Chapter 1
*Deal with It*
Five weeks ago is when it all started. Something the World wasn't prepared for. Something no one could have ever prepared for. The events from over the past few days have caused mass hysteria and many people have committed suicide as a result of the changes the Earth was going through. If I would have to estimate a guess it would be around half of the entire population that have died, either by themselves or by others who were trying to permanently remove themselves from the World.
The first sign was quickly discovered. Most people were embarrassed about it at first, until they realized that everyone had it. It quickly consumed all the media. Everywhere everything was asking "What tattoo did you get on your hip?". It was all very innocent at first, until the next day. That was when everyone woke up with a tail, long hair and ears that were definitely not human. This had caused a few people to already go crazy.
Everyone started to worry to what extent the change would continue, and they were correct in their worry as the next day their feet were no longer feet, but rather hooves. This was when people really went mad, running down the streets saying that this was the will of god, that this was his way of passing down judgement on the human race.
There was a surprising bit of information though, that came from a community who called themselves "Bronies". They had said that this was going to keep going until we would be full-fledged ponies from some cartoon made for five-year-old girls. They said the signs were clear as day, the colour of the fur we were all growing was one of them. There were a lot of people with the strangest colour of fur, most not normally found in nature. This brought some credibility to the community.
There was one thing that made most people cross the line into madness, and that was that this change was not the doing of our god and it was probably Irreversible. Their best guess was that this was all the doing by the villain and god of Chaos, if this was in any way connected to the series called 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic', called Discord.
Since everyone was pretty much willing to accept any kind of explanation to how or why this was happening they all quickly thought that this was the most credible thing to believe.
Six days after the first sign, everyone has turned into a cartoon-y pony, and what was most surprising is that not everyone was a 'normal' or, how the Bronies called it, 'Earth' Pony. About a third turned Pegasus and a third turned Unicorn.
Within six days the whole world was in total chaos, with exception of the Bronies of course. For some reason they thought that people, or ponies, had to remain calm and not further the chaos and fuel an extremely dangerous creature, which had possibly set all this in motion in the first place.
There was one change that I personally found very scary at first. At certain points whenever I saw a friend and said his or her name, instead of saying her actual name I would accidentally call him or her something else. The first time it happened I accidentally called my sister 'Vivid Strokes', what was even more disturbing is that she didn't notice it until I apologized to her for calling her the wrong name.
Apparently I wasn't the only one who was messing up names. It seems the whole change included our names. So my sister took after her special talent she already had as a human, which is painting and drawing, and her pony name confirmed it only that much more.
My sister and myself are not too troubled by the change. Our lives were rather vapid before and since we changed into Pegasi it was a welcome deviation from regular, boring life. I am also very lucky that my bond with my sister is very strong. We never fought and she trusts me wholly, as I trust her. We helped each other get through the initial shock of the change but I now know that this change could just reveal my own special talent.
Ever since the World turned Pony technology seems useless. It's near to impossible to handle anything at all. The biggest problem are the touch-screens. They sadly do not react to the touch of hooves so using my smartphone was out of the question. It was also really difficult to use any type of computer, but I found out that if I carefully use my wing, instead of my hooves, I could actually type something. Although it does take me about ten minutes before I even manage to type one sentence.
The first thing I did after I heard that we were now very closely resembling ponies from a little girl's show was to do some research about it. I was rather curious about what this show was and how I was the same to their characters. I watched a few episodes and quickly found the similarities, the colourful fur, the fact that we're still sentient, the oversized head and the strange names everypony has.
I started to think a little about it and made me wonder if it wasn't the doing of humans because of the many similarities, but who knows, maybe this Discord fellow found out how to travel between dimensions and just happened to stumble upon Earth.
My name now is Thunderhoof. Yes, for some strange reason my name is a combination of two words. I found that two of the main six characters have the same 'combined words' names, which are Applejack and Fluttershy. The name actually fits my new body quite well and I actually like the name a little.
Since I am now a pegasus I can fly, or at least that was the theory. I tried to fly already, but all I managed to do was make myself do about half a backflip after a single flap of my wings, which then caused me to land on my back... hard. Since then I haven't really tried to do any more flying and I won't until I find someone, er- somepony, to teach me how. I do not feel like having my back sore for two days, just because I tried to fly.
My sister has, just like me, really taken to her new name and even wants me to use a nickname instead of her full name. So now I call her 'Vi' instead of her actual name, Vivid Strokes. It also really fits her. She used to already be very good at making art pieces using paint, pencil or charcoal. I found that she also has a cutie mark on her flank, just like the ponies from the show. Hers is a pallet with a brush, a pencil and a piece of charcoal next to it. Kinda makes sense I guess.
Me however, I do not have a cutie mark yet. I have understood from the show that you have to realize what your special talent is before you get it. That's exactly where the problem lies. I'm almost eighteen and I'm still a blank flank, I think using terms from the show is alright, because we could easily fit in with the rest of the characters. MY problem is that I'm good at many things, but I'm just not great in anything. I'm more like a jack-of-all-trades. This will probably be a problem once I want to get a cutie mark.
"Thunder, could you please get me something to drink, I'm kinda covered in paint right now." Vi shouts from her room.
"Sure, whatcha wanna drink?" I reply, already making my way to the kitchen.
"Uhm... Just pour me something." Vi replies, already back to her artwork knowing that I was on my way to get her a drink.
"Lemonade?"
"Sure."
There is one peculiar thing about being this kind of pony. These ponies all have some inherent magic in them. Earth Ponies the least amount, then the Pegasi and the Unicorns mostly rely on their magic during almost all their daily activities. The handy thing about this magic is is that it gives all ponies, even Earth Ponies, a short-range telekinesis. It's actually extremely close-range, or well... for it to work you have to actually touch the object.
But what that means is that even though I now have hooves I can still lift a glass, without having to awkwardly grip it between my two front legs. It's the only thing that reminds me of my human body, because it feels very similar, as if I'm actually wrapping a hand around the glass and holding it there.
So I pour my sister her glass of lemonade, as well as a glass for myself. There was one problem though which everyone ran into pretty quickly as well, we can't walk on two hooves, so to bring the glass of lemonade to my sister I have to either fly, which I'm still afraid to try without any guidance, or I have to place it onto my back like the way I saw them do in the show.
That made me realize that for some weird reason the telekinesis worked from certain part of the body. First off from the ends of the hooves, from the muzzle and strangely from a centre part of the lower back, which very conveniently is the place I can just reach to place down the glass of lemonade.
"So... whatcha making?" I ask as I carefully walk into her room, trying to avoid getting any paint on myself.
"Hmm... I thought I might try something different, use a different technique." Vi replies.
"And what would that be?"
"Well I tried to paint without a paintbrush." This I didn't really get. How are you supposed to paint without a brush, throw the whole bucket on the canvas?
"How do you intend to do that?" I say, only now noticing paint almost entirely covering her.
"well... I thought maybe it would be fun to use my wings, the feathers give a pretty nice texture to the strokes." It sort of made sense. I mean I'm not much of a painter but I've never heard of anyone using feathers as their brush before. And now, looking at her artwork, it seems like something they should have come up with a lot sooner.
"It looks pretty amazing." I honestly say as I lift the glass of lemonade off of my back and place it on a low desk near my sister.
"Thanks... I guess."
"Well... Imma go out and try to find somepony to teach me how to fly. See ya in a bit." I call back as I walk out of her room to get some stuff ready.
Whenever I go out I always take a bag with me. It's something I used to do as a human and it kind of stuck. When I was human I did a lot of sports, mostly on my own. I was into Parkour and Freerunning. But now seeing I can't easily walk on two hooves it was getting difficult to do vaults or even a normal roll. There is however one move, that I had endlessly practised as a human, that I could still do. It is the Dash Vault.
Every time I leave the house I pass a small waist-high wall on which I would always do that vault. Now as a pony, for some strange reason, I still manage to pull it off. Not even my tail gets stuck behind the wall. What surprises me as well is that when we do walk on our hind legs, it isn't too difficult to stay balanced. It's just that after a while the muscles in your hips get really sore.
Imagine yourself walking in stilettos all day while leaning backwards, and then not falling over. After a while your thighs get really painful. Or at least that's what my sister compares it to. I wouldn't know really. But I do know that when I walk on my hind legs too long I would feel sore, so I preferred walking on all fours. Although that meant I couldn't do much Parkour any more.
So I grab my bag and fill it with a water bottle, my wallet which still has my human identity card in it, and some snacks for if I felt hungry. I wouldn't be gone for too long, but it was a habit that I also had as a human.
"I'll see ya later!" I say to my sister once more before leaving the house.
As always, when I pass the little brick wall, I jump over it, push my hind legs forward and my chest back, then as I'm over the wall and about to hit it with my flank I quickly push my front hooves onto the wall below me and push myself all the way over it. I still feel surprised every time I manage to pull that off.
Now that I'm outside I look around to see if there are any pegasi flying around, or practising for such a thing. I walk down the road running parallel to my home. About every ten steps I pass a pathetic excuse for a tree to my left, they're more like twigs standing straight up, while on my right all I can see are houses, all with the curtains closed. Most humans-turned-pony are still having a hard time adjusting, even though the transformation took place over five weeks ago.
As I reach the end of the street I find exactly what I was looking for. I sort of expected it though, since I knew my friend pretty well. My friend, who now goes by the name of 'Wind Walker', also turned into a pegasus, just like me and my sister. There's one thing about him though that makes him completely at ease with the transformation. He was a brony for quite a few years before the transformation and he had the wildest fantasies of being something other than a human. He said that if the technology was there he would let himself be turned in to either a griffin or a pegasus.
Now there's no more need for that technology since his 'lifelong' dream has come true. He was so at ease with everything that he almost immediately started practising flight, which is very convenient for myself.
"Yo Wind, how's the flight managing?" I shout at him as he is still about fifteen metres separated from me.
"Yea, ya know... not really. I did manage to do a full backflip though." He looks at me with a big smile, beaming with pride at his 'accomplishment.
"Oh yea, I also heard this thing on the news the other day." He continues. "There was this Asian Pegasus who managed to go almost four hundred kilometres per hour."
"Asians." I sigh, looking at the sky, wishing I knew how to fly.
"So you managed to do a backflip? Show me." I say as I now have finally crossed the distance and reached him.
"Sure." I see him bend a little through his legs as he gets ready to jump. Before kicking off though he spreads his wings and I immediately understand why we all had so much trouble trying to fly. I had never watched Wind practice but it was very clear why he would do a backflip instead of taking off to the sky.
He flaps his wings just after he jumps, then pulls them back against his body as he makes the full spin and then lands the pavement with the tell-tale clopping sounds of hooves on a hard surface.
"That's pretty impressive, but I think I just found out why we fall backwards each time we try to fly." I say as I spread my own wings.
I look at the position of them and see that they are exactly the same as Wind's were just a moment ago.
"Wait what? What do you mean?" He looks at me with a little confusion on his face. Apparently he doesn't see that my wing position is what would make me go backwards instead of the desired up.
"Look at my wings dude. Look at how I'm holding them." I tell him as he complies.
"I can't see what's wrong with it. Looks just like mine when I looked in the mirror." I really can't understand that he can't see how the wings are pointed at the totally wrong direction.
I try out some more of my wing muscles before I have them in the position I want them to be.
"How about now?" I ask him again.
"Well it does look a little different, but what difference will that make." While I didn't know what difference it would really make, my guess was that this would lift me upward, instead of backward and over onto my back.
"Well let's find out, shall we?" I say with a grin as I tense all the muscles in my back.
I focus on keeping my wings tilted slightly forward, instead of the backward we were doing all the time. It then flap them down hard and feel myself being lifted from the ground. I expect to soon have the ground against my back again, but that doesn't happen.
Slowly I open my eyes and in my surprise I stop flapping my wings, which seemed to be on a sort of auto-pilot, and I fall about a metre and a half back onto my hooves.
"D-Did you just SEE THAT!" I'm so excited right now I'm literally jumping up and down in a somewhat Pinkie Pie fashion. Wind just gawks at me.
"Whuuuuuu..." Is all he manages to produce as he's still completely stunned by the fact that his friend just found out how to fly. Of course we know we would by able to do it some time, since we do have working wings, but it just came so suddenly that the both of us don't really know what to do.
Wind then regains his composure and punches me on the shoulder. "NICE! Nice man. Wow. We need to celebrate, and afterwards you HAVE to teach me too."
I hope you enjoy reading this story, and I hope you want to read more of it.
Yours Faithfully,
ThePorqupine.
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