Pinkie Pie sequestered her satin self softly on a park bench, surrounded by emerald blades of grass that glinted glimmingly in the evanescial rays of a setting sun. A melancholic malaise dripped off her face, emboldened by the moist sapphires beaming from the epicenter of her cranium. She spoke in a porcelain voice as her quiet company of adoring companions listened under a silent spirit of silence.
“The priest was at his wit's end,” the fuchsia party girl mewled towards the tepiddic air of the park domain. “He was grasping at straws for meaning in this cruel, heartless world. 'I just feel as if all the walls are closing in,' he told his clergical friend in a sad tone. 'Ever since I realized that God is dead, the world has been collapsing all around me like a coffin. We are nothing but errant leaves floating on an ashen breeze, lost before the random bonfires lying in wait to consume us and sacrifice all knowledge of our existence in a holocaustal conflagration of emptiness. I find it hard to get out of bed in the morning, fully-knowing that the next day I live will be just as useless as the last, and not even holy water will lubricanify the abrasive harshness of this ontological uncertainty from my beleaguered mindscape.'”
Pinkie Pie wiped her eyes dry while Applejack patted her shoulder.
There was a pregnant pause, during which a great deal of nothing happened.
Until it did, in the form of Pinkie Pie's frown flipping upside down like a deep sea diver with felicitous bends. “And that's when the rabbi said, 'No, you have chicken mouth!'”
“Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah!” the party planner and her six sororitarians collectively chortled into the setting sunrays.
“Whew!” Applejack swiped the sweat from her freckled complexion and winked into the joyous aura of Pinkie's uttered anecdote. “That's a real whizz-banger of a whizz-banger, Pinkie!” she drawled.
“It reminds me of that one story at that place with the thing!” Rarity vampire'd.
“Exclamation!” Rainbow Dash added.
Sunset Shimmer smiled at her friends, feeling delighted inside at their collective comraderasm. She squirmed slightly where she squatted in the grass, her ankles being nipped at by figurative aphids of introverted contemplation. She glanced over at Twilight Sparkle, noting the rosiness to her closest friend's dimples and wondering if she too could someday express such exquisite coquettish innocence in a single phlegmatic gaze—when her phone suddenly vibrated with great digital resonance.
“Wuh oh!” Sunset Shimmer stammered, brow furrowed, teeth gritting, as she fidgeted.
“What's that, Sunset?” Fluttershy existed. “The plot?”
“Uhmmm... … … … … … … ...” Sunset Shimmer blinked past a sea of ellipses, attempting to contemplate the text unraveling before her in an elegant sapphiric color scheme. “It's a message from Flash.”
“Yeah, and?” Rainbow Dash's voice cracked between yawns as she tossed her prismatic hair in the eastern wind. “Tell us what he's yammering about already!”
“I'm... not sure...” Sunset's eyes narrowed and narrowed. “He's... sending his message in a strange font.”
“Strange?” Twilight asked, blinking through her spectacled spectacles. “In what way?”
“It's just...” Sunset shook her eyes, still trying to make heads or tails of the meandering missive. “...super pretty.”
“Oooh, is it Edwardian Script?” Rarity chimed in a sing-songy tone. She waved a dainty hand. “That is the most exquisite form of text!”
“Mmmmm...” Fluttershy sat pigeon-thigh'd, blushing through a smile. “I'm partial to Monte Carlo myself.”
“Comic Sansssssss!” Pinkie Pie yodeled upside down.
“Shhhh!” Sunset Shimmer rubbed her temple as she struggled to decipher the near-cursive runes embulucating before her weary eyes. “Girls, please! I'm... really struggling to figure out what Flash Sentry is texting me!”
“Why the hay would be do somethin' so cryptic?” Applejack asked.
“I don't know,” Sunset siffered. “This isn't like him.”
“Here.” Twilight Sparkle slid over to her best friend and gingerly cradled the cell phone from her womany grasp. “Let me give it a try.”
“Yeah! Four eyes are better than three!” Rainbow Dash said. A beat. She went cross-eyed. “Wait...”
In the meanhappening, Twilight was holding the text up close to her lensed optics. “Hmmmm... you didn't tell me that the font was animated and glittering.”
Sunset blushed even harder, rubbing the back of her neck while sweating ever so tinily. “I guess I overlooked that particulate.”
“Well?” Fluttershy existed. “What does it say, Twilight?”
Despite her literary fervor, it took and toiled upon Twilight to occupy the greater dominion of her thoughts to generate a learned interpretationism of the text before her matronly mind. “Flash is... asking for your help...”
“My help?” Sunset blink.
“All of our help!” Twilight exclamatoried. “Specifically, he's saying: 'Sunset. Please. I need your help. Equestrian magic has cursed me and I am stuck at home. Come at once if you can. Bring all the girls. You will need your rainbow lasers or whatever. I am so sorry to bother you.'”
“Oh...” Rarity held a delicate girl wrist over her girl chest. “...oh my.”
Applejack's human muzzle scrunched. “Ya reckon he's pullin' our leg?”
“No, that's the real Flash, alright,” Sunset stated, taking the cellular mobile device back from Twilight's supple hand. “Leave it to him to apologize at the end of everything.”
“What the crud do you think is bothering him?” Rainbow Dash drammeled, brow furrowing and unfurrowing as she fidgeted. “He's never asked for all of our help with a magical problem before?”
“Well, one thing's for sure!” Pinkie Pie shot up with a joyous leap and warbled towards the livid lengths of the recreational acreage. “A friend in need is a friend in knee-deep friendship sauce!”
“Meaning...?” Rarity asked.
“We row our companionship boat over to his place and cast him a lifeline!” Pinkie Pie grinnered. “With friendship lasers!” She beamered. “And cupcakes!”
“Yaay!” Fluttershy existed. “One of those things!”
“Follow me, girls!” Sunset Shimmer jumped up as well and ran for the nearest bus stop. “I know the way to his house!”
“Oh, I bet you do, darling!” Rarity sing-songed.
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” the rest of the girls chanted except for maybe Twilight Sparkle but Sunset Shimmer was too busy expediating herself to her destination to bother humoring their sassified girlhoodedry.
Flash Sentry's house rested gloomily upon a hill, a plateau of granite happenstance, situated upon the upright bosom of sanguine suburbia, but apart from the euphoric encompassing, as denoted by its ennui and malaise, a blight upon the hierarchical establishment of ontological understanding, highlighted with purple fringes of mountainous topographical abnormalities in felicitous thought, brought upon by miscalculations in subjective reasoning, yet still remarkably reminiscent of past pasttimes enjoyed under a golden setting sun of sublime summer, escorted by metaphorical stormtroopers of teenage angst and sprinkled with a modicum of might, grit, and gratuitous testosteronical posturing—and yet it nevertheless stood apart from the rest of the domesticated domiciles of a roofed nature, as referenced but not referenced in adobe fashion in that one Animal Collective song, but most assuredly summarized in an analogous format in some long-forgotten Radiohead song, buffered by the societal constructs of cultural expectations and gender-coded normalities, centralized by a Judeo-Christian subset of mentalistic minimalism, theocratic yet simultaneously and paradoxically humanistic—to a fault—but also willing to erect itself in stark contrast to the ash and snow falling all over the eastern god rays of celestial time passage, invigorated by literal manifestations of parody, but remaining subtle enough to meander in a soulful dance within the parenthetical boundaries of a nebulous terms of service bible, without anecdotes, but supplemented not so much by citation but moreso with charismatic pathos, and also subjected with an underlying sense of predetermined anonymous disgust from the denizens of digital citizenshipry, bequeathed with sapphiric testicles upon realizing that a cinematic milestone in feminism could not so easily be deconstructed by public displays of bullheaded futile infantilism—not of the fetishist kind but more of the facist kind—and more or less cultivated by the germification of malevolent and lonesome shower thoughts conjured in the obsidian shadows of one's own misgiven understandings of a chaotic world, where there was also a muscle car parked along the hedges, above an irrigation system equipped with reclaimed water, with the occasional squirrel or two frolicking upon the fringes—also with testicles.
“Do you suppose Flash enjoys living here?” Fluttershy existed.
“Shhhh!” Sunset Shimmer held a hand up and leaned her fiery ruby crown into the waning daystreams of the afternoonism. “Do you notice anything different?”
Rainbow Dash yawned.
Sunset continued: “About his house, I mean.”
Rainbow Dash yawned again.
“His...” Applejack squinted her hard-toned emeralds. “His front door.”
“It's... pink,” Twilight Sparkle droned with no small amount of confusion.
“It's not just pink, darlings!” Rarity gasped, aghastily. “Why...” She fanned herself with a fractious grin. “...it's positively sparkling!”
“What, did a truck full of makeup glitter crash into his front stoop or something?” Rainbow Dash unyawned.
“I'm... not sure...” Sunset Shimmer approached the front door in question. As it came to pass, the foundation to Flash Sentry's household entrance was indeed ablaze with a blinding array of glitter and sequins, clinging to every square inch of the hinged frame. What's more—as Sunset soon observeled—the door was cracked. “Wait a minute—!”
Just as she uttered this thusly, the crack narrowed in a blink, but not without a pair of eyes glimmering nervously from the darkness within.
“It's him!” Fluttershy existed.
“Flash!” Sunset extended a girly wrist towards the shiny fuchsia door. “Wait! We know you're there! We... uh... we got your text!”
There was silence at first. A grand gray gallon of girthlessness. Then—after a shadowy coughing sound—a hoarse voice scratched melodically into existence from beyond the frame. “Could you talk quieter, pl-please? The neighbors might hear you!”
“Why?” Sunset inquisitived, blinking with worridom. “What's the matter?”
Twilight Sparkle leaned in with an adjustment of spectaclements. “Are your folks home, Flash?”
“And who installed your new door, Flash, darling?” Rarity asked, batting her eyelashes. “Did they leave a business number?”
The voice once more replied, sounding like anything other than the Flash Sentry that they all knew. “I'm... I-I'm home alone. Now... quickly. Come inside. I'll do my best to explain everything.”
“You comin' down with somethin' there, partner?” Applejack asked with a tip of a hat. “You don't rightly sound the same.”
“Please! Somebody might see! Just... I beg you... come inside.” The glittery pink door opened with a symphonic creak, like wind chimes, followed by: “Oh... and whatever you do... don't let me accidentally touch you. Don't even bump into me! I-I mean it!”
The girls looked at one another, shrugging in the sultry wind of that maniacal moment. They all knew that they could defend themselves in the eventuality of any event, eventfully. So—with Sunset leading the way like the virtuous valkyrie that she was—they walked single-file into the household. It was quite dark inside, with the shadows settling upon every supple shape of unseen things in the dimly-lit domain. Flash Sentry was nowhere to found, at least at first.
“Flash...?” Fluttershy existed, timidly cowering behind Applejack and Rainbow. “Uhm... wh-where are you?”
“Flash, darling?” Rarity slowly shut the door, taking a moment to run her nimble fingers lovingly over the curved golden knob of the elegant entrance. “It's quite rude to make yourself hidden from guests, you know! Especially after a gentlemanly invite!”
“Yeah, let's cut to the chase, already!” Rainbow Dash frowned, raising her fists. “Where's this Equestrian Magic and how can we zap it?”
There was no response—at least at first.
“Flash?” Sunset asked, peering into the shadows of the living room. “Please. Don't hide from us. What's wrong? What's troubling you so much that you needed our help?”
“I don't... need help...” a meek voice squeaked from the adjacent hallway. All seven sets of feminine eyes beamed in that dusty direction, and they spotted a petite figure clinging to the deeper shadows. “Just... aim your rainbow lasers at me and get it over with, please.”
“You...” Applejack grimaced. “You want us to zap you?”
“Whoah-whoahhhh!” Rainbow Dash snickered, brow furrowing and unfurrowing her brow as she gnashed her teeth, gritting and fidgeting. “Hold up! I like a good climax of explosions like the next girl! But we're not gonna zap just anyone! Especially doofy ex-boyfriends of ours! Er... Sunset's.”
Sunset sighed. “Flash, sweetie, just come out of that closet and talk to us.”
“I'm not in a closet.”
“Uh huh.”
“Rrrrrgh!” Pinkie Pie pulled at her hair and exlamatoried: “I can't take this anymore! So much purple prose and unnecessary exposition!” She reached over and slapped her palm over a duck lamp. “There! Let there be light!”
Photonic emissions flooded the room, exposing the petite figure standing nervously in the hallway before them. The figure winced, then looked up with a coquettish expression. The gaggle of girls were almost instantaneously blinded by a shimmering array of spectral bedazzlement. Long sapphiric threads of silken hair cascaded over supple forearms encased in the poofy shoulders of a glittery satin pink blouse with matching salmon skirts and baby pink laced petticoats. A white-embroidered corset framed a slender feminine figure with demure hands that nervously clasped one another with ruby-clustered rings and dangling gold bracelets. On top of this, the gorgeous figure's face was bespeckled with shiny makeup akin to faerie dust, and ocean blue eyes reflected the gawking faces of seven breathless figures who instantly envied the buttery bastion of femininity unfurling liquidly before them.
“Oh... dearest... me...” Rarity wheezed into the back of her wrist, struggling to maintain her balance in the contemplation of the regal ensemble being inexplicably modeled before her brain orbs. “...what an exquisite specimen you are, my dear.” She daintily cleared her throat and clasped her hands together with a tender smile. “But—we do have pressing business to attend to. Is your older brother home, dear?”
The “girl” swallowed a lump down her slender throat and murmured in a virginal voice: “I am my older brother.”
“Ehhh?” Fluttershy existed.
“Er... I mean...” The fabulously feminine creature sighed, sniffled slightly, and bowed her princessy head. “It's me. Flash.”
“... … ...Flash Sentry?” Rainbow Dash wheezed.
“No, Gordon, savior of the universe!” Flash Sentry frowned—but just as swifty winced then leaned back with a swish of his ethereal blue hair. “Sorry! Sorry, I didn't mean...” He whimpered, then touched two fingers together as his face became awash in a furious beet-colored blush. “...that was mean of me.” He sniffled, his voice growing higher and higher in pitch. “I'm sorry.”
“No no no... don't be sorry... I... we...” Sunset Shimmer approached him, stammering a word left and right with each awkward step she took towards the femme... boy... femboi...? She raised a hand towards his shoulder. “I guess we're just confused. I—”
“No!” He leaned back from her, shrinking like a wilting violet under a collapsing moon. His twitching sapphires glossed over with fear and impending doom. “Don't c-come any closer! You'll regret it!”
“Regret?” Rainbow blew out the side of her mouth. “A little late on the draw there, buckaroo. We came here to do battle with Equestrian Magic, not Rupaul.”
“Ohhhhhhh!” Pinkie Pie winked at Rainbow Dash. “I get it! Cuz you're an asshole.”
“Wait, what—?”
“Shhhhh!” Sunset silenced the room, then smiled temperedly at Flash. “Care to explain what's going on here? I promise you...” She glared out the corner of her gaze at Rainbow. “...we're not going anywhere until we help you with... whatever this is.”
“How about you start from the beginning, Flash?” Twilight Sparkle suggested.
Flash sighed, reaching a dainty hand up to brush his long luscious locks straight. There was a pink flash of light, and a tiara materialized on the boi's silken crown.
Applejack and Fluttershy blinked.
Rarity struggled not to drool.
“Erm...” Flash Sentry fidgeted where he stood. “...it all started when I tried to put my pants on this morning.”
“Yeah...?” Sunset leaned in slightly. “...and?”
“And...” Flash gulped, then hiked up the edges of his princessy skirt, filling the walls of the house with a kaleidoscope of reflected shimmers. “...they turned into this.”
“... … ...you pants turned into a ballgown?”
“Yes. Well... the first pair of pants I touched did...” He squirmed. “Then the second. Then the third...”
The girls merely blinked at them, eyes tepid and saucerful.
“So... I... started to panic...” Flash chewed delicately on his pink-painted lips. “So I tried putting on a shirt...”
“And...?”
“It... turned into this big white flowy gown...” Flash paced across the atrium, clack-a-clacking the air with the sound of ruby princess slippers. “...so I thought maybe I was dreaming. And—when I dream—hopping into a cold bath usually fixes things. But the moment I touched my shower stall... well...”
“Well what?” Sunset asked.
Flash whimpered, then pointed a nervous finger into the nearest room. “Go see for yourself...”
Sunset, Twilight, and Applejack went to look.
“Land's sakes!” the lattermost lady's voice echoed across a massive lavatory with mural-painted tile, a gold-laced wash basin, a large ivory tub filled with a sudsy pink bubble bath, and an elaborate assortment of fluffy terry cloth towels hanging off of shiny silver racks. “Is it just me, or is this place bigger on the inside than on the outside?”
“Not to mention worth more than this house's rent alone,” Sunset stammered.
“Hey! Look!” Twilight bent down to pick up a phone. As she held it up to the light, everyone could see that the mobile device was bubble-gum pink with an otherworldly faerie glow and a phone cover crafted out of diamonds and polished rubies. “Flash? Is... was this your cell phone?”
Flash nodded, his ladylike hands folded. “Yes.”
“And... it changed into this from you... touching it?” Twilight asked.
Flash sniffled, nodding again. “Yes?”
Applejack sniffed the air. “Do y'all smell vanilla and lavender?”
“I think that's the bubble bath,” Sunset murmured.
“No, it's coming from over there,” Fluttershy existed, pointing across the hall. “Is that your room, Flash?”
“Erm... I... uh...” Flash fidgeted, sapphire eyes sweeping across the finely shampooed and perfumed carpet where he had previously stepped minutes before. “...I felt like I had to faint... so I stumbled back into my room and... and...”
“Whoahhhh!” Pinkie Pie was already gawking, her head leaning into the heart of an enormous bedchamber filled with dresses, vanities, makeup stations, and an enormous closet filled to brim with a pastel forest of fabrics. “Wowie zowie that's a lot of pink!”
“Wait wait wait wait!” Rarity thump-thump-thump'd over on bounding lady legs. She shoved Pinkie aside and gazed every which way. “Do you mean to tell me—Flash, darlington—that every thing you touch turns... turns...”
“Fruity?” Rainbow droned.
“Fabulous!!!” Rarity gargled, picking up dress after shimmering dress and squealing with joy. She ran the soft, shiny fabrics against her cheek and practically cumulated over the myriad of ornate designs and lace stitchings and silken embroideries gracing her bedazzled contemplation. “Eee-hee-hee! Flash! Whatever has inexplicably afflicted you—it is not a curse! It is a gift! Oh, blessed heavens above!” She hugged a few more scattered dress items to her chest, did a twirl, and beamed out the door. “Tell me! Do you have any control over how the designs manifest themselves?”
“Well, I...” Flash leaned against his doorframe—then winced as a bright pink pulse of light turned the once-wooden rectangle into a gateway made out of platinum-embossed floral arrangements. He shuddered, then said in a soft tone: “It's anything I touch, really. Just a slight of hand, and everything is... is...” He adjusted the lengths of his skirts, inadvertently making the whole gown shinier. He sighed. “...feminine.”
Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle exchanged glances. They both smirked at Flash.
“Not exactly feminine, Flash,” Twilight said.
“More like your idealization of what qualifies as 'girly,'” Sunset corrected.
“My idealization?!” Flash whimpered, clasping both hands together. “Sunset, I n-never asked for any of this to happen—!”
Sunset held her hands up in the humid heat of the moment. “It's okay! It's okay! I believe you, Flash.” She smiled kindly at her close friend, amicably. “But whatever's happening, I do believe it's stemmed in your own mental projection somehow... even if you're not willing it.”
“I... have to ask, Flash...” Twilight looked up and down at the boi's slender frame. It was more than the dress that was different about him. His stature, his voice, his frame—everything about him was decidedly less... masculine. “Did you... uh... touch yourself since this all began?”
“I... uh... n-no...?” Flash fidgeted. “This all sorta... came t-together between waking up and the phone call. I think it happened when I put the last pair of pants on... I-I mean the dress on... I mean...”
“It's okay, Flash...” Sunset approached him—but stopped herself before she could instinctively grasp the boi's hands to calm the nervous soul. “I know this must all be very alarming, but we're here to help you. I promise we'll figure out what's going on.”
“Thank you, Sunset,” Flash said... and continued to fidget. Tiny whimpers of discomfort escaped his pretty lips.
“What's the matter?” Fluttershy existed.
“It's just that... I... uhm...” Flash gulped. “I had a long night's sleep, and... and because all of this happening so suddenly... uhhh...” He fidgeted yet again. “Long story short... I-I haven't had a chance to go to the bathroom. I'm still too afraid of touching my... too afraid of t-touching...”
“Ohhhhhhhhhh...” Pinkie Pie nodded. “We get it.” She made “exploding” gestures with her palms. “Snap! Crackle! POOF!”
Flash winced. Hard.
“No need to lay it on thick, Pinkie,” Sunset groaned.
“Okay...” Twilight held her hands together, pacing across the prettied, pinkified bedroom that once belonged to Flash. “...let's logically try to deduce what's happening here by eliminating all of the peripheral details...”
“To Oblivion with that idea, darling!” Rarity frolicked across the room with several pairs of pants hung over her forehead. “Quick! We must invent my fall line!”
“Rarity—” Sunset growled, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
“Here!” Rarity tossed one pair of pants at Flash. “Show me if orange is still the new black!”
“I—!” But Flash could scarcely protest as the article of clothing flew against his flinching arms. CHIIING! The pants turned into a shiny black cocktail dress. “What—!”
“Eee-hee-hee!” Rarity tossed more pants. “Evening wear! Moarrrr evening wear!”
CHIIIIING! CHIIIIING! A black pencil skirt and a ballerina leotard fell at Flash's heels.
“Rarity, pl-please!” Flash clasped his hands to his bodice, beaded tears forming like ice crystals in the delicate corners of his sad eyes. “I'll run out of pants!”
“To purgatory with everything that isn't a skirt, my dear princess!” Rarity—practically foaming at the gizzard—prepared to toss a pair of cargo shorts at the young boi. “Now explode something to go with a pearl necklace!”
CHIIIING! Flash yelped as the shorts manifested into a pumpkin carriage that smashed through a nearby dresser, turning its splintery bits into diamonds that rolled glitteringly across the lush pink carpet.
“Yes! Yesssssssss!” Rarity skipped over to their prismatic friend, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Now touch Rainbow Dash—!”
“Fuzzawhat—?!” The athlete's voice cracked as her fashionista friend shoved her towards the boi. “Rarity, don't you friggin' dare—”
“TOUCH RAINBOW DASH!”
“Nooooooooo—!”
CHA-CHIIIIIIIIIIING! The air onomatopoeia'd with a splash of glitter and sequins. When the aura dimmed, the princess boi was joined by a princess girl—her body enmeshed in a slitted blue skirt with matching azure stockings. Rainbow's hair was braided ornately to cover every shade of the spectrum, and dark purple eyeshadow glossed her lids above thick lashes and puffy violet lips.
“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh...!” Rainbow Dash tugged at her braided locks, hyperventilating. “I've been gussied!” Panicking, she hiked up her skirt and ran for the bathroom. “Gonna... v-vomit...!”
Pinkie Pie whistled as the athlete blurred by, leaving a trailing scent of strawberry perfume. “A real head-turner, there, Dashie!”
“Eeyup!” Applejack nodded, chuckling. “About done decapitated me!”
“This needs a non-con tag,” Fluttershy existed.
“Oh! Pish! Posh!” Rarity waved her dainty hand every which way and stepped towards Flash. “What's everyone getting in such a tizzy-fit over? Flash, my dear, this is an absolute treasure of a gift!”
Flash wrung his delicate fingers. “But... but it's Equestrian m-magic and I-I can't control it and—”
“Think of all the fame and fortune you can have in the fashion industry!” Rarity exclaimed. “The world of art could bend to your every breath! Why...” She came close to touching the boi's shoulder. “You could even bring effortless restoration to the houses of surviving monarchy—!”
“I didn't ask you girls here to lecture me on a fashion career!” Flash huffed and puffed, stomping his foot down. His girlish voice cracked: “I need you to zap whatever this is out of me with rainbow lasers and be done with it!”
“Flash...” Sunset yanked Rarity back and slowly approached the timid creature. “Just calm down.”
“Don't t-tell me to c-calm down!” Flash sniffled, his eyes leaking tears that made his once-immaculate makeup run. “H-how would y-you like it if you woke up one d-day and everything you t-touched turned all fru-fruey and... and... and...” His words melted into an indecipherable marble madness of lexiconnic nonsense, awash in sobs and wailing tones.
Twilight Sparkle winced, glancing at Sunset. Sunset shrugged, then approached her sobbing ex-boifriend. With gentle motions, she gestured the prettily-dressed young thing towards the bed, careful not to touch him in the process. As soon as they sat on the bed, it transformed into a pink canopy monstrosity with an extra plush burgundy duvet. Flash continued sobbing daintily into his wrists. So Sunset handed him a PS4 controller. He took it—CHIIING!—transforming the remote into a lace handkerchief that he used to dab the tears out of his eyes. She waited until Flash had gotten a good deluge of the cry out of his saccharine system, and then she smiled calmly at him.
“Is this really what you think 'being girly' is all about?”
He sniffled and frowned towards the floor, speaking in his high-pitched voice. “Are you still stuck on that?”
“It's just that...” Sunset spoke in a quiet tone so that only he could hear. “...ages ago—if you remember—back when I was a horrible girlfriend... you used to tell me some things, Flash.” She cleared her throat. “Secret things about yourself... about what you pined for. Soulful confessions, so to speak...”
He looked at her with a trembling lip. “You remember all that?”
“I remember most everything we talked about, Flash.” Sunset Shimmer kicked at the trailing lengths of the plush duvet beneath them. “I didn't particularly give much of a flying feather about it then... but... I now realize that I was very... very inconsiderate of you... and what it meant for you to share those things with someone... anyone... including someone as horrible as me.”
He gulped, dabbing his eyes once more with a sniffle. “It was all just... fantasy, Sunset.”
“But they were more than that, Flash. You were wishing to work some things out about yourself,” Sunset said, rubbing the back of her neck with a guilty shrug of her shoulders. A sigh, another sigh, and she sighed: “And I wasn't respectful of that. But now...” She turned to give him a hopeful smile. “...maybe this is magic's way of giving you a chance at—”
“But I don't want it, Sunset.”
“Flash, just relax!” She held her hands up. “If you only gave this time to look at from a distance and think—”
“I do not want this,” Flash said, eyes glaring like granite. “I need you to believe me. Respect that. Please.” A soft breath. “Even a fantasy is torture if it's forced on you.”
Sunset opened her mouth to say something... but all had already been said. Instead, she smiled. A soft and tender smile... followed by a soft and tender nod. She stood up, backstepping until she was in the center of the lavish room.
“Ahem...!” She clenched her fists. Twilight was already sidling up to her flank. “Girls! Assemble!” Sunset cracked the joints in her neck. “Time for rainbow lasers!”
“Awwwwwwwwww...” Rarity pouted, still hugging a dozen shiny, lacy pink frocks to her chest. “Do we have to?”
“You heard the boss,” Applejack said with a wink. “Time to corral this here prissy magic!”
Flash Sentry sat neatly in the center of the bed, bracing his delicate self. “Just try not to hit me too hard.”
“No promises,” Sunset said. “Are we ready or not?”
“I think we're waiting on Rainbow Dash,” Fluttershy existed.
“Grnnngh...” Rainbow Dash tip-toed angrily into the room, brow furrowed, furrowing. “I'm here.”
“Uhhhh... Dashie...?” Pinkie squinted at her. “Why are you wearing just panties and a sports bra?”
“Because screw you.”
“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie Pie hopped into line, joining hands with the rest of the femme fatales. “LIGHT 'EM UP, LADIES!”
One by one, the maidens of magic glowed every shade of the spectrum. Pony ears formed across their crowns as they lifted up, levitating in the center of the room as prismatic bands of magic ethereal smellegance rippled and warbled around them, forming a cascading cocoon of kaleidoscopic colors.
Flash took several perfumed breaths, bending backwards so that his transmogrified bosom took the brunt of the inevitable—
ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!
A shiny, round, lavender medallion with the engraving of a tiara rested between a set of strong, guitar-plucking fingers.
“So... what you're telling me...” Flash Sentry, once again a tall and fully-grown young specimen of masculinity, spoke in a naturally deep voice while grasping the artifact in question. “...is that this geode came out of me when I got laser-zapped?”
“That's one way of looking at it,” Sunset Shimmer said with a nod. She, Flash, and the girls sat casually on the front stoop of his house under a starry night sky. “It's more or less the physical manifestation of the magic that we exorcised from you an hour ago.”
“Uhhhhh...” Flash winced, rubbing a nervous hand through his hair. “...then maybe...” He held the item out towards her. “...you can get it as far away from me as you can?”
Sunset shook her head, refusing the item. “I don't think it would rest right in our grasp.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Isn't it obvious?” Pinkie Pie smirked. “It's your geode, silly!”
“My... geode...?”
“Like... friggin' duh!” Rainbow Dash—wearing a baggy set of Flash's spare clothes—leaned back against the front facade of the house and nodded. “We've all got one!” She held her bracelet up. “Super speed!”
Applejack brandished her necklace. “Super strength!”
“Diamondsssssss!” Rarity sing-songed.
“Existence.”
“And my... magical power is...” Flash Sentry grimaced. “... … ...feminization?”
“Mmmmm...” Twilight Sparkle clasped her hands in her lap, shrugging. “Until we invent a better word for it... let's just say you can make stuff pink and glittery.”
“But... why?”
Sunset shrugged. “Can't question how Equestrian magic works in this world.”
“Yeah.” Pinkie yawned. “We gave up about three forty-four minute specials ago.”
“What I mean is...” Flash turned the lavender disc over several times in his grasp. “Why did it choose me? How did it choose me?”
“Well...” Sunset gestured in the starlight. “Remember when we all crashed that cruise liner and had to walk through separate portals in and out of Equestria, turning from human to pony and back to human?”
“Uh, no.” Flash blinked. A beat. “Oh wait. Yeah, I do.”
“Well, our geodes disappeared when we became ponies,” Sunset explained. “But they reappeared when we turned human again!”
“Thank goodness, too!” Rarity exhaled, admiring her own geode. “How I do loathe a vanishing accessory!”
“So...” Flash thought aloud. “...stepping in and out of Equestria... in and out of horse-form... got me acquainted with my geode?”
“Seems like it.” Sunset winked, smiling. “Crazy, huh?”
“I can name a few plot holes.”
“Well, that's April Fools' for ya.” Pinkie Pie stood up, stretching. “And 'Frad' gave up on prosaic satire about one and a half chapters ago, soooooo...”
Applejack stood up, also stretching. “Time to hit the ol' dusty trail!”
“Wait...!” Flash Sentry grimaced, hobbling up to his own feet and practically juggling the new geode. “You're just leaving me with this... this... sissy cylinder?”
“It's harmless now, Flash!” Twilight exclaimed. “You can use it as you see fit!”
“Or not use it,” Fluttershy existed.
“But when you do... it'll be your choice.” Sunset clasped her hands over Flash's, smiling gently at him. “I promise you that it won't go down any other way.”
Flash breathed easily. “Thanks. I... I really mean it.”
“Although...” Rarity smiled at him, eyes glistening. “...I don't suppose you could choose to use it at my Boutique this weekend? I could really use the... inspiration to beat Suri Polomare at our latest friendly fashionista-off.”
“I... uh...” Flash shifted about where he stood. “...I'll think about it.”
“Mmmm...” Rarity pouted, but nevertheless nodded. “Fair enough.” She looked aside. “Could you at least zap Rainbow Dash? She could use a fine pleated skirt in this warm weather—”
“TIME TO GO, GIRLS!” Rainbow hiked the baggy pants up her petite figure and hobbled away. “See ya, Flash. Wouldn't want to be ya.”
"Nightie night. Try not to let the Terms of Service bite!"
“Join us next time we do rainbow lasers, Flashie!” Pinkie skipped gaily away, along with the rest of the girls. “Maybe when you and I finally get a shipping tag! Tee-hee!”
“Uh... sure! Tee-hee!” Flash waved back. “And thanks... for everything...”
The group zoomed off, leaving Flash alone at the front of his home... with his parents still conveniently absent from the entire affair.
The young man took a long breath. He flipped the lavender geode in his grasp like a coin... then examined it with a tired, contemplative smile.
“Hmmmm...” He thought of Sunset's warm smile, and the edges of his lips curved upwards. “It'll be my choice... to use as I see fit...” His nostrils flared, and he ran a hand over the edges of the magical artifact like it was a genie's lamp. “Sure...” A slight, high-pitched giggle. “...what's the harm in enjoying myself for once?”
