After the first people took the potion in Boston, it was like the potion was mana from heaven, amputees regrew limbs, cancer patients were cured, and people reveled in the increased strength, wings, or magical capability that the potion could grant them. For about a week everyone was caught up in the "potion fever." The purple liquid being the talk of my school for a couple of days. So, when the potion finally made it to the first major hospital in Atlanta, people of all kinds were lined up around the block to take it. Most people saw it as a symbol of progress, the first testament to what humanity and ponies could do when they worked together, politicians endorsed it to further their careers, some celebrities did too. Though I don't think I ever saw or heard of any of them actually taking the potion.

Some students started thinking about taking it, some of them boasting about how they were going to convert just because they thought it would piss-off their parents. I knew for a fact that almost every special ed student's parents had their child signed up to take the potion that first week after the Boston trials were proven successful. It seemed to make sense at the time, I thought of it as just another way for stupid teenagers to act stupid. As for the special Ed program, I was actually pretty interested to see what would happen.

Some adults from our town took it as well, some desiring a change of pace in life, others avoiding chronic illnesses, though the vast majority of converts happened to be young.

Of course, not everyone saw the potion as a good thing, In the U.S, there was a very small minority that questioned the legitimacy of the substance outright, and despite the fact that it was FDA approved, some people protested it. Some of them were simply backwoods 'heart of the south' folks that sat outside their trailer-park homes with a beer in one hand and a M1911 handgun in the other, just waiting for the government to pull up and try to take the weapon from their hands, other people protested it due to their religion, seeing it as unclean or immoral to change one's body so drastically from the one God had given them. There were also a couple of conspiracy theorists who were absolutely blowing their tops online. You would see them occasionally on the news and on discussion forums, I had heard of one or two doctors starting to research the potion for themselves without any funding, but I didn't think much would ever come out of it.

Meanwhile, the Equestrians themselves grew ever more popular as time went by. DJ PON3 had her first gig on Earth at a music festival in New York alongside Equestrian pop-idol Songbird Serenade, who people were saying sounded a lot like Sia, prompting the two to meet and perform together a week later. A.K yearling, a famous author in Equestria made thousands selling her 'Daring Do' series of novels and was preparing to write another that was rumored to take place on Earth.

Lyra Heartstrings, continuing her work as Ambassador to humanity, had begun traveling the world, meeting world leaders and continuing to foster peace between our races.

But none of them ever came close to the popularity of the Elements of Harmony.

The number of selfies that celebrities took with Pinkie-pie boggled the mind. She apparently began running a party service for people on Earth, and from what I heard... they got wild.

Fluttershy apparently stayed out of the public eye mostly, but I had heard she was visiting wildlife reserves all over the world.

Rarity Belle had recently released a new line of clothing that people were paying hundreds of dollars for, she seemed to favor Europe over other continents, but returned to Equestria after about a month's stay to take care of her sister, Sweetie.

AppleJack was in Texas, I think she was touring most of Southeast America with her family. Which meant she was eventually going to end up in the heart of the south, A.K.A Georgia.

Rainbow Dash mostly stayed in Equestria, training with the Equestrian Equivalent of the air force, the Wonderbolts.

And Twilight Sparkle, after assisting with the development of the potion, appeared to be working with human scientists worldwide on various other projects.

Needless to say, humanity was enamored with Equestria.

Many ponies were migrating to Earth as well, some even settling down, I hadn't seen any yet, though I would have been lying if I said I wasn't interested in meeting one.

Then the potion made its first appearance in my life.

June 9th, 2018

Peterson Road

7:02 AM

"So, are you gonna take the dive?"

I walked through to the bus stop next to my neighbor Martin, I sat near him on the bus, and we had progressed into a sort of friendship after I saved his phone from complete destruction at the hands, or rather, feet of a 190-pound football player. He was a fairly tall guy, a bit thin for his age, and he always had a self-proclaimed 'ladies man' air about him.

"Me?" I scoff, "No way man, I wouldn't look good with hooves and a tail."

Martin chuckled, "Me neither."

The two of us walked in silence, the clouds overhead making it sort of hard to see in the early morning as we approached the stop sign. We lived a bit far from any of the major roads, and Georgia was at least 70% trees, so it always took a while for the bus to show up. Martin and I usually talked about whatever was on our minds most of the time, usually, it was about some new album Martin's favorite artist came up with or a new game the both of us were looking forward to.

Recently though? We had been talking about the ponies.

"My sister thinks she would," sighed Martin after some time.

"What?"

"She thinks she would look good with hooves."

I kept quiet, unsure how to respond, 'W-well, to each their own I guess." I mumbled.

"Shetavia's always been a freak. She told my parents last night she wanted to take the potion, thinks she's 'making a statement' for people at school who are afraid to try it. Mom and Dad raised hell about it and 'tavia called 'em racists. Now she's grounded."

"Girls are weird man," I gave him a pat on the back. "That's just how it is."

"No, this is different, my aunt took that stuff," Martin turned to me, his expression full of uncertainty "She came to visit and she wouldn't stop talking about that stuff, how it made her life 'so much better'. I think she got 'Tavia hooked on that crank Reitman's podcasts."

"Reitman, you mean the doctor that's always talking about the potion?"

"Yeah, and my aunt wouldn't stop looking at me weird, she had, like this... forced smile on her face whenever she looked at me and my parents, but when she looked at my sister she always had this... big grin on her face."

That sounded weird to me, but nothing out of the ordinary at first, I hadn't seen a convert up close yet, so I had chalked it up to family drama made worse by the potion's involvement.

"Its probably just your parents," I suggested.

Martin looked at me "You're saying it's my parent's fault?" his voice carrying an edge to it.

"No, not like that." I held my hands up. "You said your parents didn't like the potion right?"

"Yeah?"

"So if your aunt came to visit directly after doing something your parents didn't like, she's probably in hot water with them, my parents were like that with my uncle once."

"What did he do?"

"He came to stay with us after getting out of the marines, didn't really pull his weight so he and my dad fought a lot. I saw a lot of forced smiles back then too."

Martin ran a hand through his curly black hair.

"I dunno man, it just feels... off, and why was she giving 'Tavia that grin and not me?"

"I hate to tell ya, man," I laid a hand on his shoulder and gave him a condescending look, trying to be funny. "But I think your aunt's picking favorites."

He raised an eyebrow, "Maybe." He replied.

A dull roar in the distance signaled the arrival of the bus, a look down the road revealed it slowly moving towards us.

"I think 'Tavia might sneak out to do it with some friends, 'heard a pony might help 'em."

"Like, an actual one? Or a convert?"

"An actual one."

I had yet to actually see a pony in person, convert or not, though at the moment there were more natural ponies than converts, an article online told me that would change soon if the convert rate kept rising. But I had never heard of something like this.

"How did you 'hear' something like that?" I said, turning my head to look at him.

"Heard her on the phone, she kept going on and on about how she and her friends were supposed to meet somewhere and 'do it', then she asked if 'the pony' was going to be there."

I sighed, well, either she was going to take the potion or do the 'stupid teenager thing' as my dad called it. I shuddered at the thought.

"Tell your parents then," I said simply as the bus pulled up.

"I don't wanna be a snitch man." Complained Martin as we boarded the bus. "Me and Shitavia are already having problems now she knows that I won't take it."

I shrugged, "Its either that or have a pony sister." I plopped myself down in a seat towards the back of the bus.

The two of us sat in silence for the entirety of the ride, I could tell Martin was thinking about what I said, the look of worry on his face was evidence enough.

I leaned back in my seat, picking my feet up and pushing my knees against the back of the seat in front of me before putting my earbuds in. Things were getting weird nowadays. But Summer was a week away, as a blizzard last winter had significantly pushed the end of the school year back, I just needed to make it through the week, still... something about what Martin said about his aunt bugged me... why would Shitavia's aunt act one way towards his sister and another towards Martin? There had to be some sort of motivation for behavior like that.

I mentally shrugged, not much I could do about it.

My family didn't see the potion in the same light as most of the public did. We were a pretty religiously grounded family, and my parents held true to Christain morals as best they could in all aspects of their lives. My dad had called it a; "Perversion of Nature." There were days where he usually ranted about how "God meant for humans to stay human," and "there was something more going on here."

My Dad was a bit paranoid when it came to stuff like the potion, he had also believed that the Rothschilds were a secret society controlling the world from behind the scenes. That being said, he was a rational man and had been in the army better part of four years without any significant PTS, so he seemed to be pretty well grounded in my eyes. After that he worked as an office drone, it paid well, but my mom could tell he wasn't happy with it.

He had seen a coworker and fellow veteran confined to a wheelchair after an RPG hit his humvee in Iraq, the man had been active before he had his legs Amputated. And my dad had told me that his friend had always talked about wanting to play tag with his son in their backyard. He took the potion despite my dad's warnings, came back to work that same day and quit three hours later, Dad never saw him again.

My Mom was about as Christain as a person could be, and had the morals of a saint, she wasn't perfect, mind you, she had a problem with keeping out of other peoples' business and tended to overstep her boundaries even when it came to raising me sometimes, she was incredibly strict as a parent, but loved me all the same.

She had been a teacher at Brannigan Elementary and had heard a lot of the kids talk about their siblings sneaking out to convert. It had worried her, worried her enough to call many of those children's parents about what their children had been saying.

Looking back on it, she had probably saved a lot of lives doing that.

I myself held the concept of the potion at arm's length, I wasn't necessarily opposed to it at first, but I had decided it wasn't for me, like it or not I sort of agreed with my dad about the potion, something about it felt like giving up a part of who you were. But this was the modern age, and opinions that tended to be unpopular tended to make those who voiced them unpopular as well, so I kept my mouth shut and watched, content to play my Xbox and hang out with Colin as school ended.

It was a few days into the first week of summer when I had seen my first convert, her name was Erica, she had been this slim little redhead that always had her eyes glued to her phone. One day I just saw her walking down the street with hooves instead of hands and feet, all smiles and laughs as a sort of fan club followed her around the entire day. She had become a unicorn, teal in color with the same green eyes she had, and I remember her mane being that same color of red that her hair was when she was human. I admittedly stared longer than I should have, it had been my first time ever even seeing a pony in person. She was always talking about how great it felt to use magic, and how "everyone should do this." I thought I saw Martin's sister with all those people following her around.

Still, I kept quiet and kept my distance, it wasn't my problem. Colin and I stuck to our memes and our video games as summer went by and the number of Converts slowly rose. After Equestria first appeared Naomi, Colin and I all shared a fascination with the alien world on the other side of the portal and so the three of us began to hang out together a lot more. Once that happened, the three of us found that there was a lot we had in common, one of those things being that we all had a similar view of the body-changing substance. We all had decided we wouldn't take the potion, that we were happy as humans.

Soon, as the week went on, the three of us were thick as thieves.

June 27th 2018. Tuesday

'Bowled Over' Bowling Alley.

7:02 PM

"So, what you're telling me is that the first time you two met, Eli punched you in the face?" Naomi looked at the two of us with a mildly amused look on her face. The three of us had managed to get a day off of our summer jobs and decided to go bowling that night. I didn't know how our conversation had turned into how Colin and I met, but I didn't like it, primarily because of the guilt that came with the story.

"Yep!" Colin draped an arm over my shoulder and smiled goofily. I smiled uncomfortably.

"It was an accident," I mumbled. "He looked like the kid who had stolen my favorite Hot Wheels."

"And so, he turned me around and gave me the mother of all haymakers," Colin pointed to his cheek. "Right here!"

I turned to continue bowling as Colin loudly narrated the story for Naomi, talking loud enough for me to hear.

"So I get up, and Eli has this confused look on his face, then I punch him in the mouth! He goes down and drags me with him, next thing we know we're both in time out, I have a bloody nose and he has a busted lip, and we just sit there watching that thief play with the toys we left behind! The next day both our moms make us apologize-"

I tuned Colin out, going over to the ball rack to grab my bowling ball, I lined it up, waiting for the pins to be set, and let it loose, the ball rolled with a curve, hitting the side of the formation and knocking over all but the lead pin.

"Crap," I growled. Watching as Naomi and Colin, who had finished talking, rolled their own balls, Colin's had got in the gutter almost immediately, but Naomi's rolled in a perfectly straight line, smashing into the pins and leaving none standing.

"Damn!" Growled Colin, looking at his abysmal score, he looked over to Naomi's and then mine. "How are you two so good at this?!"

Naomi folded her arms, a smug look on her face, "Just a matter of rotation, I rolled the ball so that it would only roll one way."

"Thank you, Mrs. Einstein..." I rolled my eyes, "I'll have your Nobel Prize ready in the morning."

Naomi laughed, walking over and playfully slugging me in the arm. Colin following close behind.

"Fuck Bowling," he said comically. "I gonna get fries, y'all want some?"

"Thought you'd never ask, moneybags," I replied, giving him a smug grin.

Then, without warning, two voices break through the otherwise calm of the bowling alley, grabbing the attention of both our party and several other families. On the other side of the building, we saw two men nearly at each others' throats. Both of them up in the others' faces as they continued their screaming behind one of the men stood a convert, who cowered behind the man as he held a hand protectively in front of him. Behind the other stood a girl, bawling her eyes out as she tried to push past the man holding her back.

"I don't give a damn who he was to her, "The man with the girl screamed, his face growing red. "You keep that fucking freak away from my daughter!"

"She's the one who keeps showing up at my doorstep!" The other snarled, " He broke up with her! That's that! Get the fuck over it!"

The girl began thrashing against her fathers' hold on her, still sobbing and screaming.

"It's not him!" She gasped between sobs. "It's not Paul!"

We looked at the scene in shock, silently watching as an attendant came and tried to break up the situation.

"So," Colin chuckled nervously "How about those fries?"

"I'm not really hungry anymore..." whispered Naomi, eyes glued to the scene.

"Me neither," I added somberly, I laid a hand on Naomi's shoulder and looked at Colin, nodding my head towards the exit.

"How about a movie at my place?" I suggested.

"Yeah." Naomi gulped, "Sounds good."

I gave my friend a gentle push on the shoulder and she turned her head from the scene practically running to the exit, Colin looked at me with a bitter expression on his face, we had planned this night last week and had all been looking forward to it.

I gave him a shrug, to which he responded with a shrug and a half-smile.

The two of us made our way out, trailing behind Naomi as we did our best to avoid the escalating situation. Many families had the same idea, ushering their children out in a hurried fashion. Despite my best efforts to force myself to look away, I took another look at the two, seeing the Convert's face in the process, he made eye contact with me and I whipped my head around, walking twice as fast as I had before, leaving Colin struggling to keep up.

The Convert was Grinning.

After the first three weeks, a law was passed stating that no person under 18 years can be 'ponified' without parental consent. But by then forty-two kids in my town and countless more worldwide and made the change, Not a significant percentage, around twelve thousand non-medical-priority teens worldwide. But there were enough to have some impact on our town. The special Ed students came back from the hospital cured of their deficiencies but behaved somewhat soberly when compared to other converts.

Several of my friends had taken the dive as those weeks had passed, either conforming to peer pressure from their friends and other converts or becoming so enamored with the media's constant glorification of the purple goop that they snuck out to Atlanta to take it with their friends. Coming back with hooves and a rather discomforting smile plastered on their faces. I never really said anything about it, why any self-respecting guy wanted to become a pastel-colored horse was beyond me. But after a few days started I noticed something... off, about the people who "went Pony." They always seemed to be a little too supportive of the process, always talking about how they felt so much better as a pony. Sometimes I wondered what parents must have felt, one day your child was the normal, happy human, and the next you've got some colorful, glassy-eyed equine at your door claiming to be your child. And after that night in the Bowling Alley, I couldn't even look at converts anymore without seeing that grin.

When the school year had ended, Colin, Naomi, and I had seemingly formed a clique of our own, the three of us rarely talking to anyone outside of each other, what friends me and Colin still had, and our families. We sat in silence, watching as more and more people went pony. We began talking, sharing information about events like what we had seen that Tuesday night.

Slowly but surely, people began to notice our group. Martin had been the first person who had started consistently hanging out with us, having heard of our little group from me before summer began, his sister had been too late to convert before the law passed, and their parents weren't budging on their refusal to allow her too, and according to Martin, his younger sister was beginning to act out because of it. Soon Naomi's sister Anna was next, then Eric, that same football player who had almost crushed Martin's phone. His older sister converted and was never the same afterward. Soon it became less about the hanging out and more about the converts, It was weird, all of us bonding over something so strange, some of us had family members who converted, others had friends, some people were just creeped out by the creatures and needed a place to vent. The three of us had no idea how to handle it really, we would just go somewhere, have fun, and start talking about it somewhere private. My parents were thrilled to see me so active, Colin and Naomi's parents felt the same way.

Before long our group had gone from three, to nine, to sixteen over the course of several weeks, all of us going somewhere to hang out and enjoy ourselves, sharing our own experiences and concerns about the creatures in hushed tones. Naomi had moved to Georgia two years ago from Milwaukee, though her parents were Russian. Before our little group formed, her only friends were her sisters, Colin, and me. She didn't know very many people in our town and hardly made the effort to, so when she came to Anderson High no one barely paid her any attention before Equestria showed up. But now she was an important part of our squad, always in the know about the state of affairs outside of the little world that was our town.

When information about the potion was leaked, she would be the first to tell us about it.

To be honest, it felt great, having so many people to just, talk to. For a while, I thought things would get better for us, so long as we all stuck together we would be fine, we would ride out the wave of potion and come out of these trying times unscathed. But as the days went on, the stories our friends started to tell got more and more disturbing.

And the further into summer we got, the worse the converts became.

Author's Note

Chapter 2

It has come to my attention that some elements of my grammar may leave something to be desired, I will try my best to correct what I can but I'm by no means a grammar whiz.

I may be on a roll with these chapters, we'll see how long it is before the procrastination sets back in.