About Five Minutes After Banishment

by Garden

1. Starswirl the Magician Who Sends Evil Creatures to Other Dimensions

Load Full Story

"BEGONE, FOUL BEINGS!" The voice of the old pony roared in her ears.

Making another attempt to writhe away from the spell surrounding her and her cohorts, she could see her own sunrise coloured tail, slowly turning a brighter yellow, perhaps even glowing. She roared with anger, attempting to slam her hooves into the magic around them, only to fail once again. In here, their voices were meaningless. But despite all that was happening in here, the one thing that worried her the most was the glowing horn atop the unicorn's head as he charged up a spell, muttering something under his breath.

"We have to get out!" The blue one next to her screamed, ramming her shoulder into the prison. Her voice was echoing in the spell, bouncing around until all of them could only hear ringing. Silently cursing at her sister siren, she bared her teeth to their foe below.

She hated him so much. Wanted to rip him apart. See his arms and legs float away in the river. So what if they fed on negative energy? The manticores were allowed to rampage free and eat ponies, but they weren't allowed to sing? Another hiss escaped from her, but it was cut short by the intense magical blast he sent forth, crashing against the enchanted cage. The siren could feel a strange magic overcome her, pushing her away, further, and further away from whatever reality she knew.

A magical aura began to take shape behind her, twisting and shaping into a portal, sucking her in. She tried to hold on, using her voice to counter the siren-magnetic waves it pulsed out, yet their prison would once again continue to bounce her song around until all they heard was the ringing in their ears.

"No, no!" She shouted, watching as the only thing around her was the swirling Equestrian magic. She felt just like she would if she were falling. She pulled forward a yellow hoof, reaching out to the entrance. Yet something alarmed her greatly. It looked so... non-pony-ish. The hard material which would usually form her hooves was turning soft and slightly saggy.

The magic continued to twist her, until she squinted her eyes shut, feeling the scales and flesh around her gem burn, and she swore she could hear fizzling noises.

This is the end... The siren thought, feeling herself drift away into nothingness.


Shadows swirled in her vision. She could feel her chin against he cold ground. So battered, like a ragdoll.

"Nnngh..." She breathed, forcing her eyes open, gaze locking with a rocky ground. After a few drawn out moments, she readied her magic to take straight off into the air, she needed to find water if she wanted to properly recover! But she never took off.

She was just totally sprawled there.

Rolling around like a log, she faced the night sky, the stars twinkling brightly, the corner of her vision catching something silver towering over her. She wasn't worried, though, if it wanted to kill her or harm her it would've done so already.

She began slowly, trying to get acquainted with her current situation. Folding her elbow, she raised her hoof in front of he--

Wait.

Oh, buck.

That wasn't a hoof.

Despite the straining in her stomach, she eventually managed to sit up without using the support of her other 'hoof', which had turned into something else.

She kept on gazing at the strange shape sitting on her front leg, twisting and turning it. There was a strange article of clothing around it, maybe like ponyshoes? They were pink, maybe light purple, and whenever she tried touching it... it felt like fabric.

Those little yellow worms sticking out of the base were a little scary, kind of like snakes, whenever she moved them. She began to writhe around, trying to make some form of lift-off with the tail adorned part of her body, but when she looked over, she saw two purple stumps, finished off in more ponyshoes. But these ponyshoes looked absolutely hideous. Purple, with lots and lots of spikes. Frowning, she folded up her front legs, holding them in their usual position when serenading a crowd of unwilling equines.

This entire situation was making her sick, and she instinctively felt her front legs curling around her stomach, feeling something lurch inside. Another feeling was forcing her to once more, instinctively, grab somewhere. This time, her own chest, where her gem should be. But all she could feel was fabric, slowly sagging in, like a soft cushion.

"Not my gem, not my gem... no, no.. I'm dead... I have to be dead... no.." She could hear her own voice. It sounded twisted and broken, pretty much how she was feeling right now.

Flopping back onto the ground, she landed on her belly, finally noticing a purple clump, and a blue clump, unconscious like she herself had the luxury of being a few moments ago. Due to the lack of flying powers, she began to slowly slide across the ground, using her elbows to pass this foe, her body being constantly scraped. Taking a deep breath as she finally found herself in front of her siren friend, began to examine her.

The fabric around her body was a lot more ragged, however, she was generally adorning the same things as her. Weird ponyshoes, strange front legs, a lack of a tail fin and instead another set of legs. Her muzzle was creepily small, and her head was round, sitting atop a very skinny neck. The siren had to confirm with herself that this was the situation with her; and so sadly, it was. The antennae, the fins, all gone. No scales, no nothing.  And... dear Equestria, what was that on her head? Reaching out, she couldn't help but touch that strange mane-like substance right on top of her forehead, poking it with one of the strange wiggly things. Yeah, it felt like a mane. Touching her own legs to her head, she could feel something like this on herself, except a lot more poofy.

This was the worst afterlife ever. At least, that's what she thought until she caught something strange about the purple siren on the ground in front of her. There was a black strap around her neck, with a red gem. A red gem.

Frantically searching, she found the gem on her, too. Yes, she wasn't dead! She wasn't dead! She still had her life force and hopefully even her magic! Yes! Take that, Starswirl the Bearded!

"Uhhh..." She looked down to find her partner in crime waking up.

"Seduction...?" The waking siren muttered.

'Seduction' nodded, "Yeah, we were knocked out by that damn wizard."

"I see." She coughed, resting on her elbows, some of her mane falling in her face. "Not funny. The one who's tickling me is going to get their face fin-slapped. Hard."

"About that, Captivation..." Seduction awkwardly rubbed her front legs as Captivation finally shot open her now purple eyes, staring at her.

"...S-Se-... Y-you..."

"I know."

"This isn't... real.. right? I'm... no.. I'm not dead.. you have your gem. T-this is a bad dream."

"'Fraid not."

"BUCK!"

Rearing back, Seduction found herself rather surprised by Captivation's sudden outburst. She was trying to get up, but failed right away, slamming down in the ground, chin first. Immediately, her legs went to her head, feeling around with her mane, which was hanging loose in her face.

"What is going on!?" She roared as she examined her body as much as she could without falling over and getting even more bruises.

"I'm not entirely sure, but whatever that wizard did, he wanted us to not be our normal selves any time soon." Seduction replied, feeling herself cross her front legs almost right away, as if it was something natural for her.

"What about Charm? Where is that little scamp?" Captivation was turning her head, eyes widening as she saw she blue stick figure in the grass, smoke rising from her.

Both of them began to crawl like snails towards her, more scrapes appearing on their frail bodies.

Charm looked worse than them both together. She had a long, blue and navy mane, which was badly ruffed, several hairs already missing. She, too, had strange fabrics all over here, in shades of magenta, perhaps even a little bit of fuchsia. Other than that, the smaller of the three sirens looked to be in bad shape, front leg gently clutching the gem by her neck. Yet she didn't open her eyes, she just lay there. For a long time.

Seduction and Captivation were tired from watching her by the time she finally began to groan, eyes slowly creeping open. Until she saw the creatures before her. In fact, neither of them had ever seen her eyes that wide before. Sitting up faster than they had time to explain things, she began to dramatically waves her forelegs in front of her. "Get away, get away, get away!"

Reaching out a stump, Seduction gave her a slap across the face.

"Wake up, Charm! We don't want you hitting anybody when we're just as confused as you."

Frowning, Charm raised her 'hoof' and placed it against her cheek, before feeling five different things resting against her skin at the same time. Placing it in the air in front of her, she couldn't help it, but she screamed.

"Where's my tail? Where are my hooves? Where are my fins? Where's my muzzle? Why isn't my gem in my chest? Why can't I fly? Where is--"

"Shut up." Captivation growled, eyes narrowing slowly. "We don't know either, so how about you calm down?"

Hearing their voices seemed to help her relax, and Charm settled herself on the stone, or maybe she just flopped down, Seduction didn't really know. Charm's eyes  were half closed as she folded her front legs under her chin, a ripple passing through her shoulders. She sniffled a little, but said nothing more.

"So," Turning her head, Captivation raised Seduction an eyebrow, the stars glimmering down and giving all three of them a strange, luminous shine, "What are we going to do? You thought up plans then, so why not do it now?"

Nervously tugging at her big poof of a mane, Seduction ran her tongue over her flat teeth, before finally giving them both a determined glare.

"Whatever happens to us now, we're still The Sirens, the creatures who nearly caused Equestria to fall. We are dangerous, but we're going to face our most dangerous foe yet. It is obvious that things are not the same in this strange place, but we will find out what's happened to us, and we will find out how the magical workings in this world function. But for now, we need to tackle the first step in this journey."

"What?" Both of her partners asked, giving her a confused look.

"Walking."