Hunters are no stranger to stressful situations. This is especially true for the likes of Sam and Dean Winchester. Though not in the hunting business as long as some others, they faced dangers that would make lesser men quake in fear. From vengeful ghosts, to malicious demons, power-hungry angels, and everything in-between; the Winchester brothers managed to press through with equal parts luck, determination, cunning, and skill. Even then, nothing could prepare them for what was happening at this very moment of their lives.
Dean's eyes shut tight as beams of sunlight crossed over his eyelids. He groaned and shifted his head away from the light and opened his eyes once he was certain not to get and eyeful of sunbeams. Once his vision adjusted, he quickly identified the canopy of a tree directly in front of him.
His honed preservation instincts kicked in, waking him from his brief stupor instantly and getting him to sit up. He quickly realized that the tree was uprooted rather than him being level with the canopy for some reason; which was a distinct possibility considering his lifestyle. Unable to see past the tree, his gaze trailed to his sides at the unnaturally uniform curved wall of dirt that flanked him on two sides. He had no idea what to make of the oddity, but he knew Sam may know.
Dean's eyes widened. "Sammy" his gaze shifted side to side frantically "where are you Sammy!?" Dean pushed off the ground with his forelimbs in preparation to stand, but lost balance and fell with his limbs outstretched. This gave him a look at a mystery greater than his missing brother. "What the hell!"
The mystery in question was that there was a pair of blue cylinders where his arms should be. He stumbled back from panic until he was plastered against the tree's trunk. This gave him a good look at what should have been his legs. "What the hell happened to me!?"
Movement within the branches of another tree kicked Dean's preservation instincts back into full gear and turned his gaze forward. "Sammy" he leaned his head in cautiously "is that you?"
"Yeah, it's me," spoke a familiar voice from within the veil of leaves. The leaves were parted; revealing a pony with a furry chestnut colored coat with smoky blue eyes and a thick well combed mane. Sam looked towards the source of his brother's voice only to find a cobalt coated pony with hazel eyes and a mane that was spiked up at the head and cut progressively shorter down the neck. Sam reared up and tried to charge only to stumble as his brother did. This gave him a chance to examine his new body. "What the ...?" He looked up at the cobalt equine incredulously. "Dean?"
"Yeah, it's me Sammy." He took a deep breath. "What the hell is going on!?"
"My, my, my, such language." Sam and Dean looked around, their ears and eyes scanning the area for the source of a voice seeming to come from everywhere. "I come to check on a magical disturbance only to find what appears to be two ordinary little ponies." The voices subsequent laughter sent chills through both brother's spines. "But you know what everypony says: ... appearances can be deceiving."
Dean froze when the rough bark he was leaning against turned soft. He turned to see the tree replaced with a serpentine creature covered with all sorts of mismatched limbs. On his left half was a deer antler, yellow eyes with red irises, a large fang, a lion's paw, a bat wing, and a green reptilian leg; while the other half had a bumpy blue horn, thinner eyelashes with smaller irises than the left, an eagle talon, and a brown leg ending in a hoof. He had three distinctly separated body colors which were brownish grey, brown, and scaly red from the head down respectively. Lastly, he had a short black mane on his upper back, a goatee, rounded spines on the back of his scaly tail, and a tuft of white fur at the very tip.
Dean bolted from his position; struggling to gain traction on the smooth ground. "What the hell is that Sammy!?" What Dean was looking at was a large serpentine creature with a mismatch of body parts.
"There's that language again. I think somepony here could do with a mouth washing." The creature rose up onto it's hind legs and snapped the fingers of his eagle talons.
Dean dry heaved and widened his eyes as he felt the sensation of a solid object working its way up his throat. "Dean!" exclaimed Sam, before glaring viciously at the mismatched creature. "Stop it or I swear to god; I'll put you down."
The creature entered a fit of laughter, his body twisting and contorting wildly. "Oh, this is rich!" ht looked up at Sam with a jovial smile. "You actually think I'm hurting him!" The creature's expression leveled. He then stroked his beard in a show of thought. "How peculiar," he drawled. "That's quite the reaction for a prank." He gestured towards Dean with his lion paw and smiled. "Look, he enjoyed it."
Dean ceased his sputtering to glare daggers at his tormentor. "Like hell I enjoyed that: what kind of screw-ball asshole would think I enjoyed that. You need to get that head checked you son-of-a-bitch."
He instantly transported next to Dean dressed in a lab coat and a name-tag saying Dr. Discord. "I'll have you know that head has been check 7.4 times and they couldn't find a thing wrong with me. You on the other hand" he conjured a massive magnifying glass that revealed Dean's brain covered with dust and mud "have a very dirty mind."
A medical bed screeched into view and used its sheets to pull Dean onto the contraption. Before he could move, another held Sam down. The tail end of the one holding Dean turned towards its master. "Doctor, Doctor; what's the diagnosis," the clearly feminine bed said through lips formed from sheets and mattress.
The creature snapped on surgical gloves and mask. "The patient is suffering from a sever case of Muddy Mind Syndrome."
"Oh no," the mattress drawled. "Preparing patient for emergency brainwashing."
"Let me go you gwmam wicker!" screamed Dean as sheets gagged him.
"Thank you nurse. Let the operation begin." With a snap of his paw, an operation room popped out of the ground and Sam was released.
He ran to the door and pounded on it hard as he could. "Dean, Dean!" He even tried making use of his new anatomy and bucking it, but nothing he tried got the door to budge.
Sam catapulted from the door as another attempt coincided with it opening outwardly. The instant he righted his self, he was stunned into silence. "Bid a boisterous bienvenue to your beautiful blue bouncing baby boy in bonnet, booties, and binky." Dr. Discord used his arms to frame his recent masterpiece.
"Isn't he precious," quipped the bed.
Discord wormed over to Sam with a medical clipboard. "I'm afraid that the operation failed to cure him. I've prescribed one bar for each display of symptoms. Now that'll be 30 bits."
Dean shot out of the bed, discarding his accessories along the way. "What the hell!?" He froze wide eyes as he felt the sensation of another bar of soap in his mouth.
"Thank you for providing a demonstration," said Discord with a smile.
As this went on, Sam's mind played catch up. Few things we ever able to completely stun either Sam or Dean through their years of experience; and even then only managed a second or two. Sam stood still trying to piece together the chaos before him for a whole six seconds until, "Enough!" Everything except the three disappeared in a flash as Discord turned a curious gaze towards Sam. "Fix him or I'll shove a wooden stake so far down your throat, it'll go straight through your heart and out the other end."
Discord wiped over to Sam and stopped with their heads level with the other and eyes locked. Sam's eyes trembled in anger as Discord's remained steady in halfhearted amusement. "While that certainly could hurt, do you really think you could stop me with something like that. I'm a draconequus, not a vampire." He smirked and snapped up a large mirror in an ornate black frame facing him. He then turned the reflective surface bearing his image towards Sam. "You can clearly see my image being reflected here," said both Discords; the reflection perfectly matching the original's movements despite not facing him. This stopped when he looked at the reflection appreciatively. "And what a handsome image it is."
The 'reflection' stroked his beard and said, "I'm afraid I can't say the same to you. You're limbs are off."
The 3D Discord's limbs fell off and shattered upon hitting the ground. I could have sworn he looked at me just as he said, "Oh poo," then fell, shattering into countless multicolored shards upon impact. The reflection then stepped out of the mirror which vanished with a snap of his talons along with the remains. "I must say, it feels good having everything in the right place. I've reflected upon my actions long enough." His arms stretched out and pulled the brothers into a hug. "Now how can I help my new bestest pals."
Both immediately pushed away and yelled. "We are not your pal!"
"What," he drawled. "I could have sworn we were pals." He held a finger to them, signaling for a moment to think. "Let's see." He pulled down a row of four bullet points. "Meet some ponies at an unusual magical disturbance in the Everfree Forest," a felt image of the three in a forest appeared next to the next to the first bullet point, "check. Help them learn an important life lesson," the second image showed Dean spitting out a soap bar, "check. Pull them into a big friendship hug," the third showed just that along with a heart surrounding them, "check. Become the bestest of pals," a fourth animated image showed them dancing around a campfire, "check."
Before the brothers could protest, Discord's head shifted into an alarm clock and rung with a deafening sound. When the two brothers finally recovered from the sound, they could no longer see the creature. What they could see instead was some sort of long object slowly heading towards the ground between them. From his angle, Sam saw that it was a horribly mismatched message if looked at from the side.
"To Moose and Squirrel: I'm afraid that I'm late for Fluttershy's tea-party and must be on ~~my way. I~~'ve let her down once and don'~~t want to~~ again. Lovely mare that Fluttershy. She forgave me so easily and makes some of the best cookies I've every eaten; and that's somethi~~ng when~~ you're as old as I am. Hey, here's and idea: how about you two join us! Her cottage is right on the edge of Ponyvile Follow my directions and you should be there in in no time. You're pal, Discord >"
While most of the message slipped into the ground, the arrow remained and pointed towards what Sam assumed would be North. Sam saved this thought for later and walked up to his brother. "Dean, do you have any idea what happened to us?"
Dean's gaze jerked towards Sam. He stared a second then shook his head. "Sam, you're asking the wrong guy. The last thing I remember is blacking out after Metatron stabbed me." Sam's eyes widened to their limit, a detail that Dean failed to notice. "The best I've got is that a trickster decided to mess with us right when I woke up."
"You ... you don't remember?"
Dean raised an eyebrow. "Remember what?"
Sam stepped towards Dean with a look of concern. "Dean; that was two weeks ago."
"Okay; so what. I was out of it for two weeks."
Sam stepped closer; matching his brother's intent gaze. "No Dean; Metatron killed you. I tried to bring you back, but something else did it. We spent the last two weeks trying to figure out what that was."
Dean looked at his brother with a stoic expression. "Let's get this straight; not only did we get turned into ponies, we also have to worry about how I forgot the last two weeks." Sam nodded in affirmation. Dean stared narrow eyed for a few moments before giving off a nonchalant shrug. "Yeah, this hits a new high on the weird meter."
Sam let out a drawn out sigh then smiled. "We won't figure this out by sitting in this forest." Sam looked at the red arrow still pointing towards where he assumed was North. "What do you think?"
Dean chuckled to the answer that was as obvious as the sun in the sky. "No way I'm trusting a trickster. I'd sooner listen to the Backstreet Boys."
Sam returned his brother's laugh knowing that the band's music while unpleasant in his own ears, would be paramount to torture for Dean. Sam smile fell when he turned back to the red arrow as a small speck of doubt welled up from within. "Are you sure that was a trickster? I haven't read about one like that."
Dean's eyes narrowed in confusion over his brother's question. "This looks like a trickster's MO to me. What else could warp reality and turn us into ponies."
Sam sighed and closed his eyes. What Dean said was true but Sam couldn't shake a sense that there was more to their current situation. "Dean, I don't even remember Gabriel doing anything this big."
"Well what if Crowley found some way to juice him up. Calling us Moose and Squirrel is his thing."
Sam narrowed his eyes, not happy with being cornered while still doubting the validity of his brother's claim. "All right. We aren't going to figure this out by standing around in the middle of this forest. Which way do you want to go?"
Dean looked and pointed at the arrow with scorn. "Well there's no way I'm trusting a trickster. Let's go the other way."
"No," replied Sam with a shake of his head. "That's too obvious." Going on little more than a feeling, he decided to point west-by-northwest. "Let's go that way."
"You're the man with the plan," quipped Dean as he walked in the chosen direction. Sam followed with a roll of his eyes. "What's the plan for ganking the SOB who did this to us." Dean began gagging as another bar of soap wound up on the ground. "Seriously," he yelled along with stomping on the ground. "I can't even use an anagram!?
Sam watched his brother's plight with mild amusement. "We need a wooden stake dipped in the blood of one of his victims to kill a trickster. You're clearly a victim and we're in the middle of a forest." Sam gave him a smug smile as Dean glared back. "I think we'll manage."
Dean spit out the remains of the soap and wiped his mouth. "Yeah yeah; the sooner we can kill that bas ... trickster, the sooner I can stop being blue. Besides" he looked side to side with mild nervousness "I don't want to stick around any more surprises he's got for us."
The pair climbed out of the large ditch, something that Sam had a much easier time with than Dean. "How do you make this look so easy?"
Sam looked back at his brother with a raised eyebrow. "It's just like crawling."
Sam continued ahead and Dean followed with much greater ease, managing to reach his brother's side with ease. Dean took advantage of the momentary respite to see what Sam got out of the deal. He quickly realized that his younger brother was still taller, if only by a smaller margin. His coat was also a bit thicker; which served to add upon his brothers larger size. At Sam's rear, Dean spotted a mark in the same spot as his own. Sam's differed from his own by being a bright red book with a black drawing of a draconian skull. "You've got a tram-stamp too Sammy."
Sam turned his head back and got a good look at it then at Deans. "Yeah, mine is better."
"It's a book" he gave Sam a hard look "of course you'd think that."
"Sure," Sam said with a smirk, "but I'm not the blue one here." Dean turned his head away in defeat and grumbled something including the word fuzzball.
As they came across a small clearing, Sam once again was thinking about the peculiarities of their situation. "Dean, do you remember that trench we were in."
Dean stopped and looked towards his brother with a mix of confusion and irritation. "Yeah, why do we care?"
Sam sighed out his frustration over his brother's douchiness. "Because no matter how I look at it, there is no reason for a trickster to incinerate a trench that big into the ground."
Dean looked at his brother straight-faced while internally questioning his sanity. "It doesn't matter."
"Exactly!" he exclaimed while stomping his hoof to punctuate his point. "It doesn't matter, so why was it there in the first place?! Why not use a normal forest floor?!"
Dean's mouth did a goldfish impression for two seconds before settling into a glare. "Sammy: I don't care if it's a giant penguin trying to bring in an ice age. You can't expect anything a trickster does to make sense."
Sam thought to pursue his point, but sighed instead. Even if everything didn't add up, the only alternative at the time was to accept that they were really turned into ponies. As much as Sam felt opposed to that idea, he knew Dean had at least triple the level of distaste for their current condition. "Alright, let's get out of here ASAP. It feels like something could jump out any moment." Their gazes jerked to the right, towards the sound of a rustling bush. They then heard more rustling to their rear.
When it came to spending most of one's life hunting the supernatural, a hunter doesn't live for long if they can't recognize when they've become the hunted. With that experience in mind, both immediately had the same thought. "Run!"
Their fears became confirmed as the sound of pursuit filled their ears. "You had to say it!"
"Not now Dean!" The pair ran through the trees as fast as recently christened quadrupeds could. A mass of brown closed onto Sam's right. Sam dodged a short lunge, nearly bumping into Dean. It closed in again and pulled ahead slightly. "I think they're herding us!"
"Push back!" Sam ducked under another lunge and rammed the creature. His legs intertwined with the creature, causing both to spill out onto the forest floor. Dean stopped and looked, his brother and the tumbling creature coming to view. It was lupine in design, except completely made of wood. Its eye-sockets glowed yellow. He saw two more coming from further back with their gaze locked on Sam. "Sammy!" Dean's thoughts shut down. He lowered his head, prepared to charge at them.
Sam rose his head. A light drew his attention from the wolves and towards Dean. A flash of shone forth from the edge of his hair, releasing a ray of orange-red light. With his wide field of view; Sam saw the beam clip both pursuers. They careened out of control and crashed into some trees.
Before he could even think to question the phenomenon, Sam felt the third preparing its attack. He rolled away and stood with his rear to the beast. Sam braced his forelegs and bucked with all his might. He felt his legs connect solidly followed by the sound of a crash. Sam's head whipped back and forth; his eyes frantically searching for any movement other than his brother.
Dean also looked around not in fear, but in confusion. "What just happened?"
Sam released his tension with a drawn out sigh. "We ... beat them?" It was clear to both that they had no clue how they did so.
This only served to confuse Dean further. "How? What happened to the other two? I get ready to charge them one second and they're gone in a literal flash while you're sending the other flying."
"Dean, I'm lost as you are. You shot some kind of beam out of your head."
"Really?" he asked incredulously. Dean then ran a hoof through his hair only to stop with wide eyes and mouth agape.
With Dean shuffling his hair around, Sam saw something that had him mirroring his brother's expression. "Is that a ... a horn?" Dean pulled his hair back, giving Sam a better look at a blunt cone with a spiral grove up the length. "Dean, you're a unicorn."
At this point, Dean was torn between two different thoughts. One felt angered at not only being a blue coated pony, but at being a unicorn on top of that. The other thought proved stronger though. "So, what just happened" his face broke out into a grin "is that I've got a frickin' laser beam attached to my head." Dean pursed his lips out and put his right hoof to them. "At least something threw me a bone," he added with his best attempt at replicating the voice of Mike Myers.
Sam blinked a few times before performing his very first ever face-hoof. He dragged his hoof down his face and sighed. "Seriously, Austin Powers." He then switched to giving his brother a concerned gaze as Dean pointed his horn to a random tree. "Dean, stop."
Dean raised his head and returned Sam's expression with a pleading gaze. "Come on Sam. I've got to see if I can do that again."
"No! We have no clue what that was and until we do" he narrowed his gaze to punctuate his point "no lasers." Sam looked down at the piles of wood in the area that used to be their pursuers. "First we should see if we can figure out what these things were."
Dean walked to Sam's side with a small grin. "I'm going to go on a limb and say they're timber wolves." Dean glanced at Sam expectantly which Sam responded to by rolling his eyes and holding back a groan. "What ... that was a good one."
Sam could only roll his whole head in disbelief at his brother's simple sense of humor. "Let's go before any more show up."
"Wait." Sam looked to see Dean's hoof pointing at what was once the timber wolf's tooth. "This looks like it'll make a pretty good stake."
"Good idea. Grab it and lets go."
Dean narrowed his eyes. "How." He made a show of how he no longer had fingers to grab with.
Sam responded by pointing a hoof at his own mouth. The glare Dean gave his brother spoke volumes that Sam only chuckled at. As Dean moved his mouth towards the stake; other movements caught Sam's eye. "Dean." The apprehension of Sam's voice drew Dean from his current task. Dean followed Sam's gaze towards a group of floating sticks and logs forming a lupine shape. The sticks in his vicinity started doing the same a moment later. "Run!"
Dean wasted no time following his brother's command. The sounds of barking behind them indicated the chase was back on. "I thought we ganked those sons-a-bitches!" With that outburst; Dean could feel another bar of soap working its way up his throat. He had no time to complain as a tree root nearly tripped him up.
"Dean; I think we're almost out!" Both would have been happy at this news, but the sound of barking closing in on them stifled any joy from finding a more open area.
"Don't these things ever give up!" Dean dared not look knowing that one misstep would be his end. He managed to pick up some speed due to not having to worry about getting tangled in tree roots. He spotted the steep edge of a river bank a short distance ahead. "Really!?" Both brothers took a sharp left before plummeting into the river.
Thanks to the change in direction, the wolves closed the distance again. Dean felt a whip of air as one snapped at his rear; and could also feel the adrenaline fulling his retreat running low. All he could think was how after all he's survived, he'd be done in by monsters that looked like someone's idea of a sick joke; and as a pony no less.
Dean looked at his brother for a long second. There was no doubt that at least one of them wouldn't get away. With Sam already being slightly ahead, Dean made his decision. "Jump in the river!" The female voice yanked Dean from his musings. He looked to see another pony across the bank running alongside them. She had a bright orange coat, pale yellow hair, a stetson hat, and a rope around her neck. "I'll get ya'll; just jump!"
In tandem with his brother; Dean took the next best option and jumped into the river. The river's flow wasn't too fast, but Dean instantly realized that they wouldn't be able to overpower the river in their exhausted states.
He breached the surface and scanned for his brother. "Sammy!" A rope lasso landed next to Dean's head. He worked a hoof through the whole. Sam breached the surface a short distance upstream. Dean swam for him with all the force his new body could muster. When he reached Sam, Dean found him unconscious. Dean tried to use his free hoof to grab him but couldn't get a grip. Instead, Dean decided to get as big a mouthful of Sam's hair as he could. The rope went taunt a second later as the the other pony slowly pulled them to shore.
After a strenuous half-minute, both Sam and Dean were laying safely at the water's edge. Dean worked to catch his breath while looking over his brother's condition. He was breathing and that was enough to relax. Dean closed his eyes and let the exhaustion hit him all at once.
Author's Note
The main characters lose consciousness as a cliffhanger. I bet no-one has ever done that before. As for the lack of a setup, I do have one: I've simply decided to reveal it gradually as the story progresses rather than all at once.
Now for some Supernatural notes.
1: The First Blade when wielded by one bearing the mark of Cain can kill anything except the one bearing the mark while filling him/her with blood-lust.
2: Crowley is the demon king who was key in both achievements of and obstacles against the brothers.
3: A trickster is killed by a wooden stake dipped in the blood of one of its victims.
