The Fallen Star

Twilight opened the door to the library. The lavender mare walked in quickly, happy to find herself surrounded by her books. Closing the door with her back hoof, she grabs Zecora's cloak and hangs it on her coat hanger.

Looking outside Twilight saw the red and oranges of the sunset. With the another quick burst of her magic she turned on all the lights.

"Twilight is that you," Spike mumbled as he came down the stairs. "Where were you all da-"

His eyes widened as he got a good looked at his newly changed caretaker.

"Um…wings," Spike noted.

Twilight came out of her shock and knocked her head slowly. 'Darn! Forgot about Spike.'

"Some weird new spell," Spike asked. Twirling his claws around each other.

Twilight slumped her head down. She put her hooves to her face and her body began tremble. She let out a sigh and said, "I don't know Spike. I just don't know what to do. It just happened so suddenly."

Spike ran towards his surrogate mother and rubbed a claw on her on his back. "It's ok Twilight. You'll figure it out. Why don't you umm… ask Princess Celestia?"

"The Princess! No she can never know about this," Twilight cried out. 'How could I explain this to Princess Celestia? I had weird disease that sucked like Tartarus and then it stopped all of a sudden and gave me wings. At best she'll think I'm part of an evil cult trying to summon an evil demon to Equestria.' "No Spike. She'd never believe me if I told her the truth."

"Are you sure, this is Princess Celestia we're talking about," Spike responded but quieted down when he got an angry look from Twilight. "Well you can't just sit around and do nothing," Spike pleaded.

Twilight's head shot up at this.  She couldn't just mope around doing nothing. No, the librarian was a mare of action. With a determined look on her face she yelled to Spike, "Quick Spike, get me every book you can on Changelings and illusion spells."

Spike jumped back at Twilight's volume, but got up to follow her command.

'It doesn't matter if it's an illness I caught during my visit to the Crystal Empire or the result of a dark magic ritual by a bunch of crazed ponies. I'll get rid of these wings. Besides there's more than one way to get rid of unwanted limbs.' Twilight shuttered at the thought reserving it as a last chance option. 'But first I'll need a way to hide these abominations.'

Twilight worked through very many books. Most books didn't tell the magically adept mare anything she didn't already know. In her increasing pile of books she had everything from 'Magical Tricks and Illusions 101' to 'Everything you need to know about the Changeling's diet.' Twilight's trained mind scanned through 5 books in just as many minutes. Twilight growled in frustration as she found nothing to help her in her predicament and tossed the first set of books aside.

Spike watched from the other side of the room as Twilight violently flipped the pages of a book getting more frustrated by the minute. The purple dragon watched with his mouth agape as she carelessly chucked a book at the wall. 'Twilight would never hurt a book. She practically worships them.' Several strands in Twilight's mane flipped out of place. Her eyes grew frantic and the corners of her mouth were slipping into a demented. 'Oh no. She's going Smartypants mode. I've got to tell Princess Celestia before she turns the town crazy again.' Spike slowly edged away from the mentally unstable mare. 'Don't mind her and just make it to the bedroom. Don't draw her attention and she won't use her weird mind magic on me. There I'm almos-'

Spike never got to finish his thought as he was struck by a randomly thrown book in the head. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Damn it," Twilight yelled in her frustration as another book proved to be fruitless. There were so many options, but none of them worked for her. An illusion spell could conceal her wings perfectly, but the spell would break with the slightest nudge to her side. As for transformations, they would only last a short time and she'd have to transform them into 2 objects that hung exactly where her wings would have. A size spell would take too much energy to maintain.

'Another worthless book. Wait books aren't worthless. Yes they are. No they aren't they've always helped me when I needed them. I don't see them helping you now. B-but. No, you should just give up now. But then everyone will see that we have wings. No they won't…because they won't have anything to see you with. What do you mean? You know the long knife under the counter. Yes. Use it to stab everyone's eyes out. No I couldn't do that! Yes you could, your the most powerful unicorn in Ponyville. No, I mean it's just wrong. Well you could use the knife another way. How? Let's just say you it involves the knife and your wings.' The conversation Twilight ended abruptly as Twilight came across something interesting in a book. It was the formula for the changeling spell.

All the other books had just passed it off as a 'changeling thing.' This one, however attempted to explain it in a language Twilight could speak. However her hope did not last as it only explained how a changeling could use the spell. She glumly looked at the last book in her pile as her last hope shattered to pieces. She looked at the numbers and symbols involved in arcane magic. 'Well it looks like Ponyville have to do without their eyes.'

A spark appeared in Twilight's eyes as fireworks went off in her brain. 'Wait a second. I can make this work.' She levitated her chalkboard towards herself and immediately began scribbling down her notes.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Twilight smiled at her handiwork. In front of her was a revised version of the changeling spell. The chalkboard had various equations and symbols fighting for every inch of the chalkboard. It had taken 6 hours, but Twilight had harnessed the Changeling spell. It was by no means stable and Twilight had no doubt that it could blow up in her face. But what other option did she have. She looked at kitchen cabinet containing her knives. 'Well there's always that.'

She was running on almost no sleep for the past two days piled on top of the only food she hasn't nauseated and the oh so pleasurable experience of ripping out of one's own back. "Here goes nothing," Twilight whispered hoping to Celestia that this works. Her horn started to glow as her face frowned in concentration. She had to use intense focus to push the spell through the multiple magical loopholes that allowed this spell to work for a unicorn. Her horn glowed brighter as she activated different parts of the spell with as much precision she could muster. She felt the burning start at her feet. It was painful, but quick as her body was soon engulfed in purple fire. As soon as it came the fiery blaze was gone and in its place stood a Lavender unicorn.

"Yes yes yes," Twilight squealed in glee. She took a moment to admire her work. 'No extra limbs. No purple feathers.' Her wings twitched at the thought and a small distortion appeared momentarily on her side. The amethyst mare frowned at that, but shook her head. 'It's the best I'm going to get. Just got to be careful.'

With another sweep of her eyes she decided the spell would be indiscernible except to those who were looking for it. She glanced at the clock on the wall which showed time to a quarter past 4. 'It looks okay but, there's only one way to make sure this works flawlessly.'

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Twilight grabbed Zecora's cloak as she left the library. After gently closing the door she set off down towards Ponyville's best (and only) fashion boutique.

Grabbing the cloak had been a precautionary measure. She was eager to test her modified Changeling spell but she wasn't that eager.

The piece of cloth proved to be unnecessary however. The Streets of Ponyville were barren of any Equine life this early in the day. A big contrast to the constant buzz of cities like Canterlot and Manehattan. The color seemed to drained from the town giving the colorful buildings a gray hue. It wasn't long before the cloaked mare upon the fashionista's place of residence.

Twilight grinned when she saw at the light on the Second floor was still turned. Obviously the dressmaker had stayed up all night sowing together a dress for some noble pony in Canterlot. Twilight thought back to the week Hoity Toity had ordered 60 dresses from Rarity. The next few days had been of isolation and constant work for the fashionista. 'And I thought my mane looked bad when I'm stressed.'

She raised her hoof and knocked. Twilight waited for a few moments before knocking again. Losing her patience standing out in the morning cold and being sleep deprived for two days, she teleported up to Rarity's workroom. Under normal circumstances teleporting into somepony's home without permission was a gross violation of privacy. But Twilight came to the decision that nothing about yesterday would fall under the category of normal.

She appeared in a dimly lot room with various cloths and colorful objects in a seemingly random arrangement. Across the room a white mare's head shot up at a desk. The mare turned her head around and her eyes grew wide in terror at the cloaked mare.

Twilight quickly removed the cloak to reveal herself to the frightened pony. When Twilight looked at her face, she saw that Rarity's expression had changed. Her face was hard to read, but Twilight thought it was a 'failed to compute' face.

Twilight cleared her throat and put on a winning smile. She said, "Nice right, the wings are completely gone."

Rarity yelled out in rage, "You…what happened to your beauty? Why are you so ugly now?"

"Hey," Twilight interjected "I'm not ugly. I know I've been gaining some on the sides, but I don't think I'm that ugly." Being told you were ugly from a fashion expert is never a good experience… but then again they thought everything not made by them was ugly.

"Yes I guess. Not with curves and a flank like that anyway," Rarity sighed. "It's just that when you've seen the best, everything else looks like Timberwolf droppings. Oh and I stayed up all night coming up with a bunch of new dresses that go just swimmingly with your would be  new look."

Twilight ignored her first comment and glanced at the sketches sprawled on Rarity's desk. They depicted various designs of dresses that had fabulosity that only Rarity could create. "Wow these are good. Almost makes me want to wear them later."

"What's the point of wearing them now?," Rarity groaned "You don't have wings anymo-"

Rarity was cut off as Twilight released her modified Changeling spell. "I didn't get rid of them. All though I wish I could. I made the Changeling spell so I could go outside without causing an Equestria-wide panic."

"Are you sure you want to keep this hidden?" Rarity asked, but decided to drop it with Twilight's disapproving look and said "While I think you look fantastic, if you really want to go back to the way you were I won't try to stop you. You should probably tell the Princess."

"No," Twilight yelled. "I can never tell her. She'll probably banish me or throw me in a dungeon or throw me in a dungeon in the place she banishes me."

"You know that's not true. Just tell her honestly and she'll understand," Rarity assured.

"You saw what happened. I literally ripped my way out of my body. If she finds out she'll think I was practicing forbidden magic," Twilight countered ending with a frantic note.

"You're lying to yourself right now. We all know that Princess Celestia wouldn't intentionally harm you in anyway. You can't keep this hidden forever."

"I'll make sure of it. I'll find a way to get rid of these useless limbs one way or another," Twilight stated.

"Well if your methods are anything like that SmartyPants incident, I won't hesitate send a message to a certain Sun goddess."

'I'll need to bring her to the front of the list if I ever to use my contingency plan.'"I promise I won't. Anyway I have somewhere I need to be,"

"Why? Where are you going this early?" Rarity questioned the Lavender mare.

"To lie to the lie detector herself."

Twilight trotted quickly down the dirt path to Sweet Apple Acres. She passed the schoolhouse who's color was also dulled in the twilight hours.

'Ooh I hope this'll work. If it works for her then it'll work for anyone. Oh but what if it doesn't work. She'll understand right? But then she is bit more superstitious than normal and might accuse me as a crazed cultist. No I have to believe she'll trust me. Oh I'm here.' Twilight looked up at the sign that had a several apples painted on it. She continued down to the path towards the barn and farmhouse. Eventually Twilight heard the noise of trees being bucked early in the morning. Looking around she quickly spotted the orange in the see of green. Twilight approached quickly. 'Well here we go.'

"How's it going Applejack?" Twilight said in a cheerful voice.

Applejack turned around and noticed Twilight. As Twilight approached Applejack's head snapped up and she leaned her head forward, her eyes scrutinizing Twilight. "Woah Twi is that you?" Applejack asked.

"Of Course it's me. You see me almost everyday. I think it would be pretty easy to recognize one of your best friends," Twilight replied.

"No it's just I didn't recognize you like 'that.' What kind of spell is that? You mind casting it on me sometime. I'd be able to finally beat Rainbow in fair race," Applejack explained.

"…W-what sp-sp-spell?" Twilight stuttered with dread growing in her mind.

"The one that made you look like that," Applejack stated.

"Do I have wings and a sparkly mane," Twilight said.

"Am I supposed to be seeing something else," Applejack responded.

Twilight looked at her back and noticed two familiar feathery protrusions. "Oh Buck."