//------------------------------// // Spritelight 1, Chapter 1 // Story: Spritelight // by Makitk //------------------------------// "And in local news, several students of the Martin Luther King Jr. high school have gone missing after the school instituted a rule banning the new ponygear fad from their grounds," the human on the news said, and the screen cut to a video of children wearing potentially fake pony tails, fake pony ears, and some who had shaved their hair to make it look like a pony mane. "Parents are blaming the school for the disappearances," the voice continued, "and the police have started an investigation in the mass disappearance of these students, aged fourteen to eighteen." The screen returned to showing the presenter again, now with a number overlayed on the desk they were sitting behind. "If you have any information with regards to any of the children as shown on these photographs, please contact your local police station or call the national Amber alert hotline on this number. And now for sports, with..." The room returned to darkness as I pressed my hoof down on the TV-remote, which rested in front of me on the couch, and I shook my head at what I had just seen. It had taken me a few weeks to familiarize myself with the devices the humans used to keep tabs on what happened around them, since there was no Free Pony Express here. The papers the humans did have contained unintelligible letters I could not decypher, no matter how I tried with my magic, so they were of no use to me. However, this 'television' thing worked fairly well to keep track of how the humans responded to the chosen few I had transformed so far. And it was not how I had expected them to respond. "Gone missing," I snorted in disbelief, "I give them the best gift they will ever know, make them the ambassadors of the new times to come, and they hide away?" I got up from where I had been lying on the couch and walked out to one of the streetside windows, pushing away the dark drapes with my left hoof as I drew near. The night was mostly quiet, the streets illuminated by the tall lamps on either side of it. The building across the street was where one of my newest targets was sleeping. It was not someone I had imagined choosing for this important task, but I had been forced to deviate from my original plan several times now. Zecora, and my former mentor Discord, were hot on my hooves and I had resorted to randomly selecting new ambassadors to keep them from anticipating my next move. There was no time to select humans on their magic potential, their good will, or even whether they liked equines or not. I instead moved from one town to the next, randomly picking a school, and just used my spell on whatever group looked most like the ones before them. It depended on the day and town whether this meant transforming just a few, or more than a dozen, and there had been many a restless night where I had sat in whatever shelter I could find - usually the empty home of some human or some other place like it - silently hoping Discord would not find me before my mana replenished. As a result of these weeks of restless nights, I could feel my head pounding from a headache that just wouldn't go away. I had been going through the humans' storerooms wherever I managed to gain access to their homes, but few of the items I had found in them matched up to Equestrian products. And some tasted downright nasty when I had sampled them on the tip of my tongue. If the humans had medicine against headaches, I could not find them. The young boy across the street would wake up tomorrow with the start of a tail growing from his rear. I could just imagine the excited squeal the human foal would give upon realizing he would be turning into a proper colt, instead of having to deal with this damaged human society. Once the worlds combined, he would have a future that actually led somewhere, instead of dealing with these weird machines and inedible items the humans surrounded themselves with. For a moment I caught myself wondering whether the combining of the worlds would also fix the changes that had happened to me? Back in Equestria, before I opened the portal to bring me here, my colors had been vibrant, my hooves smooth and functional. Once I set hoof on Earth however, all that changed. My former bright blue mane and tail started to feel heavier on me, their sheen lost when I saw them in the mirror and rogue hairs sticking out from them at odd angles. My hooves had taken an awkward turn for the worst, with my recent pedicure barely covering the imperfections on them anymore. Had my silver coat covered them in the past, now the hairs stopped just short of them almost like fetlocks. It was a big shock when I first arrived here. Without the vibrancy of colors of my coat and mane, I could hardly be called Spritelight anymore. Had I been born with this dreary grey coat, I would have perhaps been called Spritedark... It would have launched me into a depression, if I did not have a task to complete. I nodded to myself and turned away from the window again, looking at the ornaments placed in this abandoned house's living room. Half of the items made no sense. Oddly shaped figurines which looked like nothing in nature that I had ever seen, humanoid figures with parts missing, a bag with weirdly shaped sticks and white balls with little dents in them in a corner of the room. Humans were weird. I headed back to the wall of glass at the back of the house and used a quick spell to allow myself to pass through the material as if it was not there at all. I lowered my head as I reached the edge of the pool and took a careful sip of it. I would not normally drink from a pool, but the faucets used by the humans were impossible to operate with hooves and I was trying to conserve my magic. Some of these humans used additives in their pools which made the water taste weird and which made my eyes sting from the fumes coming from them, but there was either a very low concentration of it in this one or not at all. I silently thanked the absent home owner as I needily drank from their pool, my ears turning as they caught the night's sounds. There was some car revving off in the distance. Probably an impatient driver waiting for the red light to turn green. Those things were nasty. The difference between an Invisibility spell or an Invincibility spell were that the former did not protect against cars speeding towards you, and the latter is non-existent. I already had to jump out of the way several times now on account of drivers who did not see me crossing the roads due to my invisibility spell. I do not have wings, like the Alicorn princesses or the Pegasi back home, and the transformation spells drain my mana too much to use teleport spells effectively, so walking was how I got from one place to the next. It took some effort to stay out of sight, but I felt I was making some good progress nonetheless. I did not get to follow my original plan anymore, but I was still making more ambassadors who would lead this world into the new times. Any progress is good progress, right? I looked at the stars above and tried to gauge the time by them. It was still early in the night, I knew, and the humans had a strange way of filling up empty streets shortly before midnight as they returned home from wherever they had gone earlier that evening, so I knew I should stay away from the main roads for a little while longer. Still, I could start making my way to the next town and arrive there before morning if I galloped along the highway. I would have to see about finding another school and place to rest at when I arrived there. I pushed my way out of the backyard of the house through the broken fence and hid behind a small bush as I surveyed my surroundings. It was nice and peaceful except for a man and his dog walking across the road. The dog was leashed, of course. I had yet to see a human who allowed their pets to roam free. I waited for them to pass, then quickly cantered in the other direction. There was plenty of shelter between me and the main roads, and I stuck to the shadows where possible to evade what few humans were actually outside as well. I had to duck behind a house when a car suddenly swerved into the street from a crossroads up ahead, a bright light mounted on top of it swerving left and right as it surveyed the area around it. Police officers, I knew. They were most likely looking for the 'missing' children or anyone who may be responsible for it. There was no way I was going to show myself to those people. Once the car pulled away I moved away from the building and watched the red lights on the back of the car disappear as I rounded the corner from the driveway onto the sidewalk again - straight into some human walking there. "Ooph," the human exhumed as I bumped into their stomach, and they fell back onto the pavement while I felt all my hairs stand on end. I swiveled my head back to face the human on the ground before me, and before I realized I was doing it, I felt my magic leave my horn... My sensitive ears, perked up as they were due to alarm, picked up the human's faint groan as they got hit again - and then they emitted a louder one as the changes started... I watched in amazement as my transformation spell, fueled by my sudden panic at being discovered, forced this human into a faster transformation than any of my previous victims: I gasped as I saw their body deform under cover of their clothing, accompanied by the loud snapping of bones being restructured and the painful whining of the soon-to-be new pony. I quickly moved in to put a hoof to their muzzle as it grew out of their human face, but could not prevent their glasses from falling off of their nose in the process. The fortunate soul stared up at me with fear and confusion as their eyes grew into proper pony eyes, and I soon was fighting off randomly flailing limbs as they tried to push me away. "I'm sorry for the unexpected change," I started, looking around to see if anyone had come to the sounds the thrashing pony was making, "but it's for the best. I promise. You're receiving a gift that would be yours eventually anyways, you're just lucky to get it before most others." My words were met with a loud howl as the changes finalized, and the human's clothes tore open around the pony's new body while fur sprouted all over their form. It was a light blue, almost the color of turquoise - although it was hard to tell exactly in the orange light from the streetlamps. The pony's struggling wound down while they closed their rose-coloured eyes, and I lifted my hoof from their muzzle as they stopped grumbling, moving it instead to wipe their long mane out of their face. It was shaded in a darker tone at the base, leading to lighter tips, but it had a rose color to it as well. I sighed and looked them over, using my magic to disintegrate their clothes from around them and realizing at once the former human had turned into a small mare. The fur of her coat was stuck together in places from the sweat of the transformation, but that was nothing a brush couldn't fix. Her former jacket had hidden a pair of lovely wings from sight, and I admired them even as they twitched from the mare's brain finishing the connections to her new limbs. If she managed to use those, she could do what I could only dream of, or do with great magical effort; to soar above the clouds and see my magic wash out from human to human - turning them all into proper ponies. "Ah, but I'd have to be an Alicorn for that to work," I chided myself, and turned away from the new ambassador to the Earthborn Pegasi to continue on my way. A pair of hooves immediately grabbed a hold of my right hindleg and I jerked to a stop, looking back to find a determined look on the new mare's face as she held onto me for dear life, her ears facing front and trembling lightly. "What's the big id-eep!" she exclaimed, then immediately moved her wings to cover her muzzle at the sound of her own voice. Her eyes grew even more when she realized what she was covering her mouth with, and I could just see the cogs turning in her head as her body language revealed all. "Yes, you're a pony. Yes, you're a mare. If you weren't female before, I'm sorry. You are now. Also, I kind of have to go, so if you would let me go?" I offered, but my words only led to her clinging to my leg tighter than before. "No, really. I have to go," I repeated, trying to tug my hoof out of her grasp. I needed a few tugs to get it free, and I briskly turned back for the direction of the main road. My ears turned on my head as I heard awkward flapping and stumbling hoofsteps behind me, but I had no time to wait for the newfound pony to find her hoofing. I had to get as close to the main road as possible before the nighttime traffic would catch up to me. "Hey!" the mare called out, and I sighed to myself as the hoofbeats started to fall in with a proper trot. I sped up to a canter, which led to more stumbling behind me, but then I heard the mare's speed up to a gallop.. I, too, started to gallop to stay ahead, chancing to look back to see the stumbling pony follow me with her wings flapping oddly in an attempt to get her more speed. She was swerving left to right and barely managed to get her hooves under her each step she took, but was still closing in for some reason. I grumbled and slowed to a trot again, my ears falling back in annoyance as I waited for her to catch up. It didn't take long for her to fall in with my trot to my left side, her wings still moving awkwardly as she tried to get them to fold to her side. "Hey, don't go like that!" she snorted, half out of breath, and I looked sideways at her. "I told you I have to go. I can't wait for some random filly like you to come to terms with the gift they're given. I have a deadline, you know?" I bit to her, and her ears flopped down while she fell behind a little, a flush marring her cheeks. "Well, I didn't want to.. Hey!" she started, then realized she was falling behind and ran up to close the distance. "I mean, I just wanted to.. er.. Am I dreaming or did I die or something?" I shook my head at the stumbling mare, crossing the empty crossroads over to the next block of houses. "Not a dream, and my magic was certainly not intended to kill," I answered. "Why?" The mare finally got her wings to fold right and looked thoughtful. "Not a dream?" I shook my head, flicking my left ear from annoyance at having to repeat myself, but turning for the nearest bush as I saw some headlights in the distance. "No, not a dream. Now get down here or they'll see you." The mare obediently followed me to hide behind the bush, awkwardly sitting herself down beside me with her eyes flicking back and forth between her own legs and mine as if trying to see if she did it right. "Well, I mean," she started, then blushed deeply and looked away. "What?" I asked, my ears turned up to listen for the sound of the approaching car. "I can't fucking believe this is real!" the cute mare exclaimed, and I felt the need to facehoof.