//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4. More Pony, What the Hell do I do With That? 
// Story: Dust on the Wind 
// by Sparky Brony 
//------------------------------//

"Discord has killed the Princesses, we need to stop him," Rainbow announces at the Wonderbolt complex in Canterlot. We knew Celestia was going to go with Discord to stop the new monster that emerged from Tartarus. We all jump up. Soarin, my buddy and wing pony, looked at me. "What are we going to do?"

Rainbow answered, "We are going to kick his flank, what else?"

"What about Twilight? She has to help. She has alicorn magic, that and the elements are the only things that can hurt Discord," I say.

She turns to me. "Lightning Dust, you have your power. You can use it to help. You can push that bastard out of time. He won't hurt anypony then."

I look down. I've used my power in battle before. It's very draining, but worth it if I can end the threat. I look over at one of the other Wonderbolts. "Whiplash, I need you to alert the Wonderbolts reserves. This is going to be a big effort to take down Discord. Everypony needs to get in on this." I stomp my hoof and look at Rainbow. "I think us six can start harassing him, and keep him distracted. We'll have over a hundred Wonderbolts on their way shortly. He thinks he can gobble up Equestria, let's give him indigestion."

Rainbow laughs and extends her wing at me, which I bump gently. She turns to the assembled Wonderbolts. "Let's kick his flank."
In moments we are streaking towards the volcano where Celestia met her fate with Discord.

***

Once again I am an observer during the battle between Discord and the Wonderbolts. I don't see anything we could have done to finish off that monster. I again watch in horror as my magic combines with his and slams into me. Once again I hear his horrible voice in my ears as I scream. Once again, I'm in blackness, I hear the soft clopping of hooves and I turn around. I look down at my body, I seem to be fully human. I look at Lightning Dust as she opens her mouth to speak once again, expecting to wake up from this dream.

"So, you saw what happened." Her voice sounded defeated.

"You did your best, Lightning."

She stomps a hoof. "My best wasn't good enough,” she shouts at me, then softly, "I wasn't feathering good enough."

"You were beaten, Lightning. Without the elements, he couldn't have been beaten, especially without Twilight Sparkle. He was too powerful."

She glares at me. "I failed, I should have charged up sooner."

"And you would have sacrificed Soarin, Spitfire, and the other Wonderbolts? You protected them, kept them in the fight."

"If I had charged up my power sooner, I could have ended the battle."

"Or he could have destroyed you that much sooner, taking out the rest of the Wonderbolts while you were charging up, then he would have been able to defeat you that much easier."

She looks down. "I won't fail my team, I won't fail anypony ever again. I'm coming back, and I'm going to kick his flank."

"You are dead, and somehow, I'm turning into you."

She looks up at me sharply, "No, I wasn't killed. I was sent to your world, and born as a human."

"Yeah, as me."

"Once I get my body back…"

I interrupt her. "This is my body, Lightning, this is my mind. I'm not letting you have me, I'm not going away."

I get a glare for those words. "You aren't transforming into me, Michael. I am coming back. The curse that was placed on me by Discord is fading, and I will come back."

"So, I'm expected to fade away into the background and just not matter? Thirty five years of life in this world. A wife, two children, a career, a life. Just going poof, as though I don't matter!." I shout at the blue-green pegasus.

She waves a hoof in an attempt to calm me down, but I'm not subsiding. "Damn you, Lightning. I'm not going away. I've had this body longer than you have been alive, you were what, twenty two when this happened? I've got years on you. I'm not going away."

"You don't have a choice, Michael, I want my body back, I want to be me again. Your family will live on without you, but I'm coming back, my body is more than half pony right now. I'm going to be back, and I'm going to find a way back to Equestria, and I'm going to kick Discord's flank."

I growl back at her. "Over my dead body, sister."

She smirks at me. "That can be arranged." She leaps at me.

Once again, my eyes open and I jerk to a sitting position on my bed. I can feel the strike of a hoof on my cheek. I put my hand to my cheek, noticing that my hands aren't working very well anymore. My hand touches smooth unblemished skin. Then I notice something, my beard, which I've had shaved into a goatee and mustache for at least a decade, is gone. "Fuck!" I turn and look at my wife. She's sleeping peacefully. A glance at the bedside clock tells me I want to go back to sleep. I lay back down and put my arms around my wife. A quick sigh and I'm back asleep with her in my arms. "I'm not leaving you, my love," I murmur as consciousness leaves me once again.

***

I wake to the feel of my wife's hands on my body. She rubs her hands down my chest, tracing my muscles and ribs. I moan happily. I love when she wakes up in an amorous mood. Her hands reach my hips, and I shift them a bit to allow her to pull off my boxers. I move my hands down her body, while my hands are starting to turn, they still have some sensation, and I can certainly use my hands to make her feel good. I moan again. This feels good.

She rubs a hand down the outside of my thigh, then starts on the other thigh, she's going to tease me this morning. No problem here. Her hands make it back up to my chest, she stops after a moment.

"Honey?"

"Mh-hmm?" I murmur, enjoying the feeling of her hands on me.

"Your nipples are gone."

That causes my eyes to pop open. I look down at my chest, she's right, they are gone. I sigh, "Nothing I can do about that now, honey.” I tweak her nipple, making her jump a little bit. I smile as I bring her closer to me. We ignore each other's morning breath as we kiss. Her hands again make the trip down my body, I spread my legs to give her access, which she reaches down, and I feel an unusual burst of absolute pleasure from her touching me. Wait, what?

"Um, honey?" I hate opening my eyes again when I'm feeling amorous. I reluctantly open my eyes, to have her worried blue eyes staring intently at me.

"What?"

"I hate to tell you this," she hasn't moved her hand away from my genitals, "but you aren't a guy anymore." She wiggles a finger on my brand new clitoris, causing my eyes to cross in pleasure.

"Well, don't stop that, honey. Is that how it feels for you?"

She smiles at me. "I don't know, but it seems to be pretty intense for you."

I'm already breathing heavily. Then everything she just said registers in my brain. I jerk the covers back and look down. Yup, I'm now female when it comes to equipment now. I let my head fall back onto the pillow.

"Fuck."

"That's about my reaction to the situation."

I put my arms around her and lay on my back, she snuggles her head on my chest. I love when she does that. "Well, we had a good run. And now I lack the proper equipment." I stroke her hair, "unless you've got some latent lesbian fantasies that you wanted to act out."

This earns me a slap on the stomach. "What do you think I am, honey?"

"The woman that I love, and who loves me." I sigh, "No matter what form I'm in."

She lifts her head to look at me. "I really don't have any such fantasies. But you are the same person that I married." She looks unsure for a moment, "I'm not willing to lose you, Michael. Even if you are in this weird body."

She looks unsure again. "Are you Michael, or are you Lightning Dust?"

I remember the dream from earlier. "I don't know. I can feel Lightning, her thoughts, her feelings, her desires. But those are like background noise. I'm still me."

"For how much longer though?"

I take a few minutes to recount some of my conversation with Lightning in my dream.

"So, you are at war with yourself?"

"I don't know. If I am, it's something under my subconscious, but it might get more evident as the rest of these transformations happen."

"Can't you two come to a truce?"

"How can we come to a truce? Our goals are opposite. I want to stay and protect my family and friends. She wants to go to Equestria and kill Discord. The trouble is, she was defeated once with back up, it would be  practically suicide to take on Discord herself."

"There has to be some way you both can live, Michael. Would you want to kill another living, thinking, being to save your life?"

"Want to… no. To protect you, or the kids, in a heartbeat."

She hugs me tightly. "That's the Michael I know." She stays that way for a long moment, then she looks back up at me. "You say you are a lot like her, I think your goals are close enough that you can come up with a truce that allows you to remain you, and still have her with you."

I sigh. "I don't know, honey. That seems like a tall order."

"As tall an order as buying an electrical contracting business and making it a success? As tall an order as everything you've done in your life to support us?"

I look down at her. "I don't know."

"Well, you are going to have to figure it out. But remember, you will have me, and the kids are with you, no matter what."

"Even though I'm turning into a pony? What if I can't stop this? What if I can't turn back?"

She reaches down and fondles me, causing intense pleasure that again causes my eyes to cross. "Then we will have to adjust to the situation. Just like I am going to right now." She moves forward and kisses me, hard. All the while playing with my new female parts. God, I've never known how pleasurable those parts are. She's teaching me some things that I will  have to apply on her… a sharp moan rises up, breaking my train of thought. All of my focus is on what she is doing to me. I love this woman.

***

A few hours later I'm in the shower, trying to wash up. Though I'm finding it hard to stand. My hips have shifted in shape, my ankles have moved up, so have my knees, my legs certainly have a very equine shape to them now. I know today is going to be rough. I look down at my hands, In the last few hours my fingers have fused together, and the middle nail is growing over the rest. I wasn't observing the change of my feet into hooves, but the process of my hands turning into hooves is fascinating. I finally give up and call my wife in to help me wash up. While she is washing my hair she stops.

"Honey, you weren't kidding about becoming a pegasus."

I look at her questioningly.

"You have the beginnings of wings now. Can you make them move?"

I mentally assess my body, and I feel something new, yes. I'm guessing that the wiring for my new wings is coming in as well. I can feel her touching them, but only vaguely. I try to make something happen back there. And there is nothing.

I sigh. "Nothing. But I'm thinking that will change." This is one part of this transformation that I'm actually looking forward to.

I get a hug from my wife as she turns off the water. How am I going to do this without my hands? I stumble to the bed, where she helps me get some sweats on.

"You know, the ponies in the show don't really wear clothes all that often."

I look at her sharply. "Helen, we have children."

"Dogs and cats go around without clothes, so do horses, and ponies, they've seen them all. I'm just saying, for once this thing is done with."

I roll my eyes, which also seem to have grown overnight, "I'll think about it. Maybe I should get a Wonderbolts uniform made. Know anypony good with a sewing machine?"

She laughs, "I think I know someone. I'll see."

"With my luck, they'll be turning into Rarity."

This gets a hearty laugh from my wife. "Well, from what you and Soarin have said..."

"Maddie. Her name is Madison."

She cups my face in her hands. "Honey, she is Maddie, but she's also Soarin, he wants to be known by his pony name. After you went to bed, we talked for a good while." She trails off…

"What?"

"I think I'll let him tell you what he wants to tell you. You may not be siblings anymore, but you are still very close. He said he was your wing pony when you were Wonderbolts, and he said you were the best lead pony he'd ever worked with."

That causes me to blush. Trust Maddie… no… Soarin, to be complimentary.

"Well, I did some shopping today. Your dietary needs are changing, so I grabbed a few things."

I look at her questioningly, and get a smile in return. "You'll see, Lightning."

I sigh, I guess I'm more Lightning physically now than I am Mike. Might as well go by my new name, or would that be my old name? I don't know.

***

I pull my head out of the big bowl that had been placed in front of me, "Alfalfa pellets? I never knew they were this good!" I grab another mouth full, crunching through the pellets. I wonder what other foods I'm going to like now. Most of the rest of the day has been watching more episodes of My Little Pony. Two ponies and three humans have been learning everything we can about Equestria.

I turn to my wife. "The show has been off the air for, like, five years. What happened to the reams of paper that are produced by such a project? The show bible, all the scripts, the storyboards. Do you know?"

My son pipes up. "I've been searching online for that stuff, Dad. I've been able to track down the show bible, and some of the animation references. But it's not online, it's only hard copy, and some store in Seattle has it for sale. And it's not cheap."

"Well, whatever the cost is, I'm pretty sure we can afford it. Can you look up the owners?"

"Already did." He picks up his laptop from beside him and turns the screen to me. "I think someone else already had the same idea."

I look at the screen, a picture showing a burned out structure. I read the headline, "Suspected terrorist attack in Seattle" and slam my protohoof onto the arm of the couch.

"That bastard!"

Questioning looks from all around.

"What are the odds that the one place with the show bible for MLP would be targeted and destroyed like this?"

Confusion, then surprise. Soarin looks at me. "They have to be here. On this world."

I nod. "That bastard Discord made a crucial mistake. He sent us all to the same world, or at the very least he sent the former element bearers here. It has to be Twilight and company that did that!"

"Are you sure Lightning?" my wife asks.

I nod at her, "I'm a hundred percent sure. The odds that it was some terrorist group, or some fanatics are so vanishingly small, there has to be a connection to what's going on, and the biggest thing going on is this damned curse fading from the ponies."
My wife looks scared. "All of those ponies out there, he could have cursed thousands, or tens of thousands of them. And a lot of them are probably pretty scared. Imagine transforming like you two are. Without others going through it with them." Tears start to form in her eyes.

"Well, I hope Twilight and the other element bearers have found each other. And the rest… we have to do something for them."

"Daddy, why don't we write to Equestria Daily?" my daughter chimes in.

"Huh?"

She hops up and grabs her brothers laptop, in moments a website is displayed. "This is a news site for everything pony related. They have over a billion hits. We need to send an email to them."

I look at everyone assembled. "What would the reaction be if we went public with this?"

Everyone is quiet while we ponder this. Finally, my son pipes up. "Fear, hatred. For those who aren't fans of that show, you will be something different. You've seen enough, you know that the human reaction to the unknown is fear."

I look down. "I think you are right. There may be a time for us to come out and be public. But I don't think the time is right just yet." I glance at the clock. "It's a school night, time for bed, kids."

I endure the usual protests but before long it's just two ponies and one human in the room.

"I think Dylan is right. We need to lay low for a while. I just hope this changing will be done soon. This in between crap sucks."
Soarin hides a yawn behind a protohoof. "I'll be heading to bed as well."

Shortly it's just my wife and I in the bedroom, she smiles at me. "I'm not tired at all."

I smile at her. "Round six? Or is it seven?"

"Who's counting?" she asks as she kisses me.