Ah yes, I thought so. Whatever switched your minds probably used this same spell, or at least one like it. It says: 'The magical aura of the bodies of the creatures being switched shall remain the same, and furthermore, an additional aura will be present to prevent others using detection magic from discovering the difference of minds.' "
"Twilight, are you familiar with the aura cleansing spell?"
"Um, yes!" She giddily responds.
"Would you be so kind as to cast it on Church here?"
"Of course."
"Is this going to hurt?" I respond.
"This spell is actually meant for medical purposes, it purges the magical aura of a pony and thus allows it to be refilled with… basically fresh magic. Yes, it may… sting a little," Twilight giggles with a sheepish little smile.
"Like alcohol-in-a-wound sting or...?"
ZAP
"FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!1"
SON OF A BITCH IT HURT- oh, it stopped.
"Ow."
"Alright, now I can try again," Celestia nears me and tries again.
This time it tingles. A harmless tingle, kind of like a limb 'falling asleep' except in my head. Is that bad? Brain falling asleep?
"Ah, good, I have what I need." With that, Celestia points her horn up to the sky, or ceiling in this case, and lights it up.
It glows white for a few seconds and then fizzles out.
"Well, I believe I've found Rainbow Dash... at least enough so to do the mind swap."
"Good," I say.
"Well, it looks like you'll be going home, Church… but before we say our goodbyes, just one last question, which actually pertains to the spell…"
"Sure."
"Did you wish for this, Church?"
"I… Oh… I may have kinda wished that I could be in a fantasy world... I DID NOT want to be a pony!"
Awkward silence.
"Ahem. No offense to any of you."
They all shift around uncomfortably.
Except for Twilight. "This world is a fantasy for you?" She asks with an eyebrow quirked.
"Well uhh..."
Shit.
"Your world has magic, mine doesn't. That makes it pretty… uh… fantastic to me. Wouldn't you agree?" Ha! See what I did there?
Applejack butts in, "Well I still reckon there’s somethin' you ain’t tellin' us." She gives me a serious look.
"Nope, that's about it."
There's no easy way to tell someone: 'Hey you actually don't exist where I'm from! You're just stupid fictional characters that fat smelly men are for some reason sexually attracted to.'
Yeah, no, I'm not saying that.
Celestia frowns. "Is that all we are to you Church, just fiction?"
"What?"
Did she just... read my thoughts?
"Did I just do it? No, I never left from earlier."
Twilight cocks an eyebrow at us.
Ummm, can you get out of my head please? I'd like to think of this as a private place.
"No. Now I must ask you: When I change you back will you still think of us as just fictional?"
... I don't know. All of this barely makes any sense to me. I don't believe any of you are real, but yet here I am! Looking right at you.
"So... You don't believe any of us are real…?" Celestia asks sadly.
Oh, for fuck's sake. The rest of the ponies are all surprised (maybe even angry) at this statement from what would look like a totally one sided conversation. They're clearly taking this out of context!
"Of course we're real silly, just look at me!" Pinkie does a cartwheel then happily bounces around the room and rambles incoherently.
"Alright! What the hay are y'all talkin' about?!" A very confused and angry Applejack demands.
Twilight is just standing there, looking at me and Celestia, as if trying to decipher what's going on. Fluttershy doesn't seem to know what to make of this, she just keeps preening nervously.
"You… you don't think we're real?" Rarity overdramatically asks. "Pfft, why… that's… I find that strangely insulting." She looks disgusted. "And who in their right mind would even say such a thing? Although, who knows what all these mind swaps have done to our mental health, but STILL! That was absolutely inappropriate and uncalled for! Humph. Why, I've never seen anyone with such a complete disregard for the feelings-" Ok, yeah, I'm tuning her out now.
Shiny and Cutlass find this funny. Shiny is cross-eyed and circling a hoof around his ear as if to say 'coo-koo.' Cutlass is getting a kick out of it and trying to stifle his laughter.
Celestia looks back to me with a frown. "Church I-" she sighs, "I thought we were friends?"
Well I'm sorry you thought that. Now if you'd kindly get the fuck outta my head…
Twilight gasps.
Et tu, Twilight? Et tu? Do I need to start thinking of gay furry porn? I've seen enough of it. Because I'll do it!
"Well..." Celestia starts, in a low, flat tone. "At least now we know. Let's send you back. Goodbye Church, have a nice life." She looks disappointed.
Celestia looks completely and utterly… devastatingly disappointed.
Like my mom would look at me if I did something wrong. The kind of look that's so much worse than anger or hate or disgust or outrage.
Sheer, unbridled, motherly disappointment.
She points her horn at me. It glows white for a few seconds, I close my eyes.
I shouldn't have said any of that. Stupid, stupid. Why did she have to go inside my head?
The light turns into a bright flash and it makes a loud 'pop.'
I open my eyes.
Well, shit.
"What happened princess?" Twilight innocently asks… trying to hide a sneaky little smile.
"I am assuming Church's world indeed does not have magic. The book mentions mind swapping between worlds, and it goes on to say that if one being is in a world without magic, that they…" Celestia pokes her nose in the book again. "…They must 'either be intelligent enough and willing to switch bodies, OR must be uncomfortable with their current situation or life.' Actually it goes on to say: 'Furthermore a wish in a non-magical universe regarding a mind switch in any way shall become priority over all those who do not wish for a switch to occur'." She slams the book closed. "A wish," she repeats.
"...So… why am I still here?"
Celestia looks at me condescendingly for a second before looking away. "Apparently, there is no magic in your world and Rainbow Dash does not wish to switch back."
"So I'm stuck here?"
"Unfortunately…" Celestia says bitterly with scowl on her face, still not looking at me.
"...Stuck here with... with these stupid wings," I flutter up a little and drop back down. "A-and these stupid books," I buck a pile of books. "In this stupid fairy tale castle!"
I manage to stand on my hind legs and use my hooves to gesture to the whole place around me. "…IN THIS STUPID COLORFUL WORLD!"
I flutter up again and fly straight out the door we came in.
"ALL I WANT TO DO IS GO HOME AND DELETE ALL THE FUCKING BRONIES ON MY FRIENDS LIST! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?!"
I think I hear Twilight calling after me.
I fly out the nearest open window and find a nice tall tower, where I can sulk in peace under the temporary moonlight.