Wonderful, more good news.
My word there was a lot of yelling going on. Twilight yelling at Sunset, Sunset yelling at me. It’s a good think the archives were buried underground in a stone cave, although they probably weren’t doing anything to quell the rumors that the particular section of the library where the hidden door was was haunted. Probably for the best. Where was I? Oh yes, yelling.
“What do you MEAN Princess Celestia is your MOM?!”
“How the hell did you find out anyway?!”
“We’ve known each other for years and you never told me?!”
“You didn’t even stop to think that maybe, just maybe, you should not tell anyone?!”
“Why did you never tell me?! Why did Celestia never tell me?! Why did I have to hear it first from this douchecanoe?!”
“Douchehorse,” I corrected.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP SCHADENFREUDE!”
I considered sitting back and just letting them yell themselves hoarse (he-he), but to my chagrin, and probably much more to the poor soul we were down here to help, time was a small factor here. “Not that I don’t take great pleasure in disobeying a direct order,” I said calmly, “But isn’t this a conversation we should be having after we solve this poor child’s gender problem?”
“Are you kidding?!” Sunset barked. “I’m not even sure I want to help you now!”
I paused, confused. “Wait, I though I was helping you.”
Sunset stopped, her eyes went wide, and she paled rather intensely. “No, you’e right. We’re uh, you’re here to help us. Absolutely.”
I gave Twilight a sideways glance, who looked absolutely panicked. Then a small thought occurred to me, and for once in my life I wanted very much to be wrong. “Twilight?” I asked quietly.
“Y-yes, Schaden?”
“What’s the human’s name?”
“What… uh… what do you mean?”
“The human. Who had the Penance Band. Who we’re trying to turn back into a guy. What. Is his name?” I could feel myself both panicking and growing distinctly annoyed.
“I’m, um, not sure how that makes a difference. I’m sure the spell isn’t specifically targeted at the pon-er-person, so we probably don’t need it to find a counter-”
“TWILIGHT,” I said sternly. Which was more than enough to stop Twilight mid-sentence, a feat I had rarely if ever accomplished in my lifetime. Even Sunset stood straighter, and was still paler than driven snow. “Of all the ponies in the world who could have gotten you into this room, you came to me. Whether that has anything to do with the… patient or not, I’m not sure. But if you’re going to ask me for help, especially help this big, I’d ask, no expect, a little more transparency. So what does Sunset mean by ‘help me’? Why does this unicorn-” I pointed a hoof at the now slightly shaking Shimmer, “Talk not only like she’s met me before, but has done so with regularity? Who, exactly, is the child -from a dimension in which we all have weird bipedal clones walking around- that we’re trying to help?”
All of this I said with an air of authority I didn’t know I had, as I spoke tensely and quietly to a now rather scared-looking pair of mares who, for all intents and purposes, looked like I’d caught them smoking in the bathroom during class. “It’s… uh… you,” Sunset said slowly.
“...what.”
--------------
“What,” I said again, staring at nothing in particular, after a somewhat wordy explanation from both mares. At the same time.
Sunset sighed heavily. “You- I mean he- the other Schaden,” at which point she stopped to shiver, which I was too shell-shocked to enjoy, “Came to me for help a few days ago, with the Band still on his arm. It took a bunch of trial and error, and eventually a magic potion from a zebra-”
“-WHAT-”
“-to get it off. Unfortunately, he was a she when that happened, which meant, we found out later, she was stuck like that until we found the counterspell the bracelet was casting automatically. Which we couldn’t find in Twilight’s books, so we came here,” she finished, exasperated.
Twilight opened her mouth to say something, to which I just raised a hoof. “Don’t. Not EVEN.” To her credit, she did think better of it, and stayed quiet. A silence which lasted for a few moments until I gathered my wits a little “Twilight.”
Sparkle jumped a little. “Y-yes?”
“You remember how, a few minutes ago, you told me about the Penance Band, and I promptly vomited into a trash can?”
“Uh… yes?”
I sighed a little, trying to set aside some of this rather disconcerting simmering rage I could feel building up inside me. “Well, you were right. I have heard of it before. Far back wall, upstairs, bottom shelf. You’ll have to reach around a small stalagmite to get it.”
The princess had already taken off, only stopping at the top of the stairs to ask, “And, uh… what book am I looking for?”
“The Youth of Equestria and How to Correct Them, by Peyote the Mad.”
She flinched appropriately at the title, and set off to find it. With only one other pony to deal with at the moment, I found myself calming down a little. “Sunset.”
“Yes!” Shimmer said loudly, still nervous. “I mean, uh… yes?” she repeated in a much calmer voice.
“While I am still not happy that my own personal attachment to this… problem… was kept a secret, I can, at least a little, understand your hesitation in keeping this from me,” I reasoned. “Given what little I know about the human world, it occurs to me that there’s a distinct probability the… ‘other me’ is just as, well, me as I am. I can understand your reluctance to dealing with two of us simultaneously, and the idea of keeping me from knowing there’s more than one of me trotting around Equestria right now. So to speak,” I added, remembering what they’d told me about the busted shoulder I had suffered.
Sunset sighed a little. “Well, thanks, I guess?”
I nodded, as an ‘A-ha’ rang out from the background. Apparently Twilight found the book. “To answer your ‘other’ question, Celestia at no point had asked me to keep your familial relationship a secret. While I can understand you not wanting to know that the ruler of Equestria is your mother, I get the distinct impression that Celestia is in no way ashamed to call you her daughter.”
The orange pony smiled, and got a little choked up. “Awww, that’s sweet. Now when’s the other horseshoe drop?” she added, with a dry smile.
“Gimme a minute,” I answered, as Twilight trotted up with a large tome. While nowhere near as large as The History of Equestria Vol. 1, Peyote the Mad’s written works were long-winded and disturbingly detailed. Twilight dropped it on the table with a large ‘THUD’.
“So how do you know this book has the counterspell in it?” Sunset asked. “I mean, I assume you’ve read it, of course, but even given that I only know teenage human you I would assume you don’t have a magically inclined academic background.”
“Table of Contents,” I said simply, flipping the book open. “Chapter 7: Penance Bands, Construction and Application.”
Twilight flinched. “I’m not going to like this book, am I?”
“No,” Sunset and I said together.
-----
Several minutes later, the mood in the majority of the room had turned sour. Sunset was emotionally drained, and Twilight was visibly distressed. “So… there’s no way to turn him back?” Sunset asked quietly.
“...actually,” I replied, a thought having occurred to me.
“No,” Twilight answered, either having not heard me or ignoring me on instinct. “The countercurse is cast once every hour because if it isn’t, the gender change spell becomes permanent after four.”
“Well…” I said a bit louder.
“So you’re telling me that we electrocuted a kid, nearly tore his shoulder out of his socket, knocked him unconscious for a day, TURNED HIM INTO A PONY AGAINST HIS WILL, and we can’t even send him home in his own gender?!” Sunset barked, tears of frustration in her eyes.
“Now that you mention it-” I answered, at a noticeable volume.
“What?!” both girls yelled at me.
“There might not be a counter-curse, but there is a spell that can permanently reassign his gender, by default fixing the issue,” I explained.
Both of them looked ready to kill me. Which, given how correct I was being, was practically flirting. “What do you MEAN?!” Twilight screeched. “Why didn’t you tell us this ‘sooner’?!”
“Three reasons,” I said pointedly. “One, the spell has a few stipulations, not the least of which being that it requires the presence, and a portion of flesh, from when the subject was the opposite gender, which means it only works on somepony who has changed genders, and also has a living male clone and or counterpart lying around. Which, leads me to number two, I didn’t know this was an option, since I didn’t know it was ME,” I said pointedly, which served to temper their anger a bit.
“And three?” Twilight asked after a moment.
“There’s no written record of it. I only know it exists through conversation, and I only know one pony in all of Equestria who can cast it. Which means…” I added, trailing off intentionally.
Sunset raised a worried eyebrow. “Which means…? ...no. No, Schaden, you have to be kidding.”
I was already walking to the door. “I’m gonna tell your mom, Sunset Shimmer!”
Stats
Page generated in 0.036 seconds
Total duration
1,069 users online
1,886,284 hits today, 2,561,572 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.®
When Schadenfrude's unhappy, everyone's unhappy.
I don't know whether I should question the fact that Shadenfreude has such a disturbingly accurate knowledge of everything, or leave it be because I wouldn't like the answer.
11423469
Except us readers. We're very happy.
11423474
He almost certainly got bored and read it all on a whim. Not to mention the extra factor that he's allowed to be here unsupervised while Twilight isn't.
Probably treated it like an exclusive private reading nook.
Sunset, you are so fucked.
What a lovely title
11423488
She isn't mad, just disappointed. Also likely extremely happy to see her daughter again, I hope.
I don't like the serious Shaden.
And this spell is, like, crazy specific to this particular situation, innit?
To all of the... People from the last comment, painting pictures of Shaden on Shaden action: Did you forget that one of them is a child, and other is adult?! And that this Shaden is in a relationship already anyway?!
Uh oh... Angry Momlestia incoming, and that's probably the second worst kind of Angry Celestia, only short of Daybreaker. Sunset is going to get a big dose of OOF.
When will human Schaden meet his pony counterpart?
Sunny, remember Celey does love you.
That doesn't mean you aren't going to get one heck of a lecture for A) not writing home regularly and B) not asking your mother for help.
Maybe she'll even take a few decades off your grounding...
I clearly need to read more of this series given all that’s gone on. For now, I look forward to seeing further madness unfold. I do hope Twilight doesn’t take the heat for this.
I feel like Schaden's gonna have to give the Princess of the sun the third degree for not doing a better job at cleaning up her mess
And if he finds out whoever put the brace on his other self, assuming it was done maliciously and with some degree of knowledge on what'd happen...ooh I would not want to be on the recieving end of a Schaden fueled by righteous anger
11423506
Sorry but I find myself unable to find the problem, you are trying to point out.
11423598
Make sure you don't drink anything while doing that. Would certainly be less of a mess to clean up.
Just turn other Schaden into a Cyberpony! That'll work out fine. Can't imagine any negative repercussions from it whatsoever!
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/eff75141-f7d9-4126-af66-857e2d6c792a/d58tqdc-7bcf5b51-0640-4468-8e54-b47f6b23c954.jpg/v1/fill/w_781,h_1023,q_75,strp/cyber_pony_by_alorix-d58tqdc.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpc3MiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwic3ViIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl0sIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiIvZi9lZmY3NTE0MS1mN2Q5LTQxMjYtYWY2Ni04NTdlMmQ2Yzc5MmEvZDU4dHFkYy03YmNmNWI1MS0wNjQwLTQ0NjgtOGU1NC1iNDdmNmIyM2M5NTQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTc4MSIsImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTAyMyJ9XV19.NV0GnjEHXmLNVAMFbmE0Bc6f-OcOjSae61FZgKXE0ZU
That's supposed to be a twist?
You're enjoying.
Boo.
Phrasing~
I do like that Schaden has standards.
He's figuring out~
This is a really great little moment for Schaden. He enjoys screwing with people. He enjoys annoying them to hell and back, but he has no desire to cause anyone actual harm.
No.
Oh no.
You sir, are enjoying this FAR too much.
11423600
Ever hear the phrase "fate worse than death"?
Well being hounded by a creature whose whole reason for existence is to annoy others now fueled by a righteous thirst for revenge fits that bill.
First they try to fight back then they run when fighting proves futile. When flight fails they plead for mercy and curse all creation when they find none. Soon enough they seek death only to be denied at every turn. In the end even escaping into insanity proves impossible. All that remains is an eternity of suffering.