Chapter 60 - And Then There Were Two
I landed on the library’s solid hardwood floor with a resounding thud. Turning overnight into one of the most rare and powerful species of pony tends to shock ponies I suppose. It certainly shocked Twilight, who in her surprise had released me from her magical grip. Not that this improved my current situation in the slightest.
I’d woken up that morning same as always, ready to work and earn my keep. Something however, had felt off, just a little out of place. You know, like that feeling when you get something stuck in the treads of your shoes and it causes you discomfort. Anyway, I’d initially disregarded it, putting it down to my odd sleeping position (for some reason I’d woken half out of the covers) and the strange, vivid dream that had plagued me last night. You can imagine my surprise though, when whilst stretching my legs to get the blood flowing, I accidently stretched a third set of limbs. I took one look and lost my head.
I need not go over the massive reaction the last time somepony ascended, but that was beside the point. What mattered was that I now had a significantly increased magical potential with fairly limited training. That made me a potential danger. That and I despised the idea of becoming an alicorn; so stu-ish.
In my panic, I did what I thought best at the time; remove the wings. I somehow got it into my head that if I removed the wings, everything would be just fine. Thus I began to use a variety of foalish methods, up to and including taking running snatches at myself. Naturally, the loud noise level coming from my room attracted everypony else in the house. And Applejack soon burst in to see what the matter was.
“Bones? What in the name of Celestia’s goin’ on here?” she exclaimed as she entered to find me on the floor attempting to chew my own new wings off like some sort of trapped coyote. Like Twilight later did, she too gasped in shock and quite surprisingly, froze up. After a short while, I ran out of adrenaline and energy and ceased trying to attack myself. I lay on the floor of my room, breathing heavily.
“Honestly, ‘Jack, Ah have absolutely no idea.” It was at this point I had a brief moment of clarity. Twilight was an alicorn and an expert on magic; she’d used transformation magic too; surely she would have some way to reverse this. “Twilight,” was all I muttered to myself before casting a quick, and significantly easier, teleport spell and getting myself to the library. No doubt leaving a severely confused Applejack and Apple family in my wake.
Thus I was now in the library, having been calmed down by Twilight after my less than subtle arrival. As it turned out though, I was not the only one who had undergone changes. Across the room from me, sitting next to a very worried looking Fluttershy, was a teal coloured pegasus who, by all accounts, was my little sister. She too had woken up altered. Twilight had spent most of her morning consequently scanning, analysing and generally poking and prodding the two of us in an effort to understand what had happened.
After a fair amount of time had passed, Twilight concluded her entirely ethical, legal and moral experiments on the two of us. She’d consulted over twenty separate tomes on various forms of magic, including one sealed book on the intricacies of alicorn ascension. So secret in fact that not even a Pinkie Promise would allow me access. Eventually, she set aside her various research materials and turned to the two of us.
“Well, Twilight? Can you fix this?” Lizzie asked, worry still clear in her voice. Fluttershy walked over to her. Twilight had previously shooed her off when she kept getting defensive around Lizzie. It was painfully obvious that maternal instinct was at work. With her experiments complete though, she allowed the Element of Kindness near her charge again.
“Lizzie, don’t you worry ‘bout a thing,” I said. “Twilight knows more ‘bout magic than anypony in Equestria, except maybe the princesses.” Twilight blushed a little at the complement before answering.
“Well, you two will be happy to know that it is all completely reversible. Blade Star, your change is a very simple fix. You aren’t actually an alicorn. Whatever happened merely increased your magical capacity, rather than giving you actual alicorn magic. You’re really just a very powerful unicorn with wings.” She promptly lit her horn up and surrounded me in her magical aura. A cocoon of sorts began to form around me.
“Hey, hey, Twilight! You mind explainin’ what you’re doin’?” I was somewhat uncomfortable around large, pony sized cocoons, particularly ones that were rapidly enveloping me.
“Just relax, Blade Star,” she replied. “This is a reversal of the flight spell I used on Rarity. It should remove the wings and I’ve modified it to siphon off the increased magical capacity. Though I still don’t see why you want to do that.”
“Alright, never mind that, just get on with it,” I said as the magic fully enveloped me.
Everything went dark for a moment, and I felt a peculiar tingling sensation move along my back. Slowly, the feeling in my new appendages began to disappear, first just in the feathers, but before long, I could no longer feel the muscles in my back. A similar feeling then spread to my horn before it too dissipated. I was then promptly released back into daylight and lowered to the ground. This time though, Twilight had the courtesy to give me a graceful landing.
“Well, did it work?” I asked. Twilight held up a small mirror. Much to my delight, I found myself to be a unicorn once again. And I was damn glad for it. I had no desire to become royalty and I had already experimented in high level magic; it is something I’d rather not trifle with. I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Ah, praise Luna,” I muttered to myself. “Right now do Lizzie then, Twilight.” While Lizzie too had calmed down after the initial shock of waking up as an equine, she was still dead set on returning to being human. She said it was interesting and kind of cool to be a pegasus, but it wasn’t her. However, her reversal proved more problematic.
“There’s a slight problem with Lizzie’s procedure I’m afraid,” she said. “We can turn her back into her human form, but I’ll need to contact Celestia to do it.”
“Why?” Lizzie asked, somewhat annoyed. “You just changed my brother back. Why not me?” Twilight thought for a moment.
“While it was a major change, Lizzie, he was still a pony. Changing someone’s entire species is much more difficult. Usually, it would be a transformation spell; I can easily do that. But to do it, I need to know what I’m changing a pony into, and I don’t know enough about humans to reliably turn you back to the way you were.” She furrowed her brows and turned to me. “Plus, I may need her help dealing with a more serious problem. Blade Star, perform a scan of Lizzie’s magic. Since she’s now a pegasus, there should be passive flight magic naturally, but there’s something else there too. Can you find it? I picked it up on you as well.”
Never one to turn away a chance to practice a useful skill, I fired up my own horn and began to use one of the spells Twilight had previously used on us both. I steadily moved my horn around the area it which my little sister sat, in a manner similar to how one would act when using a tricorder.
“Right,” I said as I examined her, my eyes closed. “There’s her innate flight magic. Ah can just about make out the remnant of magic from her cutie mark and…” I paused; there was something out of place. “Hang on, there something else, hidden away. High level magic. It’s not alicorn or dark magic.” I felt my head spin as I attempted to ‘touch’ this foreign source. “Chaos magic!”
In an instant Twilight and I, as one, threw back our heads and called out to high heaven.
“Discord!”
Said draconequus promptly appeared before us, either by virtue of listening in on our conversation with his impressive magical ability, or much more likely, by hiding in the other room the entire time.
“Yes, Princess?” he asked with false reverence in his voice. “Can I be of some help?” Twilight gestured to my younger sister, a frown etched on her features. The wizened old prankster’s eyebrows went up.
“Oh my, and then there were two,” he said, chuckling. “How about I put you in touch with a good flight instructor I know, Lizzie?” My sister shot him an irritated look
It was then I noticed something odd about Discord’s behaviour; assuming you can define anything he does as being ‘odd’ when he is so chaotic and unpredictable by nature. Both his talon and his paw were being held behind his back, and he’d kept himself very still, not turning or sidling about as he usually does.
“Do you have something behind your back, Discord?” I asked. He instantly became defensive.
“What? Me? No, of course not. Why would I have anything behind my back? It’s not like I’ve done anything.” Having put up with the spirit of chaos for so long, I could tell he was firstly, lying and secondly, wanted me to know that he was lying and to find something out. Both Twilight and I were certain he had something to do with it, based on the magical signature anyway, so I took the bait.
I promptly levitated the draconequus off the library floor. He didn’t put up any kind of resistance to my comparatively meagre magic. Turning him around in mid-air, we all saw he was holding two things behind his back. Firstly, a box marked wings, which was probably where my own wings had come from. And oddly enough, he was also carrying a small tube of superglue. To his credit, Discord does have a knack for cartoon jokes. I imagine he’d be quite at home in the world of Looney Tunes.
“Why am I not surprised?” Twilight said, more than a little annoyance creeping into her voice. I released Discord and he promptly began to flap his wings, keeping himself airborne.
“You can hardly blame me for this,” he objected hotly. “It’s not my fault that today is what it is.” It then dawned on me what the date was; April 1st, April Fools Day; a day for pranksters and clowns like Discord to play tricks on unsuspecting ponies as well as the occasional human.
“That’s what this is about? You somehow turned me into a damn alicorn as a practical joke? And Lizzie too?” I paused to breathe and began to pace around the library. “No, you know what; Ah’m not even surprised anymore.” If it was still possible, I would have thrown up my arms in frustration. Fluttershy then entered the conversation
“Discord, can you turn please turn Lizzie back into a human for me? She doesn’t really enjoy it and you know your pranks upset me sometimes.” Adding a signature ‘d’awww’ face to this statement seemed enough to sway the spirit of chaos. He groaned in annoyance at his fun being cut short.
“Oh, very well Fluttershy. For you.” He then snapped his talons and Lizzie was engulfed in the signature white light. When she emerged however, she was not human, she was still a pegasus. I turned back to Discord.
“Discord, Ah don’t know how you do things, but where Ah come from, when ya say you’re gonna do something, ya do it!” Confusion clear on his face, Discord repeated the exercise. Again though, Lizzie didn’t change back.
“Alright, what’s going on?” Twilight asked after the fifth attempt by the draconequus ended in the same result. Discord’s ears folded back on his head and I could almost swear he was blushing from embarrassment.
“Ah, well, erm, you see Twilight,” he began. “When I pulled this, actually quite difficult, prank last night, I may have made it resistant to magic for its natural duration.”
“What!” Twilight snapped. “You mean you can’t turn her back?!” Even Discord could tell the dangerous waters he was now swimming in.
“No, no,no,no I can turn her back, just not until, erm, next week” he replied, covering his face with his arms, attempting to shield himself from the now very angry little alicorn. Twilight facehoofed at his response. And called over Spike.
“Hang on,” I said. “If you locked the spell, then how come Twilight changed me back?”
“Oh, your little change was just a joke, dear boy,” Discord replied. “But I happened to get into a conversation with Lizzie last night and the subject of flying came up.”
“And I told you, I’d rather stay on the ground,” Lizzie replied hotly.
“True, but I figured that if you were going to dismiss flying, you should at least try it first. You never know, you might enjoy being a pony. I know for a fact it will get you closer to that nice fellow…”
“Enough!” Twilight snapped as she set down the various tomes she was studying. Taking a moment to perform her breathing exercise she turned to Spike.
“Spike, take a letter.” She quickly summarised the situation to Celestia and asked her to come down to Ponyville as soon as she could to see if she could reverse whatever Discord had done. I meanwhile, now free of my own affliction, set off to my parents’ house to tell them what had happened.
My parents’ reaction was a little unusual. Having seen their only son turned into a small four foot tall equine, their reaction to the news that the same had temporarily affected their daughter was quite subdued. They were both naturally surprised, but as soon as I mentioned Discord, my father in particular seemed to adopt a vague air of acceptance. After all, while it was irritating, nothing about what Discord had done carried any evil intent. Hay, on the walk to the house, I’d begun to regret my decision to part with my own wings so quickly.
They both followed me back to the library, my mother outright refused to let me attempt to teleport her, and they briefly discussed the situation with Twilight. At the end of the day, Lizzie was in no immediate danger. She wouldn’t have to change her diet, considering she’d done her best to mimic the local fare quite well, and there was nothing preventing her from living with Fluttershy. Twilight even suggested that if Lizzie wanted to, Rainbow Dash, who had been Twilight’s instructor, could probably teach her the basics of flight over the course of the next week. She also assured everypony that by this time next week, the spell would naturally degrade and stop functioning, turning Lizzie back to normal.
Celestia had also promptly replied to Twilight’s letter. While she was (like everypony else) a little annoyed with Discord, she saw no immediate issue. However, she also said that she (along with a few of her guards) would come down to Ponyville tomorrow afternoon to touch base.
With everything settled, Lizzie and Fluttershy returned to the cottage and my parents returned to their home. Even Twilight was content to get back to her studying while Spike returned to his comics. Standing alone in the library, it dawned on me that I had not seen Applejack or any of the Apple family since my panic filled departure that morning. I quickly charged my horn and teleported back to the front gates of Sweet Apple Acres. Being returned to normal again, my range had naturally been reduced. I set off at a fast gallop back to the house.
Reaching the farmhouse, I found Granny Smith happily reclining on the porch. Either she was unaware of what had happened this morning, or she was having one of her ‘moments’, as she didn’t seemed that fussed when I approached.
“Well hey there, Bones. Ah was wonderin’ where ya had gotten to,” she said as she placed her glasses on her snout.
“Hey Granny,” I replied simply. “You seen Applejack or Big Mac anywhere? Ah figure Ah should let ‘em know Ah’m back.” She told me that both of them had been working steadily away at the brambles all day, a difficult task. I quickly thanked her and set off to find the two of them.
In the end it wasn’t that hard to find them, as the sound of their labours could be heard easily, as could Mac’s light cursing every time one of the parasitic plants nicked him. I made use of my somewhat improved ability to teleport and appeared before the pair a little out of breath, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Both of their heads shot up when I popped in, if you’ll excuse the expression.
Now, bearing in mind that I’d been gone for most of the day with little to no explanation, and previously having had wings strapped to my back, I was expecting a welcome from AJ similar to when I returned from my ‘chat’ with Big Mac. What I got was smack to the head.
“Ow! Son of a…” I exclaimed as her hoof connected. Applejack had never looked madder in her life.
“Bones, ya had me worried sick all day!” she exclaimed half in anger and half in relief. As I sat there nursing the side of my head, she pulled me into a hug. Releasing me, she continued her semi-angry questioning. “What in the name of Celestia herself happened to ya? Last Ah saw you’d sprouted wings.” She then pulled me into another, tighter hug. I couldn’t help but feel Big Mac’s gaze lock on to the two of us. Eventually, I managed to pry her loose and explain what had happened.
“So Lizzie’s stuck as a pony for the week?” Applejack asked in amazement.
“Pretty much. Princess Celestia’s coming down tomorrow to see if she can reverse it, but Ah reckon we’re gonna be stuck with her pony form until the week is up. Still, ten bits says RD will jump at the change to give her flyin’ lessons. Anyway, Ah’m sorry Ah had y’all so worried this mornin’. But how come y’all didn’t come to the library? Ah could’ve sworn I mentioned Twilight’s name just before Ah left.”
“We were all worried, Bones,” AJ replied. “But Ah don’t recall ya sayin’ much. Ya just upped and disappeared. Ah sent AB and the Crusaders to look for ya in town, but Ah guess they got distracted. It’s not that Ah don’t care ‘bout ya though.” I cracked a smile.
“Oh come on ‘Jack. Ah don’t need you gallivantin’ all ‘cross Equestria to know that.” AJ blushed a little, though it could have been the evening sunlight in reality. “Come on, Ah’ll help y’all finish up here. Least Ah can do.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon with AJ and Big Mac effectively doing the garden, though on a much grander scale. Brambles were nasty little buggers and took a fair amount of force to pull them loose. In the end, we settled on trimming them back as far as the orchard fence line and see how they responded. Most plants responded well to a good trim in the spring after all.
I couldn’t help but feel a fair amount of concern for my little sister. She wasn’t in any real danger, but I knew that the whole ordeal so far had shook her up a fair bit, even if she wouldn’t admit it. I briefly contemplated the idea of her staying in her current form. While Mom and Dad had each other and I, possibly, had Applejack, Lizzie was somewhat lonesome at the moment. Sure she had a friend and a sort of mother figure in Fluttershy, but she had no love interest in her life. In human form it would be unlikely anypony would be interested, but if she remained a pony.
I shook my head; that was none of my business in any case. If she wanted to be a human she could be. She seemed perfectly happy as she was and, unlike certain someponies, I didn’t feel compelled to interfere.
Stats
Page generated in 0.045 seconds
Total duration
1,061 users online
2,047,271 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
YAY!
REJOICE! ONE OF THE BEST HIE-FANFICS HAS ANOTHER CHAPTER!
Seriously, good chapter. Keep going
*Looks at favorites*
Dun...
Dun...
DUNNN....
DAAAAHH DAAAAAHHH NEW CHAAAAPPPTERR WOOO!!!
Your.
I think you pressed the wrong button.
There is an extra comma here.
Ah, my Friday is finally whole again...
Also: Rar-Rar- Democracy!
Pegalizzie will stay, yay
5270891 Thanks, all fixed now.
5271014
5270566
5270528 Wow, I didn't realise how much you guys look forward to these new chapters.
5272861 I hereby copyright the name Pegalizzie.
5272947 I look forward to an update to this story as much as I look forward to one of Chugga's videos. And since he is not uploading this week, this is the next best thing.
5247243 I need one of these, I am considering making some models.
5272947
Sure, go on, my pleasure
5286788 I have a couple of ideas after this. But given how long this fic has been, I may take a break for a month or so.
So at this point you probably are aware of the new SSB fangame in the works, and the fact that Littlepip is part of the roster. If not, the Fallout: Equestria subreddit has a link.
Just for fun, I was working on movesets for some other fanon ponies, and I think I made a pretty decent moveset for Blade Star.
I want you to take a look at it and tell me what you think.
As you can see, Blade Star's moveset is like Phoenix Wright's moveset in UMvC3 in which both are defensive fighters. Even Lizzie is an expy of Maya.
5288756 While I'm not exactly that knowledgeable about fan made games, though I have played a few, I will say this.
*clears throat*
I approve of this! It sounds awesome!
It uses all of its elements from the fic, and it somehow makes my OC cool. 
5289035 I reread the fic to make sure I got this right. I may have gotten carried away with the Final Smash though.
I was originally gonna post it on the Crossovers group, but it wouldn't make the thread for some reason.
Status quo should not be God. And only a mentally damaged person would regard magical power and WINGS as a negative.
I remember reading in one of the Miss Seeton books, she made bramble jelly. So, like raspberry bushes they're not all bad.
I don't know what kind of brambles they have on the Acres, but here in Oregon they respond very well indeed. And by well I mean vigorously.
Remaining a pegasus? So she can't ever go home then. Yeah, I refuse to believe this isn't deliberate. Discord's interactions with Blade Star has been up to this point trying to agrivate him or subtly implying/threatening he would do something to his family members.
But the Cutie Mark has me worried more. He GAVE it to her and it has no real connection ro her. A love of flight perhaps, to inflict on someone who wants to stay on the ground? Given the natire of citie marks, it says to me discord is going to get away with warping someone's mind permenantly.
It does really fit Discord that he made the prank immune to his own magic because he never thinks things through. Unlike a previous commenter I think that the Cutie Mark is natural since Discord is too lazy to create one himself.
5432343
I mean, theres also the side effect of being a quadruped.