My Little Equestroid: Stompin' is Magic

by ForeverChasingRainbows

Chapter 9 - A Transformative Experience

**Fluttershy**

Fluttershy was almost excited enough to forget her anxiety entirely. It had been embarrassing when everypony had figured out she could talk to their oversized visitor, and hadn't mentioned it. As she had feared, Twilight's wonderful presentation had immediately been ruined. Pinkie had started asking lots of questions, and things had gotten too loud and a little overwhelming.

Then her large friend had gotten frustrated with the group's bickering, which Fluttershy was going to have to apologise to him for, but he had said he was sorry about frightening everypony so everything was okay. She didn't have to worry about interrupting Twilight or anything now either. He might be a little on the large side, but he wasn't a pony or a dragon so there wasn't really any need to be scared of him. New kinds of creatures were always so exciting, you never knew what sorts of things you might learn about them.

"Hello again sir," Fluttershy said brightly as she approached, "you can understand me, can't you?"

The pegasus' heart jumped in her chest when the grey stallion said yes. She could just tell they were going to be best friends.

Okay, okay, calm down. We don't need to do the Grand Galloping Gala again, Fluttershy thought to herself, shuddering.

"Ask him what his favourite cupcake flavour is! The world HAS to know!" Pinkie Pie yelled desperately, before being shushed by the rest of the group.

"Maybe you could explain the writing thing to him?" Twilight suggested. "Or maybe even a proper translation spell, but I think that might have to wait until I'm feeling better." Twilight gently rubbed at the base of her horn with a hoof, wincing slightly. "Or when we get him to Luna and Celestia, whichever happens first."

That sounded like a much more sensible idea to Fluttershy than talking about cake flavours. She even flew a little on the way to the notepad in her excitement, drawing another surprised comment from the large stallion. Scooping up the pencil in her mouth, Fluttershy held the pad in her forehooves and landed in front of her new friend. Making an effort to write large, clear letters, she quickly spelled out 'Hello, my name is Fluttershy' on the paper. Then she laid the pad and paper down on the ground and pushed it towards the horse. Unfortunately, he seemed to be confused by the whole thing.

"Could you write something down like me?" Fluttershy asked, "My friend Twilight thinks she might be able to translate things if you write them down for her."

The stallion shook out his thick white mane before uncertainly sizing up the pencil and pad in front of him, also glancing down at his legs as if he wasn't sure what exactly he was supposed to do. After grumbling to himself a little, he tried several times to grab the stubby pencil in his mouth. He didn't manage to get a good grip on it, probably because it was too small for him. Fluttershy realised he didn't seem to be too good at holding onto the pad with his hooves either.

"Um, Twilight," she said tentatively, "I think we might need to find something a little bigger-"

The stallion interrupted Fluttershy to ask a question of his own - whether or not she could understand him the same way he could her.

Fluttershy nodded. "Um, yes. Sort of. It's my special talent," she said, pointing a hoof at her cutie mark. He looked at the three butterflies on her flank with obvious curiosity, but still seemed confused by something she had said. After a moment he began to speak again, but this time Fluttershy had a little trouble understanding exactly what he wanted. Her ability to communicate with other creatures only got a general idea across, and some of the things he was saying didn't make a whole lot of sense to her.

And it only normally works with animals, she thought to herself. I mean, not that I'm complaining or anything, but why can I communicate with him like this at all?

He wanted to do something that would make it easier for him to write, but wanted to warn everypony about it beforehoof for some reason. He seemed to be worried about scaring them all, but if he was thoughtful enough to warn everypony first then Fluttershy was sure his heart was in the right place.

"Well come along then Fluttershy, what does this fine gentlecolt want?" Rarity asked as the stallion fell silent again.

"I'm not completely sure," Fluttershy said, half-turning back towards her friends. "He wants to do something so that he can write more easily, but he thinks it's going to frighten us. He asked me to warn everypony about it before he does anything."

Twilight drew in a sharp breath. "Do you think he's going to use magic?" she asked, bouncing a little on her forehooves in excitement. "Magic from another universe! This is going to be fascinating!"

"Whatever it is, I bet it's not as scary as all that," Rainbow Dash called absently from her cloud. "Still," she grunted, rolling onto her belly and scooting the cloud a little closer, "I suppose we should at least watch."

"We tried to tell him a little bit about us, and he didn't complain or nothin'. I think we owe him at least the same, even if he thinks we're not gonna like it," Applejack said, moving to stand closer to her friends. "If it's a part a' who he is, and we're lookin' to be friends, then we're gonna have to get used to it. I reckon he'll be thinkin' some stuff we do is weird too, like Twilight said earlier. Right Twi?"

"Oh, almost definitely. He seemed pretty surprised by quite a lot of what we've shown him so far, and we don't know anything about what his world is normally like. The mirror world that Sunset Shimmer ran off to was certainly a crazy place," Twilight said, a grin tugging at one side of her mouth, "and that was a mirror universe, almost identical to this one. A proper cross-dimensional portal could go somewhere much, much stranger."

"So," Rainbow asked from her floating perch, "we gotta do anything special for this, Fluttershy? Or do we just, like, brace for weird and see what happens?"

Fluttershy's reply was delayed by Pinkie Pie, as the pink pony vibrated slowly across the floor in a series of twitches and spasms. It was just about possible to make out "Whatever it is, it's gonna be a big surprise!" through the stuttering brought about by her jerky movements.

Applejack slapped a hoof down on Pinkie's tail before she Pinkie-Sensed herself too far from the rest of the group. "Alright Fluttershy, I guess ya can tell the big feller to go right ahead."

Fluttershy turned back to the horse and gave him a silent nod. She felt her ears twitching, hunting after the source of a faint whirring mechanical sound as the stallion rose up to his full height. Then he gently motioned with a hoof and told her to move back with the others. Fluttershy realised he was nervous about something - but it wasn't fear of any reaction from her and her friends. It was more... personal, somehow. Fluttershy tried to give the horse a reassuring smile, and stepped back a short way to stand with the others. They were all watching with interest, especially Twilight - her horn was glowing faintly, magical senses as alert as every other.

The stallion closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, as the ponies looked on with silent anticipation. Then, without warning, he reared up with a bellowing cry to paw at the air with his forelegs. The startled ponies watched, and then started to cry out in alarm as bright arcs of lightning jumped across and between his metal limbs. Instead of falling back to the ground after a few moments, the stallion's front half kept on going up - only stopping as he looked about ready to tip over backwards. His neck rotated forwards to line up with his now-upright back, keeping his head over the top of his chest; a chest which seemed to be getting broader as his forelegs rotated outward, the stallion's pose reminding Fluttershy more and more of Mister Bear rearing up when he got really angry. Mister Bear wasn't quite this big though - the stallion's height had been quite intimidating when he was stood on four hooves, and now he positively towered over the group of frightened ponies in front of him.

As the lightning discharges running across his body died down, Fluttershy realised that the saddle the grey stallion had been wearing was nowhere to be seen. Only a few red straps remained crossing his chest and belly, with a gold badge hanging from the one circling his neck. Also, the bandages behind - or below, now, she corrected - his shoulder had fallen off, the tape securing them torn loose. The horse - or whatever he had turned into - seemed to settle into his new upright stance for a moment, before grasping at his right side and collapsing to one knee, long face contorted in pain.

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!

The fresh blood that flowed out over the stallion's forehooves was so distracting that it took Fluttershy a second to realise they weren't even hooves any more. His forelimbs now ended in five-fingered metal paws, similar to a minotaur's - in fact, with his grey colouration the stallion now resembled nothing so much as an oversized equine version of Iron Will. Normal-looking hind legs and tail, but an upright two-legged stance and repositioned forelimbs ending in hands rather than hooves.

The questions and anxiety could wait though; he was injured, and needed help. Fluttershy hadn't gone more than a few steps, however, before the usefulness of the stallion's altered forelimbs became apparent - he reached down to the fallen bandages and, pressing the bloody pad to his side, looped the strips of cloth around his own chest before dexterously twisting the ends together. With a vicious snarl he yanked the joined ends into a tight knot, then fell forward as one of his hind legs gave way.

Fluttershy only just managed to hold herself back from attempting to catch him - even if he might hurt himself falling, she would only succeed in being crushed beneath him if she got herself in the way. To Fluttershy's relief the stallion got his left arm out in time, then settled into what was almost a normal seated position for a pony - hind legs folded beneath him and arms holding up his front half. Then he leaned backwards, taking his arms off the ground and sitting with his back upright.

As Fluttershy tentatively approached, Rainbow Dash spoke up from behind her. "I'm not the only one who totally did not see that coming, right?"

"I ain't sure what I was expectin', but yeah I think I'm surprised," Applejack replied quietly.

"Hi Surprised! I'm Pinkie Pie."

"Not now, sugarcube."

"Aww."

"Was that, like, what was meant to happen?" Rainbow Dash seemed to be under the impression Fluttershy understood more about what had just happened than she did, because the question was directed at her. "I'm not exactly up on my, uh... whatever the hay that was, but it didn't look like a whole heap of fun."

Fluttershy took a few more steps forward. "Are you okay?" she asked, doing her best to inspect the hastily-retied bandages.

The stallion's upright posture - even sat down as he was - forced her to take off to be able to reach his injury, making everything a little bit harder for her. A look of surprise crossed his face briefly as she did so, just like the last time she had flown in front of him. Maybe they didn't have pegasi where he came from.

As she got a closer look at him, she realised the saddle on his back had been replaced by some sort of large metal stick, carried in a red holster. The metal loop grip at the top and the obvious weight of the object suggested it was some sort of weapon, lending more evidence to Twilight's theory - and Princess Luna's confirmation - that he was a guard of some kind. Weapons always made Fluttershy nervous, but she was reassured to see this one didn't seem to have any sharp edges.

He replied that he was fine as she hovered next to his shoulder and checked over the dressing. Fluttershy would have guessed that was a lie even if she couldn't sense how much pain he was in.

"You need to rest. No more doing... whatever that was, okay? You have to let it heal."

The stallion agreed reluctantly, then paused. After a moment he thanked Fluttershy and her friends for taking care of him.

"Is he going to be alright, Fluttershy?" Rarity asked. "That looked rather painful."

"If he rests a bit he'll be fine," Fluttershy replied, gently dropping back to the ground. "He wants to say thank you to everypony for taking care of him, too."

"Oh, that..." Rarity trailed off, staring at the scene beside her. "Pinkie Pie, what in the name of Celestia are you doing?"

Fluttershy glanced around as Pinkie stopped vigorously cranking Twilight's tail. "Trying to restart Twilight," she said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world to be treating another pony like a recalcitrant piece of machinery. The alicorn was staring slack-jawed at the transformed stallion, apparently oblivious to Pinkie's actions.

Applejack walked over and poked Twilight in the ribs speculatively, and suddenly she jerked back into life.

"Nope. I'm done!" she said, with rather excessive amounts of forced cheer. "I'm going to go to bed now, where I intend to sleep until the world starts making sense again."

"Twilight, darling, whatever is the matter?" Rarity asked, concerned. "I know that was a little startling, but I would have thought that a magical display-"

"That wasn't magic!" Twilight half-shouted, left eye twitching along with the accompanying ear. "I was waiting for the tiniest twitch of magic during the whole precess, and there was absolutely none whatsoever involved in what just happened. Which makes no sense. That," she protested, pointing a shaking hoof at the transformed stallion, "makes no sense. It's not possible!"

"Okay Twi, simmer down," Applejack said slowly, "stay calm-"

"I am calm!" Twilight yelled. "I could not be more calmerer! I am displaying an appropriate level of calm for something this scientifically unpossible!"

Pinkie Pie's face fell. "Uh-oh, there goes the grammar. That's not good."

"Uh, Rarity?" Rainbow asked warily as Twilight's increasingly grammatically-challenged rant continued, "You got your freak-out bench with you?"

"I beg your pardon?" Rarity replied, affronted.

"The big red couch you're always faintin' on." Applejack clarified.

"I am not-"

"Do you got it or don't ya?"

Rarity glanced aside with an embarrassed grin, before nodding. "It's in the tent," she confirmed quietly. "I'll get it."

**Thirty-Thirty**

Thirty-Thirty sat with his arms folded, waiting for the ponies to calm down.

Well, I guess one freakout is a better than several, he thought, gingerly rolling his right shoulder to see how far it could go before the pain in his side got too intense.

The ponies had produced, of all things, a pony-sized plush red fainting couch from the large white pavilion tent in the encampment. The couch, in combination with a large book and what looked like a cup of tea, had been used to get the hysterical Star packed into the aforementioned tent to sort herself out.

Dropping his hands into his lap, Thirty-Thirty looked down at his limbs. He flexed the fingers of his left hand one by one, slowly closing it into a fist, before doing the same with his right.

At least that still works.

He had briefly been worried that his injuries had included damage to his arm, or even that his transformation systems might have been somehow broken by his trip through the gateway, but everything seemed to be working well enough for the time being. Still, he resolved to open his arm up and check everything out as soon as he got the chance. He might not be an expert like Iron Arm, but he had been taking care of his own limbs since he was just a Robo-colt.

Only once he was done slowly balling his fists did he realise ~Fluttershy~ was still standing next to him. While the others had been dealing with Star's histrionics she had apparently stayed to make sure he was alright. When she realised she was being watched, the small pony turned her attention from his hands to his face and asked if everything had happened the way it was supposed to.

"Yup," Thirty-Thirty nodded, "that's pretty much how it's meant to go. Sorry I, uh, scared your friend there."

~Fluttershy~ explained that Star hadn't been scared, before asking him not to judge her too harshly because she'd had a bad day. After a moment she mentioned something about his transformation not making sense to Star, or the rest of them, because it wasn't magic.

"No, it ain't magic. I can't do anythin' like that, I'm just a regular old Techno-horse. Equestroid if ya wanna get fancy," Thirty said, glancing back and fishing around with his left arm to retrieve the fallen notepad and its tiny pencil. He set the pad down on his thigh, resting the pencil along the top, so that ~Fluttershy~ could see it too. "Not that that's gonna mean a whole lot to you, I suppose." Thirty gently rapped a closed fist against his other thigh, eliciting a faint metallic clatter. "My mechanical bits'n'pieces are pretty complicated, but they ain't magical."

He examined the front page of the notepad, taking in the large, carefully-drawn symbols ~Fluttershy~ had written on it. He thought her writing was pretty neat, considering she had done it with her mouth. At least Thirty assumed it was writing - the symbols didn't look like any sort of picture he could make out, and ~Fluttershy~ had asked him to write something on the pad so Star could do... something with it. He wasn't entirely clear on what.

~Fluttershy~ glanced down at the paper and then back up at him, and asked again if he'd write something.

Awkwardly pinching the tiny pencil between a thumb and forefinger, Thirty-Thirty eyed the notepad sceptically. "I'm not sure what I'm meant t'be writin' here. What's yours say?"

~Fluttershy~ said something, while tracing a yellow hoof across the symbols on the paper. When she was reading the words off the page rather than talking to him, Thirty realised he didn't seem to get any magical help with divining her meaning. However, he did hear something in what she said that sounded like her name.

"That's your name?"

The small pony looked contemplative for a moment, before giving a reply that was a mix of 'yes' and 'no' - although she was shaking her head as she said it. With a quick questioning glance, ~Fluttershy~ reared up to put her forehooves on his leg. Leaning over, she took the pencil out of his hand and wrote a shorter string of symbols on the paper underneath the first.

"~Fluttershy~," she said, pointing to her second bit of writing, then to herself. Hesitantly, as if worried she was being too forward, she dropped the pencil back into his hand and pointed a hoof at his chest.

So if that bit's her name, what's the- hold on. Thirty-Thirty tossed his head to get a stray bit of mane out of his face. I'm over-complicatin' this.

Trying to keep a steady hold on the undersized pencil, he carefully wrote his name on the paper before speaking it aloud. Then he just about died when ~Fluttershy~ tried to repeat it. From the confused expression on her face - one eye half closed, ears slightly down - to the way she slowly chewed her mouth around the unfamiliar sounds in her high-pitched voice, the whole thing struck him as both absurd and cute.

Oh my stars that's adorable, he thought, failing to suppress a chuckle. ~Fluttershy~ cringed a little and apologised for mangling his name.

"Hey, you're doin' better at mine than I am at any 'o yours," Thirty said, smiling at the embarrassed pegasus. A shy grin replaced the worried expression on her face as she responded with encouragement. "I've just been nicknamin' you all. Well, except for you. I might not be able to say it, but I know what your name is at least."

At that comment, ~Fluttershy~ was apparently struck by an idea. She flipped to the next page of the pad, and Thirty-Thirty passed her the pencil. The stallion sat and watched as she carefully drew six small symbols, each accompanied by a short string of what he was beginning to recognise as letters. He figured out what ~Fluttershy~ was doing when she drew a trio of butterflies, followed by a familiar bit of writing that did indeed prove to be her name when he compared it to the previous page.

That's her name and her mark, so... those are the others' names? I guess it's a nice thought, but I can't read the writin' to learn 'em any more'n I can understand 'em spoken.

He did notice that some of the ponies had more than one name - three of them only had one, while Bolt, Star and Pinky apparently had two - but other than that, the written names weren't especially helpful. ~Fluttershy~ sounded them out for him, which drew the other ponies' attention as she read their names out loud.

The four ponies that weren't cooling off in a tent gathered around the seated stallion and his companion to examine the pad and ask questions of ~Fluttershy~. There was a brief moment of confusion when Pinky grabbed the paper and wrote another, longer name underneath the one ~Fluttershy~ had given her - this one consisting of three words. ~Fluttershy~ explained after some frantic babbling from the pink mare that this longer one was Pinky's actual name, but the shorter one was what she usually went by.

After the little notebook had been passed around the group, the ponies had a short conversation while glancing at the sun in the sky. Apparently coming to some sort of decision, Bolt and Apple headed for the tents while Pinky and Diamond took the blanket-shelter apart.

Thirty-Thirty asked ~Fluttershy~ what the others were doing, and his stomach growled again as she gave a simple reply - food. Pinky and Diamond laid the reclaimed blanket out on the ground just in front of him and sat themselves down to wait.

"I guess it has been a while since I ate anythin'," he commented absently, as Apple led an exhausted-looking Star out of the tent she had been recuperating in. The purple pony kept sneaking glances at his arms, but came to sit with the others as Bolt zipped back and forth between the three tents and the blanket. The collection of packs and baskets on the blanket slowly grew, and after a short while ~Fluttershy~ started to offer him various little bits and pieces of food from the containers.

At first both ~Fluttershy~ and Thirty-Thirty were unsure which of the pony foods would be appropriate for the stallion, but the solution turned out to be a simple one. Even if it was all a bit smaller than he was used too, it quickly became apparent that ponies ate all of the same things he did - and even had quite a few new and inventive ideas about how to use hay in things that Thirty had never encountered before. A combination of taste testing and explanations from ~Fluttershy~ quickly led to Thirty-Thirty sampling at least a little of everything the group had brought with them.

Even spirits gotta eat, apparently. At least I ain't gonna starve.

They didn't have any sweetwater to drink, but he hadn't seen any of the familiar pod-bearing plants growing in the area despite the favourable climate. That brought Thirty's attention to something else - he hadn't actually seen any traces of crops or civilisation at all. That wasn't unusual for the deserts of New Texas, so that presumably held true here. It did raise the question of where exactly these ponies lived, and where all this food was produced. Hopefully there would be a breakthrough on the communication front soon, he was building up quite a lot of questions.

Thirty-Thirty even got another display of casual magic use when Star briefly lit her horn to heat up a batch of apple fritters, and the results turned out to be delicious - even if he had gotten a mouthful of apple-flavoured lava when he didn't let the first one cool down long enough. He also got a bit more of a glimpse into how they dealt with the whole no-hands thing; based on the way the four hornless ponies ate and moved plates and containers around, they didn't seem to be too concerned with just sticking their muzzles into things.

I guess ya don't worry 'bout gettin' your mouth all over things if ya ain't got the option of hands. Heh, bet the dentists in this place make a bundle.

The smell of warmed apples floated across the rocky badlands as, for the first time in almost a day, the desert camp was filled with the sounds of happy conversation. Thirty-Thirty couldn't understand a word of it, and the little ponies were still skittish when he moved too fast, but their smiles and shared food spoke loudly enough.

**?**

"We have been presented with a perfect opportunity. Their misguided fellowship is isolated and vulnerable, we should take them now."

"The time for secrecy is past, but this is far beyond-"

"Once they are in Canterlot under the wings of the Twin Tyrants, they might be forever out of our reach. You know we only need her for a matter of hours. Even if we can only take one of the others, the rest of their false Elements will be rendered powerless. They cannot - must not - stand in the way of the true Harmony."

"They would be of much greater value working with us than they would be were they simply... removed from our path. And we cannot risk harming Princess Sparkle in any case. We only need to-"

"There's no time for stealing around in shadows. We have the power, the advantage - and the opportunity to use it. If we use it now. I say we move. Are you with us, or apart from us?"

"With you, of course. Always."

"This perverse mockery ends, now. Tonight, we tear away the lies that shackle our fellow ponies. True Harmony will be brought into Equestria."

Comments

[Starlight Nova]

What is this a crossover of?

[Timitor]

6382944
Brave Star

[ForeverChasingRainbows]

6382944
It's in the description.

A BraveStarr/MLP crossover

[CCC]

"fellow ponies". So the mystery voice at the end is an Equestrian one, not Stampede and his bunch...

I wonder how long Stampede et al will take to implement their Plan B? I wonder if they have a Plan B?

[Jigoku Luna]

When will we see the next update? Loving it so far!

[ForeverChasingRainbows]

6387820
Thanks!

There are four unpublished chapters sat in the story being edited right now... but then again there were seven a few weeks ago I gave myself a huge buffer when I started posting the story, because I only write infrequently in my spare time, but it's still disappearing frighteningly fast. I just can't seem to let complete and edited chapters sit there for more than a few days before I post them, and it's starting to catch up to me

I finalised the edits on the most recently posted chapters over the bank holiday weekend so I posted both at once, but I'm sorta-kinda going to have to space things out a little more now because we're approaching the end of the first part of the story. There's one or two more chapters to be turned from outlines into actual writing, in addition to the four awaiting edits - so I'll be spacing those four out while I edit them and finish the others.

Things are about to get significantly more chaotic for everypony (and non-pony) concerned. Stampede and the Carrion Bunch might have been frequent carriers of the Idiot Ball in the cartoon, but uh... let's just say I'm holding closer to the movie versions.