Change in Me Over Change in Time
Prologue: Murphy's a dink
I guess you want some back-story right? Thought so. My name is Luna Marie Bodmer. Some might say it doesn't sound like a very pony name... Well that's because it isn't, duh. I am... was?.. human. At 22 years old I had an associates degree in electrical technology. Fancy way of saying I was an unemployed electrician; after all, girls don't get hired for trade jobs very often. Going forwards though, the plan was to go back to college full time and stay in a dorm. Was gonna get me a BA in computer engineering. Just like dear old dad. Best job ever I tell ya, takin' 'part electronics to figure out what's wrong, he had my dream job. I got a lot from him, love of electronics, learn everything study nothing attitude. He was on the shorter side at 5'8" on a good day; me though, I got my looks from mum. 5'10" brown hair, lousy posture, unnecessarily large shelf. Seriously though, F-cups suck. Back pain, exercised inflicted self destruction, not to mention how expensive the bras are or how hard it can be to find ones that actually fit.
Dad was a brony like thirtyish years ago. Short, broad, potbellied engineering student obsessed with dungeons and dragons, driving stupidly fast, running around on a hill playing wargames with airsoft rifles, not doing homework. You know, the fun stuff. He got older, stopped playing airsoft, did more homework, kept the house running. He did well for a single father of three kids. Drove himself into the ground for us. He was my role model, tough, hardy, kept going, damn what Murphy says. Made some cosmic ironic sense when his mother (Grams) re-married while he was in college. Grandpa Murphy was a war vet and hard-ass, nearly got into a few fights with Dad.
My older sister, Kat, got lucky. She got my great grandfather's flaming red hair, Grams' petite figure, Dad's eyes, and mom's feisty nature. One in a million, Red hair, green eyes, small figure, feisty. Not completely gifted though, she didn't get dad's brains... completely. Subtly manipulative when she wants something that she knows will be difficult to get, but doesn't learn quickly, as evidenced by her myriad of boyfriends-past.
Damien, my brother and eldest of we three, is the spitting image of dad with mom's eyes. Stocky, brown hair, with strikingly light blue eyes. Teddy bear but almost lethally protective. He put one of Kat's exes in the hospital when he stalked her home and Damien caught him outside trying to get a peek.
And Mom, well, we all loved her. Kindest soul you'd meet. Always went out of her way to make everyone happy if she could. She was taller than Dad at 5'10" broad shouldered, blonde haired, blue eyed, and with hourglass curves when she was younger. However, we kids and stress kinda robbed her of that. It didn't seem to bother her though. What did, was all the medical problems she had. Vitamin and hormonal deficiencies, lupus, scoliosis, and the list goes on. Well that's enough of that.
Love ya Mum.
So! To the story! There I was on my way to my new college dorm, driving cross-country from Texas to New Hampshire, when a nor-easter blows in. You know, one of them left over hurricanes turned blizzard or some-such. White out conditions, roads were absolute crap and the music sucked. I was determined to make it the last stretch to the dorms instead of wasting $85 for a room an a hotel or something. To this day I still have no godly Idea why I didn't just buckle up or pull into a cheap inn, especially the buckling in part. Anywho, epic fight-scene time: Luna vs. The Windshield! I was on some wild back-roads, just cresting a hill when Mr. Windshield decided to hold Z while the fight loaded and started all powered up from the get-go. In a flash there was a swirling, pulsing, angry, chaotic, mass of trans-dimensional rage covering the inside of the windshield so I did what any logical person would do; I screamed and slammed my foot on the break... oops.
I'm not usually one for swearing but, stress tends to force the matter. Also, Murphy, fuck you Murphy and fuck your fucking laws.
So there I was screaming at the vortex, vortex howling back at me, car barreling down a snowy road, and my foot slamming down on the breaks when ol' Murph decided to say 'Hi'. You know that feeling when all the resistance in the break petal disappears and the petal just goes straight to the floor? That's the feeling of when it's a bad time to panic. So, what did I do? Like any freaked out person, I panicked.
"Shit, shit, shit, fuck, fuck, fuck, no, no, no, nO, NO!" I screamed and threw my foot down on the emergency break petal. Eeyup, locking the back wheels going fourty downhill in a blizzard, brilliant. Realizing my mistake as soon as the aggravating dinger turned on, the right side of my car started to rumble; yup, you got it, wheel off the road. I looked to the right to see how close I was to the snowbank and came to a horrible conclusion; Murphy's vortex of wrath had spread to all the windows on the car, obscuring everything outside from me. My hands were stiff and sore as heck, like I'd been gripping the steering wheel for 8 hours straight with a death-grip. I would have thought it odd if it weren't for the swirly doom all around me.
It was at this point the car jerked violently into a spin slamming me into my door and my head against the support between the doors. I blacked out for but a moment but came back just in time for the car to abruptly come to a stop. Not me though, just the car, as I was catapulted from my seat and through the passenger side window... er, vortex. Seriously, fuck your Murphy. Everything became colors and my everything hurt. It was like being compacted and pressed through an angry kaleidoscope on acid. It was about that point that my brain gave up and I was out cold.
Change in Me Over Change in Time
"Eugh, why does my everything hurt?" I attempt to assume the fetal position when a sharp pain shoots through my left shoulder. "Aagh!" -Clasping my shoulder I whimper a bit- "Ffffriggenfreude that hurt." I must have dislocated it.
"Okay, so, step one. Ascertain the situation."
Am I really talking to myself agian?
Yup.
Okay, sounds good.
Opening my eyes is a slow and optically painful experience. "Tch," -I wince a bit at the amount of light around me- "woah, that's trippy." Everything around me is colors, not like splotches of nice colors but like a bunch of hippies got together and made an opening montage for a 90's TV show, sharp, vibrant, contrasting smatterings of color everywhere. Better yet, like the plane of suck decided to jump into every vat of paint ever and the paints got colorist and segregated themselves into dispersed communities.
"Alrighty, well that's weird but not entirely unexpected." I mean I could be dead, unconscious and dreaming or in a coma. Doesn't really matter though, conscious thought still seems to be a thing. I go to pat myself down real quick and make sure everything is in place and... "OW!" punch myself in the chest with something hard. "Ow, ow ,ow, seriously? What the heck am I holding? And why are my sleeves so long?! And why can't I feel my fingers?" I growl a bit as I attempt to rescue my arm from my sleeve by rubbing it against my side. As my extremity extricates itself I gape a bit at what I am seeing.
"A hoof... I have a hoof, -" I look down and rescue my leg by hiking up my pants "- plural, I have hooves... I don't even... what..."
"At least I'm green?" I try to reason with myself.
Looking around again everything looks the same, and everything is still a bit sore. That's when I notice a slight breeze begin to caress me. "Drafty, nice." I deadpan and my ear flicks in agitation. "Did my ear just..." I launch my head vertically trying to see my ear. Right, it doesn't work that way.
Cue face-palm.
"Ow! Whyhyhyyy," I whimper after taking a hoof to the head and proceed to pout at my new appendage. "Bad hoovsies, no hitting."
The sound of the breeze in my ears is turning into a wind as I start to look around a bit more frantically. Oh what now? Shortly the air around me begins to buffet me harshly. The plane of colorful suck begins to morph into the plane of shitty suck as I realize that I'm falling. Did I mention that everything was also turning a monocolor of brown? That's what happened when you combined all the paints in art class together in highschool.
So, lets see what I get to fall on. Looking below me doesn't find me my destination. Looking ahead does though, and apparently I'm falling head first towards a blue dot in the distance. "Ohhh this is gonna suck."
As I get a bit closer I realize I am traveling pretty fast and that those many short vertical lines of color separated by individual long lines of a woody yellow, likely means 'book case'. Heh hoovsies. Oh, hi Murphy's bookcase. "Yup its been confirmed Houston, much suck. Full ahead it is then. SHIIIIIIIIIIII..."
A purple pony princess pants perturbedly, placing a perse hoof upon her peak whilst parking her plot.
"Why, Discord, did you think placing a part of you into the spell I was working on was, in any way, a good idea?"
"I thought it would provide entertaining results," the now one-armed draconequus mumbled while rubbing the remaining stump of one arm with a griffon claw.
"Discord," -she rubs her temples with her hooves- "the entire purpose of experimenting with the scientific method is having a controlled environment so that the results can be recorded and repeated if necessary. Chaos magic in any form takes that whole principle and throws it out the window."
"I know, but this-" he stop and points at the swirling vortex "- I believe will prove interesting."
She sighs. "Lets just hurry up and close it before anything happens."
"iiiiiii..."
"Too late," He smiles and places himself before the swirling eddy.
"IIIIIIIIIIII!" A mares yell can be heard getting louder.
Waving with the once gone paw, "Hi, welcome to.."
The draconequus' greeting is cut short by a green horn impaling itself bloodlessly through his chin and out an eye socket. The rest of the mare attached to the spire slamming bodily into him sending them both careening into the bookcase behind him.
Twilight just stands there slack-jawed, unable to fully comprehend what just transpired while a low moan comes from the new arrival.
Momentarily the green mare in baggy over-sized clothing attempts to stand. With an audible pop, discords head disconnects from his body leaving a mannequin-like stump while his displaced eye rolls around on the ground as though made of glass. The mare's face quickly turns a much lighter shade of green before mumbling "Fffuck you Murrrk!" and promptly voids her stomach upon Discord's prone form before collapsing upon him and her sick. Her earthy brown mane flopping down with her.
Shaking herself out of her stupor, Twilight bellows "SPIKE! THE PONYVILLE GENERAL CRYSTAL!"
"Sparkle do be a deer and get me off of this pike. I'd like to see the mayhem, and mayhaps what is giving off that aroma."
Feeling a shift in weight upon her head, she looks up, and sighs. Igniting her six-point rack of antlers, she liberates the snaggle-toothed goats-head from its post. Rotating to get a view, it lets out a gasp.
"Of course I get vomited on." -his body raises its arms- "I throw myself in harms way to help a girl and this is the thanks I get!" He grumbles before he snaps a claw and a new body sprouts from his head. Reaching down to pick up his eye, he pops it into his mouth and swallows, blinks, and his eye reappears where it should be.
A patter of small feet can be heard entering the the room. "I've got... the scrying crystal... Twilight... What happened? Rainbow fight the stained glass again?" The adolescent purple dragon with green spines pants out. Hunched over and catching his breath he holds up the hoof sized crystal for Twilight.
"Thanks Spike, and no, its something a bit worse this time," she gravely declares while taking the crystal in her aura. Staring intently into the crystal, she brings s bit of an overglow to her horn.
Sniffing the air, Spike scrunches up his face and asks "Eugh, whats that smell?"
To which Discord replies, "Half digested meat," and with a 'Pwing', the princess and the disheveled mare were gone.
Change in Me Over Change in Time
Interlude 1: Not so deleted scene
Ponyville General Hospital
Behind a desk in a modestly sized green waiting room sits a pink mare with a plum and white striped mane. A white nurses cap displaying a red circle filled with a white cross with hearts in its corners rests upon her head. She hums cheerfully going about her daily bureaucracy, her deep blue eyes skimming back and forth across the paperwork in front of her. A sharp and sudden 'Pwing' accompanied by a bright flash of light startles her from her task. Before her now stands a slightly frantic librarian princess. "Oh my! P...Princess," she stands quickly and bows. "what can I do for you?"
"Bowing later, gurney now." Twilight presses out before turning to her charge.
Confused, the pink mare looks past the princess's shoulder to see a disheveled and unconscious green mare held aloft in a lavender aura. She nods quickly before taking off through a pair of swinging doors.
Twilight stands before her floating mystery mare looking with an intense curiosity. The green unicorn mare's clothing is far larger than her in some places. The waist seems snug enough but the legs are far larger and much too long. Almost long enough to have fit Princess Celestia. Too afraid to get too close the the sick covered clothes to check its material she moves on to a more pressing concern. Flaring her horn a bit more, she begins performing her own check of the mare.
Her aura forms a slightly lighter band that begins to pass over her unconscious captive. "Concussion, dislocated shoulders, bruised ribs. I'm so sorry about all this," she lets out with a sad sigh. "We'll get you fixed up, wait..." Startled a bit she runs the scan again. Squinting her eyes likes shes boring a hole through the mare, she continues, "You are permeated with..." A creme colored stallion in a lab-coat with light blue eyes, glasses and a brown mane, bursts through the door with gurney in tow.
"Alright, set her on here," he commands.
Nodding, Twilight acquiesces to the doctors will, lowering the mare onto the gurney.
"What can you tell me princess?"
Startled but appreciative of his forwardness she starts her list. "Concussion, bruised ribs, both shoulders dislocated. Likely caused by high speed impact. The vomit is her own. There are some anomalies in her aura and she needs to have some blood work done." She stops at the swinging door with a contemplative face as she remembers what discord had said just before she teleported out. "And run a check on her stomach contents... or whats left of them." She nods to the doctor finishing her summary.
As the door closes behind the doctor and the mystery mare is carted off Twilight mumbles to herself "I hope she'll be alright." With a worried look over her withers, she departs.