Guards from a distant world

Chapter two: What is happening to us?

May 3rd 2020

Location: San Francisco, CA, USA

My life has gone and turned itself upside down… a few days ago, everything was fine, I was hanging out with my friends and all that, and on the moment I turned twenty-five years old, a cutie mark of a Pegasus stallion appears on my thigh… Richard isn’t taking these changes so well, he would cry whenever I wasn’t listening. We finished watching about three-fourths of all of the ‘My Little Pony’ episodes before both of us passed out. I woke up and I walked into the bathroom, I stopped the moment I saw my reflection.

“This… this can’t be! How am I growing white fur on my arms and my face?”

I stared at my reflection with a face of horror. “I’m a freak!”

Richard appears behind me and I spin around to face him. “Richard? You look terrible… what happened?”

“I… I don’t want to talk about it” His voice was distinctively feminine.

I look at his feet… or hooves.

I look at my feet… which have become hooves. Great… this is just… great! How much worse can this get?! “I have hooves now…”

Richard places a hand on my shoulder. “Just like you told me, ‘we’ll get through this together’”

That statement made me calm down a bit. “I just can’t believe that we are turning into PONIES! I don’t even believe in magic!”

Richard smirked. “You don’t have to, you aren’t a unicorn.”

I smiled. “Touché”

Richard randomly winced in pain. “Richard? Are you okay?” A few moments later I get the same pain, it seems to be coming from my back, right around where the shoulder blades are. I reach my hand into my shirt to feel two lumps of skin jutting out of my back.

“Well… that settles it. There’s no going back now.” It’s getting tough making sure I say Richard’s name rather than his pony name, holding onto our human names may just be the only thing that we can hold, to keep us human. The idea may not work out in the long run, but I am not too keen on turning into a pony and not giving up my humanity (whatever is left of it) without a fight.

“Zack?” Richard asks, “a-are we growing… wings?”

I didn’t know what to say, if I said yes, it would take us down the path of leaving our humanity and embracing ponyness. If I said no, he’d know I was lying… so what choice did I have?

I sigh deeply “I think so, but I really hope we aren’t”

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What remained of the day went by smoothly, and we both went to sleep in our own respective bed. I had a decent dream, although I cannot recall what it was, I was abruptly awoken by Richard who had undergone some massive physical appearance changes. His faces was soft and smooth, as if he’d just applied lotion to it and had been keeping it under careful watch and care to keep it that elegant.

But that wasn’t all. His face reminded me nothing of a MALE face. It looked very feminine. As if… as if…

“Richard?” He didn’t respond. “hmm… how about, True Shot?”

Immediately True Shot responded. “Yes that is me, I don’t know what happened last night, I went to bed and I woke up, as if I was a brand-new me”

His/Her characteristics had not only changed his/her face, but his/her whole BODY was changing too!, it was modeled perfectly as a typical pony should look like. Although I could tell the transformation was not done, as (s)he was still missing a lot of fur, but from what fur I did see, it looked like a bright lavender, and sort-of pinkish color. It was a very dazzling color.

True Shot broke me from my trance. “Hello?! Equestria to Fury! Come in Fury!”

“Yes yes… I read you loud and clear.” Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but smile.

“We have a situation here! What is happening to us? And WHY is this happening to us?!”

“I don’t know, but I know we’ll find out soon.” I suddenly remember a faint dream I had, the dream I was having when I was passed out on the floor on the day I turned 25… could it be? (the dream was the prologue, incase anypony is confused) “Hey True? Ever hear this saying?:

“For Five Score! Divided by Four!”?  True didn’t respond to my question, instead, he/she recited the next line:

“Your memories removed, your body confused!”

We took turns reciting each of the lines:

“For your insolence you must pay,”

“Cast off to a land far far away!”

“To scatter the six, just the start of my tricks!”

“Your mind shall be weak, your outlooks bleak!”

“Forgetting everything and living like a fool,”

“You have all lost, now no one can stop my rule!”

How could I have not seen this before? My memory vaguely told me it was discord, but I reminded myself that Fluttershy had reformed discord in one of the episodes of my little pony. My mind screamed against itself, ‘YOU CANNOT REFORM CHAOS ITSELF!’. I was starting to get a migraine and Rich-True Shot had started to take notice.

“What’s wrong Brother?”

“I-I’m just thinking, about that riddle we just recited. ‘For Five Score, Divided by Four’? isn’t that equal to 25? And didn’t all of this madness START the day we both turned 25? That couldn’t be a coincidence”

True pondered on that for a few moments. “Something magical and ancient is at work here, I don’t know what. But if one thing is for sure, the line about ‘To scatter the six’ doesn’t that refer to the MANE six? From the TV show? Does that mean they are on earth as well as us and trying to cope with becoming ponies?”

“Ya know, you are much smarter than I give you credit for… all of what you just said makes sense, and I think I know what we need to do, find the mane six. I just hope we don’t get to them before it’s too late…”

“Late? For what?”

“I-I’m not sure, I just have a feeling that if we don’t reach them in time, something very bad will happen” I bit my lips, noticing my teeth have changed too.

“Well, I’d assume watching the news would be a good place to start, if any ponies are in trouble, there would have been reports about it in the news by now.”

I pondered on that thought for a moment. “Yeah, why not, it’s not like we have any other leads that we can go off of.”

True sits on his bed and reaches for the remote.

“Remember! Not too loud, last time I was hearing nothing but a loud ringing noise in my ear for well over an hour.”

True turns on the TV and turns down the volume, and we begin to watch the 7-day forecast. Everything in the program seemed normal, but after the meteorologist was done explaining the weather, a woman behind the desk cleared her throat as she began to speak.

“Eye-witnesses have reported seeing 4 and possibly more colorful horses flying around downtown Sacramento California, while officials are not sure what to make of the sighting, a few distinct feathers were found in the area the witnesses described. The government sent someone to pick up a few samples of these feathers for testing, to see what animal these feathers came from. We are still waiting for further updates. This has been Channel-Five news! We’ll see you all in an hour!”

True looked at me. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Yeah! I’m starving!”

True Face-hoofed. “You can get something to eat soon, but I meant, what about the 4 ponies in Sacramento? We should meet up with them and see if they can help us.”

“Ah yes! We should do that, after a meal and some sleep, maybe we can meet up with them then, after all, our wings aren’t fully developed yet.”

“Good point, hopefully they aren’t too difficult to track down.”

After a good meal, we both went to bed, I fell asleep literally right before my head touched the pillow.