//------------------------------// // ...Et nunc Dash, cum quadam omnia confusio infusa est // Story: Bird and Metal Hero // by Shark8 //------------------------------// ...Et nunc Dash, cum quadam omnia confusio infusa est. Rainbow Das folded her wings, upset at losing the argument with Twilight. How was she supposed to know that Discord wasn’t responsible for Fluttershy’s death? He’d been right there at “the scene of the crime”, and “caught red-handed”, right? She wasn’t convinced she was wrong, but she did need to ask Twilight a favor and it wouldn’t be conducive to argue with her friend — ha! “conducive” used in a sentence… ‘Aw, crap… I’m tuning into an egghead.’ “So… Twilight…” Rainbow Dash began, “Do you think you can change me back?” Twilight, for her part was caught flatfooted — she’d expected Rainbow Dash to argue more. “Um, yeah. Let me get…” Twilight trailed off as she turned to a bookshelf and began browsing, before pulling one down with a smile and a shout of glee “Transformation, Transmutation, and Transubstantiation!” The young alicorn opened the book and began searching, rapidly finding the section that she was looking for. “Ok, Rainbow… stand over there.” Twilight said, gesturing toward the middle of the room before double-checking the text. A few seconds later, her magic gathering at her horn, ready to be unleashed flew toward her penguin friend, Rainbow Dash, and enveloped her for a second before reflecting back and hitting Twilight Sparkle right between the eyes and knocking he across the room. “Twilight!” Rainbow called out, waddling as fast as her webbed feet could carry her across the room, “Are you alright?” “Yeah,” Twilight said, shaking herself off, “I’m fine…” “Um, Twilight…” Rainbow Dash interrupted, pointing at her friend, “Maybe not.” Looking down, Twilight discovered that she was now a purple alicorn with green spots, and not a nice green, but a green that looked like something had eaten a cow-pie, drank a banana milkshake, did fifty jumping-jacks and then vomited… well, without the texture, of course. “I don’t know if I can undo this…” Twilight said in an emotionless voice as she found herself shuddering at the sight of the spots, they really were that bad. * * * Peter White, finished the last preliminary report of the house-fires with an audible sigh of relief; they would have to be passed on to his juniors for the full investigation by that was mostly just confirming the preliminary reports. He raised a hoof to scratch the back of his neck as he mulled things over; given his two assistants and the amount of work involved in confirming the reports, they ought to be done in two or three weeks, barring unforseen circumstances. He brought his hoof down with a wince as his horseshoe had pinched a bit of his midnight blue mane when he was scratching. He shrugged, gathered up his clipboard, quill, ink and paper and headed back to the fire-house to stow the preliminary reports in his desk, take a quick shower and get some rest… he was not looking forward to the next day, where he would have to interview those whose houses hadn’t burned down but had witnessed a pony’s immolation. — That was going to be hard. After taking care of his accouterments, he stepped into the shower hoping that he’d be able to wash all the soot out of his forest-green coat. It was perhaps the greatest irony of his transformation that Peter White’s coat was excellent at hiding the black of soot. * * * Muriko opened the door to check on the princess, while the Crystal Empire hadn’t been hit as hard as the rest of Equestria simply due to the non-flammable nature of their crystal architecture, the loss of a full quarter of her ponies had been devastating to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. “Ah, Princess…” Muriko said, announcing her presence, “It’s Muriko.” Steeling a look inside, Muriko saw the princess sitting at her desk, poring over the reports. Again. It wasn’t good that she was doing this to herself, Muriko knew, but there wasn’t much of anything she could do to divert the princess’s attention away from the constant reminder that a quarter of her subjects were no more. “Yes, Muriko…” the princess answered, looking in her direction and meeting her eyes. Her eyes were red and bloodshot from crying again; there were bags under her eyes indicating a lack of sleep; her normally well-groomed and styled mane hung in a disheveled mess… but the thing that truly tugged at Muriko’s heartstrings was the look of supreme sadness that seemed to have taken up residence in her face. “You shouldn’t punish yourself…” Muriko started, ‘but what else is she going to do, she’ll feel like she’s failed all her subjects.’ “I know,” Princess Cadence said, trying to give a reassuring smile, “it’s just that I can’t seem to keep my mind off of the reports as they come in.” Muriko nodded, thinking, ‘What you need, princess, is some distraction…’ Muriko smiled as she remembered something, the princess had once said ‘later’ when Muriko offered to share some of her anime… it was from before she’d been turned into a pony and, honestly, was the only part of her life as a human that she’d kept. “Princess, do you remember when you said you’d watch some anime with me?” Muriko said, “Well, I can’t think of anything better to take your mind off of all of this!” Cadence nodded and, sighing, set the papers on the desk — her subject, and friend, was right: she needed something to take her mind off of the current state of things, if only for a moment. “Yes, that sounds fun…” Cadence said, hoping that the human entertainment would be enough to distract her for a while. * * * Doctor Horse felt almost like smiling as he trotted up to the doorway of his house, it had been days since he’d been inside his home… it would be good to sleep in his own bed instead of one of the couches in the lounge. He tossed his keys on his dresser as he entered his room, letting out the biggest sigh as he fell into bed. All was quiet and as it should be… until he belt movement next to him. Rolling over he found himself face to face with Bon Bon who was grinning in a slightly creepy manner. “Welcome home.” was all she said, and Doctor Horse found it to be fine enough, but the surprise at finding her in his bed was… surprising. “Ah, oh boy.” He herd himself say, just before nervousness enveloped him. ‘How could I have forgotten about Bon Bon?’ he asked himself, sweating nervously. “I… wasn’t expecting you here.” Doctor horse said, clearing his throat slightly. “Oh, but I thought you asked me to come and keep an eye on your place…” Bon Bon said, looking down and idly tracing a hoof across the bed in a lazy manner. “Yes. Well, I…” Doctor Horse found himself gulping when Bon Bon fluttered her eyes at him, “I wasn’t expecting you in my bed.” Bon Bon frowned, sitting up, “Then I’m not welcome here?” “I didn’t say that.” Doctor Horse said as he grinned. * * * Twilight Sparkle grunted in disgust as yet another spell-book proved useless for removing her green spots… oh, sure, she was keeping an eye out for anything that could help with transforming Rainbow Dash back into a pegasus, but there really wasn’t much she could do there without somehow undermining the chaos-magic protection Discord had put on the transformation. Celestia had once told Twilight that she had some spells that would work on discord and she was feeling foolish for not considering the other way: that Discord might have methods for dealing with pony-magic. “Can’t you hurry up, Twilight? I’m scheduled to do cloud busting this afternoon.” Rainbow Dash asked, idly flipping through one of the discarded books in the pile. She wasn’t reading it, she just had to do something with her wings? Flippers? ‘Seriously, what are these called?’ Rainbow Dash though caustically at her new forelimbs. “I don’t think I’ll be able to undo this by then.” Twilight replied, looking through the index on an encyclopedia of transformation-magic. “You should tell your backup.” “Yeah, I’m sure Derpy’ll be so reliable!” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself before deciding that Twilight was probably right and waddled right out the door. * * * Shining Armor stepped out into the track where the palace guard was wont to practice their physical training and saw that his timing was impeccable — they were just getting ready for their exercises and, from the look of things, it was a cardio day. He let his gaze sweep over the assembled group before settling on the buttery-colored unicorn with a light gray mane, he was the sort who gloried in the physicality of his body, the sort that mares drooled over, and it was all due to his determination in that area as evidenced by the cutie-mark consisting of a whip and a barbell. Shining Armor paused a moment, there was something that he’d forgotten about this particular pony that he just couldn’t pit his hoof on, well besides his name escaping him… he shook his head and walked over, intent on joining the rest of the squad as they exercised. The PT-leader used his telekinesis to key a human audio device and an up-tempo song came bursting from the speakers and they were off: running in place, jumping-jacks, starbursts, “two-hoof hops”, and whatever else the PT-leader decided to throw their way. Though, to be honest, Shining Armor would have been a bit happier if the song didn’t get stuck in his head… who knew how long he’d have Eye of the Tiger stuck in there. “Thank you for the great work-out.” Shining Armor panted, wishing he remembered the unicorn’s name. “You’re welcome, Prince Shining Armor.” the PT instructor said, gathering up his equipment and loading it into a wagon. “I’m sorry…” Shining Armor began, embarrassed by what he was about to ask, “I’ve forgotten your name.” “It’s Stephen.” the unicorn replied, “Stephen Hawking… I know, it’s not as quite as catchy as the named you native ponies have.” “Ah, no…”Shining Armor began, “I just have trouble remembering names in general.” There was a moment of awkwardness between the two before Shining broke the silence, “What were you before your conversion?” “I was a physicist of some renown.” Stephen replied, shrugging his shoulders, “When the opportunity came to get a new body came I took it… when I was a human, I was confined to a wheelchair and couldn’t even talk, so conversion seemed like a good deal to me.” Shining Armor nodded, but couldn’t help asking, “If you were a physicist as a human, why aren’t you one as a pony?” In reply Stephen levitated the wagon over the wall and presumably to its place, “That’s why.” “I don’t understand.” Shining Armor said, still looking at where the wagon had descended. “Magic. Magic’s existence makes all of my prior work meaningless.” Stephen laughed, “Plus, if I was still working in physics I wouldn’t get to enjoy this new body as much.” Shining Armor nodded, it made a certain kind of sense — if someone’s whole field of study were instantly turned upside down, then maybe it was better to do something radically different, and if one who was lame found himself suddenly healed it would be natural to walk, and run, and jump. * * * “…and that’s what happened.” Scootaloo said, finishing her story. Cheerilee smiled as she poured another cup of hot chocolate for her young visitor —it wasn’t like at the schoolhouse, but it would do— and her eyes flashed green for a brief moment. ‘No, you have to be careful.’ Cheerilee warned herself, ‘Only a little sip, you can’t fill up on just her.’ Scootaloo smiled as she sipped at the hot chocolate — Miss Cheerilee was the best teacher ever! * * * Shining Armor made his way to the bedroom he shared with his wife, still unable to get the songs out of his head. It was mildly annoying, but at least he could relax with his wife and maybe find his attention diverted elsewhere. When he opened the door he saw several boxes on the floor near the foot of the bed where a chest had been moved and a human TV and DVD player were being set up by one of his wife’s personal assistants… Dameko, or some other odd human name. “Done!” the assistant said, jumping away from the television. “Ah, Shining Armor, you’re just in time to join us.” Cadence said, patting the bed beside her as Muriko pushed a chair alongside the bed for herself. After setting a chair up for herself Muriko turned her attention to one of the other boxes, rummaging around, before holding up one box triumphantly. “Let’s start with this!” She said with barely contained glee, putting the first disk in the player the opening came on: Big-O! Big-O! Big-O! Big-O! Big-O! Big-O! Big-O! Big-O! Cast in the name of God, Ye not guilty! Shining Armor felt his right eye twitch as the song buried itself into his head, and as he buried his head into the pillows… the three songs still playing simultaneously.