Three little fillies were marching down the streets of Ponyville. The orange one was trying to remove porcupine needles from her wings. The white one, named Sweetie Belle, was looking at her condescendingly:
“Scoots, I think you'll never learn how to fly.”
Scootaloo answered angrily, still busy with the needles.
“Why are you so sure? I'm totally gonna learn to fly! Tomorrow I'm gonna have a flying lesson with Rainbow Dash! I'll fly soon!”
The white unicorn laughed.
“Seriously, you've been having flying lessons for what? Five months now? Face it, you'll never gonna fly!”
“I will!”
Sweetie Belle laughed maniacally:
“Hahaha, I bet Twilight Sparkle will fly sooner than you!”
“Yeah? Wanna bet?”
Apple Bloom tried to interrupt: “Girls? Are y'all sure you should do that?”, but the pegasus didn't hesitate for a moment:
“Five bits?”
“Agreed!”
The unicorn and the pegasus bumped their hooves to seal the deal. Apple Bloom could only shake her head in disapproval.
***
Around 11 a.m. Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville's librarian extraordinaire, woke up from her well-deserved rest.
“What a lovely day!” she exclaimed with joy. “I feel like reading today!”
She got up from her comfortable bed and trotted gracefully towards her shiny mirror, to see how marvelously she looked this day. She was vehemently shocked by her own appearance: instead of her usual well-combed, mathematically perfectly even bangs, her head sported an unspeakable chaos of hair, curling in all possible and some of the impossible directions.
“Man, my mane is a mess!” she noticed. “I need to find a spell to keep it in order. Maybe I'll do it even now!”
The librarian pranced downstairs and started looking for a book on manestyling in her vast, rich book collection. She knew where she should start; all important books were shelved under E. One glimmering cover caught her attention.
“Hmm, maybe I can find an appropriate spell in this book.”
The most powerful magic user in whole Ponyville focused herself to grab the book with her mighty magic skill.
Nothing happened.
“Wait, I can't grab the book! What's going on with my ho—” she gently tried to prod her horn with her hoof. “It's gone!”
Twilight's heart started beating faster. She immediately galloped upstairs, to see herself in the mirror again.
“Damn, it's really gone! I have no horn! No horn! But why? Why? Oh Celestia, I have no horn and— Argh! I have wings! It's... It's...”
She stopped for a moment. A vicious smile appeared on her face.
“... kinda awesome!”
***
Rainbow Dash was enjoying her sleep on her favorite cloud, when suddenly she fell down to the ground and woke up upon the impact.
“Ouch! What happened to the cloud? Did Derpy kicked it from beneath me again?”
She glanced upwards and noticed that the cloud she was sleeping on was in shreds, like if some huge object flew through it.
“Eh, whatever, I think I might go training now.”
She put her forelegs forward and started stretching. When she felt her forelegs were stretched enough, she leaned forward to stretch the hind legs. At the same moment, a joyous orange filly pranced towards the exercising mare.
“Rainbow Dash! Good morning!” Scootaloo seemed more energetic and motivated than usual.
Rainbow Dash stopped her routine. “Morning, kiddo! Did you come for a flying lesson again?”
“Yeah! I can't wait when I can fly too! The best flyer in the whole Equestria is also the best flying teacher!”
The cyan mare chuckled. “Heh heh, you flatter me. So first, look how you should start. Pay attention to how I move my wings.”
Rainbow Dash smiled to Scootaloo, bent her body in preparation to vertical start, glared upwards, and launched towards the sky.
The flight happened to be one of Rainbow's shortest. She was in the air for few seconds, before the gravity commanded her body to plummet back down. She crashed to the ground with a loud thud.
“Ouch! What going on, did I got a wing cramp?” She turned her head to examine her wings. “I would have felt tha—aaaah! My wings! They're gone!”
Rainbow Dash stared in shock at her own wingless back. Next to her stood even more shocked Scootaloo. They both stood motionlessly for few moments, when Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom arrived.
“Howdy, Scoots! How's yer flyin' lesson goin'?” asked the farm filly. When they didn't get an answer, the unicorn repeated:
“How's your flying lesson, Scoots? Can you already fly, or should I check Twilight?”
“Wings... they're gone...” Rainbow Dash managed to mumble.
Two fillies, surprised by this statement, trotted towards the mare to see if she was right.
“Oh Celestia...” said terrified Sweetie Belle. Mare's back was indeed featureless.
“So yer an earth pony now, Rainbow Dash?” asked Apple Bloom, showing no understanding of gravity of this situation.
“Earth pony?” Rainbow Dash yelled. “But the Wonderbolts don't accept earth ponies! All my dreams! Crushed! Why, Celestia, why?”
The mare ducked down, covered her eyes with hooves and started sobbing. Apple Bloom exchanged confused looks with Sweetie Belle, put a hoof on Rainbow's shoulder, and said reassuringly:
“Don' worry, ya can always try to get to another team.”
“Really?” Rainbow Dash stopped crying for a moment. “Are there earth pony Wonderbolts?”
“Sure!” the filly answered cheerfully. “There are the Wonderbuckers!”
“Apple Bloom, that's really not the best—” Sweetie Belle tried to interrupt, but Apple Bloom ignored her.
“Ah once heard Big Mac and A.J. arguin'. She was angry he was hidin' magazines about them under his bed. Ah asked them later about what the Wonderbuckers do, but they said Ah'm still too young for that, or something. But don' worry, Ah think ya'd make an amazin' Wonderbucker.”
Rainbow Dash peeked from under his hooves.
“Really? Are you sure?”
“Yup! Ya just need to train buckin' a li'l and ya'll become a Wonderbucker in no time!”
“Thanks, kid.” The mare smiled and stood up. “You gave me a little hope. Maybe I should try.” She looked upwards. “What do you think about it, Twilight?”
The purple pegasus, who was just flying past them, turned around and started circling Rainbow Dash and two fillies. Scootaloo hadn't managed to recover from the first shock yet, when she was hit by another sudden revelation. She was still frozen motionless and stood with her mouth agape, staring mindlessly at the whole scene.
“Oh, hi Dashie. Look, I'm a pegasus! That's so cool!” exclaimed Twilight.
“I can see, Twilight. Uhm, could you land down? I'm getting dizzy from trying to maintain eye contact with you.”
“I'm not sure, I've never landed before. Wait a moment, lemme try.”
Twilight started to slow down. Her circles became less and less regular, she staggered in her flight. She kept descending. Finally, her hooves touched the ground, but she still had horizontal velocity. She tripped over and tumbled forward. After a moment of silence, the purple mess of hooves and feathers moved and stood up. Twilight shook her head, smiled and said:
“That was easy. I'll only read a book or two about aerial maneuvers and I'll become the best flyer in the whole Ponyville.” She hesitated for a moment. “Or you know what? Screw books, I'm gonna train without them!”
Rainbow Dash felt pangs of envy in her heart. She smiled sheepishly and said:
“Twilight, I have better idea. We'll both go to Applejack to ask her about the Wonderbuckers.”
“Sure, I haven't seen A.J. in ages.” Twilight exclaimed, hopping in joy.
“Oh wait, Apple Bloom said A.J. doesn't like them,” the cyan mare added. “So maybe better we'll ask Pinkie, she's an earth pony after all.”
“That's even better!” The purple pegasus jumped forward, did a half of barrel roll and landed painfully on her back. “Ouch! I got hungry after all this flying, I'd love some cupcake or two.”
When Twilight got up, both mares trotted towards the Sugarcube Corner. Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle walked towards silent Scootaloo, waved a hoof before her eyes and yelled directly into ear:
“Hello, anypony home? Scootaloo! You owe me five bits!”
***
Rainbow Dash slowly walked through the town towards the Sugarcube Corner. Twilight Sparkle was circling above, slowly following her.
“So, how did you became a pegasus?” the cyan mare asked.
“I dunno, I just woke up that way,” the lavender pegasus responded.
“And how do you feel?”
“Pretty awesome, I think. As a kid, I sometimes dreamed about being a pegasus. It's nice that it could come true. It sucks I lost my magic though.”
Rainbow Dash snorted.
“Yeah, and what I got for my wings? I'm an ordinary earth pony now.”
“Well...” Twilight tried to say something, but suddenly went silent. “Funny, I had a perfect response to that, which I read in some book, but now I forgot it. Earth ponies are, I dunno, stronger?”
“Thanks for trying...”
“Oh, look, it's the Sugarcube Corner!”
Rainbow Dash focused her sight and saw a familiar building in a distance. Two silhouettes were standing in front of it. When two mares got closer, they recognized the silhouettes as Mr. and Mrs. Cake.
“Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Cake,” Twilight greeted them. “What's happening?”
The loud explosion sounds coming from inside the building were a sufficient answer. The lavender pegasus added dryly: “Lemme guess: Pinkie.”
Mrs. Cake confirmed: “Yes, it's her. Since she woke up as a unicorn this morning, we can't stop her.”
The next explosion inside the bakery blow one window out. The Cakes and Rainbow Dash ducked down, while Twilight jerked upwards.
“Pinkie, come out!” shouted the rainbow-maned earth pony. “It's us, Rainbow Dash and Twilight!”
With a loud pop, Pinkie teleported herself on top of Mr. Cake's head. He couldn't hold a suddenly appearing load, lost his balance, and fell to his side, together with Pinkie.
“Oopsie! Sorry!” Pinkie giggled. Her head sported a horn. Mr. Cake whispered some incomprehensible swearwords.
“Pinkie, what are you doing?” asked Twilight from above.
“Oh, I just tried to bake faster!” the pink unicorn explained. “I wanted to see if explosions can be used to make cupcakes.”
The pegasus replied dryly: “Let me guess: they can't.”
“You're right as always, Twily-Smily! It di— Omigosh, you're a pegasus now! Like Dashie!”
“Actually, she's no longer one.”
“Omigosh, three of us are all different now! That means we can finally try out things we couldn't before!”
“Yeah, maybe you can,” Rainbow Dash wasn't even trying to conceal her anger. “I'm an earth pony now, what new can I do?”
“Oh, Dashie, don't be such a grumpy filly!” Pinkie patted her friends head. “There's a lot to do as an earth pony!”
“We just came to you to ask about that,” said Twilight. “Dash heard about the Wonderbuckers and thought about trying to join them, as the Wonderbolts obviously won't accept her.”
“Sure!” the unicorn exclaimed, grinning widely. “The Wondebuckers are perfect for my little Dashie.”
“Pinkie, I asked you to not call me tha–”
The loud explosion of fireworks interrupted Rainbow Dash mid-sentence. All five ponies looked around to see who would be crazy enough to launch fireworks in the middle of the day, and – more importantly – where. Twilight flew upward and scouted whole area of Ponyville. After a while, she noticed the source of the noise.
“The square! Follow me!”
Twilight darted through the air towards the town square. Pinkie teleported there immediately afterwards. Rainbow Dash stood confused, not knowing what to do.
“Hey, wait for me! I was flying all my life over Ponyville, and on the ground I don't know which way to go!”
Mrs. Cake cleared her throat and suggested:
“Take this street until you get to the restaurant, then turn left. We... we better stay, we have a lot of mess to clean.”
“Thanks!” one cyan mare said the the other, and galloped away.
When Rainbow Dash arrived to the town square, she saw a wooden stage, with a wagon as the backstage, and a blue unicorn mare on it. The unicorn was wearing a sparkling pointed hat and a robe of similar material. She walked to the middle of the stage, looked around, and announced loudly:
“The Great and Powerful Trixie is back! Trixie has come again to this town to challenge Twilight Sparkle to a magic duel, which will determine the next holder of the title of the most powerful magic user in Ponyville! Twilight Sparkle! Come forward and answer the challenge of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”
Whispers could be heard among the audience, but nopony answered her. Twilight stopped circling the crowd, lowered herself, hovered at Trixie's eye level and said:
“'Sup, Trixie, it's me, Twilight! I'm a pegasus now!”
Trixie was flabbergasted.
“I– I mean, the Great and– wait, why are you a pegasus?”
“I don't know. Just happened.” After saying that, Twilight made one lap around the square and then started circling the crowd again.
“So will you duel against the Great and Powerful Trixie?” the unicorn tried to get back to the topic.
“Nope. I'm too busy being awesome,” replied the pegasus and flew directly upwards, eventually disappearing from everypony's sight. Trixie, confused, looked at the crowd and asked:
“So... did I won? Is there nopony to challenge me?” She smiled and triumphantly threw her forehooves in the air. “Ponies of Ponyville! The Great and Powerful Trixie officially is the most–”
She didn't finish the sentence, because suddenly something pink appeared out of nowhere above her head and fell down on her. Trixie shrieked in horror, as Pinkie's weight pinned her to the stage floor.
After both unicorns managed to scramble back to their hooves, the pink one said:
“Sorry, I'm not that good at teleporting. I've only started today.”
Trixie didn't look as if the apologies meant anything to her. “Who are you and why are you falling down onto Trixie?”
“Oh, I'm Pinkie Pie. And that duel thing, it sounds like fun!”
“You want to duel?” Trixie asked, not believing what she just heard.
Pinkie Pie jumped in joy. “Yes! How do we duel?” With these words, she teleported off stage. “Does it involve baking?” She teleported back. “I loooove baking! And parties! And baking parties!”
The pink unicorn kept running her mouth while teleporting each few seconds from one place to another. She even managed to teleport inside Trixie's hat.
“Stop annoying Trixie!” Trixie finally snapped.
Pinkie Pie teleported one last time, landing on the stage few steps from Trixie.
“Okie dokie lokie! So when do we start?”
Trixie didn't answer immediately. Instead she smiled to herself and thought: ‘That would be easy. This moron has a cotton candy for brain, Trixie will deal with her in ten seconds flat.’
Pinkie cocked her head and shouted angrily: “Hey, it's Dashie's catchphrase!”
“What?” the blue unicorn was surprised.
“Ten seconds. It's Dashie's. And I don't have cotton candy for my brain, I checked yesterday.”
Trixie was taken aback by Pinkie's words. “Wait, how did you know what... I mean... Trixie means...”
“How did I know what you think?” the pink unicorn prompted cheerfully. “It's simple, I'm just reading this story.”
“What story?”
“The Swap. I always read the stories I'm starring in.”
Ponies on the square exchanged confused looks between each other. Rainbow Dash covered her eyes with hoof. Somewhere far away, a purple shockwave formed in the sky.
“You really can read minds?” Trixie inquired.
“Yes!” Pinkie displayed a proud wide grin.
“But... but that's not fair!” the blue unicorn protested. “How can we duel if you can predict what Trixie does beforehand? Trixie demands you share with her this magic of yours to make things even.”
“Silly Trixie!” Pinkie giggled. “That's no magic, I could do it even when I was still an earth pony.”
“Earth pony... what.” Trixie's brain started to show symptoms of malfunctioning.
“Yeah!” Pinkie teleported to the other side of the stage. “But wait, now I'm a unicorn, I should be able to do a little more?”
“What more? What do you mean by more?” Trixie tried to stop Pinkie, but it was already too late xizfikfxvlxkdtxk dvqve porho heyhowdoIdeletestuff? wpakg aubrkyn jrlipfg ktnqqt ohwiththis
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“You really can read minds?” Trixie inquired.
“Yes!” Pinkie displayed a proud wide grin.
“And that's perfectly fair!” the blue unicorn admitted. “Let's start! You go first!”
Pinkie pointed her horn at smiling Trixie. It stared glowing with all colors of a rainbow. The colorful vortex of energy grew bigger and bigger, finally erupting in an explosion. Three rays shot from Pinkie's horn. Two of them flew in some random directions, while the third one hit Trixie. The blue unicorn was pushed back by sheer magical force. The ray engulfed her in a cloud of sparkly magic and disappeared with a bright flash.
Trixie scrambled back to her hooves and loudly exclaimed:
“That's all you can? Now let the Great and Powerful Trixie show you the real magic!”
She focused her mind on the offensive spell she learned in order to defeat Twilight. She closed her eyes. The audience gasped in shock. Trixie smiled: she knew they knew she was going to splatter blood and gore on everypony on the square. Her concentration was broken though by some stallion's happy voice:
“She's trying to cast spells without horn!”
Trixie open her eyes. His unexpected outburst broke her concentration. Glancing over the crowd, she tried to discern who said that. She noticed more and more ponies smirking.
“What's so funny? Me?”
Somepony laughed. This started the avalanche. A second later the whole square was full of laughing ponies, and one laughing pink pony was on stage.
Trixie hesitated a little. Was that stallion right? She raised her hoof and tried to touch her horn.
It was gone.
She released a loud shriek.
“Noo! I'm a filthy earth pony now! Noooooo!”
She tore her cloak from herself and tried to gallop away from the stage, but she was stopped by a cyan mare.
“Hey, wait a moment! Don't sulk, being an earth pony isn't that bad!”
“How can you say it! You were an earth pony for whole life, and I've just become one right now, you don't know what I feel.”
“Actually, I do.”
Trixie didn't know how to respond. Rainbow Dash put a foreleg over her shoulders and said in a friendly manner:
“Come on, I'm going to train to get into the Wonderbuckers. Wanna join?”
***
Derpy Hooves had just eaten her lunch, consisting of several cupcakes and a glass of lemon juice, and she was getting ready to go to the work for the afternoon shift. She put dishes into a sink, washed her hooves, and went to comb her mane. When she look into a mirror, she saw an unfamiliar horned creature in it.
She gasped in shock and jumped back, but after a second she recognized that creature as herself. Apparently, she got a horn now. Hoping she became an alicorn, she tried to see herself in the mirror with both horn and spread wings.
Unfortunately, her wings were missing. Derpy felt a little disappointed that she was not an alicorn, but a unicorn was fine too. ‘At least I'll stop bumping into buildings and causing damage,’ she thought. Looking again at her reflection in the mirror, she suddenly decided: ‘Let's check how this thing works.’
Derpy focused her mind on the door handle, trying to open the door with her newly acquired telekinesis powers. A cloud of bubbles appeared around her horn, swirling around, and a moment later they shot through the air towards the door. The handle exploded, the door was blown outside, and Derpy was flung to the wall by the sheer force of explosion.
When she stood up upon her hooves, she mumbled to herself: “I just don't know what went wrong.”
***
Applejack was busy, burning a pile of old magazines in the backyard.
“Darn it, Big Mac, ya really think the Wonderbuckers buck apples better than me?” she said to nopony in particular.
When she saw her brother reading the magazines on the most famous farmer team in the whole Equestria, her pride as a farmer pony was deeply hurt. She quickly confiscated them before their little sister got a hold on them – the respect for the older siblings is something that she needed to guard and protect, even if it involved burning things.
When Apple Bloom gets older, maybe Applejack will say her that she probably never was the best apple bucker in the world. But for now, she wanted Apple Bloom to believe otherwise.
***
Three fillies were walking back to their headquarters in the middle of the Sweet Apple Acres orchards.
“It was just a lucky shot!” Scootaloo burst with anger. “Twilight is a magic user, it was certain that she would try to fly. I mean, I even heard from Rainbow Dash she made your sister fly once.”
Sweetie Belle laughed. “Scootaloo, face it, any pony would learn flying quicker than you.”
“That's not true!”
“Girls, could y'all stop it?” Apple Bloom tried to prevent the escalation of the conflict, but without success.
“It's true. Wanna bet?”
“Sure! What are we betting for?”
Sweetie Belle stopped to think for a moment. “Let's say: fifty bits that Big Mac will learn to fly sooner than you.”
“Hey, leave mah family out of your stupid games!” the earth filly protested. “And that's lot o' money. Ah don' think y'all should–”
“Don't worry, Apple Bloom,” the unicorn filly assured. “I think I manage to pay off when I lose. If I lose.”
“Haha!” Scootaloo laughed. “That's the easiest money ever! Deal!”
Two fillies shook their hooves, and the third one shook her head.
“Sweetie Belle, ya've just lost fifty bits.”
“Maybe.” the unicorn shrugged. “But that's no problem for me, I can afford this.”
“Hey, stop bragging about your wealth!” Scootaloo felt slightly humiliated. “Not everypony is rich!”
“Let's say I invested in your motivation,” Sweetie Belle explained.
Scootaloo smiled: “Thanks for the funding, Sweetie Belle. Besides, can anypony even imagine Big Macintosh flying?”
A familiar stallion voice answered her from above:
“Eeyup.”
