In the gloomy basement of the abandoned building, Taharis held a grim look as he made his way to the staircase. Windows mounted up at the ceiling streamed the amber light of a bright, fleeting twilight. Grumbling to himself, the warlock took off the transformation glove and pocketed it.
The three teenagers he had brought with him from the museum, the three ponies... from the experiment, he had found a flaw. He had carved the ritual glyph on the glove to influence the transformation to limit it to that of an earth pony. But yet, one of the test subjects he had brought back had become a unicorn. How could that be?
He stopped beside another door, wooden and locked like the others. With a flare of his chi, Taharis' magic rippled through his vision, and the contents of the room behind the door came into his sight. There laid a black and white dog, its long black fur covering its back and face, while the white covered the rest. It was a border collie, lying on its side, exhausted and hopeless from the leash strapping it to the room's broken radiator.
The former man, Maxwell P. Scott, had transformed into a border collie... "... even when I had influenced the ritual to turn him into a pug."
But even still, the transformation for him had made him a dog, just a different subspecies... just like those ponies. All of them had transformed correctly, but one had become a different subspecies.
Years of Taharis' experience with the workings of chi trickled through his mind as he turned away, making his way up to the main floor of the building. Chi, the energy in every person that carried the very essence of souls, differed between each individual. Everytime the warlock had used his own chi, none of these sort of complications came up...
... But for these transformations, he wasn't using his own... Could that be the reason this problem was occurring? Were their souls retaliating from the drain of power he placed on them?
Taharis hissed in agitation, removing his mask and tossing it into the corner of the main room. With a quick motion, he did the same with his coat. "Nevertheless, I've come too far to back down because of some insignificant detail. No matter which species of pony I transform them into, they'll still be powerless while they accustom themselves to their new forms."
But what of the ones that were already accustomed to it? Like that yellow one he had brought back. What if there were others like him?
Taharis glowered, making his way towards the exit, "If others like him show themselves, I'll have to deal with them personally. But as for them..." His thoughts turned towards those three ponies downstairs. With one of them already used to his pony body, he knew the leashes wouldn't hold, especially with another of them being a unicorn. If or when they learned how to use unicorn magic, not even the locked door would be able to hold them.
In truth, he hadn't been prepared for such turn of events, but he didn't have any time left to remedy the problem.
Grumbling, Taharis exited the beginning, his car standing in wait for him in the disappearing afternoon, Do what they will. I already warned them; If they come after me, or send others to stop me, I won't hesitate to kill.
____________________________________
Fiora growled through the back of her throat as she bit the leash keeping her strapped to the wall. But despite her now stronger equine teeth, the leash wouldn't even rip. All the while, she shouted curses through her teeth, "Phucin' ell! 'Et ris corrar oph me!"
Dale had tears at the corners of his eyes. He looked just as terrified as when he first saw himself transformed, "F-fiora... c-calm down. We-"
Fiora spat out the leash when she realized she was making any headway with it, "Calm down? How am I supposed to calm down when we're all trapped in a basement as ponies and the guy who tied us up down here says he's going to destroy the country! He's a bloody terrorist!"
"U-um..." Dale gritted his teeth in silence. But then, his eyes fell on me and they bulged out of their sockets, "Lyle? W-what are you doing?"
At the moment, I was taking off my pants.
Fiora turned to look at me, only to immediately shriek in surprise, turning away in disgust, "What the hell, Lyle?! Ew, a little warning next time!"
I only rolled my eyes I squeezed my hindlegs out of the stretched neck of my shirt, since the leash was in the way of the normal way of taking it off. "Hey, just because I'm taking off my clothes doesn't mean I'm naked. I'm literally covered everywhere in fur. Losing my dignity is the least of my concern."
Hesitantly and grudgingly, Fiora turned back to look at me, only to find the sight wasn't nearly as bad. She huffed, "Whatever. Just don't expect me to go stripping, too."
I shrugged, "I don't expect either of you to do it. But I'm just saying, don't complain later if your clothes get too hot over a layer of fur. And not to mention your tail may feel uncomfortable bunched up when wearing pants, unless you cut a hole for it that is."
Fiora frowned as she glanced down at her shorts, where her brunette tail snaked out of a leg like an oddly placed feather boa. From the look on her face, she definitely felt it was uncomfortable.
Blushing slightly beneath her mossy green fur, she grumbled, "Dale, take off your clothes."
"What?!" Dale exclaimed, panic on his face.
"Just shut up and do it." Fiora hissed, her face growing redder, "If I'm going to strip, you're going down with me." Her face instantly turned beet red, "And you better not dare think I meant that as an innuendo!"
Dale held a small blush himself, fidgeting silently. Finally, he started to worm his way out of the neck of his T-shirt. Fiora, now slightly satisfied with her request, started trying to kick her shorts off of her hindlegs. After a few minutes of tripping over hooves and loose clothing, as well as a few pointers from me on how to properly move with pony legs, the two of them had discard their extra layers, now only covered in fur.
Dale chuckled hesitantly, watching his frost colored tail whip from side to side in freedom, "Heh... that... actually feels better."
Fiora only humphed, crossing her forelegs shooting looks that could've killed towards me and Dale, "Whatever... Don't get any ideas."
Now that they weren't covered, I was able to have a better look at Fiora and Dale's pony selves.
Fiora was a well-toned, earth pony mare with mossy green fur. Her brunette mane and tail were spiked similarly like her hairstyle before, though noticeably longer now. Her eyes had turned a shade of rich soil, and on her flank was a cutie mark that resembled a pair of roller blades.
Dale was noticeably smaller in stature than me, but that could have been due to the horn on his forehead. It, like the rest of her fur, was a very dark brown, almost grey color. His mane and tail were short and disheveled, colored like a blue glacier that contrasted with his umber fur. But his eyes, however, were a stark shade of indigo. His cutie mark was three snowflakes falling through a waving breeze of wind.
Fiora grumbled as she kicked her discarded clothes to the wall behind her, "Okay, now that that's out of the way, will the two of you get off your lazy asses and help find a way out of here?"
Dale stammered, "But y-you heard what that guy... Taharis said. If we get out of here, he'd kill more people."
"Only if we run for help," Fiora snapped, "He never said we couldn't escape."
"But that's what you're going to do when we get out of here anyways," Dale countered, "I don't want more people to die because of us!"
"I- Well, yes- but-" Fiora sputtered, "Gah, Dale! He's going to destroy the country! We can't just sit back and let him do that!"
I sighed from where I stood, "Would you two quit arguing?"
The two of them paused as they glanced towards me, before resigning from the discussion. Hm, I didn't even think that would work. I just wanted them to be quiet. Their shouting was starting to hurt my ears.
"Thank you." I turned towards Fiora, "First of all, we don't even know how this Taharis guy plans to do something like that. Even if we could go for help, where would we even send them searching?"
I glanced towards Dale, "But I also agree with Fiora. We should find a way to get out of these leashes." My eyes fell towards the desk on the other side of the room. On top of it sat mine, Dale's, and Fiora's bags from the museum. Apparently they had been on us all the way here. Kind of made me wonder how exactly Taharis brought us here if he never bothered to get rid of them. However, beside the bags were three phones, one of which I recognized as mine. Taharis must have searched our clothes while we were unconscious too. This guy seemed like he prepared for almost everything.
"I also need to get my phone over there. There's someone I need to call."
"Your witch friend?" Fiora guessed.
I nodded, "But first things first," My hooves went up to the clip on my collar, "This thing has to go."
My hooves fumbled with the clip, as hooves were never the most dexterous appendages to begin with. Heck, I could even play video games with them, but something this small was not meant for pony use. Too bad it was around my neck, cause I could have easily taken the clip off with my teeth.
When it was apparent I couldn't get it off, my eyes glanced over towards Dale; The unicorn stared silently at the floor.
Guess it was time for him to know he was pretty much our only key to get these collars off.
____________________________________
A few minutes of 'what's, explanations, and the best darn coaching in unicorn magic ever (not really), Dale only stared back at me with a puzzled look on his face.
Dale held his face in one of his hooves, "Ugh, this sounds so insane." He definitely didn't mean that in a good way, "Pardon me while everything I believed in is thrown out the window. I can't believe I'm even going to try to use magic, which shouldn't even exist to begin with."
"Dale!" Fiora shouted at him, "You can have a belief crisis later. Get to the magic and get these collars off us."
"Alright, alright." Dale sighed, closing his eyes, "Hope this works."
Dale furrowed his brow in concentration, mumbling to himself, "Focus on... the collar..." As he drew his focus in, it could be seen visibly by his horn beginning to glow with an indigo color that matched his eyes. The same glowing aura trailed down onto the plastic clip of Dale's collar.
Dale opened his eyes, only to widen them in surprise to see the glow surrounding his collar, but that only caused the glow to waver as he lost focus.
"Keep focusing on it. Don't stop." I encouraged, and Dale composed his concentration before the glow faded. He furrowed his brow as he stared down at his collar. He gritted his teeth with the effort, but his horn and the aura surrounding the collar began glowing brighter as a result; They kept growing brighter, and brighter, and brighter.
At that moment, a sense of dread came to me, "Uh oh... that's a bit too bright."
And then, Dale's collar exploded.
"AGH! FIRE!" Dale yelped in horror as he ran and bucked as far as the leash would let him as his collar burned with tiny tendrils of flame, "PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!"
But just as quickly, the fire ate through the collar's threads and fell off Dale's neck, who then proceeded to start stamping out the fire hazard in a panicked frenzy, "Die, die, die, die, die!"
When the fire was finally nothing but smoldering remains of a dog leash, Dale finally stopped stomping, catching his breath with giant breaths.
Fiora deadpanned from the side, "Geez, you could've handled that better."
I chuckled sheepishly, "Yeah, but how can you blame him. I didn't expect it to go up in flames either."
Dale, on the other hoof, stared in confusion at the smoldering collar, scratching the back of his head with a hoof, "Hm... I thought if I was just putting energy into my... magic, I'd need a lot to even undo the collar. I guess I put too much in and it ignited instead."
I nodded, grinning slightly, "See? Magic really isn't as much fantasy as you think. It still has physics and mechanics behind it."
Dale blinked for a moment, though still slightly unsure, "Um... yeah, I guess so."
"Alright, now that you're out, mind getting these leashes off us, Dale?" Fiora suggested.
"Oh, um... right." Dale then furrowed his brow, his horn beginning to glow.
Fiora raised her forelegs in a panic, "No, use your teeth or something! I don't want to become a furry charbroil today!"
Dale immediately cut off his concentration, chuckling nervously, "Heh heh, right... I knew that."
The umber unicorn made his way over to Fiora, "Um, pardon me." He leaned forwards and grabbed the clip between his teeth. With a slight bit trouble grasping it, he finally bit down on the sides of the clip and the collar came free. And once Fiora was freed, Dale did the same for me.
Once my collar dropped to the floor with a clatter, I trotted over to the desk and grabbed my phone, laying it down on the ground and switching it on. I'd used a phone before as a pony, so I didn't have as much trouble with it as the Dale and Fiora would've no doubt had.
As I sat on my haunches, Dale came up from the side, looking down at the phone as I scrolled through my contacts list with my nose. He gave me a curious look, "What're you calling your friend for?"
Finally, I found Angela's number and started a call, "I want to ask her about what Taharis said."
Dale sat on his haunches, "Was it about how long he said the transformation would last?"
I nodded as I switched the call to speaker-phone, because it was hard enough to hold a phone to your ear with hooves, "When he told me to figure out the answer, I had no idea what it could've been. But if anyone could figure it out, it would be Angela."
Fiora joined us in a circle around the phone, and just then, Angela picked up from the other end, "Heya, Lyle!"
The three of us winced as the shout rang through our sensitive ears. Fiora mouthed towards me, 'Loud much?'
I merely shrugged, looking back to the phone, "Hey, Angela."
"What's up? How's DC so far?"
"Um, it could be better." I admitted, "You know, 'cause me and couple of my friends got kidnapped and we're now locked in a basement as ponies."
Angela paused on the other end, "Um... wait, what?!"
"Way to drop the bomb-shell," Fiora muttered.
"Who's that?" Angela's voice asked.
"Oh, these are my friends I mentioned," I replied, "Introduce yourselves, guys."
"Fine. Hey, Angela. My name's Fiora."
"H-hi," Dale squirmed uncomfortably; I guessed he wasn't much better at over the phone introductions. "I-I'm Dale."
"Hi! I'm Angela! Nice to meet you!" Her voice had turned chipper for that moment, before switching back to a more serious one, "But seriously Lyle? Are you kidding? You guys got transformed into ponies, and kidnapped? Or did the transformation happen after you guys were locked up?"
"No, before." I proceeded to explain what happened at the museum, all the way up to Taharis revealing himself just earlier.
"Yeesh, so this Taharis guy must be a descendant of the first witches," Angela commented. A humph from her was audible over the phone, "Though that's a total buzz-kill. Only those with the blood of the true witches can use true magic? And here I was hoping I could expand my prank list exponentially."
Dale looked down at the phone in dismay, "You learn about this guy's crazy magic and the first thing you think of is pranks you can pull off with it?"
I shrugged, "That's Angela for ya."
"Oh yeah, Dale, Fiora!" Angela called out, "How're you two holding up? This is probably your first transformations ever, and a doozie of one if I ever knew it. Not a lot of people can say they've gone through an instant transformation before. That had to hurt!"
"We're fine." Fiora replied, folding her forelegs.
"Are you su-"
"Angela," I cut her off, "We don't have a lot of time. We're all fine, rest assured. But Taharis is a problem; we have no idea what he can do with that much power at his disposal, and he must already have a plan or something if he says he'll destroy the country in less than a day."
"Right," Angela agreed, "But truth be told, he must have a hell of a chi reserve if he can transform five people willy-nilly like he did. You know I'd only be able to transform one person and I'd be drained for the day."
I frowned, "Yeah, that's the main reason I called you though. Before he left, Taharis said he only had a chi reserve as big as yours."
A pause rolled through the other end, "What? But that doesn't make sense. Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure. He said the way he was able to transform five people instead of one also affected how long we'd remain as ponies. I called to see if you had any idea what he meant by that."
Angela hummed in though from the other end, "Hm... he would've had to use another source of chi... but what source did he use that would-" Suddenly, her end went quiet. For a moment, I had thought the call had been dropped, but when I looked at my phone, the call was still going.
"Angela?"
No answer.
Worry clutched my stomach, "Hello? Angela? Are you there?"
I could here a tiny, ragged breathing from her end of the phone, as if she were trying to breath through a straw.
"Angela, what's wrong?"
Her grim voice replied from the other end, quiet and almost light headed, "I-I'm sorry. Lyle, Dale, Fiora... you're not going to like the answer I've got. I... I'm so, so sorry."
The three of us looked up and exchanged worried looks between ourselves. I looked back to the phone, "What is it?"
Angela paused for a second, before quietly answering, "The transformation ritual only wears off when it no longer has chi to feed off of. Once it has no more chi to keep the transformation active, it'll vanish from its target. When I cast it usually, all the chi I put into it acts as the timer for the spell, and when it runs out, the transformation reverts.
"But," Her voice choked slightly, "The only thing that makes sense here is that has Taharis has tapped the transformation into your own chi reserves. That being said, the ritual should still only last the normal amount of time... but unless Taharis lied when he said your time length as ponies has been modified, the only other thing that could physically happen is he' s set the ritual to continually tap into your chi reserves."
I frowned, "Um, what? You kind of lost me."
"Your transformation is drawing off your own chi... but it looks like Taharis modified just how much chi the ritual takes. Instead of the 'one-time-withdrawl' for 24 hours you're used to, the ritual is constantly drawing off your chi reserves.
"Even now, it's draining your chi to feed the transformation. Normally, the ritual uses your chi as fast as you normally regenerate it." Angela's voiced choked into a slight sob over the other end, "I-I'm sorry, but as long as you three are regenerating chi, the ritual will continue to feed itself."
"Wait, what do you mean?" Dale asked, wide-eyed.
"In shorter words, as long as your body regenerates chi, the ritual will never wear off. If I'm right... you three will remain transformed for the rest of your lives. Y-you'll never be humans again."
...
"I-I am so sorry."