The humane 6 have taken to using the term "pony up" when they transform to have their pony ears and manes (and wings). So what happens when it the transformation doesn't stop at ears and manes?
Sunset Shimmer still doesn't fully understand how the magic that transforms her and her friends works. She's close to figuring it out though, or so she thought. When a magical "fluke" occurs during a band practice, will the girls, along with the Twilight of their world, be able to figure out what happened, and will they be able to fix it?
Takes place about a week or two after the Friendship Games
This is my first story, so it might be good, it might crash and burn. I am ready for criticism, and prepared for the worst. If you see any spelling or grammatical errors please let me know in the comments. This idea came from reading Oops! I'm Equine Again by MythrilMoth! Featured on December 22, 2015! Holy smokes! Featured again on September 24, 2016! All aboard the hype train!
"Shall we give it another go?" Sunset Shimmer asked her friends/band mates. They always practiced their songs after school to stay at their peak performance. Usually, it was just the six of them, but today, Sunset had invited their new friend to join them. Twilight Sparkle, the former student for Crystal Prep sat quietly in the corner of Sunset's garage, because the school's music room was closed after school.
"Sunset, We've already played this song eight times," Rainbow Dash replied with a loud groan, "we know it backwards and forwards, why do we have to keep playing it?"
"Well, if you were listening to when I first explained it, I'm really close to figuring out what happens when we 'pony up,'" Sunset explained, "Or, for when we play music, that is. After what happened during the Friendship Games, I realized there's a whole new can of worms that I have no idea how to even begin explaining." Up until now, Sunset hadn't noticed the general annoyance of her friends. We've only been practicing for, she paused for a quick look at her phone, two hours? Wow, time sure flies when you're studying magic. Or, trying to.
Sunset focused back on her friends standing around her garage, they were clearly taking advantage of the time after the song. They were just idling chatting with each other, except for Rainbow Dash, who was still flying around the room groaning and mumbling to herself about how her fingers were sore. Wait, Sunset immediately thought, flying!? It was at that moment that she noticed that nobody's transformations had reverted, and as she reached for the top of her head, she realized that included her! Everyone still had pony ears, long hair and in Fluttershy and Rainbow's case, wings.
"Uh guys," she started, "why haven't our transformations reverted?"
Rarity was the second to realize it, "I don't know darling, I thought you almost had it figured out."
Before Sunset could comment, Pinkie Pie interjected, "Maybe we broke it!" She gasped in shock at her own thought and started speaking much faster, "What if the song magic is like a computer and because we used it over and over and over and over again, something happened and it froze! What if we're frozen!" She gasped again and froze herself in the position she was standing, pretending to be stuck.
"Yeah, ah don't think that's why," Applejack said as she turned back to Sunset, "Any ideas there sugarcube?"
"Well," Sunset started again, "I'm not totally sure, but-"
"Who cares why!" Rainbow Dash said as cut Sunset off, "I can keep my wings now! How awesome is that!" She tried to continue but was silenced by Applejack putting her hand over the rainbow maned girl's mouth.
"Continue," Applejack said back to Sunset.
"As I was saying, I think Pinkie Pie might have been on to something with her computer analogy."
"So you mean we are frozen?" Fluttershy squeaked as she started pacing back and forth, "how will I care for all my animal friends if I can't move?"
"No Fluttershy, you're not frozen, you're walking around right now," Sunset said with a slight tone of annoyance for being interrupted so much, "I meant, maybe the magic is like a frozen computer, maybe we have to reboot it. And if we 'pony up' when we play music, how do we reboot the 'computer?'"
This question caught everyone else off guard, Sunset became well aware of this when everyone started looking around at everyone else, expecting them to have the answer. It was then that Twilight stood up from the box she was sitting on, a look of realization on her face.
"You play the song again and the transformation should revert after you finish it!" Twilight exclaimed, causing Fluttershy to jump to the ceiling of the garage out of shock, staying up there with her wings.
"Exactly," Sunset stated.
"But what if I want to keep my wings, I like being able to fly!" said Rainbow Dash, who was defensively holding her wings as if they could be pulled away from her. This, of course caused her to start falling to the ground before she'd realized what she had done and corrected herself.
"Rainbow," Rarity started, "We can't just live our lives looking like half ponies, the only reason we're fine at school is because nobody would believe anything they said about magic. But I'm pretty sure they would believe it if you stuck like that though."
"Fine" Rainbow sighed, slowly floating back down to the ground, almost as though she was a deflating balloon.
"Well, lets get playing so we can fix this, I'd say I have enough research for today," Sunset said as everyone got their instrument ready again. "Twilight," she tossed the notepad and pen she had been taking notes with to her, "mind taking notes on observations you make while we play this time, I know you said you wanted to understand magic more. And to be honest, even I'm not one-hundred percent sure that this will work." Twilight fumbled around with the notepad after just barely catching it and simply nodded. Sunset could tell how excited Twilight was to get to watch something that was new to her, as she had been the entire practice.
And with a few more minor adjustments, and a song choice, they were ready to start. As usual, Pinkie counted them in while banging her drumsticks together, "One, two, three, four!"
They all started in unison, save for Twilight, with one of their better songs, "We've just got the day, to get ready, and there's only so much time to lose. Because tonight, ya we're here to party, so lets think of something fun to do!"
"Shake your tail 'cause we're here to have a party tonight!" They ended the song with a much better mood, it felt as thought the last two hours didn't even matter. Unfortunately, for the sake of their pony ears and Twilight's notepad, their last song didn't matter either.
"Well, that didn't work," Sunset said as she looked around at her half-pony friends.
"Thanks for the heads up there, Captain Obvious." Rainbow Dash said with a grin and a fake salute to the flame haired girl.
" I was so positive that playing another song would, for lack of a better word, unfreeze the magic," she replied, shrugging off her friends sometimes rude nature.
"At least it didn't make it worse," whispered Fluttershy, as if tempting fate, "I'm sure you could figure out anoth-." Fate had been sufficiently tempted.
At that moment, everyone in the room, except for Twilight, was lifted into the air with a bright flash of light.
Twilight, who had been severely startled by the sudden flash of light, had fallen backwards into the pile of boxes she was sitting on. She continued to stay there for the several minutes as she had to cover her eyes completely to not be blinded by the light emitted from her friends. During this time, everything fell silent for Twilight, except for a quiet noise that sounded like fairy dust being sprinkled. She had no idea what was going on, and started to worry about what was happening. There were no screams of pain or anything else of the sort, so she knew they weren't being hurt. But she wasn't hearing anything from them, which wasn't a good sign.
After about five minutes of waiting, the noise was silenced, and replaced several seconds later with a low groan. Twilight knew that noise all too well, the sound of somebody that didn't want to wake up. She moved her hands away from her face slowly, and found no scorching light met her eyes. What she did find however, was something, or six somethings that scared her just as much as they made her want to scoop them up into a hug. Lying on the floor were six technicolour ponies, five of which looked to be asleep.
Twilight quickly got to her feet and brushed off any dust on her skirt that remained from the old boxes. The movement caught the attention of one of ponies, specifically the flame-maned one, who was the only one to actually be awake. She opened her groggy eyes a little bit further and looked directly at Twilight, who had a confused look on her face.
"Twilight, what happened?" said the orange pony.
It spoke, Twilight thought quickly, but that voice, could it be? "Sunset? Is that you?"
"What do mean? Did we transform back or-" Sunset reached to the top of her head to check her ears, her hoof hitting the unicorn horn that was sticking out of her forehead first. "Am I a pony?" she said, with concern in her voice.
Twilight was simply dumbfounded. Not only did she have a friend who used to be a pony from a different world, but now that friend was a pony in her world! The half-pony transformations were one thing, something she didn't understand at all, but six actual ponies? Her mind had no idea where to begin. She sat back down on the semi-crushed boxes, hand on her forehead, trying to piece together what happened.
Sunset by this point had noticed Twilight's reaction, and came to the conclusion that she was in fact, a pony again. She got to her hooves, her mind switching back to her birth instincts, and looked around her. She put two and two together and knew that somehow, the other five ponies laying there were her friends. She walked over to each of them and gave a slight nudge in the side to try and wake them up. Slowly, but surely, each of her friends awoke, and realized where they were. Sunset just stopped and listened, as one by one, they realized what happened to them and started there own mini freak-outs, except for Fluttershy. The yellow, animal loving pegasus was caught in the same dilemma that Twilight initially was. She wasn't sure whether to scream or to SQUEE, the result being a mixture of the two. The confused sound made everyone else in the small garage turn towards her in shock, silencing their own cries. Sunset quickly seized upon the silence.
"So girls, uh, we're ponies now," she said with an sheepish grin. "Something definitely went wrong, and while I'm used to being like this seeing as I was born a pony, I can understand what you girls are feeling right now. I had no clue what to do with myself when I first walked through the portal, I didn't know that I was a bipedal species, or that I didn't have magic. But for right now, I just need you calm down while I can figure out a solution."
"Calm down?" Applejack started, trying shakily to stand up, only to fall back onto her haunches. "We just went and turned from magical half pony-humans into actual ponies, and you want us to calm down? Ah have hooves for pete's sake!" she said while waving a hoof around in the air. Sunset could tell by her heavy breathing that Applejack wasn't taking this very well.
"Applejack," said Rarity, "I agree with Sunset, freaking out isn't going to help us solve anything." Rarity slowly got up, having an easier time then than her friend, and walked over to her. She draped herself over Applejack in an awkward pony-human hybrid hug. Sunset couldn't help but snicker to herself about how weird they looked. They stayed that way for a couple of minutes, until Applejack broke the hug.
"Thanks Rarity," she said with a small blush. "And Ah'm sorry Sunset, ah don't know what came over me," she was almost crying at this point from the mental stress she went through.
Unbeknownst to the three girls, their friends were sitting on the other side of the garage, looking over their new bodies. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were closely examining each other's wings. They had had wings, whenever they "ponied up" before. The only difference now was that they could actually look at them without worrying about changing back like when they played music.
Close by the two pegasi, a now intrigued Twilight was sitting with Pinkie Pie, lifting and lowering her hooves like a water pump. She had the notepad in hand and was writing down notes about the new species in front of her. The pink mare could hardly sit still and was almost bouncing, her tail shaking back and forth like a dog's.
Sunset walked into the center of the room and with got the attention of her friends. "I'm going to be honest with you girls, I have no idea how to fix this. I'm still learning friendship magic myself, and I was wrong about the first solution. I should've been more careful, and I won't make that mistake again.
"Which is why I don't want to actually try anything to fix this until I ask Princess Twilight for help. I'll keep trying to figure it from the research I have, but for all I know, something far worse could've happened than us being turned into ponies."
Surprisingly to Sunset, Twilight was the one to respond. "From a scientific standpoint, that's probably the best bet for now. Better to be sure about your next attempt, than make it worse." Everyone else nodded as well. They had to admit, the idea of doing magical "tests" on themselves wasn't very appealing.
"So until Princess Twilight responds, we're stuck like this? You all remember how long it took for her to get Sunset's message before the friendship games. What will we do if she's busy again?" said Rarity. "What about school?"
"Well, I guess we can't go to school until we can hear from Twilight, what a shame," Rainbow Dash said with a sarcastic sigh.
"But where will we stay?" Pinkie Pie said, pulling her ear away from Twilight and her notepad. "I don't think my family would be very happy if I went home as a little pink pony. Well, I'm sure Maud would find it hilarious, she loves fun stuff like this!" Having met her sister Maud before, the other five ponies in the room simply gave her a hesitant "yeaaaaaa," trying not to let on that her sister didn't seem like the fun type.
"But, if I can't go home, how will I feed all my animals?" Fluttershy gasped.
"Fluttershy, you carry all your animals and their food around in your backpack, remember?" said Rainbow Dash, pointing a hoof to the open pack near the garage door. It was open, with a bunny and a hamster sleeping inside, a cat beside them licking its paws, and a bird resting on the cat's head.
"Oh, right," she whispered. "But where will we stay?"
"Sunset," Twilight spoke up, "You said this morning that the family you live with was only gone for tonight, right?" At the pony's nod she continued. "My parents are gone on a two week business trip, so I guess you girls could stay at my house."
"A sleepover?" Pinkie Pie nearly hit the ceiling with how high she jumped. "Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh! Ohmygosh!"
"That sounds like a marvelous idea!" Rarity said excitedly. "But how will we get to your house Twilight, we can't exactly run there and not expect to be seen."
"Actually Rarity, we would be galloping, not runn-," Sunset started, only to be cutoff by the glare that Rarity shot at her.
"Errrr, never mind."
"Ah have an idea," Applejack stood up, this time figuring out how to not fall back onto her haunches again. "Twilight, you said you got your license a few days ago, right?" She walked over to her backpack and stuck her head inside the pouch to look for something.
"Yeah," she replied. "But my parent's car is our family's only car, and they took it for the business trip."
"Well, isn't just lucky that Big Mac let me borrow his truck to get here today?" she said with a huge grin, using her hoof the scrape the apple shaped key-ring out of her backpack.
"Excellent. Alright girls, grab your backpacks and lets head out! Just leave your instruments here, and we'll grab them when we figure everything out," said Sunset as walked over to her backpack and sat down beside it. The pony couldn't help but smile about everything that had happened. I can't believe I'm finally a pony again, I feels good to be back!
About five minutes later, and everyone was ready to go. Twilight opened the garage door slowly and looked around for anyone that might have been walking or driving by. Everything seemed clear, and she gave the the word to her friends.
"Ok y'all follow me, I parked just over there," Applejack said, pointing towards the old red pickup truck. Everyone broke into a quick gallop, save for Twilight, who was constantly watching for anyone that might be passing by. Luckily, nobody did.
After lifting her non-winged friends, one by one into the truck, Twilight draped a large white sheet from Sunset's garage over everyone.
"Ugh!" Rarity coughed. "This thing is simply covered in dust, couldn't you have shook it out first?"
Everyone seemed to roll their eyes in unison, and Twilight walked over the driver's side door, got in, and checked all of her mirrors. She didn't ace her driving exam by forgetting her mental, pre-driving, checklist. And finally, after a couple failed engine starts, they were on the road.
"I guess while we wait, I'll start writing a letter to Princess Twilight to explain the situation we're in here. Hopefully she won't be as busy as last time. I'd suggest that you girls call your parents when we get to Twilight's house," Sunset said, fishing the enchanted book and a pen out of her backpack. As if it was instinctual by this point, Sunset started to dictate her letter as she wrote.
Dear Princess Twilight,
I'm going to be honest, friendship magic makes NO sense. After a band practice with the girls, we were left with our pony ears and hair. I assumed that playing another song would fix the problem, but instead I made it worse. We all turned into our pony selves, except for Twilight. (I guess because she wasn't part of the initial friendship magic group... I think.) I haven't really worked out all the details myself. We're staying at Twilight's house to avoid the public eye, but we need your expertise. Please write back as soon as you can. Your friend, Sunset Shimmer.
Twilight Sparkle was quietly humming to herself as she drove into the heart of the city. Sunset lived in a suburb closer to the edge of the city, whereas Twilight lived close to the downtown area in a fairly lavish house. Her parents were co-owners of a somewhat successful business in town, and they needed to be close to their office.
As she drove, Twilight couldn't help but be somewhat distracted by the situation she got herself into. She was driving a truck full of magical, technicolour ponies who were also her friends, to stay at her house. Before she started researching the strange happenings at CHS, she would've never believed any of this. But it was real, and while she wasn't directly involved, she had to do something to help them (even if was to further some of her own research into magic as well).
Sunset Shimmer looked up from the old book, startled as the truck hit a small pothole in the road, and was instantly taken aback by the looks on her friends faces. They were staring at her with a look of pure amazement and shock. A little freaked out by her friends, Sunset slowly started to put her book back into her backpack. It was then that she noticed their gazes followed the book, not her. Sunset face-hoofed as she realized her stupidity. "Oh yeah, maybe I should've mentioned at some point that unicorns can use magic." She tapped her glowing horn as though she needed proof for her claim.
"That is so AWESOME!" Rainbow Dash was practically shaking with excitement.
Applejack gave her a sideways glance, then turned back to Sunset, "Can you do other stuff, or just move things?"
"Well, normally a unicorn only really learns levitation, usually at a pretty young age," Sunset lifted her backpack up in front of her. "But sometimes, they go on and study more advanced types of magic. A lot of the times it corresponds to their special talent. I was Princess Celestia's student before I came here," she stopped and glanced around at her friends. "But you girls already know that story," she looked down at her hooves and sighed, a bit of guilt present in her voice.
Pinkie Pie noticed Sunset's sadness and quickly interjected, "That was a really really really long time ago, we already forgave you for that, silly."
"Thanks, Pinkie," Sunset looked back up and continued. "Anyways, before I left I had studied a lot of advanced magic, and I can definitely show you later tonight. But I'm nowhere near as good as Twilight is. Her special talent is literally magic," she gave a small laugh and muttered under her breath, "Cheater." She apparently hadn't muttered quiet enough and the back of the truck erupted in laughter.
It was about 5:30 when they got to Twilight's house, and everyone in the back was happy to be able to move their legs again. Twilight parked in the driveway and got out to help her friends. One by one, she lifted them out of the truck while directing them into her garage while Sunset watched for other people. A single car drove down the street just before Sunset got down, and she quickly ducked under the sheet.
"Huh," she peeked her head out from the truck. "That was close, I'm surprised it isn't busier, we're downtown at like, twenty after five or something."
Twilight picked up her unicorn friend and put her on the ground, "I'm pretty sure most people live in their shops and businesses, because I never really see a "rush hour" here." She locked the truck and started to walk inside through the garage.
"Wow, I never really noticed that, that sounds like Equestria, or what Princess Twilight told me about Ponyville anyways," Sunset explained. Twilight had to stifle a laugh at the idea of having a town for ponies called Ponyville.
A couple of minutes later found everyone around a coffee table in Twilight's living room. There wouldn't have been enough seating had everyone been human still. Fortunately their smaller size allowed the six ponies to fit on the two love-seats across from each other. Twilight sat in her father's recliner that was positioned at one of the corners of the table. Everything was silent for a few minutes because everyone had finally gotten over the initial shock of the ordeal and were now worried about what would happen next. Would they be stuck like this? What would people think? Even Sunset and Twilight were worried, if only for the sake of their friends. Sunset was already used to being a unicorn, and could easily cope with her life if worse came to worst.
It was a vibrating sound that finally broke the silence as everyone in the room instinctively reached for their (in six out of seven cases, non-existent) pockets. A small laugh was shared throughout the room at the mistake, and Sunset realized that the vibrating was coming from her backpack.
"Girls! That must be Princess Twilight! She might have a solution for us," Sunset levitated the book to her as began to flip to the correct page.
"Already? That was fast. I guess she has more time to spare when she isn't dealing with a magical time crisis like during the Friendship Games," Pinkie's comment caused Twilight to stir in her seat and blush a little.
That was one crazy afternoon. After everything that happened during the games, I never thought I'd be so awkward when meeting myself!
"Well," Sunset paused as she found she found the page from Twilight. "Let's see what Twilight thinks of our situation." She began to read aloud from the book:
Dear Sunset Shimmer, I'll admit: as the Princess of Friendship, even I don't know everything about it! And unfortunately, I know even less about the magic in your world as it doesn't normally have magic at all. The magic wasn't removed when I returned with the crown as it seems that some of it stayed there. To make matters worse, when I tried to come to help you girls personally, the portal wouldn't open. It seems that the same thing that caused you to stay as ponies, is also causing the doors between the world to "lock." So to be blunt; I don't know enough about what's happening to be able to help. However, I will do what I can on my end to look for an answer. I have already contacted Princess Celestia and Princess Luna for help. That being said, I know that you girls are smart enough to look into this on your own as well. Especially you, Sunset, considering you also studied under Princess Celestia.
I will try to keep the book with me at all times, and I let you know as soon as we find something. Your friend, Twilight Sparkle.
"So, you girls are really stuck like that for now, aren't you?" Twilight motioned for the book, and Sunset passed it over for her to read.
"Well, in that case, I guess there's no sense in moping around," Rarity got down from the couch and stretched. "Twilight darling, would you mind if I took a bath? It would be nice to get all that dust out of my hair," she waited for Sunset to say it's her mane, but fortunately she never did.
"Yeah, that's no problem, we can just watch some TV for now. The bathroom is down the hall and to the left," Twilight pointed in the general direction. "Did you want me to come help you? The bathtub might be a little tall for you to climb into, it taller than the average tub."
"Oh, I'm sure I'll be fine, but thanks for offering," Rarity walked down the hall as the sound of the TV filled the house.
That left the 5 remaining ponies and Twilight to either work themselves up further about the issue at hand, which Applejack proceeded to do silently. Or they could settle in and watch some cartoons as a sort of break. It was no later than a minute after Rarity left the living room that a scream filled the room that could put a banshee out of business. Twilight and Sunset were the first ones to get to the bathroom, as they weren't trying to learn how to run effectively. When they found Rarity laying in the normal bathroom with the bathtub filling, they shared a look of confusion between each other.
"Rarity, what's wrong?" Fluttershy pushed past the girls at the door and sat down beside the now crying unicorn.
"I'm not wearing any clothes!" Rarity shouted.
"Well duh, ponies don't wear clothes. You already know that from Sunset," Rainbow rolled her eyes at her over dramatic friend. "You didn't even notice when you thought you phone was vibrating."
"I know that ponies don't where clothes," Rarity whined. "But where are MY clothes?"
"Huh, I never actually considered that," Sunset put her hoof to her chin. "Considering that traveling through the portal to this world gives a pony clothes. It also takes them away when you return to Equestria. Princess Twilight did say that there's some sort of connection from what happened and the portal. If I were to guess," not that my guesses have been accurate so far, "you'll get your clothes and phone back when we figure out how to transform back."
Rarity exhaled a sigh of relief that her self-made clothes weren't (hopefully) lost forever. She then tried to climb up into the tub, which was far too tall for her to climb into. Her struggles were interrupted by Twilight as she picked her up and placed her into the abnormally tall, half-full bathtub and turned the tap off. "Heh, thanks," was all Rarity could say.
It was unanimously decided upon that the rest of the night should be spent having fun as friends and relaxing instead of trying to find solutions to the problem. This was decided because everyone was quite tired already, and because nobody even knew where to begin looking for answers. The six ponies finally remembered to call home and explain that they were having a sleepover. Luckily, none of their parents were too upset, as they were used to their daughters hanging out after school all the time. Twilight also called her parents to make sure they wouldn't be coming home early, and to ask if it was okay that her friends stayed over. She already knew the answer to the second question, considering how much her parents had pushed her to make friends at Crystal Prep.
The living room had been converted into the "hangout" for the night. Sunset was able to lift the furniture out of the way, which earned her lots of complements from her friends. Every blanket and pillow was then scavenged from the house to be made into 6 small beds in the middle of the floor. Twilight chose to use one of the couches instead of taking more of the finite blanket and pillow supply to lay on top of. Games were played, movies were watched and fun was had by all. Pinkie Pie had enough board games hidden in her hair that made everyone's head spin. Obviously nobody questioned it, because they'd never find an answer.
It was about midnight when they went to bed and almost everyone fell asleep as soon as their head hit the pillow. Sunset was the only one left awake. Twilight is counting on me to help the girls, but I'm just as in the dark as she is right now. I wish I knew what to do. She thought about this for several more minutes, before finally giving in to the much needed sleep.
Twilight walked into the living room, stood in the doorway, and wiped the sweat off of her forehead. The still-human girl had woken up before everybody else, and had started slaving away in the kitchen making breakfast for everyone. An hour later and the table was covered with plates of food and the delicious smells. She wasn't exactly sure if anything had changed in their diet (she quickly scribbled the question down to ask Sunset later) so she an assortment of different foods. Among other things, fruits had been sliced up, cereal set out, and a carton of milk and orange juice were beside seven empty cups. At the front of the table sat her personal favourite, a large stack of pancakes that leaned ever so slightly over the edge, begging to leap into the unknown below.
It was then that Twilight noticed she was being watched, or rather the doorway into the kitchen was. Pinkie Pie had been risen from her sleep due to the smell of breakfast. It was almost as though the pink pony could see the smells coming from the kitchen. Twilight concluded that she probably could.
"Hey Twilight did you sleep well thank you for making breakfast I'm going to have some now bye!" Pinkie Pie had zoomed right Twilight, who had jumped out of the way when she saw the pink contrail form behind her friend. A moment later, a loud crash was heard from the room behind her. The remaining sleeping ponies all jumped up in surprise at the sound.
"What was that!?" Rainbow asked. "It sounded like a plane crashed in the kitchen!"
Twilight turned around to see that Pinkie hadn't remembered the hardwood floor, and she had slammed right into cabinet. Pinkie was lying on the ground, laughing hysterically.
"I'm okay!" Pinkie shouted. "This happens all the time at home. Good thing it was only a wooden cabinet and not an oven." Everybody else winced in unison.
"Twilight," Rarity asked from across the kitchen table. "Can you please pass the syrup to me?"
"Of course," Twilight reached her hand out to the bottle of liquid heaven but before she could, a cyan glow enveloped the syrup and lifted it towards the white unicorn.
"Don't worry, I've got it," Sunset said with a wave of her hoof. She delicately poured some syrup onto Rarity's pancakes before returning it to Twilight, who was eyeing the bottle like her own child.
Twilight's dining room was moderately sized, constructed for the purpose of entertaining guests. In the center was a large wooden table with 8 chairs around it. For each of the six ponies, a pillow was set on their chair so that they could at least somewhat reach the table. While Twilight was still human, and Sunset could use magic, everybody else was forced to eat from their plate with their mouths.
"Knock on wood that we aren't stuck like this for long –" Rarity knocked on the table "– but if it does take a while, you must teach me how to do that, darling." Sunset replied a nod of her head, as to not speak with her mouth full. "If I could move things like that, I could at least be productive while stuck like this. I could even try making some clothing for us." She practically jumped out of her chair in excitement.
"Hey! How is that fair? You two can use magic, and we would still be stuck here eating like pigs!" Rainbow shouted through a mouth full of fruit.
"First of all, don't talk with your mouth full," Applejack chided. "Second of all, you get to fly."
"Also, Rainbow, I've known you since elementary school and you eat pretty much like that anyways," Fluttershy added.
Rainbow thought for a moment before continuing, with her mouth still full. "Yeah, I guess flying is still totally awesome! And I do not eat like a pig!"
"No silly, you eat like a horse!" Pinkie chimed in, causing the whole table, to erupt into laughter
With breakfast finished and cleaned up (Thanks to Sunset's magic, and Twilight), the gang stood at the front door. They were ready to conquer the day and do whatever they wanted. It was the weekend, and that meant they would have fun!
"So, what can we do?" Rainbow asked.
"Oh! Oh! I know!" Pinkie jumped into the air. "We could go to a petting zoo! We'd fit right in!"
"Uh, Pinkie. I don't think 6 coloured ponies are going to fit in with farm animals," Applejack grinned at her friend's joke.
"What do you mean?" Pinkie sounded genuinely curious.
"Anyways, whatever you guys think you're able to do secretly, I'll pass. I'm going to stay here and work on fixing this mess. I brought the magic to this world, so this is my responsibility. I studied magic my whole life, I'll figure something out," Sunset looked down at her hooves.
Everyone shared a worried glance with one another, they all shared the same thought, Sunset blames herself. A few seconds had passed before Twilight spoke up. "Well, if you insist. I will admit that we wouldn't be much assistance to you. My magic research is far too shallow for anything like this. But remember, this wasn't your fault, and nobody blames you."
Sunset gave a quick "thank you," before returning to the living room, journal and pen in tow.
The next few minutes consisted of arguing about what they could and couldn't do without being seen. Surprisingly it was Fluttershy that tried to make herself heard. "What was that, sugarcube?" Applejack asked.
"I said: what if we had a picnic? We could head just outside of town, I know where this nice semi-forested area is. Nobody ever goes out there, as far as I know."
Among the murmured agreements was Twilight. "That's a great idea! We can stop on the way and I'll pickup some food. Lets go grab some blankets and see what else we need." Twilight paused for a moment before remembering something. "Oh! I have a surprise for when we get there! Something I can borrow from my brother, Shining Armor. He doesn't get to use it much with us being in the city. Where we're headed is perfect for this!"
Blankets were gathered from the floor-bed, and a cooler was filled with drinks. About twenty minutes later, the passenger seat was loaded, and Twilight had just finished lifting everyone into the back of the truck. "Hold on, girls. I'll be right back."
Sunset sat alone in the living room. It was of course her choice to be left alone, but it didn't stop her from feeling excluded. Being the past student of Princess Celestia, the orange unicorn felt that it was her job to figure out what happened to her friends.
Out on the table in front of her sat all of the books from her backpack. This included magic journal, as well as several other notebooks mostly pertaining to the magic that she brought with Princess Twilight's crown. Somewhere in one her notes there was a answer; a solution she hadn't thought of. If it took her all day and all night with no sleep to find it, she would do it. In Sunset's eyes, she owed it to her friends for causing this mess in the first place.
With just a thought, Sunset's horn lit up with her cyan aura. All of her notes began to slowly move around in a uniform pattern as she began reading all of the notes one after another. An empty notebook also sat stationary in front of her, becoming less and less empty by the second. A flurry of Sunset's research chicken-scratch exploded into existence as she wrote down everything relevant to the situation. Ideas were combined, pages were torn and discarded (teleported to the garbage can in the kitchen). Sunset was so entranced and encapsulated by the research that she didn't even notice the purple skinned girl standing 5 feet in front of her.
"Wow, that's amazing! How are you able to levitate so many things at once without everything becoming a complete mess?" Twilight hadn't realized that concentration was the key to levitation, especially with a lot of items at the same time. With a soft thud and a loud gasp, all of Sunset's notebooks hit the ground except for the one she was currently writing in. Twilight instantly realized what she had done and looked guilty.
"I'm so sorry! I wasn't even thinking. It's just that that was really interesting and-" she stopped talking as the orange unicorn placed her last notebook down and looked up at her.
"It's alright. I was so into my notes there I didn't even see you, which was my fault. Were you guys just getting ready to leave?" Sunset asked.
"Yeah. Fluttershy has suggested we go for a picnic outside of town. I just came in to grab a couple of things." Twilight placed down the large, overflowing notebook she was carrying onto the table. "That's all the knowledge I have on magic. Hopefully it's of some use to you. Like I said, this is far beyond I understand, but maybe my notes will mean more to someone who studied magic their entire life."
Sunset smiled, "Thanks! From what you knew at the friendship games, I should be able to use these to my advantage." She looked down at the rugged black case at Twilight's feet. "What's that?"
Twilight looked down to see what Sunset was referring to and then smirked, "Oh this? It's just a little surprise for our picnic, you wanna see?" At Sunset's nod, Twilight picked up the case and popped it open. Inside was an 'X' shaped device with a camera on it. "I thought it might be neat to use it for once, my brother never does. I feel like Rainbow and Fluttershy might like it too."
"Well, Dash will. I'm not to sure about Fluttershy though," Sunset replied with a smirk to match her friend's.
Twilight closed the case back up and walked to the living room doorway. "Well, I think I'd better get going before the girls come looking for me." She turned to walk out, "Are you sure you don't want to come with us? Stressing out alone with a stack of notes like this isn't great for you," thoughts of her lonely old closet-lab at Crystal Prep surfaced in her mind and she frowned. "I would know."
"Yes. I already said, this was my responsibility and I inten-. HEY!" Sunset shrieked in surprise.
"Actually, I've decided for you. You're coming with us! If you're going to study these notes, you can do it with your friends around to support you." Twilight had picked up Sunset, who then proceeded to pickup all of the notebooks on the floor into a pile with her magic. Without fanfare, she walked out the door, grabbing the case again on the way out.
