Fluttershy awoke to complete darkness. She was somewhere tight, warm and wet. Not that she’d have much luck at the moment pondering where she was: it felt like there were were two tiny earth stallions inside her head kicking at her brain over and over again. She tried to turn over and get more comfortable, wherever she was, as well as piece together what had happened the night before. She remembered going out drinking with her friends but not much else. In her movements, a hoof brushed against something in the darkness with her. Briefly surprised, she felt at it in the dark and followed it from where she had touched it. Slowly she traced it back to her belly. It was attached to her belly! And shortly after the first realization came a second: she felt smaller and younger than she remembered being. Confused by where she was and surprised by the tube attached to her, she did the only thing she could think of: she kicked lightly. She was unsure if it would do any good but when something pressed back against her kick she knew it had worked. But what was pressed against her?
“Oh! Good morning Fluttershy!” There was a small giggle as Twilight rubbed gently over her rounded belly. “My, you're much smaller than what you estimated last night. Why, you must be less than five years old, I bet.”
“Twilight? Where…? What's going on?” came Fluttershy’s muffled questions.
“You mean you don't remember?” asked Twilight, her tone indicating she expected that question. “Well, you had been drinking Applejack’s cider and you got pretty tanked last night.”
Fluttershy shook her head slightly, as if to shake the cobwebs from inside. That would explain her splitting headache, sure, but that didn’t explain where she was. “I… I really don’t remember, Twilight! Where am I? What’s going on?” she asked, a slight waver in her voice. Her tone was curious mixed with a tiny smidge of fear.
Twilight let out a small, motherly coo as she continued to rub over her belly. “Why, you’re in my belly,” she explained simply. This response caused Fluttershy to panic and thrash around. Twilight was quick to respond, though, and reassure her friend.
“Well, no, not my belly. You’re in my womb. It was my brilliant, albeit drunken idea!” Fluttershy could just imagine the smug look on Twilight’s face. “You see,I had come up with a new spell that I wanted to try out. It allows any bearer of an element of harmony to take in an injured pony into their womb and heal them. I have nearly perfect control over it, but it’s mostly automatic.” Twilight paused. “And I needed a volunteer to test the spell, so I asked you if you’d help me! Remember?”
Fluttershy groaned as the two ponies in her head started to clog dance. Trying to recall the night just made her hangover worse. Not that remembering helped; most of the night was a complete blur to her. But not all. There were a few bits and pieces that were somewhat clear. There had been drinking… lots of drinking… a kiss to Pinkie Pie… a DEEP french kiss to Pinkie Pie… just how much had she drunk to try kissing Pinkie of all ponies? Then there was a brief memory of Fluttershy agreeing to something Twilight had asked but… she didn’t remember at all what that something was. She remembered finding herself staring at Twilight’s backside before her face was pressed against Twilight’s vaginal lips… making out with the pussy, then a warm wetness creeping up over her face and body… and then… nothing. Just a large blank.
“Heal? Spell? I… I don’t… I don’t remember,” Fluttershy groaned out. There was a beat. “Wait, you shoved me up your pussy! I’m in your womb!” Another beat. “And why was I making out with Pinkie Pie?!” Before she could get an answer to her question, Fluttershy saw a glow envelop her whole body. Strength seemed to sap away from her and her tiny wings grew even smaller until they had nearly disappeared. She could feel her age continue to regress but oddly, her mind stayed intact. “What’s… happening?” Her voice sounded much younger than before.
“There we are, almost done with the first part,” Twilight cooed out. “You see, this spell lets me, or any of the elements of harmony, take a pony inside their womb. An umbilical cord attaches to the pony for the duration, then the pony is regressed backwards in time to a point before an injury, then restores them back to their proper age,” Twilight explained. “Thus healing the pony. Both the regression and the progression can be either fast or slow, depending on the injury and the severity of it.” Twilight smiled softly as she continued. “Or put simply, I can make you as young as I want and I can return you to your proper age as fast or as slow as I want, and any injuries sustained will be healed.”
Fluttershy could at least understand the short explanation, except for one thing. “But..” she groaned out while she reached up to rub at her temple. “If this is supposed to heal ponies, why does my head still hurt from a hangover?”
“Well, I wanted the first run to not include anything that would change things with your mind,” responded Twilight. “There’s a version of the spell that would heal things with the mind, too, like erasing memories or curing a hangover, but I wanted to just test the body healing portion first.”
At that point, Twilight’s belly began to glow again and shrink further, along with the pony inside of her. “This will probably regress you enough to where you won’t be able to say anything anymore, so don’t be scared.” Twilight smiled happily. “If this works, think of all the ponies we can help!” Her belly emitted a bright glow as it continued to shrink, de-aging the pony inside too young to speak any more.
Twilight rubbed over her belly, about to cast her spell to start the re-aging process when a thought crossed her mind. How powerful, exactly, was the spell she had created? What was its’ limit? Her naturally curious nature got the better of her and, instead of casting the re-aging spell she activated her unbirth spell again. Magic surged through her womb as the pony inside shrank further and turned even younger.
Fluttershy, fully aware of what was happening to her, was confused. Why was she continuing to get younger? Wasn’t it about time to cast the re-aging spell? She kicked at the womb wall to get Twilight’s attention, but it seemed to have no effect. With the last round of glowing, she was certain she was around 1 year old at that point. Any further…
But it did go further. Twilight wasn’t about to stop her experiment until she had all the data she needed. She watched in fascination as her belly became completely flat as if there was no pony inside of her. She took extensive notes on the process and used her magic to monitor the progress.
Fluttershy passed 1 year old, then 6 months, one month. At that point, Fluttershy rapidly grew younger and younger, shrinking down until she was nearly back to a sperm and egg. Surely Twilight would stop now that she was the youngest she could get before…
But Twilight didn’t stop. Her magic continued working until what little was left of Fluttershy finally split back into just a sperm and egg. Twilight was finally satisfied with her experiment. She could de-age a pony to just before conception! The implication for this development rushed through her mind.
“I could use this spell to help ponies who get adopted!” Twilight cried out happily. “Allowing an adopted pony to be de-aged in their new mother’s womb to a sperm could allow for fertilization of the mother’s own eggs, which would make the pony the actual son of their adoptive mother!” But first things first, she had to return Fluttershy back to her proper age.
She cast the spell to start the re-aging process on Fluttershy. She waited a few seconds then used her magic to scan her belly and monitor the progress. Her scan found nothing. She scanned a second time and found nothing was happening.
“I hadn’t cast the re-aging spell wrong did I?”
A third scan of her belly and she gasped, realizing her mistake. While her womb was able to grow and sustain life, she wasn’t in heat. Which meant the environment when the sperm and egg split was hostile to the separate parts. Her magic scan showed the egg from Mrs. Shy was still intact, but the sperm was no longer moving. There was no way to return the two together and bring back What’s Her Name. Flutter something.
She wrote down in her notes about not attempting the split unless the mare was in heat. Once written down, Twilight sighed. “Well that’s obviously not an outcome I was expecting. Hopefully nopony will be TOO upset with what happened to… to…” Twilight blinked and tilted her head. “I… who was I experimenting on?” She glanced back down at her notes and hummed slightly. Every instance of where a name should be now just said ‘Test Subject’. It was as if the pony inside of her had never existed in the first place. She shrugged and wrote at the bottom of her notes two words: ‘Experiment Failed.’