A Trip Through the Mirror

Chapters

1. Exchange Rates
2. Into the Mall
3. f3 e5, g4?? Qh4#

1. Exchange Rates

Gold Rush felt that Cash-4-Gold exchanges had an unfair reputation, and not simply because he was the owner and proprietor of one. They were stereotyped as small, dingy little holes run by small, greedy men and women who would sell their own mothers for a quick buck. And yes, Gold Rush was small. And true, he may have never loaned a friend money in his life. But he hadn’t sold his mother, selling people was illegal, slavery, and that was unthinkable in this day and age! Besides, if he sold his mother then he’d have to find someone else to pay rent for that particular apartment, the one in the building where the tenants were always complaining about the washing machine being broken. They were the ones breaking it!

His musings on the nature of his profession – and his fiddling with a large gold ring that he wore around one pinky – were interrupted when the door to his small but clean shop opened. He looked up and immediately frowned at what he saw past the bulletproof glass. “No pets,” he said, jabbing a finger at the sign that said as much.

Two teenagers had entered, but they’d brought an orange-and-purple dog and what looked like a blue-and-yellow parrot or something with them, the dog sticking close to a the older of the two teens, a slight, blue-skinned girl dressed in a garish assortment of clothing that suggested color blindness, while the cockatoo or whatever was perched on that girl’s shoulder. Free of animals and full of smiles was a younger teen with pink skin and curly blue hair, wearing a frilly dress and looking like she had escaped from an old musical or something.

It was this younger girl who skipped up to the counter, curly hair bouncing under its bows. She was just tall enough to set her elbows on the countertop and smile a bright, toothy grin. “Golly, mister, I didn’t catch that!” She said. Her voice sounded far-away and tinny on the other side of the glass. “What’s all the glass for? Oh, my name is Cozy Glow – nice to meet you!”

Gold Rush didn’t want to be unfriendly to these kids. He loved kids, or at least he loved how their grandparents would give them golden trinkets to remember them by and they’d come to him to pawn them off for cash so they could buy video games or pogs or whatever. But pets, no. He did not like pets. They were money sinks, plain and simple, and they were by and large filthy. Plus he was allergic to dog fur. And probably feathers, feathers seemed like the sort of thing he’d be allergic to.

“I said no pets!” Gold Rush exclaimed, jabbing a finger at the dog and the parakeet or whatnot.

“I am not a pet!” The cockatoo – Gold Rush settled on cockatoo – exclaimed, flapping its wings. A talking cockatoo, Gold Rush had to admit that was cute. But rules were rules.

Cozy Glow, meanwhile, looked almost distraught. “But Smolder and Gallus are our very best friends! Right, Ocellus?”

The blue-skinned girl flinched at being addressed. “U-um…r-right.”

Gold Rush began to repeat his admonishment, but then Cozy lifted up a purse and emptied it out into the tray on her side of the glass. Coins about the size of a half-dollar, with a stylized B on one side and the image of a sun and moon on the other side. And suddenly Gold Rush was remembering three or four years ago, another young girl, this one with yellow-gold skin and fiery hair, and the single happiest day of his life

“How much for this?” She’d asked, and emptied a bag containing a hundred coins that looked very much like these ones. They were probably stolen. Gold Rush had no idea from where, and frankly he didn’t care. No way he was going to let the cops get between him and gold like that – not back then, and not today, either.

Gold Rush swallowed, looking back up as Ocellus came forward and put down coins of her own…and took some more that the cockatoo had been sitting on and the dog had concealed in her fur. He held very still while she did so, and then acted as nonchalant as possible while he worked the mechanism to transfer the coins from their side to his, and set about inspecting them. All hundred coins. The same as a few years ago with that Twilight Sparkle or whatever her name had been.

“Hmm,” he said, inspecting a coin with a magnifying glass and weighing it.

“Mm-hmm…” he continued, as he got to his chemical analysis kit and tested coins at random. Each coin was twenty-two karat gold, the remaining two karats made up of copper to increase the hardness.

“Ah-humm…” He was the picture of detached interest. He bit a coin. Bad for the teeth, but he did dent the mostly-gold coin the way it was supposed to.

Gold Rush drummed his fingers on his side of the counter. The math was intuitive. Twenty-two karat gold coins, each weighing about a third of an ounce. Each was worth about four-hundred seventy-seven dollars. There were a hundred coins. Nearly forty-eight thousand dollars was in front of him.

“I’ll give you…three thousand dollars,” he said at length in a very casual voice.

“Is that a lot?” Ocellus asked.

Gold Rush gave the most nonchalant shrug in the history of the world as he went for his cash box. However, Cozy Glow raised a hand and the cockatoo started flapping his wings. “Hang on a minute!” Cozy said, her red eyes locking on to Gold Rush’s own eyes. “That doesn’t seem like a lot.”

Gold Rush matched the stare. “Three thousand dollars doesn’t seem like a lot?” He asked. “Do you know how much ice cream you could buy with that?”

“No,” the dog said. Gold Rush started at that, peering over the counter and down at the small dog, a sheltie, from the looks of things. It looked back at him, scowling. “What?” It asked.

Gold Rush decided he was just going to power on through the fact that the dog was talking.

“I bet it’s a lot of ice cream!” Cozy said, shifting a little so that she was blocking Gold Rush’s view of the dog. “But I also bet that I could get a whole lot more ice cream if I took all this somewhere else!”

“Yeah,” the cockatoo said. “I saw another gold exchange place a few streets away. We definitely want to check out the competition before – ”

“Wait!” Gold Rush decided to just keep on powering thought the fact that the cockatoo was speaking coherent sentences as well. He drummed his fingers on the counter again, staring at the teens. “Maybe you go to the other place,” Gold Rush said. “But I’m guessing you’re new at this. And I’m guessing none of you have IDs. And I’m guessing that none of you know that any transaction over ten thousand bucks has to be reported to the NRD, with your personal information included.”

The two girls looked between each other – and the dog and the cockatoo, too. The cockatoo and Cozy Glow actually exchanged knowing smirks. “So you’re saying,” the cockatoo said, “that there’s more than ten thousand dollars there.”

He’d been trying to intimidate them, but overplayed. Damn his love of gold. “Not for you,” he said, though he did move the coins back over to their side of the bulletproof glass, tried to present himself as their only option. “Not without IDs.”

The group huddled together, talking to each other, Cozy making a few animated gestures before as one the four nodded, came back, and retrieved their coins…and then Cozy put down her twenty-five gold coins into the slot while the others stepped back. “Hi! I’m Cozy Glow. I want to exchange these coins, please!”

Well that was clever. Twenty-five of those coins would come in at only a little over ten thousand bucks, though Cozy probably didn’t know that. But she did think they were worth a lot, Gold Rush suspected. “A thousand bucks,” he said, which should have been more than enough for any kid. “But only ‘cause you’re cute.”

“Aw, thanks, mister!” Cozy’s eyes sparkled – and then her voice dropped an octave without her expression changing. “Eight thousand.”

“Fifteen hundred. I got a wife and kid to feed.” Some day he might, anyway.

“I wasn’t foaled yesterday, you know! Five thousand dollars.”

“Two thousand. Take it or leave it, kid, I’m not going any higher.” He put on his most stern glare. The kind he put on when hits tenants were late on rent.

Cozy Glow looked back easily, not flinching or wavering in the slightest, her red eyes taking in every detail of Gold Rush. Finally, her grin widened while her head tilted down a little, casting her eyes into the shadow of her brow and curly bangs. “Two thousand five hundred dollars,” she said, her voice dropping again, “or we go to the other place with everything I learned here.”

For a kid, she had a positively unsettling glare of her own. Still, it wasn’t like he wasn’t going to come out ahead on this – way ahead. He glanced to the other kid with whom he’d be doing a completely distinct and therefore perfectly legal transaction that didn’t require ID. And…the talking dog and the cockatoo that he was just accepting could talk because it made his life easier. And they weren’t people and didn’t need IDs to get money. Yeah, that was how the law worked, right?

“Deal,” he decided, opening his cash box up and beginning to count out bills. “And hey, kid, when you grow up, you come work for me, okay?”

Cozy Glow’s more innocent smile returned, and her voice pitched up again. “Golly, thanks, mister! But I’ve got things I wanna do when I grow up back home. Lots of things!”

About an hour earlier on a wonderful, sunny Saturday morning, the grounds near Canterlot High School were disturbed by a couple of high-pitched shrieks, originating from beside a certain statue that had once been enchanted by a reckless unicorn mage from another world.

“Am I a dog?” Smolder barked, spinning in place as she tried to look over herself. Her fur was thick, particularly around her shoulders; her snout was long; her tail was fluffy and wagging in annoyance; her ears were raised and pointed. And overall, she was tiny. Smaller than Spike, even! She tried to belch out smoke fire in anger, and failed utterly. “My fire! Where’s my fire?!”

“You think that’s bad? Look at me!” Gallus’ voice exclaimed. Smolder turned to look, and froze at the sight of him. He was hopping up and down, wings beating in rage – and smaller than even Smolder had become. Also distinctly avian, lacking any paws or fur or lion-like tail. Gallus spread his wings wide. “I’m a cockatoo! Why am I a cockatoo?!”

Smolder stared silently for a moment, eyes wide. “Heh,” she let out at length.

Gallus glared. “Don’t you – ”

“Hah…ha! Hahaha!”

“This isn’t funny, you scaly – furry – ”

It was too late. Smolder had fallen over, paws awkwardly clutching at her belly. “Hahahaha! Hah! You’re a…a…look at you!”

“Look at you!” Gallus countered, wings beating rapidly as he took to the air, claws on his tiny little bird feet reaching out and trying to scratch at Smolder. She batted at him with her paws, but he was surprisingly agile – and completely incapable of getting past her thick fur anyway.

“Oh wow,” Smolder laughed, grabbing Gallus from the air from where she lay. “Wow, okay, knowing I’m not worst off really helps.”

Gallus struggled out of Smolder’s grip, landing on her chest. If looks could banish creatures to the Moon, Gallus’ glare would have ploughed Smolder straight on through to its far side. “I bet this is Star Swirl’s fault somehow! He enchanted the mirrors, right?! So he turned me into a bird and you into even more of a b – ” Smolder growled, reminding Gallus that she still had sharp teeth even in this form. He hopped back, holding up his wings. “Okay, okay! Fine! I guess I should be happy that it happened to…all…of us…”

He’d trailed off when he finally looked away from Smolder. Smolder looked in the same direction. Ocellus, meanwhile, wilted when she saw two sets of eyes on her – neither set looked particularly happy at the fact that Ocellus looked perfectly normal. Quite ironic, given what she was. “Uh…um…” she said, falling back onto her haunches and grinning weakly while she tapped her forehooves together, looking down at the dragon-turned-sheltie and griffon-turned-bird. “M…maybe because I’m a changeling, the magic didn’t affect me?” Gallus and Smolder kept their glare up, and Ocellus wilted further. “I’m sorry…”

The sight of Ocellus looking so dejected spurred her friends into action. Smolder rolled back onto her legs – prompting Gallus to squawk as he took to the air to avoid being crushed – and was beside her first despite needing to figure out how to walk on four legs. “Sorry,” she said, putting a paw on one of Ocellus’ own legs. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, it’s not like you planned this,” Gallus noted, landing next to Smolder and looking up at the changeling. He let out a short laugh. “Plus, it’s gotta be fun being taller than us for a change…”

“Could have used a little warning, though,” Smolder said, turning to look at the fourth member of their little incursion. Cozy Glow had become the bipedal “human” creature that she had told them existed on the other side of the mirror, and seemed to be taking her change in better stride than Smolder or Gallus were. She was already standing on two legs, spinning around as she looked herself over, hands outstretched for balance.

Cozy noticed the look, and stopped her spin. “I’m sooo sorry, you guys!” She said, chewing on the knuckles of one hand and worrying the hem of a frilly dress she was now wearing with the other. “Counselor Starlight said that the mirror made her look like a human when she went through it – I assumed that applied to everycreature! Golly, I’m the worst…”

“N-no, it’s okay, you didn’t know!” Ocellus insisted, trotting over to her and smiling up at the now somewhat taller creature that Cozy had become. “B-but we should go back through now, right?” She looked back to Gallus and Smolder. “We’ve been through, a-and if you two aren’t even human then there’s no way we can learn about human magic – ”

“What? No way!” Gallus exclaimed, hopping into the air and hovering in front of Ocellus. “Look, me and Smolder really need to blow Headmare Twilight out of the water with this project if we wanna pass this semester.”

“Yeah, she wants a report on a race that isn’t attending the school, right?” Smolder asked, padding up to Ocellus as well, though she took a moment to glare at Gallus and the fact that he could still fly. “Well I haven’t seen any of these hoo-mon things at school.”

Cozy shifted. “Gee, though, if it’s just me, and I’m still getting used to being human, how much can we really learn about their magic? I only mentioned the portal in passing because I overheard Counselor Starlight talking to Trixie about it, I didn’t think you’d want to go through…”

Gallus and Smolder looked between each other, Gallus landing on the ground. As one, they shrugged. “It’ll be fine,” Gallus said with certainty.

“It’s not like he’s any more birdbrained than normal,” Smolder agreed.

“Exactly…wait, hey!” Gallus objected. Smolder only laughed more.

Ocellus bit her lip, looking between her friends. “And…you don’t think we’ll get in trouble for sneaking into Princess Twilight’s castle and using the portal?” Ocellus asked. “I’m pretty sure Thorax said something about ponies not liking creatures going into their homes uninvited…”

“If our report is good enough, Headmare Twilight won’t care,” Gallus said with certainty, him and Smolder both nodding. Ocellus still looked unsure, but Gallus took to the air – eliciting a jealous growl from Smolder – and hovered in front of her. “The balcony door was wide open anyway, practically an invitation to come in!” Ocellus had to admit that there was some degree of logic to that. “And we would have asked permission if anypony was home.”

“But the teachers are all off on that camping trip and Spike was off flying…who knows where. New wings.” Smolder noted. She glanced at her back and the lack of wings, prompting a whine which in turn had Ocellus reach out and pat her. The former dragon leaned into it, tail wagging a few times before she realized what was happening and scooted away from the affection. “No petting! I’m a dragon! My scales are like…” she blinked, looking at her fur that was definitely not scaly. Mirth at Gallus’ situation finally disappeared, and she growled. “Why am I a dog?!”

“Star Swirl was a jerk,” Gallus insisted.

“Is a jerk,” Smolder noted. “He’s still around.”

“Well, if anypony wants to go back, we can,” Cozy said, walking up to the statue and sticking her hand into its base to show that the portal there was still open. Through it, they could see that her hand had transformed back into a hoof, confirming that their current forms were only temporary. She withdrew her hand, looking back to the other three, or more specifically, Ocellus. “But…Smolder and Gallus really do need the help in class…golly, I’d hate for them to not pass when this place could be so cool for a report…”

Ocellus blinked at being put on the spot, her compound eyes seeing the pleading looks of Cozy, Gallus, and Smolder all at once – Smolder’s particularly effective at the moment. “O…okay, fine…” She said, rubbing her temples with both forehooves. “I can’t believe you talked me into this…oh, I guess I should be human too.” She focused her gaze on Cozy for a few moments, before blue fire washed over her and she took on a pink-haired, blue-skinned human form, taller and a little older-looking than Cozy but still slight in build like her true form was.

Cozy looked her over appraisingly. “Looks about right…” she intoned, one hand at her chin, “but I think you should have clothes. The portal made clothes for me, and Counselor Starlight mentioned that humans always wear clothes.”

Ocellus blinked, looking down at her naked bipedal body. “Oh, right. Um…I’ve never worn clothes before…” flashes of magic appeared over her body, creating shoes and socks, pants, an undershirt, an overshirt, a long jacket, a belt, a scarf, glasses, and a wide-brimmed hat, all of them in a rainbow of colors…if rainbows had zero sense of color coordination. “How’s this?”

“I think Professor Rarity would go blind,” Gallus drawled.

“It’s clothing, it’s fine,” Smolder said. “She looks like a normal human now.”

“Okay!” Cozy exclaimed. “Let’s go find out what this world has to offer!”

Miniature trains that didn’t require tracks, instead moving around on rubber wheels across stone streets. That was the biggest thing that the four visitors to this world noticed as they wandered. Most were big enough for four or five humans at a time, but one stopped at a marked area on the sidewalk was big enough for dozens of humans, a bus according to the sign. They’d tried to use it, but the bus’ pilot had asked for “exact change only”, and evidently bits weren’t exact enough. They’d each brought along a small allowance, but needed to convert it to the local currency. That had prompted a long trek to a Cash-4-Gold once they’d asked enough questions of the locals, although it at least gave them all practice walking (or in Gallus’ case, practice riding on Ocellus’ shoulder).

“Is this money made out of paper?” Ocellus asked as they left the Cash-4-Gold shop. She was holding one of the “hundred-dollar bills” in her hands, staring at the unfamiliar face on it, while the rest was stuffed into her fake clothing’s pockets. Smolder had given her money to Ocellus to hold on to since her current form lacked pockets, though she seemed unconvinced at the value of treasure that was flammable.

“Maybe paper’s really rare here,” Gallus suggested. Ocellus was also looking after his bills since he lacked pockets as well – which meant that Gallus was perched tightly on Ocellus’ shoulder and wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon, since flammable or not there was clearly still value in it. “So what do humans spend money on?”

“Let’s find out!” Cozy exclaimed as they made their way to a bus stop, where a bus had just stopped. Quite sensibly named, at least. She marched on board and held out one of the hundred-dollar bills. “Take us to the place where humans – I mean, where we spend money, fellow human! Pretty please?”

The bus pilot stared at the hundred-dollar bill, then to Cozy, Ocellus, Gallus, and Smolder, who all smiled brightly and waved. “Yeah, okay,” she said, taking the bill and stuffing it into the jacket that she wore. “Hop on in.”

And thus it was that the four otherworldly interlopers found themselves, just a short while later, at the Canterlot Mall.

Author's Note

This story is in-continuity with Queen Chrysalis Reforms (Accidentally) and Trouble in Tiatarta, but neither will be relevant to this story (since they take place during Season 9 but this story is set during Season 8), so you don't need to read them.

But you should!

2. Into the Mall

Smolder had recently come to terms with the fact that despite being a dragon, she had a very un-draconic love of cute and silly things, evinced by the occasional secret tea party with Ocellus in their dorm room where Smolder would try out dresses that she’d secretly had made at Rarity’s boutique for herself. She wasn’t ready to shout it out to the world yet, but she did accept that it was part of her, and was comfortable with it.

That part of her existing, and reminding herself how cute and fluffy she looked as a little sheltie dog, was the sole thing keeping her from breathing fire on everything around her. Well, that, and the fact that since she was a sheltie she couldn’t breathe fire.

Smolder spent most of the bus ride tuning out the conversation between Gallus, Ocellus, and Cozy Glow, as well as trying to ignore the stares that some of the other humans on the bus were giving the four of them. She guessed that they weren’t the best at blending in, but she really didn’t care, she just tried to focus on all the positive things about being a dog. Like…well, the fact that she was pretty cute, at least nominally, though given that she occasionally let out a slight growl she imagined she didn’t exactly look all that cute at the moment.

It was a relief when the bus finally stopped at their destination, the “mall”, as the bus’ pilot had called it. The four disembarked the bus and took a moment to look over the mall, which was a large building covered in signs and surrounded by a vast plaza full of the miniature rubber-wheeled trains. The main entrance was up ahead, and the four made their way towards it.

“I still think we should have gone to the other Cash-4-Gold place first,” Gallus said as they approached. “We were clearly grifted back there.”

Smolder couldn’t stop herself from flinching at the word, and Ocellus and Cozy did as well, the latter two casting mortified looks at the griffon-turned-bird (the only other upside; as bad as Smolder’s transformation was, at least Gallus had it even worse). Gallus met their stares with one of his own. “What?” he asked. “I can say ‘grifted’, I’m a griffon.”

“If you say so,” Smolder grumbled as the four entered the mall through a set of glass-and-metal double doors, used by a gaggle of real humans as both entrance and exit. They were immediately assaulted by sights and sounds and smells – especially smells, Smolder’s current nose was powerful – galore within causing all four to pause in surprise, eyes wide. Dozens of storefronts were contained within the building just from what the four could see, selling jewelry, food, clothing, toys, and other items and services that the four had no immediate words for. The sheer number of choices would have been overwhelming enough, but besides the plethora of stores there was a massive crush of creatures. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of humans in the “mall” moving to and fro, most carrying bags laden with purchased goods.

Smolder couldn’t stop herself from growling at the sight of so many unfamiliar creatures, and Cozy took a step back and towards a wall with wide-eyes. Ocellus, meanwhile, had a wide smile split her features as her eyes glided over the multitude.

“It’s like the Hive!” she exclaimed, pulling back the brim of the hat she appeared to be wearing – Smolder wondered how that worked since the hat was actually Ocellus herself, wasn’t it? The changeling in disguise turned around to look back at her friends. “So many creatures all together in such a small space, all of them moving around doing their own thing but it’s all part of a greater whole…”

“There this many shops in the Badlands?” Gallus asked.

“Oh, no, actually commerce is still new to changelings and we’re still trying to, well, create an economy from nothing. But what I mean is, every creature is here with the same unity of purpose.” She looked to Gallus, then turned around to Smolder and Cozy. “Do you think humans are like changelings in other ways?”

“I dunno,” Cozy said, looking around, getting over her nervousness. Smolder forced herself to follow suite. “But really, this looks a lot like a pony market, too! Just, y’know, inside. And there’s a lot of humans, but maybe that’s just because they put so many stores in such a small area…”

“It’s an efficient way to part creatures from their money, I’ll give them that,” Gallus said.

“Whoa!” A passing-by human exclaimed. “Did that bird talk?” Ocellus turned rapidly even as she backed away from the noise, and Gallus had to flap his wings to maintain his balance. Smolder reacted quickly to the unexpected attention, putting herself between her three friends and the human who’d spoken. He was a male, with orange skin and swept-back red hair, looking about as old as Ocellus’ assumed form.

“Hi!” Cozy said quickly, stepping forward. “And, uh…yup! Gallus can talk! Most birds can’t,” she shot Gallus a meaningful look, “but Gallus can! But not like a pon – a human, of course!”

“Far out,” the human said by way of response, not noticing Cozy’s expression. “Can I pet him?”

“No,” Gallus answered.

“Sure!” Cozy countered. Gallus looked to her, eyes wide, but she returned the look and mouthed “play along” to him. Then she returned her attentions to the human. “Heehee, Gallus just says that sometimes. He’d love to be petted, since he is a pet, after all.” She held out her arm and pointed at it. Gallus sighed, rolled his eyes, and fluttered from Ocellus’ shoulder down to land on Cozy’s outstretched arm.

Smolder, meanwhile, felt herself bristling for some reason. Pet the bird, when there was a dog right here? Then she reminded herself that she didn’t want to be petted. Or be a dog. It took some surprising effort to convince herself.

“He’s really well trained,” the human said, slowly reaching out his hand to Gallus. Gallus just sighed again, slumping and letting the human run a hand over his head-crest. “Seems kinda’ bummed out, though.”

“Th…that’s why we’re here,” Ocellus said, stepping forward. She knelt down next to Smolder and gently put a hand on the dragon-turned-sheltie’s back, rubbing at the back of her neck. Smolder couldn’t stop herself from leaning into it, tail wagging at finally getting some attention. “We’re, uh…we’re taking him to a vet.”

The human looked strangely at her. “I didn’t know the pet store here had a vet.”

“W-well, um – ”

“We were in the area, so we thought we’d check just in case!” Cozy said quickly. “And Gallus’ favorite crackers are here! Right, Gallus? Gallus want a cracker?”

Gallus glared at Cozy. She shot him an imploring look, and he let out another sigh. “Gallus want a cracker,” he droned. “Raaawk, raaawk, I’m a cockatoo.”

“Ha!”

Four sets of eyes were on Smolder, while her front paws were at her mouth, trying to keep clamp it closed – she was pretty sure dogs couldn’t laugh. She had, at least, finally drawn the attention of the human. “Your dog okay?” He asked.

Gallus, meanwhile, was glaring at Smolder. “Raaawk, laugh it up, fuzzy,” he intoned. The fact that he was so annoyed, though, and trying to get one over on Smolder when he looked like that…Smolder felt herself shivering, tail wagging. She let herself fall to her stomach, paws still over her muzzle to try and keep it closed, though half-laughs, half-barks kept escaping from her.

“She’s, um…jealous about not getting enough attention,” Ocellus answered quickly. “That’s how she shows it.”

“Shouldn’t she have a collar? Or be on a leash?”

“Also why we want to go to the pet store!” Cozy and Ocellus said at the same time. Smolder needed another moment to process what the human and two pseudo-humans had just said – but when she did, her eyes widened, and suddenly it became easier to her to stop laughing.

“Raaawk raaawk raaawk raaawk!” Gallus, meanwhile had no such limitation, throwing his head back and disguising his laughter as bird sounds. He used his wings to mime having a collar around his neck.

Smolder growled up at him, but the human misinterpreted and backed away. “Whoa, uh…yeah, you should definitely get her something quick,” he said, stepping away. “She seems kind of…mean.”

“N-no, she’s just…” Ocellus said, grabbing Smolder quickly and picking her up. Smolder let out a yelp at the sudden motion and altitude, squirming at first to try and get her wings out before she remembered that she didn’t have any, and at her size even Ocellus’ short-for-a-human height put her fairly high off the ground…with no wings to catch her…she fell silent, using her paws to grab on to Ocellus as tight as she could. Ocellus fidgeted with her. “Um, she’s…she’s not really mean, once you get to know her.”

“Actually come to think of it shouldn’t your bird have a leash or – ”

“Look, we should be going,” Cozy said, pulling her arm closer to herself so that she could make a show of petting Gallus herself. “But it was nice talking to you! We learned a lot.”

She hurried off, Ocellus close in tow with Smolder still in her own arms. The two faux-human girls looked at each other. “Okay, so, animals here sound like animals in Equestria, normally,” Ocellus said once they’d put some distance between themselves and the human. “They can’t talk.”

“Except cockatoos,” Cozy confirmed. “Probably just like Equestrian parrots, though, they’re not really talking, just repeating sounds they’ve heard.” She looked to Gallus, still clutched close to her. “You’ll have to pretend to be a parrot, okay?”

Gallus shifted in Cozy’s grasp, squirming until she relented and let him land up on her shoulder rather than be carried around. “I better get crackers, at least,” he insisted.

“Yeah, of course you think with your stomach first…” Smolder drawled at him.

Ocellus’ grip tightened on Smolder, and she pulled her away so she could look Smolder in the eyes – giving Smolder a very unfamiliar sense of vertigo at being held off the ground with no way to catch herself if she fell. “You have to pretend to be a dog, okay?” she asked. “Dogs can’t talk.”

Smolder huffed, a sound that her current from was pretty good at. “I make no promises,” she insisted. “I am not a dog, I’m a dragon, even if I am tiny and cute right now. I’ll keep my mouth shut but there is no way that I will ever act like a dog – ”

“Arf arf arf arf arf!” Ocellus watched Smolder bark ecstatically as she chased the squeaky ball across the small play-area that the pet store had. She leaped into the air and pounced on the ball, grabbing it in her mouth and shaking it back and forth. When it slipped out and went flying, she charged after it again. Ocellus did everything she could to stifle a giggle, and failed miserably. Smolder didn’t seem to care, at least. In just a few seconds she’d lost interest in the ball and instead turned her attentions to a rope toy, chewing on it relentlessly.

Ocellus wished she could drop her disguise for just a few minutes so she could be a changeling again and sample the ecstatic joy that Smolder was displaying. It would certainly calm her nerves at what the four of them were doing.

They’d found the pet store easily enough, and while the pets it sold were mostly restricted to insects and small rodents and fish, it did have a section for dog collars and leashes. Waving a hundred-dollar bill at a clerk had gotten him started on making a collar and tag for Smolder, while Ocellus had taken Smolder over to the play-area in the store to cool off. She’d expected it would take convincing, but all it had taken was tossing the ball just once, and Smolder had shot off after it.

“Done!” Cozy said as she returned, holding aloft a leash and leather collar with a heart-shaped brass tag on it. One side read Smolder, while the other had a series of numbers on it. “They asked for something called a phone number. I just made up numbers until they said I had enough.”

Ocellus took the collar and leash. Gallus himself, still on Cozy’s shoulder, had a much smaller leash around one of his legs, attached in a loop around Cozy’s wrist. “They also wanted to know if we were up to date on our shots,” Gallus said in a low voice. “I said yes.”

“I don’t think we could convince Smolder to get stuck with a needle,” Ocellus agreed, proceeding into the play area and heading over to Smolder. The dragon-turned sheltie didn’t stop chewing on the rope toy, though she did look at Ocellus as she approached. “I got your collar and leash,” Ocellus said, kneeling down next to her friend. When she reached out, Smolder growled and bit down harder on the rope. Ocellus paid it little mind, however, knowing that her friend would never hurt her. “I’m not taking anything! I’m giving you something, see?” She held out the collar.

Smolder stared at the collar, blinking a few times. Her eyes seemed to come back into focus as she let go of the rope, lifting her head up. “I was just acting like a stupid puppy, wasn’t I?” She asked.

A passing human froze. “Did that dog just – ”

“No!” Ocellus, Cozy, and Gallus all exclaimed. Cozy looked to Gallus, who looked back, then added “Raaawk!”

The human stared a moment at the four of them, then shook her head and moved on. Ocellus quickly put the collar around Smolder’s neck and attached the leash to it, then escorted her out of the play area and store as quickly as possible with Cozy and Gallus in tow. “We need to focus,” Ocellus said at last, looking to Smolder, then Gallus, then Cozy Glow. “We’re here for a reason, we have to remember that. We’re supposed to be learning about human magic.”

“Golly, I’m not sure humans have any magic,” Cozy said. The four made their way over to a corner of the mall, away from the crush of human traffic. “I’ve been looking around, but I haven’t seen any sign of anything like unicorn telekinesis, or pegasus flying, or earth pony strength.”

“But they have to have magic,” Gallus insisted. “Every race has some kind of magic. Even us griffins have heirlooms like the Idol of Boreas.”

“I thought you guys didn’t have the Idol anymore,” Smolder said.

“You know what I mean.”

Ocellus fidgeted, looking around, trying to get past the sheer multitude of humans and take in individual details. She noticed a lot of humans were carrying around small, rectangular blocks, looking at them or putting them to their ears and listening to them, or talking into one end of them. The objects had shining screens on the front that displayed a variety of moving pictures that seemed to respond to the humans’ commands.

“Maybe it’s those things?” She asked. Steeling herself, she identified a likely target, a human female ambling by herself with her eyes focused on her block. She passed Smolder’s leash over to Cozy, then walked up to the human. “Excuse me?” she asked, getting the human’s attention. When she had it, she pointed at the block the human held. “This is gonna sound stupid, but…where did you get that?”

The woman looked to her block, then to Ocellus. “This? Oh, it’s actually a little out-of-date, I keep meaning to upgrade it…” she pointed up to the mall’s second level, at a store that looked like it was almost totally made out of glass. “The Pomme store’s up there.”

Ocellus nodded and thanked her, then went back over to Cozy and Gallus, the latter of whom had procured crackers and was munching on one. Cozy didn’t seem to mind the crumbs. “It’s called a Pomme,” Ocellus told the two as she took Smolder’s leash back – and did her best to ignore the laugh from Gallus and the growl from Smolder that the action produced. “There’s a store for them right above us.”

“Right, let’s go!”

Getting to the second level of the mall was easy – there were stairs everywhere, some of which moved up or down under their own power. On their way over to the Pomme store they passed a small store selling sugar-coated pretzels and other confections and purchased a few, sampling human food and finding it to be basically like pony food – hardly a letdown, though, since pony culinary skill was well-regarded across their world.

The Pomme store was one of the strangest places that Ocellus had ever seen. While only its front was made of glass, the store itself consisted of nothing but four long tables, with evenly-spaced Pommes on either side of them. A few humans in smart black pants, shoes, and collared shirts staffed the store – and one held up a hand as the four tried to enter. “Sorry, girls, no food or pets.”

“Aww…” Cozy said, folding her hands together and smiling up at the human with a bright grin. “But Smolder and Gallus are my very best friends!”

“Sorry, but rules are rules,” the human countered, pointing to a sign on the glass door of the store which, indeed, showed a picture of a dog in a circle with a line through it and proclaimed No Pets.

Cozy’s smile didn’t falter. “Pleaaase? I don’t go anywhere without them, and Smolder’s so fluffy and Gallus is so handsome and cool and – ”

“No pets, no exceptions,” the human repeated. “Look, customers don’t want fur all over the new phones and…” he trailed off, looking at Gallus. “Okay, I’ve got to admit that a bird is new, but still: no pets.”

The pegasus-turned-human’s eye twitched just slightly. “But – ”

“Cozy, it’s okay,” Ocellus said. “Why don’t I take Gallus and Smolder and so somewhere else, and you check out the Pommes?” She looked around, and smiled. “There, that dress store. We’ll just be over there until you get some Pommes for us.”

“Dresses? Ugh…” Gallus groaned, then added “raaawk.”

The human looked Ocellus up and down, taking in the clothing she was wearing. “Um…I think some place like Burnt Matter might suit you better than Elusive’s Confidence.”

Ocellus looked down at the outfit she’d created for herself, then back to the human. “Why?”

“Nothing, forget it. If they let you in, cool.”

Cozy, meanwhile, had slipped the loop of Gallus’ own leash off her wrist, passing it over to Ocellus. “Okay,” she said, though she shot a small glare at the store clerk. “I’ll meet up with you over there as soon as I can! I’ll get these Pomme things for all of us.”

Ocellus nodded. “Come on, you two,” she said, setting off with her mini-menagerie.

Of all the many and varied things Gallus had expected to do when traveling through a magical mirror to an entirely different world, going to a store that sold dresses was somewhere far, far down on the list. Though so too had been being turned into a cockatoo. And to be honest he probably should have expected it out of Ocellus…

“What are you even getting out of this?” Gallus asked as Ocellus moved through the store, looking over the clothing. “You’re not gonna buy any of this, are you? Even if it fits you on the other side of the mirror, you don’t need it.” He used a wing to flick Ocellus’ false hat.

Ocellus glanced up at her hat, then back to Gallus. “I-it’s inspiration,” she said, stopping in front of a rack of some kind of thin, lacy garment consisting of two cups, or something. A piece of cardboard attached to each one with a thin piece of plastic called them bras. She picked up one of them, staring at it with hands outstretched. “What…where is this supposed to be worn?”

“I dunno,” Smolder said. They were relatively away from any other humans, though she did keep her voice low. Her head tilted to the side. “Maybe it’s a hat?”

Ocellus glanced around, then pointed. “No, look, there’s a picture of a human wearing one…oh!” Ocellus walked up to the picture, holding up the bra to compare it to what she was looking at. “I guess it’s for…these,” she pointed at her chest and the fact that it seemed to jut out on human females. “I think they’re teats, or something? I don’t know, my magic lets me make myself a human without necessarily knowing any of the anatomy. But yeah,” she grabbed at the lumps on her chest. “These are mammaries.”

“Ugh,” Gallus and Smolder said at the same time, making a face that Ocellus joined in on. The three interlopers looked between each other, grinning. “Mammals,” they droned as one, and laughed. Mammals were weird and kind of gross, though Gallus didn’t let it stop him being friends with Yona and Sandbar. Although something occurred to Gallus. “Wait, but changelings have all that ooze…”

“We don’t eat it,” Ocellus objected. She went back over to the bras and put the one she’d picked up back, considered, then knelt down and out of human sight. Gallus felt a slight tingle in his feet as a little flash of changing fire danced over Ocellus, then she stood and smiled. “There. Now I have a bra too, and that tiny…whatever she’s wearing around her waist.” She pointed at the mostly-naked woman in the picture and the fact that she had something at her midsection.

Smolder gave a slight huff. “Don’t see the point of wearing clothes no creature can even see. C’mon, let’s see what the dresses are like.”

Gallus blinked, looking down at the dragon-turned-sheltie as Ocellus took off, following Smolder’s lead. “Why do you even care?” He asked. “We don’t even normally wear clothes at all.”

Smolder bristled, stumbling a little over her four legs. “M-maybe Ocellus will see something she likes?” She said quickly. “Or…or what if the School has some kind of dance and we’re all expected to dress up?”

“Honestly I’d still expect you to go skyclad. But hey, you wanna look pretty, that’s fine.”

Smolder growled up at him. “You saying I don’t look pretty normally?” She demanded, then froze, paws shooting to her mouth. “I mean – that is – not that I care or…”

Gallus’s beak slowly opened as his eyes grew wide. “Grover’s ghost, you want to look at the dresses! You want a dress!”

Smolder let out a sharp bark. “No I don’t!”

Gallus was vaguely aware of Ocellus trying to get his attention, but he was too busy laughing, wings flapping as he did. “Oh wow! Hey, in seriousness, I bet you’d look great in one.” He was serious about that, but it was at least partially because he knew how much it would nettle Smolder to hear him say that.

If Smolder had still been a dragon, there was little doubt that a miasma of smoke would have been pouring from her mouth, and probably licks of flame as well. As it was, she turned around, shivering a little in a mixture of embarrassment and anger.

Ocellus tugged on Gallus’ leash before he could needle Smolder any further, shooting him a meaningful glare. “I want a dress,” she said firmly, starting forward. For the first time, Smolder followed rather than lead, head downcast, tail between her legs.

Gallus blinked at the sight, then let out a long sigh. He tugged at the leash himself. “Let me loose a second,” he said. Ocellus did so, and Gallus took wing and flew over to Smolder, hovering near her. “Hey, I’m sorry, okay? It doesn’t matter if you want a dress.”

Smolder growled. “Mattered enough for you,” she insisted, barring her fangs. “You are so lucky I’m not gnawing on one of your legs right now.”

Gallus fluttered over to the other side of Smolder – hovering was oddly harder for him as a cockatoo then it was as a griffon. “Okay…yeah, and I’d deserve it. Not that I’m giving permission or anything. Look, you wanna wear a dress and pretty yourself up, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Name one thing weirder than a dragon in a dress.”

“Silverstream.” Smolder let out a bark-laugh, and Gallus grinned as well. “Ha! You laughed, you agree. Can you imagine if we’d brought her along? She’d probably lose her mind over those escalator things. ‘Oh my gawk! Stairs that MOVE!’ She’d still be stuck there with them.”

Smolder laughed again. “If she were with us she wouldn’t even mind us saying that.”

“Of course not, ‘cause she’d still be stuck there with them.”

The two laughed. Gallus settled down on Smolder’s back, looking down at her. “Plus,” he said, looking at Ocellus, “we have, like, the best creature around for trying stuff on. Right, ‘Cel?”

Ocellus had stopped her own walk, looking back at her friends and smiling at the fact that they’d made up. “Right!” She agreed.

It was pretty simple, really. Ocellus didn’t need to worry about sizes or fittings since she could adjust those on a whim, so Smolder and Gallus moved through the dresses, skirts, and other outfits, getting Ocellus to pick out the ones Smolder liked by the armful and then taking them back to the fitting rooms. The shop’s clerks were nonplussed by the two non-human animals, but none of the three paid them much mind as they went to the rearmost fitting rooms.

Time flew by, Ocellus trying on outfit after outfit and showing them off to the two other interlopers – and also duplicating Smolder’s form so that Smolder could see what she’d look like in them. She wasn’t quite as adept at adapting the human clothing directly, but that was where Smolder came in, telling her what and where to shorten, lengthen, or widen. They also had to make adjustments for the tail and wings. Gallus was surprised at how, well, frilly Smolder seemed to prefer her dresses to be; he’d imagined her in relatively slim and understated clothing, but instead she frequently seemed to want the most ostentatious ones available. Although in hindsight, she was still a dragon, so maybe that made sense. All in all, they went through more than a dozen different styles of clothing, the only recurring theme between all of them being an odd piece of plastic magnetically clamped onto all of them.

At length, Ocellus called for a break, taking a few minutes to be in her true form inside the changing rooms and breathing a little heavily at the expenditure of magic/love. Once she’d caught her breath – as well as graciously taken some of Gallus’ and Smolder’s offered feelings of friendship as a meal to fill the small void she’d opened in her heart – she turned back into her human form, albeit sans any clothes for the moment. “We should go check up on Cozy Glow,” she said. “She has to have gotten those Pomme things for us and figured them out, right? If you two are going to do a report on human magic we should actually get some human magic at some point.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Smolder said, looking longingly at a few dresses, though she knew that Ocellus would be able to show them off to Rarity to get them made back in Equestria. “See anything you like, Ocellus?”

“No,” Gallus answered for Ocellus, “because she’s a changeling. You like something, you better use your magic rather than waste your money.”

Ocellus looked like she might almost argue the point, but Gallus fixed her with as intense a stare as he’d ever given any creature. She relented, using her magic to put on a pink one-piece dress she’d personally liked, complete with the odd block of plastic at the bottom, matching with a pair of black shoes and white, tall socks. She started putting the human money into her dress. “I don’t even know why we got all of this if we’re not going to spend it…” she said.

Gallus shook his head. “We’re gonna spend money, we should spend it on something that we can’t get in Equestria.” He noticed Ocellus still looking unsure, and grinned. “Maybe a bookstore?”

That did the trick. Ocellus’ eyes widened as she finished filling her pockets with money and took up Smolder and Gallus’ leashes. “Books! I didn’t even think about that! This is an entire universe with books nocreature in Equestria has ever read before!” She exclaimed, gathering up the human clothing in one hand and rushing from the dressing room, dropping off the clothing with a store clerk – who looked unhappy with her. “Come on, let’s go!”

She made straight for the exit with Gallus on her shoulder and Smolder at her side, but was stopped at it by a pair of white-and-black clothed humans, along with a store clerk. “Hang on a minute, miss,” the taller of the pair commanded, holding out her hand. Ocellus skidded to a halt, blinking. “You have to pay for that.”

“Huh?” Ocellus asked, then looked down at herself, the dress she was simulating. “Oh! Um…th-this, this is mine.”

“No, it’s not,” the store clerk said. He pointed down at the little block of plastic at the bottom. “It’s still got the security tag on it. Look, girl, you wandered around the store in that crime-against-fashion outfit for more than an hour talking to yourself and making voices, scaring other customers, then disappeared into the fitting rooms for another hour and talked more to yourself…”

Ocellus fidgeted. “O-okay,” she said. “Okay, sorry, I’ll pay for this – ”

“Plus you’ve got those animals stinking up the store, there’s fur and feathers everywhere,” the clerk added.

Gallus’ grip on Ocellus tightened, while Smolder started growling. Ocellus looked between them. “L-look, I’ll pay for the dress and leave,” she said, reaching into her pockets and pulling out several stacks of hundred-dollar bills. “I’ve got plenty of – what?”

The humans had all backed away at the sight. “Where did you get all that cash?” One of the white-and-black clad humans asked.

“Cash-4-gold. We were grifted,” Gallus said. “Raaawk,” he added.

The humans started again at Gallus’ informing them, while Ocellus tugged a little at his leash. “S-sorry, but, um, Gallus is right. We traded in some gold we had – ”

“Yeah, no way,” the lead uniformed human said. “Miss, you’re coming with us and we’ll call your parents – ”

He reached out, grabbing Ocellus by the shoulder, the one without Gallus on it. She let out a gasp at the unexpected touch. And maybe it was the gasp, or maybe it was just the pent-up frustrations that she was feeling at being a tiny dog, or maybe it was natural protectiveness towards her friends – but the end result was that Smolder didn’t care for the action at all. She let out a short bark as she lunged forward, teeth closing around the human’s leg.

The human let out a pained shout, stumbling away from Ocellus with Smolder still latched on. The other uniformed human reached down to grab Smolder, but that only gave the dragon-turned-sheltie a new target as she let go of her first victim and lunged for the human.

Gallus, meanwhile, had taken to the air the moment he saw the first uniformed human recover and move his leg back – like he was about to kick Smolder. No way was he going to let some overgrown mammal biped hurt his friend. He dove in with a screech, small claws going for the human’s face and driving him back.

“Thanks!” Smolder called out.

“No problem!” Gallus responed.

“Did that dog just talk?!” About a dozen nearby humans all demanded.

Gallus had no time to react further, however, as the human he was holding at bay drew a long, black metal rod tipped with glass and swung it at him. He avoided the first swing, but the second clipped him. Pain raced through his wing where the blow had landed, and he let out a cry as he fell backwards and landed at Ocellus’ feet.

The changeling stared in shock at her struck friend as she knelt, picking him up gingerly. “B-but I hadn’t…we hadn’t done anything…” she murmured. She looked back up at the humans…and hissed, blue fire racing across her as she returned to her natural form. “Zzztay away from my friendzzz!”

That was when the three learned that human screams sounded almost exactly like pony ones.

3. f3 e5, g4?? Qh4#

For a good three-year-period there, Sunset Shimmer’s life had been so simple. Wake up. Go to school. Manipulate the school around her so that she remained in charge of the teeming throngs of teenagers who would one day form the core of her army as she marched back to Equestria and conquered it. Go to her after-school job as a cook and salespony at Summer Sushi. Go home. Do homework. Sleep.

She wasn’t proud of the fact that sometimes she wished she could go back to those simpler times, but she also didn’t think that when one looked at how complicated her life had become, she could be blamed for wanting to go back to the days where months could pass without there being some kind of magical disaster. Years, actually. The entire three years she’d spent in the human world. But these past few months…

There she was, minding her own business and doing her job of frying rice and cooking chicken and rolling up sushi, when all of a sudden screams started cutting through the mall. She tried to ignore it at first – it was a busy Saturday and it wasn’t like she hadn’t heard screams before, and ninety-nine times in a hundred it was nothing, some over-excited kids or irate customers or something.

Of course, then the screams continued and got louder. Sunset looked up from the grill plate and saw people running, and not in a “ha ha let’s make idiots of ourselves in the mall” runs. No, their gait had an all-too familiar pattern to it.

“Monster!” A few people cried out as they ran.

Sunset took a moment to sigh. “Yup,” she said, switching off the grill plate, taking off her apron and hat and hairnet and tossing them aside, and going up to her boss even as she got out her phone. “I gotta deal with this,” she said, jerking her thumb in the direction the people were running from while she used her other thumb to start texting the girls: equestrian magic, mall, come quick.

While Sunset and her friends kept their powers secret from most of the world, she had personally read too many comic books in her time and seen the angst it caused heroes like Arach-Kid to want to keep it secret from her boss. So the man nodded and wished her luck, and with that, Sunset was off, running against the tide of people.

“Okay, bright smiles,” Sunset said to herself as she jogged. “Nevermind that it’s been a busy Saturday and I’ve been working at a hundred-degree grill for the past four hours, that doesn’t matter, because someone needs friendship right now. I am going to friendship the heck out of them.” She paused outside of a sporting goods store, ran in and grabbed an aluminum baseball bat, and ran back out while promising to pay for it later. “So much friendship…”

She found a mall cop and an employee of Elusive’s Confidence standing outside of that store – no, not standing. They looked like they wanted to run, but they were stuck to the ground by some kind of greenish-black ooze, anchoring their feet in place. Sunset jogged up to one of them. “What happened?” she asked.

The mall cop looked to her. “M-monster!” He exclaimed. He pointed at the store. “There was some shoplifter, a crazy girl with a dog and a parrot, loaded with cash – we tried to escort her out but then the animals attacked us, and they could talk, and then the girl – ”

“She isn’t even human!” The employee called. “Some kind of…of horse-bug thing! She grabbed one of the security guys and dragged him inside!”

Sunset blinked at that, head tilting to the side. “A changeling?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask!”

“Did it have holes in its legs? It’s important.”

“I don’t know!” The employee repeated. He had fallen back onto his rear and was trying to pry loose the goo around his feet, but all that happened was his hands got stuck. “You gotta get me out of here!”

“Get yourself out of here, it’s not safe and it hasn’t stuck you yet,” the mall cop countered.

It would be the safe thing to do, for Sunset, but it sure as heck wouldn’t be safe for the mall cop that had been attacked and dragged into Elusive’s Confidence by the changeling. She grabbed the baseball bat tighter and headed inside the store, ignoring the objections from the two behind her. A thin trail of slime on the ground showed her that the mall cop had been dragged towards the back of the store, towards the fitting rooms, where she heard vague, hushed, panicked voices.

Sunset stopped just outside the fitting rooms entrance, taking a few faux swings with her bat as she tried to listen in, but she couldn’t hear anything clearly – not the least of which was because of muffled whimpering and moaning.

Sunset lifted her bat, readying it. “Hey in there!” she called. The voices stopped. “Hey, um…I’m going to guess that either you’re all changelings, or at least one of you is a dragon. The dog. And the fact that I know that should probably tell you a lot about me.”

Silence greeted Sunset for several moments, before a scratchy feminine voice called out to her. “Are you Equestrian? Who are you?”

“My name is Sunset Shimmer,” she provided. “I’m friends with Princess Twilight – ”

That prompted an immediate reaction. “Oh gawk, we’re busted!” A male voice cried out. But more importantly there was the familiar scrabbling of hooves on tiles – and suddenly Sunset found herself face-to-face with a blue changeling. She raised her bat defensively, but the changeling didn’t attack her, instead dropping down to her haunches and holding up her front hooves, eyes clenched tightly shut and streaming tears.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I didn’t mean to but the human attacked my friends and my friends attacked first but they thought that I was being attacked and Gallus’ wing was broken and I didn’t think it was fair because we hadn’t done anything so I grabbed the human and cocooned him and plee-hee-heease don’t expel me!”

Sunset stared a moment more, before lowering her bat. She leaned around the corner, and saw a dog and a parrot with a broken wing – and shoved into one corner, a human completely wrapped up in a black-and-green changeling cocoon, looking unharmed but unconscious thanks to the sedatives within it.

Sunset looked between the three. She found herself pinching the bridge of her nose. “Okay, what?”

An explanation had needed to wait – the actual police were on the way, after all, as well as Sunset’s friends, though she had texted them to let them know that the crisis wasn’t the fighting kind, at least. Fortunately – and naturally – Rainbow Dash had arrived first thanks to her geode’s power giving her super-speed, so that at least solved how to get the changeling, dog, and parrot out of there without anyone knowing. The changeling – Ocellus – had helpfully cut open the cocoon containing the store clerk just before being carried off, at least, so he would be fine.

The three had also let Sunset know about another interloper – a pegasus pony in the form of a young girl, Cozy Glow. Sunset had found her not at the Pomme store, but instead at the nearby book store, having taken refuge there when the commotion had started. She’d been suspicious of Sunset and her baseball bat, but when Sunset had name-dropped her friends and knowing Princess Twilight, Cozy had instantly warmed up to the girl and thanked her profusely for getting her friends out of trouble.

Fluttershy had been called in to attend to Gallus’ wing, but with the four Equestrians being so cooperative there was no longer a need to interrupt anyone else’s day, so Sunset had let them know that the crisis had been averted. And so she found herself looking at a sniffling changeling in human guise, a dragon-turned sheltie who alternated between nudging the changeling with her nose and growling at anyone who got too close, a griffon-turned-cockatoo who Sunset was pretty sure was playing up his injury for attention from Fluttershy, and a pegasus-turned-human who was fidgeting under Sunset’s gaze, playing with the straps of her backpack.

“Okay, so…this was a school project?” Rainbow Dash asked once the four had finished explaining everything. She let out a grunt as she crossed her arms. “Glad to know that we’ve been upgraded from being Equestria’s dumping ground for villains, at least.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy objected. “I’m sure our friends on the other side of the portal don’t think about us like that.”

“I dunno, you heard them: that Star Swirl guy is apparently still around…”

“And is a jerk,” the dog, Smolder, insisted. She waved a paw at herself. “Look at this! Why do only ponies get turned into humans?”

Sunset sighed. “I have no idea, you’ll have to ask him.” She crossed her arms as well, looking between the four. “Personally I’d think a bigger problem is breaking into Princess Twilight’s castle and using the portal without permission.”

“Did you have permission?” Cozy asked curiously.

“I was a messed-up foal with delusions of grandeur, unlike you four,” Sunset said. “I mean, come on, all this for school? How bad do your grades have to be to make this seem like a good idea?”

“My grades are fine!” Ocellus insisted, then wilted when she realized that it didn’t exactly help her case. She was sitting on the ground, and tucked her knees up against her chest, hiding a little behind them.

“I only overheard Counselor Starlight talking about it,” Cozy said, “I just thought it sounded cool. A whole world on the other side of a mirror! But then…” she trailed off, looking to Gallus and Smolder nervously.

The two looked back, and sighed as one. Gallus nodded. “It was our idea,” Gallus admitted. “And…yeah, okay, we do have a project on foreign magic due in a couple days. And we figured that if we did it on a race no creature has ever heard of before…”

“You’d get accused of making stuff up and fail?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“But Princess Twilight knows you guys exist!” Smolder objected.

“And most of Equestria doesn’t,” Sunset pointed out. “Couldn’t you draw any conclusions from that?”

The four interlopers looked between each other. Ocellus just folded up on herself more where she was sitting on the ground, burying her face in her knees and hugging herself tightly. Smolder let out a very canine whine, flopping onto her stomach, while Gallus used the alula of one wing to continuously poke himself in the forehead. Cozy Glow chewed nervously on her knuckles and clutched her backpack even tighter.

“I – I d-don’t want to get expelled…” Ocellus stuttered. “The changelings have c-come so far…I only w-wanted to spend time with my friends…”

Smolder, Gallus, and Cozy all moved in and hugged Ocellus tightly, trying to cheer her up. Fluttershy, meanwhile, came up alongside Sunset, looking at her pointedly. Sunset couldn’t even match the gaze for a moment before she let out a sigh, turning back to the four interlopers. “It’s…okay, listen,” she said, getting their attention. “I’ll go back through the portal with you and talk to Princess Twilight, make sure she doesn’t do anything too bad. You did want to do a school project so, really, she’ll probably let you all off with only a month’s detention or something.”

“Or even less,” Rainbow Dash observed with a knowing smirk. Sunset shot her a glare, but the blue girl only shrugged. “What? You know it’s true.” She clasped her hands beside her face. “‘Oh my Celestia! My students cared so much about their grades that they crossed whole worlds! And they did it together because their friendship is so strong!’ That’s her. That’s how she’ll sound.”

Chuckles from the four interlopers confirmed the likelihood of that, and even Sunset had to laugh a little as well. “Okay…yeah, you’re probably right. But…” she looked back to the four. “As for the project…sorry, can’t help you there. You can’t do your project on human magic because humans don’t have magic. Rainbow Dash has super-speed, and I can read minds and Fluttershy can talk to animals, but that’s because Equestrian magic leaks into this world.”

“But those…those Pomme things?” Cozy asked.

“Phones. They’re a kind of advanced technology.” Sunset shook her head. “Sorry, humans make do without magic. It took some getting used to for me as well, I thought that so much here was magic, but…”

The four stared uncomprehendingly. Gallus finally broke the silence. “Oh come on!” He exclaimed. “You mean I got my wing broken and I’m down twenty-five bits for nothing?! I don’t – what is this even gonna be like back in Equestria, is it gonna be my wing, or one of my paws, or both, or…?”

Sunset shook her head. “Come on, let’s find out – and get you four home.” She pointed at the portal. “In you go.”

They stood, Gallus being picked up by Ocellus, and walked towards the portal. “Maybe advanced enough technology is magic…” Gallus tried.

“I don’t think that’ll work with Headmare Twilight,” Smolder said.

“I’ll help you two pick something else,” Ocellus promised.

Then the four were through the portal. Sunset sighed rubbing her eyes. She felt Fluttershy’s hand on her shoulder. “At least this time there wasn’t some big crisis,” she reminded Sunset, smiling.

Sunset returned the smile. “Yeah, you have a point. There was a lot less running around and worrying about the end of the world than normal. Just some harmless kids.”

Headmare Twilight had said that she was disappointed in the four of them for using the magical portal without permission, of course, even if it was for a school project. But when she’d learned the reasons, and with Sunset there to smooth things over, she’d only settled on a week’s detention, as well as insisting that the four of them better have very good projects…but the fact that she’d shown interest in Gallus’ suggestion that maybe human technology was their magic had resulted in a notable glint in her eye and a request for him to elaborate. He’d seen his opportunity and pitched his idea, theorizing what a world without magic would develop like, getting help from Sunset…and then stopping a few minutes into it, saying that it was a shame that it couldn’t be a full project and he’d just have to do it on diamond dogs or breezies or something.

It had worked like a charm. Twilight had said that Smolder and Gallus could do their project on humans. Ocellus stuck with the project on the yogi of yetis that she was doing with Silverstream, while Cozy had partnered with Sandbar to do a project on buffalo and their shamans. Fortunately the project wasn’t one that had to be presented to the class, so humans could remain secret.

But that wasn’t what mattered to Cozy Glow.

Nopony, or any creature for that matter, had noticed the backpack-turned-saddlebags she’d been wearing when she came back to Equestria, but hadn’t left with. Sunset Shimmer hadn’t known that the backpack had been a new acquisition to start with, of course, and Gallus, Smolder, and Ocellus had been too busy with their own concerns and emotions. Cozy played it completely cool as a cucumber for the entire dressing-down that Twilight had given them, and during Cozy’s extended apology.

The apology was important, or more specifically, the fact that Cozy didn’t once try to shift blame or downplay what she’d done. That meant what she’d done was an honest mistake. Anypony could have done it, and Cozy was sorry, wasn’t she? So it showed that she knew what she’d done was wrong, and she’d learned her lesson, and so she could be trusted. In fact, her honest repentance, if anything, made her even more trustworthy.

Just like she’d hoped.

That night, Cozy snuggled into the top bunk of her dorm room, firefly lantern beside her under the covers while she hugged her mountain of stuffed toys close. She had her new saddlebags under the covers with her, and she took out everything she’d procured from the human world. Mostly, they were books: The Way Things Work. A Student’s Guide to Analytical Mechanics. A Brief History of Time. A Short History of Nearly Everything. The Prince. Power Force Six volumes one thru three, because she was still a filly and so occasionally needed a break from work.

And most significantly, she pulled out her brand new laptop computer, turned it on, opened up its disc drive, and put in the compact disk containing the Encyclopedia Atlantica, just like how she’d been shown how to by the helpful store clerks that she’d visited once she’d managed to get away from the other three. The power on the laptop wouldn’t last forever, but she was sure she could find some way to charge it in Equestria.

While she was waiting for the Encyclopedia Atlantica to install, she scrolled over to the Games section, and opened up the Chess program.

White or Black? The computer asked her.

Cozy chose black, and grinned. “Your move,” she informed it.

Author's Note

No, the chapter title isn't me having some kind of mental breakdown. It's algebraic notation for chess. A Google search should yield relevant results.