The Conversion Bureau: Reality Break

by Fullmetal Pony


Interlude One: Higher and Higher, Down to the Wire

I really hate being stuck in one place for a long time. Especially when I’ve been stuck in Sybil’s room for a week. This whole mess started Monday and now it was Saturday. It’s driving me insane. I need to get outside, I need to flex my wings.
It’s been a crazy week. Actually, I think crazy might be the new normal for what my life has become. I’m a pony now and so is Mary. If I can say one good thing about the past few days, it’s that I’ve managed to figure out how to use my hooves. They actually have pretty strong grip is you’re holding something with both of them. It’s all about the angle. Mary and I both had plates and cups either slipping out of hooves or flying back into our faces over the first few days. I felt bad for all the crap we must have spilled onto Sybil’s carpet. I even figured out how to use my phone. It was just matter of positioning my hooves properly.
Speaking of which: music. I’m freaked out by my music now. I either think it’s about the end the world (like Matchbox 20) or a call to arms for conversion (stuff like Vox Populi or Bling Confession of a King). It creeped me the hell out. Then again what am I supposed to think when MLP has just been one big subliminal message?
I honestly didn’t believe Mary at first. Then again, I don’t believe any of this. Ponies have been feeding us images of their world since who knows when? They pretty much created Atlantis? The universe if coming apart because there’s not enough magic in the world? My god, that is a lot to take in. Yet, here I am the center of it all.
Well I’m not the complete center. There are other “seeds” as well. Mary didn’t know too much about them, she naturally woke up just when Celestia was about to explain. All she knew was that the “seeds” were people who’d been the first to be converted.

~~~

“But why me?” I asked.
“Well, what I got from it was that they chose people who were close to death,” Mary explained as she moved her tongue around her mouth to try and get even a hint of the apples. She’d long since devoured them.
“Death? I had a head cold! A head cold!!”
“Are you sure?”
“Well I mean, I got a fever and then I threw up a bit. But I wasn’t dying.”
“I don’t know,” Sybil said as she looked at her computer, “those could have been symptoms of meningitis.”
“You kidding me? I got my shot!”
“Maybe it was a dud.”
I clutched my prayer book a little closer. That’s another thing: ever since Mary drank the stuff, I’ve kept my prayer book close to me. Before this I wasn’t that religious, but now I say a prayer every morning, thanking god that the world hasn’t ended yet. I really don’t know where else to go.

~~~

My other friends know about this now as well. I think I nearly caused Jane to have a heart attack when she saw us. I promised her the potion next. But it would have to wait: Sybil’s room couldn’t hold any more of us for a long period of time.
I had to have Sybil and her boyfriend Dan gag Nate and Sean when we brought them to the room. Sean looked like he was about to bolt for the door and proclaim to the world that ponies existed. Luckily, Dan made sure the door was blocked. Even through the faux gag we had on Sean’s mouth, it wasn’t hard to understand what he was saying. He wanted the potion as well. I was glad I’d hidden it before he and Nate had come to Sybil’s room.
Nate just kinda stared at us, then he bent down and signaled for us to come over to him. Mary trotted over first and he just softly petted her mane. I tepidly walked over and he did the same to me... it was surreal and kinda creepy.
Once we’d gotten their promises that they’d stay quite and calm, we took off their gags and sat down to discuss what to do next.
“John, that is so cool! Have you tried out the wings yet?” Sean was trying his best to contain his excitement. He wasn’t doing a very good job.
“Mary and I tried hovering a little a few days ago but...” I looked up at the cracked fluorescent light in the center of Sybil’s ceiling, “I think we need more open space.”
“Then go outside!”
“It’s not that simple Sean! How do think people will react if they see us? You guys are our friends, so you being helpful has been really great. But if regular people see us, we’re screwed. A mass panic is the last thing we need.” As I spoke my wings twitched, they’d been doing that since Wednesday. “Ugh that is so annoying!”
“John has a point,” Mary started talking, “I mean, this is amazing, but we probably would cause a few head turns if we went outside.” I still don’t know how she’s so optimistic, but it’s helped.
The first few nights I didn’t sleep well. I had horrible dreams I was human again only for a wing to burst out of my back, or that I was being chased by men in black suits. I’d wake up and grasp for something, but it was just phantom limb syndrome. I didn’t have fingers to grasp anything with anymore. Whenever I had these night terrors, Mary would bring a wing over my back and helped calm me down. I don’t know how she dealt with the situation that well, but it helped.
“So who are you gonna give the potion to next?” Nate asked.
“I’ve already promised it to Jane, because of her heart thing.”
“John,” Jane chimed in, “it’s fine, don’t let that little thing bother you. Although, I’ve thought about it and the stuff Mary said. That’s some pretty scary stuff, it might suck not to have hands anymore, but it beats the apocalypse.”
“Fine,” Mary smiled, “then you’re next in line. So John, after Jane, who’s next?”
“Hmm, Nate, I want to keep your room open if we ever figure out a way to get over there. A single is the greatest thing we can have right now. Same goes for you too Sybil,” I looked over at her, “plus, I don’t think it would be fair for either you or Dan for one of you to be a pony while the other isn’t.”
“It... it’s fine,” Sybil’s voice was nervous. She’ll probably be the last person in our group to convert. After seeing Mary’s conversion, I don’t blame her. That was enough to make anyone reconsider drinking the potion. Unfortunately, that left only one person. I wanted to keep at least one serving of potion for an emergency.
“Oh lord. Sean, you’re next up.”
“Awesome!!! Oh man, I’m gonna have so much fun!!”
“Cool your jets pony boy,” Sybil never did like Sean’s immaturity. “My room is full for now... plus my bathroom can’t take much more abuse.”
“Sybil!!” I yelled as I turned beet red. “You said you wouldn’t tell!”

~~~

You know what? Screw the western toilet! It is a horrible medieval device, invented only to inflict misery and suffering upon whoever dares approach it. I’m not going into details, but Sybil’s toilet seat is currently cracked in half. I’m lucky neither Mary nor I broke the whole thing. If we had, the bathroom would have flooded and we probably would have had to hide on the balcony.
The balcony... the outside. I should probably go into a little more detail about that. Mary and I can look outside now. For the first three days we slowly exposed ourselves to more and more natural light. It was like going from a deep black void to a burning white space, but the effect mellowed over time. But the world still looked incredibly different. Imagine living your whole life watching nothing but a 1950’s black and white television and then getting a fifty-inch plasma screen with a blu-ray of Planet Earth. Yeah, I’m amazed my eyes just didn’t pop upon seeing the sun for the first time.
There’s also food. Although my first incident with apples wasn’t the best, things have improved. I let Sybil use my credit card to go to the nice market. I wanted the best stuff to eat, not stuff from the chain market. Besides what use was money now anyway? Even if I was still human, the apocalypse is coming and all the money in the world can’t stop it. So I might as well enjoy the good stuff while I can (and hope I can enjoy it in the future).
I wasn’t disappointed by what Sybil brought back from the market. Apples, bananas, salads, even oranges. I never liked raw oranges before this. Now they were ambrosia. I cried a little the first few times I ate them; I mourned my lost human taste buds. But Mary once more helped get me through it. I relented, the stuff tasted too good. I was having a hard time even remembering what fruits and vegetables even tasted like before my transformation. Their flavors had been completely replaced with the new pony flavors. Even something as basic as celery now was an explosion of flavors in my mouth. But, apples, oh man, they have to be illegal in Equestria, the real Equestria.
Unfortunately, there was also the Chipotle incident. Sybil ate her dinner with us and since you can’t bring food out of the cafeteria, she usually ate whatever food she had in her room. But on Thursday, when she went to the market, she also went to Chipotle. Ok, ok, at heart... um, stomach, I still had some college student tendencies. Plus, I was curious just how different other foods tasted now. I still played it safe: Mary and I both asked for strictly vegetarian burritos. Orders placed, Sybil went to go get dinner.
While we waited, I watched the news. Ever since Monday, I’d been sludging through opinion pieces and political tangents to try and catch wind of anything out of the ordinary. Nothing, just what seemed normal in the news: riots in London, drug violence in Bolivia, tensions in the Middle East. The only thing mildly interesting was a report on Pacific storms. There were a few more than average for this time of year. For some reason it caught my eye: all weather reports did now. A droll weatherman stood in front of a green screen and said, “Tomorrow’s weather will be cloudy with a twenty percent chance of-”
“Wrong,” Mary smiled.
“Yeah, I think it’s more like 18.873% chance of rai-” I closed my mouth. “Gah, I need to stop watching weather reports, it’s messing with my head!”
“John, I’m sure it’ll be fi-”
“Dinner time!” Sybil was back from the store, with produce and burritos in tow. The grocery bags still smelled amazing. But the Chipolte bag... it smelled ok, but there was also something really off about it. Like two really nice businessmen stuck in an elevator with a really dirty hobo. My and Mary’s disgust hadn’t gotten past Sybil. “Sorry, I got myself a beef burrito. Does it really smell that bad?”
“Like pealing paint off the walls bad!” Mary had brought her wings up to cover her face.
“I’ll... I’ll just eat this on the balcony then.” She reached into the bag and unwrapped the burritos for us. Then she took her lone burrito and went to the balcony to eat it.
I turned over to Mary, “And I thought these things were messy before.” She was already digging into her burrito and she seemed be be enjoying it immensely. I bent down and took a bite out of the burrito.
Sybil burst back in just as I swallowed. “Wa- Oh shit!”
Ever taste death before? No? Ok, cause that night I did. I once more rushed to the bathroom and dumped my stomach’s contents into the toilet. I made repeated trips to the toilet that night. Pepto didn’t do crap. After that, Sybil was extra careful with anything meat related. I’d liked meat before, but now it was definitely out of the question.

~~~

“So how are we gonna get outside?” Mary asked.
“We could use cars,” Dan said.
“Where would we go?” I asked.
“Hmm, maybe to a deserted part of the freeway? I mean, you can drive for miles on parts of it and not see anyone.”
“Yeah,” Sybil was siting close to Dan, “we could just go to one of those rest stops no one uses, walk a bit away from it and you could fly out there.”
“Sounds like a plan!” Mary smiled. “What do yo think John?”
“It’s a gambit but...” I looked over at all my friends as my wings twitched again, “I think tomorrow morning would be a good time.”
“Why tomorrow morning?” Nate asked.
“I need to be back here by the afternoon to talk to my...” I gulped, “parents.”
“Oh, ok, we’ll definitely get you back by then,” said Sybil. “But why not go today then?”
“Because,” I looked over at her computer, “it’s Saturday and we have research to do.”
“Heh, that’s right,” Dan scratched his beard, “there’s a new episode on today.”
“Can we even call it a cartoon anymore?” Nate asked.
“I think docu-drama is more fitting,” Mary joked.
We all laughed at the bizarre twist our lives has taken. The end of the world is coming and we’re watching a kid’s show. If only Sybil’s room was bigger, then I could be content to just stay there and be safe.

~~~

“Hahaha!” I laughed at Pinkie trying to cheer up Cranky. “I’m telling you, they planned this!”
“Come on John,” Mary elbowed me with a hoof, “they can’t dictate when episodes air.”
“I know, but come on! Smile Smile Smile? Are you kidding me? How is that not meant for us? What we’re going through?”
“Ok, maybe it’s a little weird. But still, Celestia and Luna never said they could pull off something like this.”
“Yeah, but they were probably rushed. Mary, wouldn’t you try to tell stuff as fast as possible in that situation? Details are going to be left out.” Mary shifted around a little. “Something wrong?”
“It’s just, well, I think it’d be better if I had a different name now... maybe something like Summer Wind... yeah I like the sound of that.”
I stopped smiling. “Mary, are you being serious?”
“Well ‘Mary’ is kind of a weird name for a pony. Plus wind, pegasus, it just matches. You haven’t thought of a name?”
“No!” I yelled out, the volume of my voice shocked everyone else, “Never! I’ll never give up my name! It’s the last thing I’ve got!”
“You’ve still got us,” Jane tried to calm me down.
“I know, but if I give up my name then... then it won’t be the John you’re friends with anymore. I’ll be a pegasus who’d formerly been John. Please! Don’t make me do that!”
Mary patted me with a wing. “Sorry John, I didn’t mean to say that. I should have thought more before I spoke.”
“It...it’s ok, it’s just something I want. Do what you will.”
“Alright, Summer Wind it is!” Summer smiled at the prospect of a new name. I felt a twinge of sadness in my heart. Mary was gone now, but Summer was still a nice pony.
“Ya know,” Sybil looked over the situation, “I was gonna save this for later, but I think in honor of Mar- I mean, Summer’s new name, we should have a little party.” She walked over to her fridge and pulled something out. Oh. My. god. It’s a pumpkin pie. Holy crap! I love pumpkin pie! I started to drool.
“Sybil, you really didn’t need to.” Summer looked at the pie, she was drooling a little also.
“Heh, you guys are doing a good Soarin impression,” Sean commented.
“I probably shouldn’t have gotten the apple one either,” Sybil said as she reached into her grocery bag and pulled out a whole apple pie.
Oh crap, my friends are trying to kill me. “An apple pie and a pumpkin pie? Really Sybil? You’re gonna make our tongues explode!”
“Well I thought it might be a fun thing to have and I felt bad after the Chipotle incident. You always did talk about how you liked pumpkin pie. Plus, the store had a two-for-on deal going on,” As she talked she cut the pies into eight even slices. It took all my self-restraint to not start digging into them. Summer seemed to be having the same problem. Summer still doesn’t ring in my head though, it’ll take a bit to get used to.
Since there are seven of us and eight slices of pie, there was an extra slice of each pie left over. Everyone else was nice enough to let me and Summer have the last slices. Now it was a matter of choosing which flavor. “Argh, this isn’t fair!” I turned to my friends, “You’re trapping me between an incredibly delicious rock and an unbelievably tasty hard place.” I closed my mouth as Sean giggled like an asshole. “S-shut up Sean!”
“Man, I should have video tapped that!” Dan exclaimed, “We could have had evidence of piephilia.”
“Ya know I haven’t bucked anyone yet, but you two are both becoming top candidates on my list.”
“John,” Sybil teased, “you buck Dan and I’m taking that stuff just to buck you back.” She wasn’t serious, I could tell by her voice.
“Guh! Can’t I just have my pie in peace?” I looked back at the two nearly empty pie pans. “Darn it, I can’t decide!”
“Well, John,” Summer shoved the apple pie closer to me, “you can have both if you want.”
“Mary, er, Summer, sorry, I can’t do that. Trust me, I know how good these pies are.”
“Hmm,” Summer brought a hoof up to her muzzle and thought for a moment, “I got it! John, what was your favorite pie before you were a pony?”
“Um, pumpkin.”
“Ok, then I’ll get pumpkin and you’ll get apple,” she smiled.
“Why do you get my favorite?”
“Cause apple was mine!” She hummed as munched down the last of the pumpkin pie. I did the same with the apple pie.
“We ever do anything like that?” Sybil whispered to Dan.
“No, but we never got high off of eating pie before.”
That’s how things went for the rest of the afternoon and the night. At least until I sent most of my friends to the store. We’re gonna need some supplies for tomorrow.
Sybil still stayed with us though, just in case anyone comes to the door. “Hey Sybil?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“You think you could do me a favor?” I eyed her computer again.
“What?”
“Well it’s Saturday and One Piece is online by now. Do you think you could go to the newest episode?”
“Yeah, sure.” She brought her computer over and I gave her the website address.
“Hey, um, John?” Summer chimed in. “Can I watch too?”
“But you never liked this show,” I gave her a confused look. “Besides you’d have no idea what’s going on.”
“Well can you just give me the basic details?”
“I guess,” I took a deep breath. This is gonna take a bit. “Basically there’s a bunch of pirates sailing around going on adventures. Right now, they’re at pretty much the half-way point in the story. They’re about to go to this place called the ‘New World.’”
“Hee,” she giggled, “sounds a lot like what we’re about to do. So what’s going on in this episode?”
“The first mate is fighting the big bad of the arc.”
“Why are they fighting?”
“The villain is ticked that humans don’t treat his species equally, even though he uses humans the same way humans abuse his species.”
“Oh,” Summer seems a little saddened at the prospect of different species fi- oh.
“B-but it all works out for the better in the end! I promise!” The anime’s arc had already finished in the manga. It was a pretty good ending with the villain defeated, yet his species much more open to relationships with humans.
“Ok, if you say so.”
“I promise,” I said as the opening began to play. Then a sad thought strikes me. Shoot! I’ll probably never see the ending of this. Even if the author does survive, who’s going to have time for cartoons in Equestria? I sighed a little.
“Something wrong, John?”
“It’s just that this is just another piece of humanity that’s gonna be wiped out eventually.”
“Well, I mean you have the comics as well, maybe books’ll make it through to Equestria.”
“I just don’t know,” I shook my head.
“Well, let’s enjoy it for now, while it’s here,” she smiled.
“Yeah,” I smiled back, “let’s.” We sat and watched the show together. Sybil wasn’t interested in the show so she surfed the web for a little. I fell asleep that night thinking of other ponies scattered across the globe. Where are you?

~~~

I was hidden again, this time in a sleeping bag. My friends did a good job getting everything needed for a camping trip. Only the supplies weren't for camping.
It was still pretty early in the morning when we left. The sun was just peaking up over the horizon. But it’s Sunday, so people are coming back to school at all sorts of odd hours from who-knows-where. That’s both good and bad. It meant we’re more likely to be spotted, but less likely to have questions asked. Luckily, no one stopped us as Summer and I are carried into the cars. I’m in Dan’s car, while she’s in Sybil’s. I stayed wrapped in the sleeping bag for a while as Dan drove further and further away from the school.
But eventually it got too stuffy in the bag, so I pushed the covers off my head. Dan apparently thought it was a good idea for my head to be facing the east. Ever drive early in the morning or at sunset and the sun is in your eyes no matter what you do? Yeah, that sucked even more now. “Gah! Darn it Dan! Why did you have my head facing the sun? Ugh!”
“I know! That sucks doesn’t it?” Sean was also in the car with us. As he talked I shifted around, so I faced west instead of east. I hoped nobody saw me.
“Sean, trust me, you have no idea. I’m just glad I got used to these things before I fully went outside.” That’s right, I haven’t been outside since before Monday. I hadn’t even gone onto Sybil’s balcony, the risk of being spotted was too high.
“Aww man, it’s gonna be awesome when I get that stuff!” There’s nothing I can do to really stop Sean from being excited. My actions spoke louder than my words. I was horrified by the loss of my humanity and I still am, but then there’s the pony pros: food, flight, magic, and most importantly survival. Somewhere deep down that’s what’s driving all of us. It may be unnatural with the potion, but it was still evolution. We’re just getting a leg up in the survival of the fittest part.
We drove and drove. The city gave way to nature and nature eventually gave way to the barren desert. It’s actually kinda funny that you can drive for just a few hours and then your only connection to civilization is your car and the road it’s on. Our little convoy eventually pulled into rest stop. I was very happy: our three cars are the only ones there. We’d sent Nate and Jane ahead to scout for an empty stop. They had done well.
Dan and Sean got out of the car first and then Dan opened my door for me. By now I could open the door door with a wing or my mouth, but Dan was just being a friend. I slowly nudged myself out of the car and into the morning air.
It was sixty-eight point five three six degrees outside with a wind chill of forty-eight point nine two seven degrees. The wind was coming mainly from the southeast, likely a result of a storm in the gulf. Humidity was negligible right now. There was a seventeen percent chance of ra- how do I know this? “Ugh!” I stumbled a little as I clutched my head with a hoof.
“John, you ok?” Dan asked.
“Guh, it’s like I’ve got an accurate weatherman in my head.” The information didn’t stop coming. I didn’t just know the environment, I coult feel it. I don’t mean feeling cold, I mean feeling like if I just shifted that hot air current above Dan’s head down just a few inches, I could increase the temperature around us by point seven eight six degre- “Stop it!” I yelled aloud to my brain.
“You want to get back in the car?”
“No!” I can’t take my wings itching anymore, if I’m outside, I’m gonna fly! I just need to-”
“Wow!” Summer exclaimed. She and Sybil had just gotten out of their car. Summer seemed to be taking the experience better than I was. “John, are you feeling this?”
“More than I wish.” The information feed was dulling now. But it was still like an annoying buzzing in the back of my brain.
“You think it’s cause we’re pegasi?”
“I don’t know, but hopefully it won’t make today harder.” I looked up at the sky and my wings instinctively jutted out. They knew they’re about to be in their environment.
“Ha! John’s got a wingboner!” I bucked Sean off his feat.
“And you’ve got two huge hoof bruises now.”
“John!” Summer yelled at me. “That wasn’t nice!”
“Don’t worry, I only hit him enough to send him flying.” I looked over at Sean, who was coughing a little as he tried to get up. “He’ll be fine.” I turned back over to the rest of the group. “Ok, let’s walk a bit and then set up the soft stuff. Sean can join us when he’s back on his feet.”
We walked a bit away from the main rest stop and over to an area where it’d be hard to see us. At least until we start flying. Oh lord, I’m about to make every physicist cry in terror. I wanted to walk a little further but Summer stopped before I did. “You sure this is the best spot?”
“John, just come over here,” she beckons me with a hoof. I trotted over and... wow the air is in perfect balance. I meant it, in this tiny spot of land in the middle of the southwest desert, Summer had found the perfect spot of air. Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon, Neon, Carbon Dioxide , Methane, Ozone... everything was in balance.
“Oh, wow,” I was a little afraid to breath. I didn’t want to set of the air’s ratio.
“I know, it’s beautiful.” Summer stared up at the sky above us.
“Are you two ok?” Jane asked.
“Yeah,” Sybil looked at us curiously, “you’re acting like you’ve seen a barrel of apples or something.”
I partially snapped out of my euphoric state. “Well, it’s kinda like that, but this is more, hmmm, aesthetic.”
“Aesthetic?” Nate looked confused.
“Imagine the most beautiful painting you’ve ever seen and then jumping into it.” Summer was much better at expressing these things than I was. Everyone else just gave me and her weird looks. To them the morning air was just air, not the glorious golden balance of elements Summer and I could feel. Maybe if I just shift this cool current up and this hot current down. I stretched out my wings and shifted the currents around. A light breeze began to blow on all of us.
“John?” Dan felt the wind ruffling his jacket. “What did you do?”
“Well I thought maybe it’d be better if the air was moving a bit mor-” I... I just controlled the weather. I backed up a little “Oh... oh my god.”
“A pegasus and an airbender, you’re just getting all the good shows aren’t ya?” Nate said with a bit of envy in his voice.
“Hmm,” Summer eyed the air in front of her as she moved her wings around it. Suddenly, the breeze stopped and the temperature increased by a fraction of a degree. “Wow! That is neat!” She then turned her head up to the clouds. “John we’ve got to try messing with the clouds!”
“Hold your horses Ma- Summer! We’ve got to get the basics down first!” I gave the signal for everyone else to set up the “landing pad”. It’s just a loose pile of sleeping bags and pillows (I wished we could have fit a mattress into someones car). I wanted to make today a least a little less painful.
Once the “pad” was set up, everything was ready. I stepped up first to the pad. I didn’t want Summer to get hurt. Heh, I wonder if this is what the Wright brothers felt like? I closed my eyes, and focused on one thing: leaving the ground. I started beating my wings. The air currents were swirling around me as I pumped my wings faster and faster. I felt a sensation tugging at my back. It felt like I was standing on the tips of my hooves. Then I felt nothing beneath my hooves for a fraction of a second. Then I was back on the pad.
“Wow John! That was great for you first time!” Summer looked over me as I stared at the sky. No, it was her eyes I was starring at.
“Please, I barely even got off the ground.” I stumbled up and brushed myself off.
“Well you’ve done more than anypony else,” she smiled. “But now it’s my turn!” I walked off the pad and let Summer take center stage. Summer mimicked my previous actions. But it was definitely weird to watch. As she beat her wings, her back rose first and then the rest of her body followed. I anxiously watched her hooves leave the ground for a second, no two seconds! Then she fell just like I did.
“You ok?”
“Better than ok, that was so exhilarating!” I helped her up with a hoof.
“You’re definitely already ahead of me. You were up for an actual few seconds.”
“Na, you were probably up longer than I was.”
“You’re just being nice.
“No, I’m serious!”
“How about we just say you were both up for the same time?” Sybil acted as our unbiased judge.
“Ok,” we both replied before I walked onto the mat again. I’m determined to beat my record this time.

~~~

That’s how most of the morning went. As the sun inched higher and higher into the sky, so did Summer and I. By noon I was beating Summer in the height race: I could get up to twelve feet in the air. But she was a bit more maneuverable: she could already move freely in three dimensions while I could only move up, down, left, right, backwards and forwards. We were both sweating a lot and the pad was now covered in dust and from our repeated falls on it. “*Huff* You wanna *huff* get lunch?” We were both winded by now as well, flying is a lot harder than the show made it look.
“Yeah *Huff* that sounds good.”
Dan, Nate and Sean went get the food while Summer and I waited with Jane and Sybil. “How are you able to maneuver so well?”
“How are you able to get so high?”
“Screw it, I’m too hungry and tired to think about it.” As Summer and I talked, the guys came back with lunch. Apples and... sandwiches? “Um, guys? You know meat is like ipecac to us now right?”
“Ah, that’s right we have to give up meat,” Sean seemed both depressed and enthusiastic about the prospect.
Dan sighed a little, Sean’s spontaneity could get tiring after a while. “Don’t worry John, no meat today.” He walked over and gave me a sandwich. I nervously smelled it. But, then my face lit up at the smell. “Alfalfa?” Dan nodded.
“Oh! we haven’t tried that yet!” Summer wanted a sandwich now too. Dan gave her one as well.
Before I dug into the sandwich though, I looked over at my human friends. “You’re sure you’re ok with just eating vegetables?”
“I’m not complaining,” Sybil said as she took a bite of her sandwich, “it’s healthier than what most college kids eat.”
“Amen to that,” Jane smacked on the alfalfa.
We enjoyed lunch for a little and rested while our food digested. We all sat down on the pad and looked at the clouds.
“Oooh! Hey John look at that cloud!” Summer pointed a hoof at cloud that’s close to a nearby mountain.
“What about it?” I looked at the cloud but can’t see anything significant. It didn’t even have a funny shape. Then I saw a little grey protrusion sticking out near the top of the cloud. “It’s low hanging.”
“If we tried really hard, we could probably reach it.”
“But we can’t drag the pad over there.”
“John, the training wheels will have to come off sometime. You can’t learn to ride a bike without getting a few scrapes.” She stood up and flapped her wings. She was getting ready for takeoff.
“Only bikes don’t fly and in this case I’m both the rider and the bike.” I also stood up. Something was calling me to fly more. But I still wanted to be safe. “Everyone, we’re gonna try and reach that cloud.” I pointed at the cloud with a hoof. “We might take a spill, so get ready to try and catch us, or something.”
“Come on! Let’s go!” Like that Summer was off, she’s stayed about a foot off the ground while going pretty fast. I tried to catch up with her but... Damn! She’s got a much better handle on flying than I do. I couldn’t see how far behind we were leaving the rest of our friends.
We reached the mountain in almost no time. Then we began to get higher into the air. Summer and I climbed diagonally and stuck close to the mountain. “Come on John, I’m gonna beat ya!”
“Darn it! It’s not fair, you’re a better flyer than me!” I was getting tired of Summer being a better flyer than me. I know I can fly just as well as her, my wings are telling me I can! The cloud was directly above us now. I did something stupid. I decided to go straight up to the cloud, a straight path is always the fastest. “Summer, I’ll see you at the top!” I began to climb the sky at a near vertical slope now.
“John what are you... oh my gosh, be careful!” It’s too late for me to go back down now. ten, fifteen, twenty feet. I was getting higher and higher. I looked down and see Summer imitating me as well. I pushed my wings harder in order to beat her.
Then I was heading straight for the rocks. I panicked as I flapped my wings trying to get air again but nothing worked. I was on crash course. Oh crap, crap! What if I break something? My friends can’t take care of that, I’ll have to get medical help and then... I shut my eyes as the ground got closer and closer.
Fly,” a voice calls out to me. My wings listened. I rapidly upturned, just barely missing the ground and then I was in the air again. No, it’s more than that: I’m not in the air, I’m with the air. Before, I’d just been using my own wing strength to fly, but now I was using my wings to shift the currents around me and flow with them. I zigzagged through the sky and easily reached the cloud.
The cloud. I thought at first that I’d just go through it, like an airplane would. But instead, it lightly pushed me back when I tried to go through it. But the texture, my god, the texture. If I had thought that little spot of air was perfect, than this cloud was beyond perfect. Softer than the smoothest of silk and having the exact right balance between firm and bouncy. But it was also fragile, when I flapped my wings a part of the cloud dissipated into water vapor.
I was so transfixed by the cloud that I didn’t notice Summer finally reach me. “How did you do that? One second you’re about to crash into the dirt, the next you’re imitating Rainbow Dash.”
“Well I wouldn’t go that far. But it was weird, I was falling and then I just knew what to do. It’s all about flowing with the air currents or getting them to flow for you.
“Hmm, I see.” Summer then shut her wings and fell.
“Mary!” I cried out her human name as she plummeted to the earth. I raced after her, but I wasn’t gonna make it. Then she pulled up right before she hit the ground. Then she flew right up next to me.
“Ok, now I get it,” she smiled despite having just risked her life. “Man, that makes this so much easier.” She now casually floated around, letting the currents dictate her path. I flew a bit more purposefully, but I knew the feeling. It’s like floating in a pool almost... except for the hundreds of feet in the air part. “Oh, that’s right! The cloud!” She zoomed over to the fluffy mass and prodded it with a hoof. “Neat!”
“More like impossible. There’s no way something this awesome is an everyday occurrence and we haven’t utilized it yet.”
“Maybe humans can’t utilize it.”
“You’re telling me we can split an atom but we can’t make beds out of this stuff?” I poked the cloud.
“John, we can, but humans can’t.” That’s right, a human could never do any of this. A human shouldn’t do any of this: it didn’t make sense. I frowned a little. “Maybe we should go ba-” A piece of cloud hit me in the face. “What the hell?”
“Come on John, have a little fun with this! Nopony on Earth has probably ever played with a cloud before!” As she talks, she scooped up a piece of the cloud with her hooves and packed it into a ball. The cloud’s color darkened as it compressed. Then her hair stood on its ends. “Yowch!”
“What just happened?”
“The frickin cloud shocked me!”
“What? How?”
“I don’t know, I was just trying to make it smaller and then it shocked me!” She bucked the big cloud in playful anger. “Stupid cloud!”
“You’re insane.”
“Well at least I don’t have a cloud beard.”
“A wha-” Another volley of white blanketed my face. I brushed it off with a hoof. “Oh you’re gonna get it now!” I scooped up some of the cloud and prepared to throw it at Summer, but she was already running away.
“You’ll have to catch me!” She yelled back at me. I gave chase. I chased her over and under the clouds. We shifted their shapes as we went by them. Eventually, Summer raced ahead and got behind a cloud. But I had a plan. I forced an air current up towards the middle of the cloud, creating a little hole in the cloud. Then I zoomed straight at the hole. I got drenched inside the cloud. It was like going through a carwash but without the soap. Then I popped up the other side and scared the hell out of Summer.
“Gotcha!”I tackled her on top of the cloud. It felt much warmer than the bottom of a cloud. Maybe it’s because it’s getting more sunlight.
“Oh wow John, look,” Summer’s eyes scanned the horizon. We were pretty high up and the landscape, even the desert, looked beautiful from this height.
“Heh, you usually have to be on an airplane to see something like this.” I looked at the vast view and cursed that I don’t have my glasses anymore. Even with pony senses, I still saw everything kinda blurry. It’s a bittersweet reminder of my humanity. As I looked around as I shook off the water that was still clinging to my coat and wings.
“John, that’s cold!”
“Oh, you don’t like the water?” I flapped a wet wing in her direction, sending a small wave of water droplets at her. Then I noticed the sun. It was getting lower now. “Oh crap!”
“What? Regret ticking me off?” she playfully teased.
“No, it’s getting late, we need to get back. My parents are waiting for my skype call.”
“Oh that’s right, sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, time just flies when you’re having fun.”
“Heh, flies.”
I cringed at the unintentional pun I made. “Come on, the others are probably waiting for us.

~~~

We flew down and meet the others. But something is up. Only Nate, Sybil, and Dan were waiting for us. “Where are Jane and Sean?” I asked.
“Well...” Sybil seemed nervous about something.
“Surprise motherbucker!” Sean screamed as he darted out of a nearby bush and tackled me to the ground.
“Sean what the hell?! Get your hoo...” Oh crap! No, oh please no! I nervously looked up and was met with a grey muzzle and red eyes. “You didn’t.”
“I bucking did!” He got off me and I stood up and looked at him. His coat was grey and his mane was blond with a teal stripe running through; his tail had the same color scheme. No horn or wings though. Sean was now an Earth Pony. “It’s incredible! The show did not give Earth ponies enough credit! This is un-bucking-believable. Wish we were in forest though, the ph level in the soil sucks here.”
“Sean what the hell?!”
“Sorry John,” it was Jane’s voice. “We thought now would be the best time, since we were moving around.” She trotted out from behind the bush she and Sean were hiding behind. Her coat was teal, while her mane and tail were red with pastel yellow highlights. A horn protruded from her head. Jane was now a unicorn.
“But how? I... Mary?!” I looked over at my pegasus friend. “What did you do?!”
“Well, I talked with everypony and decided if we were going to drink, now would be the best time. We still followed the drink order you gave us though” she looked at me apologetically. “I just wanted to make everypony happy.”
“That’s nice Mary, but how are we... what the hell?!” Summer’s flank was glowing now. “Jane? Are you doing something?”
“No,” Jane replied, “I just learned how to walk, I don’t know how to use my horn yet!”
The glow intensified and for a second all of us were blinded. When I can see again, I noticed there was a smiling sun on Summer’s flank now. I’m more concerned with other pony with a sun on their flank though. “Celestia! Oh my god!” Celestia was standing in front of all of us... kind of. She sort of looked like a ghost from the Star Wars movies. But it was definitely her, it was kinda eerie how well the show had portrayed her.
“Princess,” Summer bowed. I stood gawking at Equestria’s sovereign.
“My little ponies... and humans.” Her voice was calm, but it held weight to it as well. “You are doing well, already flying and converting your friends. But I fear time keeps slipping for us.”
“W-what do you mean?” Jane asks.
“Magic entropy is progressing. You and the others have managed to slow it down by utilizing your magic. But every day, its dominion grows.”
“What can we do?” I asked.
“Do not worry young one, we are preparing to send more potion. We also are going to try and send help.”
“Help?”
“Yes, but we can’t do much else right now, this communication is difficult to pull off without sufficient magic levels. But I do have one last thing to give you for your service.” Celestia was looking directly at me now. It was like I was staring at the sun, but the light she gave off was gentle. Suddenly, Celestia’s horn glowed and there was another bright flash of light.
Then just as quickly as she appeared, Celestia was gone. But something was different: I could see clearly now. I rotated my eyes around and saw the frames of glasses in the corners of my eyes. “She gave me glasses.”
“Aww shit pony, you got royal glasses now.” Sean looked like he was about to explode with excitement.
“That is pretty cool John,” Jane was looking back and forth between my glasses and Summer’s flank. “Although getting a cutie mark probably beats you out.”
“Damn straight!” Sean got way too close looking at Summer’s new cutie mark.
“Hmm,” Nate walked over to look at it too, “what’s it mean?”
“Well,” Summer craned her neck to look at her mark, “I wanted to make everypony happy and I’m a pegasus. So maybe it means I can brighten up anypony’s day!” She smiled.
“That was pretty corny,” Dan said.
“Well it was the best I could think of,” Summer pouted.
“You know what this calls for?” Sybil did her Pinkie Pie imitation. “A party!”
“Ok,” I said, “that’s good and all, but for now I need to get back to school. I don’t want my parents to think anything is up. We'll deal with this tonight.”
“Ok,” Sybil replied, “we’ll do the party later.”