"Angel? Why are you-"
Fluttershy stopped shaking Angel when she realized that Angel wasn't dead.
Putting her head on his chest, she saw that his heart wasn't beating. Fluttershy had a sixth sense about the health of animals, and she could tell that Angel was still very alive. Once again, she let go of him when he wasn't on the ground and observed his motion. He didn't fall to the ground with the help of gravity, and Fluttershy realized that she was the only force that could alter his position or pose. She laid Angel down in his basket and hovered over to her birdhouse. She peeked through the hole and noticed that her birds had their beaks in the feed dispenser but weren't eating.
"What the..." Fluttershy breathed. Melody and Treble, her two favorite bird friends, were frozen in place. They weren't eating and didn't move an inch. Looking outside her window again, Fluttershy confirmed that no wind blew, no leaves fell, and no clouds moved.
This almost feels like... Fluttershy gasped out loud. Discord!
This explains everything, she thought to herself.
Fluttershy stormed over to the guest room where Discord was stayed for the evening, fuming. Why, I cant believe that he would- She gasped again when she saw Discord frozen on the bed. This wasn't discord doing; time seemed to have stopped by itself. She walked backwards out of the guest room.
Stepping outside, the timid Pegasus went to inspect her bees and gasped when she saw them stopped in midair. They weren't flying, nor were they falling.
Fluttershy landed on the dirt path. No dust blew when she landed on it, nor did it get picked up by the wind when she pounded her hooves down on the path. She didn't know what to do. Nothing was moving. But then, she mused, why am I able to walk around?
Fluttershy walked towards Ponyville. After about five minutes of trotting and gazing around at the landscape, she took in the odd nature of it all. When she reached Ponyville, she gawked. Not a single pony in Ponyville was moving. Some were stuck in mid trot, while most Pegasi were in midair, completely frozen. There weren't that many ponies outside, but Fluttershy was still freaked out. She decided to check on Twilight, as maybe it was an experiment gone wrong and she was fixing it.
She went to the far edge of town to Twilight's castle. She tried the door to no avail. Locked. Shoot!
Fluttershy walked around the castle until she noticed a hole in the wall. Stopping for a second to question why it was there, she shrugged it off and stepped through the hole and began walking towards the second floor stairway. She was halfway to the stairwell to the second floor where she hoped her alicorn friend would be, when she tripped on something.
Hitting the ground with a loud THUD, she got up and observed what she tripped on. It was a line of wires running to...
Wait...
The line of wires ran to a Warriors book. But what is it connected to? she wondered.
Tracing the wires to the source, she came to an odd sight. It was the portal that Twilight used to go to Canterlot High. The top of the portal still had Sunlight Shimmer's Journal, but the Warriors book was linked to the Portal as well. Fluttershy was incredibly confused. She looked on a table very close to the portal where she spotted a packet entitled:
'PLAN: ENTER WARRIORS WORLD - TWILIGHT SPARKLE'
Fluttershy was speechless. Suddenly, the Warriors book linked to the portal made complete sense; Twilight was in the book's universe!
Is that such a good idea? How could she talk to the cats if she's a pony? She grabbed the packet and went upstairs. Finding a beanbag chair in Spike's room and surprising herself by not batting an eye at the baby dragon's frozen state, she settled down and began reading Twilight's lengthy plan.
Hopefully, this will explain a few things.
'STEP 1: CAST TIME-FREEZE SPELL'
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Twilight watched as Petalpaw and Rainbow Dash walked over to Pinkie Pie, who had a squirrel in her jaws, and congratulate her pink friend on the catch she just made. She was hesitant to participate in the praising, as she saw squirrels every day back in Equestria and loved to watch them climb trees and be adorable. They looked just about the same in this world, so Twilight felt wrong in hunting them. She realized, though, that she had to get used to it. Cats in the Warriors series didn't live off of berries, after all.
Thinking back to Pinkie stalking the prey, Twilight did have to admit that it was a skilled catch for a cat who had just learned how to stalk.
Urgh! She mentally groaned as she realized she had mentally referred to Pinkie Pie as a cat, not a pony. We're ponies, not cats! Why can't I think straight?
She realized it would be weird if she didn't congratulate Pinkie Pie as well, so she padded over and rumbled her throat into a fake purr.
"Wow," Twilight mewed, "that was a really skilled catch!"
"Thank you so much, Twi!" She lowered the squirrel to the ground gently as her eyes glowed with the praise she was receiving. "I can't believe I just hunted! Like, a real hunt! And did you see my finishing move? I call it 'Pinkie's Snappy Snapping Jaw Snap!'"
Petalpaw purred and commented, "You sure do like to name things don't you?"
Pinkie Pie huffed. "Looks like someone's being a Jury of Judging Judges Judging me, eh Twilight?"
Petalpaw chuckled and rolled her eyes. Then, she grabbed Pinkie's catch and moved it to the roots of a pine tree and used her hind legs to scrape dirt over it.
"What are you doing?" Rainbow Dash padded over to the prey and sniffed it. "Do you not want it?"
"She doesn't want other prey in the area smelling a dead squirrel, alerting them of a predator," Twilight explained, having read many non-fiction books on the subject. "I'll remind you to get it before we leave for the camp," Twilight told Petalpaw.
Petalpaw nodded, then froze in place.
Petalpaw glanced at Rainbow Dash. "Did you not do that with the prey you caught as loners?" Rainbow Dash's eyes widened. Silence hung like fog in the clearing as Twilight tried to think of a speedy excuse, but before the medicine cat apprentice could question further, ferns on the edge of the glade rustled and a patrol of cats stepped out.
"Can't I just ask a question and get a response?" Petalpaw asked the rhetorical question then rushed up to meet the patrol. Twilight wondered if Petalpaw saw the irony in her query.
"Hi!" The medicine cat chirped happily.
Getting a better look at the patrol, Twilight saw a total of four cats, including Flingtail.
By the looks of it, they're getting a better look at us, as well... The patrol studied Twilight and her friends for a heartbeat, before an orange and gray tortoiseshell she-cat stepped forward and addressed Petalpaw.
"Hello, Petalpaw," she mewed. "Can you introduce us to your... friends?"
Petalpaw nodded and gestured towards each of them. "This is Twilight, Pinkie, and Rainbow."
"Why are your pelts so weird?" A young cat stepped forward. She was a blue-gray cat with a white-tipped tail and a white splotch on her front-left paw that looked remarkably similar to a star. She also had blue eyes and a tuft of fur between her ears.
The cat next to her, a large gray tom, hissed. "Midnightpaw," he said in annoyance, "what have I told you about butting into to conversations that don't concern you? Especially when it's something as rude as that!"
Midnightpaw rolled her eyes. "I know, Stonewind. You told me not to do it. But, I mean, come on. How could I not ask?"
Stonewind sighed, then continued, "I'm sorry, ignore her. You don't have to explain if you don't feel comfortable."
Twilight gave a small mrrrow of amusement, amused by Midnightpaw's transparency. "No," She mewed. "It's quite alright. You see..." Twilight thought back to Rainbow's backstory for them and came up with an excuse. "We come from a family of cats with differently colored pelts. We've never questioned it. As loners, we don't interact with many cats, so we always thought the few that stopped by were the oddly colored one, not us."
The patrol nodded, and the tortoiseshell stepped forward. "Well, we're part of ShadowClan, as you would've probably guessed. I'm Owlbriar, and this is Stonewind, our deputy, and Midnightpaw, his apprentice. You already know Flingtail, I presume?"
Pinkie Pie stepped forward. "Yup!" She cheerfully mewed. "We met him earlier, he's a pretty cool cat!"
Flingtail purred in response. "Stonewind," he mewed, "could you lead us back to camp?"
"Uh, sure," he said, "but I really can't guarantee your requests will be met."
Twilight nodded, already knowing that fact. Stonewind flicked his tail, beckoning the patrol forward. The cats fell into a single-file line and Twilight intentionally brought up the rear. She wanted some room to herself. After walking for half a minute, she made a realization.
The squirrel!
She had forgotten to remind Petalpaw! Twilight quickly bounded back to the clearing and scraped the dirt off of the squirrel. Feeling her pony spirit weaken as she placed it in her jaws, she walked back to the group.
Before she could move even a fox-length, she heard a crash from behind her. It was faint, but it sounded like something fell from out of the tree tops and crashed through branches. She took a step towards the source of the noise, but she heard Petalpaw's mew.
"Twilight, come on! We're waiting!"
Twilight had no choice but to dismiss the noise and run back towards the patrol.
After all, she thought to herself, what could it be that would be as pressing as making it to the ShadowClan camp?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
'STEP 17: RE-MEASURE THE ELECTROMAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF THE PORTAL'
Fluttershy groaned. She wasn't one to judge, but Twilight used so much science babble that the plan had barely made sense to her thus far. Not only that, but four of the steps were re-doing parts of earlier steps.
Apparently, Twilight along with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, at this point in her reading, were preparing to go to the Warriors universe to save all the cats there from some threat that Twilight didn't specify. Twilight did explain one thing, though; why the world around Fluttershy was frozen in place. Twilight had cast a time-freeze spell, which, unbeknownst to citizens of Equestria and the sun, freezes them in place until the user disables the spell. Life never skips a beat to those frozen in time.
Well that makes perfect sense, Fluttershy thought to herself, but why am I unaffected?
Fluttershy shook her head. She ignored the confusion and skipped the step. It didn't seem important, so she saw no reason to read it. She turned to the next page and read on.
'STEP 18: DETERMINE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PONY AND CAT ANATOMY'
Well, this looks interesting, Fluttershy mused while continuing to read.
'TO PROPERLY TRANSPORT TO OTHER WORLD THROUGH PORTAL, DETERMINE BODY PARTS OF CATS THAT NEED TO BE DRASTICALLY ALTERED FROM AN EQUINE'S. TO PROPERLY ACHIEVE FELINE FORM, STUDY THE FOLLOWING:
1.) BONE COMPOSITION
2.) MUSCLE STRENGTH
3.) INSTINCTS
4.) DIGESTIVE ORGANS
5.) COMMUNICATION
FLIP TO NEXT PAGE.'
Fluttershy slowly lowered the packet to the ground and stared at the wall. There was no denying it; her friends had been turned into cats.
Was this... permanent?
Fluttershy realized that the portal, unlike when Twilight went to Canterlot High, did not transform Twilight into a cat; it was Twilight casting a spell that achieved this. This meant that when they came back, Twilight had no horn to change them back into ponies since they would still be cats. So, did Twilight want to stay in that world forever? She couldn't have overlooked a flaw in her plan that big.
Then, surprisingly, she felt a twinge of jealously. Fluttershy quickly dismissed it, but she couldn't help but feel disappointed that she couldn't be a cat with them. Fluttershy sighed, knowing that there was no other questions she had about Twilight's plan. Except one.
Why am I not frozen in time?!
It didn't make any sense. Twilight stated in the packet that she cast the spell on all creatures in Equestria, as well as the rest of the world. Why was she the only one not affected? Twilight's mission, by the estimate in the packet, would take, at a minimum, 3-6 moons. She couldn't just sit around for that long with no pony interaction! She couldn't reach Twilight and ask her to cast the spell on her, so she was stuck. The princesses were no doubt frozen as well, and even if they weren't, Spike was frozen as well, so there was no way of getting a letter to them. Breaking into the castle wasn't allowed, and Fluttershy didn't want to break the law. She walked downstairs and laid the packet on the table. Fluttershy started to tear up. She was in a corner. A dead end. A point of no possibilities.
Unless...
Fluttershy looked at the active portal to the Warriors world.
Well, I won't have to be jealous anymore.