Little Jolts of Shadow

by Shadowmane PX-41

The End

Later that evening, the Shadowbolts had all been taken back home to Sunset's house, together in their room once again. Only now, they were accompanied by Sunset and her friends, watching over the lot of them as they went back to playing once more. It seemed that their old lives didn't even matter anymore, as they lost themselves for the umpteenth time in the joys of baby games. Stuffed animals, blocks, toys, clothes, and a nimiety of other things littered the nursery, trampled on or plucked from the ground by the babies and their unrestrained hands.

Sour Sweet kept Mr Cuddlebutt close to her chest all the while as she toddled around the room. On occasion, she would also comb through her hair, held up by the large bow in it. She had never shown so much happiness before the day when she had been regressed. Usually, she would be jumping back and forth between her good side and her bad side with no middle ground to stand in. But as a baby, she could only ever see the good side of things, the happiness that she had been clinging onto while also wrangling frustration was clear as day.

Lemon Zest had always been the child out of the group, always playing around and letting her music blast out through her ears, completely oblivious to the world around her. For her, the world had always been one big playground for her. But now that she had turned into a baby, it was just an even bigger playground with a lot more things to do rather than just jam out to her tunes or hang out with her friends. And the best part for her was that she wasn't alone. The others would gladly pitch in whenever they wanted to, making it seem like they had always been a group since they first met. That alone was what made this experience perfect for Lemon zest; one that she wouldn't forget any time soon.

Sugarcoat had always been the brainiac of the group, always scoring the highest in tests and overachieving on all fronts. But when it came to letting herself go and trying to find some joy in the stuff that she did, it had always been a challenge for her. Sugarcoat had always been geared towards studying, working, and letting nothing come between her and that. But since her regression, there was no need for her to study. None of it would be useful now. She wouldn't even be able to remember it, let alone the hordes of other stuff that she had learned. Sacrificing what Sugarcoat had learned for the chance to show some kind of happiness when playing with the others was one of the hardest that she had made, but one that she was glad to have done so. If there really was no way for Sunset and the others to fix her and the other Shadowbolts, at least she wouldn't always be miserable in her new state.

Sunny Flare had always been the one out of the Shadowbolts that never really could stand out. Try as she might, everything that she did was always overshadowed by the others in both her class or in the school in general. She had always tried as hard as she could to get some form of recognition and adoration, even if at the same time, she had been pushing herself too far. But, in the case of being a baby, Sunny Flare didn't have to do anything, really. The smallest of things brought her delight and the other Shadowbolts were always eager to play along with her whenever she asked or came along to see what she was doing. The saying was true. The smallest things did please the smallest minds.

And for Indigo Zap, it was one thing to win all the time, but another thing to be so blind in doing what you did that everything else seemed to lose value. At first, when she had became a baby again, she was mortified; shocked that she had been reduced to something so low. Whether it was a punishment for what she had done in the past against CHS and its' students, or a revelation that the other things outside of winning mattered, she didn't care at this point. She had been an infant for much too long to think about her old self. As long as she could stay young, stay happy, then that was the greatest victory she'd ever had.

Sunset had been deep in thought about everything. About what the Dazzlings had said about staying young forever, to never grow up and to always remain as a baby, free from any form of obligation or physical labour. If the Dazzlings' ideals had indeed gotten into the minds of the Shadowbolts, then she truly was stuck. She couldn't turn them back anyway, but the idea that they would want to willingly stay babies forever, completely throwing away their past lives; their families, friends, CPA work, all for their little want to be young, it sent a chill down her spine. Though the idea of staying young and alive forever was appealing, there were certain pros and cons to it. And right now, she could see nothing but the cons.

"Aww... Who's a cute little Shadowbolty? You are! Yes, you are!" Pinkie cooed from the distance, breaking Sunset's train of thought. She then promptly blew a raspberry into Lemon Zest's chest, making her laugh at the top of her tinny, squeaky voice.

"I have to agree, Pinkie. These little ragamuffins are simply adorable..." Rarity rubbed her wrists together with a giddy grin on her face as she brought her head down to the ground, watching as Sunny and Indigo crawled over towards the nearby slide. "You know, had I no obligations of my own, I wouldn't mind shaving a few years off myself, to relive that infancy that I once held in high regard.”

“Yeah, but still. They’ve gotta grow up eventually. Magic might’ve made ‘em this way, but it sure as heck can’t keep ‘em like it. Plus, I’m sure a part of them still misses being a teenager.” Applejack squatted down, splaying her fingers across the floor as her legs became jagged, almost like a heart monitor in shape. As she watched Sugarcoat and Sour, she couldn’t help but crack a blush. “But, you’ve got a point there, Rarity. They are pretty darn sweet. Heh, almost like Applebloom when she were littler.”

“Yeah. But... it’s still not right.” Sunset knew what was going on. The Dazzlings had buttered the Shadowbolts up so much that they didn’t mind being babies anymore. They had been shown all of the good of being young while ignoring all of the bad of being young. If they stayed like that for longer, then their families and friends would be in a real panic. Sunset couldn’t let all of those people get upset over five baby teenagers. “Twilight? Do you know a way to fix this?”

“I wish I did. But the data I’ve been getting from all of my research is still quite sporadic. I don’t exactly know what wavelengths or frequencies did this kind of spell, so I can only really grasp at straws here.” Twilight adjusted her glasses. “If only we knew exactly where that magic came from and how it reacted. Then, I could get some progress done.”

As Twilight said that, Lemon Zest wriggled over to Twilight’s side, grabbed hold of her leg and started to climb it. Soon after her tiny trek, she was latched onto Twilight’s chest, causing her to jump rather suddenly at the sight of a baby on her body. Lemon then went even further to climb onto Twilight’s face, completely blocking out her vision and replacing it with a blinding shade of onesie and diaper.

“Twilight? Did you ever want to grow up when you were a baby?” Lemon Zest asked, leaning over into Twilight’s ear.

“Lemon, please. I need to speak with Sunset.” Twilight picked Lemon off of her face and held her out in front of her. This caused Lemon’s little legs to limply dangle over the floor. “And no. I don’t ever remember wanting to grow up when I was that young. In fact, I don’t remember ever having any baby memories like that, period.”

“Aww... That’s a shame. You should have been turned into a baby too. You’d be so much more happy that way.” Lemon reached over to Twilight’s face, almost swimming in the air with how far she had to reach. “There’s no boring stuff, no worries whatsoever, you get fed and changed on sight if you need it, and baby things are actually fun to do. You just forgot about them...”

“Yeah. It’s just so good to forget about being a big girl and just throw yourself to your imagination!” Sour squealed as she tightly clutched Mr Cuddlebutt in her teeny hands. “Isn:t that right, Mr Cuddlebutt? Isn’t it?” She grabbed 5 ebakc of the bear’s head and nodded it while speaking with a deeper, more gruff voice, so as to make it seem like the teddy was speaking. “Oh yes, Sour. There’s nothing wrong with being young.” She gave the bear another deep cuddle.

“I know that you’re liking it now, girls. But everything else is just as important, even if you don’t think it is.” Sunset walked into the middle of the room with Lemon in her hands, watching as the others gathered around her. “What do you expect to do when years and years go by and you eventually get tired of these baby games?”

“That’s just it. We never get tired. And if we do, we can always go back to the Dazzlings and play along with them.” Indigo clutched her hands together. “Plus, I’m pretty sure that, with this magic stuff settling in, we’ve got this extra bit of pep in our step. Or, is it pep in our crawl? We don’t really walk a lot anymore...”

“Also, if magic made us into babies, maybe it’ll do the same to you someday too. Anything’s possible, right?” Sunny Flare shrugged with a minuscule smile on her face. “But... if you find some way to use it to turn us back, then that’s another story.”

“Yeah. You can’t force us to be big girls again.” Lemon pouted with folded arms. “We actually love being babies again. Would you make the five of us sad by taking away our fun? Because if you do, then... well, it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

“Trust me. Lemon’s a demon when she’s angry. Best not to do that, girls.” Indigo put her hand to her side and spoke in whispers.

“Sunset. You’re overthinking this way too much. The point of being born isn’t to grow up. It’s to live the life that you have.” Sugarcoat took her crawl forward to address the group of grown-ups. “You’re all much too focused on the world around you that you’ve forgotten what it was like to be babies like us. We’ve been given a second chance; a way to relive that infancy that we’ve forgotten that we had. And now that we’ve seen and known how much fun it is as opposed to our old versions of life, we’re happy to stay as we are. And at the end of the day, you don’t make the final decisions for us. We make them for ourselves.”

“And together, we’ve decided that we don’t want to grow up anymore.” Sunny Flare reached her arms out, grabbing onto Indigo and Sour’s hands, who held Lemon and Sugarcoat’s hands. “We might have been shocked about this whole baby thing when it first happened, but now that we’ve had some time to get adjusted, we’re much better off staying like this. We don’t need grades or jobs to be happy with things. We just need ourselves and less stuffy minds to be happy.”

“But girls, your—“

But nothing!” The babies all clamoured together at the Rainbooms, causing the seven teens to lurch backwards. Not wanting to look at their ‘caretakers’ anymore, the Shadowbolts went into a group hug with each other. And as they did, it was then that Sunset noticed something.

From underneath the Shadowbolts, a ring of light began to form, with magical symbols forming at each different part. It started small, but it quickly expanded around the group of babies, circling them in. Little particles of magic surged up from the ring, like a column of bubbles from the depths of the ocean.

"Wh...What is this?" Sugarcoat asked as the light began to glow brighter and brighter, causing her to put her hand to her eyes. "Gah! It's too bright! Turn it off!"

"I... I don't know what's going on. Sunset? What's happening?" Lemon Zest asked over the light as her body began to become enveloped in it. "Make it stop!"

"I... I don't know how!" Sunset replied as the light just continued to get brighter and brighter. Within seconds, the Shadowbolts had all but disappeared and the Rainbooms were to be next, lost in the light.

---

When the light faded, the room was empty. Stripped of everything related to do with a nursery. Nothing but blank floors and walls, with twelve teenagers sprawled around it in a mess of bodies and limbs. All of them were dressed back up in their regular clothes and the Shadowbolts were noticeably without any diapers or any of their old toys with them. The magic had been reversed and they were finally back to normal.

Sunset Shimmer was the first one to wake back up and stand on two legs once more. She looked down at the sleeping Shadowbolts and noticed that they were grown up again instantaneously, with all of their old clothes from the day before. The rest of her friends were also there, and nothing had changed about them whatsoever.

"It's... It's finally over." Sunset saw the Shadowbolts shake from their slumber and wake up once again, pushing themselves off of the ground with their hands. "You're back to normal now, girls."

"No duh, we're back to normal. Why? Did something happen to us?" Indigo Zap asked, rubbing the back of her head vigorously. "I've got a bit of a pounding headache and I can't even remember what happened to me."

"Me too. I remember we all got into some kinda fight with each other and the rest is blank. Can't remember squat afterwards." Lemon Zest joined in on the head rubbing as her knees wobbled on the spot. "And it's not the fun kinda forgetfulness you get after such a rockin' night out on the town or anything like that."

"It's kinda hard to explain, but I'll try the best that I can." Sunset had a lot to explain since the magic had wiped the Shadowbolts memories. If she let any of them know about how much they adored their infancy during their time regressed, they might have wanted to turn back again. "Basically, magic happened and the five of you were turned into babies for a few days. It was a weird experience, to say the least. That's the shortest and best version I can give at the moment."

"Wait? Babies? Now why in the heck would that have ever happened to us? We're totally grown-up." Sunny Flare was the next to stand back up. "Besides, we're on the cusp of finishing another year at CPA. In what context would magic have to do that to us? Some kind of cruel joke or something?"

"It can't have been all that bad. Once you had to deal with all of our whining, complaining, shouting, even fighting, I'm sure that Sunset had the time of her life if this whole baby nonsense is true or not." Sour Sweet cut in, shooting up to her feet like a rocket. "But, it could've been all bad, you could have had frazzled hair, wanted to drop us off at an orphanage, leaving us to struggle on our own, alone, with no good food or anything like that. You weren't thinking about that, now, were you, Sunset?"

"N-No! Nothing like that. I'm just glad that you're all bad to being yourselves again." Sunset threw herself into the CPA students once Sugarcoat got back up as well, making a tight hug out of her advances. "And now, we can get you back to CPA without any hesitating, right? I'm sure that your friends and family are missing you all so much. And I'm sure that your studies will have fallen behind without you girls there leading the charge, right?"

"Y-yeah... I'm sure. Come on, girls. We'd best get back to it." Sugarcoat readjusted her glasses, her pupils as small as pinpricks. Though, from the look on her face and her unsightly limbs splayed outward, it was as if she had walked in on the most embarrassing and awkward situation that she had ever encountered. "I... Hope that you have a good day, girls. Let's not make it any more of a problem than it needs to be."

"Well, I'm glad that's over..." Sunset lead the Shadowbolts out of her house and watched them walk down the road, splitting off to their own homes so that they could once again resume the lives that they were meant to have. The grown-up lives that they had been given and deserved, rather than an eternity as infants.

Author's Note:

I know, I know. This is basically just the last chapter, but just re-edited and republished. The reason that I've done this is that my story has become quote-unquote "Creepy". And that's just a big no-no from me. Age Regression should never ever be creepy. It just shouldn't. Ever. So this is the final chapter you will see from this story. It's dragged on long enough and it's about time that we bring it to an end.

I'm sorry if this seems like a cheap cop-out, but with how little people comment or even read this story, I figured that it wouldn't matter in the long run. And it might sound that I'm being a cheap sucker and taking the easy way out, but I've dug this grave far enough and I'm getting out of it while the getting's good. Sorry if this disappointed you in any way, but it's just going off of the rails.