What's on the Menu

Sweetie Belle walked out of a mane salon near the edge of Ponyville. She sighed, looking over herself covered in black spots. 〈”Why did this happen to me!?”〉 She mooed, barely hearing the buzz of wings and rolling of wheels approaching her. She was lost in her own mind, remembering how she got to this point.

“Sweetie, y'er prank was uh bust, so let's go on crusading!” said Applebloom.

“Yeah, you're right,” Sweetie admitted, a look of dashed hope on her face. The three fillies turned tail and ran off to do their crusading, leaving Rarity to her own devices. The trio didn't even stop to look back, just heading toward a lake with a rather dense forest beside it. “So what are we gonna try today?”

Applebloom shook her head; Scootaloo shrugged. “We don't know,” the two said simultaneously.

“I was thinking some kind of super awesome water-tricks in the water,” said Scootaloo.

"Ah' was thinkin' of maybe buckin' the trees," continued Applebloom, pointing toward the forest.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes at the suggestion. “You always want to buck trees! Or build things!”

“But maybe y’all have an idea?” asked Applebloom to Sweetie Belle, surprisingly not pulled into a 20 minute argument match with Scootaloo.

Sweetie Belle shook her head, sighing. She was still upset with what her sister had said and, even more, she was still disappointed her little prank didn't even work. “You know, I'm not really in the mood to do crusading now... I'd rather go and hide an-”

Scootaloo suddenly popped up in front of Sweetie, her little wings buzzing excitedly. “OOH! Hide and seek! Let's play!” She and Applebloom suddenly dashed away from Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo calling back. “You get to be IT first! Count to 20!”

Caught off guard, Sweetie Belle blinked in surprise. She took a single step forward before raising a hoof and her voice.

“Hey! Wait I didn't want to-”

But she was talking to an empty lake, the other two already gone to hide in the trees. Sweetie Belle sighed and lowered her hoof then walked up to a tree at the edge of the forest; she covered her eyes. “Well... I guess it would be more fun than thinking about mean old Rarity!” she complained, starting to count.

1... 2... 3... 4...

As Sweetie Belle counted, her horn started to shrink and her tail began to change. Unlike with Rarity's changes, though, Sweetie Belle immediately noticed that something was wrong. She uncovered her eyes and looked around, trying to find her friends.

“APPLEBLOOM! SCOOTALOO! PAUSE THE GAME!” she called out. “SOMETHING'S REALLY WRONG!”

Applebloom, who had taken up a hiding spot in a nearby apple tree, and Scootaloo, who had the brilliant idea of hiding behind a rock just a bit too small to even hide her, both thought the same thing at the same time:

She just wants to trick me to win at the game!

Both fillies stayed where they were, not even looking out of their hiding spots to see what Sweetie was yelling about.

Sweetie glanced around again, surprisingly missing the magenta maned Scootaloo hiding behind the not quite large enough rock. By the time she looked back at herself, Sweetie Belle's equine hooves were starting to look more like... cow hooves? Sweetie Belle blinked in confusion at first, then let out a startled squeak.

“AH! MY PRANK! I ate one of the carrots and it actually worked!”

At first, her tone was one that sounded pleased, but after a few seconds ticked by, she gasped and realized what she had just said.

“OH NO! I ate one of the carrots and it actually worked! But it was only supposed to be on Rarity!”

There was only one thing the little unicorn could think of. Well, two, once her stomach started to rumble and thoughts of eating grass started to wander through her mind.

Boy, I could sure go for a nice, grassy little snack. It’s close to lunch time, isn’t it?

The other thought was to get to Twilight as quick as possible, since she would be the one to know how to undo the spell. That was her original plan, anyway, to get Rarity changed back into a pony. Remembering her lessons from Twilight, Sweetie Belle attempted a teleportation spell to get to Golden Oaks as quickly as possible. Unlike with Rarity, though, her unicorn horn was already gone and replaced with two small bovine nubs, both useless for channeling magic. As such, she panicked and ran out of the clearing, headed for Ponyville and Golden Oaks.

As she ran, her snout was the next to slowly change. Sweetie Belle looked down her nose and watched in fascination as it shifted from a little unicorn filly nose into a more square-like bovine one. She felt her tongue tingling a little, so she stuck it out. Just as it slid from her mouth, Sweetie Belle's tongue changed, becoming wider and more flat.

“Oh no! Thith ith changing to fatht!” she squeaked out, having trouble using her newly changed tongue. “I wan ma’e it in time!”

Sweetie Belle shut her eyes and sped up her running, nearly tripping over her own legs a few times as they continued changing. With her eyes closed, it was a small miracle she didn’t end up running snout first into a tree or large rock. Minutes passed before she opened her eyes to finally see where she was running. Luckily, she was just on the outskirts of town, panting hard and covered in sweat from the exertion. She saw a small little lake close to the path, so she walked over to it to get a drink.

“Whew... ahmotht there... but I'm thuper thirthty.”

She bent down to take a drink, closing her eyes. After a short time, she pulled back and licked her lips, giving a pleased sigh from the feeling of the cool water going down her throat. She opened her eyes and glanced down at the water, barely recognizing her own reflection. She stared hard, flicked an ear, watching as the reflection in the water mimicked her movement. Only her reflection was flicking an ear that was shaped more like a cow's and there was a black spot around her eye. That's when she turned to look along her body, seeing a pattern of black spots all over her.

“AH! Thith ith worth than I thought! I can't thtand around anymore! I need to get a moooooooooooooove on!”

Sweetie clapped a hoof over her mouth and looked around, noticing that there was nopony around. Nopony had heard her, but a quetsion came to her mind: had she just done that? She had to try again, removing her hoof from her mouth.

“Leth all go to the moooooooooovieth!”

Startled that she had heard exactly what she thought she did, Sweetie stood up from the pond and sprinted toward the town. She only made it a few steps before she finally took a misstep and tripped, tumbling onto the ground. She ended up on her back and, as she tried to sit up, was able to watch as something started to happen back near her filly bits.

Due to her size, her breasts merged rather quickly. Sweetie watched as the two breasts became one, fur beginning to disappear. The flesh underneath turned a bright pink; her two nipples became four and elongated, all of which happened in the span of two minutes. She quickly got up to her hooves and found she tripped and fell right in front of a mane and coat dying shop. Sweetie Belle decided it would be best to at least stop in, get her coat dyed white again, and head back to Twilight, all in time to quickly spout off her story.

She went in, quickly told the owner to send the bill to Rarity, and was inside the dye shop all of 10 minutes before she wandered back out. In that span of time, her mane thinned out, her tail finished changing to a more bovine shape, and her udder finished growing in. The dye job didn't seem to stick, either.

Sweetie sighed, looking over herself as the black spots re-appeared in seconds. 〈”Why did this happen to me!?”〉 She mooed, barely hearing the buzz of wings and rolling wheels approaching her. She was lost in her own mind, remembering how she got to this point.

Of course when an orange blur ran into her, her thoughts were broken. She looked up to see Scootaloo, Applebloom, and Scootaloo's scooter all laying on the ground in a heap. 〈”Scootaloo! Applebloom! What are you doooooooooing back here?”〉 All the pair heard, though, were a few loud moos, which seemed to be ignored.

“What happened, Scootaloo? What did ya' run into this time?”

“Why is it MY fault we ran into something?”

“Well y’all were the one steering!”

“MOOOOO!”

Both fillies looked at the cow, then to each other as they sighed.

“We shouldn't fight, we gotta go find Sweetie Belle. Ah' don't know why she ran off,” said Applebloom.

Scootaloo shrugged. “I thought she said something about us playing hide and seek wrong, or something.”

Sweetie Belle watched the two as they talked. Finally, she realized she had to do something! 〈”GUYS! It's ME! You're looking for me! You have to take me to Twilight Sparkle!”〉

Both Scootaloo and Applebloom turned to look at the calf. Applebloom was looking more closely than Scootaloo, noticing that the calf didn't seem to have any tags or markings to indicate she belonged to anypony. Of course, Applebloom figured out it was a she by lifting Sweetie Belle's tail and looking at her slit. Sweetie Belle protested with a loud moo.

〈”H-HEY! Don’t touch me there!”〉

“Well, Scootaloo, we may need to keep lookin' for Sweetie Belle, but we can't just leave this calf here. Ah' bet she wandered off from the farm! We don't tag 'em or brand 'em when they're this young.”

Applebloom rooted through her saddlebag and pulled out a length of rope. She tied it loosely around Sweetie Belle's neck and gave a small tug. Satisfied that the rope wouldn't slip off from around the neck, Applebloom gave a harder tug, enough to make Sweetie Belle take a step forward. Sweetie Belle, on the other hoof, tugged back hard to try and make her way to her intended destination, namely Golden Oaks and Twilight Sparkle. No matter what she tried to say, though, all her friends could hear were loud moos.

“C-come on, calf, we'll get ya' home,” grunted Applebloom as she tugged hard on the rope, the length held tight in an almost tug of war like state. She glanced over at Scootaloo and gave her an annoyed look. “Well? Don't yall' just stand there! Help me!”

Scootaloo rushed over and put most of her weight against Sweetie Belle's rump. With Applebloom's pulling and Scootaloo's pushing, the pair managed to get the cow moving, even if she refused to move her legs and walk.

EIGHT [BUY SOME APPLES] HOURS LATER

A trip that normally took, at most, 40 minutes from Ponyville to Sweet Apple Acres ended up taking much longer. After 8 hours of pulling and pushing, the trio finally arrived at the farm all covered in dust and sweat. As they entered, Scootaloo gave a small wave to Derpy, just as she was leaving.

“Hey Scoots, ain't it kinda late for Derpy to be deliverin' the mail?”

“I dunno, does Derpy ever deliver things on time, anyway?”

Before they could devolve into another fighting match like the one they got into while getting the calf to Sweet Apple Acres (which ate up a good hour and a half), Applejack strode up to them. She gave a smile and patted Applebloom on the head.

“Well, howdy Applebloom! Y'all's done playing for today?”

Applebloom gave a nod and a sigh. “But we're definitely gonna need a bath and-”

“Where's Sweetie Belle? Did she already go home?” asked Applejack, surprised that the trio was a duo.

Shaking her head, Scootaloo was the first to speak up. “We don't know, Applejack. She ran off while we were playing hide and seek, so we went to look for her, and we found this cow in town that looked lost, so instead of looking for Sweetie Belle we brought the cow here.”

Applejack gave the pair an incredulous look and raised an eyebrow. “And why, exactly, didn't one of you bring the cow and the other go off to look for Sweetie Belle?”

“'Cause!” answered Apple Bloom. “We had to push this calf all the way here 'cause she wouldn't walk!”

“And you couldn't have used the carrot to lead her?”

Applebloom facehoofed and shook her head. “Ah' course! Why did ah' forget the carrot?”

Applejack slowly smiled and gave another pat to Applebloom's head, laughing a little. “That's alright. You’re just a filly after all, plus you DID get the calf here.” Applejack began to walk around the calf and inspect her, reaching out to grasp Sweetie Belle’s cow tail and lift it up.

“Oh, it’s a little filly calf! Anyhay, I'm sure Sweetie Belle got home just fine. Now you two run on inside and get cleaned up, I'll get this calf to the barn and join y'all for something to eat. Git along now! Scoot!” She watched as the pair took off toward the house. “And Scootaloo, you can sleep over tonight. Y'all can go looking for Sweetie tomorrow!”

With the pair gone and out of her mane, she turned to the calf, still smiling. She looked over the young cow again and raised her eyebrow. “Say... you sorta look familiar...” she began.

Sweetie Belle's eyes lit up as she nodded at Applejack. 〈”Yes! Please recognize me! Please! Just don’t look back… well… back there again, ok?”〉

With Sweetie Belle mooing quite loudly and constantly, Applejack pushed those thoughts of familiarity to the back of her mind. “What's wrong, little one? I bet you're just hungry. Come along, we'll get you a nice comfy stable pen and all the hay and grass you can eat, how does that sound?”

All the hay and grass she could eat? To Sweetie Belle that sounded great, considering how long it had been since she had eaten. Deciding she could probably fix her mistake the next day, she followed after Applejack when she tugged on the rope.

Once they arrived at the barn and wandered inside, they passed by a pen with a cow already in it. Applejack took a glance at that cow, then at the calf, then realized why the calf looked somewhat familiar.

“OH! Right! Derpy's cow! You look just like her. I'll put you in the pen next to her.”

Sweetie was led into the pen next to the other cow. She bent down to grab some of the hay at her feet, munching on it contentedly.

〈”Well, I'm sure Applejack or my friends can help me tomorrow, today I'm just bushed. I sure hope Rarity doesn't panic when I don't get home.”〉

〈”Mmmm, yes darling?”〉

Sweetie Belle was surprised that she heard not only the moos of the cow next to her, but she also understood them. She looked over the cow in the stall next to her and gasped. The build was right, despite the bovine form, what little of her mane was left and the tuft of her tail was the right purple color, there was no mistaking it. Still she had to try and make sure.

〈”Rarity? Is that you?”〉

〈”Why of course, silly filly, you don't recognize your own sister? I’d recognize your voice anywhere, I don’t see why y-!”〉

Rarity was shocked when she realized somepony was actually able to understand what she was saying. Up to that point, she hadn’t been able to make any of her friends understand what she was saying. Rarity turned to look in the stall next to her and, despite the changes that had taken place on the unicorn filly, immediately recognized her.

〈”Sweetie Belle? You’re a... what? What's going on?”〉

〈”W-we're cows... I'm sorry it was a prank and-”〉Sweetie Belle began to apologize.

The older cow turned, now realizing there was a mirror hanging next to her. All of her facial features were that of a cow, not a pony. Rarity grew wide eyed and jumped as best she could before fainting.

〈”MOO-HOO-HOO!”〉

The calf rolled her eyes and went back to her eating. When Rarity regained her composure, they would certainly have some things to discuss.