I looked across the room at my doppelganger as her eyes opened and went wide at the sight of me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Twilight and Fluttershy looking back-and-forth between us.
Suddenly Twilight pointed her horn at me and it began to glow.
"Wait! What are you do-" I began to to say before she zapped me.
ZZAP!
I felt myself thrown backwards into the book case. Right then a pain that felt like I had been struck by lightning kicked in.
"The FUCK was that! What did you do Twilight?!" I asked confusedly as the pain retreated and then went away altogether.
A confused look came over her face before she whirled around and zapped 'Rainbow Dash' with what I assumed was the same thing.
"AGH! What the HAY Twilight!" She yelled glaring at the unicorn.
Twilight's eyes went wide and a look of sheer confusion came over her.
"B-but how?" She stuttered with a look of confusion on her face, "T-that was a revealing spell! How is that possible?! You are both Rainbo-"
That's when the pain hit.
Twilight stopped speaking as I fell over and began cursing like my life depended on it. A pain that felt like I had been dipped in lava overcame my entire body causing me to fall over. I let out a pained scream. Then I blacked out.
A minute later I regained consciousness. I was laying on my side in the fetal position.
"What is it?" came a soft voice off to my left.
"I don't know. I've never seen anything like it." Came Twilight's voice.
I brought my hoof up to rub my eyes.
instead of the expected hard appendage, I felt my fingers rubbing my eyes.
Is that? My...hand?
"Wha? Am I?" I said in my slightly lower human voice, "YES!" I exclaimed with a huge grin. I stood up as I looked over my body. Same fingers, same messy shoulder length brown hair, same everything. I even had my flight suit on.
I looked over at the ponies and saw that they were gazing at me with a mix of fear, confusion, and curiosity. That's when the rainbow one flapped her wings and zipped straight at me. I quickly sidestepped and watched as she slammed into the bookshelf behind me sending books everywhere.
"Ow!" She said as she rubbed her head.
"Geez! Chill!" I said as she glared daggers at me.
"Oh yeah! Well how come you looked just like me a few seconds ago, huh?" She asked getting ready to pounce a second time.
"Uh...I-I honestly have no idea." I answered hesitantly.
"Huh?" She said looking confused.
"I have no idea why." I said, shrugging.
"Well, what are you then?" Asked Twilight from behind me.
"I'm a human." I replied glancing at her.
Twilight grabbed Rainbow in her levitation thing and floated her over to where the unicorn was sitting, before setting her down.
"Thanks." I said glancing at RD, "How did you do that by the way?" I asked Twilight.
"Do what?" She asked evidently confused.
"Make me human again. " I said sitting down against a book shelf, "and levitate stuff."
"Oh, that. It's just a revealing spell, and basic levatation." she said with an excited gleam in her eyes. "The revealing spell dispels all magical illusions and returns anything that has been affected by a transformation spell matrix to its true form, as well as making it so that the object cannot be affected by either for thirty minutes."
"…OK then." I said trying to wrap my head around what she just said. "So magic is a thing here?"
"Yes. Why?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. "Do you not have magic where you are from?"
"Nope."
"What! That's!…I!" She stuttered at a loss for words. She took a deep breath before she said, "Can I ask you some questions?"
"Sure, I guess. Though I might not answer several." I shrugged.
"Ok!" She squealed with excitement before levitating several things out of drawers and cabinets around the room, namely scrolls, quills and an inkwell.
"Hmm let's see." She paused deep in thought, "Oh! I know! First of all, what is your full name?" She asked excitedly.
"Captain Raina Moore, call-sign 'Dash', 409 squadron RCAF."
"Captain? So you're a member of the royal guard where you come from?" She said with an raised eyebrow.
"I guess? I'm a member of my country's military." I said proudly.
"Oh." she paused to scribble something on her scroll, "What does RCAF stand for?"
"Royal Canadian Air Force."
"So you're a flyer? I don't see any wings on you." She said while looking over me.
"Oh, those are right here." I said sarcastically while indicating the pilot's wings on my uniform.
"What!? How do you fly with those?" asked Rainbow as she zipped up and examined them closely.
"I was kidding! Those just show that I've completed flight school." I explained as I tried to stifle my laughter.
"Well, how do you fly then?" She said looking curious.
"In a CF-200 Super Arrow." I explained, realizing that these ponies were much less advanced than what I was used to, tech wise.
"A Arrow?" She asked looking very confused.
"A CF-200 Super Arrow. The best way to describe it would be a metal flying machine." I explained.
"Pfff. Who needs a machine? I bet I can beat it in a race!" She boasted.
"Not unless you can fly at mach three." I said with what I figure was a shit eating grin on my face.
"WHAT!" Both Rainbow and Twilight exclaimed.
"No way!" Rainbow finished, hovering a few feet in front of me.
"Yup." I nodded.
"Well...uh...I can fly Mach two!"
"No! No living thing can go that fast!" I exclaimed. The forces needed to go that fast would tear a being without any protection apart.
She huffed and crossed her forelegs, "Well I did."
"That was you chasing me wasn't it?" I asked her.
"What?"
"That was you chasing my plane." I said pointing at her.
"Uh, you mean the big grey…flying thing?" She said.
I nodded before she continued, "Well then, yeah that was me."
"How the hell did you keep up then?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I'm the fastest flyer in Equestria! Duh!" She said giving little flap of her wings.
"Yeah well my jet's faster!" I said sticking my tongue out at her.
"H-how?" Stuttered Twilight.
"How what?" I asked turning to her.
"How can you make something that goes that fast?" She clarified.
"Technology. Don't ask me how it works, I only know how the weapons and jet engine works."
"Weapons?" She said sounding panicked.
"Well, yeah. It is a warplane." I said enphisizeing the fact.
"Warplane?" She squeeked.
"Did you even catch what I said about me being in the military?" I said crossing my arms, and giving her a skeptical look.
"Oh. Umm...let's move on." She said visibly worried "What is a callsign?"
"A call-sign is a nickname a pilot uses over the radio in squadron. You earn it for something you did in basic or something that describes your personality." I explained before I sat down against a book case, quickly followed by Dash and Twilight. I couldn't see Fluttershy, which led me to believe she had left while we were talking.
I continued, "I got mine, 'Dash', because, one; I tend to use that word a lot when issuing orders, two; I'm really athletic, and three; my friend Lucas said I acted like some character named 'Dash' from a little girls show he watched. He was the one who came up with it and it stuck."
"Oh, interesting." She said scribbling down some notes, "How did you get here?"
"Well, I was coming in on final approach to the runway in my jet, and the entire plane and me just...Dissolved into little pink bits. Then everything went black for a few seconds, when my vision returned I was on final for a runway so I landed and found two extra jets, fuel, and a hanger full of spare parts and ammo." I said before shrugging, "Basically, I have no clue."
I looked back a Twi, "Twilight, can I ask a few questions now?"
"Oh." She said contemplating it. "Sure!"
"Were the hell am I?" I asked being blunt.
"Ponyville, Equestria."
"Like I know where that is. Hell, I must be on another planet altogether." I said putting my head in my hands and doing my best to stave off another panic attack.
I took a deep breath and sighed. "So..."
We chatted for a good Twenty minutes, Twilight and Rainbow answering my questions about Equestria, including the marks on their flanks called 'cutie marks'.
"Huh, weird." I said, after Twilight finished explaining.
That's all I could manage before I was on the floor moaning in agony.
"FUCKING-SON-OF-A-BITCH!" I screamed before blacking out for the second time in one day.
As I woke up, I slowly uncurled and brought my hand up to my face, afraid of what I would see.
A cyan hoof.
"NO! I don't want hooves, I don't want fur, I don't want to be a pony!! I wanna be myself!" I screamed in Rainbow's voice before I fell on my haunches began sobbing uncontrollably.
I cried. My wings hung loosely beside me and I felt my ears fold down. A few seconds later I felt something soft drape over my back. I looked to my left to see Rainbow looking at me with her wing on my back. I glanced at her before letting it all out, 72 hours of bottled up emotions spilling out.
"Hey...uhhh." She said looking at me sadly. "Sorry. Comforting ponies isn't really my thing." She muttered as she searched for words.
Twilight came up and sat on the opposite side of me. "Don't worry. We will find a way to change you back."
"Y-you will?" I asked looking at her.
"Sure! Here, I'll just cast that spell on you again." Twilight chipped in as she lowered and charged her horn.
"NO!" I yelled putting up my hooves to protect myself "...I mean...Don't, that hurts to much and I'll probably just end up changing back again." I said solemnly.
"Well then we will find some other way." She said canceling the spell.
"Really?" I asked, brightening.
"Of course!" Rainbow said, "What kind of ponies would we be if we didn't?"
"Wow...Thanks guys." I said beginning to feel much better.
"But only if you arn't the start of an alien invasion!" Rainbow exclaimed, before she grinned. "Now how about those jets?"
"Ugh, fine. Lemme get my bag." I said as I trotted over to where I had left my saddlebags.
I sat down on my haunches and pulled out my Glock from the bag, ejecting the mag giving it a quick look over. Satisfied that it was in working condition, I placed the quarter empty mag in my saddlebag and replaced it with a fresh thirteen round magazine.
"How are you doing that?" Came Twilight's voice.
"Doing what?" I asked not looking up from my gun.
"Pressing the buttons on that…thing." she said walking over.
"I don't know. I just am." I said as I quickly gave the pistol a look over.
"Wait a second." She said before casting a spell that sent a pulse out from her horn in all directions.
"What the hell was that?" I said looking around for any changes.
"That was a magic detector spell, any magic fields are highlighted so you can see it. Like at your hooves." she explained, pointing at the gun in my hooves.
"What?" I asked as my gaze shifted to the gun.
I saw a purple outline in the shape of fingers extending from my hooves and holding the gun.
"The hell? Twilight, what the heck is this?" I asked before I noticed that she was examining my 'fingers' closely and muttering to herself.
"So the field's projection is shaped like her appendages in her human form allowing more interactivity."
"Twilight." I said, but she ignored me.
She continued "The reason for this is because she is used to having them."
"Twilight!" I yelled finally getting her attention.
"Yes?" She said as her head popped up.
"Can you stop? That's a little weird."
"Oh, sorry." She said backing up quickly.
"So what is this exactly?" I asked after re-holstering my gun and flexing my 'fingers' a few times.
"That is a magic field, basically identical to the one I can make from my horn, all ponies can make one from their hooves. But only when they are almost in direct contact, as opposed to the ability of unicorns to levitate objects from a distance, but nopony's ever seen one shaped like this." She finished indicating my 'fingers'.
"What does a regular pony's field thingamadohicky look like?" I asked noticing that if I didn't think about it my fingers they disappeared.
"This." Twilight said as she levitated a book over and grabbing it with her hoof, causing a purple blob to appear around the edge of the book and hold it onto her hoof.
"Oh, weird." I said looking at it.
"Helloooo? Super cool flying machines waiting to be seen out there!" An impatient rainbow pegasus yelled.
"Alright alright! Let's go then." I said heading for the door.
"Wait! We need to come up with an excuse for why there are two Rainbow Dashes first." Exclaimed Twilight.
"Oh. Umm." I thought for a second. "There are identical twins here right?" I asked.
"Yes, but Identical twins are very rare." Twi responded.
"What about identical twins with the same cutie marks?" I wondered.
"Only one pair of twins in nine hundred, ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-seven, point five six-"
"Get on with it Twi!" Yelled Rainbow Dash.
"Ugh! -Identical twins having identical cutie marks is extremely rare but not unheard of." She said giving us a shortened version.
"Egghead!" Whispered RD who was hovering beside me, causing me to giggle.
"Well there's our excuse." I said feeling slightly relieved. "Is there anyone around town who would know that I'm not actually your twin sister?"
"Only Fluttershy." Replied Rainbow, "We should also come up with a pony name for you, since Raina is not exactly a pony name."
"OK." I began thinking of everything I knew about pony names.
Rainbow Cloud? Too strange. Lightning Dash? Good but sounds like a guys name. Rainbow Crash? Too demeaning. Oh! I got one!
"How about...Rainbow Slash?" I said, cocking my head to one side.
"Hey! That's perfect! Now let's go." Dash said hovering towards the door. "Oh, and have you figured out how use your wings yet?" She said glancing back at me.
"Oh a bit!" I said, grinning and jumping into a hover.
"So where is your base?" Twi asked.
"Just north of here."
"Hurry up, let's go! I wanna see these jets!'" Exclaimed Dash as she opened the door and flew outside, as me and Twilight followed.