When Rarity has her first child, she discovers a shocking secret.
Four years have passed since the Rainbooms graduated from Canterlot High. Rarity and Fluttershy are married, while Sunset Shimmer is engaged to Flash Sentry. All of them except Applejack attend Cloudsale University. But when Rarity has her first child, a magical dilemma comes up, and she and the rest of her friends must call upon Princess Twilight once again to deal with the mess.
Sunset Shimmer glanced over at her High School graduation photograph. It had been four years since she had received her diploma, and soon she would be getting a bachelor’s degree. Pinkie Pie had made the party the best that she’d ever been to, and even Twilight Sparkle had been able to come. She and her closest friends had come very far since then. Currently she was engaged to Flash Sentry. They had dated back in the early days of High School, but that was for selfish reasons. He had broken up with her, but later, Sunset found her true feelings for him. When Flash saw that she had changed, they began dating again.
Most of Sunset’s friends were attending Cloudsdale University. Applejack didn’t go because she wanted to spend her life working on her family’s farm. Her older brother, Big Macintosh had married Fluttershy two years ago and moved out of her house, leaving Applejack to run it. Rainbow Dash was the captain of the Cloudsdale soccer team. Pinkie Pie was still an undeclared major because she didn’t really know what she wanted to do except, perhaps, be a party planner. Rarity was also married to a young man named Caramel. She was about to open up a boutique in the city as soon as she graduated. Fluttershy was studying zoology. While they were all very busy, they still got together on weekends when they didn’t have anything to do.
Pacing around her apartment, Sunset’s thoughts drifted to Rarity and Fluttershy. They were both pregnant and Rarity’s baby was due in a week. Fluttershy’s was due in three months. She couldn’t believe that two of her best friends were going to be mothers. The thought of them being parents just seemed strange. But it would be fun to play with the young kids if they ever needed Sunset to babysit. Sunset had not spent any time with young children recently.
When Sunset looked up at her clock, she gasped. “Oh no! My friends are expecting me to be at the café in five minutes!” Grabbing her purse, she stormed out of her apartment and ran as quickly as she could down the street. The café was only a quarter of a mile from the apartment, but it still seemed far away. After crossing two streets and combing through a crowd of pedestrians, she finally made it to the café.
“Hey Sunset!” yelled Pinkie Pie. “Over here!”
“Sorry I’m a bit late,” said Sunset. “I just got lost in thought and I—“
“Hey, don’t worry about it. You’re not that late,” Rainbow Dash said.
Pinkie said, “Actually, she’s two minutes and twelve and three quarters seconds late.”
Rarity offered Sunset a drink. “Here, Sunset. Steaming hot chocolate with buttercream and rainbow sprinkles.”
“How did you know exactly what I liked?” asked Sunset Shimmer, accepting the beverage.
“Oh, puh-lease darling,” Rarity said. “You’ve ordered that same drink the last six times we’ve been here.”
Applejack asked, “So what have y’all been up to lately?”
“Well, um,” Fluttershy began. “While I was volunteering at the animal shelter, I found the sweetest little puppy ever just begging to be adopted! They let me take him home and I named him Coco Flare.”
Rainbow Dash said, “But Fluttershy, you have, like, dozens of pets. How are you possibly supposed to take care of them all and still keep adopting animals! Not only that, but with a baby on the way, how will you juggle caring for them all?”
“Oh, Big Mac is really helpful. And I think I do fine. But you do have a point, Rainbow Dash. I’ll probably have to give up at least two or three soon. I’ll miss them, though,” she sighed.
Applejack sighed. “You can have it, Pinkie. I’m not hungry.” Pinkie immediately stuffed the bun in her face, licking her lips.
Suddenly, Rarity started to cringe. Trying to fight back screaming, she gasped, “My baby! I... I think it’s coming!”
“Come on y’all, “Applejack said. “We need to get Rarity to the hospital right now!” She, Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer helped her up. Pinkie and Fluttershy followed them close behind, hurrying out of the café before they made a scene. Once they got outside, Applejack got Rarity, Sunset, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy into her car.
Applejack started the car and then rolled down the window. “Pinkie, I don’t have enough room in the car. But could you do us a favor? Phone Caramel and tell him what’s going on, and then get to the hospital as soon as you can.” Pinkie agreed and Applejack drove off. At least in the city, the hospital was only two miles away. Sunset Shimmer spent the drive reassuring Rarity that everything would be all right. Once they got to the hospital, Pinkie Pie was already there. The nurses took Rarity to a ward and the rest of her friends anxiously waited in the waiting room. About ten minutes later, Caramel arrived. Even though it was going to be a while, they were all willing to wait as long as they had to.
About six hours later, Nurse Redheart came into the visitors’ room to talk to Rarity’s friends. “Your friend is doing fine and has given birth to an eight-pound baby girl. But, there seems to be something wrong with the baby that I can’t quite diagnose.”
Sunset stood up. “Is the baby okay? Is she sick? Will she survive?”
The nurse said, “She probably is going to survive, but from the condition she was born with is something that I’ve never heard of in medical history, so I honestly don’t know what’s going to happen to her. Come with me.”
Nervously, the five girls and Caramel followed Redheart into the ward where Rarity was in. Rarity was wearing a hospital gown and holding her child. Her baby’s skin was light pink, and she had purple and magenta hair that flowed like Princess Luna from Equestria. The baby had the brightest emerald eyes in the world. But what was completely shocking was the fact that she had a horn and pony ears. She also had a tail like that of a pony.
“What are we going to do?” asked Applejack. “And how is this even possible?”
Sunset replied, “I don’t know. We’ll need Princess Twilight’s help on this one. I’ll write her a message ASAP. But for now, we need to keep this a secret.”
“But does that mean that my baby will have powers, too?” Fluttershy asked nervously.
“I don’t know,” Sunset said, “but it seems likely.”
“What’ya going to name her?” asked Pinkie.
“Hmm…” Rarity thought or a moment. She looked at her baby and told her, “I will call you Stardust.”
Light poured into Twilight’s castle. It was another fine and glorious day. Twilight Sparkle didn’t have anything to do. No friendship problems, no royal summits, not even friends to spend her time with. Fluttershy was away on some trip to see exotic creatures, Applejack had to make tons of deliveries of Apple family products to other regions in Equestria, and Pinkie Pie had her hooves full with watching Pound and Pumpkin Cake, who had grown into energetic four-year olds. Her friend Rainbow Dash never had much time to visit Ponyville, unless somepony was in danger, because she was a lead Wonderbolt. Rarity had traveled to Canterlot to check up on her fashion boutique. Well, Spike was around, but he was busy napping, and Twilight didn’t want to wake him up.
Twilight considered reading a book from the library, but she had read every book at least three times. Then she noticed one of her books vibrating. Sunset Shimmer! She had not heard from her in a very long time, and it was nice to have contact from a friend, even if it was because of an emergency. She summoned the book to her hooves and read the message that had been sent by Sunset.
Dear Princess Twilight,
I know it’s been a long time since I’ve sent a message, and I probably should write more often, but I’ve either forgotten to or things have come up and I haven’t had the time to stay in touch. But an emergency has come up in our world and I just don’t know what to do. Rarity has had her first baby and Fluttershy is expecting. There seems to be some strange Equestrian magic in the baby and I don’t know what will come out of it. If you’re not too busy with royal duties, could you come over here and help us? I’ll explain everything when you get here.
Your friend,
Sunset Shimmer
Twilight was intrigued. This would certainly be an interesting case. The girls weren’t in any immediate danger, but it was definitely a difficult dilemma to deal with. It would be nice to see her friends, who would have graduated from CHS by now, especially since she had nothing to do. This time, however, she didn’t want Spike to come just in case anything came up while she was gone.
She quietly flew up to Spike’s room and opened his door just a little bit. He was still sleeping, and snoring very loudly. Because Twilight didn’t want to wake him up, she scribbled a note for him and taped it to the door.
Dear Spike,
Sunset Shimmer just wrote me a letter and I need to go help my old friends over there. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I need you to stay here and do some of the things I need to get done. If anypony needs my word on anything, tell them that I have granted you official permission to carry out royal duties in my name. Just don’t abuse this permission to get a bunch of free gems or anything like that. If you still need my help, contact me with Princess Celestia’s journal. I know I can count on you, number one assistant! -Twilight Sparkle
She teleported back to the library and set Celestia’s journal back on her portal contraption. She quickly packed a saddlebag. The mirror opened, and Twilight galloped back to the human world.
Sunset and the girls all arrived at the portal. The waited for at least five minutes before Twilight came flying out. It was still a bit hard for her to stand up on two legs, especially since she had not come here for a very long time. Sunset helped her to her feet, and the rest of the girls immediately gathered for a group hug. It had been ages since she was last here.
Rainbow Dash looked up at her old High School. “Seems like forever since we first united with the element of magic,” she remarked.
“Or since we all defeated the Dazzlings and freed the school from their spell,” Fluttershy added.
“And since we won the Friendship Games!” piped Pinkie Pie.
“We have certainly got far,” Applejack said. “But it still seems like Equestrian magic is following us wherever we go.”
Twilight stated, “So you still pony up when you play music?”
“Yeah,” AJ answered, “but we haven’t been playing a whole lot of music or even singing much, for that matter.”
“So what exactly is this all about?” Twilight asked.
Rarity explained, “We’re concerned about my baby, Stardust.” She let Twilight look at her baby.
“Oooooooh! She’s so cute! And very beautiful, too,” Twilight remarked.
Sunset said, “Yes, but that’s not why we sent for you here. See, Stardust appears to have flowing, translucent hair like the princesses from Equestria. Not only that, but She has pony ears, a tail, and a unicorn horn.”
Twilight thought for a moment. “We’re going to need to do some testing with some kind of lab equipment. Is there some place where we can do something like that?”
“Yes,” Sunset said. “Cloudsdale College of Sciences has a really big laboratory. I’ll ask my professor if it’s okay to use it after school hours.” She reached into her bag and got out her cell phone. After dialing her professor’s number and talking to him for about a minute, she hung up. “He said that I could use the lab tomorrow for just two hours. Is that enough time?”
“It should be. Rarity, if you don’t mind, I’m going to need blood samples from you and Stardust. I’ll probably need some from everyone else too, to compare the results. But magic is rather mysterious. In this world, the magic inside you could be anywhere since I don’t completely understand the effect it would have on humans.”
“Twilight, I tried finding out what effect Equestrian magic has on us all, but I didn’t get clear results,” Sunset said.
Twilight replied, ”Well, we’re gonna have to do the tests more carefully if we’re going to find out anything.”
“In the meantime,” said Rainbow Dash, “why don’t we all hang out at my place for the evening? It’ll be just like old times!”
