Silly Species Swapping

Silly Species Swapping

Chapter 5

“I ain’t got to tell you nothin’!” Rocky remained firm in the face of the white pony standing above him. If only her friend had been willing to face him herself. The two had been having quite the rough day, and Rarity was making no effort to hide it as she stared down at the rude little rock pile.

“Now see here, you nasty little lumps of rock.” Rarity leaned in closer and stared into the place she could only assume a pair of eyes would go. “I have been zapped, pulled, yanked, pushed, squashed, covered in flour, my mane is a mess, my best friend is upset, and another good friend of mine is missing. Today is NOT a good day to find out how far you can push a lady.”
“You might scare dem other ponies with that tough gal act,” Rocky lied as he visibly shook, “but you ain’t getting’ to me!”
“Oh really?” Rarity stood firm, barely moving an inch as she spoke and lightened her tone slightly. “Oh Fluttershy darling?”
“Um…Yes Rarity?” Fluttershy poked her head out from behind her reclaimed hiding spot behind the white pony.
“Would you be a dear and help me check to see if this rock has any hidden gems inside?”
“Oh! But…um. I mean…I don’t know-“
“Oh! Don’t worry darling. I can talk you through it.” Rarity intensified her stare upon Rocky. “We can check inside afterwards to see if you were successful.”
This threat finally broke Rocky’s façade “Okay! Okay! I’ll talk!”

“They’re being party poopers!”
“What?” Pinkie responded to the voice again, its frustration shaking through its words and taking Pinkie by surprise.
“Those friends of ours! They’re supposed to be our bestest of best friends and they’re trying to ruin our party!”
“My friends are helping!” Her spirits lifted immediately, she knew she could rely on them to help her out of this, to help her break free.
“You’re right! That’s just the thing to turn these party poopers around! And we’ve got all the right materials!”
“But I didn’t say anything!”
“You don’t need to say it silly, we both know what this party needs right now!”

“Urgh! Did somepony catch the name of that wagon?” Applejack grumbled. Her question was not met with a response, save for a sharp pain that made her head feel like it was splitting in two. “Gosh darn it! I don’t know how Rainbow manages to keep a straight head the number of times she takes a tumble.”
Applejack opened her eyes and got to her hooves. She had landed in one of the alleyways that weaved through Ponyville. With the majority of the party held out in the open, the back streets had become preparation areas as Pinkie’s skills at organising parties spilled out into the town. Towards the exit Applejack noticed two mares who were busy with paintbrushes applying face paints to each other.
“What in the hay?” Applejack realised one of them had “borrowed” her hat in an addition to her scarecrow face paint. “Don’t none of you think of asking a mare before taking their hat?”
The pair turned their heads slowly towards the mare spoiling their fun. “But the costume contest is in twenty seven minutes and fifteen seconds.” They spoke in unison, ringing their voices in lilting tones. With a better look AJ recognised them as Lyra Heartstrings and her friend Bon-Bon. However this better look also gave her a good look at their faces.
They had clearly been trying to find the right look for quite some time, as layer after layer of different colours and styles were clearly plastered onto their faces. Lyra herself seemed to have one eye surrounded by one of the light circles Applejack had worn when she was the Mare-Do-Well, with the other surrounded by ladybug spots, all while her mouth was looking more clown-like with a big red grin and vampire teeth drawn on. Bon-Bon had clearly started to find her “look” with the help of the borrowed hat as Lyra had begun to cover her in a cross-hatched sack texture over her snout while her face still had the white face of a mime she had apparently been trying earlier.
“Maybe that’s it!” Bon-Bon exclaimed
“What’s it? Lyra looked back quizzically
“She wants to hold us up so we miss the deadline!”
“And let one of her siblings win the prize!”
“How dare you!” Bon-Bon’s voice seemed to crack into another entirely,
“Now, now partners, I ain’t trying to ruin the fun. I just wanted mah hat back.” Applejack slowly walked back away from the pair who were beginning to give her the creeps.
“Oh yeah?!” Lyra stomped forward. “Prove it!”
“Beg your pardon?”

“Okay! One and two and one and two…” Twilight kept the rhythm of her new wings alive in her mind, with every few beats getting a little more lift or momentum. “Angle left, adjust for wind speed, give direction to speed, create velocity towards Canterlot.”
Despite her newbie stature as a flier, Twilight was rather enjoying the freedom in the air, and her work in aerodynamics was having a much more practical application that was allowing her to feel the very forces of flight rather than simply read about them. In fact, if this were not an emergency she would have been tempted to simply have a few tentative swoops through the skies.
“No Twilight, focus!” She corrected herself. “You’ve got to keep your mind on the plan. Check your altitude and location.”
She was very high! Very, very high! However it seemed she had not moved too far along the ground as she could still make out Ponyville below and a blue shape running along below her.

“Where is Pinkie Pie?” Rarity shouted directly into the rock pile.
“She’s….She’s….” Rocky was faltering, his demeanour shattering under the force of Rarity’s gaze, “The dame’s hosting the main event down at the old corner!”
His confession was cut short when a strange rumbling began to build from below, rippling across the ground and sending the hairs in everyponies’ coat to stand on end, as well as the streamers, millions of coloured paper ribbons standing on their ends like coloured grass.
“Looks like the host has herself a new trick!” Rocky chucked to himself.
The second rumble was not to Rocky’s delight however, as it shoock with a much greater force, as though the entirety of Ponyville was on the surface of a huge drum. The streamer-grass rippled and waved with intense energy as it adsorbed every beat.
“What’s going on Rarity?” Fluttershy toppled to the floor as her legs failed to bear the effect of the quaking as well as her own fearful state.
Her answer was quickly answered, though not in a manner anypony was expecting. The rumbling finished with one final beat that sent every single streamer shooting into the air like some sort of reverse-waterfall of colour pouring into the sky.
A sky that was currently occupied.

Twilight was not prepared for the assault by this airborne river of paper; she couldn’t even hear the rumbling from below, she was still trying to give herself more forward momentum when it hit her.
And it hit her hard. The torrent of paper flowed over her, not even registering her small frame as an obstacle for the force contained within. Twilight found herself buffeted around like a fly in a hurricane. Her heart beat loud in her chest, her mind raced as it tried to communicate with the rest of her body to compensate, but her new wings did not listen. The bright yellow wings, once belonging to the timid yellow Pegasus, were unprepared for such an assault, and they did what they had been used to doing in this situation; they froze.
The yellow wings froze.
High above Ponyville.

(To be continued)