They Turned Me Into a Newt! I Did Not Get Better
They Turned Me Into a Newt! I Did Not Get Better
My apartment was a mess. Normally, I'd feel inclined to pick it all up. But this was the kind of mess that was fated to get worse before I could make it better. My kitties Luau and Katydid were having a fight. I wouldn't have given it another thought if they weren't also the size of small horses with long manes, horns, and wings.
Puddie was peacefully sleeping near the door. Tifa was shivering under Puddie's left wing. Meanwhile, I was sitting just next to them. I kept rubbing my eyes, trying to get my worldview back to normal. But the surreal sight of it all wasn't leaving.
I tried leaning back into Puddie's mane for comfort. Although she purred in satisfaction, I couldn't go back to sleep with Katydid constantly shouting. Luau wasn't exactly helping with her tendency to swat with one of her front hooves. It was bigger and heavier than her paw was yesterday, angered Katydid even further, and started the whole fight over again.
"Puddie? Could you tell them to calm down?" I tried to massage my headache away. "I'd rather they not bring this place toppling down, forcing us all to sleep under potential rainfall."
"Hmm?" Puddie kept her smug look, even on her horse-like face. "Oh, very well."
Puddie did a wake-up stretch before standing up to her full height. Tifa whimpered at the sudden lack of a feathery shelter. I gently held out a hand palm-side up. Tifa sniffed at it before lowering her head onto it and holding her hooves tightly around my arm. Puddie had walked around and spread her wings wide.
I was confused when a golden glow started growing above her head. Was that... her horn? I wasn't ready for a forest to grow indoors on the second floor. Apparently, this unicorn magic had a different idea in mind altogether.
"You two." Puddie's new voice reverberated. It was so will-piercing, that I could have sworn the words were as much inside my head as they were outside. "Kiss and make up."
A similar golden glow surrounded the struggling cats-turned-ponies. Their eyes opened wide in surprise before they were gently rubbing necks against each other. Hooves were shaking around, trying everything they could to pull the two apart. However, they were losing against the force that was Puddie's will.
"Alright, alright, we'll stop!" Katydid held up her front hooves in surrender, as much as she could while being pressed against another creature.
"Release us, now!" Luau's horn glowed in a bluer tone. To compare it to Puddie's golden magic, Luau's was a bit more subdued. She managed to drop to the floor, panting heavily as if she had exhausted herself.
My eyes were stuck in the widely open position. My arms were no better, firmly gripped around my poor Tifa. Her shaking and mine compounded each other. It felt like our own little earthquake. I struggled to bring words to my mouth, yet found none to be said.
"Don't ever do that again." Katydid growled at Puddie.
"No promises." Puddie's tail shook rhythmically as her wings casually folded against her sides.
The little lavender mass of hide and feathers shivered in my arms. "Arlin? I'm scared."
"That's my line..." I whimpered in kind.
Something started whirring in my ear. I didn't want any more weird things happening today. Sadly, today wasn't in the mood for obliging with my desires. I turned my head slowly and saw that Tifa's horn was glowing like a glittery pink rose. It sounded like a really soft series of bells ringing as it sparkled.
In an instant, this light grew out exponentially. There must have been some kind of force push, because I ended up flying back first against the front door. Immediately after, my rear landed on the floor and my whole spine was practically screaming from the blast. I clenched my teeth as took a sharp intake of air. I forced my eyes to open up to take stock of any other damage.
Tifa's horn was pointing a pink dot of light at the floor. The other three cats-turned-ponies were staring at the dot, completely silent.
"Huh?/Huh?" Tifa and I voiced in unison.
When Tifa shifted her gaze slightly, the dot on the floor moved an inch to the left. Katydid clapped both of her hooves against the floor. As if in response, the magical dot moved away from her a bit. Luau made a quick slapping motion with one hoof, but the dot evaded her as well. Puddie tried biting the area with the dot, but it moved to the right.
I blinked twice. "Okay... that's a thing now."
As I stood up, my spine gave a very painful reminder that it existed and was not happy about colliding with a door. I nearly bit my lip to maintain what was left of my composure. I slowly stepped toward Tifa and mulled over some thoughts. My cats got cranky more easily when they were hungry. Considering the earlier fight leveled most of the apartment's furniture and their food bowls, they were probably going to need a new supply soon.
"Tifa, whatever you're doing, don't stop." I inched my way toward the front door. I grabbed my jacket while doing my best to ignore my back pain. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Okay..." Tifa nodded while a sweat drop appeared behind her ear. "I'll try."
Most people I saw on the road didn't think while they were driving. Normally, the motions came automatically. But today, I was thinking extra hard about the mundane motions: Seat belt's on. Turn signal ten seconds before I reach the street I want to turn onto. Glance to the rear, specifically the mirrors' blind spots.
Maybe I was just trying really hard not to freak out, think about freaking out, or thinking about not trying to think about freaking out. When I drove my car, it was a time to focus on the immediate stuff. There wasn't time to reflect on my cats and their suddenly magical changes. Stop at crosswalk to avoid running over guy taking his sweet time while tapping on his phone. Why was he walking side-to-side between the white lines? I exhaled in exasperation when he started swiping his fingers up along his device several times really fast. What the heck was he doing?
I noticed the flashing red hand for his walk light had stopped and the number had gone dark. I pressed the button for the car horn for a couple short taps. The man stopped right in the middle of the road. He raised his hand with one finger up, but I couldn't tell if it was his index or his ring. I also wasn't sure why his lips looked like the shape of the words "suck," "two," "dream," and "color". I honked my horn two more short times. Then, he walked right back to the side of the street he had started.
Shaking my head, I took my right turn and continued on my way.
After what felt like an hour, I walked out of the pet store with a cart full of food bags, and four extra large collars with properly addressed licenses. They didn't ask me questions when I also bought a couple hay bales. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was a little worried about how I was going to keep going. I didn't have the kind of budget to feed larger animals on a regular basis. What was going to happen to my precious kitties?
All of the stuff barely fit in the car, even after putting every seat but mine down. I swore I was exhaling steam by the time I got behind the wheel. As I moved to close the door, there was a muffled clunk that budged it back open. At the same time, my back decided to remind me how much pain it had undergone earlier. I groaned as I did my best to slowly turn myself. I sighed in relief as I pressed the purple scaly limb against the bags in the passenger seat and closed the door without further issue.
The drive home was pretty uneventful, not counting the barrage of aches along my entire back. I also occasionally scratched an itch at random intervals, but didn't think much about it. There might have been a few ripping noises too, but I figured it was one of the bags. I'd have to take a look at them when I got back home. I saw some gray hairs falling beside me, but that was normal for my age. (Don't ask how old I am. I'm not telling.)
For some reason, the car's door handle was much smaller than I remembered it being when I arrived at the apartment complex. I ended up kicking the door off in my rush to get out. I gathered all of the stuff I needed between my hands and worked on bringing it up. It seemed a lot lighter than when I left the store. I hoped I hadn't lost too much of it between the car and the room door.
When I squeezed inside my place, I looked around. My jaw dropped and everything I was carrying immediately fell to the floor. This apartment was no longer the living room I remembered. It was much bigger on the inside. The floor was made of marble tiles. A red carpet was laid out on the center of what was practically a hallway. Statues of various shapes and pillars lined the walls. I think I turned my head around five times while trying to see it all.
...
Hold on. Since when did I have grayish membrane wings? And when did I get so big? Well, I didn't have time to process that. Tifa magically appeared in a mist of pink and galloped in place on all four hooves.
"I'm so sorry, Aerolyn!" The lavender pony stared up with pleading eyes. "I couldn't keep them distracted!"
I did my best to close my jaw and breathe deeply. "It...It's okay, Twilight. Just tell me what happened." ... Wait, what did I just call her?
"F-Funny story." She chuckled nervously while slowly flying straight up until she was about at my current eye level. "I was starting to feel tired from holding the laser point for so long. I stopped for a second, but then Luna decided to try matching Celestia's use of an amplifying voice spell. So those two got into a shouting match. Then, Cadance figured out how to make a shield out of the blue, rebounding the shouting spells back into each other. That led into figuring out new spells, which led into teleportation, transfiguration, enchantments... and, well..." She pressed her front hooves against each other as she flew at a steady altitude. "We kind of made our home into a castle on a mountain."
...
I may or may not have caused a small earthquake upon sitting down. What she said explained why it looked like there was an outline of rock just outside one of the windows. Still, it was a lot. Understatement of the year, but I didn't have a better way to phrase it.
"Are...Are you mad at me?" Twilight gulped.
I massaged my horns with my claws. "No, I'm not mad at you." I sighed out a small green flame that didn't even last. "You tried to keep them distracted as long as you could. That's what I asked you to do. But it was wrong of me to assume you could do so indefinitely. I've lived with all four of you long enough to know that I can't control you. I need to accept that. So, thank you for trying."
She sighed in relief.
"Tell you what." I swept the supplies forth with my tail. "Help me find a place to store this. Then, we'll worry about dealing with the other three."
"Of course." Twilight smiled and started levitating some of the items.
...
They made royal throne seats. My little queens of the cat order, who had just recently turned into magic-shooting ponies with wings, made themselves unique throne seats to reflect their new hide colors. On top of that, they managed to internalize and project their new names and new identities among each other and my subconscious. I blew some brief fire into my folded, gray claws.
"All of you want the titles and responsibilities of 'Princess'?" I held my index claws apart. "Do you not consider that a downgrade?"
Celestia nodded. "This is but one of our great sacrifices we must make for the years to come."
"Because you somehow gained 'glimpses of the future'." I held out one open palm upward.
"At least your ears still work," commended Luna, "or perhaps fins is the better term."
I crossed my arms. "And you drew up divisions for which magic would be the focus for each of you. Why?"
Cadance did some stretches. "Well, duh. I don't want to be casting darkness magic. It doesn't match my style."
I sighed. "This all just seems so insane, yet also completely well-thought out. It just baffles me. How is this all remotely possible?"
"Thank you! Someone else gets what I'm feeling!" Twilight jumped up. She folded her wings and faked a cough. "Sorry."
"Don't be sorry." Celestia swished her tail rhythmically, almost to the point where it looked like a continuous wave. "Aerolyn, what have you heard from the outside?"
"I contacted my nephews by tapping my phone with a stylus." I accidentally scratched a circle in the tile floor. "They told me they turned into gryphons. There are strange things happening at multiple locations. Apparently, there are some places that are connecting through magic mirrors and others by a gingerbread house that morphed into a train including tracks."
"So that's what the train noise outside was." Luna ran her teeth along one of her wings.
"There have also been sporadic changes in species and environment for the insides of homes, similar to what happened to ours. At least, that's what Gardley and Gairson have heard." I twiddled my thumb claws. "Unfortunately, I pressed a little too hard and crushed my phone. Now we'll have to rely on luck to get in touch again."
"We've got messenger birds now." Cadance smirked.
I pinched the much wider space above my muzzle. "Of course you do."
Celestia clapped her hooves twice. "Then your next order of business is to reconnect via letter with those that you deem necessary."
"Sure thing, Your Highness." I rolled my eyes.
I could have sworn I heard Celestia purr when I said "Highness".
I rubbed my eyes after pulling the last page of my letters out of the typewriter. I gently ran my claws against the blanket covering the purple-spotted egg underneath.
I smiled slightly. "Goodnight, Spike."
Author's Note
In a completely unrelated note, I've never played Pokemon Go. I just didn't see the point of all the team drama.
Anyway, there was a lot of demand for me to write a sequel. I'm not sure why. I hadn't really given much thought into the short story "My Cats Turned into Princess Ponies". I thought for sure the transformations without any reasonable explanation would interest maybe one or two readers, not 250+. That's a significantly different quantity compared to my estimate.
Maybe it was the cats. It's usually the cats. ... Definitely the cats.
