Flying With New Wings

“Fleetfoot? FLEETFOOT!”

She didn’t answer. She wasn’t there anymore. There was nothing left of her.

“Whoops, sorry about that! Looks like poor Fleet’s gonna have to take a rain check on your next show! Heh heh heh!”

My jaw clenched. My teeth ground against each other. I turned to the monster that floated in front of me, a mismatch of various creatures. Fleetfoot was gone. Rainbow Dash had left to help her fellow Elements fight, and hadn’t returned. Rapidfire had vanished first. Lightning Blitz hadn’t been far behind. Blaze and Surprise had tried to take this freak on together, and had been sent away as well. I don’t know if Spitfire was alright, last I’d seen she had been off to help elsewhere in Equestria.

“What did you do?”

The monster only grinned. “Had my fun, of course. What does it --”

“WHAT DID YOU DO?”

That infuriating grin only grew wider. “I removed them, obviously. Can’t have annoying pests like you getting in the way, can I?”

My blood ran cold at his words. “YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

I charged at full speed, intent on making him payfor what he’d done. The next thing I know, it felt like my body and mind were being torn apart at the seams, and I can just barely hear his next words. Words of power.

“For five score, divided by four -- ”

Bolting upright, I found myself looking around and feeling rather confused for a moment. Then it finally dawned on me as I glanced at the clock. It was early in the morning, about six-thirty. And that stupid nightmare had woken me up. I don’t know why it had to do with the Wonderbolts. Maybe something about how I was turning into Soarin’ or something like that.

Speaking of which... As I thought about it, I decided to do a quick check-over and see what else had changed overnight.

When I saw it, despite having partially expected it, my eye twitched. My feet were gone. Completely. There was absolutely nothing about them that were human anymore -- they were hooves through and through. There was even some sky-blue fur creeping up from them. So far, it reached up to just past my ankles. Very slowly bringing them closer, I somewhat timidly touched them. Let me tell you, they felt weird. The fur on them was soft as silk and just as smooth. The strangest part of it all was that, for some reason, they also felt like they belonged. And I am not sure why. Once I was done staring at and poking my new transformed feet, I checked for any other changes, and noticed what was definitely the weirdest one so far. The one between my legs. Now that was way weirder than suddenly having hooves, and I am not going to describe it. It’s way too strange having that change all of a sudden. At least I was still male. With a deep breath, I very quietly grabbed my fancy smartphone -- which in this day and age of 2020 is the iPhone 8 -- and opened it to the web browser.

I wonder if there are others going through this shit, I thought as I went to the Google search bar. I doubt it. I mean, this is probably some really freaky, really long dream or... uh...

My thoughts derailed rather quickly. Having put in a very generic ‘Turning into a pony’ phrase as my search requirements, the first thing that popped up was a Facebook post. My eye twitched. There were dozens of hits for this! The second one was an official article, even! What the hell?!

“Ooookay...” I muttered quietly. “This is just... what in the name of Luna...”

That name passed my lips and I didn’t even think about it. At least, not until a moment later where I sighed and just clicked on one of the links. What I saw made me freeze as I saw the headline and opening photo.

Captain.

I only skimmed the rest of the article, all my attention was on that first image. It showed a lady sitting at a table, with a mane that was unmistakable to me. I could recall the first time I’d met her, even... wait, no I couldn’t! I dropped my phone on my bed and put my face in my hands.

What’s happening to me? It took almost all my willpower to hold back the tears that threatened to spill again. Now even my mindis changing? I’ve never met Spitfire in my life!

The very moment I had that thought, I could practically feel an alarmingly large portion of my mind rebelling in response. It stated that, yes, I did know Spitfire -- and I knew her very well. And yet, from everything that I’d experienced in the last twenty-five years of my life -- which was my entire life at this point, by the way -- I had not once met her. After a few minutes of an internal struggle on just what this meant, I shoved it aside just to keep the headache at bay.

Let’s see if I can get some attention myself with the internet...

Smirking a bit, I went to work. It took me almost half an hour to word it just the way that I wanted. In short, it told the world that I was rather rapidly becoming Soarin’, and looking for anypony else -- yes, I actually wrote anypony -- that was going through the same thing. Specifically, another Wonderbolt. Even more specifically, the captain of said team. Glancing at the clock, I noted that it was almost seven, and decided to head downstairs with my phone in my hand and only my pajama shorts and a white undershirt on.

“Morning, Audrey,” I greeted as calmly as I could.

“Morn -- holy shit, Thomas,” Audrey commented from where she’d glanced away from the cooking bacon.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah, the hooves are weird and all, but --”

“Not just that. Your eyes are big.”

Oh. Taking yet another look in the downstairs bathroom mirror, I found she was right -- my eyes were ridiculously big. The green in them was even more pronounced as a result, and they were far more expressive as well. Deciding to not mention the other change that had happened overnight, I returned to the kitchen.

“Well, aside from all that, want some bacon?” Audrey asked. “Only one for now.”

“Sure, thanks.”

I’m not sure what happened. One moment I was taking a bite of what should be delicious bacon -- and the next I’m spitting it out into the trash can. A few days ago, this stuff was absolutely amazing. I mean, it’s bacon, for crying out loud! What happened to change that? My best friend was giving me a worried look.

“Are you alright?”

I had to rinse my mouth with some water before responding.  “Y-Yeah... I’ll be fine. But what did you do to that bacon? It tasted horrible!”

She took a piece and bit into it. “What are you talking about? They’re perfect.”

The look I gave her said it all. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t the bacon at fault here. “Oh... dammit. Of course the next thing that changes is the fact that I can’t eat meat! I should've gone by how it smelled weird, but I thought that was something else."

Audrey winces sympathetically, “Ouch. That sucks, dude.”

“Yeah... I’ll get over it,” I said. Shrugging, I tossed the rest of my bacon and grabbed an apple instead. Hm, maybe I can get an apple pie somewhere, that sounds good right about now. I facepalmed at that thought. “Ugh, I forgot about that changing, too...”

“What?”

“My mind.”

She gave me quite the confused look. “How the hell does that work?”

“I don’t know! The same way all these other things work? I just know that it’s happening! And I know I’ve said it a million times already, but I seriously wish I knew why.”

Audrey sighed as she finished making the bacon and pancakes, putting them on serving plates on the counter. “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this. It’s really not fair for it to happen on... your... uh...”

It took me only a moment of seeing where she was going with that line of logic. Finishing off the apple and tossing the core, I frowned as I thought about it. The more I did, the more I realized my friend was right -- it had all started on my twenty-fifth birthday. Come to think of it, it had begun at the exact minute that I was reported to have been born. I’m sure someone out there would call that a coincidence. Not me. This is just too weird and too real for it to be so easily explained.

“Hey guys, what’re ya makin’? It smells good...” Clayton said as he came downstairs. Then he saw me where I now sat on the couch. “Okay. So what else is new?”

I gave him a quick run down, or at least started to. Part way through, he came over and asked me to open wide. I momentarily thought about asking why, but decided that with what was going on, it would be easier to just do so. Enough time passed for Andrew to come downstairs and grab a piece of bacon.

“Your teeth have changed,” Clayton said at last. “I mean, I’m not an expert, but they definitely don’t look human.”

“Explains why I couldn’t eat the bacon,” I sighed. My two friends gave me confused looks and I explained shortly, grabbing a couple pancakes.

“Doesn’t explain the furry hooves, though.”

I chuckled at Andrew’s statement. “That’s because they’re completely different from my teeth.”

We all shared a laugh at that. They stopped when they watched me more or less devour my flapjacks, both of which had plenty of maple syrup. My only excuse was that I was hungry. Oh, and that the horrible taste of bacon needed to get out of my mouth. Not that I mentioned that part out loud, these guys would punch me or something.

Is there a store that sells some alfalfa out here? I mused as I cleaned up my dishes. Then I facepalmed before explaining to my friends. “I just wondered if there was a place here that sold hay.”

There was a couple of chuckles, but other than that, we moved on. It was decided that we would stay inside today. Or at least I would. No point in going outside as a freak of nature. Not that we were going to be bored or go hungry anytime soon. After all, we’d stocked up on snacks of all kinds and we had plenty of games to keep us busy.

“I didn’t mention it earlier, but now that I think of it,” Audrey began as we finished playing some Borderlands 2 co-op. “You were up pretty early, Thomas.”

All I could do was shrug. “I had a bad dream and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

“Again?” Clayton asked, as he started working on lunch. He made sure to keep my new dietary habits in mind. “What was it of this time?”

I tried to remember. Really, I did. But I could only draw a blank. Resting my head on my hand, I thought back, but no matter what I did, it escaped me. Well, most of it did, anyway.

“All I remember is flying, really,” I shrugged. “Flying as Soarin’ and being really, really mad at somepony.”

“Okay, first, you just said somepony,” Andrew started. He paused as he shuffled his Magic deck for our first game of the night. “Second, do you remember how mad you were?”

“I was pissed. I’ve never felt that mad before. I was... charging at someone, and I think I was mad enough to beat him to a pulp.”

Audrey raised an eyebrow. “Wow. I’ve never seen you react like that, so it must’ve been something really bad.”

I could only shrug again as I pulled out my phone, deciding to check on that post I’d made. It took me awhile to scroll to it, but once I found it, I froze. There was a reply -- and it was from Spitfire, no less. I didn’t waste another second and immediately started to respond.

“Soarin’ here, boss. I don’t have my wings just yet, but --”

“OW!” I cried, dropping the phone as I grasped for my back. “What the fuck!”

“What? Are you alright?” Andrew asked, stopping what he was doing and giving me his full attention. The other two did the same.

“No, I’m not alright!” I couldn’t help but snap at him. This freaking hurt! “My back’s splitting open or something and it hurts like hell!”

The three of them came over. Clayton was the one to gingerly lift my shirt up. He met resistance near my shoulder blades, and it made me hiss a bit at what I felt. Apologizing, he pulled it away and they all took a look. The resulting silence was not comforting.

“What? What is it?” I asked, a bit panicked.

“Uh... does it still hurt?”

“Not really.” Thank Luna.

“Uhm, well, not sure how to say this, but uhh... you’re growing wings.”

What? Okay, I knew that Soarin’ was a Pegasus, but still! I dashed to the bathroom mirror for the millionth time that week, and with a bit of back-twisting yoga, I was able to see that they were right. There, right between my shoulder blades, were two little wing nubs. As I stood there, my jaw dropped as I watched them grow. The feathers were small right now, but still! Standing there and watching as two wings appear on a formerly normal human body was just freaky. Especially since it was my body that this was happening to. Very carefully pulling the shirt back down -- and once more gritting my teeth as the fabric caught on my wings for a moment -- I went back to the living room.

“Clayton,” I began to say, sitting at my seat and leaning over the table. “Could you, uh, cut a couple slits for them? I’d rather not have them be crushed by my shirt.”

He grabbed the scissors and a marker. It took him a moment to mark where on my shirt’s back to cut and how much, but thankfully it didn’t take too long. When it was finally done and I was able to get them out from under that damn fabric, the sigh of relief I let out happened on its own. I hadn’t wanted to say anything, but they’d started to hurt a little from being so tightly pressed.

“Thank you, that is so much better,” I said gratefully.

“Alright, dude, stand up. Let’s see what else is new now.”

I did as asked. “Like what?”

“Well... I wasn’t paying much attention to it, but now that I’m listening, your voice is different.”

“My --” I stopped and put a hand to my throat. Audrey was right. It was deeper than it used to be. Right now it was somewhere along the lines of a bass, and I’ve always been a baritone. “Okay. That’s definitely new.”

“At least it doesn’t sound bad,” Andrew said. “It sounds pretty cool, actually. You’d probably sound really good back in Men’s Choir.”

I smirked, “Probably.”

We took a few minutes to do a once-over. Having ignored it since earlier this morning, I was rather surprised to find that the cyan fur was all the way up to my hips now. Speaking of which, as I stood there, I found it rather awkward and difficult. Apparently that area was shifting to allow a more equine stance than the bipedal one I was currently using. With that taken care of, Clayton returned to making lunch, and the rest of us sat back down and resumed shuffling. Well, Andrew and Audrey did. I had a reply to finish making.

“Scratch that. My wings just grew in (which really hurt, by the way). They’re too small to get any lift, and I can’t move them yet, but I’ll fly over as soon as I can. I promise. I’ll find you, Spitfire, and we’ll figure out what’s going on.”

Once the post was made on the article’s comments section, I moved on to the salad Clayton had put before me. Thanking him, I started to eat. Started to. The fork just wouldn’t stay in my hand. Focusing, I found that I had a rather difficult time making my fingers obey me the way they used to. If one finger closed, they all did, and even then they felt stiff and unresponsive. It was almost like those times they’d gotten really cold, and when I’d flex them they were still rather numb. Once our late lunch was finished, we returned to our games and our hangout time. Anything to take my mind off these stupid changes.

By the time dessert had rolled around -- for which I was able to convince Andrew to go get some apple pie and devoured half of it on my own -- the fur had really progressed up my body. It was up to my neck and replacing my beard fuzz. Plus it was all over my hands. Not that it was a bad thing, considering how wonderfully soft it was. If it wasn’t attached to me, I’d wish that I had a blanket or something this soft and warm. According to my friends -- and the mirror -- my eyes were bigger than before, almost full pony-size. My nose and mouth had started to jut out into a muzzle even. Just barely, but it was definitely there. When we’d finished our delicious dessert, we had a couple more games of cards before I retired to bed early.

This whole week had been exhausting, and I was seriously hoping that it was all a dream at this point...

Were it so easy.