Abacus Cinch tried to get Twilight to unleash the stolen magic at the Friendship Games. Unfortunately, her plan went horribly wrong, and now she, her students, and her opponents have been regressed to children, toddlers, and babies.
Principal Cinch, after suffering the humiliation that was the First Challange of the Friendship Games, has decided to resort to fight fire with fire, by forcing Twilight Sparkle- student extraordinarie and researcher of magic- to unleash the power she has sealed inside a peculiar device.
The trouble is, there's no garauntee that said magic will actually make the user stronger... or limit its effects to the bearer.
Alternate ending of the "The Friendship Games" EQG movie. Contains physical regression and, later on, diapers. Ye be warned.
That was it. The final moments of the Friendship Games were at hand and Principal Abacus Cinch was watching them from the privileged position at the end of the two rows of students.
On her right, the disciplined, steadfast, orderly and well-trained cohort of students from her own school, the Crystal Prep Academy. On her left, the chaotic, unsteady and poorly-cobbled together riff-raff from the rival institution, Canterlot High School.
Dean Cadence and the two incompetent Principals running the other school stood at Cinch's opposite end of the rows, and, in the middle of the aforementioned rows, Principal Cinch's living jewel, Twilight Sparkle- a girl as smart and talented as she was weak-willed and submissive- was walking forward towards the designated spot where she was going to unlock the magic-capturing device of her creation, and thusly unleashing the power of magic, which had been used as unfair advantage by Canterlot High School's rabble in the previous challenges.
When she was a few steps away from the designated stop, Twilight turned around, looking at Cinch with what the latter could only assume (and hope) were frightful eyes. Principal Cinch smirked and nodded her head, as to give her permission to proceed. The girl, with a visible gulp, turned around again, lifting the amulet-shaped device up in the air, holding it by the leather string.
Soon after, Dean Cadence stopped next to the microphone and announced the start of the third challenge, while six girls from the opponents' horde stepped forward, desperately calling out Twilight's name.
"I see you do not take gracefully being beaten at your own game..." Principal Cinch muttered under her breath, as she watched the device slowly opening up like a clamshell and one of the girls of the riff-raff trying to make herself way. "Sadly for you, it is now too late for you to back down. You shall suffer my school's superiority!"
When it was full open, the amulet released a glowing white ball that floated mid-air and Twilight- much to everybody's surprise and shock- started to hover above the ground. Principal Cinch recoiled, but, with she her shoes' heels firmly planted in the soft muddy ground, she did not flee from the scene.
"I must watch, I cannot let such a momentous event escape my eyes!" She said to herself out loud, as the glowing white ball rapidly morphed itself into what looked like an old-timey pocket watch, before hovering away, dragging a shrieking Twilight along.
"What is that?" "What is going on?" "Is that supposed to happen?": Those were the questions coming from the stupefied crowds. Thought-much to her delight- Principal Cinch noted that her students, even in the general confusion, still didn't break ranks, while the rival school's mob had started to scatter.
Then, all of the sudden, the pocket watch turned into a whirlpool of blinding light, accompanied by a mighty roar of unknown origin. Principal Cinch immediately covered her eyes with her arms, but she stood still, not afraid what was going on in front of her, in spite of the blinding light and the ringing in her ears.
Soon enough, she felt some kind of energy flowing in her arms and legs, one that both made them feel less frail and made them feel a slightly shorter. Her skin- especially her face’s- prickled and felt like stretching to a long forgotten past state, while her eyes felt painfully morphing, causing her to moan in pain and bend over, her eyes tightly close shut as her glasses fell off her nose.
When the pain and the frolicking died down and fell into nothingness, Principal Cinch opened her eyes again with difficulty, and the very first thing she noticed was the fact that she could limpidly see her orange pinch-nez laying at her feet in the muddy ground. The second thing she noticed was that her clothes felt much looser than usual.
Somewhat confused, Cinch bent her right arm in front of herself, and she saw her coat’s sleeve fully covering her hand and drooping compared to her arm.
"What. Just. Happened." She said to herself, before raising her head to look upon the carnage.
Right in front her eyes, at the explosion's ground zero there now was a baby- one likely no older than six months and looking just like Twilight- curled up and crying under an uniform. Looking at her right, she saw many toddlers and children looking alike to her students, their bodies barely covered by their uniforms- now too big and baggy for them. Some of them simply sat on the ground and looked at them scared and confused, others were huddled together either for warmth or safety, and others- the ones least affected or not at all affected by the apparent regression-inducing explosion- picked up some of their less fortunate comrades buried under the piles of discarded clothes.
Looking at her left, she saw a similar sad show happening for the other side as well, which Cinch took as a sign that, whatever power regressed her and her students, it did not play favourites with Canterlot High School either. There, Dean Cadence, Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna- their clothes now unfitting- stood by dumbfounded, as their regressed pupils were running around or rolling in The mud and crying loudly, chased and picked up by unscathed or slightly-regressed students trying to give to the horde a semblance of order it never had.
The sight caused Principal Cinch to rapidly blink, as she bent over to pick up her glasses and slowly clean them up up with her black undercoat’s brim.
"Interesting result, I must admit," Principal Cinch muttered under her breath, as her shock and surprise slowly waned, replaced by her rationality reminding her of the final outcome of the predicament and how it fit within her goals "It is such a pity that I did not want this to happen!”
She stepped forward, towards Twilight, ready to deliver a long, powerful verbal smackdown to the heavily-regressed girl. However, she stopped herself mid-way in her second step, as a thought struck her mind.
Cinch looked back at the students of her school; some of which were now the same state as Twilight. Her gaze was then cast back to Canterlot High, who suffered more than her side, and finally, she returned to Twilight.
After seeing everything that had happened around her—the youthening of Crystal Prep, Canterlot High, Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and herself, she looked down at her now trembling hands. “This is… This is my fault….” she whispered. She had been the one who backed Twilight into a corner, forced her to compete in the Games, and had turned her prized pupils into infants. “I cannot conceal that we lost, but I’m partially to blame…”
She finally stepped over to Twilight, picked her up and gently tussled her hair, quelling the newborn’s sorrow almost instantly. “I’m so sorry, Twilight…” Cinch sniffled, her old voice long gone and replaced with a more teen-like, almost seductive one. “If I had only known that this would’ve happened... I would’ve just thrown that locket away! But now it is too late, and my very own Platonic Academy will go back to its previous mediocrity as Crystal Prep School. Everything I’ve worked on for my greatest creation has been severely setback or outright disappeared, all because of my ambition…”
“You did a lot more than that, Abacus Cinch…” Luna marched up to her, her shoulders hunched and her hands tightened up into knuckles as she got right up into Cinch’s face. “You have single-handedly turned back the clock on everyone, us included!”
“What was I supposed to do?!” Cinch spat back at Luna, almost wanting to make her attack. “Your school was in danger of winning over mine!”
“You called our truce ridiculous, but I’m calling your actions entirely immoral and grounds for arrest!” Celestia charged towards the two of them and stood beside Luna, her arms stretched out to protect her now teenage sister. “Your little reputation has damaged both CHS and CPA’s student body!”
“Your impudence was the first thing to harbour my grudge for you all, and now the fact that you would gang up on me makes my blood boil for you even more!” Cinch arched up her shoulders and glared, her vocabulary was still as sharp as ever and her gaze miraculously resharpened just like her strength. “By all means, if you wish to fight me, I shall not stop you. Be aware that I actually used to conform to the fitness standards I used to requires, before finding my life’s calling in humanistic arts.” She banged her chest with her palms twice, before setting herself three-quarters towards the two teens holding her arms up like a boxeur.
“I understand your anger,” Dean Cadence said, stepping in-between the three hostile principals. “But I am sure that there is a better time and a better way to deal with it, than right now and with needless violence.”
“And when this ‘better time’ would be? And why are you meddling with this?” Celestiale asked while turning her head towards Cadence.
Cadence turned her bust towards the students’ crowd, which was in an uproar of crying
“We may have lost some years, but many will still see authority in our figures,” Cadence said in a snarky tone. “To have a fight right in front of them would completely destroy any kind of faith they may have in us.”
“In short, save the fight for later.” Cinch said, turning back to face her students after picking a distressed Twilight up again. “The best thing we can do now is to get our former students home to their parents.”
“You’re right, Cinch” Celestia said annoyed, stepping aside from her previous position. “In their states, it’s impossible for them to drive, let alone take public transport.” She pulled out her phone and started to tap in some numbers. “I’ll do my best to get them all to phone their own parents. I’ll do the ones for the students back in their infant years, since they won’t even be able to hold theirs, let alone type with them.”
“Fine.” Luna spat before walking back to the students. “But know this, Abacus Cinch. After we get everyone home, we are not friends,” she said firmly. “We were never friends. We have never met. We have never spoken. And the Friendship Games is null and void this year.”
“Not that it matters that much anymore,” Cinch said, walking away slowly towards her students’s slowly reorganizing coorth.
A few minutes later – with a quick and vague mention of a non-fatal accident involving Twilight occurring at the competition – the deed had been done and Twilight's parents had been contacted via phone call.
Principal Cinch terminated the call and slipped the phone back into her pocket.
"Truly, omission of facts is the greatest tool of all in times likes this," She mused to herself, turning her head towards Twilight, who she was holding in her right arm. "Am I right, little Twilight?"
Twilight looked confused at Cinch, babbling something she failed to understand.
“I will take it as a yes,” Cinch said, while typing in her husband’s phone number. “Anyways, now that your parents have been called, I can pass to call my dear husband Sombra to prepare himself to see me like his old flame again.”
She put the cellphone close to her ear and a few seconda of waiting later, the phone was picked up.
“What is it?” Sombra’s deep voice boomed from the other end. “I am going to round up hooligans in a moment, so please be quick, my dear Cinch.”
“Always very affectionate, eh?” Cinch said with a quick chuckle. “I am just going to tell you that I may or may not come back home with a new look and with a strong need to get a money transfer~”
“Oh, for God’s sake…” he said before closing the call on Cinch’s face. She sighed as she flippled her phone close, then putting it back into her’s coat internal pocket on the right.
“Eh. Hopefully he will not mind too much,” she muttered, slowly rocking Twilight with her free arm as she turned around towards her students.
By the time Cinch had called Twilight’s parents and her husband, the former academy’s students had assembled in four groups. The smallest one was one composed by seven students who – since had been regressed to grade school children – were sitting in circles, with only one of them a handling a phone that they then passed to the next one in the circle.
Another group was composed by non-regressed students frantically calling and discussing what had just happened between each other, before running off to oversee other groups in the stead of other actual teenagers, leaving the remaining three detatachments.
The largest group was composed of toddlers and babies. These were the heavily-regressed students who had been rounded up together and piled up in one spot, in an attempt to be kept under many watchful eyes until assistance arrived.
The fourth group was a mixed bag of students of all ages crying out in agony. Most of the unscathed overseers were either bent over each wounded, trying to soothe them and keep them calm, while others frantically spoke and gestured on their phones.
Cinch decided that a visit to the third detachment was needed in order to asser her new position, and the visit to the wounded ones’ group was needed in order to both keep morale high and evaluate the collateral damage.
She walked up to the students who hadn’t been affected by the blast, where she made a little bow.
“Madam… did it affect you too?” A sand-coloured student, called Cadete, said.
Cinch sighed and nodded, while other students turned around and either bowed or saluted.
“It did, as you could have guessed by my new appearance.” She said, looking up, while slowly rocking Twilight. “As such, you are allowed to stop to refer to me as ‘madam,’ although I think it would be wiser for me to relinquish my authority only when this crisis is over.”
“Understood!” They said in unison. “What are your orders?”
“You did a good job at organizing your peers according to their regression’s severity, so part of your orders is already done,” Cinch said calmly. “So, next is to call up all the parents or guardians, even if untouched by that power, in order to have an orderly evacuation.”
Abacus Cinch then turned around towards the anguishing regressed pupils begin attended by other students.
“Oh, and should the situation get dire, call an ambulance. Lord only knows how many fractured limbs have come back, or how many spines have been crooked again…”
Twenty-five minutes had passed, and a handful of parents had arrived on the scene. It only took them a few seconds to find their students, but their mouths hung agape when they saw that they had been turned into children again. With their jaws still hanging open, they slowly moved towards their respective sons and daughters to collect them.
“Abacus! We heard that there was an accident involving Twilight.” Night Light rapidly walked up to her “What happened?!”
"A very, very unfortunate incident has occurred, Mr. Light," Principal Cinch said as she gave Twilight back to her father, who immediately proceeded to keep her close to his chest.
"Members from the opposing school’s team have used otherwordly means to gain an unfair advantage over the our academy. In a mix of both reckless courage from Twilight and overeagerness from mine, I have made her use said otherworldly means herself.” Even if she knew it was all her fault, outright admit it was still sketchy, especially in a situation like that.
Night Light started to lightly caress his daughter’s head slowly, silently glancing in her eyes before raising his head to look at Cinch.
"O-othewordly means? What do you mean exactly?" Night Light said, as he slowly cradled Twilight in his arms.
"At risk of sounding like a madwoman," Principal Cinch snapped her fingers to give emphasis to her words. “What I meant to say was that magic has been used. It may sound insane, but I have no other term to describe it, and your daughter explicitly told me about its nature anyway."
Night Light stared at Cinch in bewilderment and stupor. Clearly he did not understand or, if he did, he understood bits and pieces of the entire thing.
A tense silence, only broken by the shouts in the background and Twilight’s soft blabbering.
"Mr. Light, I am aware that this must be quite difficult for you to deal with. Sadly, I lack of means to undo your daughter's damage to herself and everyone else. So I pray you will understand me, when I will just apologize for the major incovenience." Principal Cinch said with a little bowing movement. "You may leave now."
Night Light stood there like a statue for a moment, staring right into Cinch's eyes, as if they contained the secret of the entire universe's existence. His expression was one of major confusion mixed with shards of fear. Then, he silently scurried away, disappering in the evening's darkness like a finch in a thick forest.
Sunset Shimmer was crying loudly. Even if her mind had been severely limited by the regression, she was still vaguely aware of what was the cause of most of her outward distress. She was vaguely aware that something really bad had happened and that no-one she knew was going to help her, but she didn’t why it was so, nor how she was going to get out of the situation- begin mostly naked, cold and dirty.
Celestia, Luna, and Cadence looked down on Sunset’s newfound state and picked her up; a number of thoughts running through their minds. Everyone else had been picked up by their parents and taken home, yet Sunset was the only one who still needed to help, and no-one had come for her in an hour since the last parents had originally left.
“Celestia? Since I’m not part of CHS’s staff, can you tell me what this little girl is still doing here?” Cadence raised a brow and folded her arms.
“This little girl is Sunset Shimmer,” Celestia said, slowly rocking Sunset as she talked. “she used to be a… peculiar student. Went from a bully and a leash-hater to one of the most respectful kind of the students. Her parents hardly ever showed up, thought.”
Cadence walked up to Celestia, petting what little hair Sunset had on her head.
“I take they never really followed her scholastic career, then.” Cadence said. Celestia made a clicking sound with her tongue.
“Actually, no. The problem is that her parents are… unresponsive. They seem to be a little too busy to closely follow Sunset, and perhaps they’re currently out of town,”
“Which would explain why her parents have yet to arrive.”Cadence said. “Well, then what shall we do about that?”
“I think we should bring her home and see what happens from there,” Luna suggested.
“And leave her alone inside the house?” Celestia said, shaking her head. “No, we can’t do that. She cannot sustain herself in this state, and even just five minutes may be fatal.”
“And what are we going to do, then?!” Luna asked. “Use the hospital’s thermal crib and pray she does not get immediately adopted?”
“Since I was in the first few weeks of my gestation before getting my clock turned back, I have enough supplies to keep her safe and clean for a little bit,” Cadence said unsurely, “but I don’t know if I am ready for it, or if my husband is, for that matter.”
“That would be nice from your part.” Celestia switched arms to keep Sunset off the ground. “But I can’t force that onto you, if you aren’t sure of it.”
“But then who’s gonna do it?” Luna said rolling her eyes. “We as sisters probably will barely scrape by with our leftover cash and resources, and I don’t think that go door to door asking for such help is wise.”
“But she’s basically dependant on her husband as well!” Celestia said loudly. “We can’t jump dump Sunset in the trash or in Cadence’s hands!”
“Who said I wanted to—” Luna said, before begin interrupted by Sunset Shimmer loudly wailing in Celestia’s arms, causing Luna to cover her ears and making Celestia hug Sunset in an attempt to calm her down.
“See? You scared her!” Celestia snarled while showing her teeth to Luna.
“Woah!” Cadence recoiled, almost stumbling backwards into the muddy ground.
“Well, fine, you won. But what’s your big idea now?” Luna shook her first towards Celestia.
“Okay, okay, I am sorry for stirring up trouble.” Cadence snatched Sunset out of Celestia’s hands. “I will take her up and see what can I do.”
Laying on the black seats of a car, Sugarcoat was crying loudly, massaging her reddened left cheek and as her back – forced in a S-like shape – felt in an overwhelming, searing hot pain, as if it had been hit by an heated hammer that also forced her in such a position.
As she did so, Sugarcoat could also hear little babies and younger kids crying and wailing from below and behind her, thusly out of her sight.
She could perfectly see a seemingly-towering grey big boy sitting just next to her, and he was frowning deep and glaring at her. Next to him was a girl, who was driving the car as if she was trying to escape from the cops.
“For fuck’s sake Upper Crust, did you really had to slap her?!” The boy’s voice shouted as the car shook and tilted towards the left. “She is already in pain. Do you want to make the situation worse?”
“But she just doesn’t stop crying!” Upper Crust shouted, her head turned to the left. “How am I supposed to shut her up?” the car rolled in the opposite direction, causing Sugarcoat to bump against the other side’s car door.
“Maybe you could just suck it up and keep calling her and the others’ parents!”
“Look, I offered to use my car, the ambulance was too crowded and all but I thought I was mostly gonna bring other people home, not the wounded!” Upper Crust shouted.
“Check the context next time, jackass!” The boy said as the car seemed to slow down. “Thank God we’re at the hospital already, otherwise the ER would’ve got another one to tend for.”
“Watch your mouth.” Upper Crust said, as the car slowed down until it fully stopped.
“I’m going to call up these babies’ parents now.” She opened the car door and drop-kicked her way of the car. “Your task is to bring them in, Nurse Bluey.”
“Screw you, Upper Crust.” The boy said opening the car’s door on Sugarcoat’s side.
“Do you think you can walk?” He asked. “I can try to pull off a bridal carry if you can’t.”
In a dark and empty room, Twilight was standing naked under a spotlight, cowering and shivering both due to the cold and her miserable attempt in defending her own modesty from the gaze of whatever watcher lurking in the darkness. She bit her lower lip, slowly looking around her, only to see pitch blackness as far as her eye could see beyond the spotlight she was standing underneath- which she would've already left, had it not followed her steps like a bloodhound.
All of the sudden- from the apparent emptiness of the room before her- she heard her mother's voice shouting."Twilight, you must do your homework right now! The school is your job and your life now, you can't play all the time anymore!"
Twilight recoiled- soon followed by the spotlight- and looked around her, startled by the combined force of the surprise and by the remembrance of the quote's context, as well as the consequences that followed.
But she could fully process it another voice called. This time, it was the authoritative and echoing voice of an old man- Twilight's Grade School History teacher, to be precise, his name buried deep in her memories, never to spoken again.
"Fear me, for I have the power to severely and painfully punish, but follow and do not fail, for I have the authority to do so at will!"
Surprised and briefly overwhelmed again, Twilight cringed and bowed down, her breath accelerating, just like her heartbeat.
“W-what do you want? What did I do wrong?" Twilight tried to say. However, she let out only a chocked-out whimper and some scared grunt- as if her vocal cords had frozen up in a pair of solid tiny columns or tied together in a gordian knot. With fear filing her heart and her knees, tried again, only to produce more whimpers and grunts, in turn increasing her terror and shaking her heart inside her chest.
As soon as the echo died down, another voice of another one, this one younger and sneering in tone, resounded in Twilight's ears.
"If it is true that there is only one evil, ignorance, then you must be among the best servants of the worst dictators!”
Twilight shook her head vigorously and recoiled.
“But I am knowledgable! I am good, I swear!” She tried to shout, but letting out shrill wordless infant's cries instead, which only sapped her own morale. A few tears started to run down her cheeks, as another voice, her father's, calling from beyond.
“Twilight, you can't keep studying like this any longer! I mean, look at these grades! Do you want to go to work in the farms?!”
Before she could even react, her father's voice was cut in by Principal Cinch's voice
“I pray that you understand the standards my students uphold at all times, Miss Sparkle. Any lack of discipline or effort will be your ruin here. You have been warned. ”
Then, as the volume of her tears increased, Cadete's voice boomed, overwhelming the other ones and prompting Twilight to slip down and fall down on the floor butt first, causing her to rapidly lay on her back and extend her open right palm forward, trying to protect herself from something she could not see.
“Mess this up, Twilight, and I swear I will make you drink from a straw for as long as you live!”
The voice's reverberation was cut off by a chant, one composed by the vocies of six of her school mates- the ones most involved in the competition, to be exact- slowly and insistentlly repeating the same phrase.
“Unleash the magic, unleash the magic. If we lose, you're to blame! Unleash the magic!”
The chanting increased in tone and in speed, piercing Twilight's eardrums and going straight into her brain, making her wince, cringe, curl up and forcing her to cry even more.
Slowly but surely, Twilight felt her mind melting and slipping, and the images slowly losing their identity and their in-born emotional charge- which reduced them to scary-looking but hollow shells- and she got the sudden need to find somebody to hold her close, to give her warmth and protection and sustaiment
She did not try to articulate any words, she didn’t care about it by that point, but simply shrieked as hard as her lungs allowed her to, curling up in a fetal position, while the darkness and the images around her blurred together in a chaotic mess.
Back in reality, the infant Twilight let out an ear-piercing and elongated wail, which lasted for ten seconds before Velvet burst into the door and coddled her gently.
“Ssshhh… There’s a good girl, Twilight…” Velvet gently cuddled her now newborn daughter, getting the crying to wane, until it became a simple whimper. “Mama’s here, and she’s never gonna leave you ever again…”
Twilight, feeling protected by her mother’s embrace, gently wriggled deeper into it, cooing all the while. She babbled something in gibberish whilst shedding a few more tears.
“No, Twilight.” Velvet, understanding what Twilight was saying due to her tone, as she put her on the nearby blue blanket. “Your then-current worries are past now. Now I’ll make sure that you grow up happy and healthy, and prepare you for the future… again.”
Twilight, curled up onto herself and shivering a little, made a little nod with her head, which made Velvelt smile warmly at her.
“Stay still now,” she said, as she bent down, and pulled her out again, revealing a white box with black lid. “I am going to get you in a… less messy attire.”
Twilight looked down at her, only now realizing she was wearing a black towel knotted around her hips. Looking up, she saw Velvet revealing a pair of purple-capped clothing pins, a packet of baby powder and a white ball that, once unfolded, revealed itself to be a cloth diaper.
“Good thing I forgot to throw it away, once upon that time.” Twilight Velvet whispered, while Twilight tried to sit up and touch her toes.
Velvet, after loosening the black ammonia-smelling towel, delicately lifted Twilight by her stubby legs with one hand and slipped the diaper under her butt with the other hand. Then she rapidly threw the powder on her waist, before folding and pinning the diaper around Twilight’s waist.
“Alright, now that you are changed, it’s time for you and me to have breakfast!” Velvet said, as she held Twilight close to her own arid breasts.It was lose in the movie, not fail.
The next day, former Principal Abacus Cinch, wearing one of her old bluses, was rapidly scribbling and reorganizing books, files and certificates inside her house' library, aided by her husband Sombra.
"Alright, my bank account's money is now on yours," Cinch said, as she rapidly scribbled down said amount of money on her leather-bound agenda. "What little stocks I had have been hastily sold and I have managed to send a mail forward to the supervisor in order to replace me as principal. Did I miss anything, hubby?"
"No, I am pretty sure that is all we needed to do," Sombra muttered, while he stuffed several sheets inside sand-coloured folder. "Well, excluding finding a solution to this, but I guess that whatever caused you to turn into a teenager did not resharpened your mind."
Cinch stopped briefly to set her arms against her sides, glaring at her husband while he rapidly stuffed the folder inside the old desk' drawer.
"You know very well what happened and that I'm sorry to have disturbed you while at work." She said annoyed. "You also know that I don't exactly know what caused this, or, at very least, its true source."
"Didn't you say that some girls from a certain public high school, the one you claimed where most of my inmates studied or allegedly did so, had the power source or even that they were source of 'magic' themselves?" He said, as he pushed another folder in the midst of several books. "Can't you ask them?"
Cinch rolled her eyes and sighed..
"I can't do that, they are babies now, which, I'm afraid means both that they aren't as powerful wielders as I thought and that I cannot ask for help on the matter either," she said. "That is, unless you, your subordinates or one of your 'friends' managed to find a way to make infants talk somehow."
Sombra chuckled, as he then rose up, walking close to Cinch and patting her head.
"Considered the people I know," he said, pride in his voice. "I could find you someone that would not only make babies talk, but also make them sweep the floor and bring you a cigarette or a whiskey shot."
“Thank you, honey.” Cinch sat down in a nearby armchair and leaned back.
Cadence walked up to the top of the stairs, gently coddling Sunset Shimmer as she did so. Since she was only announced to be pregnant a few weeks ago, she was already well-equipped to handle the baby girl.
Sunset, given her newfound infancy, looked around the house with her eyebrows constantly rising and falling, her middle finger perched on her lips as she gently wriggled deeper into Cadence’s loving embrace.
Eventually, Cadence arrived at a room with pink wallpaper with little hearts dotted across it. There was a box of toys that was slightly opened with a few spilling out of it, more toys scattered across the floor with some blocks, a changing table over by the wall with supplies in the drawers beneath it, and a single crib at the end of the room with a teddy bear sitting on the pillow.
Sunset pulled her head out of Cadence’s chest and looked at the room. Her eyes went wide with everything inside. She almost had the urge to reach out and play with everything if not for the small sliver of her older form resonating deep down in her mind. It was almost non-existent, however, and she eventually let intuition take hold as she pointed over to the blocks.
“I had this room all set up for my former new daughter, Flurry Heart.” Cadence walked towards the blocks and gently set Sunset down by them. “However, because of what happened at the Games, this is your new room too for the time being.”
Sunset immediately scampered towards the blocks, proceeding to stack them up in a disordely way. As she built, a smile crept onto her face, and a small chuckle escaped her few teeth as she began to make a small tower.
Cadence watched from afar and scratched her chin with a single finger. She wondered about the magic that had struck at the Games, where it came from, and how it could fix everything that had happened to the students. Yet at the same time, she couldn’t help but grin at how innocent Sunset looked in her youthened state, at how carefree she appeared to be, in deep contrast with her former teenage self, at least according to what little she had seen of her- and what some self-proclaimed “informant students” inside the Crystal Academy’ had told her.
After a while, Sunset couldn’t build her tower any higher, and knocked her tower over by swinging her arm into one of the lower blocks. As it all cascaded around her, she laughed as the colours danced all around her as the blocks crashed down onto the soft floor. She applauded briefly before picking two up and starting all over again, building some kind of wall this time.
Cadence let out a warm smile as she gazed upon Sunset’s playtime, being completely unable to tear her gaze away even for a second. Her observations proved to be worthwhile, as she noticed that during it all, she noticed Sunset wetting her diaper after another giggle.
“Aww. Don’t worry, sweetie…” Cadence picked Sunset up before she could even think about crying and carried her over to the changing table. She set her down on the table and proceeded to tear the sodden diaper off before powdering Sunset’s bottom and applying a fresh diaper to it. “That’s what I’m here for…”
With how fast she was changed, Sunset’s smile endured throughout the whole process, and as soon as it was done, she raised her arms to be picked up. When she was, she snuggled back into Cadence’s embrace before she carried her over towards another corner of the nursery.
Cadence set Sunset down into the playpen, patting her head before letting Sunset crawl away at her heart’s content.
“Have fun, my girl,” Cadence said, “I am just going upstairs to some errands. If you need anything, just wail. Or babble. Either way works.”
And, with that, Cadence left the room. Just as she stepped out of her room, her husband passed by. He looked disheveled, unshaven, and worn out in a way not seen since his run-in with Warden Sombra around a year before.
“Hello honey,” she said, bowing down a little. “You look a bit…”
“A bit roughed up? Yeah, yeah, I know, but with how it is going of late, it is a miracle I didn’t leave the house without any clothing or just in nightwear.” He said gruffly, going up upstairs. “Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to make myself pleasant to your eyes. Or at least presentable.”
Cadence let out a chuckle, as she joined him at his side.“You always look good in my eyes, and you know that, Shiny.”
“What do you mean ‘we don’t actually have an Apocalypse Account’?” Luna said with a mixture of surprise and terror plus a pinch of indignation. “Then where did that one percent of our net income go?”
“I will give you three guesses, and the first two do not count.” Celestia said snarkily, as she quickly inspected a leather and cardboard suitcase full of old coins inserted inside blisters. “If I were to sell these we’d get enough money for two weeks, maybe a month and half if we really try to keep expenses low, and our accounts make us decent enough to forward in winter, but we are going to need to find more money, and fast at that!”
Luna set her hands on the blisters, grabbing a handful of them, glaring at Celestia as she did so.
“Selling dad's coin collection?” Luna said. “Are you crazy? Why can’t we just sell all of our receive books? Or one of your literary prizes?”
“Those are utterly worthless economically and too expensive emotionally to do that.”
Indigo Zap woke up the next day with her nose permeated by a stench that made her revile. Instead of groaning normally, she whined in a voice that was far too high pitched for someone of her personality.
With a raised eyebrow., she woke up entirely and saw that she was surrounded by pink bars, covered up by a thick white blanket, and with a small mobile dangling above her with little aeroplanes, rockets, and more flying aircraft. She looked down and saw that she was in a diaper and a dark blue baby shirt. She was devoid of her aviator goggles and her earclips, and felt very weakened with how small and chunky her arms and legs had become.
She looked out and saw that her room had gone from one covered in posters of teenage interest and video games to a relatively bare nursery, as only her bed and a layer of mismatched towels on the floor were the only thing left in the room. Everything that had made her who she was had been completely removed, and now she was back where she started.
Indigo pushed herself up with great difficulty and tried to climb down herself. She tried and failed for ten minutes until her mother, Violet Plasma walked into the room and picked her up off her bed.
“Looks like someone woke up early, didn’t they?” Violet pinched Indigo’s cheeks lightly as she held her in a bridal carry. “I guess you couldn’t wait to bother me today, didn’t you?”
Indigo babbled incoherently when she tried to ask where all of her old stuff was but her mind then fizzled out and she gained a more infantile mindscape as she got a second glance at the gray room.
“You probably don’t remember a thing, don’t you?” Violet cooed and hugged Indigo tighter. “Don’t worry about it, my little zaplet. Mama’s here to look after you. Just like old times…”
Indigo felt warmth in her heart and nuzzled deeper into her mother’s chest. She just wanted to feel protected in her new state and cuddled Violet as best as she could with her tiny arms. She looked out and pointed towards another blanket, trying to speak as she reached out for it.
“Do you want to be coddled, my little sweetheart?” Violet asked as she was already moving towards the blanket on the floor. She was about to lay Indigo down when she noticed the smell as well. “But first, I think you need a fresh diaper…”
The process of changing Indigo took no more than a minute. The sagging one was taken off and binned before Violent powdered Indigo’s bottom and slid a fresh diaper underneath it before she wrapped it around her child’s waist and tightened it up.
Indigo closed her eyes and sighed as she let her mother change her. She was starting to drift back into the realm of sleep as she tried to touch Violet’s nose. Before she even knew it, it was already done and she was back in her mother’s carry and getting closer and closer to the pink blanket on the floor.
Violet Plasma laid Indigo down again, but this time, she wrapped the entire blanket around her, cocooning the blue-haired newborn before she was picked up again. Suddenly, Violet looked around and saw a blue pacifier strewn near the playpen. She picked it out and gently slid it into Indigo’s mouth, and watched as a single suckle turned autonomous as Indigo closed her eyes entirely.
Indigo cooed through her pacifier, and she felt even more protected in the blanket than before. She squirmed slightly in the pink coil to try and get as warm as possible. Looking her mother in the eyes before nodding off, Indigo felt defended from everything around her. Through her protection, she smiled slightly before falling asleep in her mother’s cuddles.
Sour Sweet wailed as her sister, Battery Acid, held the teddy bear too high for her to reach. She frantically tried to jump up and get it back, but every time ended with her landing on her diapered rump, tears streaming from her eyes.
“Aww. Does baby want her teddy back? Does she wants to get a punch in the chest?” Battery teased as she held the bear down, and then snatched it back into the air, causing more tears to flow from her sister’s eyes. “How do you like it when your sister’s pushing you around, huh?! Huh?!”
“Battery Acid!” A woman stood outside of the room with her teeth gritted and her hands balled up into fists. “Are you teasing your sister?”
“She had it coming!” Battery lashed back at her. “All the years she messed with me because I was the little sister, now’s the perfect time for my revenge!”
“First of all” — the mother ripped the bear out of Battery’s hands and give it to Sour Sweet, before dragging Battery out of the room — “you’re lucky that you survived that regressive blast at the Friendship Games; Second, you should treat your baby sister with love and respect!”
She closed the door and threw Battery against the wall. “I’ve never seen you hurt her like that before, and magic or not, she’s still your sister, and I will not have you treating her like those hoity-toity Crystal Preppers treat your fellow CHS students!” Hot Cold her always won every argument that had been laid out in front of her, due to the fifteen years she had spent in law school. She would not let her now-eldest daughter hurt Sour Sweet, regardless of her new age and mental state. “Understood?!”
Battery groaned and stormed off to her room, slamming her door behind her. “You’re just defending her because she was your favourite!” She screamed from the closed door.
Whilst Hot Cold followed Battery to have a strict talk with her, her husband, Deicer climbed up the stairs and walked into Sour Sweet’s nursery.
When Deicer walked inside, he closed the door and soundproofed it so that Sour didn’t have to listen to the hateful words that both Deicer and Battery Acid were about to throw at each other. He then walked up to her crying infant daughter. She had her teddy bear back, but was still sniffling at how badly her sister had treated her.
“Aww. What’s wrong, my little sourball?” Deicer knelt down and pulled Sour into a cuddle whilst speaking in a mellifluous tone of voice. “Did your big, bad sister make you upset?”
Unable to answer normally, Sour whimpered gibberish and nodded, her tears now reduced to small sobs.
“Don’t worry about her, sourpuss. Dada’s here to look after you now.” He gently poked her belly, causing her to giggle slightly. “And I’ll keep you safe from everything, including… the Tickle Monster!” He began to tickle Sour Sweet, causing her to laugh longer as she flailed her arms and legs wildly. This went on for fifteen seconds until Sour’s smile was as wide as possible.
“There’s the little sweetie I used to know so well!” He pulled her off of the ground and brought her to her face, grinning himself when she gently booped him on the nose. “Now, what do you want to play with?”
Sour Sweet’s eyes darted all across the room as she looked for something to play. She eventually noticed a miniature slide that was just big enough for her to slide down and think of as a big thrill. There was a ball pit at the bottom that attracted her attention the most, and she reached out towards it.
“The slide?” Deicer asked, watching his daughter nod rapidly. Enthralled with how adorable Sour Sweet was acting, he began to carry her over towards it. “Well, how could I say no to a cute little sweetie pie like you?”
Sour Sweet was put at the top of the slide. She grabbed onto the supports to the side of her before she pulled herself forward and threw her hands up as she slid down the slide, squealing all the while as she got closer and closer to the inflatable ball pit. She finally splashed down into the pit and laughed some more as she burst out of the balls and began to throw some of the balls up and above her.
“Now, you have fun whilst Dada goes off and punishes your mean sister for hurting you earlier…” Deicer tussled Sour Sweet’s hair before he walked out of the nursery and went towards Battery Acid’s room.
Even without her dad, Sour Sweet had fun in the ballpit. She was mesmerised by all of the colours and enjoyed every second of hurling them all around her tiny body, giggling all the while
Sunny Flare toddled around the room as she tried to chase a ball she had been kicking around. Every time she got close, she accidentally knocked the ball away again, resuming the chase and getting her to run as fast as she could with her infant body. Baby talk spilled out of her lips each time the ball evaded her grasp, and by the time it had stopped again, she tumbled back onto her knees. From there, she crawled over towards the ball and was finally able to grab onto it this time. She hugged the ball tightly, cooing as she drooled all over it.
Sunny Flare’s mother, Silver Lining walked into the room, holding a baby dress. It was pink, poofy, and was made out of soft satin from the inside out. As she tried to dress Sunny in the dress, she giggled at the sight of it and crawled away. This proved to be futile as she was quickly scooped up and dressed.
“Aww… You look so cute in your old princess dress, Sunny…” Silver Lining gently nuzzled Sunny, not even bothered by the drool being applied to her cheek by her daughter. “Guess Queen Sunnybun has returned to the throne, huh?
“Oh! Silly me, how could I have forgotten?” Silver Lining gently walked over to a wardrobe and pulled out a plastic pink chair, a tiny crown, and a toy scepter. “You can’t be a queen without your stuff, right?”
It took a minute with Sunny Flare in her other arm, but Silver Lining finally put the chair down, sat her daughter in it, and gave her the crown and scepter.
“Your majesty. How can I, your humble servant, treat you on this fine day?” Silver Lining knelt down in front of Sunny Flare, who was beaming with her new infant royalty.
Sunny, who was still giggling, was about to use her scepter to point towards a teething ring, but instead felt her stomach rumbling and patted it with her free hand.
“Are you hungry, my queen?” Silver picked Sunny up out of the chair and gently carried her down to the kitchen. “Don’t you worry. I, your humble servant Mama, will make you a feast you’ll never forget!”
The walk to the kitchen had Sunny looking around with her eyebrows constantly climbing and dropping as she looked at everything around her. She was especially in awe of the blooming flowers of each colour, the TV screen that was showing cartoons for her slightly older sister, Raindrop Twinkle, and the cream colour wallpaper across the walls.
There was a single high-chair in the kitchen which Sunny was quickly put into and strapped in so that she couldn’t fall out of. She played with her scepter for a few seconds whilst her mother went to get the baby food from the fridge.
“Alright. It’s been years since I’ve fed you this, but let’s see if I haven’t forgotten how to do it…” Silver Lining opened one of the jars and scooped up some applesauce-flavoured baby food. She walked back over to Sunny Flare, who was still playing, and said, “Here comes the train. Choo-Choo!”
Sunny immediately noticed her mother’s playful attitude and chuckled again before opening her mouth to receive the food. She swallowed it whole and cooed as it slid down her throat and into her stomach. The process repeated itself for a while until she felt full. A burp signalled this, followed by more laughter from Sunny.
“Glad you like it, your majesty.” Silver pulled her out of the high-chair and put a bottle of milk into the fridge to warm up. “Now, just stay with Mama for a bit, as there’s a nice warm baba coming up.”
Three minutes later, the microwave was opened up, and Sunny Flare was fed the amber nipple of the bottle. As she suckled on it, she was rewarded with a stream of nutrient-filled milk which would help her grow back into the girl she once was. The white liquid went down smoothly, and she never broke eye contact with her mother. The look in her eyes told Sunny that even after everything that had happened at the Games, she was in a safe place, with a mother who loved her very much, and would never leave her side.
Lemon Zest threw up her arms as she stretched herself awake. She sat up and threw the covers away before she climbed out of her small bed and stood up. She had lost a lot of years due to the regressive blast, but she was not back to her infant state, like Sour Sweet, Indigo Zap, and Sunny Flare. Rather, she was four to five years old, and very capable of speech and walking. Despite all this, she still needed to wear pull-ups, as her bladder wasn’t as strong as it used to be.
She climbed out of the bed and walked over to a pile of stuffed animals. She reached in and pulled out a raggedy bear with some loose stitches. Despite the rough state that it was in, she still pulled it into a little hug and walked downstairs whilst holding onto it as tightly as she could.
She went over towards the bathroom and climbed up onto little stools that allowed her to reach the sink to grab her toothbrush and some toothpaste. She brushed thoroughly before rinsing it all out. After that, she ran downstairs with the bear still clutched in her right hand.
“Good morning!” Lemon said as she made it to the bottom and jumped off of the last step, landing with a tiny giggle.
“Mornin’, Lemon!” Lemon’s mother, a black-skinned woman with light blue hair picked her up and gave her a little kiss. “Good to know that even when you’re a little girl again, you’re still as bouncy as evah!”
“Ya still think ya can handle the show today?” Lemon’s father, who was slightly paler than his wife came out of the kitchen with a pastry in his left hand. “I mean, despite the whole bladder issue?”
“I’m fine, daddy.” Lemon Zest still kept her smile.
“I know, and I’m still so glad that you survived that explosion at the Friendship Games.” Her mother picked her up and gave her a few kisses and a quick cuddle. “If I’d lost my little girl—uh, littler girl now—I don’t know what I’d do!”
“Laser Lights, be careful with Lemon now.” He took a bite out of the pastry. “She survived that blast enough, I know, but now she’s back to her kindergarten years. You’ve gotta be more careful with her.”
“I know, Dubstep. I was just giving her the love and affection she needs in her new state.” Laser put Lemon Zest down and gently tussled her hair.
“Thanks, Mommy!” Lemon blushed and clasped her hands together at her side. “But, I’ve got a question.”
“What is it, sweetie?” Laser asked.
“What show?”
“Oh my god…” Dubstep facepalmed and groaned.
“Hey. Keep it together,” Laser Light said. “That explosion at the Friendship Games messed with her brain as well as her age. It’s only natural that she doesn’t remember our show.” She turned back to Lemon Zest. “Mommy and Daddy have a little radio show listened to by hundreds of people in this country. It’s a radio show, so all we need to do is talk and play music, with a few games down the line.”
“Games? I love games!” Lemon’s smile grew wider.
“But anyways, the fans would love to hear your cute little voice on the show,” Laser continued. “It’d definitely get some ‘aww’s.” She walked towards the door. “Follow me, Lemon. We’ll drive you down to our station so you can get started.
“Okay, Mommy.”
Lemon Zest, Laser Lights, and Dubstep Blast all walked towards the front door and left the house. Once it was locked, the three of them made it towards a black car with two doors on each side.
Lemon’s parents helped her climb into the car and back into her old booster seat before they got in and put on their seatbelts together. After hearing all three of them click, Laser turned on the radio and started to drive towards the radio station, with Lemon raising an eye towards the music and cooing like she wanted to hear more.
Sugarcoat was gently napping in her sister’s bedroom, thumb in her mouth. Much like Lemon Zest, she was a few years older than their other friends, but was still back to her early childhood. She was now wearing a plain pink onesie and a pair of pull-ups underneath it. Her hair had been let down and her glasses were non-existent. A teddy bear sat next to her, and her other hand was draped around it, with seven or so patches coating her right arm.
Her sister, Fudge Numbers, was playing quietly with some more toys. Fudge was no bigger than Sugarcoat, her silver hair was both in a ponytail and pigtail, and her age was almost identical to that of her regressed sibling. She was wearing a small pink skirt and socks, had another bear in her hand, and was almost lost in her playtime.
She did occasionally look back to her sister to see if she’d woken up, but every time she checked, there was no change. Fudge began to feel a bizarre sensation in her stomach. She wondered if Sugarcoat would ever wake up, or if she’d ever return to a teenage state. But after what she had heard happened at the Friendship Games, it was obvious that her big sister was now her twin sister, or maybe even little sister if she had misjudged the years she had lost.
A man opened the door gently and quietly said, “Fudge? Sugarcoat? Are you two alright?”
Fudge stood up and walked towards him. “Hi, Daddy. Sugarcoat’s still napping, but I think she’ll wake up soon.”
“I hope so.” A woman appeared next to Fudge and Sugarcoat’s father. “I’m also concerned about her surely unusual spinal issues now that she’s a toddler again but still has the correction in…”
“If Sugarcoat has lost her perfect spine, then we’ll just have to make an appointment with the chiropractor, Make Easy.” The dad said to his wife, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We wouldn’t want her flopping and slouching again like before.”
“I’m not so sure that’s going to be that easy, Beat Bush, considered that the doctors have said she still has her rods inside, which is what made her feel all that pain, and that those things may be forcing her spine to stay crooked now.” Make walked over to Sugarcoat and gently rubbed her back. “She’s not woken up since she got back home last evening,” she said. “She hasn’t even had breakfast, the poor thing…”
“Is Sugarcoat ever gonna wake up, Mommy?” Fudge Number’s eyes went wide.
“I hope so, Fudge.” Make knelt down and put her hand on Fudge’s stomach. “She’s not deep enough to be in a coma, but, given that she go pumped full of antidolorifics, it’s likely her painkillers haven’t worn off just yet. I’d say give her a few more minutes, and she should be fine.”
“I hope so too, Mommy,” Fudge said. “I heard everything that happened at the Friendship Games. And I’m nervous, angry, and sad about everything that happened, but also glad at the same time.”
“Glad?” Make Easy and Beat Bush said together.
“We’re all super-lucky that Sugarcoat survived that big blast,” Fudge tightened her grip on her teddy bear. “She could’ve been a baby again, and that would’ve made things complicated. But she’s alive and my age now. That’s better than being dead, isn’t it?”
“I guess you’re right about that…” Beat scratched his chin.
“And besides, because of that magic, Sugarcoat and I are twinsies this time!” Fudge squealed. “I can’t wait to take her with me to kindergarten, and get her to meet my friends, and play together with the toys there, and—”
“Okay, that’s enough candy for you today, Fudgie.” Beat Bush chuckled and patted her on the head. “First, you’ve gotta wait for Sugarcoat to wake up; then we can start to think about the future.”
“Yes… The future…” Make Easy walked downstairs to the kitchen. “Well, anyway, lunch is gonna be ready in half an hour, Fudge. And if Sugarcoat wakes up before then and she looks fine, just tell her and I’ll make more.”
“Okay, Mommy!” Fudge waved her off as she went downstairs. She then went back to playing with the toys, unaware that Sugarcoat was gently starting to open her eyes, whining lightly as she did so.
Fudge Numbers snapped her head around to look at her regressed sister, and she saw Sugarcoat weakly pushing her covers around.
“I-is it over?” She whimpered, crawling on her bed’s edge and then dropping down with a soft thump.
“Sugarcoat!” Fudge Numbers chirped loudly, rushing towards her regressed sister and giving her a tight hug. “Are you okay?”
Sugarcoat’s back produced a loud snapping sound, soon followed by a loud and anguished cry of pain, which made Fudge Numbers release immediately, just as her parents walked in again.
Once she was out of the portal and onto the stone pavementation in front of the statue hosting the portal linking Equestria with Earth, Twilight was greeted by an unusual sight.
Her calculations predicted that she was going to land into Earth at around noon and -- on Earth at least -- a month or so later since her last visit. However the landscape around her was one more akin to a corpse less battleground than to a schoolyard.
Clothes of all kinds were stacked up on opposite sides, with an odd concentration of elegant clothing in the same piles, separated from the other, more "casual," clothes of unknown ownership. Some patches of grass had been stomped to the point of revealing the muddy ground the grass was rooted in, two gargantuan black drapes covered the school building's façade, black and red flags were planted around the path to the school's entrance, giving it a semblance of unusual eeriness.
"This doesn't look good..." Twilight muttered, slowly and carefully walking along the flag-sided stone path, looking around her. "I hope no-one has been hurt when this... event, happened. Although, given how high the clothing piles are, something tells me I'm deluding myself."
A crowd's call and the faint sound of distant cars speeding by were the only other sounds that accompanied the soft rustling of the flags and the drapes'.
As she got closer and closer to the main door, Twilight noticed a piece of paper hanging on the glass. She immediately ran forward, jumping over a few steps in order to get to the piece of paper.
"What's this?" She muttered, grabbing the sheet of paper and ripping it off the door, miraculously pulling the sticky tape off along with the paper, instead of the other way around. She set the paper close to her eyes, in order to not miss any kind of clue of what had happened.
"Due to force majeure causing critical damage and injury, all activities on the school grounds will be suspended to a date yet to be determined."
Twilight stared at it. She read again. Then she loosened her grip, letting the paper fall off her hands, her mouth agape. Her mind started to project several possible scenario about what could have happened to the school and- by restriction- her friends' counterparts.
"Was it... could have been because...? No, that's not likely," she muttered to herself, her mind browsing quickly through every possible ill that could have befallen the school, ranging from a riot, to plague, to mere national holiday.
"What are you doing here Twilight? And how did you grow up again so quickly?!"
Twilight snapped her head around and, almost at the end of the flags, she saw Nurse Redheart, followed by a small group of people, in which Twilight recognized Bon Bon and Apple Bloom's human counterparts. “Oh- uh…” Twilight tilted her head confused. “What?”
“Wait a minute, Nurse,” Applebloom said. “Ah remember there bein’ a Twilight at the Friendship Games who looked nothing like this one. Does that mean that this is the one who saved us at the Fall Formal and Battle of the Bands?”
“What are you talking about, Applebloom?” Bon-Bon raised her left eyebrow and crossed her arms. “The voice, hair colour, and even the eyes match up to the Twilight who enrolled at Crystal Prep Academy.”
“Crystal Prep Academy? Other me?” Twilight’s mouth almost dropped. “Alright. I suppose I should go back a few steps by asking what happened here.”
“She doesn’t even remember turning almost everyone into infants?” Redheart’s jaw fell in place of Twilight’s.
“It’s a long story, Nurse Redheart.” Twilight laid her hand on the nurse’s shoulder. “I’d be happy to tell you everything if you told me what happened here first.”
Redheart cleared her throat. “Well, Twilight. Every four years, a tournament called the Friendship Games happens. And when that happens, the twelve best students from Canterlot High School, and our rival school, Crystal Prep Academy compete in a series of challenges to prove who is the better school.”
“The Crystal Prep Shadowbolts won every time the Friendship Games came around, ever since it originally started,” Bon-Bon took over. “Trained ruthlessly, they became cocky, smug, arrogant, and they put their reputation in front of friendship, seeing us as nothing more than enemies.”
“But with the last Friendship Games which just finished yesterday, Sunset Shimmer and her friends were competing for CHS, and the Twilight who went to Crystal Prep Academy somehow managed to steal their magic from them!” Applebloom threw her hands in the air.
“What?!” Twilight almost fell over with how vigorously she lurched backwards. “But that’s impossible! The Magic of Friendship can’t be stolen from the Spirits of Harmony and used against them… Can it?”
“With some weird sciency-locket thing, it can. But, she wasn’t evil in doing it. The device just acted the second one of your friends had a Pony-Up as they called it. And when that happened. Poof! All gone.”
“She must’ve re-purposed a compact quantum mainframe to absorb electromagnetic frequencies, therefore being able to extract the magic as if it were a source of energy, like electricity in the air.” Twilight scratched her chin for a few seconds. “An ingenious idea for harvesting raw unicorn magic for study, but very dangerous in the wrong hands…”
“Twilight’s magic-stealing spree eventually opened up a number of rifts in the sky, floor, walls, and even thin air. It eventually got out of hand, and Crystal Prep took advantage of what it could do.” Bon-Bon walked closer. “They all pushed her against the wall, and with some final pressing from the school’s Principal Cinch – or former principal after the blast – the magic became a torrent of white light, turning almost everyone into babies, toddlers, or elementary school children.”
“Hmm… Abacus Cinch in Equestria was a megalomaniac who once tried to conquer the Crystal Empire back in my world when my parents weren’t even born from what I’ve learned.” Twilight pulled out a book from her backpack. “Before King Sombra rose to power, she led her armies against the empire in the hopes to extend her legacy for years to come, but with the help of the powerful alicorn princess Radiant Hope, Cinch was not only defeated, but her whole kingdom abandoned her, and took all their food, resources, and even water with them.” She flipped through the pages to eventually show a unicorn version of Cinch being defeated by a purple alicorn with light blue hair. “Huh. Comes as no surprise that that very same personality would be embedded in this world’s Abacus Cinch too.”
There was a long pause before Applebloom continued. “Anyway, in the wake of that massive explosion, mah sister Applejack was reverted to a four-year old, with Pinkie Pie and the others only months old!”
“Where are they now?” Twilight asked.
“Everyone went home with their parents, but Sunset Shimmer was all alone because she didn’t have any. Ah was worried sick at first, but I did see Crystal Prep’s Dean Cadence going to the park with her this afternoon.”
“My sister-in-law’s a dean in this world?” Twilight nearly bounced in delight before she recomposed herself and coughed for a few seconds. “Sorry. How nice of her.”
“Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Cinch didn’t suffer the regression as much as the others. Instead, the four of them are all sixteen, maybe seventeen years old now,” Nurse Redheart finished the explanation. “Unless there’s a way to fix this, everyone’s gonna have to grow up all over again.”
“That might be harder than you think now, Nurse Redheart.” Twilight looked at where all of the dirtied clothes lay. “If they’re all babies again, then the magic will be very hard to call on, since their minds will rapidly jump from one thing to another in their infantile states. If anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if the magic was gone forever with the regression.”
“So there’s no way to fix this?!” Applebloom arched her arms so that her elbows pointed towards the ground.
“I didn’t say that there would be no way to fix this, Applebloom. Just that the chances are almost slim-to-none,” Twilight corrected. “In order to find a solution, I would need to know the full extent of the events leading up to this issue first. Then I would be in need to find the right material to create another mainframe, and only then I can figure out what to do.”
“That would be a problem,” Nurse Redheart said with a deadpan tone. “Remember, your, shall we say, ‘counterpart,’ isn’t currently best fit to talk, so are the so-called ‘Wondercolts’ and, if I am not mistaken, Principal Cinch is in a similar predicament as Celestia, Luna and Cadence.”
“Yeah, unless you know how to make them talk or somethin,’” Applebloom said, sighing deeply. “Or, well, go back in time.”
Twilight shook her head vigorously, shuddering at the mere thought of undergoing time travel issues once more.
“That would be a good idea, but no thanks,” Twilight said. “Aside from the fact I am pretty sure it would take more power than I can take here, I do not feel ready to face potential time paradoxes and other anomalies. Trust me, I tried.”
“What do you mean exactly?” Applebloom asked curiously. “You mean you went back in time.”
“Take a guess,” Nurse Redheart said, as she then turned around. “Now, Twilight, do you mind help us to retrieve some things lost in the piles? We’re trying to bring those to their original owners, in case something extremely valuable had been lost inside them.”
Twilight nodded and soon proceeded to walk towards the piles, shifting throught them.
Abacus Cinch gave one last fix to her shirt's neck and one last pull down to her miniskirt, before stepping off her husband's car, brown and purple bookbag on her left shoulder and phone in her right hand.
"See you latery, hubby," Cinch said, while waving at Sombra, who, in turn, widely waved at her, just before speeding away.
"And thus my life begins again from its second eleventh, in the same institute past me changed, hopefully for the objective better," she mused, as she looked at the Crystal Academy's façade. She let out a small, almost prideful, smile at the gigantic-order, curved knee-layers and lesens-laden architecture she had commissioned to insert into the previous building- which was a miserable and aestheticless cube of conrete- turning it into a pleasant and harmonical sight, testament and prelude to the supposed goal of the Academy's teachings.
"One thing is sure, the mere sight of this almost makes me glad to be a teenager again, so that I may admire my own work in a manner I couldn't have ever hoped to see." She muttered softly, before looking down at her phone. "But that shouldn't be my concern right now, let's hope the School Board picked a decent candidate, after their brief direct power over my school."
Soon enough, her phone strongly vibrated in her hand and loudly rang, signaling that a message had reached her. With a few frantic button presses, Cinch got in her phone's message archive, which now showed one coming from the school board, its letters written on the screen hot red instead of sepia and sitting at the top of the list. She proceeded to open it up and read it.
"Good day, principal emerita. We are glad to announce that not only your request to be covertly admitted in your old school has been accepted unanimously, but we are also glad to announce that a replacement has been found in Mr. Svengallop, who has gladly accepted the offer in order to 'prove his worth.' He has also expressed desire to see you in his new office for reasons unknown to this date."
CInch sighed deeply
"Svengallop..." She muttered, groaning loudly. "Is he ever going to give up? He should've buried himself deeply into the sand, after that incident while administering the Canterlot Conservatory. Guess it is true that the school board has a very short memory span. That, or he does really have a major reserve of money for any bribery emergency."
Cinch then quickly turned the phone off, before raising her head again and walking towards the entrance, just as a handful of students were coming in.
“But there's no point in brooding over it now,” Cinch said, rushing forward towards the school's entrance. “I can't fight against it anyways, so all I can do is go there and hope that Svengallop will not skewer his priorities as principal once more.”
Twilight was walking through the streets towards the local daycare centre where Applebloom had told her the rest of her friends were. Her eyebrows continuously twitched, as she braced herself for what she was about to see.
“My friends…” Twilight shed a small tear as she finally arrived at the establishment’s entrance. She placed her hand on the glass door and froze up for a second. “Am I ready for this? Ready to see them again after I let them down in their time of need?”
Twilight lightly pushed the door forward with her right foot, before retracting it with her left hand.
“On the one hand, they likely don’t remember me at all,” she muttered to herself sadly. “So, they won’t hold a grudge against me… but, on the other hand, if they don’t recognize me, my visit will be completely pointless and, well, saddening.”
She hesitantly let the door go and then looking through it. She saw a couple of secretaries sitting by a desk, shuffling through papers and answering to phones and overall abiding to their functions as bureaucrats. No one else could be seen passing through the yellow and leaf green corridors of the daycare center, which somewhat pushed Twilight towards doing it.
“Let’s do it. After all, it’s a chance to tell them I’m sorry for my absence,” she said with a sigh, as she pushed the door inwards. “And would allow me to determine what to do in order to fix this up, or, at very least, make this easier for their caretakers.”
Twilight approached the staff, who were still re-organizing and filing papers about the establishment. She stopped at the desk and waited patiently until they were done.
A few seconds later, the two women had taken notice of Twilight and dropped what they were doing to address her.
“Hello there,” one of them said softly. “My name is Raven. How can I be of assistance to you today?”
Twilight fidgeted her fingers behind the desk as she tried to keep a calm expression on her face, trying to not think too much about what she was going to do soon.
“I’m here to… uh, check on some of the children,” Twilight said, resisting the temptation to bite her lower lip.
“And why’s that, if you don’t mind me asking?” Raven said, as she took out a pen and sheet of paper. “Did any of our caretakers carer's called you because any of them were sick?”
“Um, no, I just wanted to see them,” Twilight said, bowing her head. “You see, I was told they’ve been through some major event and, well, I knew it only last night and I could not wait until the afternoon to see them…”
Raven rapidly scribbled onto the sheet of paper, before putting the pen down and folding the paper in two. “She’s down the hallway, second door on the right, not third. People easily get the two mixed up with how close the rooms’ doors are in this place.”
“Also, for safety reasons, you will be escorted down by another one of our staff members.” The other secretary pressed a button and said, “Sweet Dreams? Can you come and lead the way for our visitor at reception?”
After a few minutes, a woman in clean bright clothing appeared at the reception. “Right this way please.” She held out her hand for Twilight, who took it almost immediately.
“Thank you,” Twilight stifled, fighting desperately to hold back her tears.
One brief walk down the corridor led both Twilight and Sweet Dreams to two closely-pressed doors that would have counted as double doors if not for the small gap between them. Both doors were covered in bright baby pink and blue hues with stickers all over them indicating the difference between the nursery and the bedroom.
“Now, I will advise you to watch where you walk once you go inside.” Sweet Dreams placed her hand on the doorknob. “Most of the little ones are no bigger than soccer balls, and it’s very easy to step on them or kick them by accident.”
“I’ll be careful.” Twilight nodded, bringing her head back up slower than usual.
The door was opened, and Twilight was walked inside with Sweet Dreams holding her hand. When they were both inside, the door was shut and locked tight so that no-one could get out.
The interior of the room was just as brightly coloured as the doors outside, with cartoon clouds, flowers, animals, and more bearing happy smiles as they lined the walls. The ceiling was light blue with white patches, simulating a cloudy sky with a sun creeping out of one of them. The floor was so soft that anyone could fall asleep and be comfortable, but it was also littered with toys, building blocks, rattles, blankets, stuffed animals, and balls. The children in the room ranged from month-old to two years of age, and only three of the thirty-two in the room were Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy, playing like they didn’t have a care in the world.
Twilight was about to search for Applejack and Sunset Shimmer, but she recalled what Applebloom had said. The former Spirit of Honesty was back with her family, with Sunset being under the protection of this world’s Cadence, and Rarity begin old enough to attend Grade School again. With that small closure, she walked forward towards her infantile friends, taking extra caution not to step on, kick, or trip over anything.
“Um, hello there Pinkie,” Twilight said, weakly waving towards her infantilized pink friend, who was stacking blocks, babbling all the while. Pinkie turned around, then went back to play with her blocks.
“You don’t remember me?” Twilight gently laid her hand on Pinkie’s shoulder. “It’s me. Twilight Sparkle. Your best friend?”
Pinkie turned back again and tried to speak, but all that fell out of her mouth was newborn gibberish and a few attempts at making mouth farts. She then went back to her playtime once again, brushing Twilight off as if she’d never met her.
“Guess I should have expected this after all…” Twilight said, shaking her head sadly. “I will have to wait until this evening, and pray that I can figure out a way to fix this.”
Twilight’s attention was then focused on something tugging at her trousers. She looked at where it was coming from and found Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, who immediately let go of her and held their arms up, indicating that they wanted to be picked up and carried.
Twilight smiled and scooped up both of her youthened friends, gently holding them as she would two watermelons. Curling her arms around their bodies and diapered butts, she waited to see them point towards something they wanted to play with.
Fluttershy pointed at a rather large stuffed pink and yellow butterfly laying on the floor while Rainbow Dash pointed in a completely different direction namely towards a small pile of boxes below a pacifier rack that had each nook labeled with each baby’s name.
Not wishing to test out how little Rainbow Dash used to and now did express her frustration- and confiding on Fluttershy’s now-future meek nature- Twilight brought Rainbow Dash close to the rack, at which point she pointed again, this time towards a specific dummy, a light blue one with yellow tiny bolts painted on it.
“Me paci!” Rainbow Dash gurgled. Twilight, with an able movement of elbows, managed to get the aforementioned pacifier in range to her infantilized friend’s tiny little hands.
Rainbow Dash popped the pacifier in her.mouth herself, which prompted Twilight to lower herself in order to get her off her left arm. Then Twilight's walked in the opposite direction, gently dropping Fluttershy just next to the stuffed butterfly, which Fluttershy proceeded to rapidly pick up and hug tightly
Twilight let out another sigh, checking out a small smile at the sight, before turning around and walking away towards the door.
“There’s not much else I can do here,” she whispered to herself. “I would need to wait until the afternoon, and find their addresses, to get a better picture of the situation at hand.”
Sugarcoat was laying on her belly with several ice packs spread out onto her back, whimpering lightly as she sunk into the couch.
"And with this we should be set for the next hour or so," Make Easy stood up from the side of the couch.. "Now, Fudge Numbers, please be careful next time with your sister."
Fudge crossed her arms and pouted.
"I was just trying to hug her!" she shot back.
Yes, I know that, sweetie," Make Easy knelt down and tousled Fudge’s hair. "But, remember, her back is hurt, and she cannot take much stress."
"I know that, but still!" Fudge Number whined. “Also, why didn’t she remember me? Does she hate me?”
“N-no... I don’t hate you, Fudge,” Sugarcoat’s voice was nothing more than a gentle whisper. “This wasn’t your fault. It was that stupid meanie, Abacus Cinch that did this.”
“I’ve never heard you say that before, Sugar, nor I would have expected you to remember Cinch but not your sister.” Fudge raised an eyebrow confused. “Maybe that magic changed you more than we know…”
“Either way, she is right, Fudge.” Make coiled her arm around her. “Abacus Cinch was entirely responsible for everything that happened to her students at both Crystal Prep and the Friendship Games. It’s only natural that Sugarcoat, as well as most of the other students, will show a lot of backlash whenever they see her again.”
“I doubt it…” Sugarcoat whispered. “But it’s a nice thought.”
“Why’s that?” Fudge asked.
“I was pretty much the only one that didn’t like her ways,” she said. “Besides, not everyone may have fully realized Cinch’s involvement in the magic blast…”
“That’s true too, Sugar.”
“And it’s not just us who suffered it, Fudge. Those kids from Canterlot High were hurt just as much as me and my friends. Some of them became children like me, while the others were turned to babies. Now, we’re all gonna have to start all over again.”
Fudge Numbers sighed. Apparently, gettign a new playmate in her sister was harder and more emotional than she could ever expect.
Abacus Cinch sighed and let out a smile at the sight before her. In the main hall, in spite of everything that had happened and the major morale hit that the disaster had been, students were still congregated in small groups, talking to each other under either the Academy’s bronze-and-marble memorial plate or the banner- currently with black fringes for the occasion- and, when she passed, quickly saluting her like they used to before the disaster.
“There’s no need to,” she muttered, after the nth time a student saluted her. “Due to my mistake, I should be an equal to them now.”
“Miss Cinch, an honour to see you at last.” A woman with dark green hair a a black suit walked up to Cinch. “In light of what happened back at the Friendship Games, a new dean was requested for this school as well as a new principal. My name is Chrysalis, and I am Cadance’s replacement.”
“Salutations, Dean Chrysalis.” Cinch quickly bowed down to her. “I hope that you help the students, both new and old, graduate with their heads held high.”
“Not just the new students, but you too,” said Chrysalis. “How you survived that explosion is beyond me, but it’s a miracle that you did, albeit with a much younger composure and the sense that you might have forgotten some things.”
“How curious that I did…” Abacus brought one of her fingers to her chin and scratched it. “Whereas the students from Canterlot High and Crystal Prep who were caught in the blast suffered amnesia as well as lost age, I did not, and so did Cadance and the two principals at Canterlot High, if their interactions with me are to be believed.”
“Well, it’s good to know that you’re still alive, Abacus, but before I send you on your way, I must ask you a few questions.” Chrysalis pulled out a clipboard and pencil. “How did you survive that explosion anyway? Why has it turned you into a teenager? And why do you remember everything while everyone else didn’t?”
Cinch suppressed a sigh, before forcing a smirk on her face. “I was pretty far away from the center of the explosion, that may be why. Although, given that even the girl in the heart of it survived, something tells me that I simply could not die due to it. Same answer goes to why I am a teenager, instead of a little girl or even a baby.” She said confidently. “As for why I remember, I do not know for sure, and perhaps you are better off asking to whoever started it.”
Chrysalis leaned in, adjusting her hair affectedly. “Ironic, considering you were the sender.”
Cinch recoiled, nearly hitting the wall behind her. “W-who told you that? When?”
“I am the one making questions here, not you. So, please, answer to me, or would you rather I let the evidence do the talking?” She pulled out a tape recorder and pressed the play button, playing back Abacus Cinch and her students talking and then singing, the day when the explosion occurred. “It seems to me like you wanted this to happen, didn’t you? You yourself were backing Twilight Sparkle into that corner with the other students at your beck and call, correct?”
“How did you—”
“And since that explosion, students at Canterlot High and Crystal Prep have been spiting you, despite their youthened states and mostly infantile mindsets.” Chrysalis flipped a few pages on her clipboard, showing reports of some of the babies and toddlers she had interviewed that had been caught in the blast. “It was a hard task to get the newborns to communicate, but luckily for us, their parents were more than happy to oblidge.”
“I don’t understand what—”
“So as it stands, you used Twilight Sparkle to take this so-called ‘magic’ from poor, defenceless girls at Canterlot High, therefore leaving you with a fallback plan in case your team was about to lose in the Friendship Games. “Chrysalis smirked this time. “And then, using the magic and imbuing it with your own students, you would overthrow Canterlot High and jeopardize the whole world with something that has yet to be studied and controlled.” Chrysalis wrote down something on a blank page, that faintly read ‘Notice of Termimation’. “Am I right? I would say that you are to blame for all this, Abacus.”
“Since when were you suspicious of me?” Cinch snapped back.
“Do either one of us have the heart to believe the other?” Chrysalis folded her arms, gently resting the clipboard by her side.
Abacus gathered her courage, feeling herself cornered but not quite enough to concede.
“Yes, I admit I did it.” Cinch said. “But, remember, Twilight stole that magic from girls that, I should remind you, have managed to create man-eating giant plants. A regressing blast is, shall we say, downright bizarre.”
“That, I was surprised at as well, but the evidence still stands.” Chrysalis clicked her fingers, and all of a sudden, the both of them were surrounded by students, both past and new, all of who were glaring at Cinch.
“Ah, I see you managed to create the metaphorical army,” Cinch said. “Well, I am still not deterred. I may have had a major lapse in judgment and considered Twilight of next to no worth. However, given that the man that has replaced me has a morality compass of a rabid dog…”
“The Friendship Games has a moral code, Cinch: cheaters must be punished, by any means necessary.” Chrysalis walked out of the ring with the students letting her out before closing up again. “The Rainbooms might have used magic, but they did it to ensure the games flowed as smoothly as possible, and I’m positive that those fly-traps that burst out were just a little blip that happened with your crazy experiments. The evidence is still irrefutable. You cheated in the Friendship Games, and we all know what happens to cheaters…” She clicked her fingers again, and the students advanced on Cinch, their hands balled up into fists, ready to hurt her. “Maybe this should teach you not to put reputation before your students.” Chrysalis walked away saying, “have fun with her.”
Cinch turned herself around, then stotted away, as a few students started to chase her. She ran and ran, sharply turning around the corners in order to stop the chasers and shouting out taunts to make them angry and, thus, less concentrated on their rushes.
“You said we would win the Games!” A female student shjouted with all her might.
“We didn’t sign up to be your collateral damage!” A male said whilst bull-rushing forward, only to then slam into a door into the girl's bathroom.
“You should’ve turned into a baby, like everyone else! Then you wouldn’t be in this mess!” a third student cried out, before jumping forward to grab Cinch's skirt, causing both him and her to fall down onto the floor.
"Curses!" She siad, as she quickly tired to crawl away from her aggressor's grip, only to get a punch on her spaine, cuasingh er to whimper and collapse.
"Hey, you! How 'bout respecting former authorities!?" Another student, one apparently passing by, said, drop-kicking on the punching student in the ribs. "Ma'am, get away, I will hold this mob for as long as I can!"
Without begin asked Twice, Cinch got up and limped away into a nearby closet to catch her breath.
Sunset Shimmer was playing with stuffed animals in Cadance’s nursery. without a care in the world. After the regressive blast, she had warmed up to her like a mother—one who actually cared about her, instead of let her handle everything without any help. She was trying to talk to the animals, but all that came out of her mouth was gibberish that a baby would usually say.
“So, Sunset’s parents were out of town when the regressive blast happened?” Twilight asked as she and Cadence watched over Sunset.
“Yes. That’s what we believed.” Cadance furrowed some of her hair.
“But that’s just it!” Twilight threw her hands in the air. “Sunset’s not a human like you. She’s from Equestria, a world where ponies are the dominant species!” Twilight said. “She ran away from home, her real parents, everything, just to come here and start a new life! In short, she has no parents in this world, and she never had!”
“Oh my…” Cadence’s eyes widened at everything that Twilight had said. “I-I didn’t know that she was that lonely…”
“And if what I’ve heard is true about the portal being closed to her, that means she’s probably stuck here forever, devoid of magic!” Twilight froze up at the realization of the situation. “The one thing she needed to get home is gone, and I wasn’t there to stop any of it…”
“It’s fine,” Cadence said. “You couldn’t possibly hope to know when this was going to happen.”
“But I was suppsoed to!” Twilight shrieked. “The diary… oh the diary…”
Sunset quietly sucked on her thumb as she snuggled up in the pram that Cadence had bought before the Friendship Games. Ever since that day, she had opened up to the former dean of Crystal Prep and now treated her as her full-time mother.
Together, Cadence and Sunset were taking a walk through the local park, with the Twilight from Equestria right by their side. Twilight was still twiddling her fingers to find a solution to the situation while Cadence made sure that nothing would hurt Sunset, and to tend to her needs if she wanted anything.
“So, that blast…” Twilight felt unable to speak for a few seconds after bringing it up. “Why didn’t it turn you into a baby?”
“I’m not sure, Twilight,” said Cadence. “Maybe because me, Celestia, Luna, and Cinch were a lot older than the students? I don’t really know. This magic stuff is really confusing to me…”
“I have to agree with you on that, Cadence.” Twilight gently placed her hand on the pink teen’s shoulder. “Not even I know how magic works in this world; let alone Sunset before these so-called Friendship Games even happened…”
“And despite it saved CHS before, why did it this time decide to turn against you and turn everyone into babies, toddlers, or just old enough to re-attend kindergarten or grade school?” Cadence raised an eyebrow.
“Magic has a number of different variables on Equestria, and when certain emotions are poured into it, the magic can become much more stronger and unpredictable,” said Twilight. “Some unicorns I’ve seen back in Equestria can cast much stronger spells when they’re angry, or driven by greed or some other form of negative emotion.”
“I guess that explains why Cinch was being chased and attacked at Crystal Prep the other day…” Cadence placed her fingers under her chin and lightly scratched it.
“Wait. She was attacked?” Twilight froze up entirely. She had heard bad things about the Human World Cinch, and despite it wasn’t even worth comparing to the atrocities the pony counterpart of her had done, she was still taken aback with the fact. “But why? Isn’t making her a teenager bad enough?”
“Some of the students cried out for blood, saying that her drive to win the Games is what caused the explosion in the first place, with some of them saying that they were nothing more than collateral damage to her.” Cadence herself stopped so that she wouldn’t lose Twilight. “She also had a bit of a black eye and a bleeding nose the last time I saw her…”
“Yikes.” Twilight winced. “Now I feel sorry that she didn’t turn into a baby like the students.”
“And speaking of babies, I think I can see our world’s Twilight over there with her family.” Cadence pointed out towards a red checkered blanket where Night Light and Twilight Velvet were sitting, while the infant Twilight tried her best to stand up and chase after a butterfly, only to fall on her diapered rump and let out a little giggle.
“Do you think we should go and see how she’s doing?” Equestria Twilight asked.
“Well, first, we should see if cute little Sunset wants to see her.” Cadence leaned into the pram and gently helped her sit up.
Sunset poked her head out and looked over at infant Twilight playing. Something flashed in her mind and a smile was forged onto her face. Beaming, she pointed towards the baby girl and clapped eagerly.
“Looks like she wants to.” Equestria Twilight chuckled briefly as she, aided by Dean Cadence’s strength, started to push the pram into Twilight Velvet’s direction. “Let’s go then.”
Soon enough, the two arrived at Twilight’s parents, just as Night Light was leading Twilight back at the blanket on the grass and Twilight Velvet pulled a dark blue bag closer.
“How’s her diaper, honey?” Twilight Velvet asked, unzipping one of the pockets to reveal a small selection of diapers still folded up.
“It’s still clean, but I think she’d like something to drink and a nap now,” he said as he made Twilight sit down onto the blanket and then bring the bag close to him, unbuttoning the central part of the bag and pulling a baby bottled out of it. Twilight immediately protruded her hand towards the bottle, babbling something as she did so.
It was at this point that Equestria Twilight decided to chime in.
“Good day ma’am and sir,” she said, forcing herself to remind to herself that they weren’t her actual parents.
“Um… hello there?” Night Light said, setting the bottle in her daughter’s mouth. “What are you—”
Twilight Velvet’s face took a slight tinge of red, as she crawled up to her husband and whispered something in his ear.
“Oh, I see. Sorry, it’s just that…” he started to stutter. “I didn’t know you were one of Dean Cadence’s relatives.”
Twilight grinned uncomfortably and nodded.
“Um, yes, I am…” she said, sheepishly rubbing the back of her head.
“Oh, yeah, she is my niece.” Dean Cadence said steadfastly. “She came to visit me just before that event at the Friendship Games happened and, well…” “You wanted to see us?”
“Actually, no, my niece wanted to see your daughter,” Cadence said, gesturing casually in order to cement her façade. “She’s going to get a degree in Pediatrics and, well, the event’s results sounded a perfect opportunity for her to learn something new.”
“Oh, thanks for the compliment, Dean Cadence, but Twily’s just a baby now.” Night Light said -- missing part of the phrase -- gently caressed his daughter whilst she was still drinking. “She won’t need a degree in anything until she’s all grown up again.”
As the conversation between Cadence, Twilight Velvet, and Night Light went on, Equestria Twilight looked at Sunset, who was reaching out of the pram to try and get close to the baby Twilight. She whined with each failed attempt to touch her, and eventually turned to face the older Twilight to babble for help.
“Aww. Don’t worry, Sunset. I’m here…” Twilight reached in and picked Sunset out of the pram, hearing her laughter as she was carried. “Now, let’s say hi to your new playmate.”
As soon as Sunset’s feet were on the ground, she started to immediately lightly kick in order to be put down, to which Twilight complied. Once she was, she slowly started to crawl towards the baby Twilight.
The little Twilight had just finished her milk and was burped by Twilight Velvet. Once that was done, she noticed Sunset approaching her, and she started to coo as she raised her tiny eyebrow. Once Sunset had arrived, Twilight spoke in gibberish, as if she was asking who she was.
Sunset understood what baby Twilight was saying perfectly, despite the inability to speak or hear the words properly. It wasn’t long before she was wrapped up in a conversation with the former Crystal Prep girl. The topic changed rapidly every minute, due to their infantile mindscapes, until she found a butterfly and giggled at it, getting Twilight to do the same.
“Sounds like our kids are getting along just fine,” Cadence said as she watched Twilight and Sunset continue to talk and play together.
“Yeah, it seems so,” Twilight Velvet said, looking at them chasing the butterfly. “Sometimes I’d wish to know what’s going on in my daughter’s little head of hers…”
“Me too.” Equestria Twilight sat down on the blanket with her legs crossed. “Me too…”
Twilight sighed and looked up at the sky, trying to remind herself about mind-reading spells that could serve her right now, and not remembering one that could be done with a low amount of power at hoof. Her research for a solution had been unfruitful so far… she had to go down another track.
“I’ve heard that your daughter used to own a peculiar trinket, before she was turned back into a baby,” Twilight said. “Do you happen to still have it?”
“Trinket? What are you talking about?” Night Light asked. “Twily never had anything like that before the Friendship Games, and even then, her only prized possession was her oldest doll, Smarty Pants.”
“In fact, I happen to have it right here.” Twilight Velvet reached into her bag and pulled out the doll. It resembled a goat with raggedy hair and polka-dot pants. “Every time she sees this old thing, she would always swoon over it.”
Twilight eyed it, squaring it with her eyes. As much as she could have loved her doll, it was unlikely that it was the object used as catalyst of the magical blast.
“Oh? Because I heard that there was some kind of round artifact spotted at the Friendship Games, like a CD player shape,” Equestria Twilight said.
“She went with her old Compact Disc player to the Games?” Twilight Velvet said, somewhat surprised. “Well, that would explain why it went missing. But if that were so, I don’t know where it went. Maybe it got lost on the bus.”
“Well, whatever she had at the games, I’m not sure that anyone has it, let alone knows where it is.” Cadence put her hand on Equestria Twilight’s shoulder again. “If we could find it, though, then maybe we’d get a better idea of what’s going on here…”
Twilight nodded slowly. With the artifact nowhere to be found, she had little choice left to her. She had to figure how much magic was contained in Twilight, and that meant one thing only.
Reclining herself against Cadence’s shoulder, she started to whisper inside her ear.
“Look, I didn’t want to get this point and all, but, with how things are turning out, I think I have little choice in the matter.” she said. “If my knowledge how to determine which kind of spell is affecting an individual is still valid, getting a blood sample of Sunset, Twilight and the others would help me greatly in understanding how to reverse this.”
“A blood sample at her age? That sounds extreme…” Twilight Velvet looked over at her baby, and grimaced at the thought of baby Twilight’s deafening screams, especially with a needle extracting her blood. “Wouldn’t a strand a hair do? Or maybe some of her drool or pee?”
“Magic runs in everybody’s blood, literally,” Twilight said with a gesture. “While possible to detect traces in drool or urine, it wouldn’t be as strong.”
“Either way, this doesn’t seem moral, especially if you’re supposedly a pony from another world.” Twilight Velvet’s voice began to change from peaceful to apprehensive. “And what happens if this test of yours fails? You’ll have to live with the guilt of making all those babies feel pain.”
“Why can’t you extract some of your own blood and run it against that so-called magic that struck at the Friendship Games?” Night Light suggested.
“That would be… pointless,” Twilight said, lifting her right finger up. “I know what kind of magic I have in my bloodstream and very well at that, and I am pretty sure I have never experienced youthening. And, even if I did, I would still need to compare it to somebody else who had been struck by it.”
“Even so, you don’t have permission to take little Twily’s blood sample, or the blood of anyone else who was affected at the Games, teenager or otherwise.” Twilight Velvet crossed her arms. “I don’t care if there’s a cure or not. The only thing that I do care about is that all of these babies and children grow up again safely, and even if there’s a far-fetched cure, I certainly won’t be having my daughter be subjected to your mad experiments.” Her voice got louder and louder, and she was close to shouting.
“Alright, alright. I can see that this is going nowhere.” Cadence gently massaged the shoulders of Twilight Velvet, quelling her almost instantly. “Let’s change the subject.”
“Good idea, Cadence.” Velvet’s smile returned as she pulled out a folder and flipped through the pages, revealing pictures of baby Twilight doing things, before and after the Games. “These pictures that I took were so cute, and I’d like to show them with you, if you’d like.”
Equestria Twilight nodded, preparing herself to pretend that the latter photos were from the same time period of the former. Twilight Velvet pulled out her wallet and, unfolding it, she revealed an extremely long string of photos, attached together thanks to a bandolier-like system to store photos.
Sour Sweet, Indigo Zap, and Sunny Flare were all taken to the local nursery by their parents. Despite loving the time they had been spending with their caretakers, they were curious to meet new friends and play together with them.
Deicer, Silver Lining, and Violet Plasma gently carried their children inside of the establishment and quickly signed them in for a session. Despite having to use one of their arms, they still had enough dexterity to sign the book with one arm.
The three babies looked around and occasionally put some of their fingers—or even their whole hands—into their mouths as they stared at everything around them. The cream-coloured walls were very comforting to the three of them, little smiles grew on their faces before they had even been dropped off in the nursery to be cared of for the day.
As soon as Violet put her down, Indigo Zap crawled as fast she could away from her mother, her gaze and intentions focused onto a small pile of sponge balls laying in a far-off corner of the room. Meanwhile, Sour Sweet unsurely touched the floor below her, whining and whimpering as she was slowly set down by her mother. And Sunny Flare was desperately clinging to Silver Lining, and reached for her when she was set down on the floor.
“Sunny doesn’t look like she wants you to leave, Silver.” Deicer took notice of Sunny’s raised arms.
“She always had this problem when she was a baby.” Silver picked Sunny up and gently patted her daughter’s head and rubbed her stomach. “Unless you did this routine to soothe her, she couldn’t bear being left alone—not even for a second.”
Sunny felt the circular motions gently tickling her belly whilst the light patting on her head made her giggle slightly. Her past fears were long gone and a large smile now rested on her face.
“There you go, little angel.” Silver set Sunny down once again, but this time she didn’t try to fight against it. “I’ll be back to pick you up at 3:00.” She gave Sunny a little kiss before she walked out of the room.
Deicer and Violet said their goodbyes to their own children before they too walked out of the nursery.
Indigo Zap, Sour Sweet, and Sunny Flare were now free to do whatever they could lay their eyes on in the nursery. They could see toys and blocks as far as the eye could see, along with a little table if they wanted to do some drawing, and a tiny little fort made out of padded shapes. Their minds ran through a million possibilities, but Indigo was still by the sponge balls, hugging a few of them.
Sour Sweet and Sunny Flare looked at each other, tilted their heads, and slowly crawled towards each other. When they were both close enough, they began to speak baby talk to each other, perfectly being able to understand what the other was saying.
“Who are you?” Sour Sweet asked, extending her right hand forward onto Sunny Flare’s face, causing the latter to recoil.
“Who are you?” Sunny Flare asked back.
“I don’t know. Mommy and daddy call me ‘Sour Sweet’ but I’m not sure what that means exactly,” she said, retracting her hand away from Sunny Flare.
“Ah, I see. Mine call me ‘Sunny Flare’ for some reason,” Sunny Flare said. “I don’t quite get why either.”
“Anyways, shall we call each other like that?”
Sour Sweet nodded.
“Alrighty then. First, any idea where we are and what’re going to do here?” Sunny Flare asked, looking around the room.
“Dunno. Maybe what we usually play at home?” Sour shrugged and looked for something herself, eventually finding a fort. “Ooh! What about that? What’s in there?”
“I dunno, Sour. Maybe it’s some new toys we’ve never seen before…” Sunny looked at the fort and each of the colourful walls that kept it standing.
“Only one way to find out,” Sour’s smile returned. “C’mon, Sunny! Let’s play!”
“Hey! Wait for me!” Sunny began to notice that Sour Sweet was already moving away from her. She reached out with her right hand and began to crawl towards the fort to keep up with her new friend.
Once Sour and Sunny climbed into the fort, they noticed that there was a couple of teddy bears nestled inside, and the two of them wasted no time in picking them up and cuddling them tight.
When Indigo finally got bored of the sponge balls, she soon noticed a tiny little slide poking out of one of the walls of the fort. Her smile grew wider as she crawled towards it, dropping the balls entirely. When she climbed in, she wiggled her legs as she squeezed into the little hole.
Once Indigo was inside the padded fort, she heard the childish and high-pitched laughs of Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet. With one of her brows raised, she put her finger close to her mouth and barely avoided the urge to suck on it to climb up and see what the laughter was. She climbed each step with difficulty until she noticed Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet about to ride the slide out of the fort.
Sunny Flare and Sour Sweet slid down the slide together, holding hands the whole time and laughing once again when they landed onto the padded floor below. They barely even noticed that Indigo was following them once they had stopped.
It was only after Sour Sweet and Sunny Flare had seen Indigo that they felt a warm feeling in between their legs. Looking down, they saw that they had wet themselves and their diapers were now getting saggy. Despite the fact that they had had this sensation before, they did not remember or know how to fix the problem themselves. Tears began to form in their eyes, and they began to whimper until they finally let out full-blown wails.
“Oh my! Looks like we’ve got a few wet ones here…” A well-kept woman with pink hair and a plaid dress walked up to Sour and Sunny and picked the two of them up in an attempt to calm them down. “Ssshhh… Don’t cry, little ones. I’m here.”
Sour and Sunny’s tears didn’t stop until they were both laid down onto a soft pink changing table. To them, it felt like they had been set down on a pillow, and the small comfort did reduce their tears, but they still had wet diapers and the discomfort didn’t make them feel happy either.
The woman then removed the wet diapers, crumpled them up, and tossed them into a small bin before reaching into the drawers and getting two new ones, as well as a bottle of baby powder. The new diapers were both pink and had pictures of cartoon bears and flowers on them, which caught both of the regressed girls’ attention for a short while, as they poked and stared at them for a brief moment.
When the novelty wore off, they were immediately powdered and diapered by the woman and given a kiss each before they were picked up and dropped off at a colouring table with two other babies that looked slightly familiar to them.
“What is up, beautiful people? My name is Neon Lights.” she said as she wore her headphones and fiddled around with her radio equipment.
“And I’m Dubstep Blast!” He said as he too made some calibrations of his own.
“Starting off with news today, the recent events from the Friendship Games are still on the mind as the students who were affected by the blast were slowly beginning to adapt to their new ages.”
“For those of you who don’t know, there was a catastrophic event at the Games this year involving an unknown force and some bright lights. In what could be considered playing god, most of the students from both Canterlot High and Crystal Prep were turned into even younger children, with some even turning back into babies.”
“Unfortunately, our sweet little Lemon Zest was at the epicentre of the blast, so she too suffered the youthening effects.” Laser looked back at Lemon and used her arm to signal her to walk forward. “But the good news is, she’s still as bouncy now as she was back then, and more cute too.”
“C’mon, Lemon. Say hi to the radio people.” Dubstep put his hand on Lemon’s shoulder and gave her the headset he had been wearing.
“Hi, radio people!” Lemon said as sweetly as any kid on the radio would have said it. “I’m alright, so don’t worry!”
“Aww…” Laser took the headset off of Lemon and tousled her hair before she gave the apparatus back to her husband. “Anyway, stay tuned, because at 11:00, we’ll be having an exclusive interview with some of the other victims’ parents.”
“But first, it’s time for an oldie but a goodie!” Dubstep hit a button and a jingle began to play across both the studio. “Newsworthy!”
“Our darling little Lemon’ll read the rules in case you’re just tuning in.” Laser handed a script to Lemon and gave her another microphone. “Go on, Lemon. Just read the words, and don’t be shy to ask mom and dad if you need any help.”
“In this game, the players just have to answer questions on the week’s news,” Lemon was innocently reading the script word for word. “Right answers give them a point, while wrong answers give their opponent a point. First player to ten points wins!”
“Such a little angel, isn’t she?” Dubstep said. “Anyway, we’ll have our first match-up in a few seconds, and if you want to be in round two, simple call 07584 675118 and answer a qualifying question, and we might be in touch with you very soon.”
Sugarcoat—her back rigidly blocked inside a orthopedic corset, one she had been inserted into while she waited for the surgery needed to get the bent rods out of her spine—walked towards the local kindergarten while holding hands with Fudge Numbers.
“I never thought I’d be playing with you at kindergarten, Sugar,” Fudge said. “And to be honest, I’m both excited and a little nervous too.”
“We should make up a silly word for that feeling, shouldn’t we, sis?” Sugarcoat cracked a smile. “How about nervousited?”
“Nervousited? That sounds fun. Nervousited, nervousited, nervousited! There. Now it’s stuck on my tongue.”
Sugarcoat shrugged as she tried to move forward, as fast as her little legs carried and the weight of the corset allowed her to, inside the building. She then followed her sister towards the classroom.
“Oh, hello again, Fudge!” A woman with a blonde ponytail appeared to shake Fudge’s hand. “I see you brought along your sister.” She turned to face Sugar. “Sugarcoat, wasn’t it?”
“Yep!” Sugarcoat shook the woman’s hand with more energy than she meant to.
“Well, it’s always nice to see new kids showing up here,” the woman said. “My name is Loving Embrace, and I’ll be your caretaker, guide, and overall helping hand here at kindergarten.”
“She’s also our teacher! Won’t that be great, Sugar?” Fudge asked.
“Yes it will!” Sugarcoat leapt up, and noticed that for the first time in her life, she was feeling something she had never felt before. Fun. Her parents had given her an advanced tutoring in her past life, and she had never had the chance to be a true kid. But now that the Friendship Games had come and gone, she was finally able to break free and be just like her sister.
“Sounds like you two are eager to play.” Loving said as she took both of them by their hands. “Follow me to the classroom, and we’ll get Fudge set up, and Sugarcoat introduced to her new classmates.”
Sugarcoat and Fudge walked down a single corridor with Loving holding their hands the whole way. Their small trip led them to a single door at the end of the corridor that was light green and had a number of stickers of all different things stuck onto it.
When the door was opened, Sugarcoat and Fudge Numbers saw the kindergarten classroom in all of its’ glory. There were coloured walls with drawings and crafts from the children, cartoon animals, and even a paper sky with clouds, rain, and a sun. The floor was covered entirely in carpet, and the children were either running around, sitting down, or even lying down on it. There was a little bookcase on wheels, a chest full of toys, a colouring table, and even a few tables for snack time close by a door that led to the kitchen. The last thing to notice was a set of hangers where the kids could hang up their coats and put their shoes down.
Sugarcoat marvelled at everything her eyes could see. All of the bright colours, playful children, and inviting toys made her feel like she was truly free to be the kid she was meant to be. She hung up her coat and quickly took her shoes off, seeing her sister doing the same. She was ready to go, but before she could even think of running, she was stopped by Loving.
“Whoa! Hold on there, Sugar.” She gently grabbed onto Sugarcoat’s arm and pulled back with little force, yet it was enough to stop the toddler dead in her tracks. “You can’t play until you’ve met your classmates.”
“It won’t take long, Sugar. Honest.” Fudge flashed her a gentle smile and flapped her eyelids.
“Alright.” Sugarcoat hung her head at that remark. As much as the thought of making new friends was also appealing to her, she was desperate to play with the toys in the room.
“Everyone?” Loving called at the top of her voice, getting all of the kids to stop what they were doing and focus solely on her. Good. That still works, she thought to herself. “If you’d like to get into position around the listening circle, we have a new classmate that I’d like you to meet.”
The children did not answer back and hurriedly sat neatly with their legs crossed around a marked light-blue ring of carpet which had a single armchair sitting in the centre. Their voices fell silent as they watched Loving and Sugarcoat walk into the middle, with Fudge Numbers sitting down as usual.
“Go on.” Loving gave Sugarcoat a gentle pat on the back. “Just say hello and tell them your name.”
“Hi.” She waved slowly. “My name’s Sugarcoat.”
“Hi, Sugarcoat!” the whole class chorused in perfect harmony.
“Now, just because she’s new, I don’t want her being treated as an outcast.” Loving put her hand on Sugarcoat’s shoulder. “In fact, I want you all to try and get her to join in on your games and let her play with everything she can find. It’ll help her get used to kindergarten much better.”
“Where should I sit?” Sugarcoat asked.
“Oh. Just sit anywhere you like within the listening circle, Sugar.” Loving stretched her arm out to signal all of the students to open the enclosed ring up and make more space for Sugarcoat.
She looked at all of the open gaps and saw all of the students smiling at her and wanting her to sit with them. It was a tough choice for her to make, but in the end, she sat down with two girls dressed up in a princess and a bunny outfit, smiling when the kids all shuffled up to close the ring.
“Now, first of all, I’ll call the register, and we can get started on the fun.” Loving pulled out a clipboard from the pocket on the side of the chair along with a pen.
