Motion sickness affects thousands of people. Some get nauseous in cars, others blow chunks on planes, and still others lose it on boats. But all those pale in comparison to having your atoms torn apart and reassembled during interdimensional travel. As soon as Flash walked through the portal he saw his arms elongate before him; he could feel himself being pulled apart, and then a bright flash of white light followed by darkness.

When he came to; his head was pounding and he felt like he was going to vomit. He couldn't open his eyes or even hear. For awhile he was trapped inside the feelings of his own body. Slowly he began to feel the floor he was laying on, the temperature of the environment he was in, and sounds began to filter back into his ears.

"Flash, flash, are you ok?"

It was Sunset's voice. He could hear she was worried. Apparently she had faired much better than he had. He moaned with nausea and his muscles ached all over. He slowly opened his eyes but all that did was trade blackness for darkness and a bunch of blurry, misshapen objects. Apparently it was night time here in Twilight's world as well (although there was some sort of light coming from somewhere).

"FLASH! ARE YOU OK?"

Sunset's voice was louder and more frantic. He knew he had to say something. I got to stand, he thought to himself. He moaned more as he tried to get to his feet. Everything felt wrong. His body didn't respond as it should; his muscles felt out of place. He couldn't feel his fingers or toes. No, wait, he couldn't feel his hands or feet period. He was now scared. What had happened to him? Did going through the portal paralyze him? Oh God, if so, what was he going to do? "Sunset!" he quietly said. It was the best he could do.

Sunset felt stupid. She was a magical being; protected from the worst effects of the portal. Flash was merely a human. What if she had misjudged the effects traveling would have on him. This was bad, really bad. Then she heard him softly croak out her name. It wasn't much, but it was something. "Flash; stay calm. Take it nice and slow. Your body, . . . has been through a lot."

"No crap," he gently chided. His voice was becoming stronger. He had the sensation of being up, yet also being on all fours. His eyesight was also returning. He slowly began to see the light was coming from a cone shaped object. Eventually he saw it was coming from a "UNICORN!" Flash shouted.

The unicorn turned it's head and seemed to grin. Then it spoke, "Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention that didn't I?" It was Sunset Shimmer's voice.

Flash couldn't believe what he was seeing. Before him stood a tan unicorn with Sunset's voice. How could this be? Then his eyes caught something. In front of him, where his nose should have been was a muzzle, a horses muzzle. He turned his head all around to see as much of himself as possible. He had a horse's legs, a horse's body, and wings? What was going on here?

He turned back to the unicorn. "Sunset, is that you?" he asked with both fear and hope.

"Ta-da," she said sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I should have told you that in my universe, we're all ponies. Well, not all ponies. We have yaks, donkey's, cows, zebras, horses, oh, dragons . . ."

"You're a unicorn!" Flash said in disbelief. Unicorns were myths, legends. How could they be real? How could any of this be real?

"Yes. And you're a Pegasus. I think you already saw your wings." Sunset was being as gentle as she could. She remembered what it was like when she first discovered her alternate body. It was a horrifying experience. She was going to try her best to ease Flash into his. It was the least she could do.

Flash look back and stretched out his wings. Surprisingly it took very little effort to do so. It appeared that his mind and body were beginning to adjust to each other. "Um, uh, ok, sure, wow. I have to admit; this is a surprise." He finished with a slight laugh. After the initial shock; he was actually starting to enjoy his new form. He was a Pegasus. How many people could claim that? And he realized that once he stepped back through, he'd change back. So it was really no big . . . "I'm naked!" he yelled as that fact finally dawned on him.

Sunset laughed. Humans and their strange morality. "So are most of us here. It's not a big thing. It's not like on your world where people, ponies, whatever, are sex crazed maniacs."

"But what if I see your, you know. Your kitty?" Flash was more embarrassed than he had ever been. He was alone, with a female, and they were both naked.

Sunset laughed again, laid down, and rolled over onto her back and exposed all her kibbles and bits to him. "See anything you like big boy?" she asked in her best fake seductive voice.

"ACK!" Flash shouted and looked away in disgust. "No! Ugh; that was horrible. Horse poon really isn't my thing. Yuck!"

Sunset laughed as hard as she ever did; nearly peeing herself. When she was able to stop, she rolled over and stood up. "Ok, so I think we're good then."

"Yeah; more than," Flash said, still trying to get what he had just seen out of his head. Then another thought occurred to him. "Uh, is this what Twilight is?"

Sunset suddenly got very quiet. What was she supposed to say? If she told him the truth, he might run off and never want to see Twilight again. But then maybe that is exactly why she should tell him the truth. "No, not quite. As a princess, she would be an alicorn. Which means she would have a unicorn's horn, but a Pegasus's wings. But, yes Flash, she would have a body like this."

Flash got very quiet and turned around and looked down. What was he going to do? He knew Twilight as a cute, Japanese girl. But if this was who, what, she truly was, how would he be able to deal with that? He suddenly had a mental image of him cruising horse barns back home and shuddered.

"Are you ok?" Sunset asked softly; her heart breaking for him.

"Yeah. Let's find Twilight."

*********************************************************************************************************************

"Ok, I have a question for you," Flash said as they walked through the castle in search of Twilight.

"Alright," Sunset answered back. She wanted to do anything she could to make Flash feel better.

"How? How do you do anything over here? Without hands I mean. I've helped my dad out on the job during the summers and, well, how can you build anything without hands? Or cook? Or, well, anything?"

"Oh. Well, good question. Um, unicorns, like me, have magic. We can move things with our minds and such. The others, they use their mouths for some things. But, and I can't believe I never thought of this before, but things just stick to our hooves." Sunset suddenly realized how absurd that sounded.

"But your legs, they don't move like our arms do. The bone and muscle structure is different."

"Look." Sunset turned around to show Flash how she could move her fore leg. She moved up, down, and all around. Which also struck her as weird for the first time. How was she able to do that?

"What? You just raised your leg up and down." Flash was confused. What was she trying to do?

"Hold on," Sunset said, confused herself now. "You didn't see me raise it above my head and wave around?"

"No!" Flash felt even more confused and was beginning to think she was trying to fool him.

Sunset was becoming concerned. "Flash, describe to me what I look like."

"Uh, your tan with a brown mane and tail. Brown eyes. I don't know; you're a unicorn."

"Flash, I'm dandelion colored with a red and yellow mane and tail, teal eyes, and a picture of a sun on my flank. You don't see any of that?"

"Uh, no. In fact I'm still trying to figure out how you're forming words. I see your mouth moving, but your lips aren't actually forming anything. I don't even know how I'm forming words."

Another question suddenly came to Sunset. "How do I look back in your world?"

"White, emerald green eyes, red hair. Typical celtic woman. I guess I shouldn't say typical. But, Irish."

Sunset finally figured out what was going on. "Flash, you are not seeing me as I am. What you are seeing is a reflection of me that your mind can comprehend; both in this world and yours. Mine is too. I see you as yellow with blue hair back in your world and yellow furred with a blue mane and tail and a shield with a lightening bolt on it on your flank. Amazing." Susnet's mind started to real with all the new implications of what she just found out.

"I don't get it." Flash stopped and thought for a second. "And I don't want to. I just want to see Twilight." If, for whatever reason, he wasn't seeing Sunset as she was, then maybe he could force himself not to think of Twilight as a pony.

The two searched and searched but found no trace of anyone.

"Sunset, it's getting late. My parents are probably worried sick right now. I'm already expecting to be grounded." Flash started but was cut off.

"So then staying a little longer won't hurt anything."

"How much longer are we going to search? She's not here. Probably doing princessy stuff somewhere else. Let's just go home." Now Flash was to the point of begging.

"I am home Flash. And we will. There's just one place I want to visit while I'm here."

"WHAT! Un-uh! No. We came here to find Twilight and to get her to close the portal. I'm not going sight seeing. No!"

"Flash," Sunset said softly with an undercurrent of sadness. "I want to go to my parent's grave."

Author's Note

Part 3: Luna and a special surprise guest.