Lyra watched the men barge in, Pokeballs at the ready. Twilight quickly stepped between them and everyone and flared her wings. They shared a glance, before noticing she was about to speak.
“How dare you barge into my palace. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle and you have no authority here!” It was a long shot, but it might actually work. However, as they merely motioned to their Growlithe, who growled and bit down on Twilight’s leg. Turning, he then tossed her into the wall, hard. The Growlithe then proceeded to sniff around the room, tail wagging. It slowly approached a single corner, and sniffed the creature that was there. It barked, and looked to the humans, proud.
However, humans can’t speak Pokemon.
“Darn it, we lost him again.” The first one spoke quickly and pulled out a small communication device, and began talking into it.
“Yeah we lost the trail, that’s Pokemon for you. Yes sir, we’ll return at once.” Putting the device back in his pockets, he noticed his friend was peering at the creature the Growlithe had stopped at.
“You know Sir, he kinda looks familiar…” Sighing at his companion’s incompetence, he approached and gave the creature the once over. It was similar to the other creatures in the room, the briefing had called them Ponies. According to intel, they weren’t Pokemon, despite the fact they weren’t human. It had a brownish-orange hair and a blue body. Looking to the ponies once more, he noticed that three of them had horns protruding from the top of their heads, similar to this one.
Most were glaring at him venomously.
“We don’t kidnap creatures just because they look alike. Besides, Sarge says if we take any of these critters we lose our way out. ‘Cordin to him the old fart made the rule and would not back down.” Standing back up, he slapped his companion up the back of the head for wasting his time, and headed out the door, his Pokemon following. Falling into line quickly, his companion was quick to follow.
It was silent for a moment, before Lyra approached Blue. He was stiff as a board, and he seemed to be stuck between a state of fear and confusion. Lyra tapped him and he fell over like a book, and groaned.
“I don’t feel good, can you turn me back now?” Blue looked to his hand-hoof thing and began shaking. Looking down it intensified as he took in his entire body. After a moment he convulsed and barfed beside him.
“We can’t, Twilight’s knocked out and they might come back. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Lyra spoke confidently but even she could see something wasn’t right. When Twilight and the others had transformed into Breezie there had been no side effects. But here was Blue, shivering on the floor. Putting a hoof to his forehead, she realised he was burning up.
“Rarity, everypony, something’s wrong.” Lyra’s voice rose as she turned to them and they quickly approached. Each could tell Blue was no in a position to be moving, let alone talking. Yet he mumbled despite that.
“Please, I don’t care how just turn me back.” Blue closed his eyes but opened them again as he felt the pressure of hooves on his unfamiliar body. His shaking intensified as he looked up at Lyra and realised how much bigger the room was. He convulsed again, spraying Lyra’s hooves with the remains of his stomach.
“I’ll wake Twilight up.” Fluttershy quickly flew to Twilight’s side, and began to rock her awake. Lyra looked to Blue, and bit her lip. This was her fault, but what else could she have done? Lyra really hoped this didn’t end with Blue dying after all the effort she put into keeping him alive.
“What? Side effects?!” Twilight leapt to her feet and was over in a fraction of a second, quickly looking at Blue as he slowly met her eyes.
“Don’t worry Blue, we’ll make you human again, I promise. I need you to close your eyes now.” Twilight smiled, tilting her head as she charged up a spell meant to knock out ponies. Lyra and the others could tell she was lying, but Blue seemed to believe her. Closing his eyes, he was quickly knocked out. The shivering stopped, Twilight breathed a small sigh.
“He’s going to kill me if he ever regains his sanity,” remarked Lyra.
“I don’t think he ever had it darling.” Rarity tried to lighten the mood slightly. Sadly, it didn’t work, and all quickly discussed what the next course of action was.
Blue woke slowly, half dazed and feeling like a brain trapped in a body. After a moment, he tried to move his arm and realised it responded as normal. Trying to open his hands, it was then his memory came back to him in excruciating detail. Blue didn’t realise he was screaming and struggling against something until the sound reached his ears.
“Blue calm down, it’s me!” Stiffening, he recognized the voice as Lyra’s, and forced himself not to struggle as he was once more laid down and covered in a thin fabric. Blue then realised he was wearing no clothes, and his eyes shot open, causing Lyra to jerk in surprise.
“I don’t have hands,” he moaned, rolling onto his side and realising he had a convenient wall to hide his face in. Lyra sighed and gently touched him on the shoulder, then dragged him from the bed, letting him fall to the ground with a solid thump.
“Come on Blue, stop being a baby already.” Lyra used her magic to roll him toward the table where his clothes were. Somehow Twilight had transformed them as well. Blue saw his belt and reached for it, pulling it to his chest and rolling under the table.
“I refuse.” This time, when Blue spoke, Lyra detected a small hint of amusement in his voice, and rolled her eyes.
“Is it because you’re too awesome?” Lyra leaned down and looked at Blue as he glanced toward her, a small smile rising on his face.
“Yes” Blue rolled out from under the table and pulled his clothes off the table, trying to hold them in his hooves. After a few failed attempts, Lyra sighed and grabbed Blue by the hoof, helping him onto his feet. Levitating the clothes in her magic, she then proceeded to help him get dressed. After finishing that, she clasped his belt around his waist, and proceeded to give him a crash course in being a pony.
“Now I know it feels weird but let’s get past that for now, we need you not a blubbering mess on the ground kapeesh? Just go slowly and let your head get used to the new...body.” Lyra knew she wasn’t exactly helping, but might at least be a comfort to Blue. Blue raised his arm and looked to his front hoof and sighed. Well, at least it was better than execution.
“I was not a blubbering mess, I was-” Blue slipped on nothing and fell forward, groaning once as Lyra once more helped him to his feet. It took many tries, but eventually Blue was able to walk in a straight line.
“Alright Mr Awesome, think you can manage stairs?” Lyra smirked as Blue looked to them and blinked. Despite the fact the situation was outside of Blue’s comfort zone, it was obvious he was at least trying to return some sense of normalcy.
“Sure...I’m that awesome after all.” Blue slowly walked toward the stairs, and realised he was in the house he had woken up in earlier. Lyra’s stairs looked a lot steeper than he remembered them. Breathing in, he took a single step down.
“Graaah~” Blue crashed down to the bottom of the stairs, head looking toward the living room. Looking into it, he saw Twilight and the others were looking at him as he laid there. Groaning, he rolled over and tried to get back onto four feet. Blue missed his hands.
“So uh, how did you sleep?” Rainbow Dash brushed the back of her head as she hovered in the air, coming to land near the couch after a moment. Twilight stood up and walked over as Lyra walked down the stairs.
“Like someone had knocked me out,” he remarked crossly. Twilight chuckled and looked away, embarrassed. Blue slowly made his way over to the couch, feeling every pony’s eyes on him as he walked as if he thought the ground would fall from underneath him.
“Blue, I know you want to be human again, but I-uh-have some bad news.” Twilight looked to the ground as Blue narrowed his eyes at her. Twilight sighed and looked at him,biting her lip.
“Well, it’s to do with the fact humans don’t have...magic per se.” To demonstrate, Twilight levitated the table for a moment. Blue nodded, listening.
“Well when I cast the spell...it..gave you magic. So technically you’re not human anymore.” Twilight winced as Blue convulsed, Lyra hovering a bucket over as he dry-retched into it.
“And what does this have to do with me not being able to go back to being human?” Blue pushed the bucket away and returned to looking to Twilight. Blue had to focus, this was more important than the other stuff.
“Well you see...With ponies, when I change them using the spell, they already have magic so their magic knows to keep an imprint of their old body, down to the number of atoms. So...when I transformed you...your body...didn’t…” Twilight turned away and pulled out a drink, drinking it down as she pretended to ignore Blue.
“Is there any way you can recover it?” Shocking everyone, Blue accepted the news and instead began looking for a solution. Twilight forced herself to continue, and sighed.
“Maybe, but I need to go to Canterlot and look up the archives, maybe even ask Princess Celestia and Princess Luna about it. No creature in our world has no magic, so this is the first time I know of this happening. Maybe it happened once in the past.” Twilight looked out the window and toward the castle.
“And how long until you know for certain?” Blue attempted to rub his forehead, then remembered he didn’t have hands anymore. Looking to his hoof, he sighed once more. Lyra walked over and put a hoof on his shoulder, sympathising but not having any solutions.
“Right...And what about the Police? Are they gone?” Blue shrugged Lyra off, not really wanting sympathy about the situation she had put him in. Yes, he knew she had saved his life. But that was the funny thing about emotions, they were rarely fair.
“They’ve set up a camp near the location of the portal. They seem to be sending out parties in all directions with flying Pokemon, like you said they would.” Twilight blinked as Blue stood off the couch, and slowly approached the stairs, head hung.
“Right, well I’m heading back to bed.” Blue paused when Lyra grabbed his shoulder and opened her mouth to speak, Blue cut her off.
“Lyra, I can’t handle this right now, ok?” Blue turned and once more headed for the stairs, ignoring the silence behind him. It didn’t occur to him until he was at the top that he had just walked that distance without falling, especially back down the stairs. Blue sighed, another thing to think about. Heading for the room that he has been sleeping in, he managed to pull himself up onto the bed and then tried to pull the blanket around him. After a few tries, he kicked it off the bed and curled into the wall.
Closing his eyes, he curled into a ball to try and get warm.