Twenty fifth birthday. I would say that’s a pretty good milestone, especially when I got to celebrate it with my good friends. My birthday is even better because one of my friends was born on the same day.
“Hey Mike, glad you could make it.” I said as I opened the door of my apartment for him. I already had two of my friends sitting on the couch. They waved politely at Mike as he sat down on the floor. Once I shut and locked the door, I was about to head into the kitchen to bring in the snacks. But before I could even step forward, I slipped on my jeans and nearly fell to the floor.
Mike laughed. “Careful there, Miss Graceful.” He joked.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re just jealous of my smooth moves.” I said as I walked into the kitchen.
I tried to ignore his next comment. “Oh I’m the one who’s jealous? Ha, please.” I could practically hear his smirk.
“Just because you’re good at making songs doesn’t mean I should be jealous. “ I said, tossing the Doritos and popcorn towards the coffee table. I missed by a mile.
Mike rolled his eyes, picking up the bags of snacks and setting them on the table as he said “It’s Living Tombstone and Alex S who should be jealous.”
One of the friends sitting on the couch, a girl named Kylie rolled her eyes. “You guys aren’t talking about pony stuff again are you?”
Peggy chuckled. “I think they are. Come on guys, the show’s been over for five years. Are you two ever going to find something else to obsess over?”
I finally got into the room, sitting on the couch in between Kylie and the arm of the couch. “It’s a great show. There’s nothing wrong with loving a show about candy colored ponies. Hey, at least neither of us are those pervert cloppers.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “I never understood those guys. But hey, I don’t judge. If pony private parts is what they’re interested in, whatever. Me however, I still listen to the music and re-watch episodes from time to time.”
Kylie rolled her eyes. “Adventure Time will always be the best kid’s cartoon.”
Patty scoffed. “Hell no. Invader Zim takes that title.”
“Ponies always over power aliens and shape shifting dogs.” Mike said.
“I would agree, if everything after season 3 wasn’t complete shit.” I added, shivering at the thought of all the strange things that happened to the show. “I mean, that series finale? Terrifying. I really wish they didn’t end it there. If Lauren was still a part of the show, it would’ve stayed together.”
Mike agreed to this with a sad nod and a sigh. “If only if only…well, presents time!” he said, bringing out a large gift bag from under the table and handing it to me.
In the gift bag was a Doctor Whooves t-shirt, vinyl figurine and poster. I squealed with delight. “Yes, more merchandise of best pony!” I said, my eyes slowly crossing due to my excitement. It’s not something I do on purpose; I’ve done it since I was a kid. I don’t have a disease or anything. It’s as if my eyes go crazy when I’m happy or scared and they have a mind of their own.
“Pfft, please. Best pony is obviously Octavia, especially after they gave her the perfect voice in that season 4 Rarity episode.”
I rolled my eyes at Mike. “Oh, that reminds me, here’s your birthday present.” I said, handing him a gift wrapped box. He grinned, quickly ripping it open and gasping at what was inside. “Ohmigoshohmigoshohmigoshohmigoshohmigoshohmigoshohmigosh!” he exclaimed as he slowly pulled out the two handmade plushies: Octavia and Vinyl Scratch. After his look of excitement, he was quickly confused. “Wait, where’d you get these?”
I blushed slightly. “I would’ve made them myself, but I almost sewed my finger trying to.”
Mike laughed. “I figured that’d be your answer. But seriously Janet, these are awesome. Thank you so much. They are fucking adorable. These are going in my recording studio.” He said, setting them on display on the coffee table.
The night was great. Patty and Kylie gave us both awesome presents, we watched movies and played video games. Patty and Kylie left a bit early, saying they had to get up early. But Mike and I knew they just wanted to give us time to watch-
“Ponies!”
I quickly brought Netflix up on my tv, browsing for a good episode. We watched a few classic episodes from Season 1 and some of our guilty favorites. But while we were in the middle of Magical Mystery Cure, we heard loud music coming from the wall behind us. I groaned, standing up and walking out into the hallway. “Where you going?” Mike asked.
“It’s my damn neighbor. She’s having a party again.” I grumbled, going over to her door and knocking loudly. The door was opened by the snotty bitch herself.
“Oh, it’s you.” Meredith growled, crossing her arms.
“I’m trying to spend my birthday peacefully with my best friend but your loud music is interrupting us.” I said, crossing my arms mockingly.
“Your birthday? Well, what about my birthday? It’s my birthday today too. And I’m having my party the way I want it. Whether you and your brony friends like it or not.” She said, scoffing at me. I tried to prevent myself from blushing, using my crossed arms to cover up my Doctor Whooves shirt. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a real party to have. Not some boring sleepover you call a party.” And with that, she slammed the door in my face. I rolled my eyes, walking back into my apartment and sitting on the couch with a humph.
“Just ignore her, Janet.” Mike said, setting a hand on my shoulder. “Besides…” he smirked, hitting play on the tv. ’It worked, it worked! Oh I’m so happy you’re back to normal. Now we need your help.’ A grin came to my face, Mike and I taking in a deep breath before singing at the top of our lungs.
“A TRUE TRUE FRIEND HELPS A FRIEND IN NEED. A FRIEND WILL BE THERE TO HELP THEM SEE. A TRUE TRUE FRIEND HELPS A FRIEND IN NEED TO SEE THE LIGHT THAT SHINES FROM A TRUE TRUE FRIEEEEEEEND!”
I laughed at our over the top singing. After finishing that episode, watching a few other song filled ones, the clock read 1:26. “Alright it’s getting late. Night Mike.” I said, heading for my room to change into my pajamas. Although, it may be a bit hard to sleep since Meredith was still blaring dubstep from her apartment. I sighed, shutting the door of my room and stripping nude. Before I could even grab my pjs, I caught a glance of my outer thigh in the mirror. “What the fu…” I stepped closer to the mirror, switching the light on so I could get a better look. Sure enough, it’s what I thought I saw. A collection of bubbles on the outside of my leg, near my waist, a cutie mark. Derpy’s cutie mark to be exact. I groaned, slipping on my pajamas before heading back into the living room, where Mike was almost asleep.
“Ha ha, nice prank Mike. You had me freaking out for just a second there. Nice try though, I’ll give you that. It looks real.”
Mike groaned, looking up at me with a raised eyebrow. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked, sitting up on the couch.
I rolled my eyes. “Like you don’t know.” I said, turning to the side and pulling down my pants just enough to show the cutie mark tattoo on my thigh.
“Whoa! That’s…freaky. You think I did that? When and how could I give you a big tattoo like that? Besides, it looks way too real.”
I furrowed my eyebrows, looking down at the cutie mark. It certainly didn’t look like a normal tattoo. It was way too sharp and bright. And even when I rubbed my hand against it, it didn’t come off like a temporary one. “But…than how…what?” I asked myself, scratching my head.
Mike shrugs. “Hell if I know. We’ll look more into it in the morning. Is it on both sides?” he asked.
I checked, pulling out the other half of my pants. “Yup, perfect copy on my other leg. I’ll bet it was Meredith or something. But you’re right; I’m too tired to think this through. ‘night Mike.”
’Yeah I own this beat! You can call me the king or the ruler. Felon on bass, getting hoarse on the mic.’
I groaned as I heard my phone ringing, not even lifting my face out of the pillows to search my side table for my phone. When I found it, I didn’t even look at who it was as I answered it. “Ugh…hello?”
I nearly dropped the phone as the person who was on the other side started screaming at me. I quickly recognized the voice. “Meredith, calm down. Why the hell did you call me this early?” I asked.
“Oh you know full well why I’m calling you. How did you even do it, huh? Did you spike my drink or something? You must’ve spiked it with something strong because I don’t know how getting a tattoo wouldn’t wake me up.”
That quickly got my attention. “Tattoo? What…what are you talking about?” I asked as I got up, slipping my pj pants off to look at the bubbles on my own leg.
“Oh don’t act like you don’t know. I am going to take you to court so you can pay for the tattoo removal of this tiara on my leg. Oh my god, you put it on both sides? Derpy, you are going to pay for this.” And with that, Meredith hung up.
I rolled my eyes, hanging up the phone with a sigh and tossing it on my…wait…”Did she just call me Derpy?” I asked myself, looking down at the arrangement of bubbles on my thigh. I heaved a sigh, heading down the stairs to wake up Mike, who was still fast asleep on the couch.
“Mike, wake up, I gotta talk to you.”
He grumbled, putting his hand down the side of him pants, scratching his leg. “Five more minutes, mom.”
“Mike, its impor…what the fu...” I caught a glance of his leg as he was scratching his thigh. Was that a…music note?
“Mike, seriously, you gotta get up. I think you’ve got a cutie mark too.” I said, shoving his shoulder. He moaned, finally sitting up. “What do you mean? I don’t…wha?”
“Look at your leg.” I said, turning my head to give him privacy as he pulled his pants partly down. I heard him gasp and say “What the fuck is that? Is that…Vinyl’s cutie mark?”
I glanced over, and sure enough there was a black music note on his leg. “Looks like it.”
Mike laughed nervously. “I love how nonchalant you are about a cutie mark appearing on your leg. How the hell did this happen? I’ll bet Meredith did it.”
I shook my head. “No, she’s flipping out about a cutie mark too. She woke me up with an angry phone call. I think she has Diamond Tiara’s cutie mark.”
“Really? Heh, makes sense for her to have DT’s cutie mark though. It still doesn’t explain how we have them though. Cutie marks don’t just appear on humans.” Mike said, sitting down and leaning back on the couch
I shrugged my shoulders as I sat down on the couch beside him. “I have no idea. Do you think we should set up an appointment with a tattoo removal…whatever thing?”
Mike sighed, sitting up straight and looking over at me. “I don’t know. I don’t think they’re tattoos. They’re not temporary ones and they seem too bright to be ink. Ooh, you think we’re getting the cutie pox?” He joked
“Vinyl, this is serious!” I said, not even taking into account that I had just called Mike ‘Vinyl’. “How did we get these? This isn’t fucking normal!”
Mike looked at me with a confused gaze, his eyebrow raised slightly. “Y-yeah, it isn’t normal. I’m not sure, and I don’t really know what to do about it.”
I heaved a sigh, my eyes getting slightly crossed with my growing fear of the unknown. “W-well, do you mind sticking around for a while? You could search the internet and see if we aren’t the only people having this problem. I mean, it’s not a coincidence that three people got…well, we and Meredith are in the same apartment building. Maybe someone here did this when we were sleeping.”
“But you noticed it yesterday. If someone else did this to us as a prank, it would’ve had to have been done yesterday.” Mike pointed out.
“But, I didn’t take a nap or anything yesterday and it wasn’t there yesterday morning. So it happened sometime between…my bathroom break while we watched Winter Wrap Up and me going to bed. So yeah, it basically appeared.”
“But…that doesn’t make any sense. This is way too confusing! My brain is malfunctioning.” Mie grumbled, gripping his head and groaning.
“Just…just see if anyone else is having this weird problem. Look it up on twitter or tumblr, see if anyone blogged something like ‘OMG, woke up with a cutie mark! #so awesome, #weird’” I said with a soft laugh.
Mike nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” He stood up and headed into the other room with the computer. I leaned back on the couch, glancing down my pants at the bubbles on my leg. This was one hell of a weird day.
While Mike looked at blog posts, I thought I’d entertain myself with deviantart pictures. I especially loved looking up Doctor Whooves and Derpy pictures. They’re probably my favorite ship in the fandom. I quickly flew through all the r34 images and found some adorable drawings of them that I would probably put as my desktop at some point soon. Although, the picture I found of Derpy and Celestia sitting at a table with one muffin between them was pretty adorable too. I set that as my desktop.
I quickly realized I had been looking at art for hours. It was almost three in the afternoon. Sighing, I stood up and trotted over to Mike, who was sitting on the couch with a dell notebook in his lap. “Hey Mike, find anything?”
Mike shrugged. “Yeah actually, I replied to a few posts asking about they’re situation but they haven’t- HOLY SHIT!”
I jumped back as he abruptly yelled. “What? What is it?” I asked, glancing at the screen. But he wasn’t looking at the screen. He was staring at me with wide eyes.
“Um…since when did you get bangs and frosted tips?”
Confused, I quickly went to the bathroom to look in the mirror. Sure enough, my hair was now tinted blonde and had grown bangs, miraculously. “What the fu…” I muttered for the third time in less than twenty four hours.
Mike quickly came to my side, looking at my newly colored hair. “It doesn’t look too bad. Dunno how it happened but it doesn’t look too…wait…whoa. Either I’m tripping or your eyes just changed color.”
I widened my eyes, leaning closer to the mirror. My eyes somehow changed from green to gold. “How…that’s not possible. Can eyes be gold? Well…maybe, but they can’t just change color randomly! I…don’t think.”
I continued to stare into the mirror when something caught my eye. Something was moving in my hair…no… “Mike, look. My hair’s changing color right now.”
I held up a strip of hair, half of it blonde and the other half brown. The blonde was slowly moving up the hair until it was completely blonde. “Whoa! Dude, that’s creepy.” He quoted.
I sighed, leaning towards the mirror to look at my eyes again. “I don’t know what’s going on Mike. I…this is freaking me out. Hair doesn’t just…just…ugh!” I groaned as my eyes started to cross again, sitting on the toilet seat with crossed arms.
“Janet, calm down. It’s alright. We’ll figure this out. We’ll…Janet…why is my hair suddenly in my face?”
I looked up, trying my best to see clearly through my crossed eyes. But what I could see made my eyes widen. “I think…you’re hair’s turning blue. And growing.”
Mike quickly turned to the mirror, gasping at what he saw. My eyes finally corrected, and I too gawked at his newly colored hair. The tips of his hair were blue and neon blue, alternating in strange stripes. His hair now reached below his chin on one side and right at his chin on the other side of his face. I stood up from my seat on the toilet, getting a closer look at the mirror. Sure enough, his eyes were now magenta.
“Janet…eyes can’t be pink. That’s fucking impossible. Why do I now look like a humanized, rule 63 Vinyl Scratch?!”
“I don’t know!” I screamed. Groaning, I sat down on the toilet seat again, burying my head in my hands. “What are we going to do? What is happening to us?”
“I have no idea.” Mike said, pulling himself up onto the bathroom sink to sit, while still looking at his reflection in the mirror. “How do you think we should deal with this?”
I heaved a sigh, lifting my head up to look at him. I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I don’t know…but I know you look like an awesome cosplayer right now.”
Mike turned to me with a glare, but quickly started laughing. “I guess I do, don’t I? And so do you.” He said. I glanced at the mirror, eyes widening as my hair continued to turn more yellow-blonde as time went by.
I finally stood up, walking out of the bathroom and back to my computer. Though my walking felt a bit off. I glanced down, seeing that I was walking on my toes. That wasn’t the strangest thing that happened that day of course.
I sat at the computer, watching some of my favorite classic fan made pony videos. My earbuds were in my ears as I listened to Rainbow Factory.
”But with all great things comes a great responsibility. That of Cloudsdale’s being-“
The song suddenly stopped in one of my ears as the ear piece fell out. Sighing, I reached down to pick it up off the floor, reaching to the side of my head to put it back in. But, for some reason, there was no ear to put the ear phone in. “What the-“As I spoke, I realized I wasn’t getting any hearing from that side of my head either. Suddenly, I could hear clearly again. But I still couldn’t find my ear. Yes, that sounded strange. But I really couldn’t.
“Hey Janet!” Mike yelled, my ear turning slightly so I could hear him clearly “More people are trying to contact one of the people who made a blog post about getting a cutie mark!”
I gasped at the realization…my ear moved. But I couldn’t feel it at the side of my head. My other ear bud suddenly fell out as well. No…please no…don’t tell me…
I ran to the bathroom to look in the mirror, screaming at the sight. Mike ran in at the sound of my scream. “Janet, what happ-HOLY-“
Atop my head were two gray horse ears. “How the hell is that possible? My human ears are gone! I have pony ears instead of human ears!” I yelled.
“Derpy, calm down, there’s…there’s gotta be a reason this is happening to us.” Mike said, still staring at my horse ears.
“It doesn’t mean it’s not fucking weird! I have horse ears! Mike, I have horse ears…on my head…and they’re real. I’m hearing out of them. This is messing with my hearing. I can move them!” I said, demonstrating by folding them to my head and moving them from side to side.
“I know, just…we’ll figure this out.” Mike sighed, walking out of the bathroom and into the living room. I eventually followed him, feeling my pony ears and sighing. It was still really weird, and I didn’t like it. I sat down on the couch beside him, my eyes widening. “What? What is it now?” He asked
I stood up, reaching my hand down the back of my pants. “What the hell are you doing?” Mike asked, chuckling softly.
“I think I have a-yep, I do.”
“A what?” Mike asked, standing up as well.
I sighed, pulling out a blonde tuft of hair. “A tail.”
Author's Note
Sorry this one is so much shorter than the other one. I wanted to lengthen it, though I felt that I'd be rushing it, and I tend to do that.
