//------------------------------// // Big Reveal Feels // Story: Bloom Filter // by ferret //------------------------------// Applejack looked at the other five of her best friends in the whole wide world. Cheerilee had given her the go, and Rarity was right here. If Rarity wanted to start something for letting out the truth, she could very well start something with her own two fists, because Applejack just couldn’t stand it anymore. And she hated to admit it, but she really needed the help. Applejack felt out of her element in this, as bad as a fish that jumped out of the water right onto the grill. There might be some sciency thing or some sorta mythology about girls turning into ponies, but Applejack never heard or saw anything like that before, and she sure as hell didn’t know what to do about it. There was no way she could deal with this; hell there was no way anyone could deal with this. But if anyone could deal with this, it would be her friends. And Rarity don’t count because she’s in the same bag as Applejack now. Applejack sorely needed help, as much good as it would do to just ask a bunch of fellow high schoolers about it. But they were her friends, and they ain’t never let her down. Not together, had the five, now six of them, ever failed to come around and solve a problem, which any one of them couldn’t face alone. When it was just Apple Bloom, it was none of their business what happened to her baby sister. It was Applejack’s duty to protect her, and make sure she wasn’t all alienated or nothing, and frankly Applejack knew her friends weren’t the best sort to respect Apple Bloom’s privacy. Applejack was sore worried that if she told them, her friend Fluttershy was liable to go completely overboard, and that Sunset gal she was so sciency she would probably want to experiment on them or something. But now that Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had been drawn into it, it was starting to get a mite... worrisome. It wasn’t just a family affair anymore. It was something Applejack just had to put her pride aside, swallow that lump in her throat, and tell them all. Because she would never be able to live with herself if it turned out even one of her friends could help those three younger girls, and Applejack had just never had the guts to ask for their help. So she clattered down her tray and announced with deliberate enthusiasm, “Whoo-wee! Y’all would not believe the day ah had yesterday!” Rarity paled at Applejack’s casual mention, which was an impressive feat for a girl who was already white. She seemed tongue tied though, which was good because it gave Applejack a chance to think of what to say, now that she went and stepped in it. “Ah uh...” She sat up straight, then curled over, leaned over her tray, poking at her food bashfully saying, “It’s uh, been a right crazy whole school year, to be honest. And ah haven’t been tellin’ you girls about it, but not because you don’t deserve to know, just that there’s a sister very close to me, who I had no right to be spilling the secrets about her private life. Even if it is a real whopper of a secret.” She looked up at the five, now very attentive, except Rarity who was shaking her head frantically and dragging her finger across her neck. “Ah know, ah know Rares,” Applejack said giving her a sympathetic look, “But this here’s beyond both of us, and it won’t do any of us good to keep on hiding it.” “I...ugm...” Rarity managed to say, then shaded her eyes, quietly announcing, “Very well, then,” with a note of quiet finality to it. “Alright, so me and Rarity’s sisters are also friends,” Applejack stated frankly, “And they got a third friend namea Scootaloo, who’s the Librarian’s daughter. You may have heard of a kid named Scootaloo, Rainbow Dash.” Dash snickered at that. “Yeah, I’d tell her to give it a rest,” Dash explained, “But you should see the look in her eyes when I score. She’s like, my biggest fan or something.” “Oh, I have a class with Scootaloo,” Fluttershy said in a surprised tone. “Really?” Dash said with an eager grin towards Fluttershy, “What class is it?” “Oh um...” Fluttershy trailed off, hiding behind her hair. “Didn’t catch that,” Rainbow said putting her hand over her ear. “I really shouldn’t,” Fluttershy said very quietly. “It’s a dance class,” Sunset Shimmer spoke up, making Fluttershy hide further, but also cast a grateful glance at the girl who stole Rainbow Dash’s attention. “Don’t ask me how I know,” Sunset continued in her enigmatic fashion, “But I’ve seen Fluttershy and Scootaloo, and they’re pretty good at it.” “Did you see Scootaloo at the Formal?” Rainbow said to Sunset. “I couldn’t believe she had moves like that! She’s been studying it? Go figure! She knew all the right moves and she never even skipped a step. I think she’s going to be an awesome dancer!” Dash blushed then, and looked aside saying, “Er, you know, if that’s what she wants to do, I mean.” “About that,” Applejack said flatly, with a core of dread in her gut. Rainbow was not going to like the news. Rainbow didn’t overstate her enthusiasm about Scootaloo’s prospects, and in fact Rainbow probably understated it. She wanted Scootaloo to succeed more than she even realized. She saw Scootaloo like herself at a younger age, with the whole world open to her, just waiting for Scootaloo’s success to take hold. And now, well... suffice to say Scootaloo wasn’t going to be majoring in dance any time soon. “So those three had a...” Applejack tried to formulate how she was going to say it. Pinkie Pie jumped right in, saying “A run-in with evil shapeshifting monsters who tried to replace them but were defeated at the last minute by a super secret spy agency who now had to induct them all since they knew too much so now they go on top secret missions to keep the world safe from tyranny and that’s why Apple Bloom has been absent because she had to fly to Bangladesh to meet with a famous adventurer so they could recover an ancient idol from a hidden temple deep in the jungle but she got lost so her fellow secret agents code-named Scooter and Bell (that means Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle) have to go and rescue her now?” Applejack blinked at her. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that isn’t the reason,” Rainbow Dash said with a wan look in the direction of the excitedly bubble haired girl. Pinkie just had the biggest smile on her face. “If only it were so mundane,” Rarity mumbled into her plate. “Not even... close, Pinkie,” Applejack said, as Pinkie’s enthusiasm deflated a teeny bit. “Now button up, so ah can tell y’all before we run out of lunch period.” Pinkie obediently, metaphorically, literally zipped her lips shut. The rest of them were listening pretty hard, except Sunset who just stared forward at nothing, with a dark look on her face, and Rarity, whose eyes were shifting about at the others with a nervous anxiety. “So those three had a dream,” Applejack said simply, “An’ they all had the same dream, which was weird in of itself. You might recall the quote media hoax unquote that involved Apple Bloom pretending to be a pony. Well that dream was what caused it. She dreamed about findin’ this golden apple or something or other, and it changed her into a pony. She didn’t tell no one though, because it was just a crazy dream she had, even if it was weird her friends remembered it too. You sometimes have the same dream as friends, about something you talked about before and forgot, so it ain’t all that crazy a thought.” She sighed. “Now, ah don’t make a habit of prevaricatin’, and ah’m glad ah don’t, because ah can honestly tell you that as crazy as it sounds, what ah’m sayin’ is the honest truth.” Looking them all in the eyes with an earnest plea, Applejack said, “Somethin’ big happened, that ah just cain’t deal with. Ah need your help, and for that ah need y’all to trust me, y’hear?” She paused and added, “Ah ain’t never lied to y’all.” “Oh just tell them already,” Rarity seethed grumpily, turning away and crossing her arms. Applejack tipped her hat down self consciously, but then raised it up again so that she was sure they could see her face, when she said straight, “Two days after mah sister had that dream, she really did change into an honest to gosh little pony, cute as a button. Ah swear it’s the truth, an’ not a hoax! And she hain’t been able to come to school since on account of she ain’t got hands anymore, and she don’t want people judgin’ her, or panickin’.” The five were silent. “Mah little sister turned into a pony,” Applejack repeated, in case they didn’t catch that. “Welp,” Rainbow Dash declared loudly, standing up from her seat at the table. “Guess there’s a first time for everything!” She started to storm off— “Rainbow, wait!” Applejack said, starting to stand herself, before the girl could walk off in disgust. “There’s more!” “I told you, I don’t wanna get into your freaky horse cult, or whatever it is,” Dash said over her shoulder. “We asked you for pictures, we asked you to come over, you had a million chances to prove it, but you always make some excuse! You fooled us once, and when we called your bluff, you couldn’t pony up. How is that not a hoax? Maybe when you care enough to tell us what’s really going on, you can—” “Scootaloo’s a pony, too now!” Applejack said desperately. Sunset froze at that statement, but everyone else was too worked up to notice. “Ah’m not lyin’ to ya—” “Oh, that’s just cold,” Rainbow said rounding to stare Applejack in the face. “Trying to scare me into believing you, just because Scootaloo didn’t show up for practice today? News flash: there’s no way, in no sense, that could possibly—” Rarity snapped out from her seat at Rainbow Dash, “She is telling the truth, you complete, insensitive, pigheaded—ergh!” “It is quite a lot to assume,” Fluttershy mentioned, irregardless of this outburst. “Um, not that I’m judging or anything, it just seems outlandish...” “You’re telling me,” Pinkie exclaimed in outrage, “That my story about super secret spies and hidden temples is ridiculous, and your story about girls changing into dream ponies for real is not?!” “No ah ain’t!” Applejack said hotly to the party planner. “They’re both ridiculous stories, an’ there’s no way ah’d believe either one, if’n I didn’t see them with mah own eyes.” She was hot under the heels now, glaring at Pinkie saying, “They’re both ridiculous, but mah story is the truth.” Pinkie’s angry face immediately erupted into a pleasant smile and she said, “Oh, okay!” Applejack was starting to regret telling them about this. “Look, just hear me out,” she begged them, sitting back to her seat feeling downright enervated. “Y’all don’t have to believe me, ah just need to know what I should do.” Rainbow didn’t let her eyes off of Applejack as she sat back down. “If you need my help, you got it,” she said, “But if you keep stringing us along like this, there’s just not much I can do to help.” “So yesterday,” Applejack continued, watching warily her friends, as if they’d all just disappear on her like smoke, “Two of Apple Bloom’s friends, the ones with her, in her dream, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo they both changed into ponies. We managed to get them safe on mah farm, but they ain’t got nowhere to go now. And it’s been months since Apple Bloom changed, so it hit us right out of the blue, and ah don’t know how many months until someone else changes, or if it was just the dream, or what. They’re dang blasted ponies for god’s sake. Runnin’ around on four hooves, all furry and stuff, just about the size of a breadbox, and they’re still talking like they’re the same girls as ever. “And... they ain’t even normal ponies either,” she said, slumping on the table. “They’re the same color as when they were human, and lots smaller than reg’lar ponies, and get this: Sweetie Belle went and grew a horn, just like a unicorn!” “That’s—” Rainbow managed to say skeptically, before Applejack told her worriedly, “And Scootaloo got these arms on her back, but they’re all weird and twisted. Ah think somethin’ went wrong with her transformation, and ah don’t know how to tell her without her havin’ another freakout. She’s not dealin’ with it, Sweetie’s not dealin’ with it, they were still in shock when ah left but ah don’t know how they’re going to do when it really hits them. They ain’t human no more, and ah... ah just want my baby sister back...” Her arms were wet for some reason, where she was laying her eyes on them. Applejack couldn’t even continue, so she just sat there, shoulders heaving, for a ...good moment before she was again interrupted. There was a clatter of a chair falling over, which shocked Applejack out of it long enough to raise her head in confusion. Sunset was standing there with her fists balled at her sides and such a look on her face. She blurted out, “I have to go,” and just took off at a dead run, beating her way out of the cafeteria and charging down the hallway. She didn’t even take her tray up, or finish her lunch. “She knows something!” Rainbow shouted accusingly, her own chair falling over as she jumped up from the table. Applejack about threw herself after Rainbow. No hope she could catch up with that speed demon of course, but she was no slouch either, and Applejack’s speed was driven by desperation. It didn’t help that Sunset used every trick in the book to shake them. Applejack caught up with Rainbow looking around, and it was only Dash’s keen eye that spotted Sunset sneaking out of the broom closet. Turning the corner with the busted light only to find she’d vanished, but then Rarity was there shouting that she’s on the ceiling, but by then she pushed past Rarity and was gone. Then there was that time they were chasing her back and forth through all those rooms in the hallway. Applejack never did figure how Sunset got them to chasing each other, while Sunset ran the other way. There may have been further shenanigans at one point, involving a janitor’s cart, really bad directions, and a large, handlebar moustache. They almost caught Sunset in the trophy hall, but class bell rang, and she was outside before the rest of them could escape the crowd. Well, most of the rest of them. Fluttershy had thought ahead apparantly, the moment this whole thing started, and didn’t chase Sunset at all. No, she was just waiting out there all quiet-like, over by the bus stop, the only way out of here for a student, that wasn’t your feet. Wait, didn’t Sunset have her...permit or something? Anyway, Sunset did go straight for the bus, and the flame haired girl turned on her heels at the sight of Fluttershy waiting there, then charged right back into the school through a fire door that, for all intents and purposes, should have been locked from the outside. Rainbow Dash, then Applejack ran in after her, and as they searched the crowds for her incredibly distinctive hair, Rarity walked up with an unreadable expression on her face. The crowds were already thinning out, and there was no Sunset to be found. “It seems she has given us the slip,” Rarity declared in a note of disgust. “Ooo! Ooo!” And here’s Pinkie Pie. “Can I have it?” the cluelessly bubbly girl asked prancing up to Rarity eagerly. Rarity blinked at Pinkie, and said in a bemused tone, “Have what?” “The slip!” Pinkie cheered. And then she about fell over laughing. It was ...uncomfortably contagious. “Now hold on y’all,” Applejack said after her diapragm stopped doing the tango. “We gotta find her before a hall monitor finds us.” “She’s at the library~” Pinkie sang. Rainbow Dash gaped at her, saying, “How do you know that?!” “Well, where else would she be?” Pinkie responded, rocking on her heels. “...fair enough,” Dash conceded, hurrying in that direction. “Let’s go!” The school library was a vast circular room with two stories of shelves. There was a platform at the middle topped with a Roman bust, which had been retrofitted with the computers that were all the rage these days. Around the perimeter were not one, but two stories of bookshelves, with more aisles of bookshelves behind them before anything reached the wall. It was easy to get lost there, closer to the arching glass array of panes that made up the ceiling. It was the largest library in the entire city, the next one down being some dinky book shack called Golden Oaks. Unfortunately that also meant a lot of hiding places. Pinkie was very rarely wrong when she had a sense for those sorts of things, but saying Sunset was in the library didn’t narrow it down a whole lot. There was only one way out of the library, so once again Fluttershy guarded the door, while the rest of them went off searching. It didn’t take long before Rainbow Dash hissed to Pinkie Pie where she was, and Pinkie Pie told everyone else. Together, they managed to corner Sunset in a nook where there weren’t any places between the bookshelves through which she could escape. It wasn’t hard actually, because Sunset wasn’t even paying attention, surrounded in a heap of discarded books on mythology and the like, didn’t even notice them sneaking up. “Ugh,” she sneered disgustedly, throwing another book into the pile and rifling through she shelves. “How can I stop people from turning into ponies if none of these books have anything about both ponies and the Golden Apple?” “And just what is the Golden Apple?” Rainbow Dash ran forward on her own as usual, getting right up in Sunset’s face and saying to her heatedly, “And how do you know so much about this, huh? Are you turning people into ponies? WOAH” Predictable as ever, Dash was totally caught off guard when Applejack once again yanked her back from an unneeded confrontation. That girl could be so hot headed sometimes, and coming from Applejack, that said a lot. “Simmer down Sally,” Applejack said, getting an immediate worried reaction from Rainbow, who really didn’t like people using her middle name. It got her attention though, and broke her temper, which was all you needed with that girl. “She ain’t turnin’ no one into ponies,” Applejack said to Rainbow Dash, but then she turned to her mysterious friend Sunset Shimmer and said seriously, without looking away from the flame haired girl, “But she sure knows what’s goin’ on.” “Don’t you, Sunset?” Applejack stated more than asked, giving Sunset a very even look. The rest of them, even Fluttershy were converging around her, two with a terrible onus on their heads, one with a burning curiosity, and two hardly aware of anything other than that their friends need them, and that there’s some serious bad mojo going on here. And sure to her nature, Sunset looked for a moment like she was going to just blow them off, or tell them something false, because she just couldn’t trust them. But Applejack was determined to get an honest answer out of her, and it was just too much even for a sly fox like Sunset. Whatever was going on with this whole pony thing had likely had been bothering her for some time too, so Sunset’s head dropped and her shoulders sank. “I’m a pony from another world,” she said. And it was so out of left field, it just had to be the honest truth. “I mean,” Sunset immediately corrected herself, raising her hands, “I’m not a pony now, but that’s because your world has humans, not ponies, or that’s what I thought. I was stranded here because your world is trapped in a time loop. You’ve been repeating the last year for as long as anyone—as anypony can remember. When I missed my exit, I was caught in it too, but my Equestrian spirit doesn’t reset, so I’ve been following along with you for a ...while. “I’ve been trying to break the time loop so that I can return home, and you won’t keep repeating, but the only thing that can break it is something called the Golden Apple,” Sunset went on intently. “It’s only mentioned in vague myths and legends, but it’s clear that it’s a dream construct. A... persistent thingy that you dream about, that acts as the key to unlock the seal on time itself. I could never find it, not even in my wildest dreams, but then this time around, Apple Bloom did. She was just... perhaps it was her destiny. Perhaps she was part of it all along. Something changed, and I don’t know what it was.” Sunset actually had a tune of gratitude in her voice as she looked beseechingly to and only to Applejack. “Your sister, Applejack,” she said, “She found the golden apple in her dream, and broke the time loop, and now I can go home, and you can all get on with your lives.” Sunset paused at that point and backed away, as if unsure how to continue, but then just nibbled at her thumb, and stated frankly, “And then she changed into a pony. I have no idea why.” Everyone erupted into questions. As Sunset tried to calm them down enough to answer any one of them, the level of noise was horrendous enough to bring the librarian stomping up the stairs to bear down on them angrily. “Quiet!!” she bellowed out louder than any of them, as they all fell silent and turned to look at her. “Do you mind?” Cheerilee said irately, pointing at the sign on the wall that said ‘Please Be Quiet In The Library’. “This is a library!” she hissed. Rarity was the quickest tongue on her feet, and after a mind numbing pause, she was the first to speak. “She knows something about what happened to Scootaloo,” Rarity said rather accusingly, whereupon Cheerilee charged forward, grabbed Sunset in the blink of an eye, and shouted right into her face, “TELL ME EVERYTHING YOU KNOW!” There was a pause and, Cheerilee backed up laughing nervously, then said, “I mean, perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more appropriate.” It was a rather awkward bus ride. Tensions were high since their confrontation had to be interrupted by the unquestionable necessity of classes, all the way until after school. None of them wanted to make a scene on the bus, either. They all wanted to speak their peace, but they agreed not to say anything until they arrived. And worse, since school took so long, they barely had any time to talk at the cafe, without skipping dinner or falling even further behind in their homework load. Homework took a secondary priority to people changing into ponies of course. So everyone put up with it, while trying as best they could to avoid talking about anything pony related. It was more difficult than you would imagine. “Ain’t no way ah’m gonna pass Econ now,” Applejack said glumly, “Not with having missed the weekly quiz twice on account of...” she fell to silence. “I have had the pleasure to experiment with the most interesting fashions lately,” Rarity said happily, “Such as that of...” she fell to silence. “So,” Cheerilee said in a broadcast voice, looking around, “Quite the... bus this is, huh?” A chorus of muted agreements came from the various seats. Pinkie was the only one who didn’t seem dispirited. Rarity and Applejack were both in the thick of it, Sunset was a pony alien, Fluttershy was always like that, and Rainbow Dash was bummed because her friends were. “C’mon, cheer up everybody!” Pinkie said unflappably. “The cafe is just a hop, skip and a jump away, and we can work everything out then, or at least get a tasty mint frappe!” “Pinkie,” Rainbow said irritably, “How is a coffee drink gonna help any of our problems?” “Well, it might not help all of our problems,” Pinkie admitted, “But it solves the problem of not having a delicious iced drink! And we might all be doomed to the horrible fate of being adorable little ponies, but at least you’ll have a peppermint frappe!” Rainbow opened and closed her mouth and said, “That doesn’t—” “She has a point, dear,” Rarity put in dryly. “Solving a small problem might be just what we need.” Dash blushed while the rest of them sort of chuckled nervously. It helped clear the tension more than anyone thought it would, except maybe Pinkie. Once the bus dumped them off at the corner, they weren’t outright running for the cafe, but walked into it together as friends, or at least as mutual comrades in strife. Cheerilee stared at the little bowl full of cinnamon custard cream, muttering something about how this was going to go straight to her thighs. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie both had that mint frappe thing, with pink and red peppermint sprinkles. Applejack had a bottle of fizzy, and Rarity made do with a strawberry milkshake. And Fluttershy had a biscotti and water, because she was worried about fitting into the outfit for her role in the winter pageant, despite what encouragement her friends gave her. And Sunset had a triple scoop vanilla fudge banana sliced sundae. The five stared her way, until Applejack finally spoke up to the slowly eating girl saying, “We ain’t gonna wait for you to finish that y’know.” “Okay, fine,” Sunset said, dropping her spoon with a clatter. “What is it that you want to know?” “You can still eat it while we talk,” Pinkie said in complete ignorance of the whipped cream moustache on her upper lip. Sunset ground her teeth, but picked up the spoon again. She was going to need a triple scoop vanilla fudge banana sliced sundae or two to get through this emotional rollercoaster. The thing is, she’d already told them. Many, many times. They couldn’t remember of course, but she could. She could remember this very situation, except without Cheerilee, and how Pinkie and Rainbow always ordered the same drink, and how Applejack had an unmistakable love for apples despite her insistence that her family was that in name alone. Basically Sunset had been through this before, and she didn’t even have to wait for them to telegraph their moods before she could guess what they were going to say. But if this was the last one, and if she was going to be stuck here forever, then—no, no that’s a terrible way to think about things. But she couldn’t stop feeling anxious as a newborn foal despite how tired and repetitive this sort of scenario was. She knew how not to mess it up, but... now she could mess it up, and she’d never had to deal with that, now for the great majority of her natural life. “Alright so,” it seemed Applejack was going to be grilling her this time. “You don’t know ‘bout why she changed into a pony, but you do know about ponies.” “Did you say you came from another world?!” Dash cut in. And that was the point in this conversation where everyone devolved into— “Hold it,” Cheerilee said quickly. “Let’s take turns if we’re going to ask questions. That way we won’t devolve into senseless arguing, and miss Sunset here can actually answer us.” “Fine,” Dash said, while Sunset blanked a bit. She knew Cheerilee was good at defusing tense social situations, but she hadn’t had her in this particular argument before. “Alright,” Applejack said, “What do you know about what... Apple Bloom is. She ain’t a normal pony.” “S-she is a normal er,” Sunset stuck a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth. “Your world has strange horses,” she said at length. “Those kinds of creatures with weird little rabbit eyes and big long goat noses, they just don’t exist where I’m from. Which is kind of odd, because goats and rabbits do, and they’re mostly the same between our worlds. I can’t really speculate on the parallels with any kind of accuracy, because I’ve been trapped here for... a while. “But Apple Bloom is a normal pony,” Sunset concluded. “Just... she’s the kind of pony from where I come from, that I am. She got changed into a pony from a human, and I got changed into a human from a pony. So, there’s probably some parallel there, but I was transformed by the portal, and the process is mostly instantaneous. Plus, it only turns you into a pony if you’re going out of this world into my own. And I’m pretty sure Apple Bloom doesn’t know how to use the portal, nor is your farm on the other side.” “Where is this portal?” Rainbow Dash asked, “And how do you use it?” “Why?” Sunset countered snarkily, “You want to be a pony too?” “N-no,” Rainbow said, folding her arms very convincingly. “That’s not what I meant!” “Well, the only reason I’m telling you at all is that it’s closed,” Sunset said with a note of finality. “It won’t open again for another year, and your time loop hits before that happens. Keep in mind, this is all theoretical, since we’ve been able to keep native humans from coming to Equestria, so there’s no way to test it. But on the hypothetical case that you did go through the portal, you would come out as a flesh and blood pony, as if you were born that way.” Sunset’s face darkened as she added, “And three days later when the portal closed, you would explode in a concentrated burst of antimagic radiation, killing anypony in the vicinity and causing irreparable damage to your surrounding environment. “Then when the Summer comes to an end again, after the time loop resets, you would reappear safe and sound, with no memory of having done so,” she finished impassively, looking at her nails. For a while, nobody had any further questions. And they should have hastily called off the meeting and scattered. That was what should have happened. But no, Cheerilee has to be here this iteration. And Cheerilee has to speak up saying, “How many ...ponies died?” “Just two,” let slip from Sunset’s lips before the spoon even went limp in her hands. “One was a professor, who I never liked much anyway,” she continued resignedly, “And the other was my uhm... prison guard.” “I sort of wasn’t supposed to uh, come here you see. I kind of... broke a lot of laws to get here and uhm... well,” Sunset waved her hand around trying to explain, “My point is, there are huge consequences trying to escape this time loop phenomenon, and ...sorry I didn’t tell you.” “You were in prison?!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed right in Sunset’s face with big starry eyes. “Did it change you? Did you have a cellmate? Do you have any tattoos?” Sunset physically shoved her away and just said, “No.” “I think we’re getting off track here, darlings,” Rarity said in a discontented tone, “This... ‘portal’ to your... ‘world’ changes humans into ponies?” “And the other way around, yeah,” Sunset said amiably, “And no we can’t shove those three through and back, because it wouldn’t open this time. I know it’s related somehow, but without a... horn, I haven’t been able to investigate further.” “A... horn?” Rarity said in a tone of odd affect. “Yeah I... okay don’t laugh, not even you Pinkie,” Sunset grumbled giving Pinkie a death glare. Pinkie returned a close eyed smile and continued to sip at her frappe. “So, I am actually a unicorn,” Sunset said casually, only to be sprayed in the face with frappe when Pinkie spat it out shouting, “What?!” Sunset returned to her death glaring, not looking away from Pinkie as she reached her hand out to pull free a napkin from the dispenser and wipe her dripping face. “You did that on purpose,” she stated in an icy cold tone. “What?!” Pinkie exclaimed, “No I—” she glanced nervously at a glaring Applejack, and giggled to herself, “Well mayyyyyybe a little.” “Please Pinkie,” Rarity said in an exasperated moan, “Let the poor girl continue. I believe you were saying something about being a unicorn?” Sunset felt a little leery at the stars in Rarity’s eyes. She hadn’t been nearly as impressed the last time Sunset told her this. “Yeah I, uh,” Sunset admitted clumsily. “I was a pretty magical one, in fact. Top of my class, they couldn’t even light a candle to me. I was even the personal student of the princess herself. Not any more,” she concluded somewhat glumly. “You were the attache to a princess?!” Rarity exclaimed right in Sunset’s face with big starry eyes. “It was a long time ago!” Sunset defended frantically from the overeager girl. “She moved on, got another student! I don’t even know if she’ll talk to me anymore!” Rarity pulled back somewhat with a look of horror on her face, “And all because you were stranded and trapped in our horrible mundane world? How awful!” “I quit!” Sunset shouted. Rarity shook her head, “Oh no, no please don’t stop on account of me. Do feel free not to mind my—” “No, I mean I quit from being her student,” Sunset said. “I told her she was an awful pony. I said that she would regret ever crossing me. I just about kicked her face in, because...” Sunset lay her forehead on the table. “Now I know you’re going to laugh.” “Oh Sunset,” Fluttershy spoke up quietly, “If you need us not to laugh, well if everyone doesn’t mind that is, but I’m sure we can take you seriously. It’s okay, whatever it is you did is in the past.” “You already told us you broke out of prison!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “And you were a magical unicorn!” Rarity pointed out. “Ain’t much you can do to top that,” Applejack said offhandedly. Sunset sighed, and admitted it. “I was on the lead of a magical method to become a princess. I found out the princess Celestia had the crucial key to its success. She tried to hide it from me, because she didn’t want me to be a princess. I called her out on it, threw a tantrum, and got stuck here.” The others blinked at her uncomprehendingly. “Ah don’t see what’s so funny about that,” Applejack said, unsure. “I wanted to be a princess,” Sunset said flatly. “I almost kicked Princess Celestia in the face because she wouldn’t let me be a pony princess.” Still nothing. Sunset started to say, “I thought in your culture, princess was a highly submissive, feminizing—” But was cut off quickly by Rainbow Dash falling over laughing, “Bahahaha!” To be fair, Rainbow Dash was the first one to laugh, but that didn’t stop Pinkie Pie from joining right in. “You? A princess?” Rainbow said in jovial astonishment climbing back to her seat. “You mean like with a pretty princess tiara, and getting married to a handsome prince and living happily ever after?” “No, I mean like a powerful being composed of the three tribes of earth, air and fire, with dominion over the cosmos itself,” Sunset countered immediately, nipping that thought in the bud. “Princess has a different meaning in my world,” she explained. “It just sounds stupid here.” She paused, and added, “And they call it a crown over there, not a tiara. Tiaras are something worn by duchesses and heiresses, rather than princesses persay.” “Oh, but think about it Sunset!” Rarity enthused dramatically, “My little Sweetie Belle, an attache to a princess! And a powerful magical being of style and grace!” “Wait, Rarity, stop,” Sunset facepalmed and held up her hand. “First off, not every unicorn is going to be equally magical. It depends on talent and training, and how hard they work at it. I was both, so I hit the jackpot so to speak. Second off, there are tens of thousands of unicorns in Equestria. They’re just one of the three pony tribes, and most are perfectly ordinary ponies. Third, I think you’re holding your sister to too high a—” “What are the other two tribes of ponies?” Fluttershy blurted out. Sunset blinked. “Um... I mean, that is if you ......” Fluttershy whimpered, wilting back. “No it’s a good question,” Sunset said, “Especially for those three uh, kids. There are three tribes... three kinds of pony would probably translate the best. Sort of like strains, except they breed true it... okay there are three kinds of ponies. Apple Bloom is an earth pony, which makes her a lot different from a unicorn, and not just the horn. There are earth ponies, unicorn ponies, and” Scootaloo huffed furiously and crossed her arms. Or she would have, if she was coordinated enough to do that. “I cahn thalk fine now,” she said, “Stho can you teath... teach us how to walgk already?” Back at Sweet Apple Acres, the three pony girls were all sitting around in a circle in the living room. Sitting was a bit of a euphamism, for whatever weird posture Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo managed to scrunch themselves into. Sweetie was rocking unsteadily with her legs in the air, on her back, and Scootaloo was sort of splayed out on her belly. The sun was high in the sky, and Apple Bloom was doing her best to give two new little ponies a lesson in linguistics and pronunciation. Unfortunately, Scootaloo had about had it like, ten minutes ago. She was a girl of action, not words! She hated sounding funny as much as Sweetie did, but it was just driving her up the wall that she couldn’t even walk. Did Apple Bloom plan this, teaching Scootaloo how to pronunciate correctly while Scootaloo was still too inexperienced with being this way to escape? She hated being this orange... puffball thing. She was supposed to have skin, not fur! She had always been orange, and short, but this was ridiculous! She had gotten so used to visiting Apple Bloom’s house, but now she had to see it from Apple Bloom’s perspective. Scootaloo was not a fan, so far. Everything was so high up now! And she had two stupid useless hooves at the end of her weird arms, instead of confident, capable fingers. How was she even going to hold onto her handlebars without things to hold onto with? Could you even get a scooter that was small enough for her anymore? And worst of all, she hated those twisted misshapen things at her sides. Of course she had to be the freaky mutant, while the others got to be cute innocent adorable ponies. Scootaloo’s cuteness was forever denied, because of these bent pointy pseudo-arms coming right out of her back. She was like a cute, fluffy... Zergling or something. Okay admittedly that would be kind of cool. But these things on her sides didn’t seem to be useful for anything. They didn’t have fingers on them either, and Scootaloo had absolutely no idea how to move them. The weird thing is, they kept moving without her even wanting to move them. Stretching out and spreading, and folding to her sides again. They just wouldn’t leave her alone! Her tail wasn’t giving her half as much trouble. She couldn’t concentrate on the speech lesson, when she had all these weird things to worry about, like weird extra arms and weird hoof feet instead of hands. She wished she was a unicorn like Sweetie Belle, because Sweetie hardly even seemed to notice her horn, much less find it bothersome. Apple Bloom looked at Scootaloo, looked at the clock and sighed. “Okay, fine,” she said grumpily. Who knows why she got to be the grumpy one. At least she had clothes! Yeah, Scootaloo did not even want to think about what was going on between her transformed legs now. Probably something weird and freaky, like every other part of her. Apple Bloom said, “Okay, y’all can start by standing up.” Apple Bloom demonstrated jumping to her feet, and Scootaloo watched disinterestedly yet desperately, still lying on her belly. Was she really going to have to walk like that from now on? What a raw deal. She couldn’t help but look away then, the weight of what had been thrust upon her catching up to the riled girl. Apple Bloom distracted her by saying out loud, “Okay, so ya gotta sit back on your haunches, that means your feet and your butt and stuff. You push off with your front arms... front leg things, and use your back ones to keep pushing until your front ones are high in the air. Then if you fall forward, you can catch yourself on your front ones, while your back ones keep pushing up straight. Got it?” “Um...” Sweetie Belle said uncertainly. “How do I geht off my backh?” “Um, you just, like... roll, ah guess?” Apple Bloom said uncertainly. Sweetie squirmed around, but didn’t have much luck. “My shouldersh won’ um, push...” she mumbled. “Oh right!” Apple Bloom said. “Naw, you gotta push with your elbows instead, because your shoulders don’t work that way no more.” “I guess thash one benefi’o having thesh fings,” Scootaloo said, trying, and failing to figure out how to raise one up as she looked back at it. “Can’t ged stuck on my backh, wiff theesh fhings to push me uprigh’.” “Can ya move them now?” Apple Bloom asked hopefully. Scootaloo shook her head, “Nah, noht yeth.” She looked at the hooves in front of her, continuing insistently, “So you uh, you geth your hlegs under you righ’? I mean, duh.” She swivelled her hips with difficulty until her legs were flat under her. Dimly, she could perceive that it was the flat of her foot pressed against the ground, where she should have felt the ball of her foot, and the heel, but it didn’t feel that way anymore. The bottom of her foot felt more like the side of her leg now, since it sort of was the side of her leg. It made sense, because Apple Bloom and by extension ponies went around all the time on their toes, with their feet up in the air. It was weird, but not unexpected. Scootaloo could totally figure this out. “And zthen you just...” she said, tensing her muscles. Then Scootaloo tried pushing off, but only ended up splaying out again on her belly, arms akimbo. “Ugh...” Apple Bloom sighed down at her. “Ah’m beginning t’ think standing up’s even harder than walking.” “No, no I got thish,” Scootaloo said, making another attempt, flailing about and flopping on her belly again. “I’m on my belly!” Sweetie announced brightly behind her. “Now what?” “Now ya—” Apple Bloom paused. “Say... why don’t we just work on sitting first? It’s easy to stand up from there.” With Apple Bloom’s careful instruction, the two of them were soon both managing to sit up like rabbits. Well, not exactly like rabbits since Scootaloo’s arms were pointing up, not down. It would have been more stable if Scootaloo braced her arms on the floor, but even with her useless pseudo-hands dangling before her, she didn’t feel like she was going to fall over. Between the broad surface of her actual feet, and that tail sticking out behind her, Scootaloo was actually pretty stable reared up like this. Once they could do that, Apple Bloom announced, “Alright. Be ready to catch yourself with your arms. Now that you’re all sitting proper, just push with your feet, like you’re gonna try to jump. Instead of jumping, you’ll fall forward right on your front legs, um, front ones.” Scootaloo and Sweetie shared a look, almost double taking again at the sight of each other as a pony. Never would get used to that. Sweetie looked so weird, and no doubt Scootaloo looked weird to Sweetie. But they faced forward then, and tried jumping like bunnies. As she was supposed to, Sweetie Belle immediately overbalanced, and fell onto her front hooves with a frightened squeak. But when Scootaloo tried it, she just flew up into the air like a freaking spring! And now the things on her back were trying to go all crazy! She may have yelped in dizzy alarm the moment she was airborne before tumbling as a flailing heap of various limbs, back on her belly, sprawled on the floor. “Good try Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said totally patronizingly, “Just push off less hard next time, and it’ll work for sure!” “Oh my god...” Sweetie exclaimed quietly. Scootaloo stopped mid-groan to look at Sweetie Belle. The little pony version of her friend was standing there just like a... well, a pony, looking at her own body in captivation. “Oh my gosh Shweetie,” Scootaloo exclaimed in exaggeration from flat on the floor at the standing unicorn, “I fhink you’re a pony!” Sweetie didn’t even give Scootaloo a death glare. She just stared downward and mumbled, half to herself, “I can’ believe I’m shtanding like a real pony, it’s... it’s easy.” She lifted her head up in a graceful S, and said, “I can just stand straigh’ like this and izh not even tense.” “Pretty weird, huh?” Apple Bloom said in confirmation, walking forward and patting Sweetie Belle’s now exposed chest with the side of her hoof. “Feels like it shouldn’t feel normal, doesn’t it?” “Bud it does!” Sweetie agreed, looking forward at Apple Bloom in astonishment. Apple Bloom blushed and nodded, saying with a self conscious hoof lift, “Alright Sweetie, you can... uh, wait there a while. Scoots needs to try standing again.” “Maybe I just can’t do it,” Scootaloo grumbled resentfully. “Don’t be that way, Scoots,” Apple Bloom said in a hurt tone, walking over to her. “You’re ten times th’ athlete ah ever was, an’ I managed ta figure it out!” Scootaloo glared at Apple Bloom saying sardonically, “Yeah, bu’ you wanthed to be—um,” she stopped glaring. And stopped saying sardonically. Blushing heavily, Scootaloo just rotated her legs around again, and pushed into a triangle position, and from there to sitting up on her haunches. “Sorry, AB,” she said balancing there meekly, “I’ll thry it one more thime...” Any anger in Apple Bloom’s eyes softened, and she said, “Just push off real easy, just enough to make you fall forward. Your back feet can finish pushing up after your front feet are down solid.” Scootaloo did so, and with a moment of panicked vertigo she was falling, but then her outflung arms dropped to the floor, landing solidly on those responsive hooves she had. She kept pushing with her rear legs, and all they did was slide back and up, until her other hooves were also firmly against the wooden floor, with her heels high in the air. From hunching over, Scootaloo lifted her head up... ...and it was weird. She just felt like she was... standing. But her feet were behind her, but also below her? No, those below her were her arms. But they felt like feet too. Dimly she was aware of the extra arms on her back folding up, from where they’d stretched out in a panic at the sudden disorientation. What was weirdest wasn’t so much Scootaloo’s position though, but her position relative to Apple Bloom. These past months, Apple Bloom had transformed into such a cute little tiny pony, who was just adorable in everything she did. And now Scootaloo was standing there looking Apple Bloom eye-to-eye. Apple Bloom looked a lot different from down here. She looked more powerful and sure, and more like a... like a person rather than some overgrown teddy bear running around your legs. “Wow Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo gulped, “You look, um, big.” Apple Bloom’s eyes widened and her pupils narrowed; she looked at Scootaloo like she was some kind of an alien. Scootaloo cringed back just a moment. Then those pupils reversed course, growing big and deep and limpid, and Apple Bloom was actually tearing up, when she said quaveringly, “You’re the first person since this ever happened, who’s ever said that t’me!” Then she glomped Scootaloo in a full body chest hug.