Sunset was relaxing in her apartment watching TV when she glanced at the clock and decided it was time to get ready for bed. Luckily it was Saturday and she was having a chill day so she hadn’t taken off her pajamas since she woke up in the morning so all she had to do was brush her teeth and then just plop in bed. Once she entered her bathroom she reached for her toothbrush but due to spending all day on the couch she found the task far more draining then it should have been. She decided for the umpteenth time to see if maybe her geode had given her her levitation magic back and tried to lift her toothbrush with her mind instead, only for nothing to happen. She sighed and went back to picking it up with her hands. After that was done she took off her geode sat it on her bedside table and laid down in bed. As she laid there she reached her hand up in the air looking at it and sighing.
“You know as much as I love my new life here way more then my old life in Equestria sometimes I wish I could just have my old body back for a little bit,” she said to herself as she drifted off to sleep. As her eyes were closing though she thought she saw her geode glowing slightly but she was too tired to really think about it and fell asleep anyway.
The next day was Sunday so Sunset hadn’t set her alarm and woke up as the sun shined through her window. She yawned and starting walking to her bathroom to get ready for the day but as she walked with her barely opened eyes she felt as though something was off. Her balance felt weird and she felt like she was going to fall over with each step. “I must have stayed up later than I thought,” she yawned and then continued saying, “Maybe I should grab a nap on the couch later.” She walked into the bathroom and reached out her hand to grab her toothbrush which is when she finally noticed that it was not a hand but a hoof. She then fully opened her eyes for the first time that morning and saw herself in the mirror and was agasp to see that she was a pony again. She screamed in shock about what she saw as she was looking down at herself and she began trotting out of her bathroom and panicking.
“HOW? WHAT?” she began saying this and other such nonsense as she struggled to make sense of what was going on. That’s when she realised she needed to calm down and tried the relaxation technique Princess Twilight had told her about. She placed one of her front hooves in front of her chest, took a deep breath in, and then breathed out while moving her hoof forward as she did so. She instantly felt better and said, “Hmmm gonna have to thank Twilight for showing me that next time I see her. Now then time to think about this logically,” she paused as she tried to come up with an answer for her sudden change back to pony form. “Well I guess the first thing is to remember what I did last night. OK so I stayed up late to watch the Sci-Fi movie marathon then I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and tried to use magic to lift my toothbrush, again, and failed, again, then I went to sleep kind of wishing to be a pony again…” she trailed off for a minute as the pieces of what happened came together. “That’s it! I must still be asleep and this is all a dream. What with all my thoughts about being a pony again and just how tired I was it would make sense that I would have a vivid dream like this. Haha Sunset and you were freaking out over nothing,” she said to herself.
“Well if this is a dream then I might as well just wake up already and end it,” she said. “Hmm can’t exactly pinch myself with hooves so I guess I’ll have to think of something else,” she looked around her apartment and noticed that she left the door to her bathroom open in her shock. “BINGO,” she said before trotting over to the door as she stuck one front hoof in between the door and the door jam and grabbed the door itself with the other hoof getting ready to slam the door into her hoof. She winced for a minute before saying to herself, “Come on Sunset it’s only a dream, you’re not gonna feel any pain you're just gonna wake up in your bed and be just fine.” She then went ahead and slammed the door on her front hoof before feeling an immediate rush of pain run up her now confirmed to be real front leg.
“OH SWEET CELESTIA THIS IS NOT A DREAM AND THAT HURT LIKE TARTARUS!” she yelled as she started blowing on her hoof trying to relieve the pain. After some time passed her hoof started to feel better and Sunset had a brief moment of peace before remembering her situation again. “OK Sunset so this isn’t a dream then what? What else happened last night OK I was laying in bed wishing to be a pony again and then I started to close my eyes, I saw my geode glow then….” she stopped talking as she realized what she had just said and ran back to her room and looked at her geode. “Hmmm. Well it looks the same,” she picked it up and began inspecting it further before her panic overtook her again, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU SINCE WHEN DO YOU GRANT WISHES! Uhhh I thought that our magic was under control now that everybody knows we can’t use our powers too often.” She then realized that if anyone could figure out what was going on and fix this it would be Princess Twilight and our friends. She went over to her desk and reached out to the book to talk to Princess Twilight with her hoof before remembering she was a pony and grabbing it with her magic field. “Hmmm. At least I have this again,” she said before realizing that with magic she wasn’t as limited as she was with hands and while she was still writing in her journal she also picked up her phone and started working on a group text to her friends.
At that point she paused and began to wonder out loud, “Maybe I don’t need to get this fixed I mean I did want to be a pony again and this way I can still have my life in this world... No if my geode did this to me that means the magic is going haywire again and I can’t just ignore this. Who knows what will happen to my friends if we don’t get this fixed,” she said before finishing the texts and letter respectively. Both roughly said “I need you to come over to my place right now there is something going on with my magic,” with the added note to her friends at Canterlot High that Princess Twilight was coming as well so they had to stop by the statue to take her to her apartment as she didn’t know where it was. It didn’t take long for everyone to text, or write, back there responses which where all some version of “I’m on my way.”
She then sighed and went to lay on her couch saying, “Well I guess there is nothing to do now but sit and wait.” Before grabbing her TV remote in her magic field and flipping it on. “OH Cool the movie marathon is still on… and I am weirdly calm despite what’s happening right now,” she said before realizing, “Well I guess it wouldn’t do me any good to just worry until my friends get here, and while we definitely need to figure out what caused this before the magic does something worse I might as well enjoy being a pony again while I can.” She then looked into her kitchen and used her magic to levitate a bag of popcorn into the microwave and start it up. After the time ran out she levitated the bag over to herself and began eating. “Ahh I missed that,” she said before turning back to the movie and waiting for her friends.
*1 hour later*
The humane six plus Princess Twilight and Starlight Glimmer, who elected to come as she was with Twilight when she got the message and she was concerned about their friend as well. They all knocked on the door and did not get back any answer and then they became more concerned and knocked again to again have no response.
“What could be going on Sunset sent a message to us all to come and now she is not answering her door,” said Rarity.
“Pffth maybe this is just some kind of prank or something,” said Rainbow Dash.
“Now Rainbow you know Sunset isn’t really the pranking type and even if she was she would never go this far something else must be going on,” said Applejack.
“Well it did sound pretty bad maybe she’s hurt and can’t come to the door,” said Fluttershy.
“OH NO WE HAVE TO SAVE HER QUICK EVERYONE LOOK FOR A SPARE KEY!” said Pinkie Pie as she began looking under rocks and plants around the door to see if there was a key.
“I have a spare key she gave me,” said Sci-Twi.
“WHAT YOU HAD A KEY AND DIDN’T TELL US!” said Pinkie Pie as she shook Sci-Twi a little.
“Well it’s only for emergencies,” said Sci-Twi.
“And you didn’t think this was an emergency?” said Rainbow Dash.
Before anyone else could say anything else Princess Twilight spoke up, “Girls calm down I know we are all worried about Sunset but fighting with each other isn’t getting us anywhere,” she then turned to Sci-Twi and said, “Twilight trust me if anyone knows what it’s like to overthink a social situation it’s me but even if what Sunset wrote us all about isn’t as bad as we are imagining I think she will understand if you use her key.”
“OK here goes,” said Sci-Twi as she pulled out the key and opened the door. What they saw was something none of them expected.
They all were shocked to see what appeared to most of them to be an orange and red pony laying upside down on Sunset’s couch but Princess Twilight and Starlight ran over to her yelling, “SUNSET!”
The pony then stood up and said, “GIRLS! Oh thank goodness you're all here.”
“Wait that’s Sunset?” said Rainbow Dash.
“Oh my gosh...she is so adorable,” said Fluttershy before looking somewhat embarrassed as she realized who they were talking about.
“Yes this is Sunset in the pony form she has in Equestria but how in the hay are you like this now?” said Starlight.
“I don’t know I think it has something to do with my geode. I saw it glowing as I was falling asleep last night but I was too tired to really think about it,” she was about to go into further detail when her friends suddenly spoke up.
“OH THIS IS ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL NOW YOU CAN’T WEAR ANY OF THE OUTFITS I MADE YOU!” said Rarity.
“That’s probably the least of her concerns Rarity. I mean how is she going to go school like this, everybody well be staring at her and the animal lovers like Fluttershy here will have to fight the urge to pet her,” said Applejack as she gestured over to Fluttershy.
Fluttershy appeared to be trying to literally hold herself back as she muttered, “She's not a cute animal she’s your friend, she’s not a cute animal she’s your friend,” over and over again.
Sunset saw how uncomfortable her friends looked and decided it was best to not tell them she wanted this before saying, “Yeah it’s just awful! That’s why I called you all over to fix this.”
Princess Twilight and Sci-Twi both began looking at her geode which was setting on table.
“Hmmm from what you told me in your letters these geodes seem to function very similarly to the elements of harmony back in Equestria,” said Princess Twilight.
“Hmmm and as we learned during the Friendship Games all of our magic is tied specifically to us and comes out when we show our true selves,” said Sci-Twi.
“If that is the case than maybe Sunset’s geode took the whole “true self” thing a little too literally and undid whatever magic the portal used to turn her human,” said Princess Twilight.
“Wait so this only happened because I am from Equestria and none of you are in danger of your geodes doing anything like this to you?” said Sunset looking at her friends.
“In theory all of us should be fine but for now we should worry about turning you back into a human,” said Sci-Twi.
“Yeah after what you’ve been through I don’t think you want to deal with anyone at school looking at you weird again and besides I don’t think Fluttershy can hold herself back for much longer and trust me I’ve seen her with the new animals at the shelter and let’s just say that some of them end up having a little less fur then they started with,” said Rainbow Dash.
Fluttershy who was now holding herself and crouching on the floor looked up at Rainbow Dash and said, “I don’t mean to take their fur off it’s just the are so scared about being in a new place and I just want to keep petting them and petting them tell they feel better… Sunset you’re probably stressed out from all this maybe I could help you feel better,” she said reaching out a hand before Applejack knocked it back.
“Umm yeah I really want to turn human again. Can you girls figure this?” she said looking at the two Twilight’s while also noticing that Starlight seemed to be looking at her funny now.
“Hmm we should be able to look at everyone else’s geodes and see what is different about their magical energy and change it back to normal so you’ll be human again,” said Princess Twilight.
“I have all my magic spectrometers and other equipment outside in my car. As soon as Sunset said it was a magic emergency I got all my stuff packed and ready,” said Sci-Twi.
“WAIT! You really found a way to measure magic with the technology here!” Princess Twilight said suddenly excited.
“Yeah. I couldn’t believe it myself but I was able to recalibrate some electric and radiation reading equipment from my lab to specifically target magic,” said Sci-Twi matching her excitement.
“WOW. When I saw how advanced the stuff in your world was I was hoping I’d get to use it for experiments but I figured that since most of the people here don’t know about magic I would have to build new equipment from the ground up. I can’t believe it was that simple this whole time,” said Princess Twilight even more excited.
“I KNOW RIGHT! This makes me wonder if any odd energy reading in previous experiments could have been stray magic flowing into our world and nobody know it,” said Sci-Twi once again matching the Princess’s excitement.
“OK. Why don’t you all go outside and get the readings on the geodes while I stay here with Sunset,” said Starlight.
“Good idea Starlight,” said Princes Twilight before turning to Sci-Twi, “OHH! I am just so excited to meet someone who’s scientific curiosity matches my own.”
“Same here! Now come on I want you to see my equipment,” said Sci-Twi giddely as she and the rest of the girls went outside.
After they all were gone Starlight looked at Sunset and said, “OK. What’s up?”
“What do you mean?” said Sunset.
“I mean that your laying on the couch watching TV, you have an empty bag of popcorn next to you, and judging by how you didn’t answer when we knocked on your door I’m guessing you were taking a nap,” said Starlight.
“Ohh that. Well I was trying to keep calm and relax while I was waiting for all of you to show up and fix this,” said Sunset.
“Yeah right. Listen Sunset I have seen you freaking out but trying to put on a brave face when you were worrying about the magic before the movie premiere, but more importantly I have seen you relax for real with your friends and judging by what I am seeing now you were really relaxed and content before we got here, like more so than I may have ever seen you before,” said Starlight.
“UHH! OK your right. I actually don’t mind being a pony again. In fact I have been wishing to be one again for awhile but of course nowhere near enough to go back Equestria and leave my friends,” said Sunset.
“So then why did you write all of us saying you had a problem if you wanted this?” said Starlight.
“Because I was worried that my friends geodes were going all weird as well but now that I know it’s just mine I am not freaked out anymore,” said Sunset.
“Well if that’s the case than it seems like this is the best situation for you. You can be a pony again and still hang out with your friends here,” said Starlight.
“Yeah but you heard how much they freaked out about this! Sure I may be cool with walking around the school and stuff as a pony but I wouldn’t want to make any of them uncomfortable or upset,” said Sunset.
“Sunset they are your friends I’m sure they’ll understand and accept you no matter what your choice is,” said Starlight but before Sunset could respond the others came back into the apartment where she noticed that Princess Twilight was holding her geode while Sci-Twi was holding some strange device with a wire sticking out of it.
“Good news! We figured it out!” said Sci-Twi.
“Yes essentially our theory was right. Your geode is emitting a wave that is undoing the magic that the portal did to turn you human,” said Princess Twilight.
“And using this energy modulator,” said Sci-Twi gesturing to her device, “all we have to do is put the geode around your neck and then attach this wire to it and we should be able to make the wavelength of your geode just like everyone else's again.”
“That’s great!” said Sunset with a fake smile as Starlight looked at her knowing she was faking.
Princess Twilight reached over and put the geode around Sunset’s neck while Sci-Twi seemed to be punching in the last few commands into her energy modulator. Meanwhile Starlight just kept looking at Sunset and urging her to say what was on her mind. Finally Sunset saw Sci-Twi moving the wire towards her geode and the full weight of how different what she was doing and what she really wanted finally hit her.
“WAIT!!!” she yelled as she jumped back from Sci-Twi and noticed how stunned her friends looked. She then looked over to Starlight for help but she had a look in her eyes that seemed to say “Only you can tell them what you want.”
Sunset then sighed and said, “I want to be a pony. I have for a while now but I never quite realized how much until I got to be one again for a day and it’s definitely what I want.”
Her friends looked at each other before Rainbow Dash walked up and said, “Well why didn’t you say so?”
“What? Your not upset or anything?” said Sunset.
“Why of course not darling it’s your choice how you want to live and you know we will always support you no matter what,” said Rarity.
“But you all freaked out when you saw me and started talking about how awkward it would be at school for me and all,” said Sunset.
“Well that’s just because we thought you would be worried about that stuff. I mean it wasn’t very long ago everyone was looking at you funny for all the bad stuff you did. We figured you wouldn’t want them to have a new reason to stare at you or judge you,” said Applejack.
“I got used to all of them judging me and can deal with that again if I have to. I just didn’t want any of you to feel awkward around me or judge me because I went through that with the whole memory stone incident and I know for sure I never want to do that again,” said Sunset.
“Sunset. We all care about you and want you to be happy and if this is what makes you happy then of course we are OK with it,” said Sci-Twi
Sunset looked at all of her friends and saw that they all nodded in agreement and smiled warmly, except for Starlight who had a slight smug I told you so look on her face. Sunset’s eyes filled with tears of joy as she said, “I am so lucky to have friends like you, I admit part of me is going to miss buying clothes and stuff with you all at the mall but I really feel like I like myself better this way and am so glad you all think that’s OK.”
Everyone else had a few tears of joy come to their eyes at hearing Sunset’s heartfelt words before Pinkie Pie burst forward and said, “GROUP HUG!”
They all crowded around Sunset and wrapped their arms around her and each other While Sunset welcomed the embrace and in that moment she wished she was human again so that she would have arms long enough to fit around them all. Just then Sunset’s geode started glowing and everyone backed away as she was completely enveloped in light and it flashed so brightly that they had to cover their eyes. When they opened them again they were shocked to see Sunset was human again and standing there in her pajamas.
“Oh my gosh Sunset. I am so sorry it looks like the transformation was only temporary,” said Sci-Twi.
Sunset reached out her hand and grabbed her geode thinking before saying, “Actually I don’t think that’s it.”
“What do you mean?” said Fluttershy
“I need to try something,” said Sunset who then closed her eyes and said, “I want to be a pony,” afterwards her geode began glowing again completely enveloping Sunset’s body in light and once again forcing everyone to close their eyes and once they opened them they saw that she was a pony again.
“Wuh so now you can turn back and forth whenever you want?” said Rainbow slightly confused.
“Hmmm the geode must respond to her personal desires and image of self,” said Princess Twilight.
“This might have something to do with the fact that your power of empathy is specifically emotionally driven so your geode is more emotionally attuned to you then ours,” said Sci-Twi.
“OK enough with the technical stuff the point is this is great right Sunset,” said Starlight looking at her.
“It is! Now I can be a pony as much I want but then also be a human again whenever I feel like trying on clothes with you or need to go driving or whatever. This is just perfect! But it’s even better knowing that even if I couldn’t turn back to a human you’d all be fine with that,” said Sunset as she looked at all her friends who were smiling at her except for Fluttershy who was once again fighting the urge to pet her. She sighed and with a smile said, “Go ahead Fluttershy I know you can’t hold back for much longer anyway.”
Fluttershy then squeed and with a smile on her face ran up to Sunset and started scratching behind her ears. Sunset was thinking that this actually felt kind of nice when she noticed that her other friends were snickering and then she looked behind her and saw her back leg was kicking like a dogs. She quickly yelled, “I WANT TO BE A HUMAN!” Fluttershy then backed away as Sunset became human again. Sunset then chuckled and looked at her friends before saying, “Maybe there are some bad things about being a pony I hadn’t thought of," before they all started laughing with each other.
Author's Note
This is my first ever long story so I am not sure if I really got the pacing right. If you any of you have any constructive criticism please let me know in the comment section. I am also thinking making an anthology sequel to this about Sunset being a pony in various situations and others reactions depending on how well received this story is so let me know if that is something you want to see. Finally I know that there are plenty of fanfics that feature this idea, way to many to read, and I am glad that you all choice to read mine and hoped you liked it. Thank you.
