Tangled Up In Purple

by Crescent Pulsar

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Slice of Life, Crossover, Main 6, Ranma ½, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Spike
Length: 18524

Ranma gets sucked into a book that makes him the protagonist of its story, one which follows the past exploits of Twilight Sparkle.

Ranma gets sucked into a book that makes him the protagonist of its story, one which follows the past exploits of Twilight Sparkle. Unfortunately for him, he has no idea how the story is supposed to go, or how to leave the book.

I commissioned the cover from Crowne Prince.

Published 2022-05-08 11:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-01-31 06:03:51 UTC

Prologue

One late afternoon, in Windigo City, a middle-aged unicorn stallion stepped out of his townhouse. He had a yellow coat, slicked-back emerald hair, a mustache, and silver eyes and hooves. He wore a pair of thin-rimmed glasses, a grey scarf, and a satchel, which hung from his neck.

It was chilly and breezy, as was often the case for that time of the year, but he was accustomed to it and merely adjusted his scarf before descending his porch steps, beginning his trek to the post office. Said trek was uneventful, save for the couple of greetings that he returned along the way.

Upon entering the post office, the clerk glanced toward him. When he was recognized, the clerk turned his head to face him and offered a slight smile. "Good morning, mister Balm."

"Good morning," Lemon F. Balm warmly returned the greeting as he approached the desk.

Once there, he lit up his horn and pulled a rather thick book out of his satchel, which he settled upon the desk with a heavy thump. The Epic of Twilight Sparkle was written on the midnight blue cover, in golden text. The first three words of the title were separated from the last two by a pair of horizontal stripes: one purple, one magenta.

"I'd like to have this delivered to Princess Twilight Sparkle," he casually stated, since he had made such a request several times before, albeit for drafts. "Instant delivery, please."

The clerk simply nodded his head and began to fill out the order form. "Tracking and preservation spells, I take it?"

"That's correct," Balm confirmed.

After the clerk finished filling out the order form, he pushed it forward to be signed and said, "That will be one hundred and seventeen bits."

"That's three less bits than last time," Balm idly commented while he signed his name.

Once money had exchanged hooves, the clerk took a tag and wrote down the sender's and recipient's information onto it before applying a postage stamp and postmark. Next, he threaded a cord through the hole on one end of the tag, then tied it around the book vertically, making sure the tag was displayed in the front. Finally, he called out to someone in the back and a unicorn came to take the book back to their own workspace.

Happy that he had done what he had set out to do, Balm bid the clerk goodbye and left. Not too long after his leave, however, the clerk heard and felt someone slamming into something.

"When was this wall put here?" The clerk heard a familiar voice say.

Someone sighed before answering, "You're at the wrong post office, Derpy."

While the clerk was shaking his head at that, the unicorn in charge of instant delivery shipments was frantically trying to track down where they had sent Balm's book after being startled by the collision.

Chapter 1: This Sucks

In the guest bedroom of the Tendo residence, a female Saotome Ranma lay on the floor, on his side, with an arm propping up his head. He wore a bored expression on his face as he stared down at his mostly-unfinished English homework, which he hadn't touched in several minutes. Instead, he had his pencil trapped between his nose and upper lip while his mind wandered, mostly exploring other things that he would rather be doing with his time.

Like getting some ice cream. He was in the right body for it, so he wouldn't have to worry about being embarrassed if anyone witnessed him eating it. Plus, it was summer, and the contrast in temperatures made it a touch more enjoyable despite not being bothered by the heat. When was the last time he had some, anyway? It must have been the other day, but it felt like a long time ago.

He smiled as he recalled himself using his feminine wiles to get an ice cream cone at half the price, and getting an extra scoop at no additional cost.

His pencil fell, and he was returned to the present when it hit the tatami floor.

He sighed.

Unfortunately, English class was mandatory and he was failing it, so he couldn't afford to put his homework off and hope he got back to it. Why couldn't it have been Chinese? At least that language would come in handy, considering how often he encountered it, and the native people who spoke it. When would he ever need to know English? Probably never.

Suddenly, there was a strange sound that he'd never heard before, and it was accompanied by a flash of blue light that briefly lit up the room. A split second later he rolled away from the disturbance and prepared for a fight as soon as he got to his feet and faced it. However, instead of an opponent, or any obvious sign that one was about to arrive, he saw a book right at the moment before it landed on the floor and settled upon one of its covers.

After looking about the room and extending his senses to detect the presence of anyone he couldn't see, and discovering nothing and no one, he cautiously approached the book. Squatting before it, he picked it up and turned it over, where he saw a title written in English. He recognized "the" and "of", and he could probably sound out the three remaining words, but that wouldn't tell him anything about the book. There was also a tag hanging from a cord, which was tied around the book, and its contents suggested that the book was mail. As far as he could tell, neither address were familiar to him.

He considered what to do with the book, and it didn't take long for his curiosity to get the best of him. While it was wrong to tamper with someone else's mail, he was pretty sure that the postal service didn't magic mail directly into someone's house. That's not to say that it wasn't possible to transfer something with magic, though. Had he been the intended recipient? Probably not. However, knowing his luck, he'd probably still end up being dragged into something, so he figured that he might as well try to get a better idea of what to expect.

With that decided, he slipped the cord off of the book and opened it. Unsurprisingly, as he flipped through the pages, he saw English wherever he found words. There were a couple of inked illustrations in the back of the book, which he could identify, but their significance escaped him. Disappointed and discontent with his findings thus far, he went back to the front of the book, since he had skipped it in favor of getting a look at its contents first.

What he found there was what he had expected, until he reached a page that had a fancy border, which reminded him of windows that had many differently-shaped panes. There was a big arrow at the top of the page, with fancy text inside of it, pointing toward the center, where he saw much smaller text. Despite his limited vocabulary, he was able to read all but the penultimate word of the fancy text, which said: "LOOK HERE TO ENTER CHAPTER ONE."

With his brow furrowed, and wondering if he misunderstood something because of the meaning he thought the sentence had, he brought his face closer to the center of the page, to see if he could read what was there and maybe figure out what the purpose of the page was.

"Have... fun...?" He slowly enunciated.

An instant later, the book went from drawing his interest to literally trying to draw him in with a surprising amount of suction. His first instinct was to yelp and push the book away, and keep it at arm's length until a better idea occurred to him, but he made the mistake of not raising its height, resulting in his knees being close enough for the suction to seize them. Surprised, he cried out in alarm as his legs were swiftly pulled into the book knees-first, forcing his upper body down as it followed behind them, which made him lose his grip on the back of the book because his efforts had primarily been on the side facing him. Desperately, he tried to adjust his position so he could grasp the book again and pull himself out, but between his body becoming distorted to fit through the shape of the book, and how strange his body felt on the other side, he could do little more than reach out with one hand before being completely consumed.

The book, already in free-fall, stopped its suction before it hit the floor and closed. A portal appeared in the air a few seconds later, and the unicorn who had accidentally sent it there stuck his head through it. Simply relieved to have found the book meant for the princess, he didn't bother to pay attention to its location, or question how the cord could have been separated from it, as he collected both with his magic and left.

Just after the portal disappeared, the shoji door was shoved open by a mildly concerned Akane. When she didn't see anything amiss, she frowned before closing the door and going back to her room, deciding that she must have imagined what she had heard.

Chapter 2: Take a Look, You're in a Book

After the book closed, Ranma found himself surrounded by darkness and silence. He didn't fully register it, however, because his mind was dwelling on the image of his arm transforming into an inhuman, purple-colored limb while it was outstretched toward the retreating window that led back into his family's room. He also strongly suspected, based on the sensations that his nervous system was relaying to his brain, that the rest of his body had also been significantly altered.

What did get his attention, was when the weightless feeling that came from falling ceased and he felt himself settle upon an invisible surface, largely because of how strange his hindquarters felt. Then, he began to feel a blustery wind hitting him from the direction he faced, which not only highlighted the many changes to his body, but that he was no longer clothed. His new ears, which seemed to be higher up on his head because of where he felt them being blown back, picked up the sound of flapping wings in addition to the wind rushing by.

Despite being bombarded by so much information from his body, it was hard not to notice the white and stylized English words that appeared before him, and remained centered in his line of sight when he moved his gaze: Enchanted Book Publishing.

He squinted his eyes at the words, wishing he knew what they meant. The shortest word looked familiar, but its meaning escaped him.

After a few seconds, those words faded away and were replaced by one: Presents.

Since that didn't change anything, he waited to see if anything else would happen, since he couldn't seem to do anything but sit there and watch. When the word vanished, a new set of words replaced it, although they were much larger this time: The Epic of Twilight Sparkle. Again, he got the feeling that he was familiar with what he was looking at, but this time he was pretty sure that it had been on the cover of the book.

At the same time that those words appeared, the darkness began to slowly ebb away, revealing the world around him. By the time the words were gone, he discerned that he was in some kind of simple vehicle that was in motion, which explained all of the wind. He also noticed a strange shape nearby, which he thought might be a passenger. Just as he began to lean forward and peer at them, to try and figure out what he was looking at, they turned their head to look at him when the darkness withdrew enough for him to see a reptilian-looking creature that he had never seen before.

Between being in such a strange situation and body, which was saying something, and not knowing what to expect from them or the creature, he erred on the side of caution and tried to jump away, to put some distance between them until he could determine if he was safe. That's when he discovered that his ride, a chariot being pulled by winged horses, was in the air instead of the ground, among the scattered clouds.

Being that he'd fallen from greater heights before without lasting injury, he was unperturbed as he began to tumble to the ground. He tried to stabilize himself so he could land in a less painful manner, but the new dimensions of his body required a different technique to accomplish it, so he continued to tumble until the chariot that he had jumped out of passed underneath him, just in time for him to land head-first into the cart.

"Ow..."

He heard someone speaking while the rest of his body toppled onto the floor, but he disregarded them because he couldn't understand what was being said, although he did note that they sounded young. Once his limbs were under him again, he was surprised when he was met with resistance upon trying to raise his head from the floor. With a frown, he tried to do it several times more, unsuccessfully, before taking a break and looking up to see what was attached to his head, glad that the darkness was completely gone now. It was hard to see with his new hair in the way, but it appeared that something purple was projecting from his forehead and through the floor, instead of something on the floor sticking to his forehead.

Undeterred by such a simple problem, he braced himself before pushing against the floor with one, swift motion. He freed himself with enough force to send himself stumbling backwards on unfamiliar legs, until he fell out the back of the chariot. Seeing that he was in this situation once again, he released an exasperated sigh and crossed his arms, and simply tried to catch sight of what the chariot was doing while his world went spinning once more.

Said chariot was able to catch him a second before he would have hit the ground. Then, before he could try to sit up, the flying horses made a sharp turn to avoid the oncoming forest, which made the cart swerve and push both him and the purple-colored reptile into the side board. Despite the horses' efforts, the cart struck a tree and sent both of them flying through the air. He heard the creature screaming nearby before he slammed into a tree and lost consciousness.

In what felt like an instant later, he found himself sitting in the darkness again. While the series of words began to appear once more, he thought about what he had experienced, and how he had returned to where he was shortly after entering the book. It made him wonder if he was in a fictional world, instead of actually being transformed and transported to a real place. Either way, it didn't seem like he had to fear that reptilian creature or the flying horses.

So, as the darkness slowly began to fade, he decided to get a better idea of what had happened to his body. All that he knew, for sure, was that he was purple, no longer human, and still sounded like a female.

When he could see well enough, he raised his arms up for inspection, checking their range of motion and what had become of his hands. It turned out that, despite having very similar capabilities as human arms, the hooves that had replaced his hands suggested that it might be more accurate to call them legs.

He looked down next, where he saw that his legs were now the hind legs of a quadruped, but a couple of tests confirmed that they had more range than expected. Rotating his head to look behind him, not only did he discover that he could turn it further than usual, but what must have been a horse's tail, considering everything that he knew about his new body.

He frowned, wondering if it was some kind of joke to turn him into a strange horse-thing. He knew that there was a specific kind of horse that had a horn, from his time looking for possible cures to his curse, but the name of it escaped him.

Just as he began to wonder who would make him look like his namesake, that reptile began to speak, seemingly reading from a parchment. Now that he really looked at it, it did appear childish, not just sound it. Its eyes were pretty big, too, maybe even bigger than he'd ever seen in animation. When he factored all of that with the language it spoke, his current form, and their colors, one name jumped to the top of his suspect list: his English teacher, Ninomiya Hinako.

Being that her default physical age was just short of pubescent, and she had the mental maturity and interests to match, which bled into her behavior when she was an adult, he couldn't help thinking that this was some scheme to get him to improve his English. Which would be a really strange thing to do, and certainly going overboard, but that was pretty much par for the course when it came to how he was treated by others.

Well, if it could be helped, he wasn't going to allow her to get her way.

Chapter 3: An All-Horse Town

Ranma tuned the reptile out, as it tried to get a response from him about something, and awkwardly raised his upper body so he could lean his... forelegs on top of the cart's side board. He looked around, taking in the world, wondering how he was going to get out of such an elaborate place by himself. Even a certain compact mirror, which his mirror clone had trapped them both inside of, had required outside assistance to get its occupants out, and it had been a rather simple device.

Although he preferred being more proactive, and overcoming a challenge without help, there might be a chance that he wasn't in a position to enact a solution. If that ended up being the case, all he could do was occupy himself while he waited for a rescue. If everything he could see was interactable, like the castle on the mountain behind them and the town ahead, it might be bearable — even more so if there was more to do beyond the horizon.

Conversely, if his only way out was to, say, learn English...

As the chariot began to descend toward the town, he paused his current thoughts to get a good look at where they were apparently going to land. At first, it looked like a rustic, European town; but, the more of it he saw, the more it seemed to lack a singular cultural identity, apart from having a strong — if dated — Western influence. The big tents might have been the only exception to that, mostly because he didn't associate a tent with permanent residences, and the only building that he could confidently call modern looked good enough to eat.

With his gaze on the cupcake-topped building, and no immediate solutions to his predicament coming to mind, he decided that it wouldn't hurt to check out the town while he waited for any potential help to arrive, or for an idea on how to escape the book himself — without learning English — to come to him. Sure, he did have school to attend, but he'd missed plenty of school days because of stuff like this, and he had no problem with missing more.

After the chariot landed and came to a complete stop, he hopped off of it and landed on his hind legs. He swayed before he acquired his balance, then took some practice steps to see how practical it would be to walk on two legs, ignoring the looks that he was getting and the question from the reptile. Once he concluded that standing on two legs would put too much strain on his body after a while, he resigned himself to walking on all fours.

With that out of the way, he focused his attention on his surroundings, and on the citizens of the town in particular. And... wow. Their eyes were certainly huge. That probably meant that his eyes were, as well. He also noticed that some horses had a horn, like him, wings, like the ones that had driven the chariot, or had neither of the stand-out features, which seemed to be the case for most of the horses that he could see. Another common feature were the pictures on the horses' flanks, save for one of the young ones, and a quick look revealed that he had one of his own, making him wonder about their significance. Finally, there didn't seem to be any restriction on what color their coat, hair or eyes could be.

Before he could start moving to a more populated and commercial area, he noticed a pink horse walking directly toward him, who he determined was a girl once she was close enough for him to see her visage and physique. For some reason she stopped in front of him, a few steps away, and stared at him, as if she were leisurely waiting for something.

"What?" He prompted.

The pink horse jumped into the air while gasping quite dramatically, then somehow managed to fly over his head despite being wingless. He looked behind himself, and saw that she was already out of sight.

He stood there for a few seconds, staring incredulously, before shrugging and beginning his trek toward the center of the town. Despite the different configuration of his legs, he had little trouble keeping his balance and finding his stride, which he attributed to certain aspects of his martial arts training.

Not long after he began, the reptile caught up with him and talked while pointing at a parchment that had various things written on it.

"Sorry, little guy," he eventually said, sparing the reptile a glance, "but I'm not interested."

He saw the reptile stop and regard him with confusion and worry before he returned his attention to the fore, hoping that he had dissuaded the creature from bothering him further by demonstrating the language barrier between them.

Eventually, mostly by entering the part of town that seemed most dense with buildings, he found himself at the town square. At the center was a tower-like building, with a wraparound veranda, which was accessible from multiple sets of stairs, and two wraparound balconies. There was a fountain across from the building's entrance, a couple of small tents nearby, as well as several polls around the area, where a pair of clefted streamers hung from dowels and whose tops flew pennants. A number of street vendors could be seen down one street, where he could see that dessert-themed building.

There were a lot of horses moving about and socializing at the square. He spared a moment to watch them, out of curiosity, but his attention soon locked onto one horse in particular. This one had a horn like he now did, but what caught his attention was the floating ice cream cone in front of their face, and how both it and their horn were surrounded in an aura of the exact same color. Considering what he'd seen the flying horses accomplish with such small wings so far, it wasn't a stretch to conclude that horns were more than a projection with stabbing potential.

Looking up at his horn, he wondered if he should try to get it to work. Honestly, he would have preferred having wings, but moving stuff with one's mind was only slightly worse than that. For all he knew, he might be able to effectively fly by moving himself.

Since he was killing some time anyway, in case he could only be released by someone from outside of the book, or someone was already working on releasing him, he decided to postpone the rest of his sightseeing to harness his horn's power. So, he looked around for something small to start with, but the ground was well-tread and clear of stones and litter. Eventually, after turning his sights higher, he chose a flower from a planter box hanging from a nearby window sill.

After staring at the flower for a few minutes while he focused on moving it, with no sign of success, he frowned. That horned horse had made it look so easy. He spent a couple more minutes watching other horses using their horns, saw that barely any thought seemed to be put into it, then returned his attention to the flower and tried to approach it casually.

Again, he failed to move the flower in any way. Thinking that there must be some sort of trick to it, he fell back on what he knew best: martial arts. There were a lot of techniques that he could do with little or no thought, but that had usually required some amount of training first. The most comparative ability that he could think of, ki manipulation, had required meditation to recognize the ki within himself before he could do anything with it consciously, so he wagered that it might be the same for whatever the horn used to levitate things.

Without any thought to where he was or who was watching, he set his head on the ground, with his forelegs crossed behind it, and raised his hind legs into the air before crossing them. Then, he closed his eyes and began to meditate, looking within himself for whatever powered his horn.

"Mommy," a young girl said from nearby, as she looked up at her mother, "what is that lady doing?"

The mother blocked her view of Ranma with a hoof and hurried her along. "Nothing that you need to concern yourself with, honey."

It took a while, but Ranma eventually discovered an unfamiliar energy inside of himself. It wasn't like ki, which he could draw tangible ideas from about its nature, like temperature and weight. Also, instead of being easygoing, and more difficult to motivate the more that he demanded from it, this energy was wild and untamed, ready and willing to run away if not reined in. Which made a sort of sense, since he was a horse.

Once he was back on all four feet and facing the flower again, he focused and tried to coax the energy toward his horn, ready to suppress it if necessary. However, when it shot out like a bolt of lightning and struck the house, turning it into a horse-shaped house, he was completely overwhelmed. He felt the energy rushing out wherever it could; it even flowed through his eyes, turning his vision white.

He felt helpless as he began to float off of the ground, unable to figure out how to get this strange energy under control. He not only sensed it course throughout his entire being and blaze around it, but as it shot out in more directions, turning more of the town's buildings into horse-shaped ones, save one because it was already that way, and its residents into pommel horses.

Mercifully, the energy wasn't infinite, and with its exhaustion his vision turned dark.

Chapter 4: Magic in a Young Mare's Heart

Ranma found himself in the darkness once again.

However, something was different. Not with the situation, but with himself. He could feel it, even if it wasn't entirely physical. There was a certain clarity of mind, as well as a lingering warmth in his chest. He was certain that it was caused by the energy that he had carelessly tried to control, which he was now very much aware of, like he had a sixth sense for it.

Raising a hoof, he rested it upon his breast, where he was sure the energy was concentrated. With ki, which was concentrated in the abdomen, some of the most basic uses came from passive strength and endurance, gut instinct that alerts one of imminent danger, and using primitive emotions to manipulate it easier. Since this new energy was where his heart was, and had a different nature compared to ki, he could only guess what the optimal applications were between the two.

He was broken out of his introspection by the reptile, who was waving a claw in front of his face while saying something. Taking a brief look around, he established that he was in the chariot again, presumably being taken to that horse town, and that the darkness was almost completely gone.

On a whim, and with little conscious thought, he used his new awareness of that energy to grasp the parchment in the reptile's hand and pulled it toward him. Since the reptile had been holding it hard enough so the wind wouldn't take it, and hadn't expected the action, one corner was shredded as a result. He didn't care about that, or the reptile's protestation, as he analyzed what he was doing with the energy.

It was surprising how easy it was to use it, considering what had happened when he had first tried to use it. All it took was a desire and he got the result that he wanted. Which made sense, he supposed, since the energy was concentrated where the heart was. That might also explain why the energy didn't respond well to being pushed or pulled from the outside, because it responded to him really well now that he was synchronized with it, as a part of him as opposed to being a separate entity.

When he moved the parchment out of sight, he could tell where it was, relative to his own position. He could feel the cart, reptile and flying horses within his zone of influence as well, but in either case he got an impression of shape, rather than visual information being provided to his mind's eye, when he closed his eyes. After grasping one of the cart's wheels with the energy, without letting go of the parchment, he simultaneously learned that he could multitask and sense resistance to the force he employed.

Taking into account what had happened when the energy had gone out of control, he didn't think that it was psychic in nature, or life energy, like ki. The horses didn't appear to be spiritual creatures either, so his best guess was that the energy might actually be magic, largely from his personal experience with it — both directly and otherwise.

Noticing that the chariot was going to land soon, he turned to face the rear and jumped out just as it began to fly below the height of the nearby rooftops. The landing was rough but manageable, which was strange, but something that he could worry about later: he wanted to try an idea that he thought of earlier and hopefully avoid getting bothered by the reptile at the same time.

Grasping his whole body with magic, he was happy to see himself rise into the air when he directed it to happen. There was a very noticeable difference between his weight and the parchment's, but he was optimistic that he could move himself at a good clip without it being too tiring. For now, though, he just wanted to stay out of sight, so he could explore what he could do with magic without being bothered by anyone who didn't speak Japanese.

Once he had carried himself high enough into the air to comfortably see over the nearby houses, he passed over a couple of them before deciding on a roof to land on. To make sure no one had followed him, he turned to look back at where he had come from and touched noses with that pink horse.

"Gah!" He yelped in surprise while stumbling backward, hearing the pink horse gasp like she had the last time before he lost his footing on the ridge and tumbled off of the roof.

He landed painfully upon his posterior, making him hiss and curl up onto his side so he could rub his tailbone. When the pain subsided enough for him to stand up and look about, he found himself alone, and he made doubly sure of that so he wouldn't be caught off guard again. Whoever that horse was, they were really good at sneaking around, if he couldn't detect their presence. Although why she needed to approach him and gasp like that, he had no idea.

With a mental shake of his head, he returned his focus to testing out the magic that he now had control over. While he was thinking about what he should try, a shadow zipped across the ground in front of him, and he caught sight of a flying horse before they disappeared behind a house. It inspired him to look at the sky directly above him and wonder how high he could levitate himself.

Intrigued, he grasped himself with magic and began to lift himself into the air as fast as he could, which was attained when his focus was strained but maintainable. He watched as the town quickly shrank below him, only raising his sight when he began to see small, wispy clouds passing by. Soon after he did, he began to deliberately aim for the clouds before trying to avoid them, like they were a part of an obstacle course. At the speed he was traveling, and his poor but improving maneuverability, his performance was rather mixed.

Shortly after he rose above the local clouds, he was startled and lost his grip on himself when the end of a moving rainbow suddenly resolved itself into a flying horse upon stopping nearby, who confusedly asked, "What in the hay are you doing up here?"

After he stopped himself from falling, he regarded the flying horse with an annoyed expression as she lowered herself to his level, which he lost once he got a good look at her. Aside from the rainbow hair making her look rather girly, at least to him, there was something about her that felt familiar, in a way that was welcome. It made him consider trying to interact with her despite the language barrier.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" She asked, looking equal parts uncomfortable and agitated. "It's weird."

Getting an idea of what she was saying by her expression, he spontaneously decided to try and communicate with her instead of brushing her off. Since he didn't know exactly what to say, before trying to convey it, he stopped regarding her and assumed a thinking pose, hoping that the rainbow-haired horse would get the idea and give him some time.

Unfortunately, she became more agitated and crossed her forelegs. "Why aren't you saying anything?"

Since she was getting impatient, he opted to start with something simple. So, right as he jabbed a hoof at his breast, he stated, "Ranma."

Nonplussed by the response, she mimed the gesture with uncertainty and said, "Rainbow Dash?"

"Nice to meet you," he said in heavily-accented English, "Lamebow Dash."

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes angrily. "What did you just call me?"

Seeing her reaction, he quickly knelt down and lowered his head to where the ground would normally be, with his hooves placed together above his head. Normally he wouldn't go so far as to prostrate himself before someone for accidentally insulting them, but he neither looked like himself and he needed a strong message to convey what he meant.

With his mind focused on that, he fell back on his native language instead of employing an appropriate word in his limited English vocabulary. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean whatever I said!"

Trading in her glare for a frown, Rainbow Dash considered him for a time. When she decided on what course of action to take, she drew closer to him and tapped him on the shoulder. When he looked up at her, she looked him straight in the eye as she pointed to herself and said, "Rainbow Dash."

Noticing the emphasis, he had an idea of the mistake that he'd made and carefully said, "Rainbow Dash."

Rainbow Dash nodded her head before backing out of his personal space and regarding him with a thoughtful expression. "Huh. I know ponies come from all over the place for the Summer Sun Celebration, but I didn't know that there were ponies out there who didn't understand Common very well."

While he didn't know what she was saying, apart from catching a few familiar words, he could tell that he had piqued her curiosity. After a long moment, where she furrowed her brow in consideration, she drew a question mark in the air and said, "Why," she pointed at him, "are you," she then gestured to the space around them with a sweep of both forehooves, "up here?"

Thankful that she used words that he knew, and he wasn't too distracted to catch them, he got up from his prone position and tried to come up with an answer that would be understood. Unfortunately, his very limited vocabulary lacked the key words he needed to explain what he was doing. So, he tried pointing at his horn, followed by flapping his forelegs like wings, then paused before deciding on mimicking shadow boxing, hoping that it would be understood as practice or training instead of fighting.

"You know," she began, while stroking her chin and looking at him shrewdly, "I should be preparing to show my moves to the Wonderbolts, or getting the sky cleared for tomorrow morning, bu-uuuut..." She lowered her hoof and grinned. "If you mean what I think you mean, then count me in."

She proceeded to rocket downward, and he watched as she began to gather clouds — somehow — and brought them to his height. It wasn't until she began to make rings out of some of them that he realized what she was doing, and smiled with anticipation. It seemed that they had a similar enough mindset for her to understand him.

After she finished putting the obstacle course together, she demonstrated how to run it, although at such a speed that he suspected that she was showing off a little as well. That didn't bother him, though, since he had been able to keep track of her, partly because of the rainbow contrail that she left in her wake. That, and because it seemed like they were birds of a feather, in a manner of speaking. So, when she gestured for him to give it a try, he eagerly went to the starting line and — at her direction — didn't begin until she chopped the air.

At first, his performance wasn't pretty, in part because he didn't want to slow down too much. The slalom, in particular, gave him a lot of trouble. Then, once he'd gotten a handle on the course, Rainbow Dash, who had already been amused by his efforts, had even more fun when she began to alter the course between runs and move things manually during them. That included adding the occasional thunder cloud to rain on the optimal path, or kicking them to produce lightning and thunder, to scare him away from it.

Eventually, despite there being plenty of room for improvement, fatigue and an aching horn prompted him to take a break. Having seen Rainbow Dash laying on clouds several times, like she was now, he made his way over to a nearby cloud and ceased holding himself in the air once he was above it. He promptly fell through the cloud and had to catch himself, despite his body's protests. Then he shot Rainbow Dash a dirty look, who was guffawing and pounding a foreleg upon her seemingly-solid cloud.

Once she'd had her fill, she flew over to him and hooked her forelegs underneath his own, from behind. Disappointed that he wouldn't be resting on a cloud, he nevertheless released himself and allowed her to carry him back down to terra firma.

After they landed and were facing each other, Rainbow Dash idly commented, "You're an interesting pony, Ranma."

She raised a foreleg, which he stared at blankly for a few seconds before assuming it must be an offer for a handshake, since she spoke English. However, when he reached out to attempt the gesture with hooves, she firmly bumped her hoof against his before withdrawing it.

"I have some practice of my own to do," she said, "so I'll see you around." She pointed to something behind him, which turned out to be a large tree that had been converted into a building. "And if you're going to be here for a while, learn more Common so we can have a real conversation, okay?"

With that said, she took off into the sky. He watched her become a speck in the distance before turning to face the building. It had a sign out front, with an open book depicted on it, suggesting that it might be a book store or a library. He had an idea of why it had been pointed out to him, which he wasn't interested in yet, but he figured that he might as well see if there was a book that taught English, in case that ended up being his ticket out of the book.

Chapter 5: Language Barrier

Ranma hadn't expected anything special when he entered the tree building, so he was surprised to see that pink horse, who kept gasping and running away from him, standing on a stool while in the middle of taping strips of crepe paper across the tops of the bookcases. There were other decorations already in place as well, of the type that suggested that she was preparing for a party of some kind.

She went still and stared at him. He stared back.

A second later, he found himself being turned about and pushed through the doorway before hearing the door slam closed behind him.

He stood on the doorstep for a moment, blinking his eyes in bewilderment, before frowning and turning to face the door. When he opened it and attempted to enter again, party poppers went off in front of his face, causing him to yelp in surprise and fall onto his back. An instant later, while he was being showered by confetti and streamers, the door was slammed shut.

Hopping back onto his feet, he narrowed his eyes and stepped up to the door, wanting into the building more for the challenge than the original reason. However, when he tried to open the door, it wouldn't budge. His first response to that discovery was to vigorously knock on the door.

"Ain't nobody here but me!" Came the response, which he didn't fully understand.

Undeterred, he backed away and looked for another way to enter the building. There were a ton of windows, but it would be easy for him to be noticed if he used any on the ground floor, assuming that the pink horse had no business elsewhere. There was a balcony on the second floor that looked promising, so he lifted himself with magic despite the pang it elicited from his horn, since it would be quieter than landing on hooves from a jump.

Thinking that he'd make too much noise trying to open the balcony doors with one or both hooves, he used magic instead. Then, with him still being mindful of his hooves, he moved slowly and stepped softly, because he wanted the element of surprise when he confronted the pink horse. When he came to the stairway leading down, he paused before continuing, being a little more careful because it was his first time descending stairs on four legs.

He was just beginning to see into the main room of the ground floor when a step creaked under his leading hoof. He stiffened and immediately felt sure that someone was behind him before he noticed the shadow rising up and blanketing him. Slowly turning his head, he saw the pink horse looming over him, wearing a black skull cap and a white, sleeveless shirt, with intense, white eyes being the only feature of her face that could be seen in the gloom that enveloped her somehow.

"I must protect this house!" She bellowed.

He shrieked like a little girl, and while his mouth was open she stuffed a cupcake into it. It tasted so good, despite being unbelievably sweet, that he couldn't help eating and swallowing it.

The next thing that he knew, he was waking up outside, a good distance from the building. Once the grogginess and confusion faded, he jumped to his feet and angrily stomped toward the door, tired of being hindered from checking out the books. Surely he could stay out of the pink horse's way while they did whatever they were doing, and it wasn't like there was a "closed" sign to keep anyone away, so what was the issue?

Deciding to make a show of force this time, to dissuade further obstruction, he turned about and tried to buck the door open. His hooves hit with a resounding bang, but the door remained shut. He briefly held that position, with his rear hooves against the door, then stiffly collapsed onto his side before curling up while tears streamed from his clenched-shut eyes.

While he waited for the pain in his hind legs to subside to a more bearable level, he wondered why the amount of power behind his buck hadn't been enough to force the door open. At first he thought that the door might have been more secure than expected, but it occurred to him that he wouldn't have suffered so much pain unless he had used a lot more strength. However, since that much strength would have — in all likelihood — obliterated the door, it seemed more likely that he had kicked without his legs enhanced with ki.

Which was a troubling — yet not surprising — thought, given the circumstances. It would certainly explain his poor landing when he had jumped from the chariot earlier. That meant that he would have to rely on magic until he was either out of the book or human again. The question was: could magic fill in for ki and perform any of the same jobs? In particular, would it grant him enough strength to force a door open?

Once he felt good enough to stand, he did so and tried to envelop the door in magic and move one side as hard as he could. Unfortunately, the effort very quickly made his horn hurt too much to concentrate properly, so he had to abort that method. After some consideration, while rubbing the base of his horn to soothe it, he decided to try to enhance his body with magic, like he normally would with ki.

The problem was that magic, or at least this magic, wanted to go places when stimulated, not stay in the body. He wouldn't be surprised if it could teleport him, if given a chance. It was sort of the opposite of how ki worked, which didn't want to move, and that made him wonder if using an emotion could act as an anchor for magic, like it did a sail for ki, so enough would stick around to enhance his body.

Fortunately for him, he had plenty to be unhappy about, between getting sucked into a book, being deprived of his familiar ki, and denied the ability to check for the availability of a book that he might need in order to return home. So, he closed his eyes and channeled anger. At the same time, he focused on his magic without giving it any direction.

He felt his magic and anger interact, which made him feel hot, both inside and out, but not unbearably so. He could sense that his magic still radiated out from his body, but not far, and seemed to be interacting with his mane, tail and coat in some way. More importantly, however, he couldn't tell if he was any stronger while his magic was in this state.

Opening his eyes, he crossed them for a few seconds upon noticing that his muzzle was white instead of purple. Not wanting to get too distracted and have his anger fizzle out, he forced his attention on the door and ignored how the environment around him faintly flickered in the daylight, as if there were a bonfire nearby. He marched up to it, faced away from it, made a silent prayer to ward off another painful outcome, then bucked.

The door exploded into fiery fragments and pelted a wooden bust of a horse, the table it was on, and the bookshelves behind them, damaging them beyond repair and setting them on fire. He barely had time to appreciate the result before he was hit with a wave of exhaustion and lightheadedness, apparently having overexerted himself with the feat after levitating his body around for so long earlier.

He stumbled and collapsed before losing consciousness.

Chapter 6: Pink Bouncy Houses for You and Me

Unsurprisingly, Ranma found himself sitting in the darkness again, which slowly gave way to a familiar chariot ride.

Although he was glad that he could utilize magic to empower his body in some fashion, he was still determined to get access to those books, so he shelved away ideas involving his magic for the time being. Once the chariot was within the town limits, he levitated himself out of it and found a relatively dark alley to hide in, in case the flying horses or reptile gave chase.

Since he had encountered that pink horse every time he entered the town, even on a roof, he looked behind him to see if she was there. When she wasn't, he prepared himself mentally to see her where he had been looking a second ago and thus wasn't shocked when he found his nose pressing into hers. She stared unassumingly, as she usually did, and he stared back.

When he grew tired of her game, or whatever she was doing, he looked away, intent on walking around her, but she stayed directly in front of him. He glanced down at her feet, because it had seemed like she had moved with his eyes without her legs doing anything, and he was baffled when she remained in the same spot within his vision once more, which she accomplished by burrowing through the ground without resistance — again, seemingly without the expected physical activity.

"What the—"

She shot out of the ground and gasped, spraying dirt and clumps of grass everywhere in the process, then flew through the air and vanished from his sight despite expecting what would happen and where she would go. He stared after her for a bit, annoyed, before shaking his head, now more sure than ever that he was inside of a book: it was the only explanation for why he couldn't avoid that pink horse, and how she reacted every time he uttered anything, as if it were dictated by a plot.

Of course, since she was also the obstacle that prevented him from checking out the books, he began to make his way back to what he guessed was a library. Since he wanted to get there before her, he ran without thinking. When he realized what he was doing, he mentally shrugged and focused on keeping an eye out for the pink horse, chariot horses and the reptile while he ran, to avoid being derailed.

He reached the tree building without an issue and opened the door, expecting the pink horse to be inside and ready to throw him out, but there was no initial sign of her. It wasn't until he made it to the center of the room, after taking a look around and finding no one, that he allowed himself to relax. Using his magic to close the door from where he stood, he approached a nearby bookshelf and started his search for a book that taught English.

It didn't take him long to notice that the books were ordered alphabetically, which could be a problem. He had been hoping to find a spine that he could read, in order to glean the subject of the books around it and pinpoint where he needed to look: because, if a book's title didn't start with "English", then he'd have no other recourse but to check every title thoroughly for the word.

Unfortunately, after looking at all of the titles that started with "E", he didn't see one that began with "English." The only book of note had been a fancy one that stood out from the other, more ordinary and cheaper-looking books. Its presence had been strange enough for him to pull it out and take a glimpse of its contents, long enough to ascertain that it was a book about precious gems or something.

So, he grumbled about the organization of the books as he started his search from one side of the room, hoping that he would find a book that taught English closer to where he began than where he would end. It didn't take long for the task to bore him, making him reconsider what he was doing, but he stuck with it because he knew that he'd have to come back to it anyway, if no one managed to get him out of the book within a reasonable amount of time.

By the time he was close to reaching the "E" section again, he heard the door open and turned to see who was entering. Much to his consternation, it was the pink horse, who stared at him in confusion upon spotting him.

"What are you doing here?" She asked.

Ready for a confrontation, he turned to face her and adamantly stated, "Look, I was here first, so I'm not going anywhere."

The pink horse tilted her head for a few seconds before her whole body perked up with an idea. She proceeded to dig around in her mane with a hoof, with her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, and eventually pulled out a booklet, which she slapped upon the underside of his hoof after raising it up and turning it over herself.

He looked down at it, nonplussed, until he read the cover, which was — to his pleasant surprise — partly in Japanese, and learned that it was a phrasebook. He didn't know what the "Common" on the cover meant, but he saw English phrases alongside Japanese inside, when he used his magic to hold the booklet up and flip through its pages, and that was all that mattered to him. It probably wouldn't have much of anything complex, since it likely catered to the needs of a tourist, but it was bound to have something better than what he could come up with on his own.

After spending a few moments to assess his options, he settled on telling the pink horse to leave him alone. With the aid of small kana to help him with his pronunciation, he deliberately read, "Do you want to go back to my place... Bouncy-bouncy?"

He looked up at the pink horse, his brow furrowed, knowing enough English to notice that something wasn't right with what he had read, and that was confirmed when her eyes lit up and she slowly drew in an excited breath. Then, before he knew it, she had grabbed one of his forelegs and hauled him away so fast that the booklet remained plastered to his muzzle while the world became a blur of colors and his body flew through the air. Naturally, he tried to scream, but the booklet slipped into his mouth and gagged him when he opened it.

A few seconds later, although it felt a lot longer, he came to a sudden stop, somehow without his foreleg being torn off, and was unceremoniously deposited upon the ground. He proceeded to spit out the booklet and hurriedly stand up, wondering what kind of situation he had gotten himself into, and prepared to fight or flee. He had just enough time to establish that he was alone, in what appeared to be a park, when the pink horse returned at a ridiculous speed and managed to stop on a dime.

She had a large, plastic-looking, mostly-pink mass on her back, which she placed on the ground in front of her. Then, without pause, she found the mass' nozzle, took a breath so deep that her torso swelled to several times its normal size, then blew into it, instantly inflating a bouncy house that had pink siding and brown shingles depicted on it.

While he was staring in disbelief, wondering if any horse could do what the pink horse had been doing, or if it was restricted to horses without a horn or wings, said horse had zipped over to a nearby tree, procured a tennis ball from within the hollow, then hurried back over to him and impaled it on his horn.

Before he could respond to that in any way, she was behind him and pushing him through the doorless entrance of the bouncy house. Since he wasn't given the choice to adjust to the floor's surface at his own pace, which consisted of springy half-cylinders, he quickly lost his footing with his new hooves and fell upon his chest, then bounced enough to flip onto his back before settling into a valley.

The pink horse followed him inside and began to bounce in place nearby, who looked down at him expectantly and excitedly shouted, "Come on! Show me whatcha got!"

He stared at her for a few seconds, then looked around, not fully understanding how he'd gotten into his current situation but having an idea of what was going on. While he was still irritated with the pink horse for her past actions, he decided to humor her for a multitude of reasons: one, she was a fictional character who couldn't help her actions, who otherwise seemed friendly; two, he now knew that he had time to look at the books before she arrived at the library; three, he still didn't need to do anything in particular while he gave the others some time to get him out of the book; four, he figured he might as well try to become more adept at moving his horse body, since he might end up having it for a while; five, he was curious if she would perform another unreal feat, so he could try to do it himself.

Once he was standing, he bobbed with all four legs a few times, to get a feel for how bouncy the floor was, before making his first jump. Embarrassingly, it didn't take long for him to bounce off at an angle and land on his side, where he bounced again before he came to a stop.

The pink horse sprung over to him with ease and pulled him back onto his hooves. She then proceeded to help him improve his skill, via demonstration and correction, which he grudgingly accepted. He could only hope that no one in the real world would find out about this, or anything else that he could be mocked for. He was a quick learner, fortunately, so it didn't take him long to bounce around without assistance.

That's when the pink horse began to perform simple aerial tricks, and the expression on her face compelled him to take that as a challenge to imitate what she was doing with equal or greater skill. Her tricks progressively became more difficult, but he remained confident in his ability to keep up because aerial techniques were one of the specialties of his martial art's school, and he was quickly becoming more accustomed to his alien body.

However, when she somehow slowed down to a snail's pace as she fell, then bounced back up into the air as if she hadn't, he was flummoxed and became frustrated trying to replicate it without his horn. After dozens of attempts, he fell back on doing things his own way, by using his horn and seeing how the pink horse would react when he slowed his descent with levitation before throwing himself down as hard as he could at the last second.

She responded with a giggle and met him at the apex of his next bounce, where she grabbed him and led with a trick that required two but little input from one. He didn't know how to feel about this development, but went with it and tried to not mess up and look bad. However, after she demonstrated that she didn't care when he didn't do something right, and guided him on how to do it properly without judgement, he stopped worrying about it and did his best to keep up.

Much to his surprise, after some time he found himself having fun rather than only being self-satisfied by his accomplishments. He eventually stopped thinking about what he was doing and just enjoyed the experience, not noticing when he synchronized his actions with the pink horse, even when she was doing something new, or when he performed feats that he normally would have questioned if it was possible.

It wasn't until after they ricocheted off opposite walls, collided into full-bodied hugs in mid-air, then defied gravity and drifted down like a feather, that he was shaken out of that mindset, on account of the feat and doing something both embarrassing and uncomfortable. When that happened, he frantically disentangled himself and fell to the floor, where he quickly discovered that he couldn't control how he bounced because of how exhausted he was. Once he was laying still, on his back, he remained that way, panting and feeling sore all over.

His gaze followed the pink horse as she altered course and nonchalantly landed next to him, in a seated position. She proceeded to pull out a little, plastic siren whistle from her mane, followed by a dish filled with soapy water, then dipped the end of the siren whistle into the soapy water before blowing into it for several seconds, sending out a stream of bubbles alongside the cartoon-y sound. When she finished, she lowered the siren whistle and released a contented sigh.

Looking at her strangely, wondering what that was all about, he could only watch as she twisted away from him, to rummage around for something that he couldn't see, even though nothing should be there, then turned toward him and placed a wrapped gift box between his forelegs. Before he could consider where it could have possibly come from, or what was inside, his eyes widened, and his face went flush, when she leaned over and nuzzled her cheek against his.

"I had a great time," she spoke softly into his ear, before she stood up and began to prance out of the bouncy house. "Let's do it again, sometime!"

She was long gone by the time he recovered, struggling to believe that he had somehow managed to garner the affection of a horse. The fact that they were also the same sex only came as a surprise because interest typically came after the girl learned about his curse.

With a shake of his head, he forced his attention onto the gift that she had left him. Using his magic to pick it up and turn it over, so he could see — out of habit — the bow at the top, he noticed a folded card tucked between the box and ribbon. Curious, he pulled the card out and opened it, pleasantly surprised that the writing was in Japanese.

"Whoopsie! I gave you a gag phrasebook by mistake. Although, maybe it was fated to happen? Dun-dun-dunnnn!" He was startled when the musical sting actually played. He continued reading after he recovered and decided that it would be best to not think about how it had happened. "Anyway, here's the book you were looking for. I can't wait for you to learn Common, so we can have even more fun!"

He moved on to the closing.

"Your special somepony, Pinkie Pie."

He stared at the card for a while, as he mulled over everything that he had just learned from it. Apart from her name and getting further confirmation that she liked him, he now understood that they were ponies and that his English was their Common. That didn't exactly contradict the idea that his teacher had trapped him inside of a book, to force him to improve his English. It did, however, suggest that his situation might be more complicated than he thought, and that it might be worth mentally preparing himself for the prospect that either someone else had sent the book to him for another reason, or that he hadn't been the intended recipient.

Either way, there was still a good chance that learning Common would end up being helpful, so he untied the ribbon, pulled away the wrapping, then removed the lid of the box. As he levitated the book out of it, he began to wonder how Pinkie Pie could have known what he had been looking for, but that thought was interrupted when he heard a chime and saw a notification slide into view.

It read: "A new book has been added to your library: Common for the Commonpony."

Chapter 7: Fiction is What Happens When You're Making Plans

Before the notification went away, Ranma noticed that the last part of it matched the words on the book's cover. Beyond that, he wasn't sure why it was being mentioned.

Feeling too tired and sore to move, he decided to open the book and confirm that it was really the book that he had been looking for. After perusing its pages for a bit, he saw enough evidence to be certain that it was.

With that concern put to rest, he set the book aside before allowing his head to fall back and bounce until coming to a natural stop. Once it did, he stared up at the sky, where he saw a single cloud slowly drifting along. He began to wonder how long he had been in the book, and how much longer he should wait before taking matters into his own hands.

In all honesty, he was considering starting later than he had initially planned, if no one got him out of the book, mostly thanks to his experience with Pinkie Pie. Not because of her affection, which — much to his relief — he expected would go away with the next reset, but what she had somehow made him do, both unconsciously and without his horn.

Usually he needed a fair amount of motivation to learn a new martial arts technique, which he didn't have here, but his access to magic had revealed a juxtaposition with ki that intrigued him. Even if he couldn't use magic as a human, which he knew some could in some form or another, there was a chance that he could learn something useful from magic that would translate to ki. After all, if Prince Herb could use ki to sort-of fly during his Ryu Sei Hisho technique, there might be a way to fly properly, or float instead of fall.

He wasn't sure if he wanted Pinkie Pie's help with that again, though; especially if it required another session in the bouncy house. He didn't know if what they had done was strenuous for the average pony, or if his current body was very out of shape, but he could barely move his limbs. He felt tired enough to take a nap, too, which sounded like a better idea than laying in the bouncy house for who knows how long, waiting to recover.

With that last thought, he closed his eyes...

When Ranma found himself staring into the darkness, no longer feeling sore or tired, he sorted out what he was going to do this time. First, he was going to make sure that Common for the Commonpony was in the library. After that, he wanted to check a couple of things that he was curious about, like the appearance of the face he was borrowing, and whether or not anything would happen if he doused himself with hot water. He also wanted to check out the food, to see if there was a decent variety, because he certainly wasn't going to contemplate staying in the book any longer than necessary if the only thing he had to look forward to was a knock-out cupcake — delicious or not.

While he was regarding the now-visible reptile, it occurred to him that he might as well try to get the name that came with his new face. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to get the reptile's name as well, since he might end up sticking around for a while and the creature was the first intelligent being that he encountered every time things reset.

So, after he got its attention by tapping its shoulder, he pointed to himself and said, "Name?"

"Huh?" Came the response.

Seeing that it was clearly confused, he pointed to himself again and repeated, "Name?"

The reptile hesitated, not knowing what to think about the request, but eventually gave a proper answer. "...Twilight Sparkle?"

He mouthed the name before pointing at the reptile and asking, "Name?"

"Spike," the now-named reptile tersely replied, now looking put off by the questions. "Is this some kind of prank? I know you're unhappy about the princess' reply, but—hey, where are you going!?"

He ignored Spike as he levitated across the rooftops, intent on going back to the hiding spot that he had used last time because it had worked. Well, if he didn't count Pinkie Pie, at any rate. Speaking of whom, once he was in the spacious alley, he backed up against the house to deny her that direction, so he could see her coming from the other three.

However, once he was sure enough time had passed for her to make an appearance, he decided to abandon that tactic. He turned his head to face one direction, to give her an opportunity to appear in his blind spot, but she wasn't there when he turned to face the opposite direction. Initially confused, it took him a moment to realize that there was one direction that he hadn't accounted for, and that she probably had the capability to be there.

When he looked up, he wasn't surprised to find her hanging upside down from the eave, or that she stayed in the same spot within his vision when he lowered his gaze, until she got her legs beneath her and settled her hooves on the ground.

Curious as to what she would do with the house blocking her usual escape route, he decided to set her off by saying a random word in Japanese. "Wasabi."

She gasped and leaped into the air, as expected, then... she was suddenly nuzzling his cheek!? The intimate contact made him blush and freeze up, allowing her to finish her nuzzling before skipping away while humming a merry tune.

A few seconds later, he reached up and touched his cheek, confused by this development. He had been convinced that everything reset when he went back to the start, but now... Was it because she liked him? Had she been an anomaly the whole time? The uncertainty bothered him, making him wonder if anything else could become unpredictable while he was trapped inside of the book.

That reminded him of the next part of his plan, so he hurried over to the library. When he got there, he went directly to the side of the room where the books began alphabetically, found where the books starting with the letter "C" were, and soon discovered a book-sized vacancy where he was sure Common for the Commonpony should be. While he couldn't remember seeing the book there specifically, he was pretty sure that there hadn't been such a large and obvious gap before.

Thinking that the book might have been left where he'd last seen it, since things weren't as consistent as he'd first assumed, he left the library and searched for the park. When he spotted it, he quickly noticed that there was no bouncy house in sight, whose size and color would have been very hard to miss. So, when he couldn't find the book laying on the ground anywhere, he was disappointed and a bit confused, but not surprised.

He stood there for a while with his head down, wondering where the book had gone and how much of a problem it would be if he ended up needing to learn the language, when a familiar voice and accompanying sound of wing beats made his drooping ears perk up.

"Hey! Is looking at the ground a hobby or something?"

Looking up, he saw Rainbow Dash hovering nearby, looking playful. Thanks to how large and expressive the eyes of the ponies were, he also noticed that there was some concern as well. Which he thought was odd, but he dismissed it since he hardly knew her, and thus if that was how she normally behaved or if it was because she remembered him. Curious as to which one it was, he decided to put his limited English — or Common, as it was called here — to use.

"Hi, Rainbow Dash," he greeted with a friendly wave. "How are you?"

Rainbow Dash cocked her head, confused. "Have we met before? I came over to say 'hi' because I thought you looked familiar, and you know my name, but..."

With her reaction providing him enough of an answer, because he didn't see recognition, he raised a hoof for a bump and smiled. "Goodbye."

Apparently he had misread the situation, because she frowned and jabbed a hoof at him. "That, right there! It's like you didn't understand me, and your accent is weird — I mean, not in a bad way, but it really stands out. It's all really familiar and it's bugging me that I can't remember you."

Seeing that he had somehow upset her a bit, he could only wonder if the offer for a hoof bump had been some kind of faux pas. Thinking that turning around and walking away might exacerbate things, he opted to stay and try to sort things out. After some consideration, and coming up with few options, he decided to stand on his hind legs and perform a simple kata, to see if it reminded her of their first encounter, or — at the very least — took her mind off of what made her upset.

Her face was quick to light up, and she waggled a hoof at him. "Hey, yeah! We must have gone to the same dojo when we were fillies!"

Glad that she seemed to remember him, he stopped his kata and returned his forehooves to the ground. However, when she landed beside him and started her own kata, and clearly began to encourage him to join her, he had to suppress a groan because he figured that he must have been wrong again. At least, had she been reminded of their activities, he would have expected her to build at least one part of the obstacle course, and/or get him flying with levitation.

Despite the string of communication failures, though, he couldn't help being curious about the martial arts that the ponies used. So, even though he could already tell that the kata she was performing was very similar to one that he knew, or maybe because it was so similar, he joined in to see where things would go.

When she finished the kata, she shot him a cheeky grin before performing a wing-aided flash kick. Liking where this was going, he used levitation to copy the move, since his body was in no condition to do it otherwise, then cocked an eyebrow, silently challenging, "Is that all you can do?"

Rainbow Dash responded with a smirk. "Oh, yeah? Well, watch this!"

What followed began as an exhibition of personal skill, where they took turns performing a technique that they knew and daring the other to do it to their satisfaction. Then they raised the stakes before exhausting their repertoire, inventing new moves, or sequences of moves, but if they failed to make it a reality the other would eventually join in and help them figure out what the issue was. It was during one of those collaborative efforts when their eyes met, and without saying anything began to work as a team to defeat invisible foes.

It didn't take long for it to become a sort of martial dance, as they maneuvered themselves around each other in all manner of ways, from a simple leap frog into a kick, or a slide through the legs, to throwing each other into a pirouette that delivered a tornado of punches. They acted as if directed by one mind, and Ranma was so in the zone that he failed to notice how similar this situation was to what had happened with Pinkie Pie. In fact, both thought they were imagining a rockin' song playing during their awesome performance, but — in reality — a boombox had been parachuted in via party cannon.

Eventually, they were too tired to continue, and the boombox "coincidentally" chose that time to go quiet. Reluctantly, tiredly, they sat down with their backs pressed together for support. They remained that way for a while, in companionable silence, as they cooled down, regained their breath, and reflected on what they had done.

While Ranma didn't regret his time with Rainbow Dash, it left him questioning his relationships with real people. The connection that he had just experienced, with a fictional character no less, had felt more real and substantial than anyone else he knew... Including his mother. It raised thoughts that were unpleasant to think about, so he didn't, and tried to allay his worries with the thought that nothing native to the book could be authentic.

He was taken out of his thoughts when Rainbow Dash sheepishly asked, "Hey, uh... What's your name?"

Feeling like he should start divorcing himself from the fictional characters, he offered the name that he had learned of earlier. "Twilight Sparkle."

Rainbow Dash tried really hard to commit the name to memory before slowly getting up, to allow him time to adjust and not fall backward. She walked around him, but kept her back to him, and face turned away, when she stopped and apprehensively said, "Well... You're probably just here for the celebration..." She began to fidget with one of her forehooves. "But, um, if you feel like it..." She paused before saying the rest in a rush. "My-house-is-on-the-western-edge-of-town-if-you-feel-like-visiting-before-you-leave. Bye!"

And with that final, verbal exhalation, she took flight with enough force to knock him over.

He watched her rainbow contrail disappear into the distance as he got up, feeling conflicted.

Chapter 8: Listing One Way and Another

Once Ranma felt he had enough energy to walk somewhere, he got up and began his trek to the library, making a concerted effort to not think about his experience with Rainbow Dash. He remembered the bedroom in the loft and thought he might have glimpsed a mirror there, which he wanted to use to see what he looked like.

When he got there, he hesitated a moment before opening the door and stepping inside. Pinkie Pie was already present, as he had feared, but after standing in the doorway for a few seconds it occurred to him that she hadn't noticed his arrival; or had, but kept her focus on the decorations she was putting up. Said decorations seemed more extensive and elaborate this time, but that may have just been a result of catching her later in the process.

Whatever the case was for not facing any immediate resistance, he nonetheless exercised caution as he crossed the room to reach the stairs. He kept his guard up until after he ascended them and entered the bedroom. With a sigh of relief, he looked around until he spotted an oval-shaped mirror on a dresser, then walked over and stood before it.

He stared at his face for a while before looking left and right to check his profile, but was annoyed to not feel illuminated by what he saw. While he thought that ponies were adorable, not that he'd admit that to anyone, he doubted that ponies normally shared the same sentiment for adults — which he assumed he was, if not mature enough to not be considered a child. However, the fact remained that he just didn't know what they found attractive, and thus if he was or not.

Did Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash think he was a pretty pony? It made more sense to him than gaining their affection from those activities. Granted, he couldn't say that he'd ever been that harmonized with anyone before. In fact, it was rather rare when he could do anything seriously without a disagreement or in-fighting.

The most surprising part was that they were both showing interest in the same sex. Was it a coincidence, or were ponies more open-minded about relationships? Personally, while conforming to the status quo in Japan was something he was currently willing to do in public, in order to save face, in private his unique situation had broken him out of that mold. Not just because he wanted to be treated the same by his significant other no matter which body he inhabited, given the prospect that he might be cursed to switch between sexes for the rest of his life, but because of the very real possibility that something could force him to remain female, and he just couldn't see himself being interested in guys.

Not that he really had to worry about that here, since the ponies weren't real and he had a fiancée in the real world. Well, unless he ended up trapped in the book forever, but he wasn't willing to humor that scenario just yet.

At any rate, as nice and interesting as some of his experiences had been so far, he couldn't allow himself to become attached to anything. Until he left the book, especially if it took a while, he'd have to use the pony in the mirror to help distance himself. Instead of stuff happening to him, it would happen to Twilight Sparkle, to avoid making connections.

Even so, he wanted to find out if his curse still worked despite being forced to assume the guise of a character in a book, hopefully so he'd have some peace of mind on that front. After confirming that there wasn't a bathroom in the loft, he went down the stairs to search for a source of hot water on the ground floor. Since he had seen all of it save the nook on the leeward side of the stairs, where two doors could be found, that's where he went first.

The closest door, thankfully, opened up to a small bathroom, containing a toilet and sink. He was a little surprised that it wasn't a squat toilet, given that ponies were quadrupeds and most of the town didn't look modern. Before entering, he moved over to the other, bigger door out of curiosity and opened it, revealing a staircase that led into a basement.

Curiosity sated, he walked into the bathroom and stepped up to the sink. He wasted no time and turned the handle with the "H" engraved into it, then stuck a hoof under the faucet. The water came out hot immediately, and he felt a peculiar sort of fluttering in his chest, where he knew his body's magic was focused. His interest piqued by that sensation, he turned the hot water off and tried cold water, which elicited the same feeling.

He went back and forth several times, to ascertain that it was consistent, and came to the conclusion — more from optimism than certainty — that his curse was still working but overridden by the book. Hopefully that meant that he'd be fine once he left the book, but he would only know for sure once he actually left it. Until then, it looked like he was once again going to be stuck as a member of the fairer sex for a while, albeit as a pony version of one.

Stepping out of the bathroom, he decided to proceed with checking out the next thing on his mental list: what kind of food the book had to offer. He hoped that he wouldn't be disappointed, because he was actually beginning to feel a bit hungry now. However, even if there were a lot of foods that a human wouldn't or couldn't eat, he supposed that it would be fine since he was another pony.

When he walked out of the nook and could see over the stairs, he was quick to notice how far the party preparations had progressed. What really caught his eye, however, was the spread of food and beverages, which were both familiar and looked delicious. He absently wiped a string of drool from the side of his mouth before forcing his gaze to Pinkie Pie, who had her back turned to him while she sorted out what appeared to be toys and games on a table separate from what he was interested in.

He briefly considered just taking whatever food and drink he wanted, since he was in a book and nothing was real, but realized that didn't mean there wouldn't be real consequences. Aside from Pinkie Pie probably succeeding in keeping him away from the food, there was also a chance that it would still negatively affect his relationship with her after a reset, and he'd honestly rather be on her good side and deal with her modest affection than be at odds with her.

Walking up beside her, he said, "Pinkie Pie?"

She whirled around to face him, smiling brightly. "Whatcha need?"

He pointed toward the food on the other side of the room and utilized his English. "Can I?"

Pinkie Pie crossed her forelegs in front of her face and shook her head. "Nope! You have to wait like everypony else."

Disappointed, but not surprised, he nodded his head in acknowledgement and began to head toward the door, figuring he'd just have to steal some food from somewhere in the town. Before he took more than a step, however, Pinkie Pie caught him by the shoulder and gestured for him to follow her back toward the stairs. Curious as to what she wanted, he fell into step behind her and let her lead the way.

She ascended the stairs until she reached the landing that was close to the loft but still out of sight of it, where she grabbed a drawstring and pulled down a hatch. There was a ladder on the topside of the hatch, and half of it slid down until it hit the floor. He followed her up the ladder, which led into an attic that was dimly lit by a dust-coated window overhead. It was fairly spacious, partly because there were only a half dozen or so boxes and the odd piece of furniture and furnishing.

After sparing a second to rub his itchy nose, he followed her to another ladder on the opposite side of the room, which led to a hatch that opened to the outside. Said hatch granted access to a small observation deck on the highest part of the building, one that barely had enough room for two ponies of their size. Why the library had one, and so out of the way for the wingless, he could only guess.

There was a telescope mounted to the railing, which Pinkie Pie finished using by the time he had all four hooves on the deck. She stepped aside and motioned for him to look through it. When he lowered his head and peered through the eyepiece, he saw the farm that he had only really seen from the chariot. He raised his head to get an answer that was simple enough for him to understand, for why she was showing him the farm, but she pressed a piece of paper to his breast before he could.

"Applejack," she said.

She prompted him to say it, then to try again until she was satisfied with his pronunciation. Once she was, she briefly nuzzled his cheek before hopping down the hatch, leaving him standing there and blushing. After he recovered, he lifted the paper up for inspection and discovered that there was a message written on it. Pinkie Pie had ended it with a doodle of her smiling face, and beside it was a... victory sign?

He blinked his eyes at that.

Rather than try to read some of the message and wonder at the unknown details, he decided to trust Pinkie Pie. And if he had read the context clues of recent events right, that meant she wanted him to go to the farm, find someone named "Applejack", then give them the letter to receive something to eat. So, he rolled up the paper, stuck it between his mane and ear, then levitated himself down to the ground and began the relatively long-ish journey to the farm.

Not long after he passed a building that had a sign out front with a picture of an open book on it, making him wonder if it was a book store or another library, he began to hear something hard striking wood within the apple orchard. The sound came regularly, and grew louder as he got closer to the large, red building that the fence-lined path was directing him toward. It wasn't until he walked through the trellis arch, and stepped onto the farm proper, that he learned the source of the noise.

"Yee-haw!" Yelled a pony, before they dashed toward an apple tree and bucked it.

He watched the apples fall into the wooden buckets before focusing his attention on the pony who shook them out of the tree. She had a light orange coat, blonde hair, green eyes and white freckles on the outermost area of her cheeks. Her blonde mane and tail were secured near their ends with simple, red hair ties, and she wore a hat that she recognized from the Western stuff in the United States.

Once he thought he was close enough to her, he stopped and called out, "Applejack?"

He suddenly found one of his forelegs being vigorously shaken by both of her forehooves as she warmly said, "Well, howdy-doo! It's a pleasure makin' your acquaintance, but ya'll appear to have me at a disadvantage, Miss...?"

Since he didn't understand much of what had been said, which was slightly exacerbated by the accent, he levitated the paper out from where it was nestled, unfurled it, then offered it to her. She released him from her grasp to accept it, and while she read it he tried to get his still-waving foreleg under control with the other, leading to him falling on his face because he forgot that his forelegs didn't have the same freedom as arms.

"Twilight Sparkle, huh?" Applejack remarked, slipping the paper under her hat while he finished picking himself up. "Mighty strange that ya'll only speak and understand a few licks o' Common." She smiled disarmingly. "But ya'll shouldn't need words to judge food, I reckon."

With that said, she dashed over to a triangle and rang it, yelling, "Soup's on, everypony!"

Hearing what sounded like a stampede, he had just enough time to look behind him, where the noise was coming from, before being swept up by a crowd of ponies and deposited at a table covered by a yellow, striped tablecloth. Once he got his vision to stop spinning, Applejack began to say something each time a pony came up to the table and dropped off a plate of food, which he assumed were food names. As more and more food was added, and literally piled up until it became a mountain several heads taller than he was, the more his eyes widened and shone with desire.

He was bearing witness to a dream come true. His hunger had rarely been truly satiated while growing up, typically by bland and uninspired food, and on top of that his father had often taken the best food if they had gotten their hands on anything noteworthy. So, while he certainly couldn't complain about the food that his mother and Kasumi made, it just couldn't compare to being served this many tasty treats, as if he were extraordinarily special.

Almost unable to believe what he was being offered, and desperately hoping for it to be true, he turned to Applejack and pointed to himself as he strained to ask, "Eat?"

"Don't wait on our account," she replied, making an encouraging motion.

That visual message was all that he needed to dig in with unrestrained gusto, his audience already forgotten. He shoved one apple-flavored treat after another into his mouth, not even noticing — in his fervor — that he was doing it with his hooves, and only paused intermittently to savor what he was eating, with his eyes closed and humming in delight.

He didn't notice how uncomfortably packed his stomach was until he swallowed the final bite, and he would have been surprised that his body could take in and compact so much food if he didn't feel so relaxed and content. All he felt like doing was hold his stomach, lean back and close his eyes. That is, until he forgot his manners and allowed an immense burp to escape, which managed to rock the area and echo in the distance, much to his embarrassment.

The crowd of ponies that he had forgotten about, who had been leaning forward with rapt attention, suddenly erupted into cheers. At first, he was dumbfounded as to why his burp had gotten such a positive reaction. Then it occurred to him that burps might be considered compliments to ponies, like it was for slurping noodles in Japan.

Applejack stepped closer and gave him a companionable slap on the shoulder. "Woo-wee! I wouldn't be surprised if your opinion was heard all the way in Canterlot."

He didn't know what she said, but everyone seemed happy so he didn't worry about it. The concern that his mind turned to was whether he could stuff himself like this again or not. If he could, he'd have to think of some way to thank Pinkie Pie.

For now, though, he just wanted to relax and allow some of the food to digest before moving again. Maybe he shouldn't have eaten quite so much...

Chapter 9: Easy as Pie

Many of the ponies tried to chat with Ranma, but most were disappointed and left when Applejack explained his poor grasp of Common. That didn't stop some of them from trying, and he didn't know whether to be annoyed or amused by the ones who thought speaking louder would help. Still, they were clearly a friendly bunch, so he did his best to make meaningful conversation.

By the time he felt that his stomach had settled and he was ready to move, he excused himself. He was intent on figuring out what had happened to Common for the Commonpony, since he might need it. Before doing that, however, he asked for Applejack and was directed to the orchard.

When he found her, he waited until after she finished bucking a tree to get her attention, at which point he bowed from the neck and told her in English, "Thank you, Applejack."

"Aw, shucks," she replied, waving it aside with a hoof, "think nothing of it. Your candor was thanks enough." She frowned and reached underneath her hat to scratch her head. "By the blank look on your face, though, I reckon you didn't understand the crux of what I said."

After a few seconds of thought, to determine if there was another way of getting her message across, her face brightened with an idea. She immediately acted upon it by sidling up beside him, looping a foreleg over his withers, then giving him a firm hug and regarding him with a meaningful look while saying, "You're welcome to visit any time, ya hear? So don't be a stranger."

While she went back to bucking trees, he stood in place for a moment, recovering from the unexpected hug. Not because he didn't like it, but because of what he thought it meant. Which came as a surprise, largely due to not knowing how he had earned it. Was it some weird culture thing to request food, then burp after eating it all, to become accepted?

He continued to think about it as he walked to the library, to see if it was possible to get that book from Pinkie Pie again. Mostly, he wondered how much the relationship would transfer over the next time he restarted, and how that would affect his ability to eat all of those yummy, apple-centric treats. As for the ponies, he wasn't sure how to feel about them, because of his situation and the language barrier. Although, he was definitely glad that they were friendly, since it seemed more likely that having a positive relationship with the denizens of the book could be helpful if their aid was needed to get back to the real world.

When he reached the library, he saw Pinkie Pie stepping out and closing the door behind her. When she saw him, she perked up and pronked over to him. Excitedly, she asked, "Did ya like them apples?" She zipped to the left side of him, then the right, and finally underneath his chin each time she pressed, "Didja, didja, didja?" She got in front of his face and jabbed her own closer to his every time she pressed again. "Huh!? Huh!? Huh!?"

With his head pulled back as far as it would go, and a smiling pony in his face, who just finished saying stuff he didn't understand, he was at a loss of what to do. The only sure thing he could think of was the reason for why he was back at the library, so he found himself awkwardly and slowly asking about the book in English despite having only read the words before. "Where Com-mon for the Com-mon-po-ny?"

Seemingly unbothered by asking an unrelated question in response to her own, she giggled and took a step back. "That's not how you say 'common', silly!"

She reached behind his ear, at which point he saw four lines of white text appear in his vision, with a line separating the top one from the three below. When she pulled her foreleg back, with Common for the Commonpony in hoof, red text appeared on the bottom line, on the right of the words that matched the ones on the book.

"Here ya go!" She said, all smiles, while offering him the book.

When he shifted his gaze to the book, the text in his vision dipped into his periphery and faded away. Fortunately, it had been there long enough for him to remember the words on the two lines that he didn't recognize, so he took the book with his magic and went to the dictionary section. Upon finding "library", the only word above the line, and discovering that he didn't know enough words in the definition to figure out its meaning, he turned the open side of the book toward Pinkie Pie and pointed at it.

She simply pointed toward the building behind her.

Said building, as far as he could tell, was a library. If that was the case, and the red text appearing next to Common for the Commonpony, when Pinkie Pie somehow took possession of it, in addition to everything else, meant what he thought it meant, then he had two other books... somewhere, and one of them bore the name of the character whose body he had been forced to assume.

Thinking that he might have found the key to his escape, should it be necessary to accomplish it himself, he lowered the book before pointing behind his ear and doing his best to say "Twilight Sparkle" like Spike had said it.

"That sorta sounds like you, alright!" Pinkie Pie enthusiastically replied, before pointing toward herself. "And I'm Pinkie Pie!"

Knowing that he had failed to convey his request, he frowned and stroked his chin in thought, wondering how she had gotten the book. On the surface it looked like she had used a basic stash technique that martial artists used to carry concealed items, but he doubted that was the actual mechanic at work, on account of the text that appeared in his vision when she got the book. Which was probably a good thing, since he couldn't use ki while he was a pony.

He reasoned that it had to be some function of the book. Was it something that only fictional entities like Pinkie Pie could use, or could he access it as well, given that he could see where she had gotten the book from? He had a hunch that the so-called library was his, however, since he suspected that the chime and text from before, when he had first held Common for the Commonpony, had happened because the book had been added to the library, where a copy of the book that had entrapped him also resided.

Could it be as easy to get a book as Pinkie Pie had made it look, though? Did he just need to desire access to the library and want the book in his possession? He figured that it couldn't hurt to try, so he stared into the middle distance, which made Pinkie Pie cock her head in curiosity, and wanted to see the library while doing the best that he could to visualize what he had seen of it at the same time.

To his delight, it worked. At least, until said delight broke his concentration. A little annoyed, he tried again, got the text to reappear, and began to reach behind his ear while intent on acquiring a certain book from the library.

His concentration was broken again, however, when Pinkie Pie let out a little squeal, rapidly clapped her forehooves several times, and excitedly said under her breath, "You're doing it!"

He shot her a glare, and she ducked her head and smiled sheepishly.

With a huff, he tried again and unceremoniously had The Epic of Twilight Sparkle held up before him a few seconds later. On the outside, it looked exactly like the book that he had been sucked into. He hesitated before he opened the book, once he reassured himself that it hadn't done anything until he had gotten too close to it. He certainly hoped that it wouldn't do anything, because he didn't even want to contemplate the possibility of being inside of a book that was itself inside of a book.

He exercised caution and turned the first pages slowly, and didn't notice anything noteworthy until reaching the first chapter, where he paused. Instead of a whole page being devoted to a fancy border, and an arrow with text inside of it, he encountered paragraphs beneath a number and title. When he checked several of the pages that came after it, he just saw a continuation of the chapter, not the page that had sucked him into the book. After flipping to the back section of the book, he didn't even see any illustrations.

So... it appeared to be an ordinary version of the book that he was inside of. He didn't know if being able to read it would be more conducive toward escaping the book, but it was something to bear in mind if he had to consider the possibility. Otherwise, he didn't know if it was of any use at that moment.

Pinkie Pie suddenly popped up beside him and remarked, "Wow! You read even faster than Twilight!"

He spared her a glance, idly wondering what she had said because he had recognized the name, but he quickly returned his attention to his investigation because he still had one more book in the library to inspect. This one was titled User Manual, which he couldn't read, but he hoped that a look inside would give some insight into what the book was about.

After giving Pinkie Pie the responsibility of holding The Epic of Twilight Sparkle for him, he pulled out the remaining book and wasted no time in opening it. Within a minute he was pretty sure that he was looking at some kind of manual, based on the illustrations, arrows and numbered steps that he saw, but it wasn't until he saw an illustration of a table of contents that his interest was truly piqued and made him think that the book might actually be useful. His persistence paid off a few pages later, when he saw an illustration of the library, as he saw it in his vision, with both User Manual and The Epic of Twilight Sparkle listed in the same positions.

He was excited by this discovery. Not only had he found something that would probably help him escape the book, once he could read it, but its existence, and his access to it, gave him more insight into his situation. At least, as far as he could tell, a scheming teacher appeared even more unlikely now, as did the chance of someone from the outside getting him out of the book. As improbable as it seemed, whether by intention or accident, the book came from an unknown place, as well as creatures he'd never heard of before. It was made with the purpose of literally immersing its reader in the character and story, not to entrap someone until they learned — as they called it — Common.

That didn't mean that he wouldn't need to learn the language if he wanted a fair chance to leave the book, though. As annoying as that prospect was, he was just glad that he now had some idea of the problem and the solution, which did a lot to ease his mind. Of course, there was no telling how long it would have taken him to get to this point if not for the serendipitous aid that came from Pinkie Pie, to whom he felt really lucky to have around.

In fact, as he regarded the pony in question out of the corner of his eye, who was casually spinning The Epic of Twilight Sparkle on her nose with an easy smile, he couldn't help feeling indebted to her. Sure, she was just a fictional character, but looking at her now, and remembering his experiences with her so far, he could truly say that she was good company.

She was largely positive and energetic, who knew interesting techniques even if many of them probably wouldn't be feasible outside of the book. And if that cupcake was any indication of her cooking skills, if the whole knock-the-consumer-unconscious part was optional, then hopefully he'd get to eat more of her food. Plus, if a new problem presented itself, that prevented him from leaving the book, then maybe she would be able to help him out with that as well.

Overall, maintaining a good relationship with her seemed like a good idea, so the only question that remained was: how could he thank her? He supposed that he could just say it, but would it be an honest effort if he did something that she would forget? At least, as far as he could tell, their feelings toward him carried over after each restart, but not their memory. So, basically, whatever he did, it should probably leave an impression.

Thinking about what he could do to leave an impression on her reminded him of the two times she'd nuzzled him, and the thought of returning the favor elicited a playful grin. Normally he wouldn't do more than a hug if he was being insincere; heck, he had trouble holding hands when he wasn't. However, he didn't think that it would change much — if anything — after the next restart, he was currently Twilight Sparkle and reckoned that no one of importance would know what happened in the book unless he told them, and — ultimately — he just wanted to be on the other side of such a gesture for once.

Sparing a quick glance to see that she was still preoccupied, he steeled his resolve, quickly stepped closer, then pressed his cheek against hers for a long second before stepping back out of her personal space.

Initially, she became stock still after the contact, and the spinning book tumbled off of her nose and hit the ground. Then she began to tremble, which soon developed to a degree that resembled someone inside of an invisible container that was being vigorously shaken. After a few seconds of that, she suddenly began to ricochet off of various objects around the area, even against the air itself at times, and eventually rocketed upward and out of sight, wailing like a bottle rocket as she did so.

With a foreleg shading his eyes, he squinted them as he tried to see where she had gone, wondering if her reaction was a good or bad one.

A few seconds later it seemed like the entire world began to move faster, and he saw a distortion effect, like he'd seen when a VHS tape was being fast-forwarded, no matter where he looked. He barely had enough time to become concerned about that when it ceased, with the sun beginning to dip beneath the horizon as evening transitioned into night.

His ears perked up when he heard an unusual sound behind him. He turned around to look at what it was and saw a pink, pony-sized tornado approaching him. With his guard up, he carefully watched as it revolved around him once before zigzagging toward the library door, which it threw open, revealing its pitch black interior. From there it made it halfway back to him before it halted and stopped spinning, where — unsurprisingly — the pink blur resolved itself into Pinkie Pie.

While standing on her hind legs, she threw up her forelegs enthusiastically and loudly cheered, "It's... party time!"

Before he could blink, she was behind him and pushing him into the library.

Chapter 10: He'll Play Her Party

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