Fall of the Rightful King-Clean

Chapter Two

I pulled into my driveway, the outside light turning on as we drove in. The rain was coming down harder now, and it was starting to hail. We managed to get Brittney inside and onto a couch without getting too much wetter. I put a hand on her neck and one on her chest. Her pulse was… slow? Fast? Probably would help if I had the slightest idea how horses were supposed to work. Worse, I could feel my legs starting to shake. My adrenaline wouldn’t last too much longer. We had to get her stable. I didn’t think hypothermia would be an issue once we got the heater on. It’s not like she was in the rain all that long. Wet fur, though, wasn’t going to do much for her.

“Erin, grab some towels from upstairs,” I said, heading to the bathroom. We kept a couple dry towels in there, which I grabbed. On the way out I flipped the heater back on. Cold air started to cough out of the vents as I bent down in front of the couch. Just before I started drying her off, I paused. Was I really looking at a “my little pony?” The body shape, especially those colors and face, were familiar, sure, but not the kind of thing I expect to see in real life. Figuring out however the heck Brittney had become a pony was top of the list to figure out, right under “get her safe” and “comfort bawling girlfriend.”

Speaking of her, Erin came down the stairs with more towels. We started drying her sister off, and dang if that wasn’t a weird feeling. Her legs bent in ways I didn’t expect. Every time we’d touch a new muscle, it’d tense up before slowly relaxing. They were strong, too, especially the back legs. Makes sense, earth ponies were always the strongest of the lot.

Hang on a second, was I really comparing a TV show to real life? No, no, whatever the heck was going on, Brittney looking like this was a coincidence. Maybe she made a wish that went badly. She really liked ponies – and I mean really liked them. She went to just about every convention she could, and went all-out on her costumes. Not that they were ever great, but she tried.

“Hey,” Erin said, “I’ll get her… tail. Dry her hair.” We switched places and I started toweling off the sparkling mane. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the rain that made it do that. There were actually parts of her hair that were reflective. I went a bit more gently as I dried off her face. I reached a towel up to dry off her ears, and she stirred. Erin and I froze, but Brittney didn’t do anything else.

“Careful,” Erin said. I went back to her ear, trying to dry it as carefully as I could manage. It wasn’t until I finished the second one that Brittney started to move again. She licked her lips and groaned. Her back legs stretched out, and Erin got out of their way, moving in front of Brittney’s head. She quickly dried her own hands out before putting them on either side of her sister’s head.

“Britt? Are you waking up? Are you ok? Do you feel hurt?” Erin’s face was dry, but I could hear the pain in her voice. Brittney’s eyelids twitched, but didn’t open.

“mmm handsss feel we-ahd…” she mumbled. She twirled a hoof around, then fell still again. Erin rain her fingers through Brittney’s mane, then leaned in and kissed her sister’s cheek. I bent down next to her.

“She’s going to be ok for tonight,” I started. Erin started shaking her head. “I mean she’s not freezing anymore.” The air coming out of the vents had graduated from dank cave to vaguely warm and dry. “You need to get dry,” I added, looking at her dripping clothes. Erin looked down as well.

We went upstairs, put Brittney in her bed, and changed. She grabbed some clothes from the closet and went to the bathroom to change. That was a bit unusual, and it seemed to take her longer than it should have to change clothes, but I was trying to clear my spinning head. I tried to call Alan. The last thing we needed was our other roommate coming home right now. Unfortunately, the storm must have been messing with the signal. I couldn't get through.

I was so glad they lived with us. I couldn't imagine trying to find them another place to stay or having to explain to even more people what the heck was going on. When Erin came back in, she looked up at me, eyes tearing up. I held her closely and she rested her forehead against my chest. We sat down on the edge of our bed.

"So..." I said.

"What just happened?" she said. "My sister... she's a pony?" Her voice cracked on the last word. "I mean, has she always been like this and she... or what if she doesn't remember me? Nick, what's going to happen?"

"I don't know," I said quietly. "I wish I did. But she's as safe as we can make her, and we can't do anything until we find out more."

"And me... I'm pink?"

I kissed her head. "We'll figure this out. I swear to you, we'll figure this out."

She took one of my hands in both of hers. “Um, so tonight… I’m worried what will happen to Brittney if she just wakes up by herself. I kind of want to be there for her when she… you know… finds out.”

“Yeah, I get it.” I said. “She’s… she’s going to need a lot of help.”

“I can’t believe any of this is real.” Erin said.

“Me too.” I agreed.

Erin stepped back again and looked up at me. She bit her lip before asking, “Do you think… she might have done this on purpose?”

“What? No!” I said. “I mean, yeah, she really likes ponies, but…”

“She really, really, likes ponies.” Erin said. “Haven't you ever been in her room? She has like twelve plushies and all the pillows and blankets and like a million little figures…”

“That’s… kind of normal…” I said, feeling flustered.

“And she has all these drawings of herself as a pony. Nick, she looks exactly like her drawings. She has the sparkling hair and the tattoo and everything.”

I remembered a little bit about Brittney’s OC. “No, because her character has wings and a horn. She doesn’t have either of those.”

“Maybe she’s not done changing! Or maybe, whatever turned her into a pony couldn’t pull off the wings and horn!”

I raised an eyebrow.

"Nick, all I know is my sister is way, way into this show and now she’s turned into one of them. I’m just… I don’t know what to think.”

She was quiet for a few seconds. “Nick… do you… know anything about this? Tell me the truth, do you know what happened to us?”

She looked up at me with an expression somewhere between “about to cry” and “about to punch.”

“No, of course not,” I said. “I have no idea why Brittney’s a pony, or why you’re pink.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “We are going to figure this out. Whatever the heck happened to you two tonight, we are going to find out how it happened and fix it. I promise I’m not going to rest until you’re both back to normal.”

Erin looked to the side, then back up at me. “Are you sure you don’t know anything?”

“I swear.” I said.

“Ok, let’s… we gotta talk to her when she wakes up. She’s gonna know something, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, “maybe. But we’ll find out. Someone’s going to know what happened.”

Erin nodded. “Yeah. I’m just freaking out right now. You need some sleep,” she added, swatting my arm.  She sighed, then stood up, holding my hand. We walked over to Brittney's room and took a peek inside. She was sleeping peacefully. At some point she'd grabbed her Pinkie Pie plushie and was holding it in her foreleg. She was sleeping on a Rainbow Dash pillow, with a mane 6 blanket, under a season three poster...

Ok, Erin might have had a point about how much stuff Brittney had. Beyond that, it was so surreal seeing her just lying there like that. There was a pony, a friggin cartoon pony, sleeping in my house. Oh, and that pony had been my girlfriend’s sister an hour ago.

Her ears twitched and she made a soft noise. We stepped out and closed the door, then I rested my head against the wall. I was too dang tired to figure this out tonight.

"What are we gonna do?" Erin asked. "I mean, do I need to get her dressed or what if she needs help walking or brushing her teeth-"

I pulled Erin close to me. “She’s fine, she’s an adult,” I said with a smile. “It’s cute that you want to take care of her.”

She hugged me. “I’m just so used to being the older sister and watching out for her and something like this… how do I help her out here?”

“We’ll find a way,” I promised. “Now get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m… I want to be there for her when she wakes up, so I think I should sleep in that room tonight.”

I knew there was something else she wanted to say. Something she wanted me to ask. I was asking myself the same question, and I didn’t have an answer. I don’t know how long it took me to fall asleep, running that question through my head over and over again.

What if Erin’s not done changing either?

It felt like I’d been asleep about five seconds when my phone started ringing. I smacked it a few times with my hand before getting a hold of it. I brought it up to my head.

“Mm-hmm.” I said.

“Still asleep? How are your lady friends doing, Nick?” I nearly panicked at that, my heart catching up to the idea way before my eyes and mouth did, but the caller continued. “You did get busy with, what was her name, Nancy? No? Not even Stephi?”

“Hello, Alan,” I grumbled, my panic having failed to fully pull me into wakefulness. Now all I had was a sort of tepid annoyance. I pulled myself out of bed, swinging around and standing up. “’s the con going well?”

“Oh crap, Nick, did you leave them hanging? You’re always with them, too.”

“Nancy” and “Stephi” were what Alan had drunkenly named my right and left hands.

“You can make fun of me all you want when you get a girlfriend.”

Alan sighed. “So are you guys ok? I heard some freaking huge storm hit you."

"Yeah, we're... we're ok," I said. "Tried to call you, actually, but the signal was crap."

"Good." he said. "So, the con freaking sucks. The idiot organizers closed it today, out of freaking nowhere, which is bull crap. They had a freaking agenda like two months ago! Something’s up. I think the government’s trying to shut down…”

“Uh huh,” I said, noticing light coming from the hall. He kept talking. I opened the door and took a step out, my eyes narrowing in the comparatively bright light. I could see Brittney in the bathroom, front legs on the counter. She was looking straight ahead initially, then turned and looked at herself in profile. Weirdly enough, she was smiling. Like, ear-to-ear grin.

I stepped back into my room. I wasn’t ready to process that just yet. Instead, I tried to pay attention to what Alan was saying.

“-got some freaking crazy costumes, though. Freaky as heck how realistic some of these things are. Anyway, wanted to let you know I was heading home early. I should be back by tonight, but it might be early morning.”

No. No, that was not ok. That was the opposite of ok.

“Nick? You still there?”

“Yeah. Alan, so, why can’t you stay at the convention? I mean, you went all the way out there,”

“I saw a lot of what I wanted to yesterday,” he replied, “and besides, the idiots aren’t even letting people in. I just saw an update go up on the con’s Facebook page apologizing and saying they’ll refund people.”

“No, you need to stay there. Or, can you… can’t they…” Trying to get my tired brain to come up with a plausible explanation or solution was like trying to start an old engine. Unhelpfully, Brittney chose that time to be super happy.

“I can’t believe I HAVE HOOVES! EEEEEE!”

Alan was quiet for several seconds. “Um, Nick, was that Brittney? What the heck did she say?”

I opened my door. “Look, I’ve got this under control. I mean, they’re not – just – can’t you stay a bit longer?”

“Uh, no, not after that. I’ll see you this afternoon.”

He hung up. Honestly, dang. That couldn’t have gone a lot worse. I don’t know if he fully heard what she’d said, but seriously, did she have to be so dang happy about this? And why the heck was she so happy? Did she want this? Did she do this to herself? I’d said no to that earlier, but now…

Ok. So, what the heck was going on with her? I stumbled into the bathroom, which made Brittney jump back. As soon as she saw me, though, she grinned again.

“Nick! Oh Celestia, I can’t believe it! I’m a pony I’m a pony I’m a pony…” She started actually bouncing. I was not ready for this crap. I grabbed her… shoulders? Yeah, we’ll go with shoulders.

“Ok, hon, that’s… wow, I didn’t know you… seriously?”

“Yep! Feel my eahs!” She started nuzzling my arm and rubbing her head against me, letting her ears rub my hand. On the one hand, holy heck, a “my little” pony was right in front of me. This was kind of awesome. On the other hand, it was Brittney. She was supposed to be human. I mean, what if she was contagious? What if she was actually possessed by an evil pony and trying to invade our world?

Ok, probably not that.

Brittney started nuzzling my other hand, bringing me back to reality. I pulled my arms back and stood up. Her ears, which had been straight up before, fell to either side as she frowned. She had a weird accent when she talked - it was like she didn't know where to put her tongue. Her Rs and Ls were pretty screwed up. “What’s wlong?”

“I… you! Aren’t you freaking out or scared?”

She shook her head, sitting on the floor and pulling her front legs into her chest. “No…”

“So this whole… pony thing…” I said, gesturing futilely at her, “that’s not… you’re really ok?”

“Yeah,” she said, her eyes starting to water. “Why ah you so mad at me?”

Great freaking job, hero. Calm your jets a bit. “No, Britt, I’m not…” I knelt down in front of her and put my hands back on her shoulders. “I’m just… we thought you’d be freaking out when you learned what happened to you. Are you sure this is ok?”

She looked to the side and put one hoof on her… crap if I know. Knee? That middle joint in her leg. Elbow, maybe. “I wanted this for a leally long time and… now it’s happened. Isn’t it ok fah me to be happy? I mean, I can start scleaming and clying if you think that’s bettah.”

“No, look, I mean, we thought you, your hands…” Nothing. I had nothing. Brittney sniffled.

“I thought I was pletty cute…” she mumbled.

And here comes the guilt train, full speed ahead.

“Look, Brittney,” I said, “I’m sorry. It’s just… you almost died last night. Erin and I were freaking out, because we had no idea what was going on or what would happen to you. I mean,” here I shrugged and gestured at her body, “you’re cute. You’re freaking adorable, and it’s great that you’re ok with this, really. We just… we weren’t sure if you’d really be ok with this.”

She smiled softly, and her ears perked up a little bit. "Am I pletty like Hainbow Dash, or am I beautiful like Lality?" She frowned. "Laaahity. La... rr... Rar-i-ty."

“Well, I’m going to see how Erin’s doing,” I said, and stood up.

“She’s up!” Brittney said. “But she won’t get out of bed for some heeason. I wanted to see if she's diffenent but she’s kind of a pahty-poopah.” She frowned again. "Why can't I say my ahs? Oh! It's because I have a muzzle!" She stood up and got in front of the mirror again. I saw her pull her lips back with a hoof just before I left the bathroom.