> Lunar Phases
>  by Dusk Writer
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> 1. New Moon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twenty-five.

I know this number is supposed to mean something to me, but I just lack the energy to care. I am now twenty-five years of age; whoopty-flippin-do. All today tells me is that I am now twenty-five year old closet brony who lives alone and prefers it that way.

Twenty-five years of feeling misunderstood, left out, untrusted. My closest friend hadn't talked with me for awhile; last time he did was probably around a month ago. I look at the calendar and see the circled date, the thirtieth of April, year two thousand twenty. I sigh as I roll out of bed, tired of the boring monotonous life cycle.

Get out of bed, work, come home, read some more fanfictions, play some video games, go to sleep, repeat. It had been this way ever since I had graduated. I walk into my kitchen and look into the fridge. Seeing nothing of interest that is quick to eat, I make myself a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I pick up my small meal and saunter over to my desktop computer, socked feet quietly padding upon the wooden floor of my apartment. As I sit down, I devour the sandwich, starting by tearing off the crust and saving the soft center for last. I boot up my computer and log into it.

As my background picture of Luna appears on my desktop with the icons popping up in front of it, I sit back and take a moment to think about the show and my views on it.

So many bronies had a 'favorite pony' and constantly got into heated arguments about it. I however, no matter how much I thought about it, did not have a favorite pony for the usual reasons. Luna has always been my favorite, not because she could fight, or that everyone loved her, but because I understood her pain of being an outsider.

After seeing the Season Five finale five years ago, I had nearly cried when she stood in Discord's way although ponies still rejected her in fear. I stared at her figure in my desktop window once more before suddenly shutting it down again.

The rebellious part of my mind deciding that it is my twenty-fifth birthday, and I am going to go out and have a great time. I stand up from my chair quickly, nearly making it topple over. I walk over to the coat rack and grab the one that says 'John S.' in big black sharpie.

I open the door to my apartment, walk out, then close and lock it as quietly as possible so as not to upset my temperamental neighbor. As I walk past the door directly next to mine, my features soften a little as my fingers brush against her door.

Fiona has been the only thing in my lonely life that has made it worth living. However, it's more like a bit of friendship than any actual feelings for her. Two of her friends from town were really obnoxious bronies, though. I believe their names are, Jack and Anon? Anyways, I have no idea why she hangs out with them.

I drop my fingers and move on, approaching the silver elevator doors. Once the elevator reaches the bottom floor and opens, I walk out through the plaza as I plan my day. I check the clock, seeing that it's about 3:30 in the afternoon. Okay, so first, I'll drop by Gamestop to see if they have any new video games I've been wanting. Next, I think I'll stop by Target and see about clothes. Third, I'll just go to Red Robin for a nice, delicious lunch. Once I finish there, I'll go to King Soopers and restock on groceries, splurge a little on sweets, and then go home. By the time I finish, it should be about seven.

I open the door to the large Land Rover I had requested specifically for my six-foot three frame and hop in. Upon closing the door, I calmly slide the key into the ignition and twisted, the familiar purr of engine calming me. Now, I am nowhere near to being obsessed with cars, but I still cared for this one in particular.

I drive through the streets, noting the small amount of traffic between me and my destination. After some not-skillful-driving, I came to a parked position in the closest possible parking space to Gamestop. As I get out of my car and walk towards the shining red and white logo, I can almost hear the angelic singing that seems to go with it.

I push open the door and walk in, one of the more friendly associates immediately coming up to me and asking if I need any help today. "No thank you," I say with small smile, "I'm just looking for a game that may interest me." He smiles and walks back to behind the desk.

I look through many of the Xbox games, happy to see that my favorite series is still going strong, Halo: Combat Evolved all the way through Six on the shelves. I pick through each of the games, until I spot one I've been waiting for. I quickly grab the Limited Edition Destiny Three off of the shelf and practically run up to the front counter.

He takes the game from me with a small smile and rings it up, the total coming to about a hundred and twenty dollars. As I walk out of the doors, I am so engrossed in the back of the game that I barely hear him call out to me.

"Have a great day sir!" He calls out after me. I turn around and give him a smile and a wave, happy that at least someone in the world was optimistic.
~~~~~~~~~~
I shut the door to my Land Rover and toss the Target bags into the back seat next to my new video game. It had possibly been one of the most boring and irritating trips to Target I had ever had. After choosing the clothes I wished to have, I had to wait in the check-out line nearly ten minutes as a customer decided to have a nice, long chat with the only open cashier.

After the ten minutes were up and the lady left to her car, I practically slammed down the bag of clothes in front of the cashier, making her jump. I grumbled a thank you as I left, and it wasn't vibes of anger I felt coming from her, but ones of fear. I immediately felt bad, but did not apologize.

I sit down and wrap my fingers around the steering wheel, letting most of my anger just flow out. I like to blame the anger that seems to come naturally to me onto my male hormones, but sometimes I wonder if that’s actually the case.

Although it only takes about five minutes to get there, by the time I pull into the parking lot at Red Robin’s I have let go of most of my anger. I hop out of the car and lock the doors, placing the keys into my pocket. I walk through the door and am almost immediately seated.

As I sit down into the comfortable cushions of the booth, I experiment a little with my mind, trying to replicate the feelings of anger I felt. After a few seconds of thought, I realize the lively chatter of the restaurant has quieted to hushed whispers.

I look around the room, realizing that they had all been staring at the faces I’d been making as I experimented with my anger. As none of them would meet my eyes, I yet again realized that they still feared me.

A subconscious spoke to me within my mind, “Yes, they should fear you. You deserve revenge after all you have been through. Make them understand your pain!”

I almost began to listen to it too, as I realized my hand began inching towards the steak knife at my right hand. I drew it back immediately and slowly stood up and began walking towards the doors, giving the nearby waitress an excuse that I had somewhere I needed to go.

I walk out of the restaurant and climb back into my Rover, and sigh. At least at King Soopers I won’t really have to speak with anyone to accomplish my goals. I look at my clock, realizing that it was only about two hours until seven.
~~~~~~~~~~
I walked out of the King Soopers in a much better mood than at Red Robin’s. I now have enough food to feed a small army (figuratively) and a small apple pie, all for moi! I have to keep myself from grinning like an idiot and humming 'Happy Birthday' to myself as I set the groceries down next to my new copy of Destiny Three.

The drive home seems like it's taking forever, and once I finally pull into the driveway, it takes three trips to get all of my groceries up the elevator. By the time I manage to get all of the groceries through the door, I'm rather tired. I go through the apartment, flipping light switches on and placing the groceries where they belong into the fridge and pantries.

Once that is accomplished, I open the apple pie and give myself mental pat on the back for completing twenty-five years of life. I quickly dig in, eating every last piece of the delicious pie. Once I finish, I toss the plastic container into the trash and look at the clock.

In about ten minutes, it will be the exact time I was born; midnight. I look back down to Destiny Three, seeming to call out to me to begin stroking the luscious curves of its beautiful disc, all the while speaking romantic words in the candlelight.

Whoa.

That definitely escalated a little quickly. I look out of the window and a split-second decision. I look to the case again, "I'll be back in a little bit," I speak softly, giving the case a little wink.

I push through my apartment door, yet again closing it behind me as quietly as possible. This time, however, I proceed to take the stairs instead of the elevator. It only takes a few seconds, but the breath of fresh air from the night sky is incredibly refreshing from the stairwell.

Glad that the sun has finally gone to rest with its annoying brightness heat, I look up to the full moon and bask in its soft light. For my entire life I have felt as though I had some connection to the moon, almost like it were an actual friend. Someday, I'm going there just for the heck of it.

I sit down onto some of the ceiling ductwork and stare at the formations of the craters, just as it turns to midnight. Suddenly, the craters seem to change shape until it looks more like the head of a unicorn. That's odd, it looks exactly like the Mare in the Moon.

A sudden burning itch at my thigh brings me out of my revelation. I chuckle to myself, "Well, I guess Destiny is Calling for me."

I walk down the stairs again, and once I reach my door, a wave of exhaustion ambushes me. My waking mind fights valiantly, but was taken by surprise. And such, the warrior succumbs to the forces of the night as I trudge past Destiny; that'll have to wait until tomorrow. I look at the clock on my way to bed, barely noticing that I apparently spent twenty minutes on the roof.

I walk into my room and begin stripping by first taking off my blue t-shirt, and then taking off the denim jeans I always wore. As I look at the figure in the mirror (occasionally posing impressively), the stupid itch returns with a burning passion.

I scratch furiously, but like the forces of the night, my thighs were ambushed ruthlessly. I quickly strip off the boxers to see how big the bite size is, and freeze in shock. I look at the mirror to make sure I'm not seeing things.

There, on my thigh, is a giant splotch of midnight blue with a white crescent moon smack dab in the center.

To be more specific, Luna's cutie mark.

On my thigh.

On both sides.

I barely had time to pull my boxers back up before I collapsed on my bed unconscious

> 2. Dreamtime
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I drift through the black darkness of my unconscious, a simple thought causing me to drift in the direction I wish. It’s odd, as I can tell I’m asleep, but it doesn’t feel like a dream.

A light appears above me, so begin to drift towards it, noting that it grows brighter as I get closer. Soon, the light envelops me completely and wholly as I step out into my room. Looking down at my body, I find that I look much more like a bluish shadow with limbs than an actual physical body.

I hear breathing and turn suddenly, startled, only to find my own sleeping body lying completely uncovered on top of the bed. Looking down at my back, I see a type of misty, black cord attached to my body.

I walk out onto the balcony and look up into the sky. I stand there in shock at the beauty of the figures in the sky for a few seconds. What looks like glowing, golden sand forms curving lines that that twist and spiral through the night sky.

I turn back and walk out of my apartment, just phasing through the door when I try to touch it. I float through the hallway and stop at the door to one of my less, favorable neighbors. I grin mentally as I pass through their door; excited to see what secrets they keep.

However, as soon as I float through the wooden door, I’m immediately pulled towards their bedroom where I see the golden sand flowing towards his forehead but turning black just as it goes inside. My neighbor has a look of discomfort on his face, wincing every so often. Practically on instinct, I reach out and touch the flowing sand.

But instead of feeling grains like I thought, it feels much more like I put my hand into one of those mist machines. The sand begins pulling me with it, and in no time I find myself pulled into his forehead.

I open my eyes and look around, seeing a small room with a table in the center. A single light is all that illuminates the wooden furniture. Sitting at the table is my neighbor, and across from him is someone who looks like an older version of him, possibly his father.

The two sit quietly for a few seconds before the father jumps up and punches his son in the face. The son falls out of the chair, trying to get as far away as possible from his assaulter. His father instead elects to walk around the table, pick him up with both hands gripping his collar, and begin yelling at him incoherently.

I watch in horror as he starts punching the son in the face repeatedly. Once I have seen enough, though, I quickly grab the father’s arm as it comes back up for another punch. I throw him behind me onto the wooden table. As he gets up to come at me, I simply wave my hand (it’s like I’ve done this before!) and speak in a voice much like my own, but more deep and powerful.

The father bursts into black smoke and dissipates as I turn back to my neighbor and help him. I stare at his face, noticing that there is no bruising. Huh, I guess he can’t get bruised in his dreams. I help him sit down into one of his more comfortable chairs that appeared out of the darkness.

As I sit down into the chair across from his, I notice his eyes haven’t left me the entire time. I look around, then down at myself, noticing just now that I am wearing a pair of black sweats and a navy blue t-shirt with a crescent moon on it. However, I’m walking around barefooted.

I look back at him to see him stuttering and pointing a finger at me. Am I that odd looking?

“Y-y-you’re my neighbor! W-what’re you doing here?” His voice goes to squeaky levels as he drops his finger, still staring.

“Well, yes, I am your neighbor. What I am doing here, I have no flipping idea! One moment I’m sleeping peacefully (I lied!) and the next I’m floating through the apartment into your room. I saw you getting beat up by that guy and decided to stop him. Who was he by the way?” I am now insanely curious, both at who the man was (presumably his father) and how I am taking this so well! I swear it’s like I’ve done this before, but I can’t tell where! It’s super irritating!

“The man you saw was my father.” Bingo! “And he beat me continuously as a child.” The man’s quivering voice shook me into a more serious mood. I mean this was my neighbor that constantly acted like Mr. Tough Guy; this was really unusual for him.

“Is he still alive?” I ask, letting a bit of a dangerous hint bleed into my voice. No matter who it is, they don’t deserve to be punished like that as a child.

My neighbor quickly replies, “No! He died a few years ago, but I’m still kind of scared of him.” His quivering voice twists my heart, and more anger for the man’s father burns within me.

I turn my voice to a much softer tone, almost like talking to a child, but with a more respectful tone. “You no longer need to fear him. He has no control over your life, and now, no control over your dreams. You can go live your life, and now with no fear.”

He looks up at me with a new hope burning in his eyes, and I feel, not proud of what I had done, but happy. It wasn’t an achievement or a hard competition needing to be done. It was just me, doing what had to be done.

I feel a tug at my back, and I’m quickly being drawn backwards by the misty cord. He watches me go as his dream dissolves around him. I yell back to him, "Let go of your fear!" I can only hope he heard me.

My eyes shoot open and I grab the sides of my bed. What just happened? I'm pretty sure that was a dream, but it just felt so real! Besides, it's not like I would actually get Luna's cutie mark. I glance at the clock and see it's only about five in the morning.

I sit up slowly, looking at the calendar. Good, it's a Friday, so I don't have to work today. I saunter over to where my robe hangs on the hook and make sure to avoid looking in the mirror; I want to keep these details from my dream as long as possible and not absolutely destroy my hopes.

I walk into the kitchen and open the pantry, smiling at how full they look. I fix myself another simple PB&J, making sure to lather on extra of both. I slowly saunter back into my living room, where Destiny Three is just waiting for me to play it.

However, I walk past the television and game consoles to collect the mail that had just been delivered (it gets delivered really early). Seeing only bills and trash in the bundle until I get to the last letter, I toss all the others down onto the floor as I take my time opening the letter from my friend.


Dear John,
I know you may have been wondering about me recently, but just to let you know, I am fine. I feel like we should get together so I can help you with what you should do with your future. In fact, you could come work under me at the recycling facility. It is much better than whatever you're doing now.
Sincerely,
Your Friend


I crumple up the letter and toss it into the nearby trashcan. Yet again, they misunderstand who I am, what I want to do, and constantly try to control me. I feel the anger bubbling up within my chest, and I'm about ready to snap when someone knocks at my door.

The anger immediately dissipates into the depression of being misunderstood my entire life. I pull the robe closely around me once more and walk to the door, placing a neutral look on my face. I unbolt and unlock my door, and un-anti-bitch my mood, and slowly swing the door open.

Standing there is my unfavorable neighbor whose dream I had a dream of last night. He's standing in front of me with a suitcase, a suit, and one of the older classy hats. That's odd, he has a smile on his face. Probably planning to rape me. I mean, yeah I’m a guy, but you never know.

Instead of raping me, however, he reaches out with a hand and takes my own into his hearty and strong handshake. "I know this'll sound kind of weird, but last night I saw you in my dream, and you dispelled the nightmare I was having and freed me from my fear. I only came to thank you before I left to pursue my dreams." He starts to turn away, then stops and turns back, "Also, the light blue in your hair, is...interesting."

Without another word, he turns and walks away into the elevator, the silver doors closing behind him. I stand there for a few more seconds, trying to process what just happened.

Wait, did he just say, BLUE HAIR!? I run back to my room, almost knocking over several things on my way. I tumble into view of the mirror, and as he said, my hair is now a very subtle hint of blue. It hasn't changed length, but it's now thicker and more feathery at the same time. It’s at this moment my long bangs decide to fall into my eyes and disrupt my vision.

I violently shove them out of my eyes and quickly disrobe myself and pull down the boxers. Sure enough, Luna’s cutie mark is there, just as sharp and vibrant as ever.

Is it possible that someone is just trying to play a prank on me? I quickly dismiss the thought as I remember that I’m alone in this world, I continually think to myself bitterly. I grab a rag and get it to a nice, warm dampness (Bow Chicka Bow Wow) and begin scrubbing vigorously at the offending mark.

After five minutes, the mark is still there, but now with a ring of red skin around it. Maybe Twilight or somepony good in magic could help me out.

Wait, what?

Did I just think somepony instead of somebody? And did I just think of Twilight Sparkle as though she was real? Wow, I really need some help. I lean in closer to make sure my eyes haven't changed at all.

Good, they still appear to be the same, and they probably just look slightly bigger because of the mirror being distorted. I go over to the balcony window and look at the Muscatine, Iowan sky.

The sun hasn't yet come up all of the way, and I chuckle to myself. Celestia must be pretty tired...this morning.

Okay, what in the f-ing world!? I mean first, I think of Twilight Sparkle like she's real, and now Celestia!? I think I really need to see a therapist. I stomp back through my room and into the living room, determined to have some part of this morning be normal.

I quickly grab the scissors and, with practiced hands, slice open the plastic on my new game. I almost jump onto the leather cushions of my three-seater couch and turn on the flat screen T.V. I immediately mute it and place my Turtle Beach X1000s onto my ears and prepare for epicness.

The Xbox dashboard pops and I hit the play game option for Destiny Three. As expected, I hear the familiar "Ba-dink!" of the Xbox live service telling me that there is an update for this game. The kicker is that it's a hundred mega byte download.

I growl in frustration and hit the confirm button, standing up to go to my computer while I waited for the update to finish. I simply go to fimfiction and read some more of the fanfictions I have under my "Read Later" tab.

Finally, about ten minutes later, I look up to see the loading screens. I almost leap from my computer chair to the couch as I don my headset once more. I excitedly press the start button and select my hard drive to begin play.

The intro begins playing and the narrator’s deep voice comes in, telling the story of what happened between the second and third games. After that ends about ten minutes later, I begin to play through the tutorial section.

I’m training a new recruit alongside my best friend, when suddenly an explosion rips apart the nearby wall. I shove the recruit down behind a barrier and fire a few shots at the oncoming aliens before ducking behind some cover myself.

As I scream at my ally for another clip, one of the new aliens jumps at him from the shadows. It uses the long, sharp claws at the end of its skinny limbs to throw itself through the air and tackle him. I watch him grab its throat and they tumble into the shadows.

I look after him in shock, but quickly shake it off so I can help the recruit drive off the oncoming aliens. A strange chirping noise sounds through the air and the aliens fall back. I grab the recruit by the shoulder and shake out of the stupor of his first battle.

He looks at me with hope in his eyes and we run off into the shadows to help my friend. We find him, breathing heavily under the now dead alien. As we drag it off of him, I realize he’s not going to make it. The creature’s claws had gutted him like a fish, and he was smiling since he knew he wasn’t going to make it.

I hold his hand as he goes, promising to make sure no harm comes to his family, and as his eyes close, he dies with a smile on his face.

I immediately pause the game and run to the bathroom, tears running down my face. Once in there, I sit down onto the toilet seat and let the tears run freely. However, along with my sadness, I feel confusion; why am I so emotional right now? I haven’t cried from a video game since Cortana had died in Halo Four, yet here I am, crying even harder about a character I’ve only known for two full games.

What is happening to me?

I don't know how long I sit in the bathroom, almost panicking at the different reasons I can think of as to why I'm changing. Th-this is only a partial change. It has to be! I know I don't get out that much, almost not at all, but what will I do?

Well, I suppose I could always just stay inside until the changes run their course and I return to normal. My optimistic side pokes up again and I smile, wiping away the dried up tears. Well, since that seems to be the case, I'll just go back to my game and not freak out anymore today.

I stand and start walking out of the bathroom, when my foot slips on the tiled floor and I fall hard, hitting the back of my head on the bath tub. I don't have any time to think anything as I fall unconscious for the second time that day.
~~~~~
This time, I don't go into my dreamtime ability. Instead, this time I just touch down onto a cool, grassy plain. A moo from behind me makes me turn around to see several cows just standing there, eating grass.

It's weird. I think I hear a kind of funky tune in the background, but I'm not sure. Suddenly, the music becomes obvious and the cows all start shaking their head together, in sync with the odd beat.

I can't even begin to describe what happens in the next few minutes. I'm seriously beginning to question as to whether I actually hit my head, or took several shots of heroin and cocaine.

Finally, the dream (nightmare?) ended and shifted to the black abyss. However, no matter how long I wait, the dream doesn't change. I wonder if I could get some music since it's my dream.

And my subconscious, being the troll that it is, plays elevator music while I wait to wake up. After what feels like thirty minutes of waiting, the blackness seems to crack and then shatter around me. Finally!

I slowly open my eyes, making sure that I don't end up blinding myself. Standing up and rubbing my head, I quickly glance into the mirror and do a double take. My hair is about an inch longer and is now a much more vibrant shade of blue, kind of like cobalt.

I simply sigh and accept the new change, walking slowly out of my bathroom while holding a hand to my head. I glance at the clock in the kitchen as I walk past. It's about six right now, so I was unconscious for about twelve hours.

Strange, I don't seem to have gotten any actual rest I think as I yawn. I remember about my game that has been playing ever since I ran into the bathroom earlier this morning. I quickly jog into the living room and shut off the Xbox that is close to overheating.

After sighing in relief, I walk over to my computer and open my webcam to see what I look like now. Sure enough, my hair is a definite light blue, and there flecks of azure color in my eyes. I save a picture for later reference.

I lean back and think about what appears to be happening. Am I actually turning into Luna? So far as I know, I am going to fully transform into the pony, although I have no idea how long that will take for it to complete.

After thinking for a few more moments, I open forums on several different sites and type the same message into each of them.


To any whom it may concern,
So, have any of you who are reading this post have a cutie mark appear on the side of your legs recently? I could definitely use some as I appear to be turning into a pony. Any help is appreciated.
Sincerely Needing Help,
We are the Meta


I finish typing my screen name and shut off the computer; there’s nothing else I really want to do on there anyways. I lean back and attempt to fight off another yawn, failing miserably.

Might as well go to bed I guess, perhaps I’ll be back to normal by morning and this will all be over like a bad dream. It kind of feels like I’m lying to myself, but I wouldn’t do that, right?

> 3. Child of the Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I welcome the darkness of slumber as it rushes towards me while I lay on my bed. It envelops me and I embrace it like an old friend. Just like the night before, I begin to float towards the small light above my head.

Yet again like the night before, once the light surrounds me completely, I am thrown out of my body and into my room as a bluish shadow with a black cord tied to my sleeping vessel. Speaking of which, I look back down to my face.

Huh, it almost looks like my features are turning feminine. Eh, I'm probably just seeing things. Anyways, onwards for another dream adventure! However, this time I feel an urge to go out onto the balcony.

I phase through the glass doors and find myself afloat. Looking into the sky, I see the lines of sand flying through the air. Oddly enough, there's several strands that are a bit of a mixture between golden and blue sand.

One flies over the city and flies into an apartment building about a block away, another floats over the southern section of the city, a third leaves a trail towards the a distant farm, and the last-

Goes into Fiona's apartment.

Unfortunately, before I can so much as touch the flowing sand to see what her dreams are, I'm pulled off of my balcony and through several buildings. Willing myself upwards, I manage to begin being pulled above the offending apartments and houses.

Finally, the dragging sensation stops as I float above an overpass. My vision seems to have been switched to that of an eagle as my eyesight zeroes in on a young girl.

A soft whispery voice drifts through my mind and is then gone. "Go to her." Huh, that was odd, but I guess I'll follow its advice. I land my ethereal being-like body down next to her and see her a little more closely.

She couldn't have been more than seven, and here she was, lying on the side of a street sleeping. Why does her face look familiar? Where have I seen her before? On instinct, I begin to look up to the bright moon for guidance, when it suddenly feels like the moon directs my vision to a nearby light post with a missing poster on it.

I feel my physical body's heart clench a bit as I stare at the image of the little girl. No wonder she looked familiar; I've been seeing her face everywhere around Muscatine for the last week!

As I lean down to get a closer look at the girl, she stirs. The movement may be miniscule, but it still startles me. I stumble backwards, but instead of falling I just start floating, almost like I lay down on a bed. Well, this is actually kind of comfy.

Looking back down, I see the young, missing girl staring directly at me. Wait, can she actually see me? Probably not, she may just be looking at something behind me.

"Princess Luna? Is that you?"

Well, scratch that thought. Maybe children really do see more than adults in this world, it wouldn't be surprising. I float down and land softly on my shadowy feet without making a sound.

After a moment's thought, I speak to her, although not in the voice I thought of as mine, "It is okay, young one, I am here for you. May I ask, what are you doing so far from your home?"

Well hot-diggedy-darn, I sounded just like Luna there. I really hope I still sound like me in the waking world. The sudden sobs and crying bring me back to reality.

"Oh Princess Luna! Some strange man grabbed me while I was playing with toys at the store! And then-" Her tale was cut short by another bout of sobbing and sniffling.

Some type of instinct within me kicks in and I lean down and put my ghostly arms around her. "Shh, shh. It's okay, I'll try my best to help you get home tonight." I decide not to ask her to tell the rest of her story.

I let go of her and study the poster, memorizing the address given. I turn back and motion for her to come with me. She scrambles to her feet and takes my ghostly appendage into her own hand.

We walk down the streets for about thirty minutes, and by then, I am having to wake her up after almost every step since I cannot pick her up. She mumbles a few words quietly to me, "Luna, do you know any songs?"

We stop as I think for a moment, "Well, I do know one, just let me try and remember." I look up at the shining moon and speak to it through my mind. Please, help me with this, my friend.

I feel a burst of confidence as I choose my song, the words flowing to my mind. I begin to sing in a voice, not my own, but beautiful nonetheless.

Come little Children,
I'll take thee away,
Into a land of enchantment.

Come little Children,
The time's come to play,
Here in my Garden of Shadows.

We've been walking through the backwater streets of Muscatine for awhile and were just now getting back into the suburban area. I turn to her as she stumbles after me, although more awake than before, and begin to continue singing to her

Follow sweet Children,
I'll show thee the way,
Through all the pain and the sorrow.

Weep not poor Children,
For Life is this way,
Murder, and beauty, and passion.

Hush now dear Children,
It must be this way
To weary of Life and Deception.

We rounded a corner and her home was directly in front of us. She was almost falling at this point from exhaustion. My ethereal form gave her the last little bit of energy she needed to lie down onto the cement doorstep.

Rest now my Children,
For soon we'll away
Into the calm and the quiet.

Come little Children,
I'll take thee away
Into a Land of Enchantment.

Come little Children,
The time's come to play
Here in my Garden of Shadows.

As my voice trails off, she closes her eyes to sleep peacefully. I look down at her, nothing but parental love in my heart for her. I feel a tug from the misty cord, and look at the doorbell. Using the pure will my form is made of, I press it twice.

Directly afterwards, the cord pulls me backward and through the night. I am thrown upwards above the clouds and directly in front of the moon. The same voice that told me to go to the young girl earlier speaks to me again, "You must remember, Princess, always care for the little ones."

The cord tugs at me again, this time pulling me all the way back to my body. I shoot into my own forehead, and awake with a massive headache.

"AAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!" I practically scream as I stumble through the apartment and into the bathroom. Temporarily taking my hands off of my forehead, I grab a cup, fill it with water, grab some pills, and quickly down them both.

I sit down onto the toilet seat, waiting for the effects of the medicine to kick in. I try not to think of anything, but my mind keeps drifting to the odd dream I had again the previous night. There was no way that I was actually leaving my body and going on these trips.

With headache finally fading, I trudge over to the T.V. and sit down. I slowly pick up the remote and turn the television on, flipping to the News Channel. I have no idea what's possessing me to go this channel out of all of them but-

I interrupt my inner dialogue as I get a good look at the Breaking News headline; Young Girl Who has Been Missing for a Week Found!

I turn up the volume just as they begin to interview the parents and daughter. The parents go on about how grateful they are to whoever it was that found her and brought her home. You know, the typical stuff.

However, the little girl (the same one from my dream) instantly speaks and interrupts her parents. "No! Princess Luna found me on the side of a street and guided me home! She sang to me, and helped me lay down on the doorstep!"

The Newscaster goes on to state that the child is most likely suffering from PTSD. She is also kind enough to describe who Luna was. I, however, am not listening.

Is it possible? Was everything I did last night real? It couldn't be...right? I Just don't...don't know what to think anymore.

I decide that I need a distraction and sit down at my computer, turning it on. As I sit there, waiting for the computer to boot up, a clump of light blue hair falls into my eye ball.

"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH! My gosh, darn, fricking eye!" I pull the offending article out of my vision and almost end up tearing it out. That's when I notice just how long my hair is now; it's at least four inches longer than before.

Huh, that's interesting. I wonder...

I quickly walk into my room and check my eyes in the mirror. Just as I thought, the light blue flecks in my eyes from yesterday were now much more prominent. I sigh and look at the whole of my face. The cheek bones are a little more angled and my mouth kind of looks like it's been pushed forward, but I'm not sure.

I hum a little to myself to test my voice, but can't seem to hear any difference. I think to myself for a few seconds, and then walk over to and sit down at my computer. Opening a recording program, I click the small red light and it turns on, showing that I'm recording.

"Alright, well this is probably going to be the first of many voice recordings I do. I'm only doing this for a test on how my voice changes." I click the same little red light to stop recording and stand up, popping several of my joints on the way.

Well, what do we do now? I guess I could continue playing Destiny, but I didn't want to have another breakdown like yesterday. I'll be honest; that actually kind of scared me. The growl emanating from my stomach was what actually decided for me.

I search through my kitchen for something to eat, but it's rather odd that the foods that I would normally consider a delicacy just doesn't seem to sound good to me right now. I think through a list of different foods that I have when one thought stops me.

Just the mere of this food makes me start salivating; apples. I must have one now! I almost rip the door off of its hinges when I tear open the fridge, looking for the small, red spheres. I grab one, bite into to it, and promptly fall into a deliciousness-induced coma.
~~~~~
About ten minutes later, I wake up with the apple still in my hand. I sit up and take another cautious bite out of the fruit. It still tastes really good, but nowhere near the explosion of flavors from earlier.

That's odd. I've never acted that way about food before. Did Applejack put some new type of fertilizer in for her trees?

Wait.

Where in the world did that come from? Applejack doesn't even exist! I continually eat my apple as I sift through the overabundance jumbled thoughts.

Once the thoughts are yet again organized into their mental folders, I check into the reminders section of my mind. Oh yeah! I completely forgot about all the thread topic posts I put up yesterday. Let's go check up on those.

I log onto my computer and open up my Internet Explorer, making tabs for each of the forums I posted in. Looking through each of them, I see nothing but junk replies asking if I was serious, drunk, high, trolling, and a great number of other things. However, there was one response, only one, that seemed genuinely serious.

They had sent me a private message about an hour after I posted the thread. I click on the box with the message and read what they have to say.


Dear, We are the Meta
I'll take a guess that a cutie mark is one of those strange tattoos that appeared by itself. If that is the case, I might be in the same case as you. However, changing into ponies just seems like a weird and rather farfetched conclusion just from the appearance of those marks, unless there is something weird that has happened to you so far.
Sincerely,
Sarikano


After checking real quickly, I see that he is, in fact, online right now. I send him a an invitation to a private chat and wait patiently.

After about ten minutes of waiting, I sigh and stand up, going to the kitchen for another snack. After looking around for a little bit, I choose to eat another apple. The juices run down my chin as I sloppily eat it as quickly as I can.

I throw the remaining core into the trash and check the private chat room with Sarikano. He still hasn't said anything whatsoever.

I go over to my extensive bookshelf and pull out a random book. Looking down, I see that I have selected one of my old time favorites, Halo: The Fall of Reach. I sit down and lean back into my computer chair and read for several minutes, patiently awaiting for Sarikano to send a message.

Finally, the beep that emanates from my computer announces his arrival into the chat room. I quickly set down my book and slide forward, my fingers automatically going to the familiar positions above the key board.

We are the Meta: Hello? You there?
Sarikano : Yes, I'm here.
We are the Meta: So I saw that you replied to my thread with the possibility of turning into a pony?
Sarikano: Only if the sudden hair growth I noticed this morning is part of the changes. But, it could be worse, I could be turning into Rantanplan.

The meaning of his reference(?) is lost on me. After thinking for a few seconds, I reply with the most sensible thing I can think of.

We are the Meta: What?
Sarikano : ...
Sarikano: Nevermind.
We are the Meta: Lol ok. So anyways what's your name? My name's John Sappington.
Sarikano: My name is Alex Mercier.

Ha! Could this be Alex Mercer from Prototype? Highly unlikely, but I decide to tease him a bit.

We are the Meta: O.O
We are the Meta: As in the Prototype guy?
Sarikano: No *facepalm*

I snigger quietly to myself, proud of my apparent trolling. Alright, I had my laugh. now, let's get into business.

We are the Meta: You have to admit though, it is kind of fitting; something supposedly bad happens to you, and now you want to figure out what happened.
Sarikano: I guess that comparison could work. I just hope I don't need to absorb people to learn more.

Alright, time for the finale question! Drum roll please!

We are the Meta: So anyways, have you found who you might be turning into?
Sarikano: Yes... Apparently it is somepony named "Celestia".
> 4. Eclipse
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I freeze for a moment, fingers stopped in the middle of typing an instinctual response of "lol". I shake myself out of the shock and delete the half-finished message. Leaning back, I think about the possibilities of what this could mean.

If we actually do go full blown pony, and if this actually is the (possibly) future Celestia, would we be able to use magic and fly? Alright, sure earlier I'd been freaking out about maybe becoming Luna, but now that I'd had some time to think, I didn't believe I'd pass out again.

Alright, back to the matter at hand. Would this mean we could control the sun and moon? Now that I thought back on my life, I realized that I'd always felt more comfortable under the moon and that my best decisions came from those times as well.

So the question was, have I been destined to become a clone of Luna for my whole life? Or has this whole thing been just a really weird coincidence? Either way, it'd be best to continue my conversation with this guy since I've made him wait for about four minutes.

We are the Meta: ...
We are the Meta: You're being totally truthful with me, right?
Sarikano: Maybe, or maybe not
Sarikano: Well, you mentioned being turned into a pony first in your post, I'll guess that you know more about what is going on than me.

Wait, does he have no clue about who Celestia really is? Hm, interesting. Let's just check to make sure.

We are the Meta: Well, on the contrary, I actually don't know much more than you do. Although I must ask this since it'll make this whole thing go a little more smoothly.
We are the Meta: Are you a brony?
Sarikano: I'll just go ahead and guess that you aren't talking about the chocolate.

Ok, I'm just going to assume that he's not a brony. Gosh dang it. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, as much as I hate it. Still let's just continue on with this conversation.

We are the Meta: That would be an affirmative.

There's a slight pause as I wait for his response.

Sarikano: Eh, I meant that as a no.
We are the Meta: I know that! I was saying affirmative to your assumption!
Sarikano: Oh...

Wow, it doesn't seem like this guy can actually take a joke. Oh well, I might as well be nice to him now.

We are the Meta: Anyways, can you tell me where you are at the moment?
Sarikano: Wouldn't it be better if you tell me who you think you are turning into?
We are the Meta: Alright, straight down to business I see. I'm turning into Luna.
We are the Meta: You know, it's kind of odd that we found each other since Luna and Celestia are sisters in the show.

I wait for a few seconds, waiting for him to write something in return. Why is he taking so long? Oh, look! He's writing something.

Sarikano: Lulu...

I hold my breath for a second, and then the anger slowly starts to set in. Who does this guy think he is? I mean seriously! What. The fricken. Heck? One moment he's asking who I'm turning into, and the next he's calling me LULU?! Oh this will not do. I quickly set to work writing my reply.

We are the Meta: Hey, I just met you
We are the Meta: And this is crazy
We are the Meta: But here's my number
We are the Meta: So don't ever call me a pet name again, or I will find you, and I will kill you.

I sit back and let the anger drain out of me. That was rather harsh and mean of me. After all, I was having thoughts of getting apples from Applejack, so he may be going through the same mental changes as me.

Sarikano: Sorry, I didn't mean to write that.
We are the Meta: It's ok; I've been having the same things happen to me recently.
Sarikano: How often?
Sarikano: Oh, and you still haven't given your number.

I pause for a second before laughing out loud. Is this guy for real? There is no way he can be from the U.S. if he doesn't understand that reference.

We are the Meta: XD I was joking about the number. Anyways, I only recently started thinking random thoughts.
Sarikano: How random are we talking?
We are the Meta: Like, looking at this cutie mark and thinking, "Maybe Twilight or somepony good in magic can help me."

I shudder a little bit at the thought I had earlier. Oh well, at least I'm not having those random segments of thought anymore. Hm, I wonder if Celestia has been having them too.

Hold the phone.

Gosh dang it, I did it again. I sigh and turn back to my computer, ready to finish up this conversation.

Sarikano: Is Twilight some kind of student?
We are the Meta: Yes, actually, she is. How did you know?
Sarikano: Arg, this becoming too confusing. I wish we could meet, it would be much simpler.
We are the Meta: Yes it would. Do you happen to live anywhere near Muscatine, Iowa?

I know it's a long shot, but I cross my fingers and pray to whatever higher power there may be that he lives somewhere nearby.

Sarikano: I don't live there, but I'm currently visiting a friend who does.

Alright, this just way too...convenient.

We are the Meta: Really?!
We are the Meta: Okay, this can't be a coincidence.
Sarikano: Is there anywhere we can meet? Like a coffee shop or something?

I think for a few seconds before coming up with an idea. Yes, that should definitely be able to work. After looking up the address online, I type into the chat.

We are the Meta: Okay, I have a place. Go to the Starbucks at 2400 2nd Avenue. I'll be inside at sometime around 4. You'll see me with the longish, light blue hair. Anything I should recognize you by?
Sarikano: Wouldn't it be possible to meet earlier? About the appearance, I'll take a guess and suppose 	 	   that your hair wasn't like that earlier. Unless you like anime a little too much...
We are the Meta: Hey! There's nothing wrong with anime! But yes, you are correct; my hair didn't used to be blue.
Sarikano: I didn't say that there was anything wrong with anime, just that there are limits... If your hair 	 	   changed, then I suppose a physical description won't be of any use.
Sarikano: Well, there is my car I suppose; I own a gray Nissan Cube.
We are the Meta: Well, that'll be easy to spot.
Sarikano: That's why I bought it *Wink*

I chuckle a little to myself at our antics, and then proceed to finish up the chat.

We are the Meta: Well to answer your earlier question, I just woke up and need to play some games before we meet up.
Sarikano: Gaming...
Sarikano: I guess I can't really talk, seeing as how I've fallen asleep playing Civilization...

Huh. I guess you find new surprises every day.

We are the Meta:  Well color me surprised; you actually turned out to be a gamer.
We are the Meta: We can talk more at Starbucks later. Until then, my number is 1-563-555-3241. Yours?
Sarikano: I'm sorry; I forgot to mention that I was from Canada. My number is 1-514-555-5246.
We are the Meta: All right, see you at four.
Sarikano: See ya.

I sign out of the chat website and shut down my computer. As I stand and stretch, several pops travel down my spine and make me groan in satisfaction. Ugh, I feel like I'm covered in dirt. Now I'm in no way a true city boy; I grew up in the country so I'm not afraid to get dirty, but even I have my limits.

I walk into the bathroom and make sure to steps carefully on the tile floor so as to not fall down again. I pull the curtain aside and start the hot water, massaging my shins at the same time. That's odd, they didn't feel so tense earlier.

Oh well, nothing a good a hot shower can't fix, right? Once the water gets warm enough, I step into a torrent of heaven. I never really thought about how good a shower feels, especially in the morning.

I wonder, how would a shower feel with a coat of fur? Eh, I’ll probably find out later. Well, how strange. Now that I’m truly thinking about it, I’m not actually freaking out about this all that much. I think normal people would probably be pulling out their hair if they were going through what I was. Maybe it’s because deep down I’ve always wanted this.

Oh well, I’ll think about it more later after I meet this Alex. I step out of the shower once it finally runs out of hot water and dry myself off. Wrapping myself in the soft fabric, I walk back into my room to gather some clothes for later.

Looking at the clock, I realize I spent about forty minutes in the shower. Ugh, I still have about six hours until we meet up at Starbucks. I quickly put on my clothes and step into the living room. I turn the Xbox on and sit down onto my comfortable couch.

All right Destiny: let’s dance.
~~~~~~
I stand and stretch about five hours later. Unfortunately, there are no satisfying pops in my bones this time. I glance at the clock and realize I only have about an hour before I have to meet up with Alex. Looking around the room for something to distract me for another thirty minutes, I spot absolutely nothing.

Sighing again, I pull on my jacket and lift the hood up over my blue hair; it'd be a bit suspicious, no? Anyways, once that's all situated, I leave the apartment room and lock it. I walk into the silver elevator and press the ground floor button.

As they open again on the ground floor, I brush past the familiar face of Fiona. However, I keep going and don't even think about greeting her since the encounter is so brief.

Wait a second. Did she have pink hair? I turn to get a better look just in time for the elevator doors close again. Darn. Oh well, she probably just did it for a new style.

I walk out of the lobby and towards my Land Rover. Oddly enough, my shin muscles are still really sore. Eh, I'm a man! I'll just deal with it. I jump into my green car and turn push the key into the slot.

The familiar purr of my car starts up and I drive cautiously drive out of the parking lot. After about another ten minutes of growling quietly at other drivers, I finally reach my destination.

Going down the temporarily calm street of Second Avenue, I look for two things. A place to park and a gray, Nissan Cube. Seeing the perfect spot about ten feet from the entrance to Starbucks, I quickly and kind of skillfully drive into the empty parking space.

Sighing in victory, I pull the keys out of the ignition and twirl them on my fingers a bit, then proceeding to pocket after almost flinging them at a passerby. I smile at the stranger and give them a friendly wave as I walk through the door to the coffee shop.

I order my regular drink; a grande Caramel Frappucino with extra caramel and extra caffeine. The familiar waitress gives me a soft smile as she hands me my drink. Unfortunately, I do not notice the lingering look she gives me as I walk away.

Walking back outside into the cool air, I sit down into one of the outside chairs and wait for the soon-to-be occupant of the opposite chair. I look up into the blue sky, realizing just how nice it actually is. However, it can never compare to the night sky. The way the stars form art in the sky is almost like magic.

After another few minutes of waiting and no sign of the gray cube, I realize that nature is calling me, and not from a phone. I hurry back inside and quickly do my business, happy to note that I was, in fact, still a man. I scrub my hands at the sink, looking up into the mirror to see full-on light blue eyes.

I freeze for a moment, then sigh. Oh well, I knew this was probably going to happen at some point. No sense freaking out about it. I finish up washing my hands walk back out to my seat and drink.

I wait for another fifteen minutes before checking my cell phone's watch again. It is now 3:59 and he still hasn't shown up. I wonder what he could possibly doing.

However, just as the clock on my watch turns to 4:00, a gray Nissan Cube slowly pulls into the parking space next to mine. The owner of the odd car steps out after a few seconds of waiting. He's about an average height, maybe a five foot ten to my six foot three. He's also wearing a hood and glancing around suspiciously as though he suspects everyone around him to be a thief.

He brushes past me and into the store. Was that actually him? He didn't feel cold and rude, just kind of awkward. Hm, did he perhaps not realize that this was the table I sat at?

Gah! The aches in my shins are really starting to get to me! Stretching my feet lengthwise seems to help quite a bit, oddly enough.

Ah, here's the possible Alex! Yeah, it has to be him, since he is standing next to my table. Naturally, of course the first thing he says to me is, "You know, I may not have been able to find you if your blue hair wasn't down in your face."

Well, what do you know, I guess you learn new things every minute as well. I quickly shove the offending piece back into my hood. I guess my hair's getting much more noticeably longer now. Oh well.

Alex speaks to me again after a small chuckle at my actions. "So, you must Jo...na?"

I freeze mid-thought. Did he seriously just try to mix up my name and Luna's name? What kind of sick, twisted humor must he have? It's one thing to actually be turning into a pony, but to have someone rubbing it in your face!

Well, two can play at that game. "Then I take it you're Alexia."

I smile mentally at his confused look. Welcome to my town, boy.
> 5. The Coffee, the Tea, and the Conversation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Alex(ia) stands next to my table for a few seconds with a look of confusion on his face before sighing heavily and sitting down in the chair across from me. I can see a couple of bangs of pink hair. That's rather odd. If we're turning into the royal sisters, shouldn't my hair be more like the night sky and his a flowing pastel rainbow?

My thoughts stop in their tracks as I notice the devious smirk upon his face. He looks at me with purple eyes and speaks confidently, "I kind of wish that name wasn't going to become more fitting soon."

Oh, so that's how he likes to play huh? Best guess is that he's trying to catch me off guard with the whole transformation thing. Well, sucks for him, because I've simply accepted that this is going to happen whether I like it or not.

I give him a smirk in return before almost replying. I'm able to stop myself before I say something brash; arguing like this would get us nowhere. "Look, as much as I would like to argue with thee, I don't believe it would be wise."

I see a slight shift in his facial features; surprise. Why would he be surprised? Was it because of my apparent surrender? I play my sentence over again in my head. Oh, wait. Did I seriously say thee? Oh my, maybe these changes aren't just physical. I had my suspicions before, but now I may have just confirmed them.

My thoughts are interrupted yet again by Alex, "I agree, I could easily do this all day if I wanted. However, I didn't mean to merge both names. It just kind of slipped out..." He trails off with a thoughtful look on his face.

I formulate another response as I mentally scream, "BOW CHICKA BOW WOW!!" After another few seconds of clean thoughts, I simply reply with, "Hey, it's alright, I know the feeling. Anyways, how much do you know about the show?"

A brief flash of irritation flashes across his face, "Actually, I didn't know it was a show. I found myself on a page from a wiki that told me much more than I wanted to at that time." His response was short and kind of cold.

Well, I hope he's not a brony-hater, because that'll make this whole thing quite a bit harder. Maybe if it's alright with him, he can stay at my apartment for a little bit. "Hey, would you mind if we took this conversation back to my apartment? It'll be a little more easy to explain things to you there."

Alex looked a little uncomfortable as he looked around at the nonexistent eavesdroppers. He looked back to me, "You might be right, but I worry about further transformations. My hair almost stopped me from going out. You know, pink isn't exactly the most popular color for men."

I pause for a moment, then let out a hearty laugh at his expense, "You have most certainly got that right!" The evil glare he gives me only makes me laugh harder. "Anyways, maybe you shouldn't worry about the transformations. I mean, as far as we know, there is no way to stop this, so you might as well just accept this instead of worrying over every single little thing."

He looks a little put off about me just brushing aside his concerns, "I was more thinking about needing to go in public. I'm not sure how easy it would be to conceal further changes, KOS-MOS."

KOS-MOS? What in the world is he talking about. I have no idea who this KOS-MOS person is, and oh, look. He's enjoying my confusion. Oh well, it can't be helped if he prefers to play games that are not as popular. I give another huff of indignation, "So, what? Do you not expect me to have very much food? It would just so happen that a couple of days ago, on my birthday, I bought enough food to feed a small army."

His tilted head betrays the surprise he's feeling. When he speaks to me, I try not to look to smug at the surprise in his voice as well. "Sorry, it's just that I usually only buy enough food for me to last a week." He looks thoughtful for a moment again before sighing and speaking, "Do you think there could be any accessories that could be useful later on?"

I think for a moment before shaking my head. "No, everything we have now is made specifically for humans, so it would be hard for us to even use them. I also don't think we'll need any equine medications, because just because we may be turning into horses, that doesn't mean our immune system changes. We'll probably still be resistant to most viruses."

He replies with the same thoughtful look from a few seconds earlier, "Or our DNA could become too different for them to even affect us. Thanks, by the way, for this beautiful image of a syringe."

I smirk again and bow, speaking with a teasing voice, "Well, it is what I am here for." He gives me another sigh of exasperation. I stand back up and quickly throw my empty coffee cup away. "I'm thinking we should head back to my apartment; it'll be a bit more comfortable."

He nods his head in agreement, "It would also be less likely for someone to overhear something weird."

I push my chair back under the table, and seeing his empty tea, I take the cup and throw it away for him. I wait for him to stand and get his keys out, and right as he starts walking towards his car, I notice something weird.

"Hey, are you standing on your toes?" Alex stopps and looks at me a bit oddly.

"What are you talking abou-" He cuts himself off as he looks down and realizes what it is he is doing. "Ok, that's new."

I stand and look down, realizing that I am standing on my toes as well. As a little test, I set myself back down onto my heels and find it to be extremely uncomfortable. I lift myself back up onto my toes and the stress on my shin muscles immediately vanishes. "Eh, I guess that this must just be another one of the changes. As I said earlier, we should just accept this because there is nothing we can do to change it.” I had decided to add the second part of my sentence because of the panicked expression that’s quickly appearing on his face.

He gives me the are-you-kidding-me look as he tells me, "Says the guy who's hair isn't all that girly." Tensing up a little, he looks around to make sure no one heard him. Man, this guy is really super jumpy. He looks back at me, "We might want to wait until we're at your apartment to continue this conversation."

I'll admit, he does have a really good point. "Alright, hold on." I quickly walk back inside the Starbucks and leave a tip for the waitress. Walking back outside I look back at Alex, who's leaning against his car now. "Alright Alex, follow me in your car."

I jump into my green rover and start it up. I pull out of my parking space slowly so as to give Alex time to be ready to follow me. As I start driving down 2nd Avenue, I check in my mirror to make sure he's following me...yep, can't miss that gray cube driving down the street.

The ten minute drive back to my apartment building goes without any incidences (surprisingly) and I jump out of my car and lock it. Hm, if I'm going to lose my hands, maybe I should get one of the remote key thingies. That'll probably help a lot.

I meet back up with Alex, noticing he now has a laptop bag, and walk with him through the front doors into the lobby. Luckily for us, there's not very many people around to notice our odd walking habits and hair color. I pull down my hood and free my now foot-long light blue hair. Ok, that's really weird, seeing as how the tips of my bangs are moving inside the building, and also how my hair seems super soft now.

Alex looks at me, then around the lobby with even more caution than before. "Isn't it a little counterproductive to remove the hood now? We could encounter somepony along the way."

I easily pick up on his accidental pony word, but decide not to mention it so as not to freak him out. "Eh, people mostly stay in their rooms here, and even if they do come out into the halls, they'll be too high or drunk to notice." What I say does hold complete truth to them, so I am not all that worried about being noticed.

He shakes his head and rolls his eyes as he mutters under his breath, "Great place to live..." He trails off as he notices that I heard him. I simply shrug in response and walk over to the silver elevator doors with Alex following close behind.

When the doors finally open, one of my drunken neighbors stumbles past me without even glancing at my strange hair. He almost falls onto Alex, who nervously pulls his precious laptop closer to his body. I call out after the man, "Hey Fred!"

I'm answered with slurred grunt as walks out the front doors. I gesture towards him as I prove my point to Alex. "See? Nothing to worry about. There's only really one other person next to my apartment who isn't ever drunk or high, but she's incredibly nice."

His eyes widen in surprise as the elevator doors close and we begin to ascend, "That's encouraging-I wonder who would want to stay here though..." 

Hey, this is where I live. I don't care if you're in a bad mood, just don't insult it. I feel my anger rising quickly and the whispery voice from Red Robin's enters my mind. "She has never understood your preferences! If you show her, she will understand now!"

The red blanket of anger was quickly settling over my mind, before a mental version of a soft breeze blew it away. "No. You must always be kind. Getting those around you to fear you is not what you should do." This voice wasn't whispery, but still sounded kind of weak. In fact, it almost sounded female.

Shrugging off the remaining feelings of anger, I smile to Alex, "Well, the rent is pretty cheap, and if you ignore all of the neighbors except for Fiona, then it's an ok place to stay."

Alex's eyes widen in surprise again. I swear, if he keeps widening his eyes like that, they'll...they'll...oh forget it. "I wouldn't say the same about the Fiona I know," says Alex with a small knowing smile, "She is quite the excitable filly."

I pull a smile onto my face that says I know something, and he stares at me for a second before realization dawns upon his face. "Did I just say filly?"

It takes all of my willpower not to laugh, so forget replying. At this point, we're at the entrance to my humble abode. I push the key in and open the door, saying at the same time, "Welcome, to my lair!" From the blank look on his face, I can tell that the reference went over his head. Oh my, that facepalm seems like it may have hurt; I really hope he didn't give himself brain damage.

After prying away his hand from his face, he pulls down his hood to reveal and a nest of entangled, pink hair. I smirk again as I send another insult his way, "So where are the birds?"

His hands reach up to his hair, and upon realizing he instinctively pulled his hood down, he shrugs as though he doesn't care. Then a brief flash of confusion crosses his face. "What birds?"

I open my mouth to tease him further, but then stop myself, realizing it would be kind of cruel to continue doing so as I see him start to sweat; he's about to reach his breaking point. "Eh, forget about it." We stand around in an awkward silence for a few more moments before an idea presents itself to me.

I quickly turn and open my drawer full of games, Playstation and Xbox alike. Digging through it, I ignore the confused looks sent to me from Alex. Ah! Here it is! I quickly grab the game I'd been looking for and hold it up for him to see.

"You really probably should brush your hair," I tell him, "However, I felt we should play this first because it would be strangely alike to a video I once saw many years ago."

Oh my, is he supposed to be clenching his hands and shaking like that? He looks up at me and I can instantly tell he's pissed. " Luna! Leave my hair alone! I'm more than capable of being able to take care of them myself!"

Oh, ponyfeathers.

> 6. Dark Side of the Moon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Ok, that's kind of scary. You know, for a midget (to me), he really does look like he can do some damage. I put my hands up in a calming gesture. "Hey, calm down. There's no reason to get upset."

Oh, uh-oh. His eyes grow wider in the he feels towards me. He opens his mouth and begins to yell at me, "Shut up! You have no idea what I have been going through!" Seriously? I have no idea what you're going through? Do you not see my hair as well? I open my mouth to reply, but he continues ranting. :You're not the one with pink hair! I thought you would understand, but all you do is tease me! Well I, have had, ENOUGH!"

After throwing his arms into the air in exasperation, he begins to stomp past me, each footstep louder than it should be. Just as he passes me, there's a crunching sound, followed by a snap that rings through my very soul.

I look down and see something that hadn't been there before; my copy of Halo 2 that I'd bought twelve years ago. I slowly bend down and pick it up, my hands shaking with the current feeling of nothing inside of me. Opening the ruined casing, I look inside to see the disc snapped cleanly in half.

I fall to my knees, reaching out with my fingers to stroke the front of disc, the crack running down Master Chief's helmet. I jerk my hand back as though I was shocked by it and my breathing begins to quicken. I feel Alex's hand touch my shoulder as he attempts to comfort me in obvious sorrow for what he had just done.

My body begins to shake, and my feral growl forces him to take a step back. I slowly stand to my full height and turn to look at him. As I stare into his eyes, the blanket of anger returns in full force. My vision turns red, and every voice, including the one telling me to take revenge, fades from mental hearing.

My prey is slowly backing away, now scared of my mere appearance. Suddenly, I let out a scream filled with anger, hatred, pain, and every other negative emotion I've bottled up for my whole life. It turns to run, but it is useless, just as it is useless for a cornered rabbit to run from the wolf. I grab the cloth on its back and jerk backwards, throwing it back across the living room and onto the floor.

My prey stumbles back to its two feet, and yet again tries to run past me. I shoot my arm out, catching its neck in my hand. I spin and throw it into the kitchen, causing it to slide across the floor and stop at the base of my cabinets. I quickly stalk forward towards it as it stands again. Odd, it has a lot of endurance for such small prey. It brings up its fists in an attempt to fight me; psh, a useless gesture.

I jab it in the face with a quick punch, and while it's dazed, I slip around behind it and snake my forearm around its neck, lifting it into the air. Its feet are pulled clear of the ground and it begins suffocate in the headlock I've placed it in. Its arms are flailing around, but it does not matter. Soon, it will be dead.

Its movements are getting slower and weaker, and I am almost victorious, when suddenly, a loud bang and a sharp pain on the back of my skull cause me to drop the prey. I fall to my hands and knees while holding one hand at the point of injury. The blanket of anger quickly dissipates and I rise up onto my knees.

I raise my head to see Alex standing in front of me, wielding a skillet with both hands as though his life depends on it. His throat is a deep red, and fear is plainly written across his face. I look at him and mutter quietly, "Celestia?" He then proceeds to whack the skillet across my face and I plunge into the darkness of unconsciousness.
~~~~~
Unlike the several other times I've recently been sent to this world, I did not go into my Dreamtime state. In fact, I was quite suddenly and harshly drug back into the waking world. Ugh, this headache is killing me. I move to hold my head in my hands, but I find I'm tied to a chair with tape. Oh wait, it's not just any tape; it's duct tape! All hope of escape has been lost!

I hear a noise to my right and quickly turn my head in that direction, soon regretting it. Wow, remind me to make sure I don't get hit in the face by a frying pan ever again. I see Alex leaning against the door to my bedroom, but something seems different. Can't quite tell what though.

"You know, the tantrum you had back there made the Hulk look like a spoiled brat." Ooooh. That actually kind of hurt. Oh well, I guess I kind of deserved it after what I did to him. Looking at the clock, I end up doing a double take. I've been out for three hours?!

I still need to do the voice log, and buy a new...Halo...2. Oh yeah, I kind of forgot about that. Oh well, no sense complaining over loss of material items. On the bright side, I got to take it out on Alex without killing him.

I quickly formulate a response, "Alright, fine, I did deserve that insult, but could you let go now?"

Alex seriously doesn't seem to be taking this as light as I am. I can see it in his face as speaks to me. He really needs to lighten up! "Actually, I think you owe me an explanation, after all, you only tried to kill me."

Oh yeah. I wonder if it could've been, that voice. I tense up as I feel another presence within my mind. "Do not worry, Luna; you tired the other one out. She will not be coming back for a while." The presence leaves my mind again, and I relax after realizing that it was the friendly voice.

I sigh as I reply, "I know this'll sound crazy, but I think a much more, primal, version of me took over when you broke my Halo 2. That game has always been precious to me as it was the one that sucked me into the world of gaming."

Alex looks a little unsure about my answer. After all, I guess I did just try to kill him. "Is that it? That isn't a normal reaction really, for anyone." He turns away from me and quietly mutters something under his breath, but unfortunately, I cannot understand him. He turns back to me, "Is this the first time this has happened to you?"

I think for a few moments before replying, "Yes. I have come close to that point before, but I have always been able to stop myself before I got to that point." It's true, the last time I almost lost control was, the last time I talked to my friend. I steer myself away from that subject quickly, since I need to stay concentrated.

He rubs the back of his head with his hand, sighing as he does so, "Fine, I'll let you go, but you'll have to help me with something first." His voice gets a little hesitant towards the end of his sentence, odd. He smirks a little playfully, "Besides, I kind of have to trust you since you were able to lead that one little girl home."

I'm about to agree with his request, when I stop and think about his second sentence. "Hey, how do you know about that little girl? Wait, was it because of the News?" His nod of affirmation confirms my suspicions that that truly wasn't a dream.

"Yeah, it was in the News. I wasn't sure at first that it was true, but you just confirmed it. By the way, where do you keep your scissors?" Alex seems a little irritated with something, I just still can't figure out what it is.

"Well, that confirms my suspicions that that wasn't actually a dream. Oh, uuuum, they're in the third cupboard from the right in the kitchen." Alex quickly leaves to go find the scissors, and while I wait, I watch the clock continue to count. It's 7:40 by the time he gets back, and he gives me an apologetic smile for taking so long.

After quickly cutting through the duct tape, I stand and stretch, unfortunately with no pops. I turn to Alex again, "Why thank you, kind sir." I turn and walk out of the room towards the computer, when I remember something and stop. "Hey, what was it you needed help with earlier?"

He looks a little embarrassed at this, before simply replying, "Eh, it's actually about my hair..." He trails off, and something finally clicks in my mind.

"Ah ha! That's what's different about you! You tried to comb them out earlier! Is that the other reason you asked about the scissors?" Wow, I can just be so dense sometimes. I mean, seriously, how could I not notice this until now?

He starts shaking his head wildly, "What? Oh, no no no. If I had wanted to cut them, I would have done it before leaving for our Starbucks meeting." He kind of casts his eyes downward and mutters something else to himself that I can't hear.

I'm kind of curious as to why he keeps doing that. Is there something he's hiding? Uh-oh, nature's calling again. I smile at Alex and quickly excuse myself from the room. "Hold on, I'll be right back."

As I head towards my small bathroom, I'm deep in thought. Why had I lost control so easily earlier? I haven't had an incident like that since I was about five. And even then, it had been because my little cousin was teasing me constantly, so I snapped. Now, however, I had no idea why. Sure, Halo 2 was incredibly special to me, but it wasn't any reason to almost commit murder over.

I walk into the bathroom and try to quickly do my business, still deep in thought. I finish and quickly zip up my pants, walking to the mirror. As I get there, I plan to examine the changes happening to my face, memorizing whatever was left of my humanity.

I arrive at my destination, slowly looking up into my now azure eyes. Wait a second, is this mirror kind of smudged? I rub the reflective surface to make sure I'm not seeing things. Okay, that's some really thick smudge, unless...

I reach a hand up to the point of offense, and sure enough, I touch soft fur. A few soft breaths later, "What the heck?!" I guess my nerves from my berserk earlier haven't worn off yet.

Without waiting for any further observation, I burst out of the bathroom and run into the living room. As I turn the corner, I see Alex standing up from the couch, rubbing where his tailbone is located. On top of his skull lie two, porcelain white horse ears.

Alex looks as he hears me enter the room. With a grimace on his face, he speaks to me, "Remind me not to call you KOS-MOS again as a joke. I think you actually hurt my coccyx when you threw me against the wall earlier."

I barely stifle a laugh at the name (BOW CHICKA- Oh shut up Tucker-part-of-my-brain), and manage to ask Alex just what a coccyx is. "So, Just what is this coccyx?" I walk up close to him, but he suddenly tenses up at my presence.

Frowning a little, I back away and he relaxes. Oh well, I can mend this relationship later. As Alex relaxes, he speaks to me, "It's the useless bone at the end of the spine, which is actually the remnant of a vestigial tail." Oh wow, I actually didn't know that. He mutters something under his breath, which my new pony ears swivel towards and pick up automatically. "Useless except for causing pain whenever you sit down in a bad position."

Ok, that's pretty neat, but the automatic swiveling is gonna get annoying fairly soon. "Oh, so that's what the scientific name for this is called." I reach back to kind of feel where my tailbone is located, and feel...hair.

I pull my hand back, gripping whatever was found down there. Sure enough, there is a sky blue tail that trails all the way down to my ankles, ending in a bit of a curl. I stare at it for a moment, then begin alternating my sight between the new addition and Alex, who looks just as surprised as me. Finally, I find my words, "Okay, I got used to the ears kind of quickly, but what is this?!"

His face quickly goes from surprised to 'whatever'. "I would guess that that's the not-so vestigial tail." Wow, what a smartass. Oh well, I guess I don't have much room to talk.

Giving him my 'no really' face, I simply reply, "No, I thought it was a gummy worm."

He shakes his head and rolls his eyes at my sarcasm, "Right...just try not to eat it." Then proceeding to unbutton his tan cargo pants so he could easily pull his own new tail out and let it breathe.

Just like his hair, the tail is a completely solid soft pink. I open my mouth to tease him a little about the color, but then I remember what happened earlier and how I almost killed him. Looking behind my back at my own tail, I'm pleased to see that it's still the manly color of blue.

I look back at Alex, just now realizing how long his hair really is. "Uh, I think your hair needs to be called a mane now." He looks up at me from examining his tail.

He lets out an exasperated sigh, "Personally, I'd prefer to just call it a mess at the moment." I can definitely see why. Since his hair (mane) had grown exponentially, the bottom half was a tangled mess while the upper half was silky and smooth; reaching all the way down to his waist now as well.

I turn my head to see that my own new mane is now reaching all of the way down to my waist as well. However, I mentally note with glee, mine is not as tangled. I look back to Alex with a small bit of sympathy as I decide to be kind about his hair for once. "Hey Alex, I'll help you with your hair, but first, We have something that We need to do."

Alex looks momentarily confused, then cautiously replying, "We do?"

Huh? What did I say that makes him that-. Oh, I see now; these mental changes are coming further along than I thought. Oh well, I need to do my next recording, then I need to get my guest some supper. I raise my hands in apology, "I'm sorry, I meant to say I have something to do."

He looks a little uncertain with whatever just happened with my voice slip. I'll admit, it's probably a good thing he hasn't watched My Little Pony, or else this may have freaked him further. He points towards his lap top which he must have gotten out while I was unconscious. "I see. Is there any internet access point I could use?"

Is he joking with me? Does he not see the amount of technology within this room that requires internet? I wave my hands around the room, "Alex, my friend, any place in this apartment has access to the internet."

However, he looks a little irritated, as though I'm an oblivious child that doesn't know anything. " Yes, I noticed that there was a wireless access point. But I need the password if I want to use it..." Oh, no wonder he thought I was stupid; I completely gave him the wrong information.

I sigh in frustration at myself and begin digging through my memory, searching for the Wi-Fi password. Oh wait, how am I still being so retarded?! It's super easy! I turn to him and speak, "Well, the password is, Password."

He gives me an incredulous look before typing it into his laptop and finding he now had access to the internet in my apartment. Mumbling under his breath, my new ears easily pick it up, "Very secure..." After giving me a look that said he wanted to hit me because of my idiocy, he turns back to his minicomputer and begins to do some stuff with e-mail.

I leave him to his own devices (quite literally) and sit down into my own comfortable computer chair. Upon logging in, I set up my webcam to do my first vlog since this whole thing started. Once I finally open the necessary programs, I begin recording with a clear view of my face.

"Hey John, it's you again. However, going against what you said earlier, you are now recording a video as well. As you can see, you were an idiot and did not begin to record until the changes were pretty far along." Hm, is there anything else I should mention? Maybe I should turn these into more of a way to keep track of what happens for future reference.

"Alright John, you just made another change of plans; instead of doing this to just see if there's any changes in appearance and voice, you have now decided to use this as a way to keep track of what happens! Alright, so, first things first. Upon waking up I found that the supposed "dream" I had of guiding the little girl home actually wasn't a dream and I actually did that."

"I guess that this means I am now inheriting Luna's powers as well." That seemed like a pretty good hypothesis. "After waking up, I also found a valid reply to my call for help, and as is not seen, Sarikano, otherwise known as either Alex, or soon, Celestia, is now staying at my apartment for the night."

What else happened that could be worth noting? "Oh yeah, I hate to admit this, but I totally lost it earlier. Not as in throwing a tantrum and knowing what you're doing. But as in, vision going red type of anger. What caused it was that Alex stepped on and broke my precious copy of Halo 2. It scares me to know that I can get like that. Thinking back on it, I realize that I started to think of Alex as more of a form of prey than another human. I have to be more careful in the future not to get to the point of primal instincts."

I think for a few more seconds for something to wrap this up, and with the right words in mind, I do just that. "Well, everything turned out okay, if you can call being wacked into unconsciousness in the face by a frying pan okay. Anyways, new developments are a tail, pony ears, full-blown mane, and fully converted eyes. And, I believe that wraps up this vlog. I'm gonna try to find time tomorrow for the next one, but no promises."

With that, I stop recording on all of the programs just in time to hear Alex sigh in frustration at whatever he was doing. Looking at him curiously, "What's wrong?"

He just sighs again in exasperation, "Something I can't do anything at all to fix." Wow, I kind of feel bad for him; first, he's turning into a pony and has pink hair: second, he was nearly killed by me: and last, now he can't do anything to fix something!

And that is why I have preferred to be alone for most of my life; no girlfriends, no close friends, nothing. A familiar emptiness starts to eat away at my soul. The Depression, as it was appropriately named, was taking over, and there was only one way to get rid of it. "Hey, I know things are kind of rough right now, but the best way to distract oneself from something like this, is first with a good supper, and then video games!"

Just as I predicted, and as though his stomach could hear me, it grumbled a complaint at the mention of food. "I guess my apple and yogurt from earlier are long gone by now."

Seriously? That's all he's had to eat today? Not under my roof! Putting my game face on, I quickly ask him, "What type of foods do you like?"

Oops, I think I may have scared him a bit with my face, but that doesn't matter! "I would eat just about anything right now."

He trails off, allowing me to think for a moment. "Alright Alex, just wait here for a few minutes and I'll have something ready." Alex just nods and turns back to his laptop, opening some type of game.

I enter the battlefield known as "The Kitchen" and get to work.

> 7. Dinner and a Show
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Finally! The supper I have been making is finally finished, and it's only about 8:30! I look back down at the meal I have created. I made small tray of Penne Pasta, although I had needed to skip out on the Italian sausage, I made up for it in extra cheese.

Going  along with the pasta, was a cookie sheet with French bread placed every couple of inches and fried in my oven. Afterwards, they were buttered, and several spices were sprinkled over them. A quick sniff proved that they were, in fact, cooked to perfection.

Since no meal should go without a vegetable, I had quickly whipped up some broccoli and steamed it. Alex better like broccoli, or else I might just have to force him to eat it.

With supper finally ready, I called out from the kitchen to the living room. "Alright Alex! Supper is ready!"

I hear a muffled noise that sounds like something being set down. "Okay, I'm coming!" He seems to take his time, but when he does finally walk in, he looks slightly surprised at how well I can cook, or at least I think he does.

Seeing him hesitate, I almost take offense, "I hope that you like this Alex, or else We may need to force thee to eat it." I make sure that there's an edge to my voice sharp enough to cut through anyone's resolve and put it on my face for the same reasons.

"Thee have nothing to worry about." He winks at me, which is a bit odd. Wait, is he teasing the way I accidentally used the Royal Canterlot speak? Eh, I guess I had that coming. "Actually, it's a bit different than what I ate yesterday for supper."

Well, I would hope that this is different, seeing as to how much preparation went into this. "Well, don't let me keep you, dig in! In fact..." I instinctually draw in breath for the next part, "WE ORDER THEE TO TASTE THIS SCRUMPTIOUS MEAL!"

He immediately flinches away and his pony ears automatically go down. My tail twitches a bit with guilt as I realize the room we are in is not the best for shouting. "Ouch! Luna, lower the volume! These ears are a bit more sensitive..."

He trails off as he realizes that he just called me Luna. I think about it deeply for a few seconds myself. I come to the realization that, while I am accepting the changes that are happening now, I am not ready to be called Luna, if ever. "Hey, don't call me Luna quite yet; it just doesn't feel right. Anyways, let's eat!"

I quickly try to change the point of focus before we get into some deep conversation or whatever. He looks a little apologetic, but nervous too. I wonder why? "Oh, sorry."

I simply shrug my shoulders and motion for him to sit at my table. As he sits down into the wooden chairs, I scoop out generous servings of the improvised Penne Pasta and broccoli, only giving him one slice of the French bread for now. I set it down in front of him and begin to fix my own plate. Once that is accomplished, the rest of dinner passes in an awkward silence.
~~~~~
"So, how was it?" I lean back into my chair after my third serving. Now, I know it's a bit biased, but I absolutely love my own cooking. For the first time ever, I didn't burn the French bread slices at all, and the amount of cheese on the pasta was wonderful.

For some odd reason, he looks a little distracted, but I guess that's what's to be expected after tasting the ambrosia that is my cooking. "It was good." The distant tone in his voice only serves to prove how distracted he really is.

Alright, after I clean up these remaining dishes, all that'll be left for today is the video game match, or whatever it will be. Cleaning the dishes goes quickly and the leftovers are soon in the fridge, so I turn to Alex, "So, for our video game, do you have any preferences on console, which game, anything? Wait, did you even bring games?"

He holds up a finger to tell me to hold on a second before pointing to his mane and speaking, "Eh, maybe we could deal with this first?" I look at his mane and wince. Oh my, how am I ever going to get the tangles out of that? "As for games, I guess something cooperative for a change?"

"Yeah, that sounds like a good genre of game to play right now. I have a few for the PC that'll work. I'll just try to think of one while I attempt to untangle your hair." I quickly walk back into my bathroom and grab the brush in there, avoiding the pony person in the mirror. When I walk back in, Alex is sitting on my leather couch, his pink mane out and reaching all the way down to his waist. As I sit down behind him and begin the arduous task, I try to ignore just how girly this feels like.

As I brush his mane (shudder) he starts to shake, obviously from nerves. "L-John, there are a few things I need to talk about."

I notice his close slip-up, but decide not to mention it. "Alright then? What did you need?" My voice is cheery, but I'm still curious about what he needs to say.

Still nervous, he tentatively replies, "I hope you don't mind, I kind of invited myself for the night." Oh c'mon, I'm the one who invited him to my apartment. Besides, it's all a part of my master plan! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! (I wish)

"Oh, don't be stupid. I invited you to my house, so don't ever think that this was wrong." Well, it's nice to know that the soon-to-be white pony had some manners. Now, on the other hoof- You know what? I'm just going to stop caring about these ponyisms, so buck it all. Now, on the other hoof, there is now his second question. "What else did you need to talk about?"

His sudden increase in fidgeting shows his nervousness increasing as well. "Do you remember when I asked about possible mental changes?"

Okay, where is he going with this? "Yes, why?"

His fidgeting is ridiculous now! I mean, how is it even possible that one can get that nervous? "And the ponies we are becoming are well, sisters." He accentuates the word sisters with a cough on both sides, but that's beside the point.

So, have you ever heard of the term, 'Mind Blown'? Well that wasn't my case. More like spontaneously combust at a molecular level, turning into a pile of ashes, and then a new brain soaring out of the pile. The new brain is then shot down by the missile from a fighter jet and ends up crashing into a fiery pool of lava. At this point, a new brain is then created and loaded with all the information from the previous brain and is in shock from what Alex just told me. Yeah, that seems to describe it pretty well.

As I simply sit there, trying to regain my wits, Alex kind of mutters under his breath, "Yes, awkward..."

Finally having finished the reboot, I look down to continue brushing, but find a wall of smooth pink. Letting a teasing tone into my voice to disguise my discomfort, I tell Alex, "Well Sis, your mane's done."

His reaction to this shows he obviously didn't take that very well. Rolling his eyes, he speaks to me in an irritated tone. "Don't laugh about this, you'll probably literally mean it before you know it."

Well, somepony's grumpy. Oh well, I have a choice of game in mind anyways. "Hey, you don't have to go and bite my head off about it. Anyways, I've decided on a game; we are playing a match in Homeworld 2!"

He gives me an exasperated sigh and says, "I've never played Homeworld, but I guess I could give it a try."

I pat him on the back as I retrieve the disc. "Don't worry, we'll be on the same team, so there's a sixty percent chance that you won't die," I tell him in yet another teasing tone.

He rolls his eyes as he gets out his laptop, ready to install Homeworld 2 and enter a whole different type of RTS than he's used to. Once that is completed, I sit down at my own computer and reach for my headset. However, I stop myself as I remember my new ears and set aside the Turtlebeach headset.

"Alright, let's do this."
~~~~~
As it would turn out, Alex wasn't that bad at Homeworld for a first-timer. I may have struck the final blow, but held his own throughout the entire match. Still, the look on his face when I hyperspaced my nineteen Vaygr Battlecruisers in right behind the enemy was priceless (albeit that tactic is expensive)!

I close down the game and my computer, noticing that I have now been twenty-five for almost two days. I reflect back on my situation; I am turning into Luna. I guess most people would be wondering why this had to be happening to them, but not me. I'm glad for this and wouldn't have it any other way as long as it broke up the monotonous cycle that was my life.

Hearing a humongous yawn come from the couch, I see that Alex appears to be just as tired as I am. Waving my hand at him, I have to stifle a yawn as I speak, "Well Alex, I think it's time for us to go to bed. You can have my room and I'll take the couch."

He opens his mouth to talk, but is interrupted by a couple of yawns before he is able to. "Actually, it would be better if I took the couch; I tend to wake up pretty early." He yawns again before continuing. "You do have coffee, right?"

I simply nod my head at his inquiry and start walking towards my room, too tired to argue. Suddenly, and without warning, a pain that feels like someone pounding a cold, dull, nail into my forehead causes me to scream and fall over onto the ground. I barely notice Alex getting up to come help me before collapsing to the ground in pain himself.

To me, the pain seems to last for hours, but when it fades, I look up at the clock to see it only lasted for about two minutes. I look at Alex to see him struggling to stand as well. "W-what in the world was that?" I can't help but stutter as I tremble from the pain of whatever that was.

I can hear Alex mumbling under his breath, which I can thankfully pick up. " Ça fait mal en Tabarnak."

I stare at him for a few moments, my mind blank. What in the world did he just say? Oh well, it doesn't matter. What matters right now is figuring out what caused that pain. I move my hand to my forehead to check for a fever and-

What in the world? Is there supposed to be a sharpish bump right smack dab in the middle of my forehead? I look at Alex and nearly yell out in surprise, but manage to keep it down to a tolerable level, "Um Alex, not to freak thee out or anything, but thee have the beginning of a horn."

He gives me a huff and an irritated look before replying. "No really? I thought I was being sent to Klingon."

Sleepiness temporarily set aside, I ignored his sarcastic remark as I looked at my new addition in the mirror. Sure enough, there was now an inch long bump the color of deep blue inset on my forehead. I try to ponder this new addition, but a wave of exhaustion catches me of guard and I yawn. I stumble back towards my bedroom and wave at Alex, "We'll worry about this tomorrow. Right now, We're too tired to even think."

All I am answered with is a thud, so I turn to check on Alex, only to find him laying face first on the ground. Huh, I guess he was really tired. Oh well, I should probably head that way too. I trudge into my room and promptly fall onto the bed. I'm asleep before I even hit the cushions.

> 8. Sunny Dreams
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	 Alright, I'm prepared this time. And sure enough, just as I expected, the next thing I know is that I'm standing in my room in my misty, blue form. Looking out the window, I see the dream streams arching through the sky. However, tonight there seems to be many more.

On the previous two nights, while I could see them, the streams only stayed within Muscatine. Tonight, however, they stretched far beyond my field of vision and across the horizon. There were also quite a few more gold and blue ones as well.

I phase through the wall of my bedroom and into the living room where Alex is sleeping. Huh, weird. There's a blue and gold stream of sand worming its way into his forehead. I reach out with a by-now practiced hand to lightly touch the flowing sand. As per usual, I am immediately sucked into his fore head and dream.

The first impression I have of his dream is, well, everything seems huge! I'm walking along a beach, but the ground seems to be much closer than is normal. Looking down at my hands, I don't see the rough, callused hands of a man who grew up in the country, but instead the soft, angelic hands of a young girl. Further examining my new dream body, I find myself wearing a navy blue dress that goes down to my knees and light blue hair that goes all the way down to my waist.

Okay, I'm a little uncomfortable to be a five year old girl, but I'll deal with it. I walk along the beach, dancing further up every time the waves get close to my bare feet. After about ten minutes of walking, I notice a figure in the distance.

As I get closer, I realize that the figure in the sand is a very young version of Alex, approximately the same age as my current dream form. He has shortish, chestnut brown hair, and eyes as brown as fresh-baked brownies. That sounds really good right now all of a sudden. Upon closer inspection, I realize he's making a sand castle! My child-like behavior welling up inside me, I rush over and start building alongside him, barely noticing that the sand castle looks a little like Canterlot.

Young Alex looks up at me in surprise. "Who are you?" I guess that would make sense that he doesn't currently recognize me. You know, I wonder why his subconscious isn't attacking me since he realizes that I don't belong in his dreams? Perhaps it has something to do with my Princess of Night title or whatever.

No, that is Luna's title, not mine. Anyways, back to the matter at hand. "Well, Alex, I could be many things, but right now, it would appear that I am a human version of young Luna." Well, I guess a new voice comes with this body; I now sound like a young five year old girl as well.

I'm expecting many reactions, all ranging from disbelief, shock, and downright anger, but I am not expecting his look of excitement. "Oh! That explains why you look so weird little sister."

Alright, that's weird. I know in the waking world Alex called me his sister, but to have his sub consciousness do it too? That's almost too much. Oh well, it can't be helped if he truly thinks I'm his sister for some odd reason. "Um, yeah. So, you know this is a dream right?" It doesn't truly matter if somepony actually figures out they're in a dream. It's not like they'll have some type of super scary psychological break down that'll  leave them in a straightjacket, right?

Yet again, I am caught off guard by his response. "Eh, this is a beach Lulu, not a dream. They don't look the same, and you should know that!" Okay, this is sincerely getting kind of weird.

"Alright, who am I talking to? Are you Alex or Celestia?" I am now incredibly suspicious of who this truly is, not sure if I believe that it truly is Alex anymore, and that the mental changes have gotten to his subconscious.

He looks at me curiously, frowning and pausing construction on his sand castle. "This is Alex...Luna, you are making even less sense than before. Who is this Celestia?" Gah! This is getting really frustrating now!

"If, you're not Celestia, then why do you keep calling me Luna?" This should get him to see that this isn't a dream. I really need to talk to him, but I can't do that if he won't take me seriously.

Anger is quick to invade his normally innocent face as he shouts at me, seemingly out of nowhere. "What?" What is he saying what about? My question was clear wasn't it? Unless it didn't sound as demanding with this young girl's voice. "If you aren't Luna, then GO AWAY!"

As if by magic, an average height woman seems to materialize next to him as he shakes in anger. When she looks up, I can see the accusatory stare within her eyes. Without any warning, she starts stalking towards me as though she is going to attack me (most likely). Slowly, other people begin to trickle in from nowhere and start to surround me, cutting off any chance of escape.

I crouch down into the fetal position, my smaller form giving me a chance to feel as though I'm now actually sinking into the ground and hiding there. The crowd presses in, beginning to suffocate me, when a voice, whispery and sinister, is heard by all.

"Heh heh heh, just what I needed, a little dash of fear!"

The figures of Alex's subconscious look around in confusion, but then suddenly freeze. I stumble back to the young boy's side, ignoring the glare he gives me. A horn echoes out from across the water, and he begins to tremble in fear.

Feeling what seems to be a wisp of mist catch on my wrist, I look down, and gasp in horror. The ground seems to be flaking apart, not unlike the dead skin after a sunburn, revealing a new surface underneath. All I can say about the new surface is...pink. Lots and lots of pink.

Looking back along the sandy beach, I see a thick, pink fog begin to roll in. Seriously, what is with all of the pink?! Alex crouches down into the fetal position, trying to make himself as small as possible. I'll admit, this fog is scaring me too, but I continue to be strong and try to protect Alex as best I can. And then, the whispers start.

I can't even understand them at first, but it appears Alex does, and he begins to whimper as the pink fog gets even thicker. As the voices get louder, I can understand them much more easily.

I spin around, trying to pinpoint the location of these whispers, but they seem to come from everywhere at once. I hear the laugh of the whispery voice as it feeds off of Alex's fear. What is wrong? I listen more closely to the whispers now.

	"Why do you wear pink? It's a girl color!"

"What are you, gay?"

"I can't believe you dressed up as a girl!"

Each insult begins to wear my patience thin. I feel a source of energy and look behind me, now easily spotting the teal, cat-like eyes. In my ever-growing frustration, I finally scream out, "Enough!"

The fog is easily pushed back from my burst of power and the whispers fade, along with all the pink. Alex and I are then left in a familiar black void. Looking down, I realize that I'm still within my young girl form and am unable to change it.

"That's a nice dress." I look up quickly, to see Alex (still a young boy) smirking at me. He's still in his same set of clothes from the beach, just without all the dirt and grime from before.

I sigh as I walk in front of him. "So, do you know this is a dream now?" Sometimes, ponies can be so dense in a dream, believing it to be reality.

His smirk only seems to widen as he takes in my discomfort of being a young girl. "That would explain your lack of any pony features." He gets a more confused look on his face now. "So...What just happened? Or, more importantly, is it really you John?"

So, he's finally beginning to believe that this is actually a dream! Well, it sure did take him long enough to figure that one out. "Well, first off, yeah, it's really me. Secondly, just because I'm a young girl right now doesn't mean I can't kick your ass into next week if I needed. And lastly, I believe I just dispelled a nightmare forced upon you by the Nightmare." I had decided to tell him about him into next week, because, well, I'm a little girl and he's a little boy, and we all know what little boys do to little girls.

He sticks his tongue out at me in response. "You know, I can probably summon that frying pan to me in this dream." But then apparently playtime is over, for a look that belongs on an adult's face takes over. "But more seriously, the Nightmare? I don't think you're talking about Soul Edge here."

Ah, a Soul Caliber reference. Finally, something we've both played! "Yeah, you got that right. It may be a little like Soul Edge, but this one seems to me to be more like a second personality than the real thing."

Closing my eyes, the first indication I had that the dream had changed yet again was the sound of the waves and the feel of them lapping at my feet. Behind me, I hear Alex's worried voice speak out above the calming waves. "Will you be fine?"

Ha! Question of my life. I just now learned that I have a second personality inside my mind that's trying to convince me to commit murder or something, and he's asking me if I'm fine? "Yeah, I will be. Anyways, what was with all the pink earlier?"

For some odd reason, he becomes incredibly nervous again. Oh no, please tell me he's not going to say he's gay! "The Otherworld...I guess that I no longer have any to keep this secret." Whew, he's not gay. But what is this new possible meaning? Is he from another world? Unlikely. "It all started with the costume I chose to wear while I was still in first grade." Oh boy, dis gun be good.

I'm lost in my deep thoughts, so I barely catch the end of his next sentence. " I decided to disguise as a certain Mario character that I'll let you guess."

I am, unfortunately, lost in my thoughts as he states the game. Just to make sure, I repeat the name back to him. "Mario?"

He gives me an odd look, almost as if I'm an alien. "You know, the plumber who keeps saving the same princess from the scaly guy?"

Oh whoops. He thought that I was asking what the game was. Oh well, I might as well be nice to him since he did just go through a nightmare (with quite a bit of help from moi). "Oh yeah, sorry. Please continue."

However, why not mess with him a little? It'll be fun! "Oh! I know who it is! Toad!"

He looks a little unsure about something, but since I'm not a mind reader, I just dismiss it. "So, like I was saying, I decided to dress a certain PINK PRINCESS. I think I don't need to explain what happened during the next day." Oh my, now I actually feel sorry for him. As I am assuming, those arrogant jerks bullied him the next day for dressing up as he wanted to.

He continues his monologue after sitting down onto the sand with a look of irritation upon his face. "As you probably suspect, they didn't stop with their fun afterward. At first it was about the disguise, but it quickly evolved around the color pink." He's right, I really was kind of suspecting that to be the case, and now I know more about this stranger I invited into my house.

I'm not given any chance to reply as he continues with the story after a small pause. "To be honest, it lasted until I graduated from High School." Suddenly, a flash of guilt flits across his face and he looks down at the ground. "But it wasn't the worst that happened. I eventually had enough of the whole thing, so I got into a fight with a boy a year older than me." Ah, so he did the same thing that voice keeps telling me to.

He slightly lowers his voice, so I'm lucky that I have lots of power in a dream, or else I wouldn't have been able to understand him. "The poor guy was lucky that others managed to stop me."

Wow, talk about a tough childhood. Oh well, that bully had it coming, you know, natural selection and all. Wait a minute, what is this feeling? Oh, I know what it is. "Alex, the dream is collapsing, so I'll be pulled out soon. I'll talk to you in the waking world."

He raises his head and looks around at the collapsing dream with a sad, distant look in his eyes. "Oh shoot. I didn't get to finish my sand castle." Oh, the feels. I am with you there brother…or sister…or whatever.

I'm pulled out of the dream and back into my regular ethereal form from before. Looking down at the couch, I see Alex beginning to stir. Oh well, I might as well wake up now too. I let the black cord pull me back into my own body so I could wake up. I slowly open my eyes, just in time to hear the crash and bang emanate from the kitchen.

> 9. Morning Surprise
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	As soon as I hear the loud crash, I groan and roll myself out of my bed. While what I learned about Alex last night was interesting, I was just too tired to ca- Ooooooh, this floor is too comfy to get up from too. But alas, I pull myself up from the carpet and trudge towards the Kitchen like a zombie; estimated time of arrival: five minutes.

Upon my entry, I look in to see Alex just laying there on the floor, looking despondent. I move to kick him, but I decide I'm too tired to try anyways. I end up just yelling at him, "Alex! Wake up! We're going to make breakfast and you're in the way!"

He jumps and scrambles around for a little bit (half a second) before calming down. "Ah! Luna, when did you-" He stops and sighs, "Nevermind. I seem to be unable to stand." Wow, talk about Captain Obvious.

I reach down to help him up, then proceeding to slip fall myself. As I land on my tail, I notice one odd thing through the waves of pain; my socks are shaped weirdly. I reach down to feel my foot, only to find the front half with nothing in it and the rest to be comprised of some hard material. No, it couldn't be.

I quickly slide the cloth off of my "foot", only to find a hoof. Yes, you heard me right, a hoof. It's colored navy blue with matching fur running up my ankle. Well, buck. Nothing to be done here now. I get up onto my new hooves, prepared to have to start finding my balance, when I find myself to be much more sturdy than I thought I would be.

Alex, in his pre-coffee stupor, looks at my new hooves, then down at his socks. "That might just be the reason why I can't seem to stand again."  He reaches down and pulls of his socks. Just as we both thought, there are now two porcelain white hooves replacing his feet.

We stare at them for a moment, before I shrug before going back to making coffee. It's not like Celestia can concentrate without it. Wait, wha- No John, don't go down that road. You already told yourself to just accept these changes, mental and physical.

As I'm making the coffee, a brief flash of pain invades my brain, and once I place my hand to my left temple, a series of images flashes behind my eyes. Walking towards Celestia with a tray with two cups of coffee upon it. Sitting there drinking the coffee with her as she slowly woke up. Lowering the moon as she raised the sun.

The flashes leave as quickly as they came, leaving a very confused me. Looking around, I find myself still in the kitchen, with a still tired Alex. Huh, that was odd, but oh well. Still, I give Alex's new hooves an odd look, almost accusing as though they are the reason for my problems.

I finish making the coffee and hand it to Alex, trying to ignore the loud clip clop of my new additions. Wow, those really get annoying, don't they? As I hand the coffee to him, he speaks in a rather tired voice. "I'm sorry. I don't normally have that much of a problem with preparing coffee."

I grab my own cup (with plenty of sugar and creamer) and set it down on the table in front of him. "Oh, don't worry about it. It's my pleasure to cook for a guest." Suddenly, I feel the call of nature again, but this time, something feels different. "Hey, I'll be right back."

He simply takes his cup of coffee, sniffs it, and then speaks to me. "Thanks for the coffee Luna." Other than that bit with the sniffing coffee, and the Luna remark, not too much that was super odd with that reaction.

I rush out of the kitchen and to the bathroom and barely make it in time. I sit down onto the toilet and do my business (still not telling).Once I finally finish, I begin to pull up my pants, only then noticing something was missing. I stare for a few seconds, feeling the slow build-up of frustration, and then letting out a cry of frustration. Is there nowhere these changes will stop?! I completely ignore the fact that I was assuming the we would be going all the way.

Maybe it's just my imagination, but the scream sounds a bit high pitched as well. That's it! I don't care if it's only the beginning of the day! I am going to do another recording as soon as I'm done talking to Alex!

As I stomp into the kitchen, my hooves making it much louder than before, I see Alex still sitting at my table, although he looks pretty irritated and has both hands hold his coffee. "What is it this time?" he asks me tiredly. Looking inside his cup, I see only half of it has been drunk.

"Well, ma'am," going out on a limb, I use an emphasis on the ma'am, "I would suggest going to the bathroom and checking below the border, much like how you got here."

I watch his face for any reaction to the ma'am, only then realizing how much more he looks like a woman. However, instead of angry or bemused, he just looks confused at my remark. "Ma'am? South of the border?" Okay, I guess that just went over his head and he wasn't prepared to catch it. He begins squinting at my face, and…other areas. Seeming to come to some type of conclusion, my fellow victim speaks again. "Why do I have feeling the feeling that going to the bathroom is much different now Luna?" Maybe it's from how my face immediately goes blank or some type of internal argument, but he immediately flinches. "I meant to say John…"

I feel my anger fade now that I'm fully awake , but I'm far from a good mood. Good-mood mask: On. "Suuuuure you did. Now get going and see for yourself before I call you Celestia."

He finishes drinking his cup of coffee and sets it down onto the table. When he starts to stand, I'm half tempted to say out loud that he really shouldn't be getting ready to bow in my presence, since I don't think I'm a coffee god, but I am barely able to hold my urges. Wait a second, did he get taller? My observation is cut short by his speaking with an amused look on his face. "I'm not going to stop you if you want to use that name, but it is slightly longer then my own."

Really? I actually thought it was quite a bit smaller. Well, at least the sarcastic bit of my brain isn't that retarded. On the outside, I simply roll my eyes. "Whatever Celly."

And all he does is turn his back on me and walk towards the bathroom. Wow dude, that was a dick move. Or was it? Heh heh heh.

As soon as he turns the corner, I quickly spring over to my computer chair. And by spring, I mean leap about twenty feet by pushing off with one hoof. After I get over my momentary bit of surprise and a bit of a girly squeak, I analyze the possibilities of what just happened. This could actually mean that all the fandom theories about Earth Ponies having an ambient type of magic much like better endurance and greater strength could be true. In fact, if I remember back to Alex's and my fight, I had much more strength than usual and Alex seemed to hold up pretty well to my attacks.

Curious indeed, but irrelevant to my current goal. I turn on my monitor, only to realize that I never turned it off the previous night. Well, that just makes my job a bit easier. I turn on the camera and voice recorder, and begin.

"Hello John, or Luna as you will most likely begin to be wished to be called. Anyways, now that the niceties are out of the way, We are no longer male. It was discovered this morning when I had to use the restroom. In fact, Alex is checking it right now. Also, there seems to be a bit of mental changes as well, in example, me referring to myself as We or our. I can only assume that the only reason I am not completely speaking Old Equestrian is because the mental changes have not quite taken hold yet."

Seeing something a bit curious, I lean in close to the webcam to make sure I'm not seeing things. Watching the computer screen, I see that overnight my horn has grown about two inches. I lean back and continue to speak. "Well, a new addition would be that our horn has continued to grow, quite rapidly too I might add. Hm, what else? Ah yes, it looks like Earth Pony magic is real. I thought back to Alex's and my fight, and realized that not only did I have a much greater amount of strength, but that Alex lasted quite a bit longer than anyone else would."

I hear the flushing of a toilet and decide to end the vlog there. "Alright John, I'll be signing off now. I will most likely post another one tonight if I get the chance."

I stop the recording and move to shut down the computer, but then I stop myself and open my internet browser. Couldn't hurt to check that forum I started. As I go through the answers, seeing only more trash talk from haters, there's one that grabs my attention.


Meet me at the gas station near Game Stop as soon as you can; I'll be there all day. Do not tell anypony where you are going. I can help you.
Sincerely, Anonymous


I check the time it was posted, only to see that that had been earlier today. Strange, and no small bit suspicious, but this may be another human-turning-pony person. I need to go check, but without making Alex suspicious as well.

Suddenly, a loud clippety cloppity (BOW CHICKA B- blam! Yes, I did just shoot my mental Tucker, got a problem with that?) comes from the direction of my bathroom as Alex bounds in, oddly and inexplicably happy. "I'm back little sister! Any idea on what you want for breakfast?"

His, or I guess her now, face suddenly becomes a canvas, although I'd be a bit hard-pressed to paint anything on it, as she realizes what she just said. Alright then, my suspicions on her mental stability have just been confirmed. I let out a sigh and open my mouth to speak, but something unexpected comes out instead. "Yeesh sis, We didn't think you should be this happy in the morning."

My own face goes blank, and then there's just an awkward silence for a few tense moments while I question my own sanity. Oh well, I don't have time for this, and I need to get out of this apartment. Before she can recover, I quickly open the cupboard door to the cereal and point to where the bowls and spoons are held. "That's where you can find stuff for breakfast. I have something I need to go do in town. Oh, there is one other thing," I point to the shelf on the wall next to the T.V, specifically the MLP: FiM Seasons 1-5 box, "You may want to start watching those while I'm gone. It'll explain a lot."

A flash of worry flits across her face. Aw, is wittle Awex concerned for my sa- "Are you sure you should go out considering our current state miss John?" Whatever mirth I had within my mind vanished when she called me miss. However, the only reaction I showed on the outside was a tightening fist.

I simply give her a withering look before turning around towards my door. "Yes, I'll be fine. Now, I should be back by this afternoon." I go through my house quickly and grab items needed for disguise. I grab a hoodie for my hair, ears, and horn, although the latter was a bit more difficult to hide. Next, are long and loose cargo pants so I can easily hide my tail and boots for my hooves.

As I gather my disguise, Alex just shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "Okay…just promise me you won't react that badly if somepony treats you like a woman."

What does he take me for? A temperamental monster? Oh, well, I could see it. Anyways, on to leaving! "Yeah yeah, don't worry about it. See ya later!" I wave my hand as I walk out the door, only then realizing that the middle finger now seems to be quite a bit bigger than the others. Eh, still better not worry much about it at the moment.

I barely hear him behind me say, "Great, all alone now…could this day get any worse?" I chuckle quietly to myself as I head for the elevator.

I reach the lobby about twenty seconds later with my entire disguise in place. However, my face is still showing a bit so as not to be suspicious. There is one nice man though. He opens the door for me as I come close with a quiet, "Here you go miss."

I successfully quell the rebellion know as my rational mind before it manages to make me snap. I calmly smile at the guy and give him a thank you.

But then of course, the whole happy mood is ruined when he saunters over and places a hand at my elbow. Great, now I have to admit to Alex that he was right about this being a shady part of town. Oh well, pride isn't everything. He begins steering me away from my car and towards a dark alleyway where I can see some other shady figures. Great, they plan to do something with me. I don't go into specifics just for the poor part of my brain that's attempting to come up with a plan.

However, as I enter the shadow, I feel my instincts take control. I barely notice the blue flash from my horn as I quickly tear my elbow out of the offending hand. I walk into the shadow of the dark alleyway, the spell I cast instinctively causing them to become an unnatural black. While the shadows seem to unnerve the gangsters, they pull out knives and advance nonetheless.

As I silently wait and watch, a scene from a movie from long ago pops into my mind. Speaking out in a deep female voice, I startle some of them. "You think the darkness to be your ally?"

I drift quietly into the center of gangsters, "I was born in the darkness." Okay, so I'm a bit rusty on the actual scene, but that's pretty close to how I remember it. The gangsters whip around, only to find a booted hoof or extra-strengthened fist in their face or gut.

Within seconds, it's over. All the gangsters now lie on the ground, groaning in pain. I step over their inert bodies and calmly walk back to my rover. Well, that battle was pretty simple, but now I have another possible ponified human to deal with.

Thankfully, I know which gas station the mysterious person was talking about, and it only takes a five minute drive to get there. However, I park quite a ways up the street, since after all, you can never be too cautious. Checking that everything that changed is hidden by my attire, I step out of the car and begin walking to the gas station.

I see the gas station they meant and quickly begin jogging over there. However, I do not see any such person that claimed to have been able to help me. I look around for a little bit, finding nothing. So, I venture into the gas station to purchase something to eat.

As I walk back out, I feel a sharp pain in my upper left arm. Looking down at the appendage, I find what appears to be a tranquilizer dart sticking out. Looking up at a nearb building, I spy a black figure retreat from view, just as I am surrounded by other figures in black. Huh, that's interesting. No symbols or emblems showing who they are, just full black armor. Kind of reminds me of that book series called District 19 or something.

Unfortunately, I can already feel the metatonin taking effect, but instead of buckling to my knees, I fight to stay standing. As they start to surround me, giving me no way to escape (Ray: No way in, no way out), I panic and my instincts instantly take over. I feel a type of field around me that seems to be connected to my horn and my instincts take the field again, pushing it away from me.

For the entire duration of this event, my eyes had been closed, but when I finally opened them, I found all the figures in black lying on the ground unconsciouss.

With the culprits on the ground around me, I stumble away from the scene. Through my befuddled mind, I decide not to go back to my car. If I try to drive back like this, I'll more than likely just start an accident.

There, on the other side of the street is the beginning border of a forest. Looking both ways since I'm not like Markiplier, I quickly stumble dizzily across the street, barely making it. I walk a few feet into the forest before sitting down against a random tree. I can feel the drugs coming into full effect finally, but as my eyes begin to close, the effects seems to halt, almost as though a presence is trying to keep it from taking over, but it fails. As the black covers my vision, I find an odd thought running through my mind. 'Why do I seem to have someone or something that's related to Roosterteeth constantly say something within my mind?' It doesn't take long after that for me to lose myself to a drug-induced sleep.
> 10. The Shoutings of a Pink-Haired Dovahkiin
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Now, most would think that I could go into dream time in any way, be  it through falling asleep naturally, being knocked out, or being drugged. As it would turn out, that is not true, seeing as how two of those three instances I wake up seemingly instantly and with an incredible head ache.

I stir from my slumber and grim my head in my hands. "Ow," I quietly mumble to myself as I wait for the side effects of the anesthetic to wear off. As it does, the memories of what just happened come back to me.

Those figures in black, who could they have been? More than likely they were from some sort of government project. They were too well armed to be just a local gang, or really even a militia.

I stand back up onto my boots, hooves almost slipping inside of them. I reach down and pull of the articles, only to find that the transformation has progresses much further than when I was last awake.

I look around, and upon finding no one within sight, I do a quick strip to look for any new changes. The fur has spread up my legs and has reached my upper thighs. My heel is now about where the middle of my shin was and my knees even higher. As I walk in a small circle, I find that I cannot keep my hips from swaying; a sign of, ugh, child-bearing hips. I find a slight ache in my lower back and almost fall trying to get rid of it. I grab onto a nearby branch, finding that my fingers are slow and seemingly unresponsive.

I lean my back against a tree to think, only to have a bit a pain emanate from my back. Reaching behind, I find a pair of bumps that I can only assume to be the starting of wings. I look down at my chest, only to see my nipples have disappeared altogether and the only mark on the front of my entire torso is my belly button. Having finished my inspection of myself, I place my pile of clothes back on.

As I do so, I realize something strange; it's almost like I can feel everything around me. Through my hooves, I feel the flow of the earth as the energy feeds the trees and plants. That must be more Earth pony magic. Then there's the second feeling. I can sense a type of "aura" around everything surrounding me. With a little experimentation, I find that the aura I feel around myself can be manipulated to attach to another object's aura, therefore, allowing me to physically manipulate the object.

Before I can continue my experimentation, the aura detaches on its own as I feel a bit of dizziness cause me to nearly fall over. I guess the magic use has its limits. Feeling another but different twinge, I look towards the north. Immediately, information flies into my brain; in about two hours, there will be a storm that hits Muscatine. There's plenty of other information, but I don't bother processing it.

Upon finishing cataloguing all the changes, physical and mental, I cautiously push through the thick forest and back to the road. Peeking out from the bushes, I check the gas station and all nearby areas for the figures in black.

Seeing that no one was there, I creep out of the forest, cringing at the sound my hooves make, but not feeling like putting my boots back on. After quite a while of cautious walking, I finally make it back to my beloved car, thankful to see that it was untouched in my absence.

I fumble while opening the door, coordination with my fingers seemingly decreasing rapidly. After a small but quiet bit of cursing, I finally manage to unlock the damn door. It takes another few tries, but I manage to seat myself in the rover.

I lean back before I start the car, and am quickly reminded as to why I didn't do that before. I quickly jerk back forward as I crush my new tail and growing pair of wings. Realizing just how uncomfortable it is becoming to sit like this, I decide to drive home as quickly as possible.

However, just as I reach the intersection a mere two blocks away from my apartment, I see two idiots that are doing something illegal, specifically one steering and working the shift of their manual car and the other working the pedals. Psh, they even have pony ears and oddly colored hair. What a pair of…freaks.

I quickly twist around to get another look at the two girls I just saw, just missing my chance. I look back in front of me just in time to see a ditch. I bring my arms up in front of my face and squeeze my large eyes shut, and not a moment too soon as the wind shield hits the broadside of a large tree branch and shatters the window, raining glass down upon me.

I wait for my world to quit shaking before I pull my arms out from in front of me. Purely on instinct, my horn lights up as it uses my aura to check my body for any injuries of any sort. Huh, that's a neat trick; I'll have to remember it.

I open my eyes and look down at my body. Thankfully, there's only a couple deep cuts and bruises, but a couple of the new slits on the front abdomen section and shoulder area of my shirt shows just how far along the changes have come. I can now see the navy blue fur reaching about halfway up my stomach and finer fur on my shoulder.

Oh no, I can't be found like this! That would be very, very bad. Alright, I don't care if leaving the scene of an accident if you were involved is illegal! I have to get away, right now! After trying the handle only to find it jammed and unable to open, I shift my body so my head is facing the passenger side and my hooves are pointed towards the driver side door.

Putting that new Earth Pony magic to use, I kick as hard as I can against the door. Oh, uh, that's not good. I may have just maybe kicked the door a little too hard, seeing as how it went flying a good hundred meters into the air before dropping down into the city and out of sight. Oh well, I don't have much time to worry about it right now, seeing as how the police are probably on their way right now.

Ignoring a jab of pain in my left leg for now, I climb out of the crashed vehicle, and limp alongside the road, trying to get to a nice, hidden area under the stormy sky. I finally find a small spot about thirty feet away from the car; a small grove surrounded by pine trees. I quickly pull my pants off for the second time that day (Wow, I'm really starting to sound like a slut) and check my furry legs.

Ah, there. There's a medium-sized shard of glass sticking out of my thigh, which, I note, is really starting to look more equine and- "Agh!" The rest of my thoughts are cut off as a sharp pain decides to invade my lower back. Leaning over a bit, I find that the pain seems to secede, for now. I guess that's another one of the physical changes; hips changing so as to be more like a pony.

Crawling a bit like golem does most of the time, I manage to get in sight of my apartment from inside of the tree line. I pull my pants back on even though they're now really uncomfortable, but, I don't want people to see something they shouldn't.

I make it across the street without incident fortunately enough. Sending the bird to the dark alleyway where I know the gangsters are sulking, I cross the parking lot as though I own it. I get to the door and press through them, my pony ears catching the sound of the moving elevator and the beginning of the pattering rain outside. I can feel my tail twitch beneath my pants in irritation, but I just move to a place that's out of sight.

The familiar ding rings through the hallway, and I wait for the receding foot steps to fade completely as they walk down a hallway on my current floor. Swiveling my ears this way and that, I'm glad to hear no one else within my immediate vicinity.

I walk up to the silver doors and press the up button, glad to see the doors open immediately and show nobody in the compartment. I press the numeral three on the control board and wait patiently for it to complete its ascent. Looking into the reflective panels of the elevator, I see just how much of a girl I look like. Well, it's kind of fitting, seeing as how I have some, uh, new 'equipment'. Also, there's cuts covering a lot of my body and face.

The elevator doors opening on my floor bring me out of my thoughts, which are a bit unpleasant. I check around the corner to make sure no one is watching and begin to do a kind of trot/walk/jog/whatever-it-is back down to my apartment door.

I reach into my tattered pocket to pull out they keys, and after fumbling a bit, I successfully hold them in my steadily-getting-clumsier hands. After another twenty seconds of maneuvering, I manage to get them into the key hole and twist. For some odd reason, I think I hear a voice singing behind my door, but I'm not sure. I pull the keys back out and push the lever handle down and pull the door open.

There, I see Tia (Brain, we are going to have a talk later, maybe), but she's facing away from me in the living room, looking at the stormy clouds, and singing incredibly well. Her arms are out away from her body with the palms facing up, kind of like a Virgin Mary statue I once saw. Now, I've never been much of a singer (Band geek forever!), but the way she was singing, just, wow. It almost made me get up there and start singing with her.

However, I just quietly close my door, lock it, and tip-hoof as silently as possible to my comfy couch, right behind her. I sit silently and listen to the lines of the song, rather touched when I realize that the name is more than likely "Fear Not This Night", seeing as how she continually repeats it. I'm glad somebody enjoys my nights enough to actually make a song about then. Er, uh, not my nights, but uh, well, you know what I mean!

As Alexia's (No, I am not going to call her by either name, because she is right in between) song came to an end with 'Home is just a sunrise away' she dropped her hands as though she just realized they were up. I begin clapping, slowly at first before picking up speed.

"Well done, well done. I was actually really touched by that piece of art." 

She whips around to look at me, obviously startled, but then embarrassed. Is it possible that she's embarrassed about singing? "Wha- When did you come back?" Suddenly, one of my old favorites that I first heard in an amazing Dreamworks movie scene starts playing on the youtube playlist. She uses golden magic to move the mouse and pause the music. Huh, guess I'm not the only one learning how to use magic today.

As she turns back to look at me, her face goes into poker mode. Looking down at myself, I realize that, well, I guess I do look pretty bad. Almost like I got into a fight with the whomping willow. Rubbing the back of my head with a bit of a sheepish look on my face, I answer to her incredibly good poker face. "Uh, yeah, about that."

Suddenly, I'm tightly encompassed and compressed into a hug. At first, I'm a bit surprised by the hug. But after a few seconds I begin to lightly pat her on the back, trying to keep it from getting awkward, at which I fail. "Shhh, it's okay Tia." I guess everyone, or pony, needs some comfort now and then, but why, in the name of all that is holy, did it have to be me?! Somehow, I get the feeling this won't be the only time I have to do this. I gently grab her shoulders and pull her to in front of me, realizing that we're eye level now. "Do you want to tell me what's wrong?"

Then, the awkward moment passes, or increases, when she realizes what she is doing. "I-I-" Oh my, the poor thing is stammering now.

I feel my face contort into a sympathetic pose, or at least as much of a pose that a face can do. "Tia, it's alright, you can tell me what's wrong." However, before she can answer back, there's a quick flash in my vision, and then it's like I'm looking at a different time period, which I probably am.

I find myself not able to control where I look. In front me, and quite a bit taller as well, is a very young Celestia. Right now, she looks to be about the same age as Twilight, but also seems to have been crying if her red eyes are anything to go by. I feel my mouth move and a young girl's voice comes out. "It's alright Tia! That stallion was a butt anyways!" It takes all of my mental ability to not die of a heart attack when I see the little filly Luna in the mirror saying that.

And then just as quickly as it came, it's gone, and it almost looks as though nothing has changed here. Looking back at uh, um, oh screw it. Looking back at Tia, I see that she has been doing her best attempt at regaining her composure. "So-sorry, I haven't felt well lately." As I make to say it's alright, I'm stopped by the slight look of irritation that comes onto her face. "What happened to you?"

Uh oh. I'm getting figurative flashbacks of yesterday of our fight. I take a step back, trying to seem as unaggressive as possible, in which my newfound shortness is probably helping. Or…not. Oh well, I might as well at least try to explain myself. "Well, earlier I received a message from someone, telling me that they were in the same boat as us. So, I went to go investigate and it ended up being an ambush by these soldiers in black." Thinking about it, I came to a realization. How did I know they were soldiers? Well, that was perhaps the only obvious or logical answer. Their armor and gear was much too advanced for random bounty hunters, and they were too obvious for assassins, except for the possible sniper. I absentmindedly rub the spot where the tranquilizer dart hit me in the arm.

I continue with my story. "After I was able to fight them off, I realized that I had been drugged. I barely managed to hide myself in the nearby forest before I fell asleep. Once I awoke quite awhile later, I catalogued the new changes, got back to my car, and started to drive back. However, I accidentally drove into the ditch, hence the cuts all over my body." Once I finally finish, I take in a deep breath to make sure I don't pass out from asphyxiation.

While I had been giving my explanation, I had hoped for her to understand and calm down. However, it looks like this isn't to be the case. After I had stated my reason for leaving, she went from mildly irritated to pissed. But it didn't stop there; as soon as I spoke of the soldiers and accident, the look on her face became bat-shit crazy.

"So, you receive news from somePONY else, who are also possibly in the same situation as us, and you don't TRUST me enough to tell me?!" Uh-oh. Sound the submarine alarm! We are about to dive into some shit where we do not want to go! "Why did I even bother to stay here after you tried to kill me? Do you have any idea what I did for you because I wanted to trust you based on a feeling that isn't even mine to begin with? I kept my best friend in the dark because I thought it would be better to talk about the situation with you! But now, I've had about enough of you! I'm leaving once the night has fallen!" She then proceeds to pretty much run from me, into my room, and slam the door. Damn it.

Although, she did make many valid points. Why did I not tell her about the message? I put myself in harm's way when she could have been there to help. The problem is that for most of my life, I have always had to do things alone, so I kind of got used to it. The rumbling thunder and pounding rain outside shows just the right mood right now.

Hm, Celestia may not actually want to leave in this type of weather. But if she does, then that's her choice. However, I need to apologize for my brash actions, seeing as how she was right in all of her points. I stand up and walk over to my bedroom door and raise my hand to knock, when I stop myself. Wait, did it affect her that badly? I lean in and press my ear against the wooden barrier. Sure enough, I can hear her sobbing, although it seems to be muffled a bit, so she may be crying into my pillows.

I reach towards the handle, ready to go in and begin comforting my new sister, when I stop myself again. I realize that I am certainly in no mood to comfort someone else when I have so much turmoil myself. "That is correct, young one. While you should comfort those less unfortunate than you, it'll only make matters worse if you are in a bad mood." Pretty much used to this new voice by now, I just turn from the door and walk back to the couch, shutting the lights off on my way even though it's still only eight. I think we both just need to sleep on this issue, even if Celestia claims she's gonna leave soon. If she's still here tomorrow, that's one thing I'll have to discuss with her tomorrow; names.

Leaving the light on in the Kitchen, I quickly fix something to appease the tyrant known as King Stomach II. I check around in my fridge for something simple, deciding to just get another apple. Huh, that's strange. There's a few missing. I guess Tia may have grabbed a few. I grab it and chow down on it like there's no tomorrow. I even ignore washing the shiny thing. Once finished, I toss the apples towards the waste and… miss. After my failure, I just go over and pick it up myself and put it in.

I stop by the bathroom for one last look before tomorrow, hunched over as I walk in. I flip on the lights and get a good look at myself. My blue mane and tail seem to be more obviously moved by an unfelt wind. My eyes are huge and my jaw seems to be pushed out a bit. Going hand in hand with these changes, the blue fur is now covering my entire body, although it is pretty fine and light on my upper torso. Rubbing my hand down the fur in the direction it's growing actually feels kind of good. I look at my back in the mirror to find the wings more developed now, even with some pin feathers growing in.

I take one last, long look at myself in the mirror before turning the light off and feeling my way back to the couch. As I lay down onto my stomach, I realize just how truly troubled I have been since the whole ordeal started. I just hadn't noticed, because on reflex I pushed the feelings down so they wouldn't get in the way. How will my parents react to this? I know I haven't talked to them in a while, but surely they'd still be glad to see me, right? Oh well, I'll burn that bridge when I get there, but now? I just want to sleep. Oooh this is so…comfy. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

> 11. Loyalty Above all Else
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	This time when I went into the dream time, I didn't have any sort of "black abyss" experience. I just opened my eyes, and boom, I'm floating above my sleeping form. As I will myself towards the wall and outside, where more dreams await, I stop myself and float towards my room.

I phase through the wall, which turns out to be infested with mice (big surprise), and find Tia lying on my bed, face squished into a pillow. Poor thing must have cried herself to sleep after her outburst about my apparent mistrust. I attempt to follow her dream stream, which is now almost completely blue, but I am stopped.

Not blasted backwards, not zapped, not slammed into an invisible wall, just…stopped. It's kind of hard to explain so, here we go. It's like I am floating towards the figure, misty appendage plunged deep into their dream stream, and I decide to stop, but it's not me who made the decision. See what I'm getting at here? No? Oh well, that's not important. What's important is that I can't get into Tia's dream.

Looking back down at my sister, I think, I see how peacefully she is sleeping, figuring that at least she doesn't seem to be having anymore nightmares. However, I continually attempt to enter her mind, unfortunately stopped cold every time. Just as I am about to wail in despair that I won't get the chance to apologize to her in her dreams, I hear someone, or maybe somepony.

A soft chuckle sounds within my mind. "Don't worry John, I'm the one stopping you from going into the dream. Besides, Celestia put up a barrier to keep you out." The voice is still the same one who has been helping me this whole time. I want to ask why she would keep me out, but another question is more prominant within my mind.

I make to ask who they truly are, but I already feel the presence leaving the forefront of my mind,dragging me along with it out of the apartment. "John, tonight, somepony else needs your help." And with that, the entity tosses me into another almost blue dream stream. I don't even have time to mentally scream as I am rushed off across the night sky. Heh, talk about Pony Express.

The trip is taking a while, so I decide to get a closer look at these dream streams. A majority of the sky is filled with golden streams, much like in the movie "Rise of the Guardians." Occasionally though, there is a mostly blue line and others that are only a tint of blue. However, the one I am being dragged along is not only blue sand, but has tons of black mist curving in and around piercing straight through it. Oddly enough, there are also reds, greens, and whites in it. Practically speaking, I had a pretty good idea for who was responsible for this particular nightmare.

Following the oddly colored stream for another few minutes, I finally find myself slowing down to less breakneck speeds, and the beginning of a descent. Finally, I am able to see my destination. There's a pick-up truck parked out in the middle of the wilderness, and I can see a figure leaning against it, almost like they're standing guard.

As I finally reach the vehicle, I see upon closer inspection that the figure standing guard is in fact a mare. No, I am not saying that because of my mental changes, but because she is literally, turning into a mare. Her hooves and fur were a golden bronze and her mane and tail were a mixture of gold and blood red streaks. Just watching from a close distance, I see she's trying her best not to fall asleep, but she's failing miserably.

However, she is not the one I am here for. I look into back of the truck to see a bundled sleeping bag with strands of black and grey mane sticking out of the top entrance. I touch the candy-like dream stream and am immediately pulled into his mind along with it.

Huh, I now find myself to be strapped down to a large operating table by my legs and tail. Looking down, I see that I have gone full pony in this dream. To my left sits Chrysalis, above me hovers Pinkamena with a drill cutting into my fur, which I find actually hurts a bit. And to my right, there stands Discord, although his back is to me and appears to be talking to someone.

Realizing just how bloody Pinkie's fur is and how much it smells like iron, I decide to try and get her away from me. "Well, this all seems horrible."

It appears to do the trick, as Pinkie stops drilling into my leg and stares at me with a very confused look on her face. Looking  to my right, I see Discord standing there as well, looking a bit confused too. Suddenly, recognition dawns on his face. "YOU!"

Uh, this could get out of control real fast, and I still need to buy time to free whatever pony Discord is torturing. Hm, ah! That should work! I look around in feigned confusion before faking realization. "Yes, me! But actually, if you're a bit confused, I am actually Celestia in disguise!"

Well, since it obviously appears that Discord doesn't appear to believe me, I can easily tell my plan did not work. As he walks towards, he reveals an ash grey pegasus stallion with his tail and mane color scheme being, big surprise, black and grey. However, Discord crosses his arms and blocks my view of the stallion. "Nice try princess, but we both know that fat plot can’t dream walk like yourself.”

I can barely hear the stallion mumble something from behind Discord. I can't understand him, but I can easily tell he doesn't like my sister being insulted. Gesturing at the stallion, he talks to me in annoyed voice. "As you can see, I am very busy at the moment." He turns back to me and makes shooing motions with his paw and talon. "So if you would be so kind as to take your jokes and leave, that would be great!”

Wow, does he really think that I am that low? Anyways, I need a little more time. How did all those other fan fiction writers do it? Um, oh yeah! "How is a raven like a writing desk?!"

He pauses for a moment, getting my hopes up that it actually worked, and then he chuckles. "Luna, Luna, Luna. You always were joking too much in serious matters." He looks up at the pink monstrosity, "Pinkamena, if you would please continue."

Her manic smile does the impossible and becomes even wider. "Okie dokie! You ready to have some fun Princess? This is going to be a party you'll never forget!"

She starts up the drill saw thingy, beginning to move it towards my other foreleg. I hear Chrysalis laughing at my look of trepidation. "Do you like my toy? I sharpened these blades myself. They were used when our pathetic pony slaves couldn't break through rock. I wonder how they will fare against your pathetic flesh?"

Well, I guess we'll find out. It is then that the blade touches my skin. Oddly enough, I can feel the flesh being torn apart but there is no pain. Looking over, I see the stallion trying his best to get out of his shackles, at which point Discord forms some type of bat and begins to walk up behind the pony.

As the drill reaches only a few centimeters into my skin, it is then that I feel the pain. Instincts based on pure survival take over my mind. Nopony will hurt one of MY subjects! The drill stops and pulls itself out of my foreleg as I crumple it into a small ball like a sheet of tin foil. My eyes snap open to their widest, filled with pure white energy. Poor pinkie is immediately disintegrated just from being in my presence. I easily snap the restraints holding my limbs down. I turn to the stallion and send a bolt of magic straight into the black shackles melting them. He looks at me in shock for a second, before turning to Discord with a grin on his face.

"No, this is my nightmare, that I created!" He points a finger at Chrysalis, who had been attempting to flee through the door to the outside world. "Chrysalis! Get back here and destroy the Princess!" Chrysalis freezes, turns, and begins to jump towards me as an attack, just like a robot.

I step back as she lands where I was just standing. Looking at me with a blank face, she begins to charge again, and then I do something I have always wanted to do. "I am not the one you want to attack." She freezes again as I pass my hoof in the air in front of her.

I can hear her quietly mumbling to herself. "I don't want to attack you."

I wave my hoof again. "Discord is your enemy. You hate how he treats you and wish to be free of him!"

She doesn't even bother to repeat what I just said this time. Her eyes turn glassy as she turns towards Discord, who has a bit of a pouty face. "Now that's just not fair Luna!" He snaps his talons and the dream image of Chrysalis disappears. Now all that's left is the puppet master himself. "Well, now that you’ve released him and have disposed of my conjurations, what are you going to do? Blast me?"

I bring a fore hoof to my chin as I think. I begin to grin as an idea comes to my mind. "No, I had something a bit more…creative in mind." I wink at the pony to show him he can trust me, but that doesn't seem to do the trick. In fact, he just seems to be more suspicious of me now. Gosh dang it, I'll have to gain his trust later.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the pony trying to sneak around me to get to the door, but then Discord's eyes seem to freeze him in place. With a smirk he continues to speak, "Oh and what would that be princess. I have deeply ingrained myself in his mind, I have almost as much power as you do."

He's a really funny guy, isn't he? Suddenly, images, no, memories that are not mine begin to flood into my mind. After a couple of seconds they stop, and I seem to know something I had not before. "Ah, but you forget Discord, dreams are part of my domain. And every extra entity has a weakness within a dream, even me."

All he does is raise an eyebrow, "Well Princess, I assume you think you know my weakness?" Actually, I'm still thinking about that. it would appear that it was not included in the memory package.

An idea comes to me. Great, I can already tell I'll regret this from the clicheness. "Yes, your weakness is assuming all those around you cannot defend themselves or those around them." While on the outside I was trying to look like the physical embodiment of courage and one who knew what they were doing, on the inside I was actually thinking, "Please oh please oh please oh please work!"

"Oh? I don't assume that, I KNOW that. You ponies have always been the weaklings of the planet. Even you and your sister couldn't defeat me without the Elements of Harmony. What makes you think you can do so now?" Of all the snide little things the cheeky bastard could say…

Wait a second. What did he mean by that last bit? "I have defeated you before!" Right? I mean I can't remember the exact details… hold on a second. "Wait, no I didn't. I'm not Luna, I'm John! I just turned twenty-five a couple days ago." I was still a bit confused by his claims that I was a pony, but I shook it off and placed myself between him and the pony he had been torturing.

"It does not matter who you are, or who you were, you shall not stop me. Since you're not even Luna, that increases your probability of failure." He snaps his talons again, the spell not affecting me though. I hear a snap and look behind me just in time to see the last of a shadow snake disintegrating after trying to imprison the pony. Discord gives a little frown, "Seems like you need to be taught a lesson again." Then, he turns back to me, a smug look that says it all. "You, on the other hand, have outstayed your welcome. Be gone!"

He raises his right hand, and white energy gathers, ready to banish me from this pony's dreams. I try to dodge, but some type of mystical keeps me in place. I close my eyes and feel his hand wrap around my horn, just to hear it power down. I crack open my eyes to see him staring confusedly at his hand. He powers it up again, only to have it fail again. "Huh, that usually works."

I make a face to show my 'sympathy', "Well, performance issues aren't uncommon. Usually a one out of five cha-" I'm cut off as Discord punches me across the muzzle, sending me flying only about ten feet. I stumble back to my hooves and prepare for a battle.

The flapping sound coming from my left draws my attention. There, I see the pony from earlier attempting to fly, but with a broken wing. Wow, that has to take guts. This guy had to be a guard from somewhere in the show! Discord is attracted by the motion and turns towards the possible guard. "Ah ah ah! There'll be none of that!" Another, longer snake bursts from the floor to attempt to pin the pony to ground.

However, he gives a great push with his wings and propels himself out of the way, pulling up the snakes holding his limbs at the same time. They all turn to dust as they are pulled from the ground. Very impressive. The stallion gives out a low chuckle as he lands somewhere within the abyss. "You made a fatal mistake in the setting Discord." I look around at the room as I realize he is using his abilities over his own dream to hide himself in the darkness.

However, even if he can hide from Discord, he can't hide from me. I send out a pulse that'll find him in a few seconds. "I'm in my element here. Time to show you how I got my nickname."

After finding him within the dark, I walk up behind him. "Don't you mean our element?"

He gives out a small snort, knowing it's me without turning around. "How nice of you to join me. I don't know who you are, but you've got style. As cool as your entrance was, however, you better have moves to back it up." Wow, even I'm not that cliché, but, it is his dream after all.

Discord holds his belly as he doubles over in laughter. "You really think you can defeat me? How sad." Wow, yet another asshole comment from a glued-together freak.

The stallion spreads his wings in an attempt to look majestic and threatening. Eh, I'll give him a seven on that. "There’s a difference you know. Losers are the ones who go into a fight ‘thinking’ they can win. The victorious are those who jump in ‘knowing’ they will. I don’t know what will happen to me and John here, but as sure as Celestia’s sun rises, I'm going to kick your ass.”

At this point, I'm feeling a bit irritated about being left out of this talk. It's about time I got some dialogue here, even if I'm going to be a bit, rude. "Oh, the cliché! It hurts so much! Anyways, I'm just trying to say that I don't care what either of you say, I just want to get this show on the road!"

Discord starts laughing again, although a bit less loudly. "Ha ha ha ha! Way to kill the mood, 'John'." I could see the stallion cringe slightly at something out of the corner of my eye, but otherwise, his face was emotionless.

Suddenly, the pony shoots forward, hitting Discord square in the jaw. He rebounds from his attack and lands some distance away from Discord. "Well, as horrid as it was, I still prefer it over your voice any night of the week."

Oh, that is a weak burn, but still a burn none the less. Discord wipes a talon across his cheek while frowning. "You think those nightmares were bad? You'll be broken by the time this dream is over."

Okay, I have had enough of his attitude. I send myself behind him, floating in the air. "He's not going to be the one broken by the end of tonight." As I finish, I smash my hind legs into his back, sending him crashing into the ground, eventually skidding to a stop at the stallion's forelegs.

I watch the stallion expectantly, waiting for him to deal another blow to Discord, only to see him punch the chimera in the face once. Sure, it was a pretty good punch, but this the god of chaos we're talking about here! He pays dearly for it too, as Discord growls, grabs the other hoof, and flips the pony onto his back. "You're weak, you know that?" The darkness of the black void suddenly seems to become more pressing and suffocating. Discord's voice becomes deeper and more powerful. "You could never beat me. In fact, I don't see how you could ever become something useful," he finishes with a sneer.

At the look of despair on my pony's face, more memories flood my mind. Pictures of seeing the full court of my sister's subjects, and then waiting all night for at least one pony to come to me for advice, even if it was on the simplest of matters. Nopony ever came. I remember the despair I myself felt, how it consumed me, until I finally snapped.

I growl a bit under my breath. How dare Discord talk to one of my most brilliant guards in that way! He shall pay…

I use dark magic to grab Discord by the throat, squeeze, and then pull him off of Shadow Slash. When he finally reaches my feet, I release the magic and lean down until our eyes are a mere inch away from each other. "You make me sick Discord. Always belittling the ponies near you, always acting like one with power. In truth, you're nothing. My sister and I could've turned you to dust long ago, but we were held back by our morals."

I pull my face back and motion for Shadow to come forward. He looks at me, obviously hesitant about coming near me, but he does anyways. He steps up next to me, looking at the draconequis lying on the ground in front of us. Discord looked at me with rage, barely even giving Shadow a glance. I simply take a few steps back. "Punish him however you deem fit. This trash is not worth my time."

I watch as Shadow gets closer to Discord, eventually getting right up into his face. After spitting up a glob of blood the chimera speaks, "You don't have the guts to end me. You guards are all the same; you have your morals, your standards."

I look back to Shadow, just watching quietly as he begins to laugh. "Funny…that's what my captain always said." He reaches down to the floor and scoops up a bit of the shadows from where they sit on the floor. "I don't really know how I'm doing this, but I can guarantee you that it's going to hurt you soooo much." Discord's eyes go wide as Shadow slams the ball of darkness into his face.

I can clearly see the hunger for revenge on Shadow's face as the darkness first consumes Discord's head, quickly devouring his body before the creature is banished from Shadow's mind. I smile at him, glad that I was finally able to get rid of what was causing his nightmares. However, I'm suddenly tackled and pinned to the ground by said rescuee. "Okay, I want answers; who the hay are you?!"

Hm, I should have expected something like this. Alright, I'll tell him everything, but first, we should probably get more comfortable. I look at him and smirk, "I knew you would be excited to see somepony else, but tackling them to the ground isn't the best way to start off. Don't worry, I'll tell you everything…" I trail off as I realize just how much I had been thinking like Luna earlier. Bah, I can't worry about that right now! One of the others needs my help!

His face of stone continues to stare into my eyes, unflinching and devoid of emotion except for anger. "Well it looks like you can speak just fine from the floor," he responds.

I sigh mentally. Wow, he has some serious trust issues, although, I'm not really one to talk. “Well, for the story I'm gonna tell you, we may want to be a bit more comfortable before I start.” I can see the conflict on his face rage a quiet battle, before he finally relents and steps off of me.

I stand up, stretch, and then sit onto the ground so I could get more comfortable. It feels rather odd, sitting like a pony, but for some reason, it feels so natural as well. "There, I've let you up." He looks around as though checking for enemies. "Though I have to say, this isn’t the most comfortable place to be having a discussion." Oh, how I agree with you completely. Then, he starts glaring at me like I'm the prime suspect in a murder case. "I don’t know what kind of pony you are, but if you try anything I will put your flank on the ground so fast it’ll break the sound barrier.”

I feign a yawn at his threat. "And I could leave this dream even faster than that. I mean, seriously, I just got sent flying across the night sky to get to this here dream. Why? Because it was obviously a nightmare that needed to be taken care of." He still has a serious on that shows just how much he trusts me; nada. "Anyways, I won't bore you with the details. But, I will start my story. You see, it all started three days ago when I turned twenty-five…"
~~~~~
"And so, you should know the rest, seeing as how you were here." Phew, that took awhile! Explaining my whole story to Shadow had taken quite a bit more time that I thought it would and it was now almost dawn. Don't ask me how I know, I just do.

"Alright, so let's say I believe you. What's this got to do with me?"

Of all the dense, thick-skulled, idiotic ponies…no, Luna, remember what the therapist taught you after you got back from the moon. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in…

Gosh dang it. Why do I keep having these slips? Could it have something to do with what Discord said earlier? It's possible. I'll have to brainstorm this when I wake up. "Think long and hard, Shadow. What's been happening for the past few days that connects us?"

At first, he rolls his eyes, then closes them, deep in thought. Suddenly, his eyes snap open and he starts to back away from me, falling onto his rump. "Oh shit, oh shit!" He looks down at his hooves, breathing heavily. He looks from his hooves, to me, then back to his hooves. "I'm a…and you're a…aah buck."

I quirk an eyebrow. Why is he freaking out like this? Did he seriously think those memories were real? I reach out a hoof to comfort him. "Hey, just ignore those memories, as far as I can tell, they're probably fake."

He looks up at me, desperation and anger evident in his eyes. "Well, if they're fake, then how do you explain my memories of that discord character and some kind of curse he put on me? If I 'remember' correctly, it said something about me being sent away to a different world, in a new form, with my memories erased. How do you explain that?"

Unfortunately, I had stopped listening at the mention of a curse. I stare at a single space in the distance as one phrase echoes through my mind; 'Five Score Divided by Four.' Then, come the memories.

The sudden onslaught of images is powerful enough to make me collapse to the ground in pain. Thousands of years of memories flooding in, over riding the measly twenty-five years I already have. I barely even notice Shadow standing over me, his mouth moving and forming words that I don't understand.

I feel myself being brought closer to insanity, different voices echoing in my mind.

"Luna, don't do this!"

"She steals Celestia's sun every night! She's a monster!"

"I'm sorry, dear sister, but you leave me no choice."

And right when I'm about to go off the edge, that one familiar presence that has been with me this whole time stops me from dropping. I open my eyes to find myself in a void, but this one is white. "Shadow?"

I receive no answer, not even an echo. I get to my hooves and try to recall what happened. I remember talking to Shadow, and then I believe there was a memory onslaught, but I can't seem to remember any of them. I blink, and suddenly I see tons of images floating on little rectangular screens, much like the Season Three finale.

I walk down the alley formed by images, taking a moment to look at a few. The one thing they all have in common; Luna. Luna is in every single one of the memories shown. "What is all this?"

I feel a light touch on my left shoulder. I jump away, crouch down into an attack position, and stop in shock. In front of me, is one of the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen. She takes on the form of a human child, but looks almost exactly like Snowdrop's color scheme, except for the eyes. Those are more silver like the craters on the moon.

She smiles gently before walking back to my side. She's about the same height as me, which allows for her to easily rest a hand on my back. "Beautiful, aren't they?" She motions towards the images. "All pictures of someone's life, all lined in order from earliest, to latest."

I turn a little so I can look her straight in the eyes. "Who are you? I've heard your voice for the past several days, but this is the first time I've actually met you."

She smiles gently. "Ah yes, if I remember correctly, the first time we spoke was after you helped that young girl get home. As for your first question, I guess you could say I'm your Earth-World equivalent. I've been known by many names, but most commonly, I was known as Selene."

I feel my jaw drop, at which she lightly chuckles, so I quickly force it shut. "You're Selene? As in basically the moon?!" At her nod, I almost hug her, but she holds up a hand to calm me down.

"I'm sorry, I know how excited you must be, but we're both on limited time here. I only have just enough time to explain a couple things to you." She looks at me for confirmation, silently asking if I'm ready for what she has to say.

I nod, and she takes a few deep breathes, preparing for what she has to tell me. "Okay, I'm just going to say it bluntly. You are Princess Luna." I open my mouth to protest, but she cuts me off again. "Like I said, we don't have much time. You are Princess Luna, and these are your memories. And now, I have something to show you." With that, she presses a soft hand to my muzzle and a memory is returned to me, just more gently than when I almost overloaded.
~~~~~
I'm walking down a beach, all alone except for my shadow as company. The beach had always calmed me down, with the gentle sound of the waves breaking upon the sandy beach, and the feeling of the water around my hooves.

This is one of my favorite dreamscapes to visit during the day. Yes, I sleep during the day. Why? So I can be up for my night court. Anyways, last I heard, my dearest sister would be on her way to a volcano where a creature from Tartarus was said to have escaped.

Discord said he would be joining her, but that he had some business to take care of first. I was not worried. The two would undoubtedly be able to take care of the creature without a hitch.

Suddenly, the landscape around me begins to shift. Ground cracks open and water pours into an empty abyss. The dreamscape around me is collapsing. If this were a normal dream, this wouldn't be a problem. However, this was a special type of sleep designed by me for me, specifically for me to get some much needed rest instead of helping others with their dreams.

If this type of dream collapses with me still in it, I would be left weak and vulnerable. And that is exactly what happens too. I slam back into my physical body. I'm breathing hard, and it's incredibly difficult to stand back up onto my legs.

After about five minutes, I finally manage to stand up and still have enough brain power to wonder what happened. Only something truly chaotic could have happened for me to be pulled out of that dream state. Wait…chaotic.

My pupils shrink to pinpricks. I knew we couldn't trust him! I have to warn Ti- I'm cut off as I hear a scream outside my doors.

I rush as quickly as I can to the large double doors. I push them open to find my Lunar guards missing. I rush out into the hall way, seeing one of the maids backed up against the far wall. I move to help her and ask what's wrong, but her gaze is fixed on something behind me. I see her eyes widen and duck just in time to dodge a certain falling god of chaos.

"Discord, what did you do to my guards?" I ask him, making sure there is plenty of anger held within the words, just so he could figure out that I knew he was responsible.

"Oh, they may have been used as sacrifices to that creature from Tartarus. I'm sorry I'm not my usual peachy self, but once I deal with you, I must then go deal with your sister!" The anger clouding my vision makes it hard to see.

I send a blast of magical energy directly into his chest, but he just scratches the point of impact as though he had simply felt an annoying bug. Yawning, he speaks to me again in a condescending tone. "Now Luna, you know as well as I do you're in no condition to fight."

"It doesn't matter Discord! I'll protect them no matter what!"

He gives me a look that says he obviously doesn't believe me. Then, he sighs. "You know? I could kill you. But you're willing to sacrifice everything for even one of your precious ponies. I like that even, if it is a bit cliché. So, instead of killing you, I'll just banish you."

"I won't let tha-" He cuts off my declaration by teleporting to my side and using the momentum to punch me in the side of the throat. I fly sideways into the wall of the hallway. In my weakened state, I can't even move. Damn, if Shadow had been here, this wouldn't have happened!

Discord leans down, and places his lion paw upon my forehead. "Well, Luna, it wasn't very nice knowing you." He cackles like the maniac he is before letting a much more dark and sinister voice creep into his own.


For Five Score! Divided by Four!
Your memories removed, your body confused!

For standing in my way, you must pay,
Cast off to a world, far, far away!

To separate the sisters, just the start of my plans,
A surprise awaits you, your weaknesses exploited!

You sacrificed yourself for others,
In which you have failed!

You shall be alone, my little Woona,
A lone wolf, to howl at the moon!

~~~~~
"Ugh, what happened?" I sit up and place a hoof to my head, just below the horn. Suddenly, I remember what happened with Selene and look around quickly. As far as I can tell, I'm still in the dream, but it looks like Luna's-my old room. Wow, it's gonna take some getting used to the fact that I used to be a pony, and will be again soon too. Oh wow, this bed is really comfy! I lie back down onto my back with my head on the pillow, not noticing the other presence in the room.

When Shadow actually speaks, I'm not expecting it, so I jolt a little."Um, Luna, or John, whoever you are, um…" It takes quite a bit of will power (like seriously, I should become a Green Lantern for that or something) to not giggle like a filly at his confusion. He clears his throat, "So are you okay?"

Ah, the million dollar question. "Well, let's see. I just had a battle with the god of Chaos in another world alongside a Lunar guard, had to go through a three day story of how I'm pretty much turning into a pony and met my sister, almost had a brain overload from thousands of years worth of memories, met my equivalent, and then learned I actually am Princess Luna." I bring a hoof to my chin in thought. "So yeah, I think I'm actually doing okay with all that's happened." Okay, in truth, I just shoved down those feelings so they wouldn't get in the way.

“So you're actually Princess Luna? But you were… ah crap, this is going to happen to me isn’t it. Ah well life is life, not like I can change this anyways.” You know? I really like the way this guy thinks. He just accepts it and moves on. Doesn't complain, doesn't whine, doesn’t get mad, anything. " So, now that you're done banishing the nightmare and all, which I'm very appreciative for thank you, um, can I wake up now? I have a friend whose also going through the same things as me and to be honest she isn’t the most responsible pony.”

Well, it is getting close to dawn, so the dream will be breaking soon. "Of course, dawn is just about to arrive, so I think it's time for you to wake up anyways. Also, we need a way to contact each other. Do you have a computer with you?"

He thinks for a moment before responding, "Yeah um, I think we stuffed one into my truck. I'm going have to get it out of the backseat somehow but unless something happened, it should still be there.”

I nod, pleased with this turn of events. "Good. Now, you'll want to go to fimfiction.net and send a message to the user 'We are the Meta.' Really, it doesn't have to have anything to do with this, but just so we know who to send a message to until we can get together." I stop for a moment, squinting at him as I am a little unsure. "You are going to be able to join up with us, right?"

He shrugs. "Well, as of right now, we're on the road just outside of Perryton, Texas. Got nowhere to go and it's my job to stay by you, correct?"

I nod in affirmation to his question. "That would be correct." I can feel the dream breaking much more quickly, so I rush out my next few words. "Remember, send it to We are the Meta! We'll talk more then!" Then, the dream collapses, I'm pulled back to my body and I open my eyes. That's when the realization truly hits me. I am Luna.

> 12. I Am Luna
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	I am Luna.

It's been decided by the Lunar Republic of Me, Myself, and I, that that may not be the best way to start off my morning. I lie there for a second, sifting through the dozens of thoughts in my mind, all going about a hundred miles per hour.

I shift my body so I roll of onto the floor, one of the best ways to get yourself out of bed in the mornings. I lie there for another few seconds, trying to keep myself from hyperventilating. Is it possible that everything I've done these past twenty-five years has been a lie? No, that's not right. They're just an extension of my life. I am John, just as much as I am…Luna.

I mentally wince again as I register the thought. M-maybe I'll think a little clearer over some breakfast.  I stand up…and fall down. Great, now what? The changes are so far progressed that I can't even stand up now?

Growling and mumbling a bit under my breath, I look down, and all of my curses and vexes stop in my throat. Let's just say the first thing I see is blue fur. But, I've been seeing the blue fur for a few days now, so that isn't a problem, right? The problem is the shape the blue fur is in.

I look downwards towards my arms, now realizing that they are no longer arms. They appear to now be forelegs, seeing as how the bone structure is no longer anything like that of an arm. In fact, I find that none of my bone structure is like that of a human anymore. And for the second time this morning, I come to a realization.

I am Luna.

This time, stopping the hyperventilating isn't so easy. I feel my breath start to speed up as I stand up uneasily onto all four of my new limbs. I tentatively take my first step as a full blown pony. Okay, so far, so good. Let's get to the bathroom now. There, I can see the entirety of my new body.

It takes me about five minutes of stumbling and close tripping, but by the time I reach the bathroom, I'm a little more used to walking on all fours. I sort of slide onto the slick tiles and almost fall again. I slide my hooves out into a more wide spread position for better traction on the bathroom floor.

And finally, I make it to the vanity mirror within the room. A younger version of Luna stared back, unblinking, just like me. Her-My mane and tail now had a faint outline of a darker layer, and was also a bit more wavy than before. I turn to the side a bit so I can see my entire body.

Unlike my human form, which had enough fat to be warm in the winter but not noticeable at all the clothes, there is not a single scrap of fat on this body. I guess sh- I was a fitness nut or something when I was cursed. This whole me being Luna thing is gonna take some getting used to.

I walk back out of the bathroom after several more minutes of just looking at myself in the mirror. I get back to the couch and lie down, all the freak out moments I had suppressed releasing back into my mind.

I roll over onto my side, too freaked out to even hyperventilate. My eyes begin to move rapidly, like dreaming, but without closed eye lids. Everything now seems to have a lens flare generator and is brighter than it needs to be. I slam my eyes shut, and feel my heart beat rising, along with the hyperventilation finally arriving. A type of sound that can only be described as ringing begins to reverberate throughout my mind.

I draw my entire conscious back into my mind, trying to calm down. After what feels like several hours, I can feel it actually working. My heartbeat is back to normal as is my breathing.

I slowly open my eyes to a shocking sight. All of the small items within the room were being held in the air by my magic. Slowly, I used the power of my mind to gently set it all down onto the floor and other respective places.

Once that's all sorted out, I close my eyes again and take deep, calming breaths. I can feel the regular semblance of peace come over my mind again as the meditation technique kicks in. I wonder, has my sister discovered yet that she actually is Celestia? With what happened last night, I didn't get a chance to ask her about anything that may have happened.

Using magic, I grab my phone and float it over to me. I realize that I never even thought to check my phone yesterday. I turn the device on, seeing as I was lucky enough to have got the old type of phone with big enough buttons for hooves.

Oh what a big surprise, one missed message! Navigating with the controls, I manage to play the voicemail. Thankfully, it's not from my parents or 'friends', but from my new and old sibling. I hit the play button and use magic to press it against my ear.

"Hello Lun-John? It's Ti-Alex." Oh my. She sounds really shaken. I'm really beginning to regret running of yesterday without her. "I only wanted to know how you were doing. On my side, watching the first two episodes of My Little Pony proved to be a rather disturbing experience... Well... I hope that you are safe."

I lean my head back until it rests against the arm of the couch. Damn it. I really messed up this time. I'm finally reunited with my sister after twenty-five years, even if I don't remember 99.5 percent of the years before this, and then I show complete and utter distrust towards her. I feel the familiar pit of emptiness as depression eats away at me. I need to make amends with her, immediately.

I get up off of the couch again and stand up onto my hooves. I walk towards my room, noting how odd, yet familiar all these sensations are. The feeling of the carpet through my hooves was especially weird.

Arg, these clothes are getting in the way! Too tight in this form! I grab my clothes with my magic, and do something I've always wanted to. I use my magic to rip my clothes off and stand heroically. Of course, the nude art makes it a bit more awkward, but I'll just have to get used to it.

I reach my door in record time as a pony, which really isn't saying much. Thank goodness I had one of those lever door knobs instead of the rounded ones. I dry the fur below my eyes, so as to not look like I was just crying from fright, put on a calm face, and shakily open the door, finding my balance to be a bit unstable suddenly.

Fortunately, I manage to stay standing as I push aside the wooden barrier. as I do, I see such an adorable sight, my previous almost-insanity and depression almost washed away just from seeing it. There lies my sister, fully pony by the way, with a pillow between her hind legs, her head lying on top of another one of my pillows. And she's drooling on it. Well, more fuel for a future bonfire since I don't happen to have any disinfectant on me. And she was also still wearing her clothes from the previous night; and they were ripped. Oh the advantages, or disadvantages of changing form completely.

I walk over to the white-furred, cake-loving, prankster, or whatever she is from my small amount of previous memories, and gently shake her. "Tia, it's time to raise the sun." What can I say? I am a bit of an asshole sometimes.

I hear her grumble something at me that sounds something like, "Hmm, just five more minutes. The sun isn't going anywhere." While I did get a response, it doesn't seem to do anything to break the barrier of sleep around her mind. So, I opt for a more…direct approach.

Put simply; I shove her off my bed and onto the cold, hard floor. This is kind of fun! I hear a muffled ouch from underneath the pillows and blankets. Walking over, giggling as I do so, I use my mouth to try and pull away the covers. She's just not looking at me for the moment, but instead deciding to look at the wall. She either hasn't seen me or herself yet, or she's just taking it very well.

"Eh, sorry for taking up your bed. I didn't mean to fall asleep," She tells me sheepishly. I wonder if she thinks I'm mad at her. Nah, there's no way I could be, not when her anger last night was totally justified. Although, it did leave me a little depressed this morning. But, that was just a bout of chemical depression, so nothing serious.

"Hey, don't worry about it. So do you want to look at whatever changes happened overnight? Or tell me about any odd dreams you may or may not have had?" It was a gamble, but I believe she may have regained her memories last night as well.

She rolls her eyes at me. "The changes can't be that bad; I haven't heard you screaming while fleeing the bathroom. This would have been a wake-up call as good as any." She goes cross-eyes for a moment, looking at her new muzzle, which is quite the funny sight, I might add.

She's silent for a few more seconds as she mentally examines her body. How can I tell? Well, that's probably the look I had on my face this morning. When she finishes, evident by the look of defeat on her face from the side, she looks up at the wall. "We are full ponies, aren't we?"

Well, it sure took her long enough to ask the question! "Well, if you'd just look at me, then you'd have your answer!"

She gives out a sigh, not turning towards me. "I don't know, that wall seems strangely interesting at the moment." Then, with a groan, she turns on her back the best she can, struggling a bit as she does so, to face me. Her face is blank as she examines me. "You are rather…blue and… nude."

I look down at the ground, a little embarrassed as I feel myself blush at her comment of me being nude. Couldn't she have noticed something else? Just anything? Oh well, guess not. Any further thought process was interrupted by her next statement. "As for the dream, it's rather weird that you ask me that question. You could say that I had a talk…with myself."

Well, that's new. I guess I learned of my past differently. "It was most likely only a coping mechanism. Those last days weren't the most calm I had in my life." Oh wow, she remembers the last days before being banished? Not even I remember that. I barely hear her mutter, "Talk about a birthday present…"

"Yeah, no kidding." Well, for me this is a great birthday present. I mean, me, unimportant John Sappington, gets turned into THE Princess Luna. While this may be a bit bad at the same time, finally something special happens in my life! This is pretty much any brony's dream. However, seeing as how Alex wasn't ever a brony, this may well be a nightmare for him. "So, how are you holding up?"

I see several emotions flash across her face as she processes my query to her mental state. Finally, her emotions eventually settle on one; decision. "I'm feeling better than yesterday." There's a brief flash of regret before she continues. "Thank you for asking. I just hope that we'll quickly find a way to change back..."

She looks down at the state of her clothes from last night. Put simply; they are absolutely shredded. Of course, she probably blames it on the shifting of the bones, and she is absolutely right! "As fun as being turned into ponies might be, my clothes don’t seem to appreciate it." It was incredibly amusing to watch her try to take her clothes off using only her hooves. I had to place a hoof over my mouth to keep from bursting into laughter.

"Y'know, why don't you just use your magic to take off the clothes?" It was the obvious answer to me, at least. Hmm, I wonder if I should mention that to her. You know what? I think I will. "Of course, then you'll be nude like me."

"I had forgotten about my magic. It is only the second day that I can use real magic." She starts using her magic quickly, trying to hide her blush that forming fast of her porcelain cheeks. However, the clothes come off a bit too quickly (BOW CHICKA BOW WOW [Oh, I was wondering where you went.]) and what's left of her shirt flies into my face. She looks a bit abashed and begins mumbling under her breath. “Sorry! I didn't mean to shoot it at you. It's your comment about being nude that caught me surprise. This is my excuse and I stand by it.”

In fact, I'd go as far as to say she was actually scared of something, but I have no idea what of. Me? No, it couldn't be. Well, maybe. She composes herself and continues in a more normal fashion. “As for the actual problem, well I guess I'll pretend that my coat of fur are actually clothes.” She opens her wings and stretches them to their full eight foot span. Wow, they look so big, but when you think about it, they really aren't.

Well, she accepted that problem rather easily. Now, let's see how she reacts to this next bomb shell. "So, how were you cursed and brought to Earth? I mean, it is shown in the show, but there's nothing like hearing it from the one who experienced it." Her wings snap back to her sides at my query.

"What?!" Her surprised shout forces my ears back against skull instinctively. Alright, I wasn't expecting this. Why does she seem to be surprised? Unless…she doesn't know yet. She then stops her frantic surprise, relaxes her posture, and takes several deep breaths before speaking again. "John, you do know it makes no sense that either of us would come from a world described in a cartoon?"

Yep, she definitely doesn't believe the memories shown to her. This is going to be hard, I can just see it. "Yeah, and you realize that it makes no sense for us to be turning into ponies either right? And besides, we not only came from that world, but this world as well."

She rolls her eyes. “Heard of the Occam's razor? Which is more probable; we were humans that were cursed by some kind of magic and we are turning into a specific pony and gaining forged memories or we were ponies that somehow got sent away by a powerful being to be reborn as human and for some reason we are reverting to our true form? The end result might be very similar, but it does not make us them.” She sighs and gets this look on her face that says she thinks that she won the argument.

Oh, she does not realize how wrong she is; this argument is far from over. "Well, seeing as how you think those memories are based off of the show, let me tell you something; most of those memories we gained were never shown! The only explanation is that we experienced those times ourselves!" She still doesn't look totally convinced though. "I even have someone on my side who backs my theory, and I'm willing to bet you have someone who backs my theory as well."

She looks a little confused at first before answering. "Then, you won't have any problems to present them to me."

I'll admit; this left me a little baffled. How could she not know who I'm talking about? "Well, didn't you talk to someone in your dreams last night?" If I had talked to Selena, then I guess the only logical choice for her could have been either Helios or Apollo.

However, the look of impatience on her face grows, as does the emptiness of her stomach, a fact I realize when it growls.  “Like I told you earlier, I 'spoke' to myself last night.” Heh, her wings even did a 'quote and quote' motion without her realizing it. "I don't think that either of us will be able to convince the other at moment. It would be better to drop the subject for now."

I sigh, and simply reply, "I know I'm right, because I talked to Selena last night through my dreams. She told me the truth of what happened to us originally."

She gets a look of exasperation on her face. "What do the Greeks have to do with this now?" Well, I guess if I was in her hooves, I would be confused about that too.

"Well, not the Greeks, but Selena. From what I can tell, she sort of adopted the Greeks as her personal fan club." This is getting nowhere! I need her to admit that she has voices in her head. Of course, I have to make it so she doesn't think I'm crazy, but how else am  supposed to do that? "Look, ever since these changes started, there's been some mysterious voice speaking to me and giving me advice. I think, the same has been happening to you."

Her face pales considerably, which is saying something since her fur is already white. Bingo. She withdraws and carefully hides her emotions from as she looks away and towards the ground. After a few silent seconds, she lets out a defeated sigh before simply stating, "You are wrong."

I guess this is what made me snap. Her unwillingness to just accept the facts. Whatever the reason though, I would regret what came next later as a rage over me once again. "You know I am right, Celestia! You need to just wake up and accept the cold hard facts of reality." I start moving closer to her until I am up in her face. "Yeah, guess what?! You really did banish me to the moon for a thousand years! Accept it! I don't care if I hurt your feelings right now, because you just need to grow up, and shoulder your responsibilities!" She begins backing away from me, surprise at my outburst evident upon her face. "This is our life now! All we can do, is help out others with the same problem, which I have been doing, while you just sit around and eat my food. So I am ordering you, to remember who you once were, and help me like you're supposed to!"

She just stands there for a few more moments, before bursting out in laughter. I'm shocked; is this how she treats it when I attempt to get her to see reality. I must say, I feel rather insulted. "Calm down, you misunderstood me little sister. I have been hearing Helios since I was a little filly. There was no need for such a passionate display." Oh, passionate display? Did she feel I was worried for her health? She puts one of her hooves to the side of her head. "Say, do you think that aspirins are safe for ponies?"

I let my demeanor go cold. "No, I don't. I'll let you figure it out, as well as find them on your own. I have something I need to do." And so, I turn my back to her and walk to my computer, planning to attempt to drown my bad mood in a torrent of internet articles and such.

She just sighs and heads to my bathroom to look for an aspirin. "Fine, but I need to speak with you over breakfast if possible."

I wave to her with hoof as if to say whatever, and return to my computer to look at one of my favorite conspiracy sites. At the top of the page, I read a small paragraph article that says, "Haven't you guys ever wanted ponies to be real? Well guess what; I heard rumors from one of my friends down in Texas that a couple of ponies just outdrove the police and are now heading North!"

I get the strange feeling that I know exactly who it is.

> 13. The Souffle isn't the Souffle...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	All the conspiracy sites I’ve been going to for years have practically blown up with the amount of posts flowing into them about ponies. Even some of the news sites such as Yahoo have had sightings of us. It was nice to visit another pony’s dreams and to know that my sister and I weren’t the only ones to be sent here to Earth, but seeing all these posts on the internet about us all really drives it home.

There was even one story, where apparently a certain zebra tried breaking into some botanical garden here in America. She’d gotten careless and there were now several pictures of her all across the internet; people were watching for us now.

Speaking of people, there was the matter of my human parents and sibling. I’m not sure how well they’ll take this news, even if I haven’t had the best relationship with them. Okay, screw that description, I haven’t talked to them for at least a year. They weren’t abusive in any way; it’s just that we had very different mindsets and opinions.

They didn’t see video games as I do; I hate meeting new people in person, but if I meet them online, then we’re fine. But even then, I prefer to play alone. Most of the time I felt worthless and tiny, and the only thing that kept me from spiraling into the dark pit of depression that I still fight off today, was video games.

In those, I could be somebody; I could save the entire universe, and everybody would love me, or I could stop an army of machines and every person I would stop and say hi to would know my name. Even if it was synthetic, somebody was finally paying attention to me, and didn’t ask for me to change who I am because they wanted me to.

My parents couldn’t understand this, for all they ever saw was me sitting there, in my little corner with my computer and Xbox, apparently doing nothing. When I finally moved out, I did not look back.

However, they are still my parents, and they deserve to know what has happened, but not yet. First, I must learn to work with my sister to gather the ponies together. Other than that, I don’t know what we will do, for I don’t even know if there’s a way back to Equestria. The other problem is that most of my memories are still missing, except for the curse and that memory of Tia when I was a young filly.

But, I am that type of person and pony that likes to plan things as they go, so we’ll stick with that. But first, I believe I will check that forum I posted in where Tia first found me.

I click onto the link and enter the forum I had posted only three and a half days ago. Wow, it seems like so long ago now. Unfortunately, there’s even more trash comments about it being fake and gay. However, I do see a few more promising posts as well. I open a word document and copy/paste them into it to check for later.

I almost push away from my desk to go do some other tasks, but then I almost face hoof as I realize that I forgot to do a vlog. I pull up and activate the necessary hardware and software and once the video picture of my now pony face pops up, I hit the record button.

“Hey John, John/Jona/Luna here. As of this morning, I am now a full pony. I do not appear to have regained full magical powers yet though. Also, I do not remember if I have said this in a previous vlog, but I have found out, that I am actually THE Luna from the show. This may bring up problems with the famn damily, but I’ll hopefully survive their wrath.”

“And also, I have found that Discord may have an actual presence here on Earth, even if it's a small imprint left by him to torture us as humans. Just last night, I banished him from the dreams of one whom I believe was once one of my guards. Right now, they are on their way here in a pick-up. Well, that's it for this update, see ya next time."

With that, I stop recording and push myself away from the desk, not bothering to log off of the device for convenience later. As I hop down to the floor, I realize that there really wasn't that much of a change in size. Luna and Celestia were supposed to be a bit bigger than the average pony, so anybody else changing would've shrunk a bit and the top of their heads would reach up to the bottom of a human's rib cage. However, I believe I am only a little shorter than my human self now.

I step away from my computer and back into the living room, spotting Celestia just coming out of the bathroom, and looking a little relieved; she must have found the aspirin. She sees me and gives an apologetic smile, before coming over to me and saying, "I'm sorry about my outburst earlier Luna. It's not every day that you learn that you were born as a pony princess in your last life." She gives a sigh at all the stress.

I think for a moment on her apology; after all, she did laugh in my face after I yelled at her. After a few moments of thought, I reply, "I can forgive you, after all, I did try to murder you earlier."

I can tell I hit a nerve as she shudders at my mention of that past event. "I suppose it won't be the last mistake either of us will make in the next few days." She pauses for a moment before continuing. "That reminds me, you said we were cursed by someone? I'm afraid my memory is still lacking of that event."

Well, that would explain a bit. I guess Helios didn't bother to show her what happened like Selene did with me. "Alright, I'll explain what happened to me, and what I assume happened to you later; first, I want to get a shower." Oh, this shower is gonna feel really good, since I haven't had one in at least four days. Plus, I smell like horse right now.

She grins at me knowingly. "That works for me. I'll just keep myself busy until you are done." She turns towards her lap top, which is still open out on my coffee table from yesterday, but then stops and turns back towards me. "Actually, I'd like to take one after you do if you don't mind."

I smile and wink jokingly at her. "What, don't wanna take one together?" I laugh at her disgusted look and head to my bathroom, more than ready for the nice torrent of hot water.

I can barely hear her, "Don't push it." I laugh even harder as I walk away.

I reach my bathroom at an almost leisurely pace, gasping in surprise when I look inside. Apparently, she had grown tired of my disorganized lavatory in her search of an aspirin; everything was neatly placed and categorized.

Wow, if she was able to do all this in such a short amount of time, she must have been an incredible neat freak as a human. I trot past the lines of medicine and up to my bath tub, using my newfound magic to turn the knobs, and my forelegs to check if it's too hot or cold.

Finally, once I get it to just the right temperature, I change the water from going through the faucet to the shower head. I step into the warm water, and nearly moan in pleasure. That's odd; I've never felt the need to do that before. Perhaps it's just a mix from everything that's been happening lately.

I let the water dampen my fur, mane, and feathers, feeling all kinds of new sensations from all across my body. I examine my mane, only to find that it is still a light blue, but perhaps a darker shade, with a little bit of a dark mist-like substance starting to surround it. I'm assuming that it's the same story with my tail; this must mean that more of my magical powers are returning.

I take my time in the shower, because as a human, I would often stand there and think through quite a few things, letting out hidden thoughts and feelings. So, because I am alone and I really need a release, I begin to explore what I am truly thinking of my current situation. Other than trying to murder her at one point, I'd been trying to seem upbeat and carefree about the whole thing to my sister. But truly? I'm about ready to break down.

Probably the biggest problem I'm having with this whole thing, is the gender switch. And now, I've been turned female, with more hormones taking over my mind than I would like to think. Even now, I can feel the warm water running over my new…equipment, and some of the thoughts that begin to run through my mind make me shiver with excitement… No! I mustn't think that way! I am not going to devolve myself into some breeding horse that only thinks as far ahead as its next rutting!

Among these disturbing thoughts, there's the physical changes. It troubles me to think I am no longer a predator, but prey. I mean, I've been what I consider to physically be an Alpha male human. I've always been bigger than most of my classmates, and my heavier weight made me physically dominant. But now, I am the younger and smaller of two ponies surrounded by a species who's greatest specialty, one that rises above all else, is killing each other. With these mental changes, it actually terrifies me.

Coupled with my life time instincts to be alone, this could be a problem. In fact, if I remember correctly, part of Discord's curse said I would be alone, and I was fine with that? For my entire life? These two parts of me are colliding now, both the herd instinct and the want to be alone.

And now, my last problem I was dealing with; I was royalty. Many ponies that are stuck here are going to be looking up to me to help them solve their problems. I never was a leader type kind of guy, and always had problems with self-confidence, which were now multiplied. Where could I possibly find the strength to lead tens, if not hundreds of lost and terrified ponies? When push came to shove, I'm certain that I would fall.

That familiar dark pit that has been with me for as long as I can remember appears in that same spot as always; the location of my heart. The depression quickly begins to infect my mind, and with it, comes a whispering voice. "Yes, that's right. Celestia only has on a mask. She doesn't understand you. You've always been alone on this world, and perhaps that's what you're meant to be; alone. You can't trust anybody to know you."

The voice fades, leaving me with dark thoughts, not of anger, but of depression. Perhaps it really is right. I don't truly know this Celestia, how could she claim to know me?

The shower has lost all of its appeal now, so I turn off the water and step out slowly. The thoughts of being like this forever creep into my mind. It's enough to make me sit down onto my haunches and lower my head slightly, wet bangs covering my eyes. That's right, isn't it? I'm immortal now, so I'm going to have to live forever with this form, and this responsibility.

My legs begin to feel weak, as my mind spirals deeper and deeper into that pit of depression. However, another familiar voice makes itself known to me, and although it's muffled and desperate, I can barely make out the words.

"Luna! You're not alone! I've always been there, even when you never knew! Don't give into Him!" I feel something akin to a mental light above me, and my conscious stops its dark descent, and begins to ascend once again. "Yes, Luna, come back to us! I know there will be many hardships on the road ahead, but that is the responsibility that comes with being a leader."

Now that I've been able to at least get a metaphorical life line out of my Depression Pit, I can see that she's right. "There's a reason you two are sisters; it's so you have someone to stay with you throughout all of your long years. In truth no one understands you better than she does, and vice versa. Now, you must promise me, my dear mare of the night, promise me that you will try harder to be the leader you once were."

I lift my head, glad to be free of the heavy sadness I accidentally brought upon myself, and trying my best to accept the fact that I am a royal mare now at the same time. I mumble barely loud enough for even myself to hear, "I promise Selena, that I will do my best, although, if we must stay here for the rest of our lives, I will need your help." I stop and wait for her answer, but all I hear is soft and light laughing as her presence fades from my mind.

I get back up to all four of my hooves, and with a newly invigorated mind set, I dry myself off using one of the soft white towels. When I finally finish with the task, I feel so much better than I did earlier. In fact, I don't even smell like a horse anymore as far as I can tell!

With a small bounce in my step, I go to my bathroom door and push it open, walking softly onto the carpeted floor. I trot into the living room and announce to my sister, who is sitting next to my coffee table with her lap top open in front of her, typing away. "Tia! Shower's open now!"

She jumps at my loud entrance, not expecting me to shout. Then, she recollects herself so as not to show that I had surprised, then sighs, saying, "Okay! By the way, what is it with Shadow and cops?"

Now it's my turn to start in surprise. "How do you know who Shadow is?"

She lets a brief moment of guilt flash across her face before responding. "I may or may not have looked at some of the messages on your compute…"

The flashes of mistrust I feel bring back the feeling of that gaping hole in my chest. Does she still not trust me? One's computer is obviously one of their most sacred areas of privacy, mine more so than average as I kept a sort of virtual diary on there. And she decided to just, jump on there and invade that privacy? "Yes Lu-" No, I will not go down that path again; the last time I did, I almost killed her.

I shake my head clear of the webs of anger and depression, and say, "Ah, that makes sense. Also, you said something about cops? I was hoping to speak with him."

"Shadow said something about running away from cops; I think that he may be busy for a while." She gets up from her lap top and closes the lid before sighing. "I'd ask what they did to attract so much attention to themselves, but I prefer not to, considering what I remember of Fireball."

Just at the mention of the name I feel myself wince. "I can tell why you'd be a little uneasy with a pony with that name."

She chuckles a bit and then sighs again. "If you knew only the half of it."

Without knowing what else to say, we both kind of stand there in an awkward silence. After a few seconds, I finally break the silence by saying, "Well, I'm going to go back over there to my computer, and you should probably go hop in the shower."

She smiles mischievously at me and winks. "Good idea, I'm smelling a bit horsey," She chuckles. Oh god, why with the puns?! Granted I was thinking some of those thoughts earlier, but still!

I sigh exasperatedly and nearly face hoof, but stop myself; don't want to give myself too much brain damage. "Oh whatever! Anyways, I'll see you in a little bit." I turn and trot back to my computer, still disturbed that she looked around a bit on my computer and sit down.

I open the word document that held all of the promising comments from earlier. However, what was a big shocker was how much more genuine it sounded than some of the others; well, it did to me at least. But before blindly trusting another stranger, I yell out to Celestia "Hey Sister! Could you come here real quick?"

Fortunately, I catch her just before she is able to reach the bathroom, so she turns around with a look of curiosity in answer to my request. "What is it Sister?" Then she shakes her head, as though she's unsure of something. "That still sounds rather weird to openly say that."

It did feel like that for me as well when I called her sister. I guess that means I'm still used to my last twenty-five years as a human. "Yeah, I agree with you there. Anyways, I was looking on the forum again, and I saw a new comment that looks pretty promising, so I was wondering if you could give me your advice on this one?" I push away from the desk and roll away on my Comfortable Wheelie Chair of Awesomeness, which is still deserving of its title even though I'm now a pony.

As she walks over, she sighs again out of irritation from being kept from her shower and from me finally asking her for advice. "You know how lucky you are that I'm here in the first place? I guess I'm just trying to say please don't take my being here for granted again. I could be visiting the friend I came here to see, but I'm not." Her brow furrows as she thinks about something that's obviously troubling her.

I decide not to pursue the matter, using a bit of logic to figure out that this must be the friend that she had been visiting when she found herself in her…predicament. Before we begin to go down that road, I continue on the path we are on, metaphorically. "Well, you're here right now, and I've learned from my past mistakes, so that's all that matters for now. Now, could you please look at this message?"



 “Dear We are the Meta,
As I can see from your post, you have those weird tattoo thingies on your sides. I’ve been lucky because it took me at least a day to know what those were; even finding the proper name was a pain in the butt.
Anyway, we should really get in contact. Let’s just say that, as a man, I don’t like to boast my new pink mane, if you know what I mean.
Hope you answer soon.
~BerryFrost
P.S: If you speak French, everything will be easier :3” 



She trots up and leans closer to the screen to get a good look at the message, then mumbles a bunch of French mumbo jumbo under her breath before finally speaking English. "Hmm…it looks like we might have found another pony, although I'm not too confident about it considering how well it went last time." She stops for a moment to give me a very pointed look, to which I reply with a sheepish smile. "They're most likely also an ex-male by the way they described their mane color."

I chuckle at the thought of a guy waking up to find his hair is pink, when I remember just who is standing next to me. "Well, I'll reply to them and hope they're the real deal. Now, go get a shower already!"

She shakes her head and moves away, muttering, "Yeah, whatever sis," under her breath and successfully reaching my bathroom, this time without an interruption.

Since I am currently too lazy too even get out of the chair, I maneuver myself until my hind hooves are able to touch the floor and use them to drag myself back up to the computer. Of course, as soon as I reach the desk, I somehow manage to slip out of said chair and into a small heap on the floor.

With a few quiet curses I stand back up and get back up onto the chair, managing to do so without any more incidents. Once back into position, I sit there, trying to remember what I was going to do. Funny how your brain can do that sometimes, isn't it?

Suddenly I recall what I was doing, and I'm tempted to use my magic to form a little light bulb over my head just to humor myself, but I manage to resist the urge. I go straight to my forum and find the possible-pony reply, and reply to the reply; repliception!



Sorry it took so long to reply, but I was in a bit of a predicament. Anyways, if you have a skype, to contact me for further conversation, send a request to the user "we.are.the.meta". Well, talk to you then!
Sincerely,
We are the Meta



I hate leaving my reply so short, but I was not sure what else I could've put. However, the thought of soon communicating with another possible pony was very  satisfying. While I try to think of a good reward for myself, my stomach reminds me that I never did make breakfast for myself, amongst all the high emotions from this morning. Of course! Why don't I just use that as a reward?

I trot happily into the Kitchen and look through my ingredients. If I remember correctly, Tia did say she was planning on leaving today, and just in case she meant it, I'm going to cook her a great breakfast!

But, what should I make? I use my magic to grab one of the few cook books I have in my home, and I float it down gently to me. Placing it onto my cook book rack, I flip through it an almost blinding speed until I reach the recipe I want; soufflés.

I read the directions carefully, and now really testing my fine magic control, I go for all the items at once. I let my instincts on the matter take over, and soon, I have four eggs (with the yolk and white separated), one cup of milk, one-fourth cups of flour and butter, and one-and-a-half cups of cheese.

Doing a double check on all the ingredients, I begin to read the instructions and follow them to the letter. After about twenty minutes of hard work, I can finally put the nearly-finished crepes into the oven. I shut the door to the furnace with the breakfast meal inside and drag my hooves over to the kitchen chairs.

At the moment, I'm a bit too tired to even pull myself on to the chair itself, so I just drape myself over it instead. It's at this moment that I spy Celestia coming out of the bathroom, with her pink mane and tail both a bit damp. I groan and wave a hoof in her direction. "Hey Tia, since you said were you leaving at some point to day, I decided to bake something really good for breakfast."

However, she look a little despondent, and seems to barely even hear my statement. "That's great…"

I narrow my eyes at her worriedly, curious about what could've gotten her to be like this. "Celestia, what's wrong? You can tell me."

She shakes her head to clear it of the dark thoughts and sighs. "Don't worry, it's just a memory that I would have preferred not to have remembered." I can see that she doesn't really want to elaborate or speak anymore on this subject, yet again, I might add.

"Well, alright, but I'm still here if you need to talk about it." I slide my now muscular and thin body off of the chair and trot over to the oven. "The soufflés I'm making will be done in about twenty-five minutes, so I guess we now have time for that talk you wanted." I sit down onto my haunches and motion for her to begin, honestly hoping that she had forgotten about it in the past hour.

"Oh right." Damn it. "First, let's start with the curse; you seem to know about it. I'm afraid that all I have is a feeling that it's my fault somehow." Uh-oh, that may have been Discord's part of the curse for her; depression and loneliness for me, and guilt for her.

She goes to continue, but I raise a hoof to stop her. "No, don't even start thinking that way. If anything, it's more my fault than yours, seeing as how I was unable to stop him before he cursed me, so he then moved on to you."

She tilts her head questioningly and asks, "He?"

I sigh in irritation. Damn, how could I have forgotten that her memories are a little slow on the uptake, and that she was never even a fan of the show. "He, meaning Discord, the god of chaos in the realm of Equestria. Pretty much a less violent version of Eris from Sinbad."

"I'm afraid I don't know Eris either. The closest I know of chaos gods are the ones from Warhammer," She says, pausing and waiting for me to explain.

"Alright, basically Discord is the physical embodiment of chaos. He can pretty much do whatever he wants, and it usually consists of chocolate milk rain, cotton candy clouds, and pink skies." I hope that that will be enough of an explanation for her to remember hm now.

She thinks about my explanation for a few seconds before chuckling. "Heh, and the next thing you'll tell me is that he's voiced by John de Lancie."

I bite my lips and look around the room with an innocent look on my face. After a little while I finally meet her eyes. "Well, uh, he kind of is the voice of Discord…Anyways! What else did you need to talk about?"

She shakes her head quickly and makes such a sharp U-turn in the conversation, I swear I get whiplash from it. "Wait! You mean that Equestria has a Q of its own running amok?" Well, I have no idea who that is, but I'm just going to assume that it's someone like Discord.

"Well as far as I know, he is right now with all of us gone," I say, letting a small bit anger leak into my words. I can barely hear her mutter, "Great," under her breath. I sit there and try to think of a question to ask her, and suddenly, one comes to me. "Oh! Tell me about this friend of yours!"

Immediately, I see I may have hit a  sore spot, as she looks a little depressed as she talks about him. "Oh you mean the one I came to visit? Well let's see, his name is Michael Weston, although unfortunately he isn't a secret agent. He is a good author though." She drops her head a little bit as she pauses to think of anything more. "He is actually only two days younger than me, and his birthday was yesterday," She finishes, looking pretty depressed.

I start to comfort her, when I stop and realize something. "Hey Tia, you just said that your birthdays was basically about four days ago, right? On May 1st?"

She raises her head, interested in why I would be asking such a question. "Yes, why?"

I maintain a neutral look on my face as I keep talking. "Well, that's my birthday as well, even if it is at midnight."

"Well, that's rather fitting for you," She says with a snicker. "Not that I'm much better. In fact, if I remember correctly, noon is about the time I had my black out."

I raise a navy blue eye brow. "And also obtained your cutie mark?"

"Yes…"

I furrow my brows as I come to another realization. "And your friend Michael is only two days younger than you, right?"

She sighs again in irritation as she wants me to get to the point. "Yes, why? It's not like he's going to turn into a pony princess too. Not that his younger sisters would mind."

I chuckle lightheartedly, as I've always had a soft spot in my heart for children. "Well, I can imagine. Anyways, the point is, I think that they may be in the same situation that we are in."

She just shakes her head at my theory, either thinking it's too outlandish, or doesn't want to believe it. "I don't think so, though I did want to tell him about my... well I don't really how to call what happened to me anymore... He would most likely call the police otherwise."

That is a good point about the police, so she may want to go visit her friend pretty soon. I glance at the clock and realize that the soufflés will be done in just a little bit. I turn back to her and say, "Alright, we have enough time for one more question, so go ahead and ask."

She's a little hesitant at first, but then finally asks, "So…how is your family?" She doesn't notice my wince, as she suddenly becomes as happy as Cadence on ecstasy. "Or even better, a coltfriend?"

> 14. ...The Souffle is the Recipe
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 	The smile freezes on her face, and quickly droops to a sheepish smile, and a blush upon her muzzle. She's probably embarrassed about asking if I had a coltfriend, instead of a girlfriend.

As for me, I honestly don't know how to feel about that whole thing. Of course, there may be a little irritation from the coltfriend comment, but that was a slip of the tongue. Maybe a little bit of depression as I have never had a girlfriend, and then a little bit of neutrality at the mention of my family.

All-in-all, I have no idea how to react, so I don a look of confusion and sit down onto my rump. I move my lips side to side as I try to think of an answer, and my ears flick towards small sounds. Finally, I take in a breath to give my answer, "Well, no, I've never had a girlfriend or coltfriend of any kind throughout my life." I put an emphasis on the coltfriend bit just to tease her. "As for my human family, I haven't talked to any of them for at least a year; we've had…different opinions throughout life."

While at first she looks intrigued at what I've said, she gets a kind of queasy look on her face as she thinks about something else. Finally, she lowers her head, looking a bit down (Haha! Get it?! Because she uh, well never mind). "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to," She sighs, then recollecting herself, "I suppose it would be only fair if I answer the same question. I didn't have any coltfriend or girlfriend as you so pleasantly reminded me. As for my family, I'm mostly on friendly terms with them." Oh, as I so pleasantly reminded you? My tail twitches in a slight increase of irritation. Who's the one who even started that line of conversation?

However, my current train of thought is derailed and replaced by her next question. "I know that it may sound a little strange, but do you recall anything of our original parents?"

As per usual, there's only a quick flash, but I see, in my mind, a picture of a filly Celestia, with a golden tiara many sizes too big upon her head. She's smiling, and in the background I see a white-coated and red-maned alicorn grinning gently at Tia's antics, while she holds a younger version of me in her forelegs. Of course, I, being the younger one, am wailing a bit at the unfairness that my older sister gets to wear the crown and I do not.

And then, just as quickly as it came, the image is gone. I blink a few times, and realize that almost no time has passed, and my sister's lips are still barely moving from her query. I hold up a front hoof in an attempt to keep her from talking too much more. "Whoa sister, slow down! Let me answer a few of those."

She opens her mouth to reply, but then stops herself, smiling a bit. I smile back and continue, "First, probably a good thing neither of us ever had girlfriends, right? Also probably a good thing you're still on pretty good terms with your family, just in case we ever need help. And for the last question, all I remember is a picture of our possible mother when we were young."

However, I don't leave her any time to respond. "Now, I have a subject we sorely need to talk about; the past twenty-five years. I'll admit, I actually tried to forget about them, but the truth of the matter is, we cannot." Phew! I can't believe I would deprive myself of so much oxygen from talking so much!

She smiles and chuckles a bit, then proceeding to say, "I didn't know that ponies could speak that long without stopping for air." Oh, so my accidental self-suffocation is funny? Well, yeah, I guess it kind of is. "More seriously, what exactly do you want to know? Keep in mind that I have a few events that I'm reluctant to talk about, despite you having the 'I'm your long lost little sister' card."

Well, that's understandable, and I'm not one of those idiots who think they have the right to pry into your every memory. Sure there have been a few select incidents with those dreams for the past few nights, but that was on accident. "Well, I guess the most logical thing would be to tell each other about what's been happening in our lives for the past two and a half decades, particularly that incident with pink. I kind of want to know what happened there."

Her eyes widen in surprise, but she quickly recovers to reply, "So it was really you." Better believe biii-snitch (phew that was close)! "Helios said something about you having a power over dreams, but I didn't give it much attention at the time, considering it was just a dream." Well, they sorta kind of aren't just dreams anymore. Some mismatch of different creature has kind of turned them into nightmares for me to clean up.

However, she's not done talking, as she cuts me off like an ass hole driver. "As for the pink incident, what can I say? I missed being a princess," she finishes with a smirk.

I can see she's trying to make light of that little situation, and she's doing a pretty good job at it. However, I can tell something's bothering her; call it newfound sisterly intuition. "Hey, I can tell that things are bothering you more than you're letting on. Plus, I'm your long-lost little sister, and we share things that bother us, don't we?"

My attempt at humor with the long-lost little sister card fails, as she droops her head and her ears in defeat. "I'm sorry. I'm just not too used to speak about that problem. There was only one that I trusted enough before you," she says, exhaling a bit of breath. "Though you are right, there is something that bothers me about the whole thing now that I think about it. Everypo-everyone at school was oddly cruel about it. I mean it happened when I was in first grade for goodness sake! Does it make sense for them to hammer it down until I was done with high school?"

Tia does have a good point with that, and it is highly unusual for children in the first grade to act like that. Discord may have had something to do with it to target her at an early age. I refrain from mentioning this, as it may make her a little angry, and we need for her to keep a cool head.

I hear the ding of the oven as the hopefully delicious soufflés signify their completion. Good, this could help with her guilty look, because whenever I feel down, I find that eating helps me a bit with perking up; of course, that's one of the quickest ways to getting fat, but who cares?

I let a small grin bloom on my snout (which still feels a bit weird to call it mine), and begin walking towards the oven to grab the soufflés. "Well, let's discuss things over a nice meal, shall we?" I reach into the oven and bite down onto the dish.
~~~~~~~~~~
As it turns out, grabbing a dish that's still in the oven with your mouth is a really bad idea. When I touched the dish with my lips, I had jerked my head upwards, onto one of the red-hot cooking bars in the oven. This then started a small fire on my snout, but we were able to put it out in a few seconds. As a result, most of the fur on my snout was burnt off, and there were angry red marks on it as well.

On the bright side, my lips weren't damaged too badly, and the rest of my mouth was completely fine. What the hell was I thinking? Grabbing a dish in the oven with your mouth? Great, now I'll never live this down, and I can already see she's trying not to laugh at my bad luck.

Of course, then she did laugh in my face, but that's not the point; she at least tried to hold it in. After bandaging it the best we could with our limited control of magic, we sat down and ate the damned soufflés, even though I had the burns to get past. It struck me as odd that we had trouble applying the bandages, when earlier I had been able to pick up several objects and hold them there. I theorized that this may have been because it was accidental and instinctual, but I digress.

After we finished eating breakfast and talking, we just sort of drifted over to our computers for a couple hours and did our own thing. After those two hours though, Tia suggested that we go do sibling-building activities. This included painting each other's hooves, and practicing with our grooming…

Oh, who the hell am I kidding? About thirty minutes later, we getting into intense matches of everything from Civilization 7, and even into her non-favored genre; first-person shooters such as Halo and Destiny. The hours flew by, and before we knew it, the sun was beginning to go down.

After completing another puzzle of Portal 4 (It still irks me that they seemed to skip making a third one), I finally set down my controller and shut off the Xbox. "Well, that was a rather interesting day, wasn't it?" Before all of that, it had felt like having a stranger in my house, but now she felt just like a sister.

She gives me a grin and chuckles. "It was, although you do seem to have a lot of single-player games. I'm not judging you or anything, it just stuck out." Darn, she did notice that. I guess I'll have to explain that bit to her.

"Yeah, it's mostly because I've been a loner for most of my life. Even out on the internet, I didn't interact much with others." I turn away as a few painful memories come back to me of my high school years; watching as others walked away in big groups, laughing while I stood there in the background.

"Oh," she sighs, "I have a good idea of what you went through. Internet was my only escape..." Ah, another one of those that didn't enjoy much of the physical contact. "I wonder, did you meet my friend Michael while you both were going to school? It would make things easier if you weren't total strangers."

I chuckle and rub the back of my head with a hoof. "Well, I'm not actually even from Iowa. I used to live a couple states away in Colorado. I just moved here because of the climate." Well, it was also so I could find a place rather far away from my parents, and because I just felt something pulling me to this specific area.

She gives the pony equivalent of a shrug. "Oh well, I don't think he would have any trouble meeting you if you wish to do so, once I clear the whole 'I turned back into a pony princess' part with him."

Instead of replying, I just give her a simple nod and begin to walk to the Kitchen to prepare supper. As I flip through the multitude of cook books, I realize that I've never asked her what she wants for a meal. I trot back into the living room to look for her, and see aforementioned pony standing next to a window and staring directly into the setting sun.

I walk slowly over to her. "Hey Tia, I was just wondering what you would want for supper tonight." That's odd, she seems to be a little despondent.

However, as soon as I reach out a hoof to touch her shoulder, she shakes her head. "I'm afraid tha-" Whatever she was going to say is cut off by the ringing of her phone. There's a brief flash of worry across her face, and then she mumbles something like, "Wonder what happened," as she levitates her phone over to her. Unfortunately, the phone is touch-screen  and her voice has changed too much for it to recognize her.

Perhaps some other family member calling? No! She's my sister now! You can't have her. Letting a bit of suspicion leak into my voice, I ask, "Who was that? A family member?"

She winces, "No, worse; Michael."

Uh-oh, that was her friend, right? Well, no! She's still mine! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Of course, that'd be a bad idea to actually say that aloud, so I instead reply with. "That's your one friend, right? What are you going do?"

The worry comes back onto her face, and doesn't leave this time. "I'm going to see if I can contact him on Steam."

I step a bit backwards so as to get out of her way as she quickly trots over to her lap top.  That's rather odd; I haven't seen her this worried before. Okay, well, I have only technically known her again for about two days, but that doesn't matter. Realizing she may not be in the mood to decide what to eat, I leave her alone and head back to the Kitchen to prepare something simple, saying to her as I pass, "Well, let me know if anything changes."

She hears me, but just doesn’t respond, muttering under her breath as she notices a message from a few seconds ago. "I just hope it isn't as bad I imagine it to be."

I leave her to her thoughts and recede back into my lair, namely the Kitchen, and prepare a simple meal of grilled cheese sandwiches. Ha! I hope she isn't lactose intolerant. After a few more minutes of preparing, such as buttering the bread and cutting the cheese (Ha!), I put the sandwiches on the skillet just in time to hear her call my name (BOW CHICKA BOW WOW! Tucker, I fucking swear, if you say that one more time…).

"Luna! Come here quickly!" I blink in surprise; her voice was filled with both excitement and worry, so this either means she somehow found another pony, or she forgot where the bathroom was.

Either way, I walk casually into my living room. "Yes? What's wrong?" Of course, I do it with a relaxed tone to see if I can irritate her at all.

Of course, my endeavor is unsuccessful as she replies, "My friend found strange tattoos that appeared on both his sisters' thighs yesterday. Apparently today their eyes and hair started to change color. Even better, his own hair started to grow longer and change color too. Sound familiar?"

I have several ways I'd like to answer that query. First, what the hell was he doing, looking at his sisters' thighs? Second! Uh, well, I don't really have another answer. But anyways! "Are you going to go to them?"

She nods her head in confirmation. "Yes. They'll need help, and more importantly, answers. Well, my friend at least, his sisters are more likely to have a lot of fun." She stops and thinks for a moment before snickering. "Though, I wonder why a Cutie Mark hasn't appeared on him. Everypony else seemed to have one of those."

Yeah, well we can worry about that later. Right now I gotta focus on finishing cooking those sandwiches, and also to keep my mind from thinking about how I'm going to be all alone again once she leaves. I've already decided to stay behind back here at my apartment; last time I went out, it didn't go too well. "Well, can you at least stay for supper? I was thinking it'd be easier for us to get to his house by going one at a time."

I don't wait for her answer and immediately head into the Kitchen to finish the sandwiches. Suddenly, I realize that there's no pain whatsoever coming from underneath the bandages. Using my magic, I forego all risks and just rip them off. Strangely, my nose is completely healed and the fur almost grown back in; must be some type of earth pony trait.

My sister, being the slightly lovable oblivious idiot that she is, doesn’t notice this and goes ahead and gives her answer from earlier. "Yes, I told him that I'll eat with my friend before going. The darker it is outside, the less people will notice that it's a pony that's driving the car."

I roll my eyes and chuckle at that. She's pretty good at making jokes! Right? That was joke, wasn't it? Oh, I guess not, judging by the still serious look on her face. "Well, it might be a bit difficult to drive a car as a full-fledged pony," I say, as though it should've been sort of, maybe just a little, probably obvious.

She sighs and gives me a downcast look. "You're probably right... But I can't leave it here or it will attract the police interest sooner or later. I prefer to be sure that it won't cause us problems later on." She does have a good point about that…damn it. "Besides, I would most likely get lost in town without my GPS."

Oh yeah, that's right, she's not a native to this land. "Well, that is a good point. Hold on a sec'." I sit down onto my haunches and bring a hoof to my chin to think. "Well, it could be possible if you use your magic a little bit, but then you'll be pretty tired by the time you get there."

She just shrugs, and says, "I'm supposed to be able to move the Sun, so a car should be easy enough. Should I get too tired, I can most likely find a place without too much light to take a break. After all, darkness is your best ally when you want to hide, don't you agree?"

Yes, darkness is your best ally to hide…when you're a nocturnal predator chasing down prey through a thick forest. Thankfully, most humans aren't nocturnal, and those that are don't have as sharp of senses as other predators. "That sounds like it could work to me." I don't mention it, but it truly does bother me that she's leaving, and that we somehow decided that we should go separately. What kind of idiots are we?

I take the two sandwiches and place them onto two separate plates for my sister and I. Unfortunately, the sandwiches are a little burnt, due to distractions, but we'll deal with it. "However, you may want to exercise incredible caution, even at night.  There's no telling what could happen."

"I know," she sighs, " But still, it's the best option to reach my friend, hopefully before the more obvious pony features appear. Besides, I doubt that I'm very stealthy regardless of the time of day." She points to her white coat and pink mane. I notice a few pastel colors coming in at the base; she's regaining her powers as well.

"Yet again, a good point." I take a bite out of my sandwich, then taking advantage of my enlarged mouth, I shove half of the remaining sandwich in. I don't care if it's narcissistic, but damn, I'm a good cook.

I glance out the window and chew my food, thinking of something new. Once I swallow (BOW- Not right now Tucker, now's not a good time.), I say, "It may be a good idea to leave right as the sun's setting; that'll make it a lot harder for people to see you clearly." Looking out the window a bit more, I realize she only has a few minutes left before then; she should probably leave now.

She, also very  unlike the princess she's supposed to be, quickly wolfs down most of her sandwich. "You're right. There's just one thing left that we need to talk about before I leave; it would be best if we had a sure way to be able to contact each other."

"Well, my phone should be fine for usage, but yours may be a bit of a problem as it's touch-screen. Unless you've found some way to work around that?" I ask hopefully. Seriously, if she can't at least answer calls, then we may be in a spot of trouble.

She  takes another bite from her sandwich before replying, "Well, I do have a pencil especially for that usage, although, I normally use it for games. Besides, I didn't want to answer for obvious reasons." She pauses another moment to take a bite of her dwindling food. "I'll bring my computer with me, so we should be able to stay in contact much more easily with it. Actually, I was wondering how much control you had on your Dream Walking ability. It could be useful if you don't hear from me later tonight."

Well damn, how did I not think of this? I'm supposed to be the brains here! Well, of course no offense to you sister. "I like that idea! I'll see what I can do tonight, and you could give me an update as well if you reach his house before morning." Or at least, I hope she can find it.

"Well, you should have news in less than an hour." She reaches out with her hooves to begin packing her lap top, when she stops, backs away a little bit, and begins to use her magic. Wow, I'll admit I've had trouble using my magic in fine-control, but she's just rubbing it in! She makes it look so easy!

Masking my small bit of jealousy as well as I can, I watch as she finishes packing up her lap top. When she finishes, she looks around the room to see if there was anything else she had missed. Upon seeing that she all she had brought was her lap top, she walked over to the door, and I followed her. "Well Tia, I guess this is good-bye again for a little while. I hope to see you soon."

She stands there for a few moments, seemingly undecided about something. That's when she surprises me by turning and enveloping me in comfortable embrace. "I hope to see you soon too, sister."

Damn it, now I'm getting all emotional! I can feel some tears coming to my eyes as I hug her back. "Please do stay safe," I say, as she lets go of me.

"Don't worry. You managed to hold your own against several armed men while you barely knew what you were doing. There should be enough blunt objects around to defend myself," she says, giving me a wink. I decide not to tell her that I got incredibly lucky.

"Still, be careful if you run into them," I say with a bit of an authoritative voice. I back away from her, retreating into my apartment a little bit. "I guess I'll see you in hopefully  just a couple of hours." I never was good at farewells. Stupid things made my life awkward.

She opens her mouth to say something, but then closes it and just nods at me instead. "I will be, see you soon." For some reason her assurances don't comfort me very much, but I may be overreacting. She tries to wave at me while walking away, but the lack of a hoof on the ground causes her to fall over. "Eh, that on doesn't count." It takes all of my will power not to burst out in laughter.

"Of course not," I say with a smile, "Just remember not to fall over this time."

She got back up onto her hooves and smiled, waving without moving this time. "I'll try." After she puts her hoof down, she hesitates for a moment, then turns and leaves the hallway, entering the elevator and going to the ground floor.

I close my apartment door and stand there for a few seconds, the smile slowly sliding off of my face. Well, what do I do now? It's like the will to do anything at all has left me completely, which is odd because I usually love being left alone.

After what seemed like a few minutes but what was really only a few seconds, I move from where I'm standing and move to my bedroom window and look out onto the parking lot.

I chuckle a little bit; she really should be more careful, as I can easily see her from here, trying to sneak from car to car. Fortunately, I don't think that anybody else sees her, as she reaches her car with no interruptions.

She quickly opens the driver side door, jumps in, and closes it. I can see the car rocking (Don't you even think about saying it…) as she gets into a more comfortable position. Eventually, the car starts up, slowly leaves the parking lot, and drives off to the south.

I let out a sigh and turn away from the window, walking back into my apartment with no idea of what to do. Looking at the clock, I realize that while the sun has gone down, it's still pretty early in the evening. Well, what I consider to be pretty early.

I decide to start with cleaning the Kitchen from our recent meal. Walking into the Kitchen, I see that there's barely even a mess in the first place. All in all, it takes me about three minutes to rinse and stick the dishes in the dishwasher.

I trot back into my living room and practically jump back onto my leather couch, absolutely bored and frustrated with nothing to do. Eventually, I decide to kill some time and people by playing my new Destiny game.

However, I just can't seem o get into it. I play for several hours and get a bit farther in the campaign (They make those story modes long as hell now!), but I just can't get my mind off of my sister, worrying for her safety. I mean, she could've gotten into an accident, been seen by those black armored people from earlier, or any number of hazards that I can think of!

I catch myself starting to hyperventilate. It's okay Luna, calm down. You may or may not just be overreacting. My self-encouragement doesn't seem to help too much, but it keeps me from freaking out.

I pause the game when I come to another realization; when did I come to care so much for another stranger? I mean, I know earlier it felt just like having a great sibling that I could along with greatly, but I was never that way with other people, not even the friend I'd had since first grade.

Was I really so longing for relationship that I'd drop my shell for somebody I hadn't even remembered for twenty-five years? Oh well, that doesn't matter at this point. Even if I can not quite consider her a sibling just yet, I can definitely consider her a friend, and someone who's in the same boat as me.

I pause the game and look at the time, see it to be just a little bit past nine. I guess I might as well look around on the internet for more possible ponies. To be honest, I'm surprised I haven't seen more on people-turned-pony on the net. I save and quit at the point where I am and stretch, not unlike a cat.

After I sigh in relief from the satisfying chain of pops along my back, I casually walk over to my computer chair and hop in, stopping myself in front of the monitor. I quickly open up a browser, and begin my search.
~~~~~~~~~~
I guess the first thing that tips me off would be the fact I'm floating above my body, which has its blue-furred face pressing into the desk. Aw, aren't I so adorable? Hm, is that narcissistic? Oh well.

I suppose this means that I should look for Tia's dream stream now, seeing as how I probably won't get any more searching done tonight. As soon as I start looking through the sky for Tia's stream, I spy something odd instead.

It's another dream stream, and definitely a pony's because of the bluish color, but it's altered a bit, kind of like how Shadow's had been when he had the Discord Nightmare. But instead of odd little pieces of junk, this seems almost…saturated in lightning.

I follow where it's going, and fortunately for me, it appears to go into some random house near the mall in town, so no crazy, high-speed flight across America. I will myself up closer to the stream, and I swear I can hear faint echoes of a scream coming from it. I steel my resolve and prepare to jump in, when I'm yanked high-speed (son of a bitch) back into my own body.

My head snaps up as what sounds like a grenade comes from next door. I groggily shake the sleep from my eyes and look at the time on the digital clock across the room; about a quarter of two in the morning. Who the hell decided it would be a good time to set off explosives in an apartment at two in the morning?!

I grumpily hop off of the seat I miraculously didn't fall out of and march to the apartment door. At this point, I don't care who sees me, because whoever interrupted my sleep and rescue of that pony will have to pay the consequences!

I get to my door and open it, not slamming it open, but not super cautiously either. I look around the hallway for evidence of explosive; nothing. I smell the air for evidence of explosives; nothing. Although, there is a scent of something I can't place, familiar, but not familiar enough.

I swing my head left to right to check for others in the hallway, and upon seeing none, I come completely out of my apartment for a more thorough examination. As I walk past Fiona's door, I hear hushed voices, too quiet for me to hear.

I connect the dots in my head, finally coming to a conclusion; it must be those friends of hers! Those loud obnoxious bronies that I can hear through my walls whenever they come over to her apartment. I growl quietly and walk back to my room grumbling. If they want to get in trouble for being loud troublemakers then so be it. Besides, I don't want to expose myself quite yet, and especially not to two bronies who would freak out at the sight of me.

I use my magic to quietly close my door (unlike some other people) and go back to my computer. As I sit down, I yawn wide enough that it actually pops my jaw. I guess I should go sleep in an actual bed this time. I move the mouse to my computer to wake it up so I could shut it down for the night. However, as I'm going through each tab and closing it, I notice another message from that Berry Frost person.



Look We are the Meta, my name is North Wind and I’m Strawberry’s friend. She got captured by some crazy German soldier mercenary… thing. If you really are in our camp, please find a way to contact me. Add me  on Skype or whatever program you use, please answer. Skype name : PeterMartineau1



I read through the message several times, finally getting the gist of it; a pony has been kidnapped, and possibly by those black-armored soldiers from yesterday. The sparks of irritation I felt grow until I am sitting at my desk in quiet fury. 

I quickly open up my Skype and type in his contact name. It was pretty easy to find him, as his was only one of two there. To start the conversation, I type in the best ice-breaking greeting I can think of.

We are the Meta: Hello?

> 15. Making Plans of All Kinds
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

                    I honestly have no idea as to why I expected this 'North Wind' guy to answer back immediately. I mean, who in their right mind would stay up until at least three in the morning on their computer? Most certainly not me, heh heh heh.
 
                    Anyways, after leaving several questioning hellos, I finally realize that he, or she, is probably asleep right now, and speaking of which, I should probably get to bed myself and try to contact Celestia.
 
                    I finally shut down my computer, turn off the monitor, and jump off of the chair to start heading towards my bedroom. Thankfully, one of the advantages that appear to have accompanied my change is night vision. I easily navigate my way to my bedroom, and once I walk through the doorway, another yawn forces its way out my mouth.
 
                    Wow, I didn't realize just how tired I was. I drag my hooves across the carpet and over to my bed, staring at it for a second. Then, I fall face first into the heavenly cushion. Or well, I attempt to. As it turns out, that doesn't work as well as it did as a human. I end up only getting my head to fall onto the plush bed, while the rest collapses onto the floor in a jumbled mess.
 
                    I groan in distress and frustration, forcing my legs under me again so I may stand upright. This time, I hop up onto the bed and then collapse. Needless to say, it's a bit more successful this time. I let my body sink into the soft cushions and close my eyes, ready to go save another pony from their nightmares. It doesn't take long before I finally feel myself slip into the world of sleep.
 
                    I open my 'eyes' and immediately observe two things; one, I do appear to have gone into my dream walking state, and two; I have no idea where I am. As I look around, I see nothing that even looks like my room or even much of anything at all. It's all just a giant blank space.
 
                    Any attempts of leaving by will power are utterly shut down, almost like something is blocking me from escaping. Well, if it's going to keep me here, the least this place could do is give me some place to sit! As if the space could read my mind, a long leather couch, much like the one in my living room appears, and seemingly from nowhere as well. Huh, that's odd. I wonder…
 
                    With my curiosity stoked, I imagine the most random thing can I conjure up in my imagination; a pink falcon with a cowboy hat, sitting astride a cyborg dolphin while wielding a Spartan Laser and machete.
 
                    And lo and behold, that exact creature appears in front of me, screeching strange noises and spewing lasers everywhere. I sit there for a moment, and a small maniacal grin makes its way onto my muzzle. For the next hour, I experiment in this strange little world, recreating entire battles and weapons from several video games, especially Halo.
 
                    But alas, as many things must, my fun eventually comes to an end. It starts with a maniacal laugh (from me, of course) and ends with me destroying everything I created in the blink of an eye. After finally coming off of that power rush, I examine the location again, mumbling to myself, "Okay, so this place obeys whatever I want, even going against many laws of physics…Aha! I must be in my own mind!"
 
                    I have no idea why it took me so long to figure out that I was in my own imagination, and apparently something else agrees. A slow clap filters through the empty space, and a very familiar voice seems to speak from everywhere. "Bravo, little Woona! Bravo! I must say, I thought it'd take you a bit longer to figure that out, seeing as how much space is in here."
 
                    That damned laughing erupts from all around me could only belong to one thing. "Discord," I growl, getting into more of a battle-ready pose. "While I can mostly ignore that jab at my intelligence, I cannot ignore the fact that you have invaded my privacy."
 
                    "Oh, but those are the fun bits! Especially with those humans! They're just soooo chaotic!" Okay, that's a bit creepy that he made that sound orgasmic, but not surprising whatsoever.
 
                    "But more than anypony else's, I love toying with your mind. I mean, all this anger and hate that you keep bottled up within you, oh it's glorious! So much like your old self, yet so different." Okay, I really want him out of my head now, and I especially want to keep him away from…that section of my mind.
 
                    "Discord, I swear, if you don't get out of my head right now, I'll rip your skull out along with your vertebrae!" Not totally sure how, but I'm totally going to stick to that promise even if he does leave my mind.
 
                    That same chuckle fills the room, "Well fine then party pooper," A big cone hat with the words 'party pooper' plops own over my horn, "I'll leave for now, but just remember, your little surprise comes in less than a day!" With that, I hear his cackle fade off into the background, and my surroundings begin to crumble.
 
                    I suddenly jerk upright in my bed, just into the right position for the sun to glare through my window and directly into my eyes. "Ow! God damn son of a bitch!" I scream, as I tumble backwards off of my bed with my forelegs protectively covering my eyes.
 
                    Eventually, I recover from the merciless assault of the enemy known as the sun. I prop my front half back up onto my bed to stare down the yellow star (not directly). After a few seconds, I raise a hoof at the offending object in the sky. "Damn you, you big ball of exploding gas, if I still had fingers I'd be flipping you off so much right now!" I receive no response from what I used to think was an inanimate object. Just as I thought; that's Tia's area of specialty anyways.
 
                    I use my magic to close the curtains, and stop the light from mostly shining into my room. I sigh in relief and stand back up to my full height, which sounds impressive in my head, until I realize it's a mere five feet tall.
 
                    I groan at my self-realization, hating the fact that I am no longer a giant… well, no longer a giant in human standards anyways. With my tiredness obliterated by the assault of a certain star-that-shall-not-be-named, I walk out of my bedroom and into the living room. Huh, it feels so empty now, didn't think I'd get used to having someone I cared about in my life.
 
                    Without much to do right now, I walk over to my computer, pondering over Discord's little warning in my dream. I have no doubt that was him, even if it was in a dream; I'd seen his presence in dreams before. But that's not what matters. What matters is what this warning could be, but I have too little information to make an accurate guess or hypothesis. As much as I hate it, I'll just have to wait and see what this 'surprise' is.
 
                    Filing that little bit of mental conversation away for a later date, I boot up my computer and get everything up and running. Once the screen shows my familiar background of me, I jump into the chair and get to work.
 
                    First on my list of things to do, is to see if that North guy is awake yet. Moving my mouse until the cursor is over the Skype icon, I then proceed to open the application until I have the correct chat up on my monitor. I click the small chat bar at the bottom of the screen and type in a new message.
 
We are the Meta: You awake yet?
 
                    Apparently, I hold some luck today, or at least this morning, as I only have to wait a few seconds for the other person to respond.
 
PeterMartineau1: yes who are you
 
                    Well, not the most friendly welcome I've received from somebody (or pony) who needs my help, but I can understand if they feel a bit rushed or short.
 
We are the Meta: The person you contacted last night about a "Strawberry Frost"
PeterMartineau1: oh sweet luna, i reaslly need yoiur heslp
PeterMartineau1: typklng with hooves is hsard
 
                    Well sweet Mother Theresa on the hood of a Mercedes Benz! You sound like a majestic fucking genius!
 
We are the Meta: I can imagine. I guess I can consider myself lucky haha.
PeterMartineau1: har haf, what pony hsvd you turmed into
We are the Meta: Well, you kind of swore to me a second ago.
 
                    Now wait a few seconds for the realization to sink in…
 
PeterMartineau1: waikt, oh nkmerciful, m9ik sorry princes
We are the Meta: Yes! Fear my wrath! You shall now be sent to the moon for swearing about me!
PeterMartineau1: ohn pldeasde prk ess, dl nt do it
 
                    Oh please tell me this guy isn't seriously taking me serious, because that was obviously a joke, even in text form!
 
We are the Meta: ...
We are the Meta: You know that was sarcasm, right?
PeterMartineau1: ... obvkioudly
We are the Meta: Hard to tell with your difficulty typing.
PeterMartineau1: slorry princedsd
We are the Meta: It's fine.
 
                    Yeesh, if we keep this up, I could have them kissing my hooves in less than an hour. Well, that is depending on where they are right now. But, I digress, so back to the matter at hand!
 
We are the Meta: Anyways, what was this about a kidnapped pony?
PeterMartineau1: she tried to save her secret by inmfiltratimng a lab and it swsds a trap
 
                    I nearly slam my head into the desk, but stop myself by remembering about the horn. Seriously?! If she was half pony at the time, why the hell did she think this was a good idea?! Okay, calm Luna, just calm down.
 
We are the Meta: Hmm, she should have just left it alone. With the condition she was probably in, I don't see why she thought it was a good idea.
PeterMartineau1: me neither4, now , she kis captured sn d i nmeed help.
 
                    Well, hopefully they're some place close so I can help them out with this little (not really so little) problem.
 
We are the Meta: Well, I'm not sure how close I even am to you. What city or town are you in?
PeterMartineau1: muxcxatine
PeterMartineau1: lows
 
                    Oh, I could have fun with this.
 
We are the Meta: Is that a Russian town?
PeterMartineau1: obviuslyt
PeterMartineau1: jusd
PeterMartineau1: us
PeterMartineau1: muscatune
 
                    Muscatune? That sounds an awful lot like…
 
We are the Meta: ...Muscatine, Iowa?
PeterMartineau1: yhddyerd   yes
 
                    Okay, this is getting too weird! What is it about Muscatine and people turning back into ponies?!
 
We are the Meta: I am tired, of all these motherfucking coincidences in this motherfucking town!
PeterMartineau1: wnst dl you ean
 
                    I sigh out loud and rub a hoof against my temple in an attempt to calm down. "It's okay Luna, sure there are way too many coincidences for it all to be an accident, but that's not what matters right now.
 
We are the Meta: Basically, I met my long-lost sister here in Muscatine right when she (used to be a he) was visiting a friend for their own birthday party.
PeterMartineau1: wolw
PeterMartineau1: ... wkjll youhelkpo md
We are the Meta: If I'm reading this correctly, then yes, I most definitely will.
PeterMartineau1: thdn, yoim mnr\\]\\\\
PeterMartineau1: olopds
 
                    The pony suddenly stops sending random messages of gibberish that I think are supposed to convey gratitude. About a minute later, I see the familiar symbol that says they're writing, before much less sloppy text appears.
 
PeterMartineau1: pencil usage activate
PeterMartineau1: youll need my address
We are the Meta: I would like to go straight to wherever she is, as it'd be quicker, but I feel I should talk to you first. Go ahead and send it.
 
                    I scramble to look for a piece of paper and pencil as quickly as I can, and get back to my screen just as they post the information I need.
 
PeterMartineau1: 2200 5th avenue; here is my address. i dont know their exact address only where it is
 
                    I write down the address they give me and fold up the piece of paper, placing it on my desk for later.
 
We are the Meta: Okay, I'll see you in anywhere from 25 to 50 minutes.
PeterMartineau1: why such a difference
PeterMartineau1: anyway, see yaslkfahsfdshalkfhksdlfhvbdskf\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
 
                    Well fine, disconnect before I can give a chance to explain, although I do wonder why his message went all to gibberish there at the end. Oh well, I'll see him in a little bit anyways.
 
                    And now, to contact Tia and to explain why I didn't contact her in her dreams last night. I open the chat for her Skype (we exchanged information yesterday) and type in a quick message.
 
We are the Meta: Morning sis.
Sarikano: Morning Lulu. I'm sorry I forgot to contact you yesterday, I was quite busy with my friend and foalsitting her sisters.
 
                    I'll admit to some guilty pleasure of her calling me Lulu now, even if I still feel more connection to the name John. Although, there is one oddity I noticed in her message.
 
We are the Meta: "Her?" I thought you said your friend was a boy. Unless, they turned into a mare as well?
Sarikano: Well... You are a fan of that cartoon right?
We are the Meta: Yes, I am. Not sure what the relevance is though...
Sarikano: Do you remember that episode where Pinkie Pie gets a new co-worker?
 
                    What's she getting at now? I hate it when people beat around the bush. Unless it's me of course heh heh heh.
 
We are the Meta: I believe so.
Sarikano: Well... My friend and her sisters are actually the fillies that the mare foal-sat.
We are the Meta: Oh my. Are they rather troublesome?
Sarikano: It's nothing new. At least my friend should be able to help keep them in check. Something tells me that she'll end up playing dress-up before she is a full pony.
 
                    I wince at that, knowing quite well how that could feel. Well, not as a pony, but being the younger sibling of an older sister did have quite a few of those moments.
 
We are the Meta: Ah. Well, it'll be longer than we thought until I can meet up with you now.
Sarikano: Something happen to you while I was gone? Oh, and my friend has only fainted twice so far.
We are the Meta: Well, they're taking it better than I thought. Anyways, I received a distress call from another pony. Apparently one of their friends got caught when trying to keep their secret.
Sarikano: Oh... As much as I want to feel sorry for the poor ponies... Do you have any indication that the story is true? And about taking it well... My friend's sisters decided to brush both my mane and tail into a ponytail and tied it up using blue ribbons. You have no idea how good the brushing felt...
 
                    Um, okay, too much information right there Tia. And as much as I hate to admit it, she's right about suspicious. I have no idea if these people are really ponies! They're like that rule on the internet; every girl you meet on the internet is a guy. However, I can't help but shake the feeling this one is real.
 
We are the Meta: That, sounds a bit creepy. And no, I don't have any indication that this one is a pony either, but I'm going to trust them this time. Don't worry, I'll be super cautious and not blunder into it this time.
Sarikano: *sigh*If it wasn't of the fact that my friend is most likely going to get younger at an unknown rate, I would propose to join you, just to be certain. We deducted that her pony self was only eight year old... One year younger than her sisters.
We are the Meta: Hm, that could be troublesome. I'll head right over there once I save this other pony.
 
                    That is, assuming I don't get caught and experimented on for the rest of my immortal life. It probably would be a good idea to bring a couple guards if I had them. Thinking of which…
 
We are the Meta: Also, Have you heard anything from Shadow Slash and Fireball recently?
Sarikano: No, sorry. You have no idea how having no news about Fireball worries me. Also, how good is your teleportation?
 
                    That change of subject was so quick it gave me whiplash. It's almost like she didn't want to even talk about those two for some reason. But I'm also guessing that she's wanting to get back to the matter at hand/hoof.
 
We are the Meta: Haha, not good at all. I actually haven't even tried flying yet.
Sarikano: And I suppose you don't remember your mist form spell either? That one could be useful to both confirm that it isn't a trap and for defense.
 
                    Damn it Tia, I'm a newly reshaped pony, not a magical genius!
 
We are the Meta: I've only taken a form like that in my dream walking. I'm hoping to go mostly stealth on this.
Sarikano: If magic is out of question... What about changing the rendezvous point at the last minute? That would largely reduce the chances of a trap. Also, does the pony know who you are?
We are the Meta: The pony who contacted me does.
Sarikano: Well... Good luck. Contact me as soon as you are certain that you are safe. I'll tell you where my friend live at that moment.
 
                    Well, she seemed to be a bit hesitant with the part concerning the pony knowing who I am. As an afterthought, that may not have been the brightest idea to tell them that. And what, does she not trust me with the location of her friend's house yet? Why, I'm hurt! I thought we were sisters!
 
We are the Meta: Not meaning to sound like a spoiled brat, but why can't you give it to me now?
Sarikano: It's not that I don't trust you, but it's the only place that I know to be completely safe at the moment. And you know how good humans can be at torture. I wonder how original they could be with a being extremely hard to kill.
 
                    Murphy's Law! Abort abort abort!
 
We are the Meta: Hey, we don't know how indestructible we are, ok? And I'd rather not test it.
Sarikano: Still more resistant than humans. Which means they can do things much worse to you if they somehow manage to capture you. I'm sorry, but it's better that way.
We are the Meta: Fine. Anyways, I'll contact you somehow when I'm done over there.
Sarikano: Do you still have my phone number?
We are the Meta: I believe so.
Sarikano: Hopefully me being Canadian will prevent them from tracking me down easily if they manage to get it.
 
                    I have no idea if that would work, or why that'd even be relevant. With the amount of satellites in the sky, they could most likely find her easily by cell phone.
 
We are the Meta: Maybe. That might also have nothing to do with it. I believe they can track you by using satellites and from where your signal came from.
Sarikano: Hopefully the guys in black after you weren't the CIA then...
We are the Meta: Yeah, no kidding. Anyways, I'll see you later.
Sarikano: I'll see you later little sister and above all, stay safe.
 
                    With that, I log out of Skype and shut down my computer, still feeling a little iffy about her calling me little sister. I mean, it's nice and all, but I'm just not sure about it right now. I'm used to being a man! At least I can get used to being the younger of two to an older sister again.
 
                    I give my house a quick walk-around to make sure that no ovens are going and that all lights are off, putting items I need into a bag with a strap that’ll go around my neck before I go. Once I am finally satisfied with how my apartment looks, I pick up the small bag, filled with nothing but a few snack and pieces of cloth to wrap around my hooves for when I attempt to go stealthy.
 
                    I walk up to the door, and almost open it, when I hear voices on the other side. I quickly draw back my hoof, giving a sigh in relief that I didn't open the door. I press my eye against the small peep hole viewing out into the hallway. Apparently, all of my neighbors (minus Fiona for some reason) had all decided it'd be a good idea to go out into the halls at the exact same time. From what I can see, they all appear to have their attention focused on Fiona's apartment.
 
                    Odd, but not my problem right now. I need to get to the pony's house, but how am I supposed to get there if the halls are all filled? I look around the apartment for some kind clue as to what I can do, and eventually my gaze falls upon the window in my room.
 
                    Slowly, I walk over to the window and cautiously slide it open. The wind rustles my mane as I stick my head out the window looking down onto the parking lot. I must be one crazy mother bucker, but I might be able to at the very least glide out of here.
 
                    I glance back at the two dark blue appendages as I flex the unfamiliar muscles, feeling a bit unsure about this idea. But, I need to leave now, and the hallway is filled with humans who would probably freak out as soon as they see me, so this was, unfortunately, my best option.
 
                    I unlatch the window, grab hold of the bottom of the window with my hooves, and slowly slide it open. I feel the wind blow through my already partially-wavy hair and gulp, attempting to swallow my nervousness. I’d never been afraid of heights; I’d just been afraid of falling from said heights, so you’d have to understand my nervousness at jumping out of a third-story window.
 
                    Swallowing again, I pull the front half of my body out the window until my wings can open. I flex the muscles and slowly spread my wings, shivering at the feeling of each feather sliding across each other. My god, this just feels so right! I can feel my nervousness fading as I sit there, eyes closed, with the wind blowing over my spread wings.
 
                    I smile as I open my eyes, now fully prepared for this. I crouch a little, and then, I jump from the window with my wings spread, catching the air.
 
                    Shit shit shit! Abort! I am regretting this very much right now! AAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!! I start freaking out as my wings don't seem to catch the air quite as well as I thought they would. Instead of gracefully gliding from the window as I'd hoped, I start to wobble through the air like a poorly controlled RC plane.
 
                    The ground starts speeding up underneath me as I "glide" towards the cars in the parking lot. Maybe if I start to angle myself downwards  a little bit so I can land before I start going too fast? I start to as I thought, angling myself so I can land. It'd be really rough, but at least I wouldn't be gliding anymore. Unfortunately, I'm not looking forward, so I fail to noticed the broad side of the car in front of me until the last second.
 
                    I lower my head, close my eyes, and grit my teeth in preparation for the impact, which comes in just a few seconds. It feels like my horn is almost getting pushed back into my skull with the amount of pressure being applied to it, then the pressure is just gone.
 
                    I crack open my eyes to see the rest of my body pressed against the outside of the car. Groaning in pain, I touch my hooves down onto the asphalt and start to raise my head, when suddenly I find I can't. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," I growl, as I realize that my horn is stuck and wedged through the glass window.
 
                    I press my forelegs against the frame of the car and push, trying to pull out ("BOW CHICKA BOW WOW!" You know what? I don't even care anymore…) of the damn window. I can feel and hear the glass slowly cracking as I apply even more pressure.
 
                    Suddenly, I hear voices coming in my direction, and the car I'm currently stuck into the side of beeps as the owner unlocks it. I start pulling even harder, as well as pushing a little bit of magic power through the bony appendage. The magic does the trick as the glass shatters, freeing me, but also setting off the alarm at the same time.
 
                    Son of a bitch.
 
                    The voices are replaced with running footsteps as the owner sees the flashing lights on their car. Oh god, I can't be seen like this! They're gonna freak out and call the animal control! Then that'll be it for getting back to my sister. In my panic, I don't realize the amount of power I'm channeling into my horn, and as they start to round the corner, one thought runs through my mind; I need to hide, now!
 
                    As soon as I think said thought, I feel my body dissolve super fast, until suddenly I'm nothing more than a collection of oddly colored mist. Just in time too, as a girl I've never seen before comes around the corner with a friend and sees the broken window. Fortunately, she doesn't even seem to notice me as she starts freaking out, looking around for any suspicious characters as well.
 
                    I can feel my energy start to wane, so I use what I practiced in my dream walking state and will myself over to a small area hidden by some bushes. Once there, I release all of my hold on magic and rematerialize, thumping down onto the ground.
 
                    Well, that was a thing. A grin takes up my face as I realize what I just did, but I quickly squish the excitement; we have work to do, I can freak out about this later. I stand back up on all four hooves, checking my surroundings to make sure it's safe for me to move on. Strangely enough, the road next to my apartment is currently devoid of traffic.
 
                    As I am not one to look the gift horse in the mouth (Pun totally intended!), I take this chance to get moving. I use my currently limited magical abilities to open the bag tied around my neck and take out the small slip of paper with the address printed on it.
 
                    “Ok, so if I’m remembering correctly, then the house should just be a few blocks away,” I quietly mutter to myself. Alright, so if my calculations are correct, I should be able to get there in about twenty minutes, and that’s without any interruptions. I place the paper back into the bag and pull the straps closed.
 
                    Just to be cautious, I check ahead down the street for another hiding spot to dash over to. About fifty feet away, a small bush offers some hiding space. I get into a stance where I can easily dash over to the area quickly, and after I check the road again, I spring forward. Unfortunately, I haven’t tried running as a pony yet, and only end up getting my hooves tangled up as I attempt to make it to the bush. I fall, and not very easily either, if the scraped up shoulder is anything to go by.
 
                    I get back up as quickly as possible, and run to the hiding spot. Once I reach it, I quickly look down at the scraped shoulder, which really isn't as bad as it had felt. Shrugging off the previously thought-to-be serious-ish injury, I begin making my way the rest of the way to the house.
 
                    On the way, I rarely ever encounter a car, and when I do, I'm close enough to a hiding spot to not be seen. The sounds my hooves make on the concrete do nothing to help my nerves, as the echoing clip-clop starts to make me paranoid. What if somebody hears it and comes to check?
 
                    It's questions like these that make me go a little slower than I had hoped to be going, and by the time I get the house in sight, almost thirty minutes have gone past. I sneak as quietly as a pony can across pavement, with water from the recent storm splashing up onto my legs, eventually making it to the front door of the house. The car parked outside indicates that someone is home, and I can only hope that it's a pony and not a person. I shudder to think of what would happen if I had the wrong house.
 
                    I reach up and tap the button to ring the doorbell, hearing the chiming sound echo through the house. I receive no answer immediately, not even a dog barking, so I can fortunately assume that there are no dogs here. I ring the doorbell again and look around, hating having to be standing out in the open with so many houses around me.

        Of course, the way my luck’s been recently doesn’t seem to have gone away, as a man opens the door very suddenly. I jump away from the door as quickly as possible as he stands there looking at me. Was that whole thing just another trick?!

        As we both just stand there and do nothing but stare at one another, I decide to study him a bit more closely. He actually looks a bit like Joel from The Last of Us, but browner and older, with short brown hair and blue eyes. And my god, whenever I look at those eyes it’s like seeing the look in either David Tennant’s or Matt Smith’s eyes when they were playing the Doctor.

        He continues to stare at me, and once the awkwardness in the air gets so thick you could cut it, he just silently stands to the side and bows, apparently inviting me in. Okay, there is no way this isn’t a trap, but I don’t see any going back now. A voice shouts from somewhere further into the house. “Who is it?”

The man who just let me enter the household shouts back, “The horse princess.” Excuse me? Do I look like a horse to you?

        The running hoofsteps alert me to the other ma- no, pony’s presence as he enters the room. This newcomer is...blue. That's literally all I can describe him as right now. He has a light blue coat, with a darker blue mane, and that nice whitish blue for his eyes. Unlike his human associate, who is standing uncomfortably close to me, this pony seems to act quite young. He quickly slides to a stop on the tile, tripping in the action and falling flat on his muzzle; charming. He stands back up and bows. “Sorry your highness, you’ll have to forgive Regi here for his nickname of you. He can be funny like that,” He chuckles good naturedly.

        “Oh, I’m sure,” I smile, turning to ‘Regi’ and holding up a hoof for him to take. “Well, I guess you could call me Princess Luna, although I’d just prefer Luna, or even John,” I say with a smirk.

Regi and the pony, whom I’m assuming to be Peter look at me curiously  because of  my comment about my name. ''John? Oh, it must be your human name.'' 

''Okay, we get it, you were human. Now when can we go get that bi- sane and kind pony out of that German's grip? It kind of weighs on my conscience right now,” Regi says rather snidely. Whoa dude, calm down; there’s no reason to start acting up right now other than a kidnapped pony...

''Let's just relax a bit for now. We can go in 30 minutes,” Says Peter in a calming voice towards Regi.

I sit back onto my haunches and hold up my forehooves. “Whoa, hold on guys, slow down! I literally just got here, and have close to no idea as to what’s going on. So, could you please explain?” I say, still rather confused as to the whole situation.

“Well somepony you already know who is here and whom name starts with Regi sold another pony compadre to a crazy german who… love ponies? I don’t even know. They’re guys in mercenary suits. I’ve seen them around town lately… Oh Berry…” Peter sighs rather depressedly, and then quickly breaks down into tears. Yeesh, I wonder just what happened to him.

“Look who became a real softie with this transformation. Does losing your metaphorical balls come with the package?” Whoa, that was a little  uncalled for; there’s no need for talk like that.

I raise my forehoof again in a peaceful gesture. “Hey guys, slow down, and enough with the insults. Now, start from the beginning. What happened?”

“Well, let’s start with the culprit,” says Peter, giving a VERY pointed glare at Regi.

“Okay, Betsy. That German guy, I think he was called Fynn, just entered and went through security like any normal visitor, but he told me to be aware of anything suspicious. Then he started rambling about a client who wants to catch pastel colored ponies and that they were dangerous for some reason. I just shrugged it off as a guy high on shrooms.” Regi shrugs with a look lacking in care and sighs. Well, I can’t really blame him for thinking the guy was high. If somebody’d told me that they were attempting to catch characters from a little girl’s show, then I’d think he was high too.

“After that party we held for Anthony’s birthday on the first, I started to see things wrong with him. Sure, I only saw him once or twice after, but it was enough to fire up suspicion. Then, that Berry guy popped up out of nowhere, claiming to be related to Anthony and living in his house. Anthony never told me about pink freak before.” He looks down at the plastic bag in his hand with disgust, which I see holds a strand of pink hair.  I huff irritatedly, getting rather annoyed how he keeps referring to one of the ponies.

“So, I’ve decided to find out who she was by ‘entering’,” He curls fingers in air quotes, “This house here and taking some hair back to the lab. After analyzing it, that’s when I realised that she was about 75% horse. I thought that it might be what that crazy german told me. So when I heard our security guard about her coming, I set up a trap and called the man. For… mysterious reasons, my trap was replaced by his men. He just came out of nowhere…” He buries his head in his hands, now seemingly ashamed of what he did. Honestly, I feel like I’m getting mixed signals from this guy; is he sad or disgusted with us?

“He gave me a briefcase full of money in exchange of her. What I only realized just after is that I had sold one of my employees, one of the best on the job… and one of my best friends. That briefcase suddenly felt heavier than the planet. I-I must repair my mistake. Sh-she’s gonna die because of me.”  I feel my eyes soften. Seems that tough guy I saw earlier may have just been an act, and he truly does regret what he did.

I start reaching over to comfort him, when what he said suddenly hits me. “Wait, what do you mean by die?”

“If I… remember his rambling, he said that those animals should all die before they took over the world. Guess that’s why I thought he was coo-coo,” Regi says.

“AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME EARLIER YOU STUPID BUFFOON!?” Peter looks like he’s about to jump Regi, so I move to stop him, but he just sits backs and glares furiously at the man.

“Hey, I just remembered. Calm your horses… heh.” I close my eyes in exasperation at the pun, and I can sense Peter doing the same as Regi chuckles. He stops chuckling after a couple of seconds, and his face goes serious again. “I guess that’s why my mind told me to save her asap.”

“Hey, it’s alright. If you help us save her without having set any traps beforehand, I might just forgive you!” I smile coldly at him.

“Look ‘princess’... prin...zess...in.” He stops to snap his fingers for some odd reason.“Were you by any chance attacked by mysterious men in the past? Because Fynn kept repeating ‘prinzessin’ and it sounds an awful lot like ‘princess’.”

Oh, well, that might actually explain quite a bit now. “As a matter of fact, a couple of days ago I was attacked by a bunch of soldiers in black uniforms. They didn't say anything,  but I managed to get away from them.”

“Men in black suits? I can bet my newly acquired pony that they were goons of germafreak.” Germafreak? I’m going to guess he’s referring to their country, and if so, I completely agree with him!

“Hey!” Peter shouts out at us.

I turn my head to look at him  directly. “Yes?”

“I’m not an item, Reginald!” Peter says indignantly.

“Well soooorry pony, but you’re mine now!” He laughs evilly, but it’s so obviously fake he could’ve given that vampire guy from Sesame Street a run for his money.

I roll my eyes at the two of them. “Anyways, do we have any sort of plan for getting Berry back?”

They both glance at each other, giving their answer away. “Uhh, I thought you could get one. You are the princess of the night, and I guess night can be related to violence…”Says Peter.

Well, that’s a rather depressing outlook to have on my time of the day. I mean, why do they think that I could be violent? Of course, I did throw Celestia around my apartment because she accidentally broke my Halo 2 disc…

I clear my throat and their attention is focused solely on me. Man, talk about mind-wipe. “Well, when you put it that way, I could see your point. But for this, I think we may need more infiltration than brute strength.”

“I guess I’ll be useless,” says Regi dejectedly, “I’m based on brute strength… or for science… wait, I could… place another trap, but for Fynn.” Yeah, he could, but I get the feeling that may not completely accomplish our goals.

“That could work, but I get the feeling he wouldn't come alone, and I’m not used to this body enough to be able to fight off several soldiers. Hold on, let me think a moment.” I bring a hoof to my chin and think back on all those years of playing Assassin’s Creed. I examine each member of our party, until suddenly, an idea pops into my mind.

“I got it!” I shout, causing them both to jump slightly. “Alright, so here’s what we should do…”

> 16. Whispers in the Dark
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“A perfect plan must include failure between the lines.”
~Anthony Duquette, Author and Game Designer.



        The three of us pile into Regi’s car, with said human driving, because he doesn’t trust us with his precious vehicle. To be honest, with my track record with cars for the past few days, I can’t really blame him. Well, really just my luck with cars in general, but that doesn’t matter right now.

        The plan, which is such a stereotypical plan that has been so overused by this point that I would be surprised if it actually worked, is simple. Regi had a gun with him currently, and would act as though he’d taken the two of us hostage as well. A lot of the plan depended on him being able to get us in there, which shouldn't be too hard if my hopes were correct.

Once inside, I would attempt to use my mist form again to escape and release North. At which point, we would look through the facility for this “Strawberry Frosting,” and once we find her, get out of the building as quietly and efficiently as possible. Then, Regi should be waiting at a nearby, within-sight location with the get away vehicle, where we would then escape to and drive off with the captured pony in possession.

        Peter, or North Wind as he told me his name was, shifts uncomfortably next to me as we pull out of the driveway. I’m just going to assume that it’s mission nerves, because I am really hoping I don’t smell bad or something like that.

        I look over to him and give what I hope to be a comforting smile, “You a bit nervous too?”

        “Last time I’ve checked, my life was pretty good before. It also had 0% of ‘breaking into gangsters’ lair’ problem.” Yeah, I could see where the trouble he’d be having was with that. I was having similar problems adjusting to the harsh contrast between my old life and this new one. Going from an avid gamer that’s between jobs to being the Princess of an entire race in just a few days was kind of like throwing yourself off of a nice, safe boat into the cold, dark ocean.

        “Yeah, I know how you feel. To be honest, I’m kind of terrified right now, and not totally sure on what to do when we actually get there,” I say. I’m hoping that this doesn’t end up scaring him too much. I mean, I still don’t know this pony very well, but I’m hoping he’s not going to look up to me as some kind of all-knowing being. Right now, I’m still just an ordinary guy that grew up in Colorado.

        “At least you ended up as a mother flippin’ god. I’m a simple peasant who lost his job because I lost my… tools.” He looks down at his hooves, most likely remembering the feel of hands. I wouldn’t understand; I kind of got the full package, so my magic more than makes up for my own lack of hands.

        However, I can tell this guy really needs some cheering up right now. I gently extend a wing and lay it over his back, to which he jumps just a tiny bit, but lets me keep it there. “Hey, right now, I’m no god, and I’m not sure I ever was in the first place. In fact, if anything, I’m just as lost as you. I’m stuck in a new, unfamiliar body, and now have a ton of responsibilitiesthat were just dumped onto me.” I wanted to make him happier, but I would not tell him that I envy him; no one would envy him in his situation.

“I… guess,” He sighs, “I hope Berry is alright…”

        I don’t reply, but simply look out the window at the passing buildings, retracting my wing back to my side, and retreating into my thoughts about how weird of a twist my life has taken, to which I seem to be taking very calmly. This worries me a bit, to be honest, because I’ve had problems like this in the past, where I subconsciously take everything stressful that happens to me and shove it down into some deep little locker, specifically that little section I remember Discord speaking of in my dream.

        Eventually, I stuff so much in there that it begins to overflow. My Attack on Tia a few days ago was a prime example of that overflow in a rather minor case. Now, I am an incredibly tolerant person, so I think that I’d be rather justified in saying that I’m terrified of what would happen if that entire locker were to open completely. Heh, I guess you could call it my hurt locker.

        Anyways, jokes aside, another problem I would have to face would be my parents and my friend. Now, I love my parents to death, which they may not think as I have not contacted them for a very long time, but I honestly have no idea as to how they’ll react to this. I don’t see them reacting badly and calling animal control or something, but I don’t think they’ll even remotely believe me without some form of evidence.

        My dad was always a doer kind of person, while I was more of a thinker, so of course we’d clash quite a bit. He was always trying to find jobs for me that he thought I’d enjoy if I gave it a try, but in reality, I always hated those jobs. He was pushy that way.

        As for my mother, if anything, she wasn’t pushy enough. She was a great person to talk to, and was always so open about her opinions. But, she didn’t take it too well when I finally admitted to her that I am atheist. Heh, irony’s a bitch, ain’t it? While she didn’t start throwing holy water at me or something like that, but her depression still felt like a punch in the gut. That’s about when I finally moved away to Muscatine.

        Really, the only member of my family I could get along with was my sister; my human sister. While most siblings nowadays seem to fight and bicker all the time, my sister and I were never like that. I could talk to her for hours on end about stuff I couldn’t talk to my parents about. Out of all of them, I think she would react the most positively to my condition.

        And my friend...well, it’s hard to tell with him; he’s a bit of an oddball. But, I think that my conversation with him will be fine, as he’s like a brother to me, and the one who got me interested in My Little Pony in the first place.

Unfortunately, my thought process is interrupted by Regi talking. “Look, I’m sure I can get you a job back there. I’m sure a work horse can help at work.” He begins to laugh at his own bad joke while North and I groan in exasperation.

North then gives his appropriate response. “I bucking hate you Reginald.” Okay, maybe not totally appropriate, but it sure does convey what we’re feeling about that joke at the moment.

        A bump in the street draws my attention back to what’s happening on the road. I can see our destination just ahead. “Alright everyone, get into positions. We’re coming up on the facility,” I say, reaching down with my magic to pull up a few straps that we will attach to ourselves to make it appear that we’d been captured.

        The facility itself is nothing too remarkable; it’s a gray one-story complex with a small parking lot. However, appearances can be deceiving. “I know I shouldn't jinx it, but I smell trouble,” Says North, and I can’t help but agree with him on this one. There’s something about this place that gives me the willies.

         Regi groans in irritation. “You pessimistic horse, just shut up and let me do the work.” I use my magic to take the straps and tie both of us up, even the muzzle, which turns out to be incredibly uncomfortable. Before long, neither of us can move from how tightly bound we are and look as though we really had been captured. Regi picks up the gun from the passenger seat and aims it at North, just like in our plan.

        “Look, I’m gonna do my best to get y’all inside, but it doesn’t mean you can just slack off. Be prepared.” I roll my eyes at him but don’t say anything since my mouth is bound shut. However, he’s right; we do need to be prepared for anything and everything if we want this to succeed.

        We pull up to the metal gates in front of the main building and one of the security guards comes up and looks in through the passenger side window as Regi rolls it down. “Please state your name and intentions sir,” Says the guard politely, his voice giving off a faint German accent.

“My name is Reginald, and Mister Barkov is expecting me. Bringing more of 'em,'” Said Regi, answering without hesitation. Heh, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was actually turning us in…

        The guard’s eyes look over to the two of us and dawn with understanding. “Of course, right this way, sir.” He walks back over to the control panel held inside the small guard house and presses a button. The metal gate groans slightly as it opens slowly, sending chills down my spine; this exactly like a horror movie or something.

        Regi drives the car forward a few more feet into the compound’s parking lot before being stopped by one of the other guards. Regi rolls down his window so he can speak with the guard. However, the guy doesn’t even give him a chance to speak and just says, “Don’t worry yourself none, we just have to take care of something real quick.”

        Suddenly, both the doors in the back are opened by two more of the security guards, catching me by surprise. As I unsuccessfully struggle to get away from them, I notice as the one struggling with North takes a white cloth and places it over his muzzle, and the pony stops moving soon after.

        “Shit!” I see Regi just sitting there, watching as they knock us out, but unable to do anything. I jerk around some more once I feel hands attempting to keep me down and still. “No! They are not going to get…What is that smell?” Too late, I realize that the man has placed a sweet smelling cloth over my muzzle, and I can do nothing as the darkness of unconsciousness overtakes my mind.

~~~~~~~~~~

        The first thing I can feel when I come to is the cold metal surface I’m lying on. I slowly open my eyes and force myself to sit up and look around at my surroundings, realizing right off the bat that I’m in a cage. I blink a few more times to get the sleep out of my eyes, but when I try to yawn, I find that I’ve been muzzled, and with something far better than what I used; a bridle and a dog muzzle.

        I panic a tiny bit, and find that along with my snout being bound, my wings are strapped tight against my body with some weird form of corset, which feels pretty awkward, my forelegs and hindlegs are chained to their counterpart, and I discover a metal collar around my neck. Fortunately, they seem to have left my horn untouched, but I apparently can’t use any form of magic for now, as any attempt to makes the collar send a warning electrical shock through my body. As for the cage, I feel rather cramped after discovering I have barely enough room to turn around in.

        Any further exploration of my current predicament and surroundings is interrupted by a man clad in familiar black armor followed by another man in a suit. I glare at the two of them, and they just return it with blank stares. After several tense but short seconds that felt more like minutes, the suited man pulls out a key, unlocks the cage, and lets the door swing open. I stay sitting, not sure if he’s playing a trick, or just expecting me to play along.

When he sees that I haven’t moved from my spot, he orders, “Stand up,” In a cold uncaring voice. To spite him, I stay where I am, and throw another glare his way. When he sees that I won’t be moving from my spot, he sighs, and motions to the larger man. The man in black moves to the open door and bends down so he has better access to the interior of my cage.

I scoff, “What are they even going to do? Reach in and pick me u-” I fail to finish the thought as I let out a muffled cry of a pain and fall to the side of the cage, the left side of my face throbbing with pain. I look back at him and find him to be holding a kind of baton that lets off a quiet buzzing noise; it’s electrified. I can already feel the entire left side of my face swell up from the hit.

The man in the suit once again says, “Stand up.” This time though, partially from the shock of getting hit, and instincts, I comply with his order, and stand up onto all four hooves. SInce the cage is almost too small for me, I shake off the pain and start to walk out, when suddenly the armored man hits me again, this time at the base of my horn.

I collapse to the ground in pain, seemingly having temporarily lost control of my limbs as they twitch and jerk around sporadically for a few seconds. Once I regain control, I shakily place my forehooves beneath me so I can stand. As I do so, Suit walks over and grips the base of my bruised horn, causing me to flinch, but otherwise stay still in fear of being hit again.

He leans down close to my ear, and whispers, “Now listen here you animal. Until further notice, I am your master. You do exactly what I tell you to, when I tell you to. I don’t even want you to blink without my say so. Am I understood?” Not sure what else I should do, I give him a shaky nod. “Good, I’m glad we could come to agreement,” He says, and pats the sensitive spot on the left side of my face, to which I wince slightly.

He smiles in amusement and stands back up, releasing my horn. He steps back and retrieves something from the wall just outside the door, returning with a leash. “No, please don’t degrade me any further than this.” However, he is unable to hear my thoughts and attempts to attach the leash to the metal ring on the bottom of the bridle. When I jerk away, he growls something at Big Guy, who takes the taser-baton and taps the corset holding my wings closed.

I immediately feel electricity flow through the entire corset and electrocute me on both wings, apparently sensitive spots as well. This time though, unlike when he hit my horn, I actually scream, albeit a bit muffled, but it was a scream nonetheless. I feel slightly unsteady on my haunches, and as I attempt to regain my balance, I don’t even notice that he’s put the leash on my bridle until he pulls my head towards him so he can say, “Now look, we can either do this the easy way, or the fun way. Of those two options, I think you’ll prefer the former, so please try to relax and play along.”

I try to glare at him, but this time I don’t even have the energy to do even that, so I just nod again. He stands back up to his full height and tugs on the leash, prompting me to follow along behind him like an animal. Once we leave the room, Big Guy closes the door and falls in behind us, walking in step with Suit.

        As we walk down several halls and closed doors, I figure that we must be somewhere underground, because there is no way the facility I saw was this big. Pretty soon, I find myself lost in the near identical halls, while Suit seems to know exactly where he’s going.

Eventually, we finally come to an unmarked door, identical to all the others.Suit opens it walks in without any hesitation, pulling me along with him. Inside, the room is just blank gray walls for the most part, but I do find a small table with a pencil and paper already there.

Suit pulls me over to one side of the table and hooks the leash onto a small attachment to keep me from running while Big Guy closes the door behind us. Suit sits down into a chair across the table from me and says, “Now, sit down.”

With relief, I set my aching body down onto the ground and let my head hang for a few moments. When I look back to the man though, he hits the right side of my face with the back of his hand. I, not expecting the hit, stumble to the left a couple feet, my head getting jerked back by the leash. After I recover, I look up him in confusion, my look saying, “W-what did I do?”

He gives me a short glare before he says, “Rule number one; never look away from your master.” I shakily nod my head again and sit back up again. He motions to Big Guy, who comes over and starts removing the muzzle from my mouth while Suit talks. “Now, I am going to have to ask you several questions, to which you will respond honestly and quickly. Throughout this procedure, you will refer to me as master and nothing else. Am I understood?”

Big Guy finally gets the muzzle off of me, so I stretch my jaw now that I can finally open it again. “Yes, Mas-” I start to say, but stop myself mid sentence. “What the hell am I doing? Since when did I get so submissive?” I close my mouth and glare at him, my anger quickly rising. My horn powers up, and I can feel the collar shocking me, but I don’t care.

Suit’s face slowly changes from that cold, calculating smirk to more of a neutral look. I know that face well; I use it when I’m trying to hide panic. He forcefully commands Big Guy, “The injection is wearing off. Get another one, now.”

I hear Big Guy open and close the door quickly and run off somewhere in a hurry, but I don’t turn; I need to keep building power. The pain coming from the collar is almost unbearable now, bringing tears to my eyes, but I keep pushing. “I have, to escape!”

I continue building up my magic in my horn, ignoring the pain the electricity from the collar sends through my corset, the swelling on my face, and the base of my horn. So deep am I in concentration that I don’t notice Big Guy’s come back until I feel the sharp prick of a needle in my neck.

My concentration broken and magic gone, I jump up and away from the big man, swinging my head wildly in a desperate attempt to hit him with my horn. However, like a trained soldier, he jumps out of the way with a nimbleness unnatural for someone of his size and brings the baton down onto the back of my head. Stars explode in my vision and I feel my jaw smash against the concrete floor.

Dazed, but not any less angry, I unsteadily get back onto my hooves and lower my horn so that it aims right at his chest. Well, one of them anyways, as Big Guy seems to fade in and out of focus. We begin circling each other in a predator’s dance, waiting for the other to make the first move. My breathing intensifies and I paw the ground with one of my chained forehooves. My head throbbing with the probability of a concussion, I take in a deep breath and-

~~~

        I groggily open my eyes and yawn, immediately seeing that I’m once again sitting at the table with my head resting on the surface. I pull my head up and see Su- no, Master sitting across the table from me. He smiles, though for some reason it seems a bit strained, and says, “Did you sleep well?”

        I do a small body run-down and find that they’ve given me a new and bigger collar, along with a more stylish corset. Oh, I love wearing these! They feel so comfortable and it seems as though that’s where they belong. I suddenly give a small gasp as I come to a realization, “Maybe they’ll let me wear a dress with the corset!” I open my mouth to voice my question, but I’m interrupted by Master clearing his throat reminding me of his earlier query.

        I yawn again and give him a small innocent smile and say dreamily, “Yes, Master,” I wince, “Though, I do seem to have a bit of a headache.” I see his hands clench into fists, and a streak of worry shoots through me; did I say something to anger Master?

        However, his hands then unclench, much to my great relief, and then says in a tight voice, “I’m sure it’s nothing.” Well, if Master says I’ll be fine, then I will be. He smiles and pick up the paper and pencil. “Now, let’s get to these questions, shall we?” At my eager nod, he continues, “So, your name is Princess Luna, and you started turning into a pony,” He adjusts his glasses and looks at the paper more closely, “five days ago?”

        I eagerly nod my head like a small child being asked if they want any candy, “Yes, Master.”

        He sets the paper down and clasps his hands together and gives me a small smile that seems rather cold for some reason. “Well then, tell me about your adventures for the past few days. After all, we want to...help as many ponies as we can.” I smile wider; Master is such a nice person! I open my mouth again and begin to talk.

~~~~~~~~~~

        It’s now several hours later, and I feel absolutely exhausted. After telling him my story from start to finish, we moved on to several other tests. They all ranged from how electricity affected me without my corset and collar, to making me run on a treadmill until I couldn’t run any more. I didn’t enjoy any of them, but Master was right there next to me throughout the entire process, so it turned out to be okay.

        Although, there were several times when all these bad and angry thoughts started surfacing. When I told Master of these occurrences, his assistant would pin me down onto the ground while they injected something into my neck. I didn’t like these times either, but they made the bad thoughts go away.

        So, after what felt like hundreds of tests, we were finally at one last test. Master warned me that this last test would be more stressful than any of the others and to just go along with it. Still, that doesn’t help to calm my nerves as I stand in front of this final door with my handlers standing next to me. Master opens the door and leads me in, where I see a sort of box formed by wooden posts, much like the ones that they shoe horses in.

        Master leads me into the box and ties my leash to the front horizontal post. Two more men come in through a much larger double door, each holding several ropes. My breathing quickens, but I manage to stay calm as I let them tie my barrel and legs to the different posts and reattach my muzzle to my snout. It takes them a little while, but when they finally finish tying me to the posts, I can barely move at all. I’m not sure I like this test at all.

        Master and his assistant retreat into another room to watch through a window in the wall while the two men stay in here with me. When Master gives them a thumbs up through the window, one of them pulls out a small recording device while the other goes back through the double doors, supposedly to retrieve the next bit of this test.

        My ears flick towards the other man in the room as he says, “This will be the last test on Subject Three, also known as Luna. It will be a long-term test on seeing if it is possible to breed these ponies with normal horses. The mare known as Subject One was too small for this to be tested, but Three is much larger than her, so it is safe to assume that she will be large enough.”

        “Wait...breed?!” My eyes widen and my breath begins to quicken as I start to panic and struggle against my bindings. The man lowers the recording device quickly walks over to me, takes his free hand and starts rubbing my neck, softly saying, “Whoa girl, easy. It’s okay, just calm down.”

        The man’s low tone helps a little bit, but I’m still scared and slightly panicking. He turns from me to a nearby table that I hadn’t noticed before and picks up a syringe filled with a clear liquid and speaks into the device. “Subject Three is panicking, and will most likely not cooperate. I am now going to inject the aphrodisiac.”

        I can feel that effects of whatever that drug was fading as my anger and panic rise. I quickly begin building magical energy in my horn, easily forging through the pain of my collar due to the amount of adrenaline coursing through my veins. Seeing the amount of power I’m exerting, the guy backs off, the aphrodisiac falling to the floor and quickly forgotten.

        Finally, the collar overloads and just stops working, thankfully not exploding, and the scientist turns and runs out the door in fear. After letting out a quick gasp of relief, I get to work on the rest of my bindings. The ropes, chains, and bridle all come off with ease, though the muzzle takes a bit more work. Once all that is off, I take hold of of the corset, and with some struggling, manage to slide it off over my head. I spread my aching wings with relief, letting them kind of do their own thing for the moment.

        After I recover from the euphoria of my freedom from the bindings, I gather my thoughts together and start to analyze my situation. It isn’t looking very good; I’m exhausted and bruised all over from the many experiments performed on me today, as well as possibly having a concussion. Adding onto my list of problems, I have no idea where either North Wind or Strawberry are, and Suit and his guard have disappeared from the window, so I can assume they’re on their way here now to subdue me.

        Without waiting for an invitation, I bolt for the door leading to the hallway, and when I slam it open, I immediately run into Big Guy. After recovering and staring at each other for a few seconds, I make the first move and use my magic to slam the human into the wall. Thankfully, it wasn’t enough to kill him; I refuse to stoop to that level. Looking around, I see that Suit is no where in sight, which is odd; I thought that these two were inseparable. Not waiting to see if he would pop up somewhere, I begin running down the hall as an alarm begins blaring.

        However, I have no idea where I’m going, as this place acts very much like a maze. All I know is that I have to find North Wind, attempt to find Strawberry Frosting, and get the hell out of here. I open the many doors and peek in real quick to see if anyone is in there. After about five minutes of this running, I begin to grow worried. Where are all the guards that are supposed to stop me? Is it possible they’ve moved to secure the two ponies I’m looking for?

        My body’s need for rest begins to make itself known to me in the form of burning muscles, a growling stomach, and heavy eyelids. This was bad; yet again, I’d gotten cocky and charged in head first, not heeding the warnings of those close to me. I shake my head, “Bah! I can criticize myself later. RIght now I need to focus on getting those two and finding our way out of here.”

        And then, as though fate could hear me, I round another corner and almost run into North. In my attempt to avoid him, I trip over my own legs and hit my head against the ground, fortunately not too hard. Slightly dazed, I get my hooves underneath me and stand back up, looking over at North. I wince slightly; he looks absolutely horrible.

        His fur is slightly matted in spots, a syringe half filled with some kind of liquid, possibly sleeping agents, is sticking out of his fur, he’s favoring one of his forelegs, and last, and most certainly rather odd, he is holding an iPod in his mouth. By my guess, he probably escaped in the middle of an experiment like I did.

        Using my now low reserves of magic, I pull the syringe out of his fur and toss it to the side. I turn back to him and cautiously say, “Hey North, are you alright?”

He looks to me when he hears my voice, his eyes wide in fright as he drops the iPod to the ground, though not too hard. “L-Luna… I don’t want to… to die.” Oh man, the poor guy’s terrified, and honestly, I can’t blame him. As I move closer to him, I can see he’s fighting to keep his eyes open.

I look down the hallways to make sure that no one is in sight before slowly walking over and draping a wing across his back once again. “I know North, I don’t want to die either, but we can only do that if we keep moving. We just need to find Strawberry Frosting now, and then we can get out of here and back to Regi, as long as he’s still there.” I wish we could stop and rest, as North desperately needs it, but it just simply isn’t an option.

In response to my attempted motivational speech, he leans back down and turns on the device lying on the ground, showing a map of the facility; that’s rather smart of the previous owner of this device. “I have… heh… the Deus Ex Machina. This will… solve…” Whatever else he was gonna say is forgotten, as his eyelids finally win the fight and close all the way, signifying he’s asleep.

He begins to fall over, but I quickly jump forward and catch his surprisingly light body. I sigh, and think to myself, “We’ll need a place to hide while I think of another plan.” Looking around the hallway, I spy what looks to be a janitor’s closet. I shake my head at my unfortunate choice of cliche, but left with no other option, I drag North Wind’s unconscious body in after opening the door.

After setting him down on the ground close to the back wall, I turn back, grab the iPod, and close the door as quietly as possible. I sigh and back away from the door, letting my body finally have some rest by lying on the grey floor. So much for stopping and resting not being an option. Bringing up the iPod so that it sits right in front of me, I activate the small device. Just like before, the map of the facility appears, with a helpful little arrow showing my location.

After several failed attempts at using my hooves to navigate the small device, I resort to using my muzzle instead. After a couple of minutes of practice and navigation, I manage to zoom out completely on the map, allowing me to see the entirety of the facility. There are even little tags labeled Subject 1, Subject 2, Subject 3, and even one labeled storage. Fortunately, they only appear to be showing the locations of our resting rooms, so that means we don’t have tracking chips of any kind, and now that I know the location of the storage room, perhaps i can find all of my personal belongings.

Unfortunately, any further time for rest or thought is interrupted by an echoing scream that sends chills down my spine. With only a moment of hesitation, I pick the iPod back up and look to the still sleeping North, wondering what I should do with him.

After a few short seconds of debate within my mind, I decide to leave him here; after all, he’s so tired he’d probably only get in the way, and that’s ignoring the fact that he’s currently asleep. I’ll just have to remember where this little closet is so I can come and get him. I look down at the iPod once again for the location of “Subject 1” and “Storage Room;” this is a great chance to get all of our stuff back. Once I have it memorized, I take one last look at North to make sure he’s at least comfortable before quietly opening the door and darting out.

I run as quietly as I can down the halls, which is, unsurprisingly, rather hard to do, as hooves aren’t exactly meant for “quiet.” Each loud hoof step onto the white, tile floor results in a loud clacking noise that echoes through the hallways. I would try to turn myself into my mist form, but I must have exhausted most of my magic earlier to get out of all that weird equipment, and throwing Big Guy into the wall must have just been some leftover magic. So, that means I’m stuck with having to alert almost every mercenary in the base to my position. Hopefully the echoes will throw them off a bit, and the constant buzzing of the alarm may mask at least some of the noise I’m making.

My walking through the long hallways and no sign of any armed personnel gives me time to think. Not really about anything in particular, but just a bunch of different little things. I mean, there’s some thoughts still floating around here about my parents, a couple of my pony sister and what she’d probably say if she could see me right now, a few actually thinking about the task at hand, or hoof, I should say. Though, out of all of these, I can’t seem to get my mind off of that little girl, that one I guided home a few days ago. I don’t even know why I’m having these thoughts about her, I just can’t help but wonder how she’s doing, if she’s okay, and this other random crap. “Hmm, I wonder if after all this business with Strawberry Frosting if it would be possible to visit he-”

My thoughts are interrupted by a little beeping noise from the iPod. Looking down with worry that it might be low on battery, I see that instead I have apparently arrived at my intended destination; the entrance to “Subject 1’s” room, which otherwise just looks like any of the other doors in this labyrinth.

Quickly but cautiously, I set the iPod down and start to slowly open the door while looking inside. I get it open to about an inch and stop, looking into the room through the small space provided, and upon seeing no one, I quietly open the door a couple more inches. I repeat this process several times until the door is finally open wide enough for me to slip inside.

Once in the room itself, I do a quick scan of the area; no guards at all. I hate to quote old movies, and by old, I mean the originals, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this. With two of their “precious” subjects having already escaped, one would think that they’d probably at least triple the amount of guards on their last subject. So this could mean one of two things; they were being reckless, or they were setting a trap. My jaw clenches in frustration at my tired and addled mind for not thinking of this possibility beforehand. I shake my head to clear it of these distracting thoughts. The fact that I may have gotten overconfident doesn’t matter now, all that matters is making sure I get out of here with Strawberry Frosting and North mostly intact.

And speaking of which, I finally lay my eyes onto the still figure lying on her right side within the metal cage in the center of the room. From what I can tell, her coat is normally pink while her mane and tail alternate between yellow and a darker shade of pink. On her flank I can see a picture of a cake with, of course, strawberry frosting; I’ve found my mare. However, as I get closer, I begin to see the many different injuries she is sporting.

Her coat has actually been burned off in small patches so I can see the bruised skin underneath. I can’t see her right eye, but the left looks as though it’s swollen shut from multiple beatings. Her muzzle has lines of dried blood trailing from her nose down to her mouth and cuts cover her coat with even more blood. I can’t even find a way to describe the rest of the injuries she has, only able to wonder, “How the hell is she still alive?” I can hear her mumble and moan under her quick and short breaths, her legs twitching as though she’s trying to run from something.

I barely feel my rump hit the floor as I stare at her in shock and guilt, shock at the fact that humans would do something like this, and guilt because I felt as though I should’ve been able to prevent this atrocity. I lean down slowly and instinctively nudge her with my nose, to which she responds by unconsciously attempting to scramble away from me in fright, letting out small whimpering noises.

I stay where I’m at and watch her pathetic form cower in the corner of the cage. I feel my shock subside as cold fury slowly takes over. Dark whispers begin to fill my mind, easily catching Selene’s voice by surprise and overriding her with pure force; they are my own after all. I begin to feel my power rejuvenate at an exponential rate, but it feels different, it makes me feel different. It makes me feel not only more powerful, but sexy in a dangerous way, much like River Song, but more sinister. I can’t help but let out a small giggle and smile. This power is so different from what I’ve been feeling, it’s just so much more...intimate, yes, that is the word I am looking for.

I feel it in my mind, giving me power I never knew I had, and opening other pathways of possibility; pathways of power, lust, and seduction. My eyes roll back into my head and my wings begin to spread out as the whispers unbury old memories, memories of a previous life. In my mind’s eye, I see stallions and mares alike bound, gagged, and chained, sometimes alone, and other times, together. That’s right, I remember now, I was their Mistress, and they were nothing more than my pets, my playthings.

Thoughts of rescuing the mare in front of me fade and my body begins to shake and twitch uncontrollably as more memories pass through my mind, all of them images of playing with my little pets. I begin to realize that they’re all trying to remind me of one thing, and one thing only.

I am not the Protector of Dreams, I am their Mistress, and they will all bend to my will for my entertainment.

I alternate between giggles and laughter as I feel my coat grow darker and more ragged, along with my face shifting and changing. My broad tongue grows longer and pointed, sticking out of my mouth, which begins to widen, splitting open at the corners until my smile reaches my ears, literally. My flat, herbivorous teeth spread apart from one another and sharpen until they form a mouthful of long and curved carnivorous teeth. The irises and whites of my eyes darken until they’re black, and my pupils shine with an unholy blue light.

However, any further changes to my physique are interrupted by the door to the room opening behind me, and then closing after a few long seconds. My dark powers allow me to sense that five men have entered the room, and among them are Suit and Big Guy.

My want to bend dreams to my will is temporarily redirected into hatred of those two. Those two had played the part of Master, while I was their weak and obedient pet. They did not deserve to live after such a transgression.

Suit steps forward and speaks out to me in his velvety voice, “Well Luna, it looks like you’ve got nowhere else to run to, and we know how exhausted you must be feeling.” His honey-coated words may have affected me had he walked in a couple minutes ago, but not now. “Come with us quietly and we’ll make sure there’s not too much pain involved in your coming tests. Hell, we’ll even add in a bit of extra aphrodisiac to make that mating test more...enjoyable for you,” He says with a dark chuckle before continuing, “Whatever the case, your little game of hide-and-go-seek is over little Princess.”

I begin to giggle, until it eventually evolves into full-blown laughter. When my mirth eventually subsides, I speak to him, though my voice has darker undertone to it, along with light whispers just loud enough for humans to hear, “Oh, you of all people should know, games like this never truly end, the rules just change.”

With that I turn to them and present them with my new look, to which all of them except Big Guy takes a step back in shock. Behind them, the hallways outside the door begin to darken, and small tendrils of darkness attempt to squeeze in through the cracks between the door and the wall.

I grin even wider, much to the soldiers’ discomfort, and say, “In fact, I’m feeling rather playful right now,” I take step forward, and the men take another step back, “How about a fun little game of Cat and Mouse?” One of the soldiers finally loses it and makes a run for the door and yanks it open, only to reveal a wall of darkness that reaches out with its tendrils, grabs onto him, and pulls him into the dark kicking and screaming. After a few seconds, the screaming stops, and the sound of blood splattering the walls and floor can be heard. The soldiers stare at the door in pure unadulterated terror now that they have nowhere to run if the situation were to go south.

I look back to the now even smaller squad of men. “One down, five to go!” I exclaim with a maniacal laugh. I look Suit in the eyes and whisper just loud enough for him to hear, “Let’s play.” I open my mouth wide and lunge at him as he screams for mercy.