//------------------------------// // Where Trouble Bred // Story: Cool Story Bro... MOAR PONIES! // by Shadowflame //------------------------------// Pale moonlight shined through the window of the dark office. The cool summer breeze crept into the decrepit building, years of inactivity visible from flourishing weeds around it, faded paint on its walls, and cracked windows as its only source of illumination, as its power had been shut off from the time the business shut down. The office itself was empty of furniture, save for a wooden desk and chair in the corner. A single man sat in the office, gagged with a cloth and duct tape, his hands and legs bound in a similar fashion to an old, rusted radiator that just proclaimed the age of the building with its musty smell. The man, an average man with black hair and darker skin, had struggled with his bindings for hours, but the only results he had to show for it were red rings of skin beneath his wrists and bruises on his legs. The man had a particular bruise on the side of his face, where his captor had slugged him into unconsciousness. It stung at the touch, but it made his head spin if he moved too much. Because of that, he had resigned himself to waiting and resting, for he knew his captor would come back for him eventually. Then he could possibly figure out why in hell he was here. But from what he could tell, just by looking about the ruined office, he figured it wasn’t for a good reason. The walls and especially the floor were etched with strange symbols, just circles with what appeared to by glyphs written inside. Half of them looked like pentagrams, or even signs of Satanism. Was he merely kidnapped to be some kind of sacrifice to a pagan god or something of the sort? The thought made the man’s teeth grit into his gag. He had watched a TV show with a similar plot, but it had seemed unbelievable until now. Suddenly, the light of a flashlight trickled in from beneath the door leading into the office, and the portal unlocked with a click and was thrown open by a dark figure. From what the man could tell, it was a male, with its blocky figure beneath a black coat and dark slacks. A hockey mask covered the captor’s face, shielding his identity from view. The man struggled beneath his bindings again, a clench of fear in his stomach. But his captor merely chuckled, the mask muffling the sound to that of shifting gravel, “Mr. Maxwell P. Scott, I presume. Feeling comfortable?” Maxwell, or as he preferred to be called Max, couldn’t reply more than a muffled shout of anger due to his gag. Sighing, the masked figure approached, bending down to rip the duct tape off the man’s face with the victim howling from the sting, and removing his gag. With his mouth free, Max screamed, “Help! Get me out of here! Somebody! Anybody!” His masked captor shook his head, replying with a unnervingly calm voice, “Quiet. No one else is within a mile of this place, so stop barking, you bastard dog.” That only made Max more angry than terrified, “What did you call me?! When the police find you, I am going to sue your ass of everything you own!” The captor only ignored him, turning towards the only desk in the room. On top of it was a strange glove, colored black, but that back of its hand had a plate of metal melded into it. The metal part of it, Max could see, had another strange glyph circle carved into it, very similar to the strange marks on the ground around the room. The masked figure put on the glove, before turning back to where Max sat, “Let’s proceed with the experiment.” Suddenly, the man’s gloved hand was on top of his captive’s head, the runes on the back of it starting to glow ominously, “A person like you just doesn’t fit being human,” The masked man chuckled, “I can remedy that.” The light coming from the glove instantly became brighter, glowing at the point where it was almost blinding. But Max couldn’t notice it as sharp pain suddenly racked his whole body and a scream exploded from his longs. He felt his bones break and shift, snapping into different shapes, while his intestines were crushed into a compact form. His skin prickled as tufts of black fur grew like weeds across his body. He could feel his skull molding itself like plaster, and his own ears migrate to the top of his head. His spine felt like it was being torn apart from both ends as it stretched downwards to form a new appendage. Despite the searing pain he wished would just stop, Max managed to get himself to look down at his hands, only to watch in horror as his fingers melded together into paws beneath his bindings. Max screamed louder, but it only came out as a howl; the legitimate howl of a canine. Finally, the pain ended, and Max collapsed sideways on his stomach, too weak to even move, much less sit straight again. His masked captor grinned beneath his mask at the success of the experiment. Where a man had been sitting before, a black and white dog now lay on its side, its front and hind legs barely bound with loose rope and the man’s old clothes that no longer fit him anymore. This was definitely a success to the masked man, for in the past, in order for him to do this transformation, he needed a full size circle glyph to account for the transfer of magic power and the distance it needed to cover between it and the target. But now, this experiment proved it could be done with the target’s own magical power by merely physical contact with a circle he could fit on the back of his hand. While the result of his work was currently incapacitated, he decided to change the dog’s bindings, trading out the ropes for a chained collar he had bought earlier for this situation. As the masked man clasped the buckle of Max’s collar, the man-turned-dog began to realize the reality of his current state. In a mad frenzy, he jumped to his paws, snapping his fangs towards his captor in rage. But the masked man calmly stepped away, past the reach of the leash connecting Max’s collar to the radiator. Max, choked by the collar and tripping over his unfamiliar limbs, was forced to resign himself to the ground, still glaring and barking the words he wished he could scream at his captor. The masked man simply smirked, “Yes, this form definitely suits you, you little ‘bastard dog’.” He allowed himself a laugh, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be taking my leave tonight.” The man turned his back on the raving dog, chuckling loud enough so his victim could hear it. The barking was like a melody to his ears, the trumpet of his success. He opened the office door, shutting it and the dog’s barking behind him and locking it tight. That was when the man allowed his smile to disappear, leaving a frown behind his mask. Despite his achievement tonight, he was still missing a crucial flaw in his plans. He had several targets, but he couldn’t just turn all of them into dogs; dogs were dangerous without something holding them back like Max. He needed a different prospect to turn them into; A relatively harmless creature, and preferably one that could speak or communicate easily; His targets would most likely have information he’d need once he started unraveling his plan, and who knows how he would get it if the few who knew it were incapable of communication. This was a tall order, but hopefully doable. The man removed his mask and took off the black coat, laying them in a more hidden corner of the building, before exiting to his car out back. No one else was around in the dead of night, but that statement could have been true even during the day. This building was at the edge of a very small town, and nobody else had a reason to come this direction. Getting to his car, the man sighed as he figured he’d most likely have to resolve to using parakeets as a prospect for his targets. Unfortunately, that came with the risk that they could learn to fly and escape if he wasn’t careful. But unless he thought of something else, that would be his only option. Silently, he drove away from the broken down building, driving further into town, soon reaching the suburbs. In moments, he pulled up to his house, only to find the lights still on in the windows. Sighing with a shake of his head, the man got out of his car, “Don’t tell me McKenna is still awake.” Making his way to the front door, he unlocked the deadbolt and let himself in. There he found his little eight-year old daughter in the living room, sitting on the couch, curled up with a blanket, wearing her pink pajamas, and watching TV. The sound of the deadbolt unlocking made McKenna’s head turn and she gasped in excitement when she saw him at the door, “Dad!” The man felt a smile quirk at his lips as his daughter jumped up to her feet on the seat cushions, “’Kenna? Why are you still awake?” He checked the old clock on the wall, “It’s past midnight!” A sorry look crossed her face, “But dad~ you went out again, and I really, really wanted to watch ponies with you again!” The father looked up at the TV, and sure enough, an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was currently playing. From the small credits at the bottom of the picture, it seemed the episode was just starting. It seemed like months since he had sat down to watch of these with her. That was back before he started his… personal endeavors. He looked back at his daughter, who was giving him a wide-eyed, grinning, puppy-dog look, “Pleeeeease~?” He couldn’t say no to that. With a loving smile, he sighed, “Alright, ‘Kenna. I’ll watch just this one, but then you need to go to bed, okay? But only because you don’t have school tomorrow.” “Yay!” Kenna celebrated, flopping back down on the couch, while her father walked around and sat beside her. Now with his daughter leaning on him, the man resigned himself to watching the technicolored ponies on the screen. It was the one about that purple pony receiving an extra ticket to some gala, and all of her friends pleaded to have it. Every once in a while, McKenna would point out something he already knew, sometimes giggling along with the characters on the screen. The father even found a joke or two to laugh at in the episode as well. This show definitely had a good charm to it. Everything in it, the ponies, the world of… Equestria, was it?... all of it just seemed so happy, so safe… … so harmless. The man’s eyes slowly widened as the thought occurred to him. Harmless… His eyes focused on the TV, just as the purple pony yelled, “PINKIE!” before getting dropped onto the ground by other ponies. The pink one in question popped her head in purple’s vision, eyes fluttering, “Yes, Twilight?” Capable of speech… A feeling of amazement, like finding a genius idea, welled up in his chest. Even when he watched the purple unicorn teleport to escape a crowd of ponies who were after her ticket, the feeling didn’t disappear. If I restrict the transformation to that of an Earth Pony… They’d still be small, hence the name, ‘My Little Pony’… Would this even work? He didn’t even know. Yet still, a grin crossed his face, That’s what experiments are for. He had possibly found the prospect he needed. McKenna, on the other hand, glanced up, and couldn’t help but feel joyful at seeing her Dad smile like he was now. This was the happiest he’d looked in a long, long time. If he was happy, she was happy, and that was all she knew. _______________________________ I slumped onto the couch on my belly, letting out a long sigh. It wasn’t one of relaxation, but rather one that could suitably be replaced by a groan. The cause was my little sister, who was standing beside the couch, constantly prodding my side with a finger. Marta pouted in her normal, eight year old way, “Lyle! I want a pony ride!” This time I groaned, putting my hooves over my muzzle in the unlikely hope that it’d make Marta disappear. Honestly, this pestering happened every time I turned into an Earth Pony. Apparently her older brother turning into an equine was enough reason for her to ride a pony like any generic girl loves to do. After Marta had poked me way too many times, I took my yellow hooves off my face in exasperation. A little strand of my blue mane hung down in front of my eyes; I never liked how my hair grew too long after each transformation. But hey, at least having a tail makes up for that. Anyways, my name is Lyle Anderson; age, seventeen, a Junior at Lone Peak High School and a part-time pony… though it’s more like part-time human these days. For those of you who are wondering why I’m covered in fur and why I have a human sister begging me for a pony ride, you can blame that on my childhood friend, Angela. Angela is… strange to say the least. She’s the typical blonde girl that adores fluffy stuff like unicorns and everything pink… especially anything pink. But her biggest hobby is dabbling in witchcraft. Sounds a bit bipolar, right? Well, she had been studying ‘witchcraft’ for fun for years, but none of it was actually real… that is, until she found something that did work: Transformation Circles, powered by a human’s natural magic, also known as chi. Well, long story short, her first test subject was me, and she started the transformation sequence into a pony on me during school! I just about gave one of my teachers a heart attack when I suddenly grew horse ears on her, though thankfully she never remembered that, but that’s a story for another time. Ever since that fiasco, after having found legitimate magic, Angela started doing all kinds of experiments with transformations, and not all of them being ponies though. And almost every time, she somehow roped me into being her guinea pig for her experiments; One time she literally turned me into a guinea pig. Tonight was no exception. All I got was a call from Angela, saying she wanted to test a relatively painless speed transformation on me. One downside about these transformations was that they usually took about six to eight hours to complete, before completely reverting by the time 24 hours have passed; any faster, and it’d start to hurt… like, a lot. Basically, I agreed, and within a few minutes, I was growing fur where I sat in my room, thanks to the fact the spell is long-range and Angela could cast it on me from her house a few blocks away. Unfortunately, it was still frickin painful! Apparently ‘relatively painless’ is relative, cause my body felt like it was being put through a dryer on full tumble with razor blades… that or being hit by a semi at top speed and getting caught in its grate. But hey, it didn’t hurt that bad… well, afterwards anyway. I mean, I’ve gone through hasty transformations before and have come out just fine. Heck, the first hasty transformation Angela did on my got me my girlfriend because of it. I think I’m beginning to get used to it… and I’m probably used to the fact that my life completely left ordinary the first time my hair turned blue. Anyways, the good thing was, I could experience the pain of a failed speed transformation in the comfort of my own home. My family normally would have flipped their panicky lids over me turning into a small yellow horse, but you can thank Angela for 'fixing' that. She turned me into a griffin that one time, which inadvertently let the cat out of the bag for them. Heh, get it?… ‘cause a griffin’s half cat and… nevermind. As you can tell, they took it all very swimmingly, especially my little sis in particular. Turning towards my begging sister as I sat up on my haunches, I gave a groan, “Marta, you know you could have easily called Angela to turn you into a pony, too. She would have cast the spell on you.” Marta was a short little girl with the same brown hair I usually had, which she wore in a ponytail today. In her T-shirt and skirt attire, she just crossed her arms and gave me a look she had picked up from Mom. It was one that read, ‘do you think I’m stupid?’. “Nuh-uh, she wouldn’t!” Marta pouted, “But I don’t want to be a pony. I want to ride a pony!” Rolling my eyes, I sighed, “Alright, fine. I’ll give you a pony ride.” Marta wore a smug smile as she cheered, “Yippee!” That only prompted another eye roll from me as I stood up off the couch and onto my four legs. As soon as I was up though, Marta jumped onto my back. Thank goodness for natural Earth Pony strength, otherwise she would have been heaaavy. “C’mon, go!” Marta prompted me, tugging on my mane, “Yee-haw!” “Ow! Alright, alright.” I glanced out the window of the living room, only to find the sky had gotten dark, barely a sliver of the moon was shining. I started trotting through the house with Marta, glancing back at my sister, “But this ride will be a short one. Emily’s coming over to hang out before I leave for my trip tomorrow.” Marta’s grin almost split her face in half at that. She loved seeing my girlfriend almost as much as I did; Almost, though. “Emily’s coming?” I nodded as trotted us into the kitchen, where Mom sat at the counter, her laptop and a metric butt ton of papers spread out in front of her. Behold, the life of a High School teacher. But the fact that there were only a few weeks until finals added more assignments to her quota to grade. “Hey, Mom.” I would have waved, but I was occupied with carrying a little girl around on my back. Mom glanced up from her grading, smiling slightly at the sight of me and Marta, “Hey, Lyle. I see Marta is taking advantage of you again.” I gave her a wry smile, “Yeah, she wouldn’t stop bugging me.” Marta pulled one of my ears in protest, getting a wince out of me, “Hey, I wasn’t bugging you.” I turned my neck to give her a flat stare, “Uh- huh, riiiight.” “Kids.” Mom’s voice hinted with the tone of an army commander, one that made us both freeze in our skins, “If you’re going to argue, get out.” She pointed back towards the living room. Well, so much for a trip through the kitchen. “Okay.” I replied, turning back around. But as I was trotting us out of the room, Mom called me from behind, “Oh, Lyle? Are you all packed for your trip tomorrow? You better be packed to survive a full week in Washington D.C.” I glanced back over my shoulder to see her giving me a look of warning, “I better not hear you had to buy something to replace what you forgot to pack.” “Come on, Mom, this is ‘me’ we’re talking about.” I replied jokingly, “I’ve been ready for this trip ever since I signed up for it.” Of course, that was an exaggeration. But it might as well have been the truth. My school was providing a week-long trip to Washington D.C. for a few students who’d like to pay for their own portion of the cost for it. I was stoked to go, but it wasn’t because I liked travelling to new places. I’m kind of a history nut, and History is my favorite class. There was no way I’d turn down a chance to see a place so rich with the history of the country, as shown currently by the mark on my flank; a history textbook with an ‘SPQR’ written on the front. Mom nodded, “Okay, just making sure. I’m just glad you’re taking a week off from home.” There was a joking glint in her eye, “Heaven knows you need a break from Angela’s… magic.” Just the way she said that gave me the feeling she wasn’t quite used to my recently exposed part of my life. I just shrugged as I trotted out of the kitchen, feeling Marta’s patience wearing thin at me stopping to chat during her pony ride, “Meh, I’d be fine either way.” Suddenly, a knock came from the back door. Marta gasped before squealing in excitement, “Emily!” She tugged on my mane again, pointing in the direction of the back door, “Mush!” “Wrong animal.” I deadpanned, still galloping to the door anyway. When we reached the sliding, glass door that led to the backyard, Marta hopped off me and yanked it open. Standing there on the porch was a light blue pegasus filly, her height only a head shorter than me. She had a long, pink mane that curled slightly over her shoulders and down to her hooves for her tail. Her cutie mark showed a still pond of water, clear enough to resemble a mirror of sorts. I grinned at her, “Hey, Emily! I didn’t think you’d be flying over.” She shrugged, “I didn’t either, but Liz wanted to try something out with her own experiments.” Emily’s sister, Liz, was currently learning witchcraft from Angela as a pseudo-apprentice, ever since that whole ‘first speed transformation’ fiasco that I mentioned before. During that time, we had discovered Liz actually had more potential in witchcraft than even Angela did, and so she took Liz under her wing. Emily gave me a wry smile, “Liz wanted to see if she could shorten the transformation sequence down to three hours.” I spotted a wince on her face, “It… kind of hurt.” She just shrugged it off, “But I’m fine now.” “That’s good,” I smiled, stepping back and gesturing inside, “Wanna come in?” Smiling, Emily trotted inside, “Thank you.” As she passed me, she planted a small kiss on my cheek, to which Marta gave the coo of a nuisance from the side. Ignoring my little sister, I slid the door shut and turned back to Emily. She glanced at me in amusement, more specifically at the fact I too was a pony, “So, what experiment did Angela want you for?” I chuckled, “She cut down the transformation sequence to two hours, and I basically got the same result you did. I’m just glad she kept in mind to shorten the duration of the spell too, so I can show up for the bus tomorrow as a human.” Emily just sighed at that, still smiling, “It doesn’t seem either of our witches have figured out how to make the change painless. Sure, a ‘painless’ transformation only takes eight hours, but that cuts into how much time we have to be ponies.” I shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe all that extra pain is the price we pay to be ponies longer.” Emily tapped her chin with a hoof at the thought, “Hm… I can see that being a reason.” Her wings extended slightly and she ruffled her feathers, “I know it’s definitely worth it to have my wings for a few hours longer.” “Yeah,” I nodded, “Since the initial price is all the chi Angela and Liz have to spend, what other price would there be?” Before Emily had time to respond, she was glomped into a hug from the side by Marta, “Emily! You’re so fluffy!” Emily staggered on her hooves, but still giggled as my sister clung to her, “Hey there, Marta. What’s up?” “Do you wanna play a game?” Marta asked, excitement on her face. “Sure, Nintendo or Playstation?” “Nintendo!” Marta exclaimed, making both me and Emily chuckle. “Alright, Marta. Why don’t you find Kale and see if he wants to play?” I suggested. With a sound of agreement, Marta raced upstairs to find our brother, leaving me and Emily. Together, the two of us made our way to the den where the TV waited. But as we walked, Emily pressed her side into mine, pulling me close with a wing. Now that we were alone, she whispered, “I’m going to miss you when you’re gone to D.C.” I smiled warmly, leaning in to give her a small nuzzle, “I know, but it’s only a week.” Emily’s smile disappeared slightly, replaced with a hint of worry, “I just hope you don’t get caught up in something too adventurous. That does tend to happen a lot to you, you know.” I waved a hoof dismissively, “Don’t worry. I doubt anything too exciting is going to happen. It’s just a school trip. What’s the worst that can happen?” “Don’t tell me you invoked Murphey’s Law just now.” Emily deadpanned. “Phht, no way.” I replied, “I’ve already invoked Murphey hundreds of times, and look what’s become of it,” I held up a hoof; “I’m covered in fur half the time and I got a girlfriend out of it.” Emily giggled, “True.” She planted a small kiss on my lips, “Thanks, now I don’t feel so worried.” “You're welcome.” I replied with a grin. And so, the two of us, and my two little siblings, gathered in the den and were carried away into the night by an evening of gaming; the perfect way to relax before I embarked on an adventure tomorrow. I just hoped Murphey wasn’t going to get crafty on me now that I’m leaving home for a while.