It was fairly late in the day and we were all relaxing, waiting for new arrivals to come. Then some people we DIDN'T expect to-in fact, that we hoped wouldn't- come. There was a knock at the door. I looked out an upstairs window. There were several members of my family. My cousins Robin, Alan, Sarah, Brynn and Sharen, my brother Jaden... they were all here!
“Zenith? Come on, i know you're here.” Jaden said.
Oh horseapples! I couldn't just not let him in.
I came downstairs, head hanging. “Okay,” i said, “but two things: don't laugh, don't come in just yet.”
Agreeing to that, my family members backed up. When i opened the door and stepped out, there were mixed reactions, mostly confusion. My brother was smiling.
“Ah! Ah! What was the first?” i said, glaring.
He swallowed his laugh.
“Okay, here's the story. You may want to sit down.”
Caramel Cream brought some Chairs, waving before trotting back inside. At the confusion of my guests i said, “Essentially, it's Pinkie Pie, don't question it.”
Anyway, i told them the whole story, from the party to the shopping spree, to the realizations we had come to, to our appearance on Ellen's show.
“So, that's why you can't come in, unless you want to be ponified. I wouldn't suggest staying long, either. I can't guarantee that your.... transition will be as painless as ours.” i turned my head away, ears drooping. It hurt me to deny my family, but that's the way it is.
I felt arms around me. Sharen had come over and hugged me.
“I don't care. I just wanna be with my cousin!”
The rest echoed her sentiment.
I was crying as i smiled at them. “Thanks everyone. Or, soon to be everypony.”
With that we strode in.
Almost immediately they were hit by the miasma of magical energy. Brynn being the youngest was affected first.
“Ugh... i don't feel so good, suddenly.” she said. Immediately afterwards there was a burst from either side of her legs, making a hole in her pants on both. If you looked, you would see a camera and a couple of rolls of film adorning her soon-to-be flanks. Suddenly, Alan and Robin's marks appeared, a small pile of candy-coloured crystals, -all cut in differing ways-, and a hammer with wings beside an anvil, respectively.
“Phase 1: the cutie mark.” i explained.
“Cutie... what?” my brother asked.
“Does sound kind of girly doesn't it? Anyway, a cutie mark represents a pony's talent/calling in life. As Brynn's represents her talent with photography, Robin's talent in gem crafting and so forth. It's usually also related to the name, but not always.” i turned to the side, revealing my mark. “My talent is mostly plant related, especially the ability to grow them in Winter. Hence my new name, Winter... Fields. .”
“Oh. That's... actually kind of cool.” Jaden said.
Moments later, the cutie marks of the rest appeared, Sarah's being one of a white karate gi with a black belt, Sharen being that of one of the swords of power from Masters of the Universe, with, oddly, a pair of running shoes. Jaden had one that looked like a ponified jack of hearts with several different tools around the frame, clearly a “jack of all trades”, with flaming wings.
“And you've only just entered the house. It will get no easier on you. Your cutie marks have appeared, so for all intents and purposes, you're ponified. You just need to go through the other changes. While we're at it, you may as well pick new names for yourselves.”
They said without hesitation;
“Shutter Bug!”
“Dapple Fields!”
“Crystal Jewel! Wait...”
“Solar Darling!”
“Summer Darling!”
“Flame Runner.”
Wow. They found their names quickly.
“I should also warn you that one or more of you might... lose or... gain something?” i grinned awkwardly, but next to me appeared a picture with Twilight Sparkle grinning in a similar fashion with the caption “Awk-ward”. I punched it and it disappeared.
Ignoring what happened, 'Shutter Bug' said, “What do you mean?”
“I used to be a dude. Think about it.”
They did.
“Look, in pony society mares outnumber stallions at LEAST 3 to 1, if not more.” i continued. “it's just as likely that there'll only be one or two males among your number when your changes are done. Jaden- i mean, 'Flame Runner', I'm betting it'll be you.”
There was a little mumbling among them as they discussed what this might mean.
“Don't worry about it too much. At least, not just yet. There are plenty of advantages to being a pony.” i tried to assuage them.
“Oh?” Summer Darling queried
“Yeah.” i said, bringing a chart out of nowhere. “Now, you see, all Ponies have a few things in common. Things that would usually set them right above humanity at the top of the food chain, if we were that way.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, like sharper senses, for example. Our hearing is far beyond a human's, our sense of smell can rival drug sniffing dogs, our sight is greatly improved, our sense of taste, exquisite. The only disadvantage there....” i clopped my hooves on the floor for emphasis. “Is our sense of touch, which we can circumvent in a few ways. Anyway, we also have increased stamina, an infectious bite (if you can draw blood, as I've recently discovered), ability to hold things in your hooves,” i demonstrated with a coin that i coincidentally saw, “a body that can take a beating, and, if you play your cards right, you can live HUNDREDS of years. And that's just for starters. There are fringe benefits for each tribe.”
“I'm beginning to like where this is going....” Dapple Fields said, in a sing-songy tone.
Ignoring that, i continued. “Now, see, I’m an Earth Pony. We're stronger and tougher than the other tribes, we have fine manipulation of our hair,” i said, making several strands of my tail grab several objects, moving them around for a moment, before putting them back.
“Which is why a lot of earth ponies you'll see in the show have their manes -and sometimes tails- tied in some way until they need it. Also, we have a strong connection to the earth beneath our hooves, so we can influence nature in that manner. We're the druids of the triad.”
My audience was nodding at this, clearly interested, now.
“Most notable among us Earth Ponies is Big Macintosh. He has more power in a twitch of his tail than a standard Earth Pony. He can lift an entire stove/oven set with one hoof and carries massive cartloads of apples here and there! Also, the Apple family's trees are almost always fit to burst with fruit.
“Next, Pegasi. Pegasi can fly (also having fine manipulation of their wings, like earth ponies with their manes and tails), and walk on clouds, which is amazing in and of itself, but they can also manipulate weather, like stomping on a cloud will cause rain to fall. Kicking it with intent to make lightning will cause that. Some Speedsters can even go around in a wide circle and make a tornado!
Most notable among them is Rainbow Dash.”
At this point a clip appeared.
“Rainbow says that she's the fastest in the world. And you know what? She's right! From calculations according to.... this guy,”
A few snickers were heard at that.
“Rainbow can fly around 5 times the speed of sound with ease, the mach cone that often forms around her while she's flying proves that she can break the sound barrier and the angle of which proves that she can reach up to mach 5 speeds.
Upon breaching mach 5 she enters hyper sonic speeds to create the Sonic Rainboom, which doubles her speed INSTANTANEOUSLY to mach 10!”
“Whoa!” the collected gasped.
“Anyway,” i said as the clip disappeared, “You might say that Pegasi are the Scouts of Equestria.”
A picture appeared of Rainbow Dash in a cub-scouts uniform.
“I said SCOUTS.” i said, tapping the picture with a hoof and thus changing it
it changed to one of RD in an army uniform, carrying light arms.
“Let's try that again.” i said, slightly more insistent, tapping again.
It FINALLY changed to one of RD as a Scout from Team Fortress 2. My audience was chuckling at my antics.
“Sorry. Those can be convenient when they show what i want them to, but..... Anyway, Unicorns are next. They're the most versatile with their magic, as you can surely imagine. Theirs is the more....” i paused to think of a proper word, ““classical” kind of magic. Be it levitation or teleportation, Unicorns are the mages of the pony-verse. There's a nearly unlimited number of applications for their magic.”
There were varied reactions to this about how cool all of that was.
“So....” Flame Runner started, “is... there any way to tell which kind we'll become?”
I sighed at this, my ears drooping to reflect my mood shift. “If there is, i don't know it.”
To change the subject, i said, “Well, since the process has already started, you might as well come in and meet my friends. Again.”
I led my guests into the house proper, and they marvelled at what we'd done with the place. It was much cleaner than it was before we came, there were even a few decorations around the place, to enhance the feng shui effect. This was the living room, the main thoroughfare for most of the house. It was a wide, expansive area, nearly as big as a hotel room -possibly bigger, depending on the hotel- by itself. It led to the kitchen, the bathroom, the dining room, the sun room, the rec-room, the- well, you get the idea. It was also where we had completed our changes. As if to accentuate that last point, the next change suddenly happened in my family guests. The ears. When it happened, they all went deaf for a quarter-moment, but then their new ears appeared a couple of seconds later.
“Phase two.” i said, “The tails/ears.”
“That kinda hurts.” Shutter Bug commented, to the agreement of the others.
"That's because of the magical energy saturating this place. Ponies emit it at different rates, depending on the pony, but all of them do. Anyway, that means that the changes will happen faster, more abruptly than ours did. This was where our changes... finalized, so of course there's still lots. By the way, the fact that you all grew tails before ears means that you're ALL going to be mares.”
"WHAT?!?!" they exclaimed in unison
At this point Crystal appeared at the top of the stairs and said "Yo! Winter! who do you have here?"
"Ah, Crystal Charmer! you're just in time! come and meet my family members, here, soon to be our newest... Guests." i said.
After quick introductions were made, i got everyone else introduced to... well, everyone else.
"Come. Let's get you all settled in."
Everyone went to claim their own rooms, bringing in what they had, for, come the morning, they might not have hands to bring it in with!
Once we knew the types of ponies they would become, we would better be able to gauge what they could do, and what kind of training they would require, thus the sooner we would be able to put them to work.. Until then, all we could do was wait.