//------------------------------// // Eyes, and ear, and holes and stripes! // Story: Growing A Shell // by bluemoon1996 //------------------------------// Coach Lawson's eyes swept over the class of freshman as he walked over to his desk, picking up a stack of papers. "Here's the test," he said walking up and down the aisles of desk, passing them out, "you know the drill: no talking, no looking off each others papers." Once finished, his gaze traveled over to the far side of the room where his intern was sitting, busily writing. "Johnny, could you go and make some copies of this test?" God darn it, why today of all days do you actually have something for me to do! I need to get this paper finished or I could fail English for the semester! Sighing I turned about to face Lawson, "Can't you have the guy next period do it? I have some work I need to finish." Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes. He shook his head. "Damn it," I grumbled to myself as I stood up and made my over to him, taking the remaining tests. "How many?" "Three dozen." I nodded and quickly made my way out into the hallway. I began to make my way down to the copy room. Thank to god that it's on this side of the building at least; that's one silver lining. This should take ten to fifteen minutes and there's... Damn, how long till the bell rings? I pulled out my phone and was greeted by Rainbow Dash trying to break out by slamming herself against the screen. Okay, there's forty minutes till the bell rings. Dashie wasn't best pony but this wallpaper was too neat to pass up and it gives good reason for my usual phone paranoia. Several folks know I'm a brony but that doesn't mean I shove it down everyone's throats. I was brought back to the real world when I finally arrived at the copy room, only to find it occupied. "Hey Sage, Hey Dalton!" I said as over the loud whir of the copy machine. They both returned my greeting as I leaned up against a counter next to Dalton. "So how much you got to print?" Dalton asked, looking over at me. "Three dozen" I answered my best friend, "and I still haven't finished that damn paper for Hastings." Me and Dalton were as thick as thieves; been the best of friends since he came here freshman year. "You should have just done it about ponies," Sage snickered, "you would have had it done the day he assigned it." I felt my cheeks heat up in embarrasment as Dalton snickered, "don't tease him Sage." Thank you man. "Besides I don't think Hastings would want to read about pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows," he said, a shit-eating grin on his face. I spoke too soon... "Thanks Dalton," I said sarcastically. Okay, time to change the subject. "So what's did y'all do over the weekend?" ------ Sage's job soon ended, taking her copies and leaving. Dalton followed with equal quickness, leaving me alone. Setting the paper in the scanner, I pressed the buttons and it began its task. As I waited, I pulled back out my phone and dug my earbuds out of my jacket pocket before plugging them in. I opened my iTunes, "Ink Spots, nah... Rolling Stones, maybe... Queen, possibly... ooh,That's it," I muttered to myself, tapping play. Some old jazz began playing as I leaned back against the counter, humming along. All I got to is lean back and wait till- In that moment, I felt something wash over me and a flash of green light filled my vision. Disorientated, I stumbled forward as I felt my head swim. Tripping over my feet, I fell to the floor with a solid think. The last thing I head before passing out was the copy machine continue to whir along. It was business as usual at Sugarcube Corner and Pinkie Pie was manning the register. The pink mare gave a hearty smile as a pale purple unicorn foal came up the register, "Hiya Dinky! Whatcha here for?" "Mommy was trying to bake some muffins, it didn't go too well," she levitated a hoof full of bits out of her saddlebags, placing them on the counter, "half a dozen banana nuts please." "Sure thing!" She nodded and quickly went over to the display case and began gathering the muffins. Her head popped back up when her tail begin twitching. Pinkie's gaze immediately went to the ceiling, looking for something about to fall. Suddenly, her shoulder became achy. She giggled to herself, "today's not Gummy's bath day, that wa-." Her sentence was cut off as her ears began to flop, her back became Itchy, her eyelids began to flutter, and all four of her knees began to twitch like mad. And as soon as they started, the twitching stopped. "Strange... Never had that one before," she said, thinking for a second before shrugging and finished gathering Dinky's order. "Alright, here ya go Dinky! Tell Derpy I'll...Hey? Where did everypony go?" She looked about the suddenly empty waiting area in confusion. All I could do was look around in confusion as I stepped into the cafeteria. It was identical to my school's lunchroom: from the three tiers down and giant mascot painted on the wall to various stains on the walls from long ago food fights. It was nearly perfect except for one rather obvious thing: pretty much every race from My Little Pony, fanon or canon, had a representative in this mess. Instead of familiar faces, I was surrounded by a literal rainbow of everything from Breezies to a fully grown black dragon. I even recognized a few of my old OCs from RPs and abandoned fanfics. But something was off about one equine in the crowd. A changeling, sitting by himself at a table in the far corner of the lowest tier, was staring directly at me. All the other creatures in the room were minding their own business or couldn't see me. "Might as well go see why he's so important." I began to make my way down to him, slipping through the crowd. Upon reaching him, he gave me a look-over with his teal eyes, "sit." I obliged the bug, sitting down in a chair that was conveniently directly across from him. My brain scrounged it's memory tapes, trying to remember who this green eyes changel- Green eyes, green eyes! I've only had one changeling OC with green eyes; the one my niece made for me as a gift for my last birthday, "You're Doppel!" "Congratulations," he said dryly, "would you like a cookie?" Wow, I'm being insulted by a figment of my own imagination, at least he isn't trying to kill me. "If I was going to kill you, you'd already be dead," he said casually as he lifted up a thermos and two tin cups. "Wait... You just read my thoughts?" "Yeah I did, I am a figment of your imagination after all," he opened the thermos and started poured some of its contents into the cups and slid one my way, "here drink this." I eyed the contents suspiciously, it looked like some green liquid, kinda like lime Gatorade. I gave it a sniff, smelled okay. "What the hell, bottoms up!" I lifted the cup to my lip and downed the contents.... And immediately regretted that decision. Whatever the hell that was burned all the way down! I began to hack and cough uncontrollably as I struggled to get air to my lungs. After one particularly violent cough, a large glob of some green viscous goop came flying out of my mouth and landing on the table with a splat. What the hell did this drink do! "See you later Johnny." The coughing didn't relent and slowly my vision began to fade from lack of oxygen before everything went black with a final gurgle. My head was pounding like no other when I finally woke with a start. I couldn’t suppress a groan as I sat up on the floor and rubbed my head. I glanced up at the clock in the room and let out a sigh at the 1:25 it showed. "Great, just friggin' great! I passed out and now only got five minutes till English!" How in the Sam Hill didn't anyone notice me passed out in the copy room of all places! Grumbling to myself, I grabbed my phone and stood up and the papers from the copy machine before I left the room. Okay, need to think of a lie for why I was gone so long so Coach Lawson won't rip me a new one. Talking to friends, god no that won't work... Talking to Mr. Odera, no, he could just ask him... Collage stuff? I smiled to myself; Yeah, that'll work, I was talking to the counselor about college. "Might as well make a bathroom stop while I can." I entered the men's bathroom and quickly took position at a urinal. Once done with nature's call, I went began to roll up my jacket sleeves for the sink but what I saw on my right arm made my mind screech to a halt. Holes! "There are mother bucking holes in my arm!" How in the hell is this even possible! Holes just don't appear in someone's arm! Not without a lot of blood and pain; both of which I'm thankfully lacking! I lifted up my other sleeve. There was holes in that arm too! Wait... Did I say buck??? That's not important brain, We got bigger holes to fill in! I mentally face-palmed at my poor choice of words. I looked at the largest of the holes; one about the size of a quarter right in the middle of my right forearm. I could clearly see through it; there was no signs of, well, anything! No scarring, no blood, no cauterization, no nothing! It looked like it had been there my whole damn life! I just kept staring at my arm till it hit me like a ton of bricks. The pulse of light! That must have caused this to happen! I ran a hand through my hair and let out a somewhat panic filled sigh. “Jesus Christ... How am I going to explain this to everyone... Especially Mom?” Indeed Johnny, how are you going to explain this? Oh hi everyone, sorry I was late. I was busy getting distracted by the fact that my arms spontaneously grew holes when I knocked out by a pulse of light! Shut up brain you're not helping! I rubbed my eyes; we'll pass that bridge when it comes. Right now I got other things I need to take care of. I quickly finished washing my hands and rolled my sleeves back down; which covered all but one small hole, barely as big as a pencil. Thank god for one at least one good thi- *RING* Crap. I arrived at Hasting's room right in the nick of time; the bell ringing just as I entered the door. Only to find myself the center of attention as every eye was on me as if I had grown ears instead of holes. "Sorry for running late," I ran a hand through my hair, "kinda fell asleep and no one woke me up." "Just take a seat Johnny," Hasting gave me a rather bemused look. Nodding, I quickly sat down at my little group with Dalton and an empty desk that was normally occupied. "Where's Sage?" I asked as I looked over at Dalton. I couldn't put my finger on it but something was off about him. Wait, weren't his eyes usually brown not blue? "I have no idea," he gave me a strange look. "Umm... Why are you giving me the stink eye," He asked quietly. "Your eyes are blue," I stated and the look that appeared on Dalton's face seemed more appropriate on someone who just lost their parents. "Y-you noticed," he said, even quieter, "how obvious is it?" "Wait? What the hell are you talking about?" "My eyes! They just up and changed color after some-" he began. "...after some flash of light," I finished his statement. We both breathed a sigh of relief, "you too?" I nodded; Oh thank Celestia, I'm not alone! I'm not the only one this is happening too! Wait.... Celestia? Not now brain; I nonchalantly placed my hand on the desk and pointed at the hole on my hand. "We'll talk about this later okay?" He nodded, a somewhat disturbed look on his face. ----- Sage showed up five minutes later, head down and hood drawn up over her head. Without even speaking, she gave her tardy slip to Hastings and sat down, immediately putting her head down on the desk. "Umm Sage? You okay," Dalton gave her shoulder a gentle nudge. "Leave me alone," she sniffled. I don't know why but I felt sadness coming off of her; I placed a hand on her shoulder, "Sage? Can you at least tell us where you were?"I said in the friendliest voice I could. "B-bathroom," The feeling of sadness lessened a bit. "Why were you in there crying?" Dalton asked She was quiet for nearly a minute, "S-something happened," she squeaked, the sadness flooded back. "Sage? What happened?" I tried to sound as soothing as possible, "you can tell us, We're you're friends." She was silent for good long while, "there was this green light...." I let out a sigh, seems our duo is now a trio, "Sage... You aren't the only one, it happened to me and Dalton too." The sadness radiating off her waned considerably and was replaced by relief. She looked up from under her hood, her eyes red and mascara runny, "you two better not be lying." I shook my head, pointing at the visible hole on my hand, "we'll talk after school in the parking lot." Ears. Sage had pony ears on top of her flippin' head! I could hardly believe my eyes as she let me and Dalton have a peek under her hood. Two burgundy pony ears stuck up from her brown hair like mountains over a cloud bank. After she brought her hood back up to cover them, we could still see them twitch occasionally. "And I thought his holes were weird," Dalton said bluntly as he stared into the bed of my pickup that we were having our meeting around. My hand reflexively covered the one visible hole on my wrist; it had gradually been growing bigger since I first noticed it a little under two hours ago and was now the size of a dime. "Okay so we all got discombobulated by that green light thingy," Sage stated, doing her best to make sense of this impossible situation, "and afterwards, we all had changes?" I nodded, "pretty much. And as far as I can tell, it only seems to have affected us three." I rubbed my eyes, this was all too damn weird. "And all these changes are related to ponies," Dalton added, "my eyes, sage's ears, your... holes." I covered the exposed one again; I definitely didn't want to see what the rest of my arm looked like. "Look guys," I began, "we need to figure out what the hell is going on. Once y'all get home, Google whatever you can till you find out what the hell is going on. I'm gunna try some of my online friends to see if this isn't just a local affair. For all we know, they could have a way to fix this already." They both nodded in agreement, "if either of you find anything, give the two of us a text or call." They nodded again, "alright, let's call this meeting adjourned. I gotta go pick up my niece from the elementary school." We all went our separate ways and I hopped in and started to make my way over to the elementary school. Thank god this is a small town and all the schools are practically next door to each other. About ten minutes later, my little first grader crawled into the passenger side seat. The little six year old was as adorable as ever except her brown arms had black stripes on them. "Kylie?" I raised an eyebrow, "you know how your daddy is about you drawing on yourself. How did those stripes get on your arms?" Please don't be her too, please don't be her too! "They just showed up," she replied, looking up at me as she buckled up, "and I tried getting them off." She got me into the show, it only seems right this happened to her too but damn it! I let out an annoyed sigh as I rubbed my eyelids for what seemed like the millionth time that afternoon, "was there a flash of light?" She nodded, "how did you know?" I looked over at her, "Kylie, pinkie promise that what I'm gunna show you will never leave this truck understand?" "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a cupcake in my eye" she mimicked the motions of a certain pony. "Whatever happened to you happened to me and some friends too" I pulled up my sleeve and her eyes went wide. Almost immediately, one of her hands began to reached over and she poked her fingers through my arm. I gave a slight shudder, "please don't do that." She pulled her hand back like she was threatened with spanking, "how are we gunna explain this to daddy and grandma?" "I don't know Kylie, I don't know."