Twilight's royal duties were minimum at best. If one looked at the logical aspect of her power (friendship), one would realize that giving her royal duties would lessen her time with her friends, slightly endangering the end of said friendship (depending on circumstances of course) and thus resulting in taking away Equestria's greatest means of defense.
That's one way of putting it that Twilight still got a lot of time she could devote in studying magic. Today on her list was transformation magic, which at first doesn't sound like much, seeing as she already did that numerous times. This time however she plans on doing it on herself, a full body transformation. being not a changeling made this kind of matter slightly more difficult. Concentration was needed.
So Twilight was now inside the castle with tightly locked doors and a "Do not disturb" sign. The castle library also acted as the new library for Ponyville, since the old one got blown to smitherines. It was lunch time anyway, so nopony would expect it to be open anyway. Of course, a sign and locked doors never stopped Pinkie Pie from visiting her bestest of best friends.
"Watcha doing?"
"GAH!!"
Twilight accidentally released the magic she had been channeling in her horn. In a both amusing and fascinating way, the energy was reflected from corner to corner, knocking over a bookshelf, hitting a desk lamp, the ground, the ceiling, made noises from a game called pinball, while knocking books out of the various shelves and finally heading straight for the two mares in the room. Instincts taking over, Twilight shoved Pinkie to the ground, screaming: "Look out!" Twilight couldn't dodge it completely as her tail got singed.
"Pinkie..." Twilight stopped herself. There was no use giving the pink mare a lecture about why a pony shouldn't enter a room with a "Do not disturb" sign hanging on the handle of a door.
"Hi Twilight. What was that?" Pinkie asked innocently as always.
Twilight sighed. "I was trying a new transformation spell, when you barged in and stopped my concentration."
"Oooooooooooh! Sorry Twilight, I didn't want to startle you."
Twilight couldn't help but smile. Pinkie finally seemed to be growing up, at least a little. "So what did you try to change and into what?!" Pinkie asked excited.
"Well, remember about the inhabitants of the other world? I thought, since I tried to transform myself this time, I could transform into something I'm slightly familiar with. Also I had to Pinkie Promise Lyra to show her humans, but I couldn't possibly let her go through the portal."
"Awesome!" Pinkie commented cheerfully. Her excitement dropped just a little bit, when she looked over to the portal. "Hey Twilight, what happens when somepony...somehuman" Pinkie giggled "is hit with your spell?"
"Why do you ask?" Her friends weren't normally that interested in her magic that way would ask what-if scenarios.
"Because your purple ZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPP flew straight through it."
XIII
Sunset yawned, holding her hand in front of her mouth. School just started way too early today and she was about to doze off any second. No one, but her was to blame, since she overdid it with the sweets last evening and didn't get as much sleep as normal. Pinkie's treats were just the best.
She passed the statue, which also provided as the portal to her homeworld. Her friends always tried to reassure her to finally go through the portal and talk to her former mentor, but Sunset was just downright scared, to put it bluntly. She knew very well that Celestia wasn't one to hold a grudge. Even the Dazzling's got away with cleaning duty for a month.
"At least they didn't have to rebuild the front part of the school." Sunset muttered.
Trying not to further think about thinks of the past, she took out a chewing gum. As long as she got rid of it before class, no one would bother her about it.
In front of the school building, Sunset found Vinyl listening to her headphones as always. Why she wore sunglasses every day, no one really knew. "Hey Vinyl, how's it hanging?" Sunset asked as she approached the other girl. Said girl just gave a grinn and a thumbs-up.
"That's good to hear...eh...see...eh...."
The two girls laughed a little before continuing walking towards the school. "You know what's really annoying? Learning history all over again. By all the similarities of our worlds, when it comes to the past-"
She didn't get any further. Karma still seemed to have a score to settle with Sunset, so she decided to send a lavender lightning bolt towards. The girl let out a scream of surprise as she was hit in the back with it and automatically landed on her knees and hands. "What...?" she had trouble breathing. Vinyl could only stare as the girl in front of her was engulfed in the lavender aura.
Some students around them ran up, but hesitated. They didn't know what would happen in case they would touch Sunset. Others instead had taken out their cell phones and started filming and photagraphing.
"What's happening?"
"Who is that?"
"That's Sunset Shimmer."
"Sunset Shimmer?!"
"She's not going to transform into a demon again, is she?"
"Look! Something's happening!"
The student body became quiet, when Sunset's body shape started to change. Her body started shrinking, her hair still looked the same, but also became smaller. Her hands deformed and became hoof-shaped, her feet as well. And was that a tail?
Soon enough the transformation was completed and the lavender light disappeared, leaving the pony version of Sunset Shimmer behind. More than a few jaws were dropped to the ground. It was kind of common knowledge by now that Sunset Shimmer originally came from some kind of magical dimension. A lot of rumors were still around as from being banished from there towards being kept safe in their dimension, until she could claim the throne of the other world. As good as no one knew ponies were living on the other side of the mirror.
A groan escaped Sunset, as she lost balance and hit the ground. Everyone around her gasped, as they heard the pony speak with Sunset's voice: "Did anyone manage to write down the number of the plate on that truck?" she asked.
No one spoke up. The only thing they could do was stare at Sunset in shock, as she slowly got on all fours on instinct. She still hadn't realized herself what just transpired. "What? Do I have something on my face?" she asked looking up. "And why are you all so....big....?"
Sunset looked down on herself, realizing she was on all fours and wanting to know why she was on all fours. Her eyes went wide in shock at what she saw. Slowly she raised one hoof and then the other. She looked back and repeated the process with her hindlegs. Her tail gave a slight flicker. Very carefully Sunset lowered her head, raised her right foreleg and touched her horn. It was actually quite funny to watch Sunset inspecting her new/old body.
What finally got everyone out of their stupor was Sunset scream of excitement and fear. "WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!"