Classroom Changeling

by Someguy458

Chapter 18: A Gateway Bug, The Wizard, and Os

I stood there for what seemed like forever, absolutely stunned.

Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight FUCKING Sparkle was right there, on the other side of a newly formed gateway, staring straight at me!

And right past her, lying on the floor and unconscious just like my friends, were the rest of the main cast of the show! They all looked exactly like they did in the show, except they were real.

If only I were actually a fan of the show; then I'd be having a field day.

Finally, I found my voice. "Y-you're Twilight Sparkle, right?"

"Yeah," she replied, still shocked. "A-a-and you're a..."

"A changeling?"

She nodded absently.

"Don't worry, this was only a recent development."

She visibly relaxed. "Right, Luna said you're supposed to be human?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I'm Rove."

"Rove? As in, the family of beetles?"

I huffed. "Yeah, I'm still kinda miffed about that retroactive pun."

She managed a light chuckle.

"Oh my goodness..."

Both of us turned around at the sound of Os's voice. She'd just woken up, and was now staring at the gateway with wide eyes and a slack jaw.

I rushed over. "Os, you ok?"

She nodded absently, still fixated on the gateway. "A-are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Yep, that's Twilight Sparkle," I confirmed.

The lavender alicorn smiled and nodded. "It's nice to meet you, Miss....?"

"Osmond," she replied, "Osmond Bellamy, but everyone calls me Os."

Twilight nodded. I helped Os onto her hooves, and I made sure she wasn't injured by whatever it was we'd just done.

Speaking of which... "So, what exactly did we just do?" I asked Twilight.

She replied, clearly excited, "We just stopped the magic leak!"

"Magic leak?"

She nodded. "A tear opened up in the fabric of reality, causing our magic to leak into your world."

Os gasped, "Wait, is that what's been causing these transformations?!"

Again, Twilight nodded. "Your world has no natural magic, right?" At my confirmation, she continued, "My theory is that your world acted as a low pressure point for the magic to flow into. And since your world has no magic of its own, it couldn't handle ours. The magic must've compensated by changing your bodies into ones it's familiar with, so that they could actually handle the influx of magic."

I stared dumbly, trying to comprehend what she'd just said.

Os chimed in helpfully, "I think I get it. It's kinda like when your eyes adjust to the darkness, or when your skin gets pruny from being in water too long — except this is on a much bigger scale, right?"

Twilight shrugged, "That's a really unscientific way of stating it, but I suppose it gets the general idea across."

I piped up, "Hang on a second... How'd this all happen in the first place?"

"If what Celestia told me is true," Twilight explained, "it's because both of our worlds have been experiencing heavy solar flares. Our world doesn't experience them that often — only for eleven weeks every 6 years — so the fact that both of our worlds had them at the same time weakened the wall between our worlds... or something. Celestia didn't seem too sure, herself."

Os ventured, "Is the Mirror Portal open currently?"

Twilight thought for a moment while I was left in the dark. Suddenly, she gasped, "That's it! With the Mirror Portal already making the walls of our universe weak, both of our worlds experiencing solar flares at the same time was enough to punch through!"

I interrupted, "H-hang on, what's this about a 'Mirror Portal'?"

Thankfully, Os was able to explain. "It's a relic that connects Equestria to another universe for a few days every so often. It used to belong to Celestia, but after her previous student ran away through it, she locked it away until Twilight gained possession of it."

Twilight blinked. "Woah... Luna said you had some knowledge of us, but I didn't know you knew that much! How do you know all of this?!"

Os blanched. "Well, um, it's kinda a long story..."

Twilight raised an eyebrow sceptically. "How so?"

She inhaled sharply through her teeth. "In this world, you're fictional."

Dead silence reigned for a long moment.

"What?" Twilight finally managed to croak out.

"You know what a television is, right? From your visits to the other dimension?" Twilight nodded, so Os continued, "Here, you're the main characters of a fictional TV show."

Twilight had no words as she processed this. For a moment, I could've sworn I saw smoke leaking out of her ears.

Then she gasped. "Wait a second, Starswirl's Theory of Infinite Possibilities!"

Both Os and I looked sceptically at her. "What?"

"If an infinite number of parallel universes exist, then anything that's possible has theoretically happened in at least one of them! Your world must be one of those in which a TV show was made that just so happens to resemble our universe!"

"Oh!" Os and I blinked in realization. That was a much easier-to-swallow explanation than the alternative...

But before Twilight could get any further into metaphysics, somebody on her side began waking up. "Ugh, my head..."

I turned to look, and saw the pink pony getting up. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I suddenly got a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

We stared at each other for a moment, before I tried to break the tension. "Uh... Hello there?"

That's when she struck. Zipping straight through the mirror as though it weren't even there, she got up right in my face and began speaking so quickly that I could barely register it as words.

Although I definitely heard the word 'party' in there several times.

Thankfully, Os came in between us. "It's nice to meet you too, Pinkie, but could you please calm down a little?"

She stepped back, a sheepish smile spreading on her face. "Oh, sorry! I'm just so excited to meet somepony from another universe!"

Os chuckled, "Honestly, I'm pretty excited, too. I just wish it could've been under better circumstances."

Meanwhile, Twilight was studying the portal. "Fascinating! It's a real-time portal with instant transfer, while allowing the traveler to retain their form!"

I blinked. "Uh... Could you elaborate on that? I'm not exactly versed in all things magical."

The alicorn blushed a little. "The last time I travelled through a portal to another dimension, it took a little bit to travel, and it changed me into a human to better fit in."

Wait, what?

Seeing my confused expression, Os suggested, "You really should just watch the movie about it."

I nodded, "You know what? I think I will."

It was at that moment that Pinkie Pie approached me again — thankfully at a respectful distance this time. "Hey Mr. Buggy, can you do any shape-shifting tricks?"

I blinked at the mare's sudden appearance. "First of all, my name is Rove. Second, I don't actually know how to shape-shift."

The party planner gasped. "You can't shape-shift!? That's gotta be the saddest story I've ever heard! A Changeling not being able to shape-shift is like... It's like Applejack not being able to harvest apples!"

It was at that moment that another character on their side woke up. Hearing her name, the orange mare jolted up, still half-asleep. "What? Ah can't harvest apples?!"

Pinkie gasped again, "Oh no, all my greatest fears are coming true!! What if I don't like cupcakes!?"

Then, to my eternal confusion, Pinkie Pie pulled a cupcake out of nowhere — while being on our side of the portal, no less — and ate it whole. She chewed for a moment, before sighing in relief, "Oh, thank Celestia."

Twilight groaned, rubbing her temple. "This is going to be a long day in all of the wrong ways..."

Author's Note:

EDIT (5/24/2022): Increased the frequency of Equestria's solar flares so that the story is marginally less contrived.

Comments

[Cobalt Hope]

Been awhile but then again you were probably brainstorm how to progress the plot. While making some kind of outline for future chapters. Either way welcome back. I am interested in seeing where this story leads.

[tsaukpaetra]

Gotta depend on Pinkie answering the unasked questions!
Interesting, so by smashing Harmony together they managed to create a stable valve of sorts. Crude, but at least the immediate crisis is... alleviated?
Question is, what is the governmental response going to be? They've been pretty quiet, which is frankly a lot more realistic than most fics since it takes time to mobilize a response to unexpected threats (assuming someone has made this a threat-level).
The next major question is.... is there a reversal available and how many will want it?

[Someguy458]

10763100
Yeah, I'm specifically having trouble trying to figure out how to write all thirteen characters in the same conversation.

[Someguy458]

10680429
Well, this certainly didn't age well...

[Feynna]

Oh, hey! An update! Right after I got concerned, too. >.>
You didn't do this to spite me, riiiiight? :D

Meanwhile, Twilight was studying the portal. "Fascinating! It's a real-time portal with instant transfer, while allowing the traveler to retain their form!"

I blinked. "Uh... Could you repeat that so I can understand it?"

I have a hard time believing he actually didn't understand that. At least, not if he is a native English speaker, I'd understand it if an immigrant would have problems with that, but even then, it seems a little bit unlikely because those aren't extremely hard to understand scientific terms...

10763118

Question is, what is the governmental response going to be? They've been pretty quiet, which is frankly a lot more realistic than most fics since it takes time to mobilize a response to unexpected threats (assuming someone has made this a threat-level).

Usually, I'm not that big a fan of the government involving itself with these situations because I don't like it when they try to use violence against their own citizens for something they had absolutely no control over. But... well... it's the government. *shrug*

The next major question is.... is there a reversal available and how many will want it?

That's difficult to accomplish in so many ways, it's ridiculous how difficult a reversal (should) actually be. Genetically, it should be all but impossible to reverse something like transformation, but we're talking magic here. Even then, I'd assume one would need to have an understanding of how the original body was 'made up' and go from there. But, seeing that there is a pretty easy solution ala Harry Potter polyjuice potion, maybe somepony could come up with a permanent transformation potion using old hairs or something. *shrug*

10763248
Eh, everybody is allowed to change their minds over things, this is actually quite mild.

[Someguy458]

10763312

I have a hard time believing he actually didn't understand that. At least, not if he is a native English speaker, I'd understand it if an immigrant would have problems with that, but even then, it seems a little bit unlikely because those aren't extremely hard to understand scientific terms...

He understood the words; he just didn't have the context (aka knowledge of her previous trips into other dimensions) to understand what she meant.

[Feynna]

10763328
Eh, still hard to believe. I'd say write "elaborate" instead of 'understand', because 'understand' kinda implies a lack of... well... understanding due to not being "sharp" enough. So, in that line of thought:

Meanwhile, Twilight was studying the portal. "Fascinating! It's a real-time portal with instant transfer, while allowing the traveler to retain their form!"

I blinked. "Uh... Could you elaborate on that?"

[Someguy458]

10763331
Yeah, that'd probably be better.

[Feynna]

10763383
After thinking it through a bit more, I guess I had more of a problem with the 'repeat that so I can understand'. Elaborate would definitely work better than 'repeat'. *shrug*

[crazeguy]

Surprisingly well written despite the lack of viewers/raters, looking forward to the next update.