Secrets of the Everfree

by PaisleyPerson

Chapter 20: Who's Who?

Chapter 20
Who’s Who?

“Ow...” My head was throbbing when I opened my eyes again. I sat up to try and work the knot out. The rest of my friends were rousing, too. The sharp, girlish scream from Applejack attracted our attention like magnets. The torches had fallen in the confusion, and the end of AJ’s hair had been caught in the flame.

“I gotcha!” Rainbow valiantly declared, reaching out to extinguish the flame. As soon as she lifted her hoof, though, she seemed fixated with it, glued staring at the blue fur like she’d never seen anything like it before. Meanwhile, Applejack was still trying to put out the fire. I didn’t realize how unlike her it was to shy from the fire like that in my fuzzy state, and reached out with my mind to try and put out the flame myself. I couldn’t seem to pinpoint the fire, let alone put it out. What was going on? Come on, cool down!

The fire didn’t obey me, but I felt a sudden tingling surge through my head. In a blast of cold air, a hailstone whizzed over my head and collided with the floor beside Applejack. I ducked and covered my head, lifting my wings to shield Blaze, who was still on my back. Where did that come from? It left a trail of ice and frost until it stopped skidding. Applejack was still in a panicked frenzy, and Fluttershy shoved her over into the ice, where the flame was finally extinguished. Wait, Fluttershy? She’d never push anyone, not even at a time like this! I looked around at the rest of my friends, finally noticing their queer behavior. Rainbow was still admiring her coat with a puzzled expression, Applejack was still wide eyed with terror, running in circles to escape an invisible evil, and Fluttershy was... laughing at them?

“Fluttershy, what’s so-” I cut myself off when I realized that voice didn’t belong to me. I heard the sound of my own scream, though I hadn’t opened my mouth. I whipped around to where I heard the cry, and my heart dropped. It had indeed come from a gray mare with blue hair. Even an orange baby dragon rested on her back. How could I be over there? I was over here! Wasn’t I?

I looked down at my own hooves with a start when I realized they were purple. They weren’t supposed to be purple. Remembering the magical hailstone, I frantically reached up to my forehead. My hoof hit something hard and pointy. I had a horn. I wasn’t supposed to have a horn! But wait, if Blaze was over there, then who was on my back? I looked around to find the unconscious form of Spike, still clutching me in his sleep. Even my wings weren’t my own after all- they were feathered, like Twilight’s. I was Twilight Sparkle, right down to her cutie mark!

Her cutie mark. I glared down at the incorrect print. This was the second time I’d lost my own hard-earned cutie mark. First the princesses had taken it away, and now it had been mysteriously switched. I’d had about enough. My talent was in painting, not magic. Right? When the princesses made me an earth pony, I’d lost all my thestral abilities, including the little fire magic I had. At the same time, I lost my cutie mark. Even when I got it back, the magical flame on the paintbrush had been altered. Now my usual artist’s symbol had been replaced with Twilight’s, the Element of Magic. What did this all mean? Was the universe trying to tell me something?

I was wide eyed and breathing heavily, trying not to panic. I finished my survey of the room just to keep my mind off my own predicament. Cedar was cross-eyed and Torchwood was staggering to his feet, dizzy and disoriented. I turned away before I could find anything wrong with him. Pinkie was curled into a terrified ball, and Rarity was still coming to her senses.

“What in the hay?” It was Rarity’s voice alright, but she spoke with a southern twang. “How can I be over there? I’m over here!”

“Applejack? Is that you?” the frightened orange mare gasped. Her usual country accent had been replaced with the sophisticated tone of voice that Rarity used.

“You’re in my body?”

“You’re in mine!”

“Well, give it back!” Applejack squealed as Rarity tackled her headlong, as if that would fix everything.

“Acrylic?” my own voice shakily inquired.

“Twi?” I rasped, just as unsettled.

“What happened?”

“How should I know? You’re the one who messed with that magic orb thing!”

“The orb!” Twilight whipped back to the pedestal. We found the orb on the ground, undamaged.

“Put it back!” I urged. I watched myself do so, and shuddered. The thought of somepony else in my body disturbed me. The sphere had been replaced, but nothing happened. She lifted it back off, then replaced it. My eyes went wide with fear when nothing happened.

“No. No! Nononononono!”

Meanwhile, Rainbow seemed to have gotten over the fact that her coat color had changed, and stiffly walked over to the limp form of my sister. Once she’d been roused, Wild Flower’s body jolted upon being woken by herself. Wild Flower took in the scene around her. Both of them managed to remain surprisingly calm. Rainbow helped Wild Flower to her hooves, where she gave her new body a good look over.

“Who is that?!”

“Wild Flower,” the cyan mare flatly stated.

“You’re... me?”

“I think so.”

“And I’m you?”

“Yep.”

“I guess that’s... kinda... awesome?”

“No! It is NOT awesome!” Twilight screeched, set off in an all-out frenzy.

“Well, I guess we know who Twilight is,” Rainbow joked from my sister’s body. Wild Flower giggled as Rainbow Dash.

“Isn’t this great, girls?” Fluttershy squealed in a much louder and higher-pitched voice than I’d been expecting.

“How is this a good thing?!”

“I’m you! And you’re me! That doesn’t happen every day!”

“There is a reason why this doesn’t happen every day,” Twilight seethed.

“Wow, Acrylic,” my sister giggled. “I’ve never seen you so uptight!”

“I’m over here!” I squeaked. It was obvious that they’d already known and merely wanted to get a rise out of me, because both Wild Flower and Rainbow Dash started laughing. Fluttershy joined in until all three of them were rolling on the floor. I guess hysteria affected ponies in different ways.

Then I remembered Blaze. I had to make sure he was okay! I practically ripped Spike off my back before setting him gently down. “Blaze? Is that you? Or are you still Spike? Oh, whoever you are, wake up!” Twilight rushed to Blaze’s body to see who’d ended up in his body.

“Twilight? Where’s Acrylic?” Spike groaned.

“Blaze?” He didn’t correct me, and just tried sitting up. I yanked him into a tight hug to settle my own nerves. “It’s me, Blaze. I’m Acrylic.”

“Nuh-uh. You’re Twilight. Acrylic’s over there!”

“She’s right, Blaze. Something weird happened when I removed that sphere. We’ve all switched bodies! Look at yourself!” Twilight held his former body up to show him. Spike was just waking up, and was equally surprised. Blaze’s eyes bulged, and he looked down at the purple scales of Spike’s body. We set them down so they could investigate each other.

“Wings. That’s new,” Spike stated, looking back at Blaze’s appendages. Blaze wasn’t taking the change quite so well as he.

“Switched bodies?” Torchwood gasped, checking himself over.

“So where’s my wife?” Cedar asked, looking us all over.

“Torch?” He smiled upon identifying me, and the green stallion hosting the mind of my husband walked over to me. He recognized my distress, and stiffly tried to curl his wings around me as a comforting gesture, but neither one of us were entirely comfortable with it. I knew that it was really Torchwood, but to me and all the others, it looked like Cedar and Twilight Sparkle were trying to get together. Twilight tried not to look too disgusted from where she stood.

“Where’s Wild Flower?” Cedar/Torchwood spoke up. Rainbow’s form trotted up to press close to him. My breath caught in my throat. I knew it was really Cedar, but I felt a pang of jealousy watching my husband cradle another mare like that, especially when she was one of my closest friends. I finally understood how Twilight felt watching me with Torch in her body, and pulled away. Torchwood seemed relieved too.

“How do we fix this?” Though his voice was not his own, I recognized that trademark ‘take-charge’ tone of voice. This small bit of familiarity soothed me long enough to come to my senses.

“I have no idea,” Twilight bit her lip. “I put the orb back, but it won’t work!”

“We must remain calm,” he lightly scolded her. “If we lose our heads, we’ll never fix this. Let’s start from the beginning. Twilight, you levitated the orb, correct?”

“I just wanted to get a better look.” It was so strange, watching myself hunker into a ball and start to cry.

“Nopony blames you for what happened,” Torch gently assured. “I just want to know exactly what did transpire. Perhaps if we recreate the exact conditions, we’ll be able to reverse it. Everypony, think. Did anything peculiar happen before we removed the orb?” All was silent as we tried to come up with an explanation. I gasped.

“I don’t know if this is important, but I remember that I was standing directly opposite from Twilight. Blaze was on my back, and Spike was on Twilight’s. It’s like we didn’t just switch bodies- we all switched places!”

“I think I was standing in front of Pinkie,” Fluttershy quietly whispered, speaking for the first time since the switch.

“Yeah, you were!” Pinkie bounced. Now that she had access to Fluttershy’s wings, she zoomed around the room even faster than usual, pushing us all into place. “Acrylic and Torchwood were standing there, and AJ was here, and Dashie here...” She trailed off, moving us around like chess pieces. It was all we could do to stay upright. She was going according to bodies, not our mismatched selves, and the scene started to look familiar. It was from a different angle, sure, but I recognized it from before. Fluttershy dropped out of the air and into her place opposite Pinkie, smiling as wide as ever.

“Hey! Check this out, everypony!” Rainbow called, looking down at the floor beneath her hooves. We all followed suit, and noticed that every one of us were standing inside one of the overlapping rings.

“Ya think that has somethin’ to do with us gettin’ all mixed up?” Applejack wondered.

“At this point, anything could’ve have something to do with it.”

“The patterns did light up before we were switched,” Fluttershy pointed out.

“Alright! Now we’re getting somewhere!” Wild Flower high-hoofed Dash across the pedestal.

“Then Twilight lifted the sphere,” Torch prompted. They all looked to me.

“Me?” I gulped.

“You’re in Twilight’s body,” Torch reminded me. “Twilight originally raised the orb. If you do the same thing, it might switch us back.”

“But I’ve never used unicorn magic before! I don’t know how!”

“Just concentrate on it.” Twilight advised. I gave her a doubtful look. “You can control it. Just focus, and coax it into the air,” she added with a nod of confidence. I looked at the orb. Please, I silently begged. Please, please work. My friends were depending on me to fix this. What if I failed them? I tried to do as she said, but only produced a small shower of sparks from the troublesome horn.

“Perhaps we should try another approach,” Rarity spoke up. “Acrylic, you’re a visual pony, are you not? I remember when I was first learning to control my magic, it helped if I imagined what I was trying to do. Try to picture yourself lifting the orb.” I took a deep breath to shake off the last failure, and tried again. I shut my eyes, forming the scene in my mind. It seemed to play in slow motion, and a sense of calm washed over me.

“It’s working!” Pinkie exclaimed. “It’s working!” My eyes snapped open. I hadn’t even noticed the tingle of magic flowing through my horn. As soon as I lost the image, maintaining a telekinetic grip on the orb proved to be difficult.

“How high... do I have to... go?” I grunted, trying to bring it back up where I’d faltered.

“That’s exactly where I had it,” Twilight grumbled. “Why isn’t it working?”

“Wave it around a little, Acrylic. Maybe it has to be extremely precise.” I shut my eyes and blocked everything else out so it was a little easier to do so. After moving it over every square inch of the room, nothing happened.

“It’s not working. It’s not working! We’re going to be stuck like this forever!” Rarity was losing it again. Applejack did her the courtesy of smacking her back to her senses.

“Would ya stop gettin’ so dramatic ‘bout everythin’ like that? It’s makin’ me look bad!”

“Oh? And what about you and your ruffian behavior? I would never act in such a manner!”

“Ruffian? Alright, that’s it!” Rainbow and Wild Flower held them back before they could get into another wrestling match.

“That’s enough!” Twilight forgot that she was in my body for a moment, and reared.

“WAIT!” She came down much harder than she intended, the thestral impact shaking the whole building. All eyes were fixed on the ceiling, and everypony prayed that it wouldn’t cave in. Luckily, the tremor did nothing more than dislodge a bit of dust and chipped paint.

“No...” Twilight whimpered. We tore our gaze from the ceiling to look at her. She lay in a defeated heap, tears streaming down her face. The marble floor where she’d hit had been completely torn up, the stone cracked and dislodged. It had totally obliterated the golden patterns, and the pedestal itself. That was our last hope of fixing this mess. Gone.

Comments

[Luna-tic]

nice!

[Ponykiller_V2]

[Zilverfoss]

5155850
Indeed