All the pegasus ponies in Ponyville who weren't ill were gathered in the Golden Oaks Library. Katie, Natalie, Alexis, Wing, Blake, Lance, and Coryza (she and Lance were turned into ponies again) were also attending this gathering. Twilight Sparkle was also there.
"Okay, as you pegasus ponies know, save for those two over there," Rainbow started as she pointed to Lance and Coryza with a hoof, "That we've been made the team to send up water to Cloudsdale once again. But half of the pegasi here have gotten sick, so it's the reason we have humans as a sort of back-up plan.... Twilight, turn the others into ponies too!"
"On it," Replied the alicorn princess as her horn glowed again. A bright flash of light soon blinded everyone in the room.
"NOT THAT BRIGHT, TWI!" Rainbow yelled as she covered her face with her forelegs.
The bright light ended. The humans and beast-person were ponies again. Now Wing was a little fuzzy alicorn. Alexis was also an alicorn of sorts, and unlike Wing, she had a cutie mark--a cross-shaped tombstone with six wings growing out of it with the middle set longer than the other two sets. The wings were black and the tombstone was a light grey-gold to contrast her dark grey-purple.
Alexis tried walking on all fours and stumbled and tumbled for a bit as a hearty giggle left her throat.
"Why aren't you a pegasus?" Rainbow asked, pointing towards Natalie.
"I have to be in Overdrive in human form. But now that I have a horn..." Natalie stopped as her horn began glowing a soft gold. Before Rainbow knew it, two sets of gold wings--the second larger than and placed above the first--appeared on her sides. "There. Happy? Satisfied??"
"That's a lot better." Rainbow deadpanned with a sigh before she resumed, "As I said, the humans-now-turned-ponies over there, foals included, are to help us get the water up to Cloudsdale....Lance, step forward before the rest of us, please."
Lance did as told, noticing all eyes were on him. Was it his choice of attire, his mechanical wings, his cutie mark, his eyes? Or was it just him being different altogether??!
Rainbow took hold of a mechanical wing and, using her hooves, extended it to full length. Lance winced in pain. Did this mean...? "I don't know how much wingpower these could produce, but they look like they could fall off in the tornado we'd create. And since you're wincing, I think these need a new....re-attachment job. Otherwise, you're good."
Lance looked at the bolts holding his wings to his body, and good god was he deathly horrified. The bolts were so loose that one swift tackle from Pinkie Pie could result in a good three days' worth of severe back pain. Rainbow folded the wing back, being careful not to accidentally cause any more damage than needed.
"Listen up! We'll have three weeks to train!" Rainbow bellowed.
"I thought it was two!" Orion, a pony whose cutie mark was the constellation he was named after, protested. A hoof shot up to object when--
Rainbow pointed to Lance. "Why don't ya come up here and point out the problem of this pegasus stallion before us?! Then you'll see why I said three!"
Now she understands how I felt when she waxed me clean ten or so years ago?? Lance thought, rubbing a hoof on his chin. The more, the merrier, I suppose.
Orion trotted up to Lance and inspected his wings. Lance put his hoof back onto the floor.
Orion grabbed a wing and nearly yanked it clean off.
"LET THAT GO!" Lance protested as a gold aura separated him from the blue stallion.
Natalie's horn was glowing again. "C-C-Could someone reprimand Orion before I do??"
Rainbow crossed her forelegs and groaned in annoyance. She stuck her muzzle in Orion's face. "DO I REALLY HAVE TO GROUND YOU, ORION?!"
Orion shuddered, shaking his head nervously.
"Alright then!" Rainbow snapped with a sigh. "Sorry about that, Lance."
"It's alright, it can be fixed." Lance nodded.
Natalie kept eying a yellow filly with a wisteria mane and tail. One minute she looked like a normal pegasus and the next she could've sworn that said filly was an alicorn. Then the minute after that, she was a regular old earth pony--after that, she was a unicorn!
"Natalie, are you okay??" Rainbow asked, crossing her forelegs again. She was now airborne and her body was upright, making her wings look like they were attached to her buttocks. Pegasus wings were closer to the hind quarters of the average pegasus.
"That filly..." Natalie replied, pointing to the filly she couldn't take her eyes off of. "She...keeps changing races before me and I don't know which one she is."
"That is Princess Erroria. She's not really a princess, it's just what we call her. She changes races so much it's no wonder her name is Erroria. I'd be surprised if she stayed a pegasus for the whole three weeks and one day where we'd create the tornado. Heck, she changes cutie marks too!" Rainbow answered, another sigh escaping her lips.
Natalie's jaw dropped to the floor. Erroria ran up to Lance, her race and cutie mark changing each second as she drew closer to him.
Lance looked at the filly, and he was wide-eyed. She really was as Rainbow said--the best word he could use to describe her was a non-Changeling shape-shifter. The filly grew a horn and a pair of wings and her cutie mark changed from a horseshoe to...a mechanical wrench?
Her horn began glowing the same wisteria as her mane and the aura encased Lance's wings and a good portion of the midsection to which they were attached.
The bolts were painstakingly removed and re-inserted properly. They were then tightened in such a fashion that the only thing that could rip them out was an infuriated King Sombra is he were still alive! Lance choked back a shriek of pain as the filly re-adjusted and repaired his wings. It was as if they were connected by a series of nerves, and he was hoping that wasn't the case! Regardless, the filly's work was done and everyone could say she was on par with the Nazi himself!
"Mister, you had wing stumps attached to holes within the mechanical wings you have now." Erroria grinned as she became an earth pony for the nth* time.
"WING STUMPS?!" Katie shrieked in surprise before fainting.
"My adoptive mother owes yet another explanation." Lance deadpanned as he folded his metallic wings.