Heroes Never Die

Chapters

0
Part 1 - Alone
1 - 2
1 - 3
1-4
1-5
Part 2 - Shim-Curious
2-2
2-3
2-4
2-5
Part 3 - Propogandist
3-2
3-3
3-4
3-5
3-6
3-7
3-8
Part 4. The willing pawn
4 - 2
4-4
4-6
4-7
4-8
Part 5. Public Enemy
4-3
4-5

0

Six miles.

Ari had no idea how long it took her to walk six miles. She left her phone in the car just in case. But she left at the crack of dawn and now it was broad daylight in the woods. But still she went on and on, her hands buried deep inside her hoody’s front pouch pocket as they always were.

Her feet had never hurt this badly before. She had mud coming halfway up her pants. She looked like a mess before even starting this trek. It’d been days since she bathed or did any sort of grooming. She didn’t know how she’d find the energy for the return trip.

But it would all be worth it. Yes. Any iota of success would give her the strength to make it back.

Already she felt victorious as at last the woods she’d trudge through ended and she found a road and beyond that a town.

Just as predicted, Ari felt her strength return! Even just this… just getting this close despite all the odds and so much standing in her way felt a victory in itself!

So much had been thrown into her path. The ‘ETS’ pandemic shut everything down. Ari swore half the roads in America were blockaded at this point. They likely would have blocked every road if they had enough people. But they didn’t.

The entire US military, every police officer and anything else they could scrounge up was out there… but it wasn’t enough! They’d been devastated and forced to their knees just like everyone else. So Ari got through.

On the flip side it also meant no work. She had unlimited time to go on this little adventure. Ari spent days slowly circling and tip toeing around the police trying to get close to her target– a town with a serious outbreak of ETS. In New York everything was locked down too tight for you to make contact with the infected. This was her only option.

They did not want you getting this thing, but it was starting to look like Ari might really be able to pull it off anyway.

Ari stepped out into the road, hands deep inside her pockets as she kept her eyes open for one of them… someone showing the unbelievable symptoms of ETS… Equine Transformation Syndrome.

And one of them came!

In her first truly lucky break since ETS began, a fully transformed ‘pony’ appeared just like that, landing in a tree across the road. It was one of those flying types! A yellow pegasus you could see a mile away.

It looked around is if it heard but didn’t see Ari. So Ari came bounding out of the brush and onto the road.

“You, pony!” Ari ran towards it towards it, keeping her hands pouched in her front pocket. “Over here!”

The pony flapped its wings, flustered at her sudden appearance.

“I don’t want any trouble!” The pony pleaded, splaying its wings ready to take flight. “They’re going to end the ETS in a little while! Just don’t come closer and you’ll be fine!”

To be fair, Ari probably looked horrible right now. She hadn’t bathed or changed clothes in days.

“No, no! I want you to infect me!”

The pony froze in place.

“Wait. What?” She asked. Probably the opposite reaction she normally got.

“Please! Just cough in my face a few times.” Ari without using her hands, Ari gestured for it to come down with her chin. “Come on! Do me up! Hurry!”

The pony could only stare, confused.

“You know they’re going to end ETS like… pretty soon, right? There’s that purple alien that came to help.”

“No! Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to escape New York?! What I had to go through to get all the way out here?!” Ari shouted up at the tree. “I’m not giving up now no matter what! I can’t possibly continue my life if I fail to get ETS for even one second before its’ gone! You don’t even have to come down. Just spit on me!”

“We don’t know what will happen to people who are still transforming when they cast the spell to end it,” warned the pony. “There’s talk you might get stuck halfway! Like, what if you just end up with hideously deformed, crippled hands or something horrible like that?”

Ari glared right into the pony’s eyes. Ignorant. Privileged little…

She tried not to take it out on him. She was just so pissed off at how hard everything up until now had been. And all this constant talk about hands on the radio! ‘Oh, my hands! My hands! Oh, hands are the most important thing in life!’ The jokes and comments about it just never ended!

It was enough to push her into doing something she didn’t normally do.

Ari took her hands out of her pockets and held them up in plain view.

“My hands are already hideously crippled!” Ari shouted up at him.

The pony took one look at her hands and gave Ari that all too familiar ‘I’m completely disgusted but I’m trying to be polite and not say that out loud’ look.

Ari had been born that way, a certain condition that effected her joints, mostly her hands.

Her fingers had all been gnarled up and fused together before she was even born, then the muscle tissue around those calcified. The result was something not too dissimilar into a hand turning into a hoof, the main difference being simply that it was more disgusting in appearance.

Both of them were these twisted, knotted up lumps of flesh an nails. Not even the nails jutting out at random parts looked right, even those were misshapen and way too large. None of her fingers were mobile, being calcified and whatnot, save one. Only her left ring finger could move up and down and that was too weak to grip anything for more than a minute or two.

Her feet looked pretty grody too and she had bumps around her shoulder blades. But neither of those impaired her daily life in any way, other than making her a slow runner.

All these people complaining about ‘losing their hands’ didn’t know how good they had it! Heck, Ari barely used her hands as it was. She had a legion of accessibility devices all over her house. She was 100% ready for this! Having her hands turn to hooves would do literally nothing to her.

So it seemed almost like a sick joke that ETS hit the west instead of the east coast.

Why did Sunset Shimmer release the virus in Nowhere, Colorado anyway? Staring it in New York City would have been ten thousand times more effective! It made no sense at all.

The pony continued to just sit there, no idea how to respond.

“Listen! I have 1000 dollars. Cash.” Ari closed her eyes and put her hands firmly in her pockets. “No one will ever find out.”

“Well.” The pony at last relented, bowing her head. “If you really want to take the chance. You don’t have to give me any money.”

Finally!

The pony then proceeded to hack in her face for a solid five minutes. She gave Ari one of her hairs to swallow because apparently that was the most infectious part.

Ari walked away at least feeling like she’d done all she could. At least she wouldn’t have to go her whole life wondering what would have happened.

She felt satisfied for the moment. The return trip was faster and easier than the nerve-wracking journey here. She’d done everything she could. The rest was out of her control.

Whatever happened, she’d fall asleep in the car, though. Truth be told, Ari was considering just taking a nap by a random tree.

She finally got to the car, feet throbbing, legs numb. She drank her entire supply of water and felt as though she might pass out.

But the sight in her rear-view mirror made her forget all the pain, forget everything.

Green!

A stripe of hair just off to the left was turning green right in front of her eyes!

“It’s working!” Ari laughed. “I got ETS!”

The stripe managed to go all the way from scalp to tip, then began to thicken.

“I guess I’ll have green hair?” Ari never smiled this much before. “I wonder what color my fur will be. Hehehe!”

Better yet, a second green stripe joined it on the right side of her face. Her hair would be fully green in under an hour at this rate. She heard the transformation was getting faster and faster but at this rate, she might only need half a day to become a pony!

“It’s going so fast!” Ari cheered. Overcome with joy she flapped her arms about as the second stripe completed itself. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

If she could just hold out a few more hours! That was doable, right?! No one knew when they were going to activate their cure or whatever!

This was all making her unreasonably happy! She might… she might actually get to be a pony!

“Please just take a little longer!” Ari pleaded to anything that might be listening. “Please! Just another half day! Just another–”

The sky erupted into light! A beam of pure white rushed over Ari and the entire world as it exploded outward to cover the globe. And just as suddenly as it came, the light was gone.

In that moment, Ari knew the magic was dead…

She looked at her hair, desperate to become green just moments ago. It wasn’t changing anymore.

She bit her lip, trembled. Tears formed in her eyes.

Her head fell forward, onto the steering wheel. It probably honked the horn for a good long while. Ari couldn’t’ tell.

Part 1 - Alone

Ari had a special modified glove on her right hand, on the back of which her phone could be easily slotted. It even had a little ball bearing that allowed her to turn and lock it 90 degrees. That was where her phone usually was. Easier than fishing it out of her pocket all the time.

Hours went by as Ari lay on her back in the backseat of the car, her arm pinned against the back of the driver’s seat so she could watch an endless stream of bad news. Even if silence was preferable at this point, she was too tired and defeated to so much as turn off autoplay.

Eventually, night fell and still, people kept talking and talking. She wasn’t always listening most of the time. She wasn’t sure if she fell asleep at any point. But it was late now. She’d be sleeping in the car.

Statements were made, and declarations spoken.

The one thing she was truly curious about was mentioned early on and served as a bucket of cold ice. Every politician denounced ETS (and basically all transformation magic) as purely evil and vowed to never allow its use in any form ever again. The aliens seemed completely deferential to the human government. Meaning… Ari was likely stuck like this forever.

After that, there was only one thing that separated Ari from the dead, only one thing that can breathe a spark of life into her however briefly.

It was when that purple one talked… the hero that saved them, another pony from the same world as Sunset Shimmer, the criminal who created the virus in the first place. Every now and then Purple would just say something that pissed Ari off so much.

“Becoming a pony won’t solve your problems.”

“You don’t know that! You don’t know anything about me!”

“No one asked for this.”

“I did!”

“Magic won’t help you be a better person.”

“Then give me yours!”

“Ponies aren’t better than humans. I mean, this way you still have your hands, right?”

And then Purple laughed…

“You fucking–!”

That last one was what finally spurred Ari to sit up, and finally get off her back. She heard that line so many goddam times she wanted to puke!

And Purple was some kind of princess or something? Here was Purple, a literal immortal god with unlimited powers, too many for Ari to even list. She could fly, make interdimensional portals, cast spells effecting the entire planet, instantly zap whole languages into people’s brains, defeat a criminal with the power to devastate all of Earth, and that was just the stuff Ari picked up indirectly in an hour.

Someone like that had the audacity to look down at Ari from her exalted inter-cosmic throne and tell her she just needed to make due with nothing?!

She probably just got everything in life handed to her. That was always the story. And here she was, talking like she understood people she didn’t even know existed.

She was so incurious and sheltered that she couldn’t even imagine that not every human had working hands?! She couldn’t imagine why anyone would want change? She couldn’t imagine that it wasn’t so easy for everyone as ‘just change your life, bro!’

That privileged, condescending, pretentious fucking–!

Ari rubbed her face and took a deep breath.

She was probably taking her anger out on the wrong person. Purple was just doing its… job… or whatever. Who knew? Did Purple get paid for this?

Getting angry wouldn’t change anything. Nothing would change anything at this point. Nothing would change.

Her phone vibrated and Ari blinked a few times to clear her vision. It was morning already? Had she slept? Ari couldn’t even tell if she was tired at this point.

It was a text from work letting her know they’d be opening again tomorrow.

The adventure was over. The magic was gone. Get back to work!

Ari spent a few minutes working up the strength to start the car. She caught herself in the rearview mirror.

Ari looked at the green where it had managed to overtake her blonde hair. It didn’t look like that was going away. So she was about 1% pony. At least Purple couldn’t take that away from her… though then again she was talking about ‘rehumanization’ so who knew.

A streak on her left and a streak to the right perfectly framed her face between the two strips of green, too. It looked really nice, in her opinion!

So the trip hadn’t been an absolute failure. Maybe Ari could just try to focus on that.

“So I didn’t get to fly or anything, but green hair is the next best…” Ari couldn’t keep her fake smile on long enough to finish the sentence.

She let out a sigh and started the car.

It wasn’t like there was anything she could do about it now.

Getting back took most of the day. There was an massive surge of traffic as humans fled to the east coast, away from those transformed by ETS. Ari had never seen traffic like this before. It took hours just to cross the dang bridge.

And of course that meant more time listening to the news. No mere mortal could resist that siren call in the face of such a cataclysm as this. Everyone was rushing to get their opinions out as soon as possible now that the government was being more open with what had occurred.

Ari flipped through mainstream news networks to various political youtubers to hear them react to the defeat of an alien invader, to this pandemic ending suddenly and completely. No matter who she turned to, they all had one thing in common.

No one sounded victorious.

Their glorious president was perhaps the most optimistic and even his speech implied that the hard part started now. He gave the standard platitude about how they would weather the storm, but had no choice but to acknowledge that the storm wasn’t over… it was coming. It wasn’t that they’d gotten through the disaster, it was that the disaster was only just now about to start.

As if times weren’t already hard enough, every last person Ari turned to agreed that everyone was basically fucked. The plane was going down and the standard of living of every American was about to nosedive.

Ari even turned to people who were normally warhawk patriot types just to see if they felt at all good about America killing the evil alien invader. But no, they pretty much agreed that only economic doom awaited in the future.

The economy had already been perilous. Most people had already been living on the edge. And now?

People had been worried about 7% inflation just a year ago… people were forecasting it might be 30-35% this year. The stock market was down 60% and had been closed for days, would remain so indefinitely. There was a long list of banks that failed, though at least the government was talking about prioritizing insuring those who lost their savings.

The only thing they disagreed on was who to blame, and it was always somebody they hadn’t liked before ETS.

No one wanted to blame Sunset Shimmer. She was dead.

Sunset’s motivation for this remained elusive despite all the explanations. It was like an anime. She wanted to amass unlimited power to kill an ancient evil… or something? That just happened now.

Her nemesis Purple followed Sunset all the way here to kill Sunset. And yet she still turned around and said ‘Oh yeah, but now I have to amass unlimited power to defeat the monster with your “help”! Hahaha!’

And who knew what the hell she meant by that! She certainly didn’t mean giving magic powers through ponification to anyone who asked instead. Purple was probably just planning on exploiting them in a more subtle way, wasn’t she? They both had the same end goal. That’s how this sort of thing usually went.

So in reality it wasn’t even a ‘get back to the factory’. It was a ‘get back to the factory and things will be a lot worse from now on’.

It took forever, but Ari got over the bridge, through the city and back to Long Island and finally… home. Thankful she hadn’t collapsed and crashed at some point.

The town had deteriorated quickly in the few days she’d been away. The shops along the little strip mall by her house all had their windows broken. She passed a burned down house and the wreckage of several cars. The streets were littered with trash, the curb in front of her house being a particularly bad section.

And the city was swarming with military now, too. Armored vehicles were stationed all over the place. They would be living under marshal law for the foreseeable future. One of the army guys stopped Ari to inform her that starting tomorrow, no one would be allowed to drive their car alone. That was, you had to carpool or take the bus. Gas was going to be in too short supply for the next month or two.

There were clear signs that rioting and looting were going on, even if not right now. Even with some military presence, Ari would have to be extra careful when going outside from now on.

She stopped just in front of her house, looking down at a collection of bottles and plastic trash that had gotten caught up in the dirt just in front. The place was filthy. Her town had never been this bad before.

She should probably clean this up. She had tools that would help her clean it up without her hands…

But she was way too tired to do anything about it right now.

It looked like the government had managed to do something ‘right’ this time. They stopped the spread of ETS east of Manhattan.

Even in Manhattan itself there were less than a hundred ponies. In Queens and Brooklyn there were estimated to be less than ten. Nassau and Suffolk County had maybe 4 ponies between them. So Long Island was mostly pony-free. Or at least it would be as the dozen or so ponies inevitably fled the area or got ‘rehumanized’. There was no way you could survive being the only pony in town at a time like this.

She could still watch them through the internet, though. Most of the areas out west were kind of blacked out with little to no internet or power. But there were still tons of people posting pictures of ponies on the internet.

Whatever time Ari didn’t spend sleeping on that first day, she spent watching such videos, fascinated by their cutie marks and magic. It seemed like getting your cutie mark gave you something of a mini-superpower. Or sometimes an actual superpower.

Ponies learning to use their magic. Ponies flying. Ponies working together to build new communities. Ponies levitating things with their minds. Ponies making coffee and sugar cane grow rapidly as far up as Washing State. Ponies suddenly extreme experts in their given skill, with near-psychic perception.

But one thing they couldn’t do was type.

It was annoying all the ‘oh noooo! How will I ever live without haaaaaands?’ comments. The go-to answer seemed to be the Orbi keyboard, one made for disabled people. That was like the holy grail to the ponies now.

<The orbitouch is all sold out!

<You can get one on eBay… for $10,000. LOL.

<Guess we’re just using speech-to-text for now.

All the ponies were posting stuff like that. It was frustrating. Ari typed without hands all the time. She got frustrated and made her own post. Ari never actually made a Twitter account before, but finally set one up just so she could reply to these ignorant fools.

The glove on her right hand, in addition to holding her phone, had Velcro straps along the bottom. By loosening and then tightening them around utensils, she was able to hold them with a reasonable amount of grip.

She loosened the straps around either hand and slid them over her cup of unsharpened pencils, then tightened the straps with her mouth. With one pencils tied to either hand, she began typing.

A>Don’t get an Orbi, those suck. You type way too slowly with them. Just strap two unsharpened pencils to yourself and type with the eraser side. If you use this keyboard layout, you can type fast once you get used to it. I can break 60 WPM easily.

She sent the keyboard layout she used, with the most common letters clustered to the left and right side and the least common in the middle.

The standard keyboard layout was actually designed specifically to slow people with ten fingers down to the maximum extent. It was the slowest possible configuration assuming you had ten digits. Compared to one designed to be as fast as possible for someone with effectively two fingers… well she really could compete with a normal person.

And sent! Ari nodded to herself, satisfied for what felt like the first time in her life. Better than nothing.

But there were so many more like that.

<How do I use scissors without hands?

<How do I use a door knob?

<I can’t open bottles like this!

Ari rolled her eyes. Freaking amateurs. She would have been a way better pony than them.

Replying to all of these messages on how to function without the ability to grip things was a pretty good outlet for her stress, actually. If nothing else, it took her mind off of things. She responded to every comment she found like that for hours and hours. Giving basic advice, recommending accessibility devices and programs, telling them how to make basic handless tools for themselves.

Basically Velcro was the miracle material here.

Eventually… Ari ceased to function and passed out.

She woke up again with her face inches away from her laptop.

And then it was back to work. Again. Forever. A miracle like this would never happen again.

She couldn’t drive alone under marshal law, but she could walk to work. It should be safe with all the military personnel around. Even still…

Ari kept her hood down low enough to block her peripheral vision. A mess of tents and makeshift shelters came pouring out of a closed shopping center’s parking lot and off into the woods and nearby street.

Ironically, there was a huge, unused building right next to all these people, but they were living in the parking lot just outside it.

There never used to be this many homeless people in Ari’s town. But it was quickly becoming the homeless capital of the world. A massive wave of foreclosures crippled the American economy and caused a global economic meltdown. And now…

She heard yesterday that the homeless population had tripled and was continuing to rise. But as one influencer pointed out, that vastly understated the problem. Out west, the homeless population had plummeted as the ponies all sort of huddled together on whatever property they managed to hold onto, no longer counting towards that number.

So the triple number was an average weighed down by the massive drop to the west. It was getting insane out here. The contrast between the east and west half of the nation was beyond extreme.

It looked like that number would only be going up as the cost of everything rose but never wages. Most terrifying of all was the rent. Ari’s lease was up next month. The rent was going to go up by a whole, whole lot. The only question was how much? 20%? 30%? 60%?

As long as they didn’t hike it by fifty percent or more, Ari could maybe still make ends meet. She had a little bit of money saved up.

She should probably buy a tent and some heavy coats now, just in case. Better to be prepared.

But Ari couldn’t look at them. She couldn’t look at the specter of all those destitute, huddled masses in tents. Not now.

There wasn’t anything she could do about it, anyway.

Any fear she had that she might be made into a pariah for being partially transformed was dispelled, at least. Her partially green hair did draw attention, but it was overwhelmingly positive. Everyone at work seemed to love it, thinking it was so cool. One of the other girls even said she was jealous, that catching ETS at the last second like that was probably the best-case scenario.

She did have to shrug and pretend she had no idea who she could have possibly caught it from. But they didn’t grill her or anything.

Ari found herself smiling however briefly for the first time in… had it really only been a few days?

Maybe she’d just been too alone for the past week, having hardly spoken with anyone. She could have been overreacting a little…

And she felt almost okay for about four hours. Until HR called her over.

She wished her initial fear, that they’d somehow found out she’d infected herself, was the truth. Instead–

“You can’t dye your hair green like that.”

“I didn’t dye it,” said Ari. “This is from ETS. That part of my hair is just naturally green now.”

“Yes, well that only makes it worse. People around here are still on edge about this. They don’t want to see your hair like that. It’s really for your own good.”

Ari swallowed deep.

Were they allowed to do this?!

Whatever spark of indignation Ari might have had was soon snuffed out by the weight of depression that hung around her.

She couldn’t risk challenging this… not now! Not when money was so tight and the world so risky. It wasn’t like she could have afforded a lawyer before. But now? When she wasn’t sure if she could pay rent with a job? When there were so many people flooding the area, competing for work, driving down wages? It’d be nearly impossible to find work right about now.

Ari hung her head and bit her lip, crippled from defeat. Everything just kept getting worse…

The HR lady saw her and their expression did soften a little.

“Look, I’m sorry. But the boss saw your hair and he said this himself. You can cover it up however you want, but you can’t wear it like it is, okay?” They watched her for a moment longer, wanting to help. “You know, they’re saying the partially transformed can get the rehumanization spell cast on them, too. If you do that, you won’t have to worry about maintaining it anymore.”

At that moment, Ari would rather die than do that. That green hair felt like the only thing Ari had to hold on to in this world.

She resolved, however impotently, to do everything in her power to keep from getting the spell to permanently remove it. No matter what that meant.

Though truth be told, there was very little in her power. Even here…

“I guess there’s nothing I can do about it…”

The grocery store was well defended. At the entrance was a military guy holding the biggest gun Ari had ever seen someone holding. Like… whatever was one step down from a mini-gun. That was what he had. And they only let twenty people in the store at a time, meaning you had to wait in line to get in while this guy who could splatter everyone loomed just up ahead.

What were they expecting? A xenomorph to show up?

But she heard that someone smashed through the barred-up doors with an Escalade and stole all the oatmeal. She could see clear signs of such an attack: the windows covered with black tarp, the doors missing.

So apparently they did need that kind of firepower.

Just before going in, you had to register for a ration book like this was WWII. It had eight pages, each corresponding to a new week. At the checkout, they’d stamp what you bought making sure nobody hoarded anything. They also made it clear that hoarding food and shoplifting would be considered serious crimes while marshal law lasted.

If this was actually over in eight weeks, Ari would be delighted.

All the shelves were just about empty. Normally in this situation, you’d think ‘well I’ll just eat oatmeal and ramen until things get better’. Only everyone had the same idea and all the cheap foods were long gone. It didn’t even look like they were cheap anymore.

The price of everything had nearly doubled. And that was over what everyone had considered high food prices just a few months ago.

Hopefully, things would get better in the next few days. They said it would, but who knew?

Ari filled out her most of her ration card for the week. They didn’t allot you a great deal, but it was certainly enough to survive. And they said they’d be handing out food whenever possible. So maybe she wouldn’t starve just yet.

As foreshadowed there was no oatmeal thanks to that one asshole. No medicine or cleaning supplies either.

But hair dye? They had that. Only marked up about thirty percent.

Ari stared at the blonde hair dye for a long time before giving in and knocking it into her cart.

What she wouldn’t give for a box of plain oatmeal right now.

But there was nothing she could do about it.

Ari took deep breaths, staring into the mirror, looking at the green stripes in her hair.

Using scissors was a bit of a production, but she could do it. She had a pair made specifically for disabled people, with a big loop on one side and a large handle on the other. Putting the loop over her right hand and tightening the Velcro strap, she could able to cut just by pressing down on the lever with her left.

It’d be cheaper to just cut those stripes out. She could style it to make it not look weird.

She held the blade against the base of the larger green stripe. Her hand trembled more than it usually did. She stood there, paralyzed until her strength gave out. Her right hand and the attached scissors clunked down into the sink.

She couldn’t do it!

That was… that was like the only thing she got! That green hair was… was…

Ari shook her head. She felt tears forming but ignored them and took out the dye.

Dying was more expensive, difficult, and time-consuming… but it was her only option. If she lost her job, there was no guarantee she could get another one right now. It was this… or…

She found this slightly easier on a psychological level, though it took her way longer than a normal person would need and she sobbed all the way through.

Ari stared at herself in the mirror once again, her hair more or less back the way it was.

She felt… violated. She couldn’t look in the mirror any longer, disgusted by what she saw… and went back to her room to collapse yet again.

This one hurt so much more than the other two. She sat at the head of her bed, curled up into a tight ball, hugging a pillow with a pile of blankets hiding her. She rocked back and forth, trying to steady her breath between sobs. It was so hard not to cry over something so… stupid.

The world was going down the drain. Ari could very well be homeless and starving before long and somehow being forced to dye her hair was what made her cry? So many people had it a million times worse than her…

“I wish I understood how my stupid brain worked.”

Ari buried her face in the pillow to wipe away some of her messy tears.

There was just… nothing she could do about it. Just go to work. Try to survive. And going to work might not be enough to survive soon but… there was nothing she could do about that.

Might as well just… not think about it. Find some kind of distraction.

Ari got her laptop and turned it on. Looking at what the ponies were up to would probably hurt her even more but it was too strong a temptation to resist.

She logged in to Twitter and paused.

She blinked through her tears, clearing up her vision until she was sure she was seeing it correctly…

“10,000 comments?!”

1 - 2

Ponies were quite a bit more social than humans. When one of them latched on to something, it spread way faster than Twitter would even normally spread it.

A leader of one of the pony communities saw Ari’s tips about typing, opening jars, and the like and decided to share them. She sent it to the leaders of a bunch of other communities and then they all spread it through their communities in a sort of hub and spoke network.

Ari very suddenly had a ton of followers on the Twitter account she created just yesterday! And nearly all of them seemed to be ponies. There was no way to check but she had no idea why a human with functional hands would follow this account.

They were incredibly organized and efficient at… a whole lot of things as Ari was beginning to learn.

It wasn’t something that Ari fully appreciated until just now, but there were suddenly about a hundred million people in America alone that had more or less the same condition as Ari. That was one of the things that appealed to her originally… that she’d be normal among the ponies.

But her abject defeat and failure made her forget that they were still like her in the end. She was no longer a bizarre outlier in this world… maybe the advent of ponies would eventually lead to a golden age of accessibility for people like Ari.

And now she was getting about ten thousand questions asking advice from someone who had way more experience with this sort of thing.

She found herself smiling madly at the chance to do something useful for once in her life! Sure she’d tried to be useful but… well this was something that would work! With clear, tangible benefits.

Ari grabbed one of her unsharpened pencils with her teeth and strapped it onto her hand. Then she began furiously typing up answers to their questions, faster than she’d ever written before.

She went through question after question, explaining how to do this and that chore. Recommending accessibility programs and appliances. Explaining how accessibility devices she had worked so the ponies could make their own.

They were further behind than Ari thought. Some of them claimed they hadn’t brushed their teeth since transforming because they just couldn’t figure even that much out.

It did feel like she was in a bit of a race. Ari was hardly the only person with this type of disability, where she couldn’t use her fingers but still had her motor skills and muscles, giving her near-perfect overlap for what they were going through. It’d only be a matter of time before they found solutions themselves or elsewhere.

She stayed up way too late that night helping as many of them as possible before finally having to go to sleep. And she spent the whole next day at work with only half her mind, waiting eagerly to get back on Twitter and answer more questions.

Something she’d been mocked for her whole life now made her ‘cool’ and a ‘genius’.

At least, among the ponies.

The other humans at work didn’t seem to appreciate Ari’s mood flipping and becoming so chipper. Not when all of them were depressed and scared out of their minds. Like Ari, none of them knew if they’d have food or shelter a month from now. And Ari could tell they found her smile to be in poor taste.

Maybe Ari should be more worried… she didn’t have nearly enough followers or content to save her from the poor house. At best, she’d be popular for a couple of weeks until she had nothing further to share. But damn if it wasn’t exciting for now.

But the chasm of moods made her feel like she needed to hide the truth. She tried not to smile whenever they looked.

Typically at work, Ari kept her hands in her pockets through lunch. She’d bring in a thermos with a thick smoothy to drink. One she could take out of her bag, unscrew, put a straw in and drink it all without taking her hands out at all.

Today, one of her coworkers teased her about ‘acting like a pony’ for doing something they’d seen her do a hundred times. The comment stung deep into Ari’s heart and her smile was gone for the next few hours. But more than anything else, she felt like she was hiding a horrible secret now.

When work finally let out, Ari jogged all the way home, hands deep in her pockets, rushing past the specter of the homeless camp to get back to the safety of her house.

And now it felt as though Ari had returned from a fairy world, the kind where you spent a single day there to find ten years had passed in the real world.

After just one more day, the ponies had gone through another permutation. They had now appointed specific agents for gathering and disseminating information through their communities. They’d designed a more efficient setup where Ari could talk to ponies who’d ask more pointed, less redundant, prioritized questions they’d gathered, then those specialists would catalog and pass on the information.

The first of this new breed, who also became Ari’s fast favorite was Spring Breeze, from a 100% pony community somewhere in Washington State… only about 3,000 strong. The purple pegasus wasn’t the leader of her community but the head of what she called their ‘internet and information operations’.

That sounded way more professional than anything a town of 3,000 should have, especially just days after total upheaval. Yet every pony community from Denver to Dinkly seemed to have a pony like Spring Breeze for Ari to talk to.

It made ponies seem like beings of supreme order and efficiency… though she knew not to get carried away. The survivor bias was a thing. Ari would only be talking to the communities on the ball enough to get things up and running. Most of the ponies didn’t even have internet right now. Entire states were suffering near-constant blackouts in the west.

Spring Breeze’s explanation of her community’s situation confirmed this much to Ari.

SB<Since the entire town either transformed or ran off, we have absolute control over the local government. You’d be amazed at how much power that gives you. We pooled all our money together to buy out as many mortgages as possible. Between that and the ponies who already owned their houses, we got about half the town to ourselves. We can do pretty much whatever we want.

SB<But the other half is what we call ‘blight’. Houses the bank owns and is playing hardball with, refusing to sell it to us. So for now, there are just endless rows of houses all over the nation that no one is allowed to enter.

SB<Other towns have it way worse. Entire cities are blight-land right now. There are places where thousands and thousands of ponies were forced out into the woods while all the houses, they used to live in are worthless shells.

It was messed up. Too many people saw this disaster as a chance to be greedy.

Still…

Spring Breeze and the others soon took a special interest in the gloves Ari made for holding her phone and gripping utensils.

Ari had a special glove made of Velcro straps around her right hand most of the time. On the back of it was a slot to strap in her phone. That was where her phone stayed except when charging, strapped to the back of her right hand so she didn’t have to get it out of her pocket all the time. She even had a little mechanism letting her turn it 90 degrees.

Her ring finger (her only finger) was too weak to type more than a few letters without Ari getting exhausted. So to use the phone she let it hang down and moved her hands instead. Repeatedly raising and lowering them was enough to type.

On the bottom of her glove were straps that could be loosened or tightened to allow her to grip small utensils. She even had little bits of silk and rubber at the edges of the straps to make it easier and more comfortable to grab them with her mouth.

It also had one more benefit: hiding the worst of the deformities on her right hand. But that last one wouldn’t appeal to the ponies. They had cute little hooves instead of the grotesque lump of flesh and nails Ari did.

It didn’t take long for them to design cruder, leather ‘bracer’s for them to wear over their… fetlocks? But they’d get better at making them before long. The big advantage being these could be easily made without waiting for mass production to become possible.

The part of her desperate for cash told her to try and gatekeep the information, try to monetize this somehow. But Ari always despised that kind of thinking… she couldn’t complain about taking advantage of others for profit while doing it herself.

It wasn’t like this was hard to figure out, anyway.

Her friendship with the ponies she met was way more valuable. Ari had been intensely interested in ponies from the start. Maybe if she couldn’t be one, she could at least live vicariously through them. All the ponies she chatted with were incredibly friendly and wanted to talk to her about more than just accessibility.

The contrast between her life and that of the ponies was immense. While Ari was stuck doing the same boring job, while half the population was destitute, and no one knew who’d be out on the streets next… the high-pony areas seemed to be doing fine.

Better than ever, even. They had unlimited food and were uniting in tighter communities that didn’t just leave people by the wayside, doing actual work instead of pointless labor.

And of course, discovering what were effectively superpowers.

So when Spring Breeze asked Ari what her job was… she didn’t even want to answer.

A>My job sucks. Do you do anything interesting?

That was a stupid question, she realized. Spring Breeze was off building her own civilization with ponies and magic. Instead:

A>Were you always an ‘internet operations officer’?

SB<That’d be an odd way to phrase my old job. I was a Vtuber. I can’t do it right now because the internet barely works. There’s way too much stuff to do around here before I even think about streaming again.

SB<That’s another part of ‘internet operations’. Keeping our internet from exploding. Most towns around here don’t even have internet access. Even keeping the lights on is a bit of a struggle, but that’s a different pony’s job.

Ari was reminded once again that the east coast did have it better in some ways. No blackouts here so far.

Ari looked up Spring Breeze’s old handle. She had just over 100K subscribers. Her Vtuber rig really did have similar hair to what she did now. They were nearly the same shade of blue, only the silver highlights making up a significant difference.

A>See, that’s an interesting job. Are you going back to that at some point?

SB<I’m still going to be an influencer. But for one thing, all my fans seem to like the way I look now better than my old rig, even. They’re all like ‘You’re way cuter like this’! So… I dunno. Maybe I’ll just be a tuber from now on? Or maybe set up a pony rig once I get everything in order out here.

Ari had never been super big into Vtubers, but she wanted to watch Spring Breeze’s old streams now. It was kind of cool being friends with someone who was a sort of minor celebrity.

Looking into it, the Vtuber community was hit hard by ETS for whatever reason. 6 of the top 10 Vtubers were ponies now. Half the ones on the list she found had been transformed. Ari wondered why that was. True, America and Japan got hit harder than most places. Maybe there was some super spreader event at a con somewhere. Something like that…

There was one interesting, controversial case on her list. One Vtuber who did not become a pony started using a pony rig, seemingly rushing to make sure she was the first to have one, beating the actual ponies to the punch. Everyone was having a big fight about whether that was… racist? Who could know the whims of Twitter? It was silly but…

Ari decided to test the waters a little. She really had no idea what other people, human or pony, would think of her… darkest secret.

A>Hey, what do you think about that human Vtuber using a pony rig?

SB<Oh, I like it! We need humans seeing more ponies right now, you know? Normalization. Even if I’m pretty sure she’s just doing it for attention.

A>Maybe she’s doing it because she secretly wanted to be a pony?

Ari hesitated to send that last message. It felt like she was about to jump into an ice-cold pool. Finally, she hit the enter key and pulled back, watching the screen for a reply with bated breath. The die was cast.

SB<Even better. Humans who want to be ponies are cool.

Cool? It implied Spring Breeze had heard of at least one other.

SB<I know I don’t have to worry about them being mean to us for one thing. And I could understand somebody feeling that way. I don’t want to give up my wings… so somebody probably wants the ability to fly too. Do you know?

Ari let out her tension with a sigh. So Spring Breeze was safe.

Though it wasn’t like Ari was ready to confide that deeply in Spring Breeze yet.

A>You aren’t worried she’ll steal all the attention from the actual ponies? I don’t know how hard it is for you to operate your stuff.

SB<Actually, becoming a pony will make my show a hundred times better! And not just because I’m cuter. I was the first around these parts to get my cutie mark. Magic courses through me, making me the most powerful Vtuber!

SB<You know, other than the hundreds of other Vtubers who also became ponies.

SB<But seriously, it’s great.

Cutie marks…

Ponies had magic powers, often crystalized in the form of that brand on their flanks. Once one appeared, it was like a gateway to their soul had opened, granting you powers reflecting your truest self.

No two cutie marks were the same, but they always gave you some amazing ability. Something you’d always be happy with because it reflected your truest self.

Ari would give anything for one of those! She didn’t even care if her cutie mark was a cardboard box. That’d be better than literally nothing. If she was going to be homeless, she might as well be a mystical homelessness wizard.

The closest thing Ari had to magic was crippling depression.

There was already some talk that without magic, humans might have serious trouble competing in certain professions. It sure as heck looked like a human farmer couldn’t possibly compete with an earth pony.

Could a human plumber really compete with a pony that had plumber-related superpowers? Would ponies with programming cutie marks always be a step ahead of human programmers? Could a human Vtuber compete with a pony with powers like Spring Breeze?

And if so, would that just mean ponies would always be at the top of their hyper-specialized field? Or would there be enough to make hiring a human for anything an act of charity?

Nobody knew right now.

Especially not Ari. She tried but couldn’t imagine what magic powers would help you make Twitch streams.

A>You got a Vtubing cutie mark? What does it look like? What kind of powers does it give you?

Ari wasn’t sure how appropriate that question was to ask. She was basically asking for a picture of Spring Breeze’s butt. Then again, the ponies seemed fine running around naked.

Spring Breeze posted the picture of her cutie mark. It was a flower with a bunch of stars around it. Ari knew even less now.

SB<It’s not exactly that.

SB<My special talent is spreading positivity and motivation! I can inspire enthusiasm in other ponies, you see! I’ve sort of been helping motivate the rest of my community to press on with our projects. We have a lot of work to do over here.

SB<But really, I’ve always been all about optimism and encouraging others to fulfill their dreams. That’s how I got mine so fast, I already knew who I was and what I loved to do. It’s just now… well I can be more me than before!

SB<So often, I think becoming a pony unlocks your truest self, you know? That’s closer to the truth than all this talk about brainwashing. You become more you, not less.

That was another common talking point. No one doubted that ponification changed your personality. Most strongly, it increased your sociability, and gave you a ‘herd instinct’.

But some people seemed to be overreacting to that fact. They went ahead and argued that ponies were therefore brainwashed and shouldn’t be allowed to make any decisions for themselves, that the government could do whatever they wanted to them ‘for their own good’.

That seemed to be the main thing the ponies were worried about right now. Even a hundred miles away, Ari could see it. They were all terrified of being declared invalids, rounded up, forced to ‘rehumanize’… possibly worse.

Ari decided not to go down that route.

A>Does that power work over the internet? Are you ‘spreading optimism’ to me right now? I do feel a little better when I talk to you.

A>And for the record, you have my permission to shoot me with the motivation laser as often as possible. That sounds better than coffee.

SB<It’s not like that. As far as I can tell, I can’t force ponies to feel motivated. It’s more like I have this supernatural intuition and empathy. I can just feel what I need to say! I can feel which ponies need my help, what they’re down about, what’s blocking them from their goals. And I just have this endless well of positive energy to draw on.

A>That still sounds like an incredible power! We can use ponies like you right now. The world is in a state of total disaster and everyone around here is too depressed to even try to do anything about it. It’s like they’ve all given up, just waiting around for the next horrible thing to come around and ruin our lives even more.

Truth be told, Ari was no better than that. She felt largely the same.

SB<Friendo! Don’t despair because the future is brighter than ever!

Ari had a lot more empathy for the people at work who found her smile in poor taste now.

A>Bright for who, exactly? My life has been like… I went from not being able to afford a house to not being able to afford peanut butter.

SB<Well for one, we’ve gotten rid of our main existential crisis for the future. ETS means global warming is gone just like that.

Ari read the message a few times and sat up far straighter.

A>Holy crap, you’re right!

Pegasi could control the weather… meaning the apocalyptical predictions of global warming would never come to pass.

Ari had always been very far left. The curse that came along with that… global warming had been a constant specter in her life, a major source of her depression and increasingly defeatist mindset. She’d slowly come to think it all pointless… the world would be destroyed and no one in power had the will to stop it.

So why even bother? Everything Ari worked for would come to nothing in a few decades…

But not it was like a death sentence had been lifted.

A>Why is no one talking about that? This is the best news ever!

A>Thank you so much for pointing that out to me! You have no idea how big my smile is right now! I believe that you have the power now!

Ari found herself laughing madly, alone in her room.

Maybe… was Spring Breeze right?

A>But I still can’t get any oatmeal…

SB<I promise everything you’re going through is temporary, friendo. With magic introduced into the world, we’re about to enter a new golden age.

SB<Think about it. Was this one really a disaster? Nobody died, and maybe a million of lives were saved by ETS. Nothing was destroyed. Now that America has tens of millions of ponies with magical powers, we’re more capable than ever. So how can the economy possibly be flagging?

It was a good question. Maybe an economist could answer, but not Ari.

SB<If this were a disaster, the areas directly impacted would be the worst off. But the states that got no ETS are doing worse than the states that hit the heaviest. Why is that?

An even harder question…

SB<It’s because the only disaster here is a failure of the system!

That much was just preaching to the choir.

A>You’re right about that part, at least. We really were standing on a house of cards, weren’t we?

SB<But no longer! You’re worried about food being scarce? Earth ponies can produce endless food. It’ll be free in just a few years. Us ponies are fighting even now to make sure every American can have guaranteed food security.

SB<And it will be even better than before. We managed to grow coffee up here in Washington, even. Do you know how big of a deal that is? You’ll be able to eat any food you want any time you want at almost zero cost, grown fresher and closer to you most of the time.

It was ironic that they had more food than ever and yet the prices had doubled. Anyone could tell you it was because the government wasn’t allowing humans to eat the endless supply of food that earth ponies could produce.

The official line was that the government wanted to make sure eating food grown with magic wouldn’t give you cancer. But there was another reason…

They were worried major corporations like Cargill wouldn’t be able to compete any longer. Anything related to food was directly threatened. Then there were the human farmers who would lose their jobs. Corn had significant political sway. Ari knew enough about politics to know the government couldn’t just tell them to cope.

Still even if Spring Breeze were right, it was just so hard for Ari to imagine a bright future of any kind.

A>I dunno about that one. I hear a lot of ponies repeating these lines about ‘protecting jobs’ or whatever.

SB<My opinion? If those jobs and corporations are obsolete, we should just let them die.

Ari nodded along.

A>Yeah. Where’s all this talk about the free market I always hear? Now they’re propping up these corporations at the expense of all our food security. I’d rather you guys take it over.

SB<That’s the real problem. They’re just afraid of ponies having control over the food supply.

A>Then what’s all this talk I hear from like… Citrus and Branch and Skylark? They all seem on board with that thinking.

SB<Well all the ponies you just named are a bunch of Lunists. That’s why.

A>What’s that?

SB<Did you hear about the vision?

A>Yes? A little.

Ari wasn’t sure how sensitive the subject was. That was something the government used to claim ponies were brainwashed and shouldn’t be allowed to make their own decisions in life from here on out.

Basically… well Ari still needed to investigate it more. But her understanding was Sunset Shimmer sent them all a vision of her perfect world or whatever in their sleep. And a ton of ponies decided that they kind of liked some of her ideas. So the government was freaking out about that.

But what those ideas were, Ari couldn’t say. Something like ‘be nice’? There had to be something more.

SB<The government keeps calling that brainwashing, but guess what? They literally did the exact same thing to us. The government sent out their own vision with their own message exactly the same way Sunset Shimmer did. So I guess brainwashing is okay when it’s their propaganda.

A>Wait. Did that really happen?

Ari had to admit she was still ignorant of most of the events, having spent the last few days of ETS stalking about the forest.

A>I know they call it brainwashing but… like they, seriously used it themselves despite being the people who labeled it that, to begin with?!

It seemed almost too insane to be true. Ari needed to fact-check this later…

SB<Yeah. And the craziest part was that they couldn’t even bring themselves to say that Sunset Shimmer’s vision was wrong. They’d look too stupid and heartless. They just tacked their own message onto the end of their vision.

A>And what was that?

SB<Something about ‘reunifying’ with humans. Or more accurately, going back to the collapsing system we escaped from. You know, if I wanted to start a commune before ETS nobody would have said that was immoral but now that everypony is doing it they’re suddenly worried enough to resort to what they themselves see as brainwashing.

SB<Lunists are what we call the ponies who swallowed the government’s propaganda vision uncritically. They think we just gotta go along with whatever stupid thing the human government comes up with because that’s ‘helping’ or whatever.

SB<Like, it was okay for me to criticize things before? It was a good thing, even. Why should it be wrong now? I’m still an American, aren’t I?

Ari wanted to say she couldn’t believe the government would resort to something like that but… who was she kidding? They totally would.

But would the aliens? They were the ones with the vision technology. Who the hell knew?

SB<But don’t worry! Not all of us drank the Kool-Aid like the Lunists. Most ponies kinda want to leave all that stuff behind us and push for radical change. At least around here. Me and my community will fight to live the way we want to live.

That was good. At least somebody could be happy. Or rather somepony.

A>Wasn’t the original vision propaganda too? You sound like you like that one.

SB<Maybe. But yeah. I liked it! It was such a beautiful message! Even if there was some agenda behind it, that hardly matters now that Sunset Shimmer is too dead to push it.

SB<And for the record, I don’t think either was brainwashing. It’s them that say that. Both were just propaganda, I suppose. Just one was saying ‘peace and love’ and the other was ‘do whatever your human overlords tell you to’.

That made sense.

SB<Really, you should read up on the original vision when you get the chance! Talking to you, I know you’d agree with its message. You’d love it! Here’s a great video talking about it.

Spring Breeze sent Ari a link to a YouTube video of somepony explaining the vision. There seemed to be a bunch of them already…

Ari decided she’d watch a bunch of those later. The curiosity was too much to resist.

SB<PS! Never lose hope!

1 - 3

It wasn’t something Ari noticed or cared about at first. It wasn’t something anyone in the entire world noticed or cared about at first. Not on their own.

But slowly, sometime late into the second week, like a lazy giant opening its eyes, something changed in the way the world saw Ari.

The first clue came one fine day walking back from the grocery store. The police approached her, saying she ‘looked homeless’. They demanded to see her rations book and receipt to make sure she hadn’t stolen anything. They held her up for way longer than they should have and weren’t exactly polite about it.

In her still innocent naivete, that little encounter had been too strange to even upset Ari. Her mind was simply preoccupied with the mystery of what had even happened. What was that?

The police had never harassed her over her disability before. And white women were the last thing on their list of usual suspects.

It wasn’t until she got home and saw herself in the mirror that it all clicked:

Her green roots were showing.

And then it all made sense.

Those mother fuckers!

“The hair dye didn’t do a goddamn thing,” Ari said to herself.

That was somehow the worst part of all of this! She went through all the pain of dying her hair and it didn’t matter because her roots would still give her away just a few days later. Did she have to wear a hat now?!

What even was Ari? She didn’t have words to describe herself, to describe whatever… this was. It technically wouldn’t even be racism or speciesism since Ari shared both traits with those two cops. Hairism?

Up until now, Ari had just been a green-haired human. But clearly, that was no longer the case.

She went to the internet to investigate. Without the right language, it took some time to answer even that most basic question, to find Ari’s new identity. But eventually, she found one single keyword that unlocked everything else:

Partial.

That was what Ari had become. Someone who had gotten stuck somewhere between human and pony. At some point, somebody decided to call them partials.

Specifically, she was a stage one partial.

According to her research, partials were divided into four stages. Stage ones were like Ari, just humans with strange hair or eye colors. Stage two was when you had pony ears or a tail.

Stage three was the worst when you had impacted mobility but no magic. These were the most deformed partials who got nothing in return for their new handicaps. Unsurprisingly, these partials were the main group that went for the new ‘rehumanization’ centers. Ponies seemed largely disinterested in the idea, but not stage threes.

And Ari couldn’t even blame them. Consequently, their numbers were dropping rapidly and soon there’d be almost none left.

Then stage four partials were nearly-pony. You could even mistake them for ponies if you didn’t look closely. They had pony magic sans the cutie mark. Only their faces gave them away, half-formed muzzles and distorted features made them appear off.

Looking at polling data, stage one and stage four were the ones with the lowest desire to get rehumanized, since those were the easiest to be. Therefore, Ari figured, they’d be the two most common in the end.

And already some jerkass was using that to play the oppression Olympics with Ari. ‘Oh, stage two partials are way more oppressed than stage ones, bro. You don’t even know.’

Ari wished!

The troublemakers who instigated these tensions didn’t make that distinction. Yeah, someone turned the talking heads back on when Ari wasn’t looking and they were back to their usual tricks.

“Can we be 100% sure partials don’t emit deadly radiation? I’m not saying they are, obviously. Just asking questions.”

“Can we know for absolute certain that partials aren’t brainwashed sleeper agents who can activate and kill you, your children, and your pet puppy at any moment? Wise men teach us that you can’t know anything for absolute certain. And wouldn’t it be really scary if a partial burst into your house and tried to kill you?”

“I just want people to acknowledge the possibility that partials are extremely dangerous. Oh, I don’t have any evidence of that. But I do like asking these kinds of questions. Hahaha!”

And for the record, not one of them ever made a distinction between stage one and stage whatever.

The effect was pretty immediate. Ari could tell which people at work listened to those guys. People who were completely fine when they first saw her hair, who said they thought it looked cool and wished they could have the same, started to avoid her or not so subtly suggested she should get rehumanized. Pointing out that it might give her cancer or drive her insane or turn her into a werewolf or something later on, trying to make Ari feel the same fear the talking heads had bestowed upon them.

And what could she even say to that? ‘uhhh there’s no evidence of any of that’. That sort of thing was nothing in the face of scary rumors.

Ari mentioned all this to Spring Breeze later that night, wondering out loud why anyone in their right mind would have a problem with her having green hair.

Spring Breeze, ever informed, was quick to point out their motivation to Ari. The government wanted to press rehumanization on everyone as much as possible. Especially partials who seemed like the low-hanging fruit. The easiest to get rid of.

So that was what this was really about, wasn’t it? Pressuring her into making the choice the government wanted her to make. It really should be illegal for the news to spread dangerous rumors like this…

Though at the same time, she could understand her boss’s worry about wearing her hair naturally.

Still, Ari despised those kinds of troublemakers. Them doing this to her only made her want to wear her natural green all the more. One of her new life goals was to get a job where she could do just that, stand in defiance of what society was trying to push her to do.

The following night, shortly after the ponies had all fallen asleep…

Outside the rain poured its heart out, coating the city in cold misery. But Ari had shelter for now. She sat safely in her apartment, only hearing the rain. She took out her laptop to find it…

The vision.

Her pony friends all talked about this often enough that Ari felt she couldn’t possibly relate to them with her surface level understanding of it. And really, the more she read the more curious about it she became.

It was an experience so profound the government insisted it had to be mind control... before ironically using the exact same thing to push their own agenda.

Imagine something so beautiful and meaningful that you were no longer considered in control of your mind ever again after seeing it.

Those who got it initially believed they were in contact with a truly divine entity, sometimes interpreted as God himself, one that still many worshiped even after learning it was a trick.

Cooler heads pointed out that it was merely a mummer’s dragon, comparing it to a projector.

If you went back in time and showed a projected video recording to some medieval village, claiming to be a god, the people may very well be shocked enough to wonder if it was the truth. They may consider that a religious experience or miracle.

Dream weaving, the source of the vision, was no different. It only seemed divine if you didn’t know how truly mundane it was. Plenty of ponies could do it. They used dream weaving all the time, going into each other’s dreams, using it to treat all kinds of mental health issues.

But humans could never experience it…

On the news, night ponies often went on and on with the assurances that humans couldn’t experience magical dreams or see dream weaving for themselves. As if that was a good thing. As if all those humans who reacted to its existence with fear weren’t pathetic, incurious cowards.

How could you seriously hear about that sort of thing and not want to see it?

Ari wished she could see the vision, or any dream weaving or dream magic at all. It was almost like she was robbed of something truly profound. What she wouldn’t give to see anything that incredible.

To that end, she went one step further than Spring Breeze suggested. Sure, Ari would watch the lecture Spring sent her. But first…

She found some hypnotic suggestion videos on YouTube that promised to simulate the experience for humans as best as possible. There were so many to choose from even narrowing it down to that much. Ari even found five that were narrated in Celestia’s voice, one from a voice actor and four using an AI recreation of her actual voice.

Ari spent a couple of hours lying on her back, going through twelve such videos with eyes closed, lights out and headphones on, trying to empty her mind and get in the right space as the video detailed what she was to imagine. Hypnosis had never worked on her before, but this was her first serious attempt to let it.

She’d seen pictures of Celestia and could imagine a pony goddess coming to her. The real vision was personalized, but Ari had to make due with the most generic version possible, with a patchwork of accounts all stitched together.

But every account Ari found, from the hypnosis videos to the lectures to the interviews of ponies recounting the vision…

All of them had one thing in common, the very beginning.

You always started out alone and afraid. Perhaps in the dark or the cold, maybe a wide open field, but always alone. But it never lasted long. Ponies came to join you. Celestia came to join you. Soon you were surrounded by a pony community, armor through which no loneliness could ever penetrate.

And from that you learned the first, most universal, and most important message of the vision: no pony is ever alone.

From there it spun out in many different directions, but always more ponies came in. Ponies in dire need would come to you and your community would take them in, you would take them in, opening your heart beyond what any sane person would have the courage to do.

Ponies always helped. Ponies always had the courage to help. That too was always there.

And from iterations after iteration, Ari pieced together all of their morals. Came to understand all the sayings ponies liked to use.

Ponies were kind. Ponies were honest. Ponies were loyal. Ponies never hoarded. Ponies always helped.

Ponies were never alone.

Ari heard this, imagined it, was taught it fifty times over through her little adventure in the darkness.

Maybe Spring Breeze was right. If that was a lie… then it shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t let it be.

Who’d want to fight against all that? Almost everyone around here, apparently.

Ari opened her eyes to remember the dark. She took off her headphones to remember it was raining harder than ever.

The actual hypnosis had been marginally effective at best, hardly to the point she felt as though she’d gotten a divine revelation. But so many versions of that gave her a better understanding of the ponies. It really did sound like what Spring Breeze described it, like the perfect anarchist commune where everyone just loved and helped each other for no other reason than just that.

She looked outside into the night, in the rain coming down harder and colder with each minute. There were so many people stuck out there right now. While Ari sat in here warm, going on her little quest for understanding, some guy not half a mile away froze as the rain drenched him and he made due with whatever second hand food had been spared to him.

Ponies always helped.

Ponies always helped…

Ari closed the blinds.

“Maybe. But ponies are never alone.”

1-4

Ari marched back from the grocery store on foot. Marshal law wasn’t clearing up any time soon.

Every once in a while when she was out like this, Ari got approached by some strange person in a heavy coat. She had one eye out for the nearest soldier when that happened. But until now all they wanted was to sell her contraband.

“Hey.” The latest guy took out a small packet and gave it a shake. “You wanna buy some oatmeal?”

He was part of the food cartel. Those were a thing now.

Nobody knew how they got the oatmeal… but they got the oatmeal. Seemingly all of it. Not one time had Ari seen oatmeal or Ramen in the stores, but these guys always had some. If you wanted food without getting more stamps on your ration card, this new black market was the only game in town. At a significant markup.

And he had a Kodiak oatmeal too. That was the good stuff.

“How much?” Ari asked.

“15 for a box. 3 for one packet.”

“15?! For one box?!” That was pricey even for this day and age! That was almost twice what it hypothetically was in the store, which was already way more than it’d been in 2022, which was way more than it’d been in 2019! At this rate, she’d be paying a hundred bucks for a box of oatmeal by 2030!

“If you can’t afford it there’s plenty who can,” he warned.

That was the problem, wasn’t it?

“I’d better not.”

Ari lowered her head in defeat and walked away.

Getting to pick what you ate these days was a luxury reserved exclusively for the upper class. As was coffee and a host of other commodities. Like Spring Breeze warned, the government seemed determined to ‘save the food industry’. That meant taking whatever you could get.

Most people were understandably depressed about that fact. There were small riots here and there despite the military presence, but most were simply too depressed to do anything but complain at work.

But since meeting Spring Breeze and the other ponies, Ari’s mood had been picking up a little. Certainly, she was a rung higher on the mood chart than the broken masses around her.

Spring Breeze gave Ari some advice on seeing the positive side of things. It wasn’t forever. It wouldn’t be the new normal. The ponies would fight to save them from that fate. So instead… Ari could see it as an adventure.

Certainly, Ari was eating things she never would have even thought to buy before… foods she likely never would have even seen. The grocery store suddenly became an international hub as the US imported foods from anywhere that would sell it.

All kinds of weird Canadian brands appeared on the shelves, becoming more common than what you’d normally see. Other days, suddenly half the store would be in German or French. And you often found things exported from Brazil too.

Other times, you just got white bags with simply ‘flour’, ‘sugar’, or ‘corn meal’ and a bar code stamped on them. Those last and most mysterious food items never lasted long as they were the cheapest and most sought-after. A pound of white bag flour was half the cost of even the store-brand stuff, which was even more elusive these days.

The rumor was that those secretly came from ponies. It was something the government profusely denied, claiming it was simply heavily subsidized grain, but there was zero trust left in the world. Plenty of people refused to touch the white bag foods just in case.

The final source of new foods was the military itself.

Every so often, you’d get a text on your phone letting you know a distribution was about to take place. Then, about 30 minutes later, an army truck would roll up onto your block and a soldier would throw food off the back to you. It was free but you had to wait in line for a good while.

Recently, they gave out three MREs per person. Those were these military food kits with what you needed to survive for about a day. And it could be anything in there. Rumor had it, they could even contain pizza. Though no one had actually seen the pizza MRE in person.

Of course, rumors challenged the absolute altruism of these food distributions.

It was highly suspected that the army was eating food provided by ponies, enabling them to pass the MREs on to civilians. They didn’t just give the food from ponies directly to civilians because they wanted to be the ones who appeared as the good guys. One soldier all but confirmed the rumor to Ari, telling her he was all but certain they were being given food grown by earth ponies.

But to be fair, her opinion on the military was slowly rising. The army guys were surprisingly reasonable and seemed like the only ones around here interested in actually helping with anything. The police never seemed to do anything useful, meaning it was the military who actually kept violence and riots in check. The military tended to treat you like an actual person and Ari had yet to see them point their guns at anybody.

Conversely… the police had either let marshal law go to their head or the police chief really didn’t like partials for some reason and Ari was getting a biased view. But they had become completely insufferable, taking out their guns at the drop of a hat, pepper spraying people all the time, and harassing the already destitute.

The Netherlands, which had been the second largest exporter of food after the US, had a pony population of about 10 percent. They were much keener on embracing their pony population and had managed to overtake the US, at least for now, to become number one.

Needless to say, Ari never got any food from the Netherlands. Directly. But that was just the same kind of domino show they like to play. Part of the reason Germany and France were able to export so much to the US was that they were buying from the glut of the Netherlands.

Europe seemed so much more rational about the situation right now. But when had America ever been sensible about anything?

Ari got home and looked through one of her MREs, a ‘First Strike Ration’. Now it was really like this was WWII.

There was a lot of stuff in there. A shelf-stable bagel, ‘orange drink base’, barbeque pork wrap, pretzels, caffeinated chocolate pudding, osmotic cranberries…

Military energy gum?

Ari sat down to eat some of this as she opened her laptop to talk to Spring Breeze some more.

“Interesting experience ho!”

Sure! Other people were getting to fly, control weather and dreams, talk to bugs, use telekinesis, reshape the fabric of reality…

But Ari had her military energy gum!

She could just imagine Purple smugly lecturing her about how that was just as good. ‘You see! You can have human adventures instead. Adventures like food insecurity. Isn't that just as good? Being a pony wouldn’t have made you happy.’

At least she could live vicariously through Spring Breeze’s amazing adventures. Hear about her learning to fly, make little cloud structures… and of course establish the pony commune of Ari’s dreams.

She was explaining the details of how her pony community worked now.

They managed better than a lot of communities did. In Lazy Pines, for example, just about the entire town was lost to the banks and the ponies had to go live out in the woods, building their communities there.

But since Spring Breeze’s town didn’t have the government keeping them all locked up, they were able to move fast enough to save themselves the same fate. Even still, with various banks merging together, Blackrock, whom they all began fusing into, loomed ever over them.

One could divide the ponies into three camps. First, mostly out west, were the suckers who didn’t organize fast enough and got thrown out into the woods when Blackrock foreclosed on their houses. But at least they got to build their own little pony communes out there.

Next, mostly to the south, were the double suckers. Not only did Blackrock kick them out of their houses, but they didn’t even escape the system.

Then, scattered all about, were the pony communities who acted in time. Like Spring Breeze, they moved swiftly to secure enough private property and political power to seize control of their town before Blackrock did. That or they had a load-bearing pony who had a massive estate they were willing to donate to the cause.

Blackrock hated that last group.

Needless to say, Blackrock was the big winner in all this. One man’s disaster is another man’s jackpot and Blackrock hit it big time. They were happily buying up massive swaths of the nation. All those empty, foreclosed homes had to go somewhere.

Even here, in New York…

“Hi. I’m from Blackrock.”

Oh no.

“We bought out the apartment you live in.”

Oh fuck!

“How do you feel about the rent going up?”

What a stupid question. Ari’s legs felt numb.

She could survive this! If they had mercy and only raised the rent fifty percent or so…

“I wouldn’t like it,” said Ari.

“Well prices are going way up in general. Inflation.”

Of course.

“The increase will be about 1600 a month.”

“Excuse me?! That’s almost double what I’m paying now!”

“You were already paying below the market value. And with inflation the rate it is, we really have no choice.”

“Inflation is 30%, not 100%!”

“If you can’t afford it someone else can,” he said plainly. “No one owes you anything, especially not now. You can agree or you can get evicted. It’s a free country.”

Like Hell it was.

Ari couldn’t survive this. She’d go from being in the green seven hundred a month to being in the red nine hundred!

She had some money saved up… going through her head, she could hold out for a year and a half. She had time to figure something out. That was, as long as nothing else bad happened.

And in her mind, she knew it would. It always seemed to.

Ari had managed to save up some twenty thousand dollars only for house prices to skyrocket so fast that she was much further away from buying a house than when she started. Trying seemed like such a sick joke at this point.

But… there was nothing she could do about it. Was there?

Sometime later, Ari went to check rent prices in the area. Surely enough, all of them were unaffordable. The nation was generally unaffordable at this point.

But unlike the first day of ETS, there was one tiny spark of hope now. Ari wasn’t completely alone.

A>Spring Breeze? You don’t let humans into your commune, do you?

SB<April really doesn’t want to do that right now. Sorry.

April Showers was the leader of Spring Breeze’s community. She had a very young daughter named May Flowers which… was a little too saccharine for Ari. The third generation would have to be June Bug.

But Spring did speak of her with boundless admiration. Most pony leaders commanded similar respect from their community.

Ari couldn’t really be angry about her, specifically not being let in. Ari didn’t really have a great deal to offer. If she could at least buy one of the ‘blight’ houses by Spring Breeze she could make a case for herself.

But not letting any humans in at all sounded… wrong.

A>Why not?

SB<I don’t want you thinking this is just as simple as ‘we don’t like humans’. A lot of other ponies want to act like we’re a bunch of racists but that’s not the case at all. Blackrock is screwing with us too.

So they had a common enemy.

A>Don’t you have total control over the town?

SB<For now. That’s the whole thing. Blackrock is weaponizing humans against us. They’re already doing this with a couple of other pony communities. They bus in tons and tons of humans with promises of cheap rent. Then they instill a puppet mayor and clamp down on the commune we’re trying to build.

SB<Local governments decide so much! What you can build. Where you can farm. Right now, the local government is what decides whether pegasi are even allowed to fly.

A>Yeah! I heard about how that’s banned in the city. I still can’t believe they’d do that.

SB<I hope you can understand why we’re weary about that sort of thing, then. Blackrock’s human pawns are incredibly dangerous to us right now. If what you want is the peace of mind you won’t be on the streets next year, we still can’t give that to you.

SB<The humans who take those deals don’t even end up winning in the end. Blackrok will just screw them over once they get control, I’m sure.

That sounded about right. It was depressing to think that not even the ponies who held on were safe. Them getting to build their communities seemed like the one bright spot in the world. To know even that was under threat sank Ari’s heart.

A>You know I’d side with you over the banks every time, right? I’d always vote in your favor if you let me in.

SB<I don’t doubt it, friendo! You’re on my whitelist.

SB<I’ll tell you this much, if we ever need to bring in a ton of other people to save the town, I’ll make sure you’re one of them. But now’s not a good time. Not until we get more federal laws passed protecting the right to fly and respecting pony communities on some level. Until we’ve secured the town a bit better.

So there was at least a little hope.

A>Is there any hope of that? The government seems so desperate to rewind the clocks right now.

SB<We’re forming a political party to push for it!

SB<A bunch of the communities in the same situation, I mean.

A>I’d vote for you guys! The Democrats are so damn useless. You can’t possibly be any worse.

SB<Thanks.

A>Are you guys at least winning? Please tell me you’re beating the banks in your town. I need some kind of good news right now.

SB<We’re hitting back at them hard, lately. We started weaponizing the home owner’s association that most of their houses in our town fall under. Basically, they either have to send someone out here to put pink shudders on every window of their one thousand houses, or start getting clobbered by HOA fines.

SB<And we can just keep screwing with them like that forever. Apparently, we can even foreclose on them if we play all the cards right.

Foreclosing on the banks! What a wonderful dream!

Homeowner's associations, Ari knew, were like miniature fascist regimes. It was nice to hear about one of them being used for good just this once.

A>Do it! Avenge me!

SB<PS! You will be avenged and we will fight back against the banks one day!

A lot of her pony friends did these cute little post-scripts before they signed out. Usually, it was something like ‘PS! Stay strong’, of ‘PS! Love you’.

Ari wondered who started that trend. Either way, she liked it.

A>PS! I’m with you!

1-5

Ari got a day off from work. But not for a fun reason like snow. No, today was a ‘riot day’.

It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence that the biggest protest yet broke out one day after the first of the month. A lot of people just had their apartments bought out by Blackrock, their rents increased drastically, and their houses put under threat.

At some point, somebody threw a Molotov cocktail at a bank and then it was declared a riot and everyone was ordered to stay at home for the next twenty-four hours. So no work tomorrow.

The military struggled late into the night, and was still struggling, to get things under control. Being home that whole time, Ari had no idea how much things had escalated.

Ari hadn’t heard any gunshots, but she did hear what was likely an explosion and what was certainly a car crash. She stayed up until 5 AM looking through her dark window, occasionally seeing a group of people run by or an armored vehicle pass.

Part of her wanted to go out there and join the rioters. But it seemed pointless. She’d tried the whole protest thing back in 2020. Nothing was accomplished despite how massive and important it felt at the time. In the end, it didn’t matter how much you protested or rioted. You could burn down half the town, even. The people in charge would just smile down at you and things would carry on.

Besides, half of them were likely just stealing stuff at this point. Hopefully just TVs.

The epicenter looked to be far off, but still close enough to keep her awake all night. The sun would be up soon and with it the illusion of safety. Until then, Ari just kept rocking back and forth, cringing at every siren and sound coming from outside.

The upside was that she’d get to talk to ponies all day long… when they woke up that was. They had very regular sleep schedules. For the most part, if the sun was down, the ponies were sleeping. Worse, most of her pony friends lived on the west coast. Not only would Ari have to wait for the sun to come up, but she’d have to wait three hours after that because of time zones.

Talking to them was her one source of comfort in this crazy hellscape, but when she needed them most they were all adorably cuddling together hundreds of miles away. And they did do that. Increased desire to cuddle was one of the symptoms of ETS that Purple and the government ‘saved’ her from. Bastards.

Her closest interpersonal connections were thousands of miles away, off having magic dreams, leaving Ari just as alone as before ETS. Once again, her community was reduced to the television, her twitter feed, and her silent laptop.

But she could at least watch her friends online! Spring Breeze had started posting videos again.

Ari watched a video of her playing Beat Saber, some virtual reality game, while flying. Spring Breeze kept telling Ari how great VR gaming was for people like them. It was at the forefront of accessibility options. Of all things, VR got a ‘pony mode’ before anything else, a mode Spring assured Ari would be great for her. And there were games in VR where you could be a pony, too…

Sadly, a VR headset didn’t exactly fit into her budget of negative 800 dollars a month. So Ari would have to wait on that for now.

Someone was outside!

Just… just somebody walking down the streets slowly… but…

Ari watched breathlessly through the small gap in her curtains. Two of them. Not in any hurry. Talking loudly. Getting closer.

One of them said something like ‘not again’. Then they were out of sight. Ari let out a sigh.

Here she was complaining about isolation. Then somebody actually shows up and Ari gets scared out of her mind. It really wasn’t as easy as Purple wanted you to believe, was it?

She went back to the internet.

She found a video of one pony community reenacting Summer Nights. This place was on fire while the ponies were performing musicals in the streets. The contrast couldn’t be greater right now.

“I was so close. Fucking Purple…”

Ari swayed back and forth, listening to the bittersweet music of ponies doing these.

Outside, somebody came staggering into view. They slumped up against a telephone pole, clutching their face. Maybe they got maced or hit by something.

They sat there for 15 minutes before a car came by and picked them up.

It was getting close to sunrise at least… it was almost as if their singing summoned the sun.

But Ari still had a while before anypony came online. She wouldn’t be able to sleep until then.

It was that feeling of 5 AM, scrolling through dank pony memes on Twitter, your eyes glazed over but your body not the least bit tired.

She saw one where it was one man pointing to a second man who stood in a doorway, the latter being labeled ‘rehumanizer’. The first was saying “You think he’s gone? He’s never gone!”

Ponies really seemed to hate those guys… Ari knew they came after partials too and wasn’t looking forward to that inevitable confrontation.

The next was an incredibly smug-looking pony with the caption ‘when the file name is SS.IMG’

“I don’t get that one.”

Ari yawned. The ponies still illuded her it seemed.

One more. She’d been saying that for hours, but…

‘Leftists when you dead name a transperson’

And you had the typical blue-haired feminist screaming and ranting about how being trans was valid and not a delusion.

‘Leftists when you dead name a pony’

Now she was saying “I won’t entertain your mentally-ill delusions, brainwashed chuds.”

“That one’s true…” Ari saw that all the time.

Spring Breeze was online!

A>Friendo!

SB<Frindo! Aren’t you usually at work by now?

Spring Breeze was awake. The ponies were here…

Ari smiled.

Then she fell to her side and was fast asleep moments later.

SB<Are you okay?

Spring Breeze had sent that message hours ago. It was three in the afternoon and Ari was just now groggily waking up. So for Spring Breeze, it was like noon? She was usually online around then.

Trying this again.

A>Friendo!

SB<Friendo!

Ari liked doing that. Ponies had developed all these fun little mannerisms.

A>I’m fine. There was just another riot keeping me up all night.

SB<Are they really still rioting? It’s been over a month.

Inadvertently rubbing it in that she lived in such an idyllic, peaceful village.

A>Yeah, well the rent is due. I’m not the only one getting price-gouged by the landlords right now.

SB<I get it. At least they’re not just trying to steal stuff like in the early days.

There was probably still some of that going on, truth be told.

A>On the one hand, I wanna support all the protests. But on the other, I just don’t feel like they’ll do anything. The people in power don’t care about that sort of thing, do they?

It still felt like there was just nothing she could do about it…

A>I wish there was some way to make a serious change. But no one wants us to have that option.

Of course. There had been. And Ari had just barely missed the bus. Purple snatched it away from her with the same smug grin that the bankers and politicians would give those protesters, assured Ari that it wouldn’t make a difference and she should ‘just be happy with the way things were’ instead.

Only it did make a difference. No amount of whining changed the world, but ETS had. It seriously had done what all the protests of the last fear years could only dream of. It had opened a door and Purple, a spoiled rich princess, had been so eager to close it to ensure other spoiled, rich assholes couldn’t have their positions challenged.

A big wonder why.

But Ari couldn’t come out and say the way she felt. Her feelings had just been festering in silence this whole time.

Maybe it was just the particular bubble Ari found herself in, but it seemed like all the other humans despised the idea of turning into ponies. At least, the ones they let on TV did. The idea of allowing more transformation was frequently brought up and torn down as unethical by all mainstream sources, right and left. More radical Youtubers were willing to have a more nuanced position and say some of the things Ari thought but that was her only salvation. No one in real life had anything nice to say about transformation magic. Or magic at all, really.

But then, Ari was here and wanted to be a pony and no one else would guess that was the case. There had to be more people like Ari around. They were just too scared to open their mouths.

So there she was, trapped in this eternal struggle between fear of rejection and the need to be accepted. The fact that she couldn’t safely confide these feelings in anyone was slowly tearing her mind to pieces from the inside out.

But maybe she could trust Spring Breeze…

A>Can I tell you a secret?

SB<Hmmmmmm?

It wasn’t hard to picture Spring’s smug look a thousand miles away. She had to know what Ari was about to say. The lead-up had been too obvious.

A>I really wanted to be a pony, too.

SB<’Wanted’ to? As in you don’t now?

A>No, no! I do it’s just

Ari paused there before sending, not sure exactly how much she should let out. She started the message again.

A>I still do. What I meant was I tried to become one but failed. I had to try hard to get myself infected. That’s how I became a partial so far out here.

A>So I just barely missed it.

Ari held her breath waiting for a response, worrying she may have just made a horrible mistake.

SB<That’s horrible! I can’t imagine how much it’d suck to have gotten so close. How are you holding up?

Ari didn’t ever think she cried from… relief before. But she felt suddenly overcome with tears. She buried her face in her broken hands and sobbed.

Someone… someone understood her! Someone listened instead of just immediately telling her she was wrong and disgusting and… and all these things Ari kept imagining, kept letting fester in her mind. Spring Breeze just blew that burden away with this tiny shred of empathy.

Just one person who understood was so much more than enough.

She heard the chime notifying her of another message from Spring Breeze, but Ari needed a moment before she could respond.

SB<And did you really infect yourself on purpose? That’s so cool! I always think of people who did that as total badasses.

SB<You’re not dying of anything… are you?

Ari laughed. Not only was it okay… but now she was a badass? Her escapade had been pretty daring.

A>No, no. It wouldn’t have even helped my disability much. Not unless I was a unicorn. I just really wanted to be a pony.

SB<How come?

SB<Not that you need to justify it or anything. Just curious, friendo.

A>Well everyone is so scared of the mental change aspect of it… but that’s what I wanted the most. I want to be more open with my feelings. I want a herd instinct. I want to be surrounded by a community that all just works together.

A>I’ve always wanted to live in a commune. It’s just… well everyone always says that sort of thing goes against human nature. Like, humans are all a bunch of greedy, horrible goblin monsters! And I kind of believed them so I was all… okay, I won’t be human then.

Bizarrely, even the people who were all ‘oh no, you totally don’t want to be a pony. Trust me, bro.’ brought out that line as often as possible. They kept mentioning greed as if that was humanity’s one and only strength. That was one ‘power’ Ari had no interest in, personally.

A>I know she’s a hero or whatever, but I hate that Purple bitch so much! She just laughs at us with her ‘oh! Just change your life! Just clap your hands and make everything okay! You don’t need help! You don’t need magic! You don’t need any serious changes to your life!’

A>Like, how am I supposed to do that?! I can’t even afford to live anymore! I don’t know if I’ll be living indoors come this winter. Since 2020, I’ve been too depressed to do anything but get out of bed and go to work. I’m already at my limit! And she’s up in her castle telling people she’s never met this and can’t possibly help them?!

A>How dare a fucking princess with infinite power say something like that to me?! Even now, I feel like my life would have been so much better off.

SB<That makes sense! I believed in a lot of these things before changing too, but now everyone acts like I only do because I’m brainwashed. I’d probably be pissed at Purple too if she cucked me right at the end like that.

SB<But you know, if you ask ponies why we feel like our lives are better now (and I think it’s 95+% do) the main reason isn’t even magic powers. It’s that we feel like we’ve been freed from this atomizing sigma grindset.

SB<We feel like we can have an actual community, where everypony isn’t looking to screw everypony else over for money. Living with actual friends and community is just so much better than the money-focused world humans want to trap us all in.

Ari nodded. She really did understand!

A<You have no idea how much this means to me! I’m literally crying right now! I’m so glad you’re okay with me wishing I was a pony. I just thought everyone on the planet would think I was some kind of freak.

SB<Haha! Do you have any idea how obvious this was to me? Ari, you’re constantly asking me how I feel about humans who want to be ponies, trans people, or transformations. Like all the time.

Oh geeze… she was totally right! Ari did do that all the time!

SB<It’s really silly how hard it is for humans to open up about stuff like this. But I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to say it out loud to me.

A>You just don’t understand the attitude people like me face! Even the people who would normally be sympathetic to me, like people who are super in favor of trans rights and all that, are just like ‘Oh! Humans can be happy too, you know! Therefore, just get over your stupid feelings!’ And again, those are the people on my side! The ones who don’t wanna hang people like me.

SB<Yeah. We get ponies who are like that too, you know. Like Lunists. They’re just so afraid of criticizing rehumanizers or coming off as racist that they throw humans who want to be ponies under the bus. Half of them act like dying from cancer isn’t even a good enough excuse. Like not wanting to die makes you ‘racist’ or whatever.

SB<But trust me when I say there’s tons of humans like you out there! Way more than you’d think.

A>I don’t really see any. But then, I guess if I’m scared of speaking out then all the rest of them are too.

Spring Breeze shared one encouraging poll claiming it to be 10%.

But the halo effect was a thing, meaning it had to be higher than that. 10% of humans were brave enough to admit they wanted to be ponies on that poll. Ari knew she would have hesitated. So it was likely higher.

Then on the other, other hand, that number was nationwide and varied wildly. In some places where humans were a small minority as much as 70% of them were like Ari. In New York, it was something closer to 1%.

A>It’s not as easy in New York. It’s weird to think this used to be a progressive state too… I honestly wonder if New York is going to turn red in 2024.

Really, no one had any idea which way states would go next year at this point. The entire political map was upended.

SB<Well I won’t just tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps or anything like that. I understand some people have it a lot easier than others and having a good life isn’t just a matter of choosing it. I think you’re right that Purple is just too privileged to see that.

SB<But I do want to say you’re not alone! There are tons of ponies fighting to change the world and help people like you out! We won’t just sneer at you and tell you to drag yourself out of Hell alone like Purple and the government would. Me and my pony friends are working towards creating the better world you wanted! We’ll pull you out eventually, I’m sure of it!

Spring Breeze’s optimism was ever infectious. Spreading enthusiasm and joy was her special talent, after all, and even through a computer screen Ari could feel her spirits lifted.

But if it really was magic, it hardly got to the point of mind control. Certainly not strong enough to change her mind. Ari had heard these kinds of things before. Political reform just seemed impossible. The events of 2020 hadn’t been enough to wake anyone up or throw off the shackles of the corporations. It further entrenched their power. And with Blackrock and the other banks buying up all the lands, the same thing seemed bound to happen again.

It did seem like ever more despair and poverty were the only political end that could be achieved for any but the billionaire class.

A>Thanks.

SB<I mean it! We’re starting a political party and everything! One of our main goals is to legalize CET and outlaw FT. But we have tons of other reforms we want that will help all the marginalized humans like you. The existence of ponies really is a game changer.

CET? FT? Ari was out of the political loop more than she realized.

A>Sorry. I don’t know what CET is.

SB<Controlled Equine Transformation. Or sometimes Consensual Equine Transformation… we kind of argue. Basically, it’s legalizing the controlled use of ETS on people who want it. But we can’t say ‘legalize ETS’ because everyone will freak out and misunderstand us on purpose. So we call it CET.

That made sense… and from there…

A>And FT stands for forced transformation?

SB<You got it! That’s the one that should be outlawed. But no. CET is illegal and FT is legal.

A>Wait. What? Forced transformation is legal?! That’s what you’re saying?

SB<Yes.

A>No way. They banned all transformation magic. The government hates transformation magic.

Ari pulled up another tab to immediately start fact-checking Spring Breeze. This couldn’t possibly be true…

SB<If they did that, then rehumanization would be illegal. But they looooove that one, right? Because transformation magic is okay as long as it's convenient for them.

That did make sense…

A>But you’re saying not even forced transformations are illegal?

SB<No, see if you read the law they very specifically made ETS and only ETS illegal. Transforming someone into a pony is illegal whether they consent to it or not. Consent has nothing to do with the legality of this.

Spring Breeze sent her a link to the Wikipedia article on the law… the summary did confirm what she said.

A>But then someone can transform you into like… a toad and that’s okay?

SB<Under the current law, yes. They’d only get in trouble for bioterrorism if they used a virus to spread it. But if they did it by any other means, you could probably get away with it.

A>For real? Why would they make the law that stupid?

SB<To protect the rehumanizers. If forced transformation is illegal, that opens them up to all kinds of lawsuits. Like if I locked a human up against their will for seven days until they gave in and agreed to become a pony, it’d be life in prison. A rehumanizer does the same thing to a pony and they’re completely green.

SB<Actual example, by the way. Happened twice so far.

Ari knew who she was talking about. Granite was a pony who got detained for seven days straight in a rehumanization facility with no contact with other ponies and wasn’t allowed to leave. There was footage of him begging and crying to be let go, but they wouldn’t.

Eventually, they got him to agree to rehumanization… and a week after that he committed suicide. The rehumanizer got a $100 bonus and wasn’t charged with anything. That state still offered a $100 bonus per rehumanization.

Stories like that terrified her. Ari was a partial and knew it was only a matter of time until the rehumanizers came for her too.

Getting locked up for days, indefinitely until she agreed to let the people who hate her win and take away her hair… that was actually on the table. If the 2024 elections went the wrong way that could seriously happen.

And it sounded like there wasn’t any law protecting her from that right now, either.

SB<You know, it might make you feel better to help us out. Even if you only do a little. Here’s some stuff you can read through, friendo!

Spring Breeze sent her a good five links.

The first one was to poniesmakeitpossible.com

Ari wasn’t sure if she was ready for any more political activism. She got enough crippling failures back in college. And it wasn’t like she had time for that either way.

But it was nice to hear somebody just… agree with her. Just think she was valid. That it was okay for her to feel the way she did.

SB<I gotta go now, but you should read this stuff.

SB<PS! You’re valid.

A>PS! Thanks for listening.

Ari heard all this talk about reform before…

Though to be fair not from a pony.

Even then, Ari wasn’t going to let herself be hopeful about actual political change. She’d gone down that route before. Back in 2020, back in college, Ari still considered herself part of Antifa and joined the mass protests.

At the time it felt like if the world would ever change it would have been right then and there. There was so much momentum. And yet… well those protests did nothing. Antifa did nothing. Maybe they moved the needle on the 2020 election… maybe… but certainly nothing more.

And it wasn’t like the Democrats were much better than the Republicans.

But then again, maybe forming a political party was different than just doing stupid protests and riots and stuff. Antifa wasn’t a legitimate political party like what the ponies were talking about. Canvassing in Georgia had done much to swing the 2020 election… maybe she could try another way.

Spring Breeze breathed a tiny amount of hope back into Ari.

And one thing Ari had that she didn’t in 2020 was a platform… not nearly as big as Spring Breeze’s but way more than nothing. She decided she’d make a post about this! Maybe spread some awareness.

A>Friendos! I don’t normally post political comments, but I want to come out in support of CET and against FT. People should have the right to choose to become ponies and the government shouldn’t be allowed to push its preferences on anyone.

A>PS! Support the right to choose!

Ari held her breath, constantly refreshing the page for a good fifteen minutes before the first reply came in.

<When did you convert to Shimmerism?

“Huh?”

What was this guy talking about?

She wanted to think that pony was just reading way too much into something but suddenly way more comments like that came pouring in.

<Yay friendo! God loves human Shimmerists most of all.

<You didn’t seriously become a Shimmerist, did you? I thought you were cool.

<PS! I’m with you, friendo!

<Friendo! You’re a human, right? We have lots of opportunities for human Shimmerists! You should contact us. You won’t regret it.

<The Shimmerist view of the vision is distorted and racist. Luna gave us a far purer version of the vision. You should hold to that.

<SSIMG!

<I don’t get Shimmerists. Sunset was literally a terrorist. Can’t you at least name yourselves something else?

<No! You should be a Harmonist instead!

And that last one linked her to a website that presumably explained what the hell a Harmonist was. Not that there was time to care.

That wouldn’t explain to Ari at all what was happening here. Shimmerism?

Ari heard about that, having talked to ponies so often. It was some new sect of Christianity that cropped up. She had a few scraps of knowledge about it. They saw Sunset Shimmer as a prophet from God and becoming a pony as an alternate means of redemption. Though sadly not a legal option.

Or… something like that.

It was also something Ari had dismissed handily, having little interest or respect for religion.

A>What are you all talking about?! I’m not a Shimmerist. I’m not even Christian. I’m basically an atheist.

<Shimmerism isn’t necessarily a religion.

“It’s not?”

<Did you notice that they made it so CET has ‘equine’ in it but FT doesn’t?

“Okay?”

<Your post was filled with Shimmerist dog whistles. Don’t play dumb.

“I’m not playing! What dog whistles?”

Before she could ask, some nice pony finally had the mercy to assume Ari was an idiot and explain this to her outright.

<”Friendo” is how very-online Shimmerists address one another. CET and FT are terms only used by social Shimmerists to avoid mentioning ETS. And they sign their messages with post-scripts, only secretly when they do it the PS stands for “praise Sunset”. Literally all of that is exactly how a Shimmerist would talk.

But then that meant…

Ari had called out to the Shimmerists, said ETS should be legal, then shouted ‘Praise Sunset Shimmer’.

“Uh oh.”

Ari had just been imitating the way her cool friends spoke. But would Twitter believe that?

On the one hand obviously no. But then again, most of her followers were ponies, who tended to be a lot nicer, and so far they didn’t seem in a rush to crucify her. The ones in opposition seemed more concerned for Ari beings sucked down the rabbit hole.

Of course… if this got out to the wider Twitter cesspool…

She decided to focus on something else for now. A list of all the ponies who called her friendo and signed off with a PS ran through Ari’s mind. It was most of her closer contacts. All of her favorites. She’d come to just assume that was a pony thing.

Were all of them Shimmerists?

And prime among them…

Spring Breeze replied to Ari’s message around then, voicing her support.

SB<Friendo! Don’t worry so much about the haters. You’re brave to speak your mind. PS! Keep it up.

Her.

A>Spring Breeze. Are you a Shimmerist?

SB<Yes?

SB<Didn’t you know that? Aren’t you? You shout praise Sunset and friendo all the time. You agree with us on basically everything.

Ari didn’t think that last part was true at all.

Meanwhile, the number of comments she got began to increase a little too fast.

“I’m getting canceled for this, aren’t I?"

End of Part One.

Part 2 - Shim-Curious

A>Listen! I’m not a Shimmerist. I’m not even Christian. I’m in favor of legalizing consensual transformation only and don’t support forced transformation or agree with what Sunset Shimmer did! Sunset Shimmer was a criminal and I don’t like her on any level. I really had no idea those things were dog whistles, I just picked them up from ponies I know online.

Okay! Maybe… that would be enough?

Who was Ari kidding, of course it wouldn’t!

But before that, Spring Breeze had some explaining to do!

A>How are you a Shimmerist?

SB<Well I’m a social Shimmerist. There's actually a lot of differnt types. There's social Shimmerists, techno-Shimmerists, Eco-Shimmerists, seperatist Shimmerists, Christian Shimmerists...

Ari thought it was just the one thing. She never heard of any of those before.

A>What the hell is a social Shimmerist?!

SB<Well if you plotted all the Shimmerists on a political compass, we’d be on the far bottom left. Our main thing is promoting communal living. Everyone says humans can’t do it. They’ve been saying that for years. But we say ponies make it possible. That’s one of our slogans.

SB<Also CET.

A>A left-wing Shimmerist? Shimmerism is a sect of Christianity! And it’s supposed to be a hard right, ethnocentric ideology.

SB<No, no. Even those ponies down south, the Christina Shimmerists we call them, are left-wing compared to the Democrats. All Shimmerists are left. We’re just the most left. Also anarchy.

SB<Also, social Shimmerism has nothing to do with religion. I guess we’re secular, but you can be whatever.

Ari’s head spun. This was going against everything she’d built up in her mind. But she couldn’t exactly tell Spring Breeze she was wrong. Spring herself was one of the most hardcore socialist Ari had ever met.

A>Don’t Shimmerists want to do FT? Like, make everyone a pony?

Ari had no better language than what the Shimmerists gave her.

SB<It’s more like I’m confident most people would eventually choose to be ponies if given a choice. 97% of those who transformed prefer being a pony. So there’s a pretty good chance any random person on the street would prefer it too. If given the chance.

SB<Again, even the Christian Shimmerists down south will say the same thing. None of us want FT.

SB<I mean, there are FT Shimmerists, but there are very few of them and we want to ostracize that faction.

Assuming 97% of ponies preferring to stay that way probably didn’t equate to 97% of the population eventually deciding to become ponies. Even still, Ari did have to admit it was a damning number. And she herself badly wanted to be a pony for so many reasons.

A>If you’re so into consent why would you take up the mantle of the person who did the most forced transformations ever?

SB<They’re going to call us Shimmerists for wanting to legalize ponification. So our only choice is to try and own the label. We appropriated Sunset Shimmer as an icon or rebellion. A rejection of the current system. You know?

A>No! I don’t know. That’s a terrible idea. You should name yourselves something else.

SB<Well go ahead. Tell them you’re not a Shimmerist, you just want CET. Let me know how well that works out.

Ari didn’t like the fact that she might just be right one bit. She went back to check on her Twitter account, to the post where she assured everyone she wasn’t a Shimmerist.

<”I don’t agree with what Sunset Shimmer did, but let’s keep ponifying people and see what happens.” T. Literally every Shimmerist people.

<If you’re not a Shimmerist, why are you hanging out with Shimmerists? Half the ponies you follow are Shimmerists.

<Every Shimmerist does the ‘I don’t approve of Sunset’ line.

The hell? Saying you don’t approve of Sunset Shimmer’s action was a Shimmerist thing? Then what did non-Shimmerists do?!

Spring Breeze certainly had a point. Maybe Ari just hadn’t gone hard enough.

A>Okay! Fuck Sunset Shimmer! I’m glad she’s dead! I hope she's in Hell because that's what she deserves. Are you happy?

<That’s what a Shimmerist would say.

<Look, do you support using her evil virus or not? If you do, you’re a Shimmerist.

Fuck!

Ari went crawling back to Spring Breeze.

A>Okay, I see what you meant. But I’m getting canceled over here! You're the one who roped me into this! Why didn't you mention this outright?!

This never came up in Spring Breeze's streams... but she was pretty a-political there.

SB<Sorry. I honestly thought you were a Shimmerist this whole time too. How are you not a Shimmerist? You just agree with me on everything.

Did she? She did. But… there had to be something that made Ari not a Shimmerists. She saw a random comment that gave her the idea.

<Ask yourself this: do you think every human would be better off as a pony?

That was it! Ari messaged Spring Breeze again.

A>I think I’d be better off as a pony, but not every human would!

SB<What percent do you think would?

A>I have no idea.

SB<Right. Which is why FT should be illegal and we should pass a morphological bill of rights. Right? The thing the SSP is trying to do?

SSP? Ari vowed to never not look up an acronym again after today. A quick search and she found that was the Social Shimmerist Party. The political party Spring mentioned previously.

A>Do you think every human would be better as a pony?

SB<I dunno about all of them. Probably the vast majority.

SB<Here’s an analogy we like to use. Most smokers would be better off if they quit, right? That doesn’t mean we want to force them to quit or feel like we have the right to do it. But we do have the right to tell them why quitting might be a good idea.

SB<Now imagine it quitting smoking was illegal and it matches up.

When she put it like that, it did sound kind of reasonable. People were generally okay with proselytizing religion and anti-smoking. Was doing the same for ponification different on a moral level? Not that Ari like religious proselytization to begin with.

It was hard to say…

Ari wanted to be a pony, so it had to be some percent of the population that would be better that way. Saying it was zero was just as ridiculous as saying it was one hundred percent. She really didn’t have much of an argument against Spring Breeze other than that it felt like ‘the vast majority’ was too high.

A>Neither of us has any way to quantify this. The humans who want to be ponies are the ones who’d be better off that way.

SB<Yes.

Ari was running out of ammo here!

A>Well I’m not a Shimmerist because I don’t think it’s ‘the vast majority’.

SB<Okay. I’m not forcing anypony to be anything.

Well at least that was one pony who believed Ari. For some reason, Ari felt like she took an L on her argument with Spring Breeze, though.

She checked Twitter again.

<Your hand looks like it was generated by one of those art AIs.

Oh no!

That last comment wasn’t from a pony! It wasn’t anyone who followed her either! It was happening!

Ari shouldn’t have posted that one picture showing her right hand! What if she got doxed?! What if she got fired for this?!

“It’s okay,” Ari assured herself. “It’s just one person being an asshole! That doesn’t mean this will go viral or anything.”

Ari rocked back and forth on her chair. Normally, when she was upset, she went running to her online pony pals. But they were the source of her problems right now! What could Ari even do?!

After resisting for all of five minutes, she went crawling back to Spring yet again.

A>Why does Twitter suck so much?

SB<Do you want an actual answer?

A>No. I want to feel better.

SB<Well the good news is that we’re working on an alternative, friendo! It’s called Whisper 3. It’ll be a more pony-centric social media app. Promote less drama, and focus on community building. It’ll probably be great.

A>That sounds wonderful, but drama is what makes money.

SB<For humans! It might be different for ponies! We’ll see. I can probably get you a beta invite.

“Sounds a little too good to be true. But so does magic,” Ari muttered.

A>I just can’t get over you being a Shimmerist.

SB<Why not read the SSP’s official stances? Surely that’s not too much. You don’t want to be like those mean humans on Twitter who just dismiss everything out of hand, do you?

SB<Those other humans, I mean.

“Don’t remind me…”

Ari sighed. Maybe she should at least look into it.

Spring Breeze sent Ari a host of links. Reading material. Videos. She couldn’t help but feel as though she’d been passed a cup of Kool-Aid.

It was something Ari wouldn’t have taken seriously… but Spring was right. The media spread lies about partials so why not about Shimmerism too? Spring really did seem to be all about social progress. And she never really mistreated Ari.

In the end, she decided to look a the official SSP website, at the least.

They seemed to assume most people visiting this place would be ponies. The first and most prominent message, right under the tabs categorizing their policies, was urging pony communities to seize control of the local government and to contact the SSP for support in that endeavor.

It was only under that where you saw their mission statement talking about extolling the virtue of community, bringing America out of its hyper-capital-focused phase, ponies are Americans too, they’re super pro-consent when it comes to transformation…

Nothing contradicting what Spring said.

Under that, they had a list of accomplishments. A fair amount considering the SSP had existed for a month tops. They controlled a huge number of local governments and about ten state representatives, but nothing higher than that yet.

They also managed to push for prison reform in several states that made it so jailed ponies had to be kept with at least one other pony. Apparently, isolating a single pony was akin to solitary confinement.

Aris supposed she agreed with the one reform they claimed to have helped push in the past week. But she really didn’t care about having more pony politicians. Not unless they’d actually change stuff.

So she went into the tabs explaining their various political views. The Social Shimmerist Party had a long, long list of reforms they eventually wanted to pass. It really would be a radical shift if even a quarter of this stuff happened.

Ranked choice voting. Guaranteed universal food security. UBI. A largely Georgist tax policy. 4-day work week. Public transport. A heavy focus on reducing air and noise pollution. Restoring the rights of unions. Enforcing anti-trust laws. Break up monopsonies. Banning lobbying.

It was everything Ari would do with infinite power. And more even.

Universal food security would have been some insane fever dream just earlier this year. Especially in America. But it was seriously possible now… wasn’t it? ‘Ponies make it possible’ was one of their slogans. It made Ari wonder if all the other stuff would be worth it too.

Even just one item on the list seemed more than the current system would ever grant them. Just one or two of these would easily justify a Shimmerist takeover.

Or course, they had more pony-centric goals that Ari was more ambivalent towards.

Deregulation on magic. Increased rights and autonomy for pony communities. Promoting ponies in politics. Protecting against abusive rehumanizers.

Ari couldn’t say she was against any of that. She knew a lot of pegasi were suffering from not being allowed to fly in certain cities, for example. And they were vastly underrepresented in the government. So…

That last one, however, led to the main topic of contention. Transformation.

Ari was 100% on board with the concept of CET. If someone wanted to transform then they should be able to! Maybe the FDA could regulate the safety of transformations, but they didn’t have the right to tell someone like Ari ‘No, only do the transformation we want’.

But so often the Shimmerists were portrayed as wanting… well FT. Ari had no better language to describe it. The mainstream never even made a distinction between forced and consensual transformations. It was all the same to them.

Ari clicked on the prominent ‘Morphological Freedom’ tab.

The social Shimmerist party does not support forced transformation of any kind, including forced transformation into ponies. On the contrary, we are the leading proponents of morphological freedom. We are the first and so far only organization in America to codify the protection of your right to choose or decline transformation.

It went on to state many of the same truths Spring Breeze had given. The lack of FT being illegal. The importance of the government not being allowed to coerce you into consenting to transformation.

They promised support for ponies who encountered abusive rehumanizers…

And then it went into ‘partial rights’.

“What the hell are partial rights? Partial free speech?”

Ari looked at the strand of hair that should have been green.

“Oh right. Partial rights. Me rights.” Ari leaned back in her chair. “What rights do I want again? The right to hair.”

Ari swung back forward, in front of her keyboard. She had an idea! To test if these ponies were just all talk with their ideals and stuff.

She sent Spring Breeze a line.

A>Hey, Spring! I’m reading the SSP stuff. It says you fight for partials?

SB<Yes! Partials face all kinds of discrimination! You know, the government refuses to even recognize stage three partials as disabled right now? That’s one of our big goals.

A>Well I have a partial rights problem. At work, they’re forcing me to dye my hair, so I look ‘normal’.

SB<Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?!

Because she was embarrassed…

SB<They can’t do that! I’m going to let the SSP know about this right away! We’re looking for fights like this right now. We won’t let you down.

“Sure.” Ari smiled and leaned back into her chair. “I’m not going to get my hopes up in the meantime.”

At least she’d know if ponies really were as competent as they made themselves seem soon enough.

2-2

Two days later.

Ari went to HR first thing in the morning. They freaked out and folded immediately.

Now Ari was directly face to face with the boss of the company. He watched her carefully, tapping his pencil against the table. Between them was a folder, containing several pages of legal notices.

As it turned out, one of the more prominent pony communities associated with the SSP controlled a sizable legal firm, among other things. The Nelson Residence, as the small community was called, had quickly signed up to defend Ari. The SSP had way more transformed lawyers than Ari would have ever guessed. Many of them had lawyer cutie marks, even, which may or may not have made them even more powerful.

“I’ve been talking to a lawyer,” said Ari. “Asking me to cut the recolored parts of my hair is a clear violation of the Crown Act, and he’s encouraging me to sue if you don’t back down.”

It was a law created for the sake of black women who were unfairly being stopped from wearing their hair naturally. But the law hypothetically applied to partials like Ari.

The lawyer pony said her being outside the original intention only made him more interested in the case. She wasn’t the only partial going through this or similar circumstances. The SSP was simply looking for a particularly enticing instance of this discrimination to go after for the sake of expanding the rights of partials. Ari being disabled before ETS had the lawyer pony watering at the mouth.

But she did need to give them a chance to back down. Or to fire her.

“He’s even willing to take the case without charging me,” said Ari. “He’s been specifically waiting to litigate something like this. And since I’m disabled and can’t easily dye my hair… well, he really wants you to tell me I can’t wear my natural hair.”

Her boss was nervous now! He stopped tapping his pen and carefully considered it. Ari had never seen him stop tapping his pencil before.

“You could argue that doesn’t count as your natural hair,” he said.

“Do you want to be the one who finds out?” Ari asked. “Because if it does…”

He kept his pencil very still, taking in a deep breath.

“Alright.” He went back to tapping. “You win. You can wear your hair however you want.”

Ari sat there stunned.

“Really?” Ari tried not to let her surprise be too obvious. “And just so we’re clear. If I suddenly get fired in the next couple of weeks…”

“You don’t have to worry about that. Honestly, I’m impressed you put all of this together so quickly. You’ve never done anything like this before. Hell. You know what? I’m even giving you a raise.”

Ari walked back home from work, looking up absently at the sky.

“They did it…”

It still didn’t feel entirely real just yet. This was just too good. Ari got what she really wanted, the right to be herself. And on top of that, she got a raise and didn’t have to worry about being fired any time soon. The company firing her would mean certain legal death at this point. Ari had the thinnest line of security.

She’d been waiting hours for someone to jump out and yell ‘psyche’ but now that she was outside, staring up at the blue spring sky, she finally felt as if she’d gotten away with it all.

“Hehehe. They actually did it!”

It did feel like Ari had stolen something… but had gotten away with it!

She needed an outlet for the excitement, so Ari started running forward, laughing, free!

Hands deep in her pockets, Ari ran past the parking lot where the homeless camped out, jumping up and down on the curb. She skipped past the trash just outside her apartment and jumped up the stairs.

She was shocked at just how quickly they pulled it off, too! Normally, getting in contact with a lawyer… especially these days would take ages. Ari would have been impressed if the SSP managed to help her at all. Most organizations like this didn’t want to deal with your problems, not unless you kept pestering them or had a really good story to tell.

But these ponies? It took one day for Spring Breeze and her network to find a solution. Ari was in contact with the lawyer just a few hours after that. And the day after that… was today!

It didn’t take months to get the problem solved but two days.

How had they even created this organization so quickly?

Ari spun around on her heels. She sat down in her chair and spun around in that too before finally strapping her pencils, logging on to Discord, and typing out her message.

A>Spring Breeze!

A>Spring Breeze~!

Ari kicked her legs back and forth in her chair, rocking back and forth she could hardly contain all the energy she had.

SB<How did it go?

A>We did it! He backed down! I can wear my hair however I like from now on.

SB<I’m so happy for you! Congratulations. Send me a picture when the green grows back.

Ari would! The green part of her hair grew faster than the blonde, which had been annoying at first but now would help her out.

A>You have no idea how much this means to me, I’m like crying right now! I feel like this is the first time justice has ever prevailed in my life.

A>The SSP is the best. I’m converting to Shimmerism right now!

SB<For real? You don’t have to. We support partials regardless of their politics.

Ari paused. Truth, she hadn’t entirely meant what she’d said right now, had just been overly excited. She knew Spring Breeze wanted Ari to convert. She wanted everyone to convert.

It might have been easier had Spring Breeze just shouted ‘No takebacks! Your soul is mine!’

Ever since that day, Ari felt even more conflicted. An eternal nagging feeling took hold in the back of her head. It felt as though she were always struggling against something.

A>I have to admit you ponies have already helped me more than… probably anyone else ever has. I don’t think even my own family has ever stuck their necks out this much for me. Even though I’m 1% pony at best.

A>So I guess I owe you an apology. I really shouldn’t have assumed all Shimmerists were just anti-human bigots.

SB<That’s the difference, right? 1% pony is good enough for us. 99% human isn’t enough for them. You see who the real bigots are, don’t you?

A>Maybe.

Were the Shimmerists the good guys…?

Part of Ari just reflexively wanted to dismiss the idea. She typically hated groups like this but… it was becoming harder to deny that thought. There was this bit of tension in her brain like her mind was struggling.

A>I’m just not sure what to think anymore.

SB<I think you’re what we like to call Shim-curious!

Shim-curious… yeah, that made sense. ‘I’m not a Shimmerist, I’m just Shim-curious.’

SB<Have you watched the stuff I sent you yet? Maybe that will help you decide. You should at least watch Ragnarok’s stuff.

SB<He’s from Nelson Residence just like Nelson.

Ari had been avoiding that pony. He was a bit contentious for being so outspoken. Shimmerists loved him, non-Shimmerists not so much. Truth be told, Ari was a little wary of listening to anypony who gave themselves a name like that.

Still, his community had helped her out just now. Ari knew very little about Nelson Residence. The titular Nelson was the pony who owned the law firm that stepped up to help Ari. He opened his huge estate up to the community after transforming.

Though only about 50 ponies lived there, they were all fairly influential. Ari had heard rumors that only ponies with ‘high value’ cutie marks were allowed to live there, that it was a meeting ground for ponies both powerful and dissatisfied with the government.

Ari owed these ponies an open mind if nothing else…

A>I will! I’ll read more about Shimmerism. I owe you that much.

2-3

Late one Saturday night, after putting it off for far too long, Ari sat down to face the truth.

There was a video of one of the SSP’s champions, a pegasus named Ragnarök, debating a Lunist of similar caliber on whether or not the use of ETS should be legal. Spring Breeze assured Ari that Ragnarök won this debate hooves down.

Ragnarök was a brown, leaning ever so slightly red, pegasus with a white, untamed mane. Looking at this pony, it struck one that he got very little sleep. Ari didn’t think she’d ever seen bags under a pony’s eyes until Ragnarök took off his broken flight goggles to reveal his slightly sunken countenance. And he was slim in a way ponies normally weren’t.

Judging by how many videos he had out after such a short time, Ari could guess why…

He sat in a dark basement filled with computers. Another pony, a unicorn, sat far in the background typing away with magic but paying no attention to the stream.

“One thing I think is obvious to all of us is that the government doesn’t want any of us to be ponies. Not you, not me, not one goddam person. That’s obvious to anypony who spoke to a rehumanizer and tried to say no. It’s obvious to any human dying of cancer or who simply wants to be a pony for their own reasons, only to have the choice withheld.”

Talking to a rehumanizer was something Ari was dreading more each day. Ragnarök already had her on the first point.

“The only question… is why? Why do they care if I stay this way? Why don’t they want you to have a choice?

“Is it because they’re concerned that we’re all brainwashed? Hardly! They’d do that to us themselves if the revised vision is any indication. Are they really worried about some space monster looming in the distance? They pressed their heels in as hard as possible for the much closer catastrophe of global warming so that seems unlikely. Is it because transformation magic is just too darn dangerous? Maybe if we didn’t have enough nukes to destroy the planet, I’d buy that.

“No. They don’t give a shit about any of those things. And frankly, they don’t give a shit about you or me either. The reason they don’t want you to be a pony? The reason they don’t like ponies? It’s because ponies… are bad… for landlords and billionaires. That’s it. That is the only reason.”

Dammit. He was probably right. The government never seemed to care about any of those things in the past.

“Think about it. Ponies have a herd instinct. No one denies that. If a human tells you we don’t, ask them what makes them think we’re brainwashed, and they’ll change their minds. That gives ponies the thing that the capitalist class hates more than anything else… community. Collective bargaining power. They hate ponies for the same reason they hate unions. They’re trying to break us and our communities apart for the same reason they’ve stripped American society down into atomized individuals. Helpless. Alone. Weak.

“And let’s ask ourselves one more question while we’re at it. Why can’t you have a choice? I got a choice of whether I could be a human or a pony. Ironically thanks to Sunset Shimmer. But why do they give me a choice but not to you partials and humans? Yet I, the supposed pony supremacist, have never called for rehumanization to be outlawed.”

Ari leaned in. This was the part she most wanted to hear.

“It’s because 97% of ponies… want to stay this way. You know what that means? It means if you or your neighbor or the girl at the cash register got to try being a pony, there’d be a 97% chance they wouldn’t want to go back.

“Hell, let’s even say that’s a massive overestimate and it’s only 80%. That’s still a nightmare scenario for the powers that be, who entrenched themselves in the exploitation of humans and human psychology. They don’t want you to have a choice… because they know what choice you’d make in the end and it isn’t the one that’s convenient for them.”

Ari leaned back in her office chair.

Was that… really it? They didn’t want her to have a choice because she’d make the ‘wrong’ one? That was… the one that would generate less capital for them. Pony communes weren’t exactly lucrative for the corporations. Ragnarök had another point there.

They thought they were denying her this just so they could exploit her…

“But hey, I’m a filthy Shimmerist so what do I know, right? Well we have a pure and noble Lunist here… Moonshine! No alcohol cutie mark. Poor sob is still unmarked but hopefully, he gets one in debating tonight because he’ll need it. Moonshine, tell me why I’m wrong. Why do they not want us to have a choice?”

Moonshine had to be the most Lunist pony ever. The stallion’s colors were damn near identical to Luna’s. He was a good deal older than Ragnarök too. Ari was getting good at telling the ages of ponies and Moonshine was maybe… fifty?

Ari knew a little about the dark blue unicorn. He’d been a theologian… maybe still was just of a new religion.

“Thank you.” Moonshine bowed his head. “First let me say I hardly think you or the vast majority of Shimmerists are ‘filthy’ or sinners or anything like that. I understand and share much of your frustration with the government. I too want serious reform, a more social and fair society. Our visions aren’t that different.”

“But they are different,” Ragnarök added.

“Yes. I don’t want to do this in a way that will disenfranchise the humans they way they so often do to us, as you are quick and right to call out on your show. However, if it is unjust for them to force their way of life on us then surely you can admit the same is true in reverse?”

“We live in a democracy.” Ragnarök said flatly. “People vote on things. They can vote to change things. I don’t see how the SSP doing the exact same thing that every other political party does is somehow crossing a line. Is it because we’re ponies now? It was okay for me to have these opinions before but now it’s suddenly not okay for me to think these things or want these reforms because that’s ‘crossing the line’?”

“I’m not saying it’s wrong for you to have your political party,” said Moonshine. “The problem here is… you’re simply too intense and caustic and your priorities are backward. I think you’re surrounded by only ponies, by only hardcore Shimmerists at that, and you forget that most people in this nation are still humans, and most humans need to be convinced that we are here to help them. Pushing for ETS at the forefront, something that frightens them, wrongly or not, is not going to help anypony. Shimmerism is simply going to make them more afraid.”

“Oh? You think Shimmerism doesn’t appeal to humans? But what? Lunism does?” Ragnarök licked his lips, his smile grew razor-sharp.

Moonshine grew quiet. Are knew he’d walked into a trap but wasn’t sure what it was.

“Okay! Then where are all the human Lunists? Can you name one?” Ragnarök asked.

After a moment of hesitation.

“Yes. Bronze-“

“No! I’m not talking about Bronze. I’m not talking about ponies who were basically forced to rehumanize and hate themselves. I mean someone who’s been a human the whole time and sees any appeal in your philosophy.”

“Well. Not yet. Not off the top of my head, but – ”

“Because there are none!” Ragnarök slammed both forehooves onto his desk and leaned in real close to his camera. “Zero! But guess what? I have 200,000 human fans who signed up to listen to this show. Half of my subscribers are humans, I see the metrics, and most of them would call themselves Shimmerists if they had the guts. Do you have any idea how many calls and messages I get from humans, bawling their eyes out about how badly they want to be ponies? How they wish Sunset Shimmer won so they wouldn’t be living on the street, so their kids wouldn’t be dying of cancer, so they wouldn’t be stuck having their soul ground away at some corporate job?!

“Shimmerism is infinitely more popular among humans than your shit philosophy. You wanna know why? It’s because humans don’t want your endless patronage. They don’t want a world where those with magic work with the corporations to secure an even bigger advantage but ‘oh it’s okay’ because they can pathetically rely on your charity.

“No one wants that.” Ragnarök continued, pulling back a little. “What they want is to be equals. What they want is to get off their knees! They want what we got! Even if some of us think we’re superior to them, we offer them a chance to be equal… and neither you nor the people on the top of this system do. Millions of humans are just as fed up with the system as I am and guess what? The Shimmerists are the only ones willing to help them in that fight, to give them what they actually want! And what do you offer them?”

Moonshine hesitated too much in his answer and Ari understood already why somepony might think he lost the debate.

It gave Ari time to ask herself the question. What did the Lunists offer that the Shimmerists didn’t? After Ragnarök’s spiel, it all but felt like they simply wanted to keep all the magic and communal living for themselves.

So what was there? Acceptance? To Ari that meant accepting her desire to become a pony and they didn’t do that.

To help them benefit from magic? Perhaps they had that much at least. But it wasn’t like the Shimmerists would deny Ari their free food. Hell, as Ragnarök said, the Shimmerists were the only ones who would give Ari her own magic instead of just telling her to accept she couldn’t have any.

“Humans are already equal to ponies,” Moonshine finally answered, though not really the question. “They – ”

“Let them decide if they’re equal,” Ragnarök cut him off.

“They,” Moonshine continued, undeterred. “Even if there are a few hundred thousand or even a few million human Shimmerists, the fact is that the vast majority of humans do not want to be ponies presently. Even before becoming a pony, I agreed that the world needed to change. But they don’t need to become ponies…”

Ragnarök rolled his eyes, his entire head really as Moonshine delivered what had become a meme line in Shimmerist places. He mimed the ‘just stop being poor’ response with his mouth.

“And even if you don’t think that’s true,” Moonshine powered forward. “It’s what most of them think. And if you

“Okay, okay. So you have boundless confidence in the humans, but you think they’ll genocide us at the drop of a hat.”

“I didn’t say…”

“I want to address this real quick. There’s no genocide happening, okay fellow ponies? Half the humans are so depressed and broken right now they can’t reheat a pizza. The other half is with me in wanting to burn down Washington DC. The government is broke, has a 13% approval rating, can’t even feed themselves without us… and you think Sleepy Joe of all people is going to rally that to commit a genocide 15 times bigger than the Holocaust. Really, ponies?”

“I agree,” said Moonshine carefully. “But the 2024 election-“

“I’m working on that one!” Ragnarök jabbed a hoof toward his camera. “But hey, you never answered the question I brought you here for! Why don’t they want to give my many, many human fans a choice, huh?”

“I’ll tell you why I’m against it, at least,” said Moonshine. “Because as you said it is dangerous. And I hope you’re not going to dismiss my concerns because I’m certainly not stockpiling nuclear weapons.”

“I’ll give you that much, sure.”

“Right. First of all, we don’t know all the effects of ETS or mass or repeated transformations. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to at least wait a little longer to understand what we’re dealing with first. Second, even if you are above it and I believe you are, many of your Shimmerist friends, if ETS were in mainstream use, would stop at nothing to forcibly transform as many people as possible. If you’re so pro-choice-“

Ragnarök held up a hoof. “Okay. Okay. Hold up. First off, can we not pretend like ETS is still a big deal? I’ll tell you what happens if you start transforming from some leak, okay? You mutter in your living room that you’d rather not be a pony. Alexa will pick up on it because that’s legal now under the Secure America Act, but whatever. They send 10,000 CIA agents to your house to escort you to a rehumanization center and you’re done.”

“We don’t know if you can just repeatedly undergo these sorts of things,” Moonshine shot back.

“And as for them being afraid? Of what? Forced transformation?” Ragnarök asked. “The SSP is the only organization that wants to pass a morphological bill of rights. So what? They think my evil plan to force transform all humans is to make the thing I’m trying to do illegal.”

“Yes, yes.” Moonshine rubbed a temple. “I’ve read your ‘morphological bill of rights’. If we’re being honest, half of it is simply ‘legalize ETS’ and various reforms that would make life harder for the rehumanizers. Most of whom are not the monsters you make them out to be, might I add?”

“Oh, oh. So you disagree with the bill?” Ragnarök tilted his head. “I got the whole thing memorized. Tell me which part of this is unreasonable, that a human would have an ‘irrational reaction to’. Okay? The first of the twelve points is that the government cannot have a ‘preferred’ form that they promote or coerce anypony into taking. How is that wrong.”

“It’s clearly meant for rehumanization…”

“Yeah, it’d apply to them. But should the government have the power to coerce you into taking a form? Should there be state-approved forms? If you need help, imagine it’s me in charge of making ponies the form the government is promoting.”

“I can’t say that shouldn’t be the law, no.”

“Great! Point two…”

This was the part of the debate where Ragnarök ‘won’. Maybe some Lunist could walk away from the first half thinking their guy held his ground but this? This was just painful.

Ragnarök dragged Moonshine point by point through the seven points of the morphological bill of rights. Every single time, it was an increasingly embarrassing repeat of the first time. In the end, the Lunist just couldn’t bring himself to disagree with a single one of the proposals.

He couldn’t say sit was wrong to ban the government from forcing a certain form on you. He couldn’t say that people should be discriminated against based on their transformation status. He couldn’t say the stat shouldn’t recognize someone’s decision to transform and change their name.

He could argue that the right to transform should be regulated, but not that it should be banned outright. That last one was the only time during that brutal exchange he held his ground.

And after talking so boldly about how terrible this bill of rights was too! Ari looked up Moonshine again to make sure he wasn’t just some idiot Ragnarök dragged off the streets to make himself look better. But it turned out his opponent really was a prominent Lunist who’d been through several prior debates.

More important than any of that… Ari couldn’t bring herself to disagree with him on any of those points, either!

To hell with what everyone thought was part of the ‘natural order’. People should have the right to transform and the government should not have the right to push any kind of transformation on you.

So why the hell did everyone think it should be the other way around?!

“I think… I like this pony,” said Ari.

She started queuing up his other videos. She wanted to make sure this wasn’t just the one video she’d like. And she wanted to listen to him more…

Ari ended up watching Ragnarök videos for the next 5 hours straight…

And that led her into some other Shimmerist content creators…

Before she knew it, it was midnight.

2-4

“You know what a lot of you humans say to me?” Ragnarok asked. “That Sunset Shimmer robbed me of my humanity. Bullshit. It was gone long, long before she showed up.

“You want to know what robbed me of my humanity? Working sixty hours a week doing meaningless work that benefits no one for the right to just barely exist with zero security. That robbed me of my humanity. Living in a society with zero sense of community, where you can just walk over the body of a collapsed person, where we spit on those made destitute by our excess, where you’re fucking lucky to get to see your friends once a month. That robbed me of my humanity. Having our art, culture, and living spaces all bastardized for the sake of the profits of some billionaire. That robbed me of my humanity!

“Let’s be honest! Are any of you really humans? Your corporate overlords are transforming all of you against your will too, you know. But you won’t get to be magic ponies who can fly around and build your own little Shimmerist utopia out in the woods like I did. No, you’ll be sheep chained to machines that pump out worthless garbage no one cares about. You’ll be lucky if the fucking NFT you sacrifice your life to produce for Elon Musk has a goddam JPEG attached to it, mark my words.

“In fact, they don’t even want you to be sheep. Sheep have herds, they have friends. Our rulers want you to be completely isolated and erode whatever sense of community and friendship you have so you can focus all of your time on single-mindedly increasing the number in this hellish idle game they’ve trapped you in.

“So you know what? If that’s the alternative, I don’t think I got a bad deal at all. At least I can fucking fly. What did you get for your humanity?”

So… Ari had a bit of a new obsession.

And that obsession was Shimmerist propaganda. It was the only thing she watched anymore. Compulsively. At all times. But the alternative of course…

Twitter had gotten worse in the past week. Her cancelation had a bit of a delayed effect, took a while to leak out from pony groups to more mainstream, more human ones. It seemed mostly her fellow lefties were out for her. The left seemed at odds with what to do with ponification. They liked ponies on an economic level, but not on an identity politics level.

Right now, it felt like only the latter existed. Various groups came up with various attacks on her desire to legalize ponification.

It erased people’s ethnicity. It erased their neurodivergencies. It (somehow) erased transgender people by changing their sex completely. It erased, most critically, their disabilities. Ari was somehow chiefly being accused of ableism. The story was of a Shimmerism turning someone who once wanted to help the disabled into one who wanted the total mass genocide of the deaf.

That was a whole other can of worms. What with ponification ‘curing’ deafness and ponies not being able to do sign language. Then there was the effects it had on autistic people… Ari hadn’t even thought of any of that but now it was all being thrown at her in the worst possible faith imaginable. And if she couldn’t come up with answers she was Hitler or something.

And maybe there was some kind of cogent point in all this, maybe a stronger person really could learn something like her reasonable critics told her to but… Ari couldn’t take the pressure. She couldn’t debate these people right now. All the hate messages and negative attention were too much. Every insult imaginable rang through her head, making her just want to lie in bed with the lights off all day.

And that’s what she did…

Except…

Of course, she had her laptop with her. She had it on all the time so there would never be silence. And the one, most cathartic thing she watched was Shimmerist propaganda. She knew it was propaganda, but what did it matter? She just wanted the comfort of seeing someone who didn’t think she was a misanthropic Nazi hellbent on the mass genocide of deaf autistic children for thinking people should have the choice to ponify.

Hours and hours were spent watching Shimmerists talk. It was the only thing she did in her free time. Never going outside, never opening the blinds. Just sitting in the dark, under the covers, watching Ragnarok and all the other ponies she discovered.

At least she was getting more educated about Shimmerism. There really were a whole bunch of different types. Her curiosity led her away from the SSP ponies, who were her most kindred spirits to explore the diversity of Shimmerist thought.

Eco-Shimmerists were ponies who mostly just wanted to live in the woods away from humans. They argued that ponies were better for the environment, being smaller, vegetarian, consuming less transport, etc.

They tended to have names like Peace Feather and Love Shine. Earth Angle was probably the most famous of them, but Ari mostly watched Harmony Song’s video series ‘Simple and Together’ which was about living… well…

“What I learned,” said Harmony, sitting outside in a beautiful forest, her friends off in the background, “is that you don’t need stuff to be happy. Above all, ponies are free from the stuff keeping you prisoner. Becoming a pony means disconnecting from all that materialistic garbage and reconnecting with nature and friends... the things that really matter.”

Ari had some bad experiences with religion before, so she didn’t give Christian Shimmerists, who lived down south, much of her time. She admitted that their version of Christianity was slightly better. They emphasized the parts of the Bible where Jesus said to give all your money to the poor, that rich people didn’t go to heaven.

Even still, she had an even stronger instinctual distrust of that group than any other.

Separatist Shimmerists rarely made videos. They tended to be the most extreme. Unlike the SSP, they didn’t want to reform the United States, but separate from it and form their own pony nation. With each passing day, Ari couldn’t blame them. They weren’t very online, but the videos they did put out listed their endless grievances against humans and the human-dominated government.

“Look at this straw ban they’re putting up!” said Rip. “Conservative senators, who were so against it, suddenly want to pass this everywhere because now they think it’s good for the environment? No! The humans are just trying to screw us over, knowing this will make the lives of ponies ever so slightly more difficult. And the Secure America Act allowing them to listen in on smart speakers and other ‘hands-free’ devices specifically? It’s all the same!

“Why do we need to be part of a nation that actively despises us like this? Why are we the ones constantly being told to reconcile with these ghouls while they’re the ones taking actions to make our lives worse? Do you really want to eternally shackle ourselves to our oppressors?”

Ari had been a bystander casualty in the whole straw fiasco. Made going out to eat way harder, not that she had the money for it anymore. Ari hadn’t even realized all the little needles the government was putting under the hooves of ponies trying to get them to rehumanize until seeing these videos.

Even still, she preferred the SSP’s goal of taking over the government and replacing it with ponies to them.

The techno-Shimmerists briefly caught Ari’s interest when she heard they were 90% human, the reverse of any other group. Turned out they were transhumanist libertarians who saw ponies and transformation magic as the next big thing.

They were led by a ragtag group of millionaires and sometimes billionaires who wanted to legalize and commercialize transformation magic. Specifically, ponification, which they saw as a major step forward in humanity’s evolution.

Ponies were ‘hyper-specialists’ as they put it. The evolution of society was moving towards more and more specialized roles for individuals and cutie marks were simply the ultimate realization of that.

Overall, they were more practical than idealistic. Ari wasn’t dumb enough to think their leaders cared about much more than the money they could make from selling ponification. But if they did find a way, Ari would pay all of her money for their ponification injection.

So even though they were kind of sus, Ari still liked watching them. Partially because seeing other human Shimmerists scratched a certain itch. It was validating. Probably the same way you felt the first time seeing your demographic represented on TV.

Super Cycle (one of the rare pony techno-Shimmerists) was the most hyped-up of them all, with over ten billion dollars in funds gathered already, though she also seldom made public appearances. So Ari had to settle for the likes of Crypto-TF who maybe weren’t so bad if you ignored his NFT obsession. And was a human who wanted to be a pony! So there was that.

“So looking at this through an effective altruism lense,” said Crypto-TF, “research into ETS is the single most effective use of your money. Right? You can donate your money to cancer research or Alzheimer’s or… you can put your money towards something we know can cure all of these diseases. Something we pretty much already have our hands on.”

That argument made sense, at least. Ari nodded along wearily in the dark.

“We already paid a massive, massive cost for ending ETS the way we did,” said Crypt-TF. “It is estimated that over a hundred million people will die over the next three years as a result of ending ETS. I’m not saying it shouldn’t have been stopped, obviously.”

Obviously.

“But.”

But.

“It did come with a steep, steep cost of a hundred million deaths. That’s more than COVID and World War 2 combined. More importantly… that’s a progressive number. Every year we don’t make ETS available is tens of millions of additional people sacrificed for the sake of not wanting to look ‘misanthropic’. I mean, I’m a human and…”

Yeah. Ari heard that one before. She’d seen cheeky images claiming Sunset saved a billion lives (ending global warming) and Twilight killed a hundred million… and would have killed billions had she come a few weeks earlier.

Everyone with cancer or whatever would have had it healed had they become ponies. It was one of the more controversial arguments, the kinds ponies couldn’t really say out loud but a human might just be able to get away with. Relatively speaking. Ari resisted the urge to check the latest batch of hate mail.

Realistically, it was more like 40-100 million excess deaths due to ending ETS. Probably around 60. But of course, this guy would exaggerate to the high end. But the argument wasn’t without merit. Lots of people were on their deathbeds wishing they could become ponies instead but apparently letting them die was the ‘right’ thing to do?

All her Shimmerist friends low-key believed in this line of thought but only said so out loud on Discord, in private. Spring Breeze herself said it would have been best for them to just let ETS go on for one more week, that way anyone who didn’t want to die could get infected. And anypony who changed without wanting to in that time could just rehumanize so was it really that big of a deal?

“I’d go back to being a human for a week to save tens of millions of lives. Would you really not be willing to be a pony for one week to do the same?” Spring Breeze asked.

To a non-Shimmerist, the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. But a fellow Shimmerist like Crypto-TF…

Had she been seeing this guy as a ‘fellow’ Shimmerist this whole time?

Ari lay on her back, looking up at the dark ceiling.

“Am I Shimmerist?”

A knock at the door!

Ari jumped off her bed! Her first thought was that somebody had found her! She was getting swatted!

“No! It’s gotta be…”

What could it be? Ari carefully approached the door. Ari answered to find a man who was a little too well-dressed.

“Hello. Are you Ari Webber?” He asked. “I’m with the rehumanization bureau.”

Oh no! This was it!

“But I’m already human.”

“Yes, but you are a partial.” He gestured to the green in her hair. “Rehumanization can reverse the changes that were forced on you. It’s always free and I can schedule you to visit right now.”

Was this seriously happening?

“I like the green,” said Ari.

“Are you sure that’s your genuine opinion?” He asked.

“What are you even talking about?”

“We know ETS has profound impacts on your psychology. It forces you to accept the changes that it makes and we’re not entirely sure what effects that might have in partials. It’s possible you only like your highlights due to brainwashing.”

“You’re worried I might have been brainwashed into liking my hair?” Ari asked flatly. She reminded herself that these guys got a small commission for every person they signed up to rehumanize.

“Don’t you find it disturbing that you may be forced to think the green in your hair is a good thing?”

“No? Why would I even care if I’m brainwashed into liking my hair?” Ari shook her head.

“There are other concerns. We don’t know the health effects of this sort of thing. Being a partial could cause cancer for all we know.”

“Oh, it ‘could’, huh?” Ari was just about done with this guy. “What even are you? The fashion police? There are hundreds of homeless people out here and we’re spending how much to pay you to convince me to ‘fix’ my hair?”

“You are allowed to choose to keep the changes if you want,” he backed off a little. “All we want is for everyone to have a fully informed choice.”

Like fucking hell they did! Ari’s eye twitched. She wanted to shove this guy over but retrained herself.

“My choice is no.”

“That’s alright.” Seeing her anger, he backed off a little. “I do need you to sign this paper saying that you were informed the option to reverse it is available whenever you want.”

He held out a pen and clipboard.

Ari grumbled and pulled her hands out of her pockets.

And after a while of explaining that her hands were already like that and she wasn’t brainwashed into thinking her hands were always like that, Ari finally managed to slam the door in that guy’s face. Then she ran back to her room seeking the sweet relief of more Shimmerist videos.

At least that was over with. Wasn’t as bad as she feared.

Only…

A meme she’d seen a few times came to mind. ‘Of course he’s not gone. He’s never gone!’ A chill overtook her.

“They wouldn’t. Would they?” Ari shuddered and looked back in the direction of the door. “Oh damn. Of course they would.”

Her face fell forward, onto the keyboard.

She turned her eyes up just a little to see a new notification. Thankfully not one from Twitter. Ari opened it and saw something that lifted her spirits.

She got in! Her request to join Whisper 3, the pony-oriented social media app, had been approved! Still in beta, humans needed a referral to get in. Spring Breeze’s recommendation must have pulled through. Forgetting her recent encounter, Ari buried herself in registering for this.

Once she was on here she’d delete that stupid Twitter account and move on with her life!

2-5

“You know the common refrain,” said Ragnarok. “Becoming a pony won’t solve your problems, right? You can just change for the better without ponification, right? Humans can all just… decide to be good from now on.

“To that I say… okay. Do it. Who’s stopping you? Who has ever been stopping you? I’m sure as hell not!

“Just do it! Just end homelessness and poverty. Just stop being depressed. Just get rid of your WMDs. Just stop committing crimes and waging wars. Just stop not wanting your life to be better solve all the problems in your life by yourselves. It’s really that easy! That’s what they’re trying to tell you.

“And you know what? I'm even rooting for you guys. But let’s be honest for a second… that’s not going to happen is it? If you could ‘just’ do that you would have already done it. This is the same pull yourself up by your bootstraps, it's your fault you're poor, shit they've been pulling for years. It’s not as easy as they want you to believe.

“In reality, if you want things to change, if you want any of those things I just mentioned what you want is real, serious change on a systematic level. And guess what? This bastard and his Shimmerist friends are the only ones offering that to you.

“And hey, I’m not against any of you trying. But if you fail as has been the case for the past ten thousand years… we’ll I’ll always be here. The door is open now and they can’t close it no matter how badly they want you to think it's closed forever."

Ari deleted her Twitter account and never regretted it. Best move of her life.

It wasn’t like it was doing anypony any good. She’d already given out all of her tips and tricks. By now, ponies knew all the basics. Hell, they were already improving on it. It seemed like new accessibility devices and apps were popping up every day. It was great.

As far as keeping up with her pony pals, Whisper 3 proved infinitely superior to that. She wasn’t canceled on Whisper 3 for one.

That place had to be about 95% pony and that was if you counted stage 1 and 2 partials as human because those made up the majority of the remaining 5%. Humans could only get in now through recommendations. You had to have a pony vouche that you were one of the good ones.

But even just being a stage 1 partial massively increased your chances of getting in. One single strand of blue hair was all it took to make you far more sympathetic to ponies. Mostly because all the stage 1 partials who were neutral to hostile had already been pushed into rehumanizing.

Ari could tell why they were so hesitant to let humans in by the boatload. Whisper 3 was… nice. Like in a way you couldn’t possibly assume social media ever was.

Twitter was so damn toxic, only getting more toxic recently. Ari hated it even before she got canceled. Yet no one had any alternative to it because it was a natural monopoly.

Humans loved drama and had all kinds of algorithms ready to exploit their fears, hates, and worst tendencies. None of that malicious min-maxing was present on Whisper 3. It was more about providing utility than maximizing clicks at all costs. And it was geared towards the more social minds of ponies.

Community was the name of the game here. What pony community you were part of was displayed right beneath your name. Everything about it was geared towards building and connecting communities, uniting, and making friends.

There never seemed to be drama trending up top. At least, not for long. Instead, it was all projects and community events. That was another big feature. Ponies

Ponies always help.

And frankly, everypony just seemed to be… nicer? Ari certainly never got the same mean spirited comments here.

Ponies are kind.

Yeah, she heard those lines all the time. Nopony believed every last pony was kind of course. But they spoke those ideals like little mantras, those were clichés you heard all the time. Ari was struggling to not repeat them to the humans at work.

Still… seeing all this cooperation, friendship, optimism, and enthusiasm! Ari finally felt more alive again. She wanted more ponies in her life. She wanted to help too!

Of course, being in the middle of nowhere, Ari couldn’t exactly volunteer to help with most of their projects. The SSP’s page for political volunteers caught her eye, but she hesitated. That was the one place she might actually be able to do something.

But… well signing up to be an agent of the Social Shimmerist Party would mean admitting to herself that she was a Shimmerist.

And…

Ari stood up and shook her head before stepping outside.

At long last, Ari worked up the strength to clean up all the trash in front of her house.

She actually did something!

And then?

She started taking a little walk. It’d been months since she’d gone for a walk. Outside felt weird. Not because of the lingering military presence or the homeless camps. The air felt fresh. Like today was the first real day of spring.

There were a lot of people out today. For a minute Ari thought it might be the weather but no… there was yet another protest. Those were background radiation at this point.

It wasn’t a riot day. The police would call this a riot later on the news, but it was a protest, not an attempt to steal food and TVs like in the early days. It was the kind of thing Ari would have loved to join just a few years ago.

Ari asked around what was going on as a whole bunch of people were gathered around one spot. A wall of unarmed civilians had formed to meet a wall of police officers in riot gear and decommissioned military equipment.

All over the last bench in Nassau County.

The state had been installing hostile architecture lately. It was like this arms race between cities to make your town as uninviting to the homeless as possible in hopes they’d go somewhere else.

They started out small. Get rid of all the water fountains. Close all the public bathrooms. Remove public trash bins and efforts to clean up the streets (the reason trash was everywhere, Ari eventually learned). Put ‘armrests’ in the middle of benches so you couldn’t lie down on them.

The problem of course… was that these people had nowhere to go. They’d head to the next town over who’d escalate things worse only to be forced to come back here in an endless cycle. So the arms race just continued endlessly…

The town started putting in ‘pavement sprinklers’. These sprinklers were set to ‘accidentally’ douse the sidewalks with water every couple of hours to discourage anyone from stopping there. They also made walking harder for everyone.

The benches at the parks, train stations, and bus stations were being removed entirely, and replaced with ‘leaning benches’. Those were little more than the back side of the bench, something you couldn’t sit down on but could lean against. They claimed this would be great for disabled people… somehow.

And they’d been installing bladed grates over the sewer vents recently. They didn’t want homeless people lying on top of them to keep from freezing to death in the winter. Ari had to pass those dangerous eyesores all the time now, the gratings raised at different heights to make sitting on one impossible.

More and more spikes and fences began cropping up all over the place. The waste from the lack of bathrooms and garbage cans kept worsening. You had to travel in cars if you wanted your trip to be at all tolerable.

Ari increasingly felt as if she were living in Mordor each day. If the mayor could blanket the town in eternal darkness and ash he probably would at this point.

This was how they treated the downtrodden out here.

Still, Ari couldn’t say anything as reductive as ‘humans are trash’. There was a massive crowd of humans here to protest the installation of the bladed grates and the removal of the last bench in town. It was only a small number of wealthy people in gated neighborhoods who actually wanted these changes.

The problem, as Ari learned in 2020, was that those people were the only ones whose opinions counted. You could protest as much as you wanted. You could riot, even. Burn down half the town! But it wouldn’t change anything.

All this protest was pointless. There was nothing Ari could do about it.

But… was that true?

Spring Breeze’s community had eliminated homelessness, hunger, and poverty in their area. So had Ragnarok’s. So had the ponies of Lazy Pines and Riverview and…

So clearly ponies could do it. But among the ponies, only the Shimmerists wanted to bring this to the rest of the world. Only they were truly willing to take a stand against… this.

Ari watched the police take out their pepper spray and fire it into the line of protestors, breaking it up. At last, they were able to dismantle the bench.

“Are the Shimmerists the good guys?”

Ari logged back on to Whisper 3.

She bit onto the unsharpened end of a pencil, moving it up and down in her mouth as she looked at the SSP’s volunteer page.

Ponies always help.

Would they even be able to do anything with a lone human in the middle of nowhere?

“Ponies,” said Ari. “Always help.”

She’d at least offer. Ari filled out the volunteer form. Whatever happened next would be up to some SSP coordinator.

Part 3 - Propogandist

Being the only human volunteer in New York put Ari in a unique position, it made her stand out. Somepony high up in the SSP decided that they certainly wanted to do something with her and that something quickly took the form of Ari becoming part of their advertising campaign.

Not as in appearing in a commercial or anything. At least not yet. But they already sent her a few things to do her new job with.

The SSP sent her a bunch of gift cards which Ari used to buy this huge $3,000 printer and a bunch of printer supplies. The understanding was that she’d print out and distribute whatever Shimmerist propaganda they asked her to.

It took too long to set up with her disability, but she managed. That thing could crank out really high-quality posters and pamphlets like wildfire!

The second gift was access to all their pro-pony materials. She had high-quality pictures of some 100 pamphlets and posters to use, including the series they wanted her to start posting up:

Ponies Make it Possible

That was their human-facing slogan.

Truly equitable communal living. A world free of poverty and destitution. Literal magic granting unlimited food, freedom from disease and so much more. These a million other blessings weren’t possible, but Sunset Shimmer and her transformed ponies made them obtainable.

That was kind of a cheeky comeback to the type of people who said things like ‘Uh! Socialism and communal living just can’t work for humans! Humans tried it and it didn’t work.’ To which a Shimmerist could simply respond ‘yes’.

There were five variations of it, three for the three main tribes, then two more talking about how good the ponies had it out west. At the bottom, it said that if you wanted these benefits for yourself, if you wanted real change if you wanted to get involved you could go to a Shimmerist website linked at the bottom.

And of course, more ponies meant more possibilities… but it didn’t mention that part. It didn’t mention they were Shimmerists on the poster or anything about transforming more humans.

There were more explicitly Shimmerist posters, of course. The files were arranged by area. Mostly human areas, mixed areas, mostly pony areas, and fully Shimmerist areas each had a different message tailored to them.

The final gift she received was some train passes. Ari could ride the trains pretty much anywhere in NY or NJ she wanted for free for the next month. And if she did a good job, they’d get her a yearly pass for all this stuff instead.

It was so Ari could reach more towns and the SSP was strongly pro-public transportation in general. But it was a great perk to have.

One of the ponies from the SSP (Ari never actually met them) was scouting out the area on google maps and marking up the ideal locations for Ari to hit. Ari could just take out her phone and see where to go in any town within striking distance.

That app already existed, Ari wasn’t the only agent in their propaganda department, but nothing in New York had been targeted yet. Today, Ari would just be hitting up her own town, the places within walking distance.

They sent her some instructions on where she could and couldn’t legally wheat paste, and where it was technically illegal, but she could probably get away with it anyway. But otherwise, she’d be on her own for this first mission.

But first…

Ari put on her hoodie and went searching for another article. Ari knelt down to get something out of the bottom drawer of her dresser, where she kept her most seldom worn things.

“Never thought I’d see you again.”

She produced a face mask. Not the kind you wore for covid, but the kind you wore for riots, a black cloth with the bottom half of a skull. Ari hadn’t worn this thing since she got kicked out of Antifa. Since it was hard for her to tie things, she instead had pieces of Velcro glued onto it for easy wearing.

She really needed to thank whoever invented Velcro.

With that on and her hood up it’d be hard to identify her.

She put on her backpack, put the canister of fixing agent on her hip, and strapped a putty knife to her right hand. Then, with all her battle gear on, Ari stepped outside.

The most obvious place to hit up was that parking lot where all the homeless people lived. They were the ones who most needed to know there was a way forward.

But luck was not on Ari’s side today.

She reached where the tent city had been the past few days to find the police standing off with a bunch of protestors forming a line. The tent city wasn’t always here because… well the police cleared them out every so often like they were doing now.

Everyone was calling this ‘the homeless shuffle’. The homeless would set up a tent city somewhere, the police would break it up. But then, since they had literally nowhere to go, they’d wander around for a little while before setting up another tent city somewhere else.

There was a sanctioned tent city, where the bourgeois homeless people lived. But there was only room for 100 or 200 people there. Not nearly enough to absorb the economic cataclysm. Really, it was just a token gesture to justify all the horrible things the police and town did.

Ari wasn’t sure what these protesters were going to do. The police would clear them out and nothing would change. Protests didn’t work. The powerful didn’t care. The only place that changed, the only place that actually solved the homeless problem was the pony-majority areas out west.

Getting people to embrace Shimmerism and ponies would help a lot more than whatever this was.

An idea came to Ari just then! She had seen this before. She knew that under the big bridge was where they’d start to resettle. It was like a cycle.

So… if Ari went over there now, she could put up her propaganda unseen, and then when everyone started to shuffle in, the posters would be ready to go!

Ari ran all the way to the bridge, racing to get there before the expelled homeless, panting by the time she arrived. Only one person was there but he was passed out hard and snoring. She was basically alone.

The town put up a few spikes, denying the best sleeping area, but there was still plenty of dirt down here to settle on. It wasn’t too late.

If anything, Ari could use those spikes as a contrast between the pony and human way of doing things. On one side, the human government putting up spikes to torment you and make your life worse for the sake of their own convenience. On the other side, the ponies reaching out to those in need, offering a better world!

“Alright. Let’s see…”

Ari wiggled the putty knife, still strapped to her hand, out of its sleeve. She stuck the knife into the paste she made from flour and spread it on the wall. Now for the hard part.

Ari swung her backpack around. After some difficulty, she grabbed one of the posters with her teeth and slowly took it out. She moved her face right up next to the wall, then pressed her right forearm against it. Sliding it up…

“It more or less stuck.” Ari inspected her work. It wasn’t the best paste job and she got paste all over her sleeve, but it was there.

And she did get better from there. She plastered poster after poster around the heavily graffitied area. It seemed plenty of other people had a similar idea. Yet, unlike Ari, they were merely expressing vague ideas like ‘fuck Blackrock’ rather than offering solutions.

She encountered a surprising piece of such graffiti on the far end of the bridge. It didn’t seem to have any political stance. Just a drawing of a pony. A certain purple pony…

“Why are you doing here?!” Ari pointed her putty knife at the depiction of Purple herself. “You want to keep all the pony for yourself, huh? Well take this!”

Ari made sure to put a poster up right over Purple’s stupid face! And then three more right next to it.

“How do you like that?” Ari chuckled. This revenge was way too enjoyable for how petty it was. “You don’t want me to be a pony, but I will! Maybe. Eventually.”

Before long, she had twenty of them up in this area. She smiled at all the pictures of ponies around her!

Ari dropped off a pamphlet next to the sleeping drunk and wedge a few more around the area before running off, feeling like she’d escaped the scene of a crime!

That was scary at first, but it became fun near the end… she decided to hit a few more discrete spots, putting up ten more Ponies Make it Possible posters around town. The police were all occupied so managed to do all this unmolested in broad daylight.

And that was all the excitement she could handle for one day. Ari went back home, panting.

“I wonder how much if this sort of thing actually helps,” Ari mused.

Either way, it was kind of exciting! And if it increased her chances by even the most insignificant amount, it’d be worth it.

3-2

“Is there anything humans are better at than ponies?” Ragnarök asked. “Surely there has to be one thing, right? Other than flipping people off, of course. Well… what do you hear everyone say when this comes up. What’s worth giving up magic for? What is it they want you to think your advantage is?

“Well I’ve had this conversation many times, friendos and there is a clear narrative. It’s this: you’re greedy. Not me saying this! That’s just the mainstream narrative of those who supposedly aren’t misanthropic. The one thing you humans have going for you is that you’re greedy.

“Maybe they’ll phrase it in a better way. Being greedy makes you innovative, it makes you work hard. Whatever! It’s bullshit all the same because ask yourself this: who does that narrative benefit? Why do they want you to believe that the one good thing about you, what defines you, is your greed and lust for money?

“Obviously, the capitalist class wants to define you by your endless avarice and hunger for the consumption of goods. They want you to think of yourself as a mindless consumer of crap on Amazon. That’s why they want humans to be greedy, money-obsessed goblins in the popular imagination, why they want that to be your virtue.

“Oh! But we’re innovative! We’re so innovative, right? Okay. When was the last time you, specifically invented something? Or created something meaningful to you? I’m willing to bet the vast majority of you had to give up on all of that and let your dreams become broken. Why? Because the system demands all of your time in service of the economy!

“A world where the vast majority of us are working dead-end jobs, unable to get ahead, unable to own anything, and unable to find self-actualization does not breed innovation. Having all of you worked to death does not…”

Ari nodded along with Ragnarök as she sat on a bench at the edge of the Secaucus Junction platform. It was New Jersey so they had benches! A miracle for sure. She came to this place all the time now.

The sun was nice and warm. It was great!

These had been perhaps the best couple weeks of her life! Every day, Ari would take the train out to a new town, visit some new place, and put up posters. She’d go to closer towns on weekdays and go on much longer adventures like this on the weekend.

This was kind of like a second job that didn’t pay any money, yet it didn’t feel like work. It felt like an adventure! She got to see all kinds of new places. None of them were too exciting, but still. And she got a much greater sense of accomplishment from this than from work.

Even just some marginal good was worth more than all the pointless labor Ari did at her ‘real’ job.

Sure the train rides took some time, but she could just listen to all her Shimmerist content and talk to her pony friends on the way. That’s what she would have done at home, anyway.

And maybe it wasn’t entirely true she wasn’t getting paid. Ari hit so many places and had put up over a thousand posters already, and the SSP decided to put her on the ‘trusted’ list. She had a train pass for the whole year now!

One odd thing she noticed in her journey was that Nassau County seemed… a lot worse than every town outside of it. There wasn’t trash and filth all over most of the other cities and towns. Even New York City was less crowded with homelessness and a lot better off.

It was almost like somebody was purposely trying to screw things up…

Or maybe Ragnarök’s conspiratorial thinking was getting to her.

Ari’s heart skipped when she got a message from Spring Breeze.

SB<Friendo!

A>Friendo!

Ari missed doing that. Really, deciding that maybe she was a Shimmerist felt like such a relief to Ari. It was like some invisible struggle in the back of her mind had ceased and she could just… relax now.

She sent Spring Breeze a Shimmerist meme she found, (Sunset Shimmer with the caption ‘having trouble making ends meet? You wouldn’t be if I had won!’) file name saved as SS.IMG of course. SSIMG stood for Sunset Shimmer is my god.

They didn’t actually worship Sunset Shimmer but liked saying radical stuff like this, even cheekily.

Whisper 3 was great because you could just be more open like that.

SB<You’re really getting into this, now.

A>Well I have you to thank for that! Becoming a Shimmerist was one of the best decisions of my life!

Another advantage was that she felt a lot closer to her internet friends. It was like she was finally on the same team as Spring Breeze and all the ponies. Really, she’d never felt like she was part of something before.

Of course, the flip side was that she was more and more distant from the few humans she talked to at work. She had so much to say now but no way to say it. She couldn’t possibly announce that her new hobby and passion was Shimmerist propaganda to a bunch of heathen apes.

The train rolled into the station.

A>PS! The train is here!

SB<PS!

As Ari put up posters along some telephone poles marked on the app, approaching an underpass, she listened to more Ragnarök (live this time).

“A lot of people, mostly Lunists, are off here accusing me of having a biolab. And not just a biolab but a 6-billion-dollar bio-terror lab. Well, guess what? The FBI investigated Nelson Residence just last week. And they only got one arrest or charge in that whole time. It was actually our friendo DS over here. DS! Tell them what you got arrested for.”

‘DS’ was the purple unicorn who often loomed in the background of Ragnarök’s videos, always typing away on a computer. No one online knew exactly what DS was doing back there, other than it had nothing to do with the stream.

There was a pause where Ari assumed DS slid over to Ragnarök.

“Jaywalking,” DS’s seldom-heard voice came through.

“Jaywalking. And just so we’re clear, there are zero cars in our city. We literally banned them! This is like uh, at the Nuremberg Trials where the only crime they could get the Nazis for was littering. Remember that?

“Yeah, so I can’t even get away with crossing the street. And you Lunist dogs think I can get away with having a bio-terror lab?”

Ari wished Nelson Residence had a bioterror lab. Then maybe she could get bioterored into a pony.

Just as Ari reached her target and turned the corner, she looked up to find another person was already here. There was a guy at the underpass, a scarf covering his mouth. He had a can of spray paint out and was creating some graffiti art. ‘Fuck Blackrock’ written in large letters. It looked like he was just finishing.

But not expecting to see anyone at all, Ari jumped back around the corner in surprise. It only clicked in her brain a second later that her fellow vandal was black.

Normally, Ari wouldn’t talk to somebody when on these missions. Really, she tried not to talk to anybody with all the rioting and violence going on.

But her leftoid brain didn’t want the poor guy to think she’d recoiled in fear from him because he was black. It was just because he startled her! She was even more sympathetic than ever to that sort of thing now that she was a partial and in the same boat to some degree. People crossed the street to get away from Ari. She knew how it felt.

So Ari took in a deep breath and stepped back towards the bridge.

“No worries!” Ari came back around the corner. “I was doing pretty much the same thing you were.”

“Eh? You’re a girl?” He asked.

Ari frowned deeply under her own scarf. To be fair, she was covered up completely.

“And you spray paint?” He asked.

“No, I was doing posters.” Ari pointed her putty knife at the nearest one. With her sleeve covering her hand, it must have looked like she had knives for hands. “But pretty much the same message.”

He looked at Ari’s poster, then back at Ari.

“And what the fuck does this have to do with Blackrock?”

“We’re a political party,” she said. “Left of the Democrats. We want to do what we can to hit back against massive corporations and landowners. Create a more socialist world that promotes community. Spread the sort of communes that the ponies live in.”

“Well good luck with that,” he said. “That sort of commune shit has never worked before, especially not in America.”

“Right.” Ari tapped the tagline of the poster. “But ponies… make it possible. The world is totally different now. They’re doing pretty well at it for now. And they can help us.”

“Yeah. For now.” He folded his arms, watching Ari skeptically.

Ari admitted it wasn’t a sure thing that even the ponies could continue to live in their communes, let alone spread them. But that was just because the government was trying to screw with them.

She nervously stood her ground, not sure what else to say… until the other guy relaxed.

“Okay. I’m interested.” He shoved his can back into his bag. “What’s this party called?”

It was actually working! But now for the hard part…

“The SSP!”

“And what’s the stand for?”

Ari hummed a little and leaned back onto the balls of her feet, not wanting to answer.

“Um.” She swung back onto her feet. “The Social… Shimmerist Party.”

“Shimmerists?” His look was incredulous. “You’re a Shimmerist?”

“Well – I – no! I’m… not a Shimmerist, but…”

“Then why are you in the Social ‘Shimmerist’ Party?”

“I mean, it’s like um…

“You’re full of shit, aren’t you?” He shook his head.

“No! I swear I–”

But the guy was already walking away.

That could have gone better.

Back on the train, Ari took out her phone.

A>Hey, is there any way we could change the name of the party? I really don’t think calling ourselves Shimmerists is helping.

SB<We’re going to be called Shimmerists no matter what. Our only choice is to retake the term ourselves.

A>Are you sure about that?

SB<Yes. Remember when you just said you wanted humans to have the option of turning into ponies and everyone called you a Shimmerist? And you got canceled just for that.

Don’t remind me…

SB<That’s where the bar is. If you want CET legalized, you’re a Shimmerist in the public eye. We gotta reform the label.

A>But I totally lost the guy I was just talking to the second I mentioned I’m a Shimmerist!

SB<What exactly did you say?

That…

Ari fell back into her train seat. She hadn’t actually said she was a Shimmerist!

A>Okay… I admit I choked.

SB<That’s your problem. You gotta be able to confidently call yourself a Shimmerist or it won’t work.

A>Look, it’s not as easy out here!

SB<I get that, but there are ways to ease the blow.

SB<Next time try the line ‘I’m a social Shimmerist if that’s what you mean’. That’s what we use on people who might be skeptical. That way they ask you what a social Shimmerist is and you get a chance to define the term yourself.

That was a little sneaky, but also kind of smart!

SB<We have primer courses on how to talk to non-Shimmerists, you know. Maybe you should check those out.

If Ari was going to be doing this… then Spring Breeze was right. She needed to get better at debate and talking to people… she’d practice this later. The next person she talked to, this would go better!

3-3

“Well, no! I’m not a Shimmerist… I’m, uh, a social kind of Shimmerist.”

“What?”

“I mean! I’m kind of a ‘social Shimmerist’… if that’s what you mean.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well like, we’re more left wing than the other Shimmerists and anti-authoritarian. Making sure everyone has a choice about transformation stuff is… well that’s really important to us.”

“Then why do you name yourself after someone who used forced transformations on people?”

“Guh! I mean! It’s just an icon… thing! Really!”

“I’m a social Shimmerist if that’s what you mean.”

“A ‘social’ Shimmerist?”

“Well to us, Sunset Shimmer is just an icon we’ve appropriated that represents a rejection of the way things are now. We want radical reform to get us out of this hole we’re stuck in. And before you ask, we don’t want to force anyone to turn into ponies like she did. In fact, we’re even more pro-consent than the Democrats or the Equestrians.”

“You’re saying the Shimmerists are more pro-consent than the government? How is that possible, exactly?”

“Well we’re the only ones who want to pass a morphological bill of rights. For example, don’t you think that forced transformations should be completely illegal?”

“It’s not?”

Hooked!

Ari was getting pretty good at this.

That time, she managed to get the lady to take two pamphlets!

“I’m a social Shimmerist. There’s a bunch of different types.”

Ari could say it with absolute confidence and certainty now!

“Ah, hey! So you’re a Shimmerist, too?”

“We don’t worship Sunset Shimmer or even agree with what she did,” Ari went right into her perfectly rehearsed routine, cooly, with her eyes closed. “It’s more like we’ve appropriated her as a… a wait. You what?!”

Ari’s eyes popped back open.

Ari looked at this guy for what might as well have been the first time. He was a bit older than her. Slim. Too slim. Wearing a black coat.

“I’m a Shimmerist, too.” He kept one hand in his pocket and turned the other up. “Mostly, I just want to be a pony more than anything else. And the Shimmerists are the only ones with the guts to just open the floodgates of transformation magic, you know?”

“I… also want to be a pony.” Ari lowered her face mask with the putty knife. “What was your name again?”

“You can call me Dresden.”

“Ari.” She had never given her name on one of these missions before. But… somehow just this stranger claiming to be a fellow Shimmerist put her at ease.

“You know, there’s an Applebees right down there.” He jabbed his thumb in the right direction. “You wanna sit down and talk for a minute? Bumping into another Shimmerist in real life… around here. That’s like a miracle, you know?”

“Yes!”

Ari remembered after sitting down that she hated Appelbees. And this guy better not be thinking they were on a date or anything like that. She got a little too swept up in the moment.

But so far he hadn’t done anything creepy and it was a public place so… it was probably okay.

They sat as far away from anyone else as they possibly could, way off in the far corner so they could speak more discretely.

“You purposely infected yourself so close to the end?” Dresden scratched at his temple. “How exactly did you get across the water to do that with all the bridge shut down?”

“Hmmm.” Ari tried finding something interesting worth looking at. “If the police ask that question, I was already on the other side.”

“You’re pretty gutsy! Next time take me with you.”

That wouldn’t have worked, given her method. But Ari wasn’t about to divulge anything like that.

“It still ended up being one of my better choices.” Ari blew the strands of green to one side. “This hair gives me more milage than you’d ever guess! There’s even talk on Whisper 3 that partials will be the first to get CET. Like, it’ll be easier to convince them to just let us finish transforming, you know?”

Occasionally, Ari got this mental image of herself standing before a sneering, unamused Purple princess going ‘no, no! See the hair? The hair counts!’

“You got into Whisper 3? I hear that’s so hard.”

Ari leaned back in her chair, chuckling quietly to herself. Partial privilege struck again.

“So what do you do for a living?” Dresden asked.

“Can I say I put up posters?” Ari asked.

What did Ari even do? It wouldn’t even be worth mentioning in an autobiography. That’s how checked out from work she was.

“That’s part of my problem. We all act like work and money make up your whole identity,” said Ari. “With ponies, it’s different! Who they are is wrapped up in their cutie marks, a reflection of what they actually love! That’s the question they ask when meeting for the first time. With us, it’s just what crappy, meaningless job you’re forced to do.”

“Based on what you were saying about your party, that makes sense,” said Dresden. “Though for me, I’m more interested in the concept of hyper-specialization. Each person devoting themselves to one job makes everything so much more efficient. And ponies can commit to that more fully. And it’s… like they get their own little superpower! Not all of them are amazing, but I have no idea how so few people are tempted by that. By actual magic powers!”

Ari nodded. She could relate to that feeling.

Though she took note that Dresden’s priorities might not be the same as her own. The guy was a techno-Shimmerist after all. To him, ponies being powerful was more important than them being more social.

“What about the vision?” Ari asked.

“What about it?”

“That’s like, the most important part of Shimmerism!” Ari spoke too loudly. She shot a worried look at the next closest table, but they didn’t hear.

“I thought it was turning people into ponies?”

“Well that too.”

“I mean, how are we any different from like… the Lunists or whoever in that case? Embracing ponification is what makes us distinct.”

“Okay, fine! Ponification is tied for first. But we’re not like Lunists because we’re willing to question the humans and those pony gods.”

“The humans?” Dresden pointed to himself.

“Partial.” Ari pointed to her green hair with the putty knife. Dresden gave it a weird look. “You know what I mean. And you gotta at least know about the vision. Upholding its morals is the greatest ideal for us to strive for. Power isn’t any good if you don’t care about anypony or anything else.”

“I guess my view on the vision might be a bit different from yours but hear me out. GPT-4, right?” Dresden squared his thumbs, framing Ari in them.

“GPT… oh! Is that the AI thing?” Ari frowned. “What are you on about?”

“Yeah! You’ve seen what it can do? It writes articles better than most humans, can pass an IQ test, the bar exam, do coding, have conversations with you.”

Ari heard of all this. Though it was mostly the AI art generators that had crept into her online feed, the talking one was likely a far bigger deal in the long run. Though where Dresden was going with this…

The waiter came to give them their drinks. Both stopped talking and watched the outsider carefully until she was done. Right now, Ari felt like a part of some clandestine order or assassins.

When she left, Dresden continued.

“If you haven’t been paying attention,” Dresden resumed, “these Ais have been getting better at an incredible pace. In another ten years, they’ll be up to GPT-9 and be able to run it on robots. Once that happens, nearly every job will be automated. As early as the 2030s.”

Ari put her mouth on her straw and drank slowly. Her own job was something vulnerable to GPT-4 already… She was living on the edge now. If she lost her job…

“And see? You’re worried.” Dresden snapped and pointed at her. “Why? You hate your job! Don’t you want it to go away?”

“Well yeah. But without money, I’ll die.” Ari spoke without taking the straw out of her mouth.

“I’m sure you have a solution to that.”

“The vision?” Ari perked up, letting the straw drop.

“Something needs to change in light of all this.” Dresden rapidly spun the straw in his drink, making the ice spin faster and faster. “We’re going to go through the biggest change since the industrial revolution, that will make the introduction of magic look relatively tame. In the face of automation, we need to change our ideas about how society works, how money and property work, how our value as individuals work.”

“So the vision!” Ari leaned forward, ever more excited.

“I don’t think that’s the only way.” Dresden stopped stirring his straw and shook his head. “But it’s the only one that has any serious momentum behind it. So yeah, I say let’s all do your post-capital commune thing.”

“I don’t know how I feel about total mass automation or super Ais,” said Ari. “But if you support the vision, then you’re alright with me! It’s good we agree on society’s over-obsession with work and property and all that. Maybe Techno and social Shimerists aren’t so different after all.”

Ari knew from talk on Whisper 3 that the two groups worked together a good deal. At least, lots of Techno-Shimmerists donated tons of money to them. Like serious, serious money. The SSP was the only political party pushing for the legalization of transformation magic, after all.

“Concepts like that will have to go eventually,” said Dresden. “Everyone’s acting like the world can stop changing when it's changing faster than ever. The government and Equestrians are just trying to turn back the clock. It’s kind of sad.”

Ari nodded.

“Ironically, I do think ponies will be the last ones to have actual jobs,” said Dresden. “Magic is going to be the hardest thing to replace with robotics.”

“So it’s a good thing the ponies aren’t as obsessed with work and the endless accumulation of 'wealth as the rest of us! I think the main advantage ponies have over humans is that they’re more social,” said Ari. “Everyone acts like gaining a herd instinct is the most horrible part of the transformation. But that’s the part that I want the most. I want to sign up for it.”

“Hell, I can think of so many reasons for being a pony.”

“I know! I wish I was a pony so badly.”

“Me too.”

Ari started kicking her legs under the table.

“And it sucks because I got so close!” She planted her face on the table.

“Yeah.” Dresden grew quite and forlorn as well, looking off into the distance. “I just keep thinking, if only it had lasted one more week… well there’s so many people who are dying right now who would have been saved.”

Ari lifted her face, suddenly worried Dresden might have had a bigger issue than her right now.

“Not to mention I’d get to be Full Dive right now.” His smile quickly returned. “Wonder what I’d be doing right now.”

“Full dive?”

“Oh, that’s like my pony name,” he said.

“You already have a pony name?” Ari worried she might be behind the curve.

“There’s a lot of Shimmerists in VRchat, we use our pony names on there. You haven’t picked out a pony name yet?” He asked. “I thought most of us did.

“I kind of want to. It’s just… I don’t know. Isn’t it a bit presumptuous? I feel like it’d be a cultural appropriation kind of thing.”

Dresden laughed. “You really are a lefty! Have you talked to pony Shimmerists? They want us to appropriate their culture.”

He was right about that one.

“Maybe.” Ari smiled at the idea. She did want a pony name but… just didn’t want to accidentally insult anypony. “I admit I came up with a couple of ideas. Maybe I’m really just having trouble picking. I was thinking of something like Arial Ace or Cloud Weaver or uh… Air Weaver?”

“You seem pretty confident you’ll be a pegasus.”

“Well.” Ari smiled. “I think maybe it’s just Ari sounds like Arial or Air is the thing that got me started. But that’d be my first choice. Maybe it’s just in my head or an actual partial thing, but I just feel like I’m ‘supposed’ to be a pegasus? I’d take any kind of pony, of course. But if they somehow figure out a way to let you pick which kind of pony you turn into, I’d pick pegasus for sure.”

“Oh! I bet eventually we’ll be able to have it so ponies can transform from one tribe to another whenever they want! You transform into a pegasus, fly up to the top of a building, then into a unicorn to operate your phone to take pictures or something. Or imagine ponies who can just download new cutie marks to become experts at anything with specialized magic on the fly.”

That kind of thing seemed so pie in the sky to Ari. At this point, it’d be a miracle if they got CET at all. Getting to fill out a form specifying exactly what color, gender, and tribe you wanted to be was the limit of science fiction to Ari’s mind.

This kind of techno-Shimmerist utopian technology wasn’t even something she could dream about yet.

“Not even the Equestrians can do permanent transformations on ponies with cutie marks, though,” said Ari. “CET is already the bleeding edge to them and even that much is considered impressive.”

“Well I know this isn’t going to happen tomorrow or anything like that. I meant eventually. Probably not for a long time. But AI might speed it way up. Have you seen stable diffusion? That’s getting crazy too! Everything is just converging!” Dresden threaded his fingers together. “And our best Ais right now are called transformers. Hehe. It all just fits.”

“Ugh. I hate those art AI... things.” Ari blew some bubbles into her drink to get out the frustration.

“Cause of the ‘plagiarism’ angle? Because you know, it’s more like–”

“No, no! It’s because ever since they came out everyone’s been making the same stupid joke about how my hands look like they’ve been generated by an AI.”

Dresden paused. Both of them looked down at Ari’s sleeves, both realizing Dresden had yet to see what her hands looked like. Dresden took a long sip of his drink while trying to figure out how to respond to this statement.

“Well that’s terrible.”

He took another long, awkward sip.

“But you know what?! I bet I got one that will change your mind on AI!” He changed the subject.

“And what’s that?”

“PonyMe is an AI that predicts what you’ll look like as a pony. It’s actually a lot cooler than it sounds at first.” Dresden went to open the app on his phone. “Super Cycle’s team made it.”

Super Cycle. Ari hadn’t made up her mind on how seriously to take that pony.

“That’s silly.” Ari leaned back deep into the couch, eyes closed. “What would it even base that on? Your clothes? Like a blue shirt equals blue fur? That’s totally lame. And ponies don’t even look a lot like the human they used to be. So it might as well just be making stuff up at random.”

“I dunno exactly what it does.” Dresden kept fiddling with his phone. “But it was trained on millions of before and after pictures. So if there are any trends it would have picked up on them. Here.”

Dresden took the photo and Ari’s eyes popped open.

“I’m telling you, no one fully understands how ETS works. So how is one of your silly AIs going to–”

He held the phone forward to show the AI’s interpretation of Ari as a pony and–

Wings!

“There!” Her face light up in elation as she leaned over the table for a closer look. “You see?! It made me a pegasus! I knew it! This thing can tell I’m a pegasus on the inside!”

Ari studied her pony self carefully. Green hair was obvious at this point, but it gave her blue fur on top of that.

“I thought you said it was silly.” Dresden smiled.

“Obviously I changed my mind! This AI is amazing! How do I get this on my phone?!”

Are took her right hand out of her sleeve. Dresden’s eyes went straight to it and she froze.

“You keep your phone strapped to the back of your hand?” He asked. “That’s pretty cool!”

Of course he’d say that.

After some instruction, Ari furiously downloaded PonyMe.AI. She needed this thing in her life.

“We gotta do you next! I wanna see you!”

“I already did this twenty-something times.” He flicked through his phone, then turned it back to Ari to show her a black unicorn with red hair. “But you’re right that your clothes influence it. When I wear black I’m a unicorn. Where I wear my yellow Super Cycle shirt it makes me an earth pony instead. But it’s really insistent that I have black fur. It’s pretty dang consistent with the face, too.”

He flipped through ten examples of PonyMe’s predictions of pony-Dresden. It really did look more or less like variations of the same pony each time. The most glaring flaw was that his eyes were different colors in each shot. But other than that…

“Why does it always give you black fur?” Ari asked.

“It’s machine learning, so no one really knows what it’s picking up on. But it seems to have figured out something or other. It’s usually consistent with that.”

“Huh. The AI knows something we don’t, eh? We’re getting to the bottom of this one.”

Ari uploaded several old pictures of herself from before ETS when it wouldn’t be so easy to guess her hair was green. Once again, it spat out the same pony with the right shade of green and that same blue fur.

Several more photos all yielded the same result!

They tried a few famous people who’d become ponies and it pretty much always got the colors (minus the eyes) right! The faces were more or less consistent too. But as Dresden said, the tribe of pony was little better than guessing.

Only occasionally would it make a serious mistake, like if the picture was excessively dark.

“Bwuh?! How does it know…?” Ari kept looking through the results with ever increasing amazement. “And why do your clothes affect what tribe you end up as?”

“See,” Dresden explained one of his theories. “It’s like, what clothes you wear reflects your personality to some extent. So the AI notices that people who wear certain types of clothes end up as certain types of ponies, right? And that’s why if you’re wearing a hoodie it’s like 4 or 5 times more likely to make you a pegasus.”

“Well I wear hoodies all the time so that must mean I’m 4 or 5 times more likely to be a pegasus.”

In her experiments, she found it did tend to push her into the pegasus category hard post-ETS. Even before then, that’s how it usually came out. The main exception was when she put in a picture of herself in a dress.

“It’s possible. In a couple of ways, PonyMe seems to understand how ETS works better than the Equestrians do, even. And it does seem to like making you a pegasus.”

“So the Equestrians still don’t understand how ETS decides your colors… but this AI does and we don’t know how it knows?”

“Basically. If it can already beat them to the punch on stuff like this, just imagine where AI will be in ten years. That’s why I think ponification is going to be easier and more widely available a lot sooner than most people think right now.”

Maybe Ari had underestimated Super Cycle after all. She’d need to look her up later.

The waiter finally came with their food, getting another cold stare from the silent Shimmerists. Perhaps more than anything else, sharing that look of suspicion towards non-Shimmerists made Ari feel closer to Dresden.

“Hey. Can I get your number or Discord or anything?” Ari asked. “Us Shimmerist need to stick together.”

Ari stayed up late, feeding every picture of herself she could find into PonyMe.

For the first two hours of playing through it, her smile was bright. She was having so much fun, giggling madly as she transformed herself over and over into the increasingly familiar blue pegasus. Whenever it decide she wasn’t a pegasus, she could just photoshop some goggles and a scarf on and that triggered its ‘you’re a pegasus’ sense hard.

Soon she ran out of photographs of herself… she started imputing some photos of her old friends from college, from high school… people she’d lost contact with and would likely never speak with again. Family members she’d lost one way or another.

But in the photographs, they were still together. They were ponies together… because ponies were never alone.

In all of her recent photos, after ‘growing up’ and getting a job, after doing what she was supposed to… Ari was alone… and human.

And at some point staring at the reflection of everything she wanted… at her pony self just a thin sheet of glass away, Ari suddenly decided that PonyMe wasn’t fun anymore. She was too close… too painfully close.

Ari closed her laptop and went to bed.

3-4

After meeting Dresden, Ari decided to give Super Cycle more of a fair shake than she had previously. It wasn’t that Ari was wholly ignorant of that pony, just that her libertarian leanings left a bad taste in Ari’s mouth. That and certain other online techno-Shimmerists weren’t always the brightest bunch.

Crypto-TF may have been kind of an idiot, but this week he scored a rare interview with someone who may or may not be an idiot, with Super Cycle herself. One of the very few pony techno Shimmerists, certainly the only prominent one.

Super Cycle was one of those ponies whose name Ari googled about once a week, just in case something came up. There was a non-zero chance Super Cycle would be the one to save the day in the end.

Surely the pony literally named ‘Super Cycle’, with a ten billion dollar investment fund and a massive compound in Nowhere, Texas, whose cutie mark was a neural implant chip was working on… something.

And if Super Cycle was a Shimmerist, it may even be something Ari wanted. Super Cycle had stated multiple times that she wanted to research ETS, and wanted to make transformation magic mainstream and ubiquitous. That she saw it as ‘the next big thing’ and would devote billions and billions of dollars into this. That eventually everyone would want to become a pony just like everyone eventually wanted a smart phone.

So there was hope.

Though then again, it could just turn out to be an NFT metaverse game.

Sadly she missed the first part of the interview due to work. But she did manage to find some popcorn at the store for the first time in… how long had it even been? Either way, she was eating that with a big spoon strapped to her hand as she leaned in close to her laptop.

Super Cycle was a yellow earth pony who always seemed to have a haughty smile, who always seemed to be looking down at you from some incredible height. She spoke slowly and with purpose.

“Oh not at all,” said Super Cycle. “Saying Sunset was like a god to us is an understatement. She was a god to us. One. Single. Pony. Against seven billion humans and every army in the world. And Sunset Shimmer would have won. No one, no matter how anti-pony can deny that. There was absolutely nothing the government or the army could do to her. All of us were completely helpless. Sunset Shimmer could have done absolutely anything with zero impunity.

“The amount of control and influence she had on us, on me, goes beyond the merely mortal level. No human has ever had as great an impact on our world as this lone actor. Sunset Shimmer, without exaggeration, is the most important person who has ever lived on this planet. Even if you hate her you can’t rightly call her anything less.

“And why did she lose? It’s only because another pony intervened. And it wasn’t that Twilight helped the government. I read the story over and over again. The United States was by far the junior partner in that alliance, unable to do anything without her. There was one point where Twilight Sparkle went back to Equestria for about five minutes. Sunset Shimmer escaped their captivity immediately.”

Crypto TF interrupted.

“Yeah, that one blows my mind every time,” Crypto-TF added. “So they had Sunset Shimmer drugged. She was in a coma, basically. And they had her surrounded by fifty marines. Probably the best ones they could find, like seal team six dudes. And Sunset Shimmer still beat all of them and escaped the military base just like that. In her freaking sleep. Like that’s the kind of gap we’re talking about here!”

“Exactly. And that’s not even to say how completely blindsided and useless all of our intelligence and surveillance agencies were. A disparity so vast simply cannot be ignored,” Super Cycle took control back. “That’s why the idea of going back to a world where we’re so helpless and feeble is ridiculous to me. Oh, I always wanted to transcend humanity. And I have. We should be thankful, at least, for the fact that Sunset chose not to destroy us or turn us into subservient slave-like creatures, like house elves or some such, but to make us like her. To bring us to her level. She has brought me to her heights!”

Rub it in why don’t you?

“Life is a struggle to evolve. Ponies, yes, are a step in the right direction for humans. But I’ll tell you this. It will not be the last step. We will become cybernetically and genetically enhanced ponies. We will become like gods compared to Sunset. That is my vision.

“Imagine using further augmentations to give ponies the powers of all the tribes, of alicorns, powers beyond that of alicorns. Imagine creating meta cutie marks that will grant us not just hyper-expertise in one area… but in all of them. And things beyond even that. Things that I would need to ascend to even imagine! That is the endpoint. Perhaps even somewhere further.”

Ari fell onto her back, trying to imagine it. Not just a pony… but a hyper-cyborg-alicorn god!

She couldn’t picture it. Just a normal pony would be more than enough.

But one thing Super Cycle proved was that ponies could be ambitious. Everyone was always acting like humans alone had the ability to innovate, dream, imagine, and desire. Super Cycle’s ambitions were maddening, devastating, and incomprehensible.

Sure, she was just one pony… but the humans and Equestrians used the rare example of cruel ponies to ‘disprove’ that ponies were more moral. So it was only fair Ari did the same.

And wasn’t Super Cycle exactly what the people who made those arguments about the importance of ‘human innovation’ wanted? To push magic and technology to their absolute limits and become hyperbolic meta beings? That was where it would all lead… so why did they hate people like Super Cycle and Ari so much if they were the truest bearers of that vision?

There was a 100% chance Purple would gawk at the idea of an army of cybernetic artificial alicorns, let alone a nation of them. Despite being so desperate to create a weapon to surpass the devourers that she’d sacrifice anything to do it.

“The question on everyone’s mind is how close are you?” Crypt-TF asked. “Are you working on any… ETS-adjacent projects. Like, you are the greatest genius ever. You gotta be closest out of everyone here.”

“Sadly, no. Transformation magic, indeed most magic, is banned from being researched. And the government is all over my laboratories. It’s a shame America seems so hellbent to give up this golden opportunity to become the magic capital of the world.”

“Do you think there’s a good chance that will eventually change? I mean, the stuff you’re talking about is just so cool! It’s just amazing how visionaries like you can have such amazing ideas!”

“Yes. Do you really think every nation on the planet is going to pretend that this power doesn’t exist forever? That America’s enemies will also choose to handicap themselves by keeping a lid on this? It will happen.

“I think we’re so wrapped up in our internal affairs that we forget nations other than America exist. I have some counterparts in China and India. The latter has a pony population that is almost zero. India especially sees it as incredibly unfair that America should hoard all the magic for itself. They want CET so they too can have the ability to control the weather and more… from their perspective is America being deeply unfair and greedy.

“And as for China? I can’t give names, but there is much more optimism and hunger there. I think the Chinese will make serious efforts towards transformation magic and ponification in hopes of finally overtaking America. And they might if we remain afraid too long.”

“So like,” said Crypto-TF. “The Chinese start encouraging everyone to become ponies to create a more efficient society and we get left behind?”

“Perhaps. Though I am sure the people here will eventually wake up. We’ll eventually see that transformation and augmentation are the only way to compete moving forward. The floodgates will open eventually. Perhaps the government will even go from pushing rehumanization to pushing ponification. Either way, once those doors finally open and the shackles fall, I will be ready. Believe me.”

Ari started looking up how hard it was to move to China or India.

India was probably her best bet. Of all the major world populations, India was the one spared ETS to the maximum extent. As in, less than a tenth of a percent of their population were ponies now. No matter what Purple wanted you to think, that put them at a massive disadvantage going forward.

As Super Cycle said, they were the most pro-CET nation (save North Korea but that hardly counted). They were the largest nation that refused to condemn all use of transformation magic in the UN for much the reasons outlined just now. From their perspective, the magic-rich United States was just forcing the magic-poor nations like them to remain in their dust forever.

India was sanctioning all kinds of things and rolling out the red carpet for anypony who wanted to move there.

And hey, if they wanted people to sign up to become pegasi and do weather stuff for them, Ari would be the first to enroll. Though sadly, most of the world would see that arrangement as absolutely immoral for some reason.

“Okay, so there’s this group of people,” Crypto-TF continued, “who say ‘oh we need humans. We need normal humans because… they’re more ambitious than ponies’. Right? That’s the common one. Humans are greedy and ambitious and that’s what drives innovation forward. You know… the pro-human crowd talking about how humans are greedy, conniving little guys. Hehe. So if you offer everyone CET and they all go for it, we’re all cyborg ponies, the innovation just stops. Space aliens kill us. That’s the main argument against Shimmerism I keep hearing.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s an issue at all.” Super Cycle got her most dangerous smile yet. “If that truly is the case… all I need to do is create a new tribe of ponies that are ten times more ambitious than humans and twice as greedy. The people who say that’s a good thing can sign up for that transformation instead and everything will be fine. Though I seriously doubt the people making these complaints care anything about innovation or progress.”

“Whoa! That is just… such an amazing idea! Mind blown!” Crypto-TF was really sucking up… “But then there’s this question of you know, what will happen to the people who don’t want to become ponies. Who doesn’t want to be cybernetic techno wizards?”

“A long time ago, our ancestors were presented with a choice to stay in the comfort and safety of their trees or venture out onto the vast lands. Many stayed in the trees and they’re still there today. Perhaps they’re happy, I really can’t tell. A similar fate must await those who do not embrace transformation, I’m sure.”

Ari certainly wouldn’t be one of the people left in the trees. If anyone gave her the chance to get down that was…

3-5

Stuck at work, more importantly, stuck listening to two of the women she was stuck there with talking about the latest news story.

Humans did mass shootings just about every day and nobody ever cared about that. But when one pony murdered someone? Then it was all over the news. Everybody lost their freaking minds.

“That pony didn’t just kill him either,” said one of the women. “He did it from outside the house. Tore that poor guy to shreds using magic without even coming inside. Ponies can just… do that.”

“What makes you do something so brutal?” The other one asked.

Pied had a good reason! As far as murder went. A rehumanizer drove his brother to suicide and would never face any justice for that.

Not that Ari condoned murdering abusive rehumanizers or anything like that. Obviously. But she did keep getting texts from their offices and frankly could sympathize with the desire to end those bastards.

She could at least understand it. Meanwhile humans were out killing people over parking spots and boxes of oatmeal. Both of those happened last week but no mainstream news coverage.

“You always hear the ponies repeating their little mantras like ‘ponies are kind’ and all that,” said the other girl. “That’s pretty easily disproven by stuff like this, isn’t it?”

The number of murders ponies had committed so far was exactly five. Ari knew that because all of them were highly publicized. The number of murders from humans in that time was far more than a hundred times higher! There had been ten mass shootings in the past week.

Of course humans were more violent than ponies! Humans were worse than ponies in damn near every way. How could these people not see that? More and more Ari thought non-Shimmerists were just blind, living in this little anti-reality bubble that shut out all truth.

But Ari couldn’t actually say any of that. Not in enemy territory. She couldn’t even say the truth out loud. All she could do was simmer quietly holding her tongue.

“You know a lot of them are so convinced by those mantras that they want to bring back ETS to force us all to be ‘kind’ ponies like that murder,” she went on.

“The thought that ETS even exists is scary enough. Somebody can just alter your body and mind without your consent now? You have to keep that buried; you know?”

“You look really intense right now.” One of them turned to Ari. “Did you have something to say?”

Ari froze for a second before regaining her confidence.

She’d been practicing for stuff like this. Reading online guides on talking to non-Shimmerists, watching videos, and practicing on the streets.

You couldn’t argue people out of their emotions. If they were scared… redirect that fear. ETS legalization? Ari was equipped with an entire armory of Shimmerist talking points on that subject. It’d been like oxygen to her the past few months.

She just had to do it in a way that redirected their fear of it.

“Honestly? The fact that ETS is so scary is why I think it should be legal,” said Ari.

Surprise. That was the first step.

“What do you mean?” One of the other girls asked, curious as planned.

“ETS is even scarier than all that,” said Ari. “Like a lot. I mean, I don’t care how smart Sunset Shimmer was, she was still just one person. If she could make it, then someone else can make it again. North Korea, Russia, China, and every terrorist group on the planet? You really think they don’t want this just because it’s illegal? And it could have been way worse. Like what if someone decides to turn us into morlocks?”

It was easy if she were just repeating talking points, she’d heard a million times from Ragnarök.

“Into what?”

“Like from the Time Machine?”

The second woman got the reference… sort of. Ari hesitated remembering not everybody was in her comfy rabbit hole.

‘Morlock’ was a term social Shimmerists used to describe a hypothetical nightmare scenario where…

“Like the government decides to ‘encourage’ us to all turn into mindless worker drones,” said Ari. Sort of like what rehumanization does to ponies. “Or some terrorist could turn you into a self-aware bucket of slime or worse. And it could happen at any time. Someone could be ten minutes away from releasing it for all we know.”

She had them hanging on the fear she stoked. Good! Ari was taking control of the situation. Redirecting their fear just like the online guide said to. And now…

“And if we haven’t done any research into transformation magic ourselves, we’re just going to be screwed,” said Ari.

“But they have the rehumanization spell.”

“The Equestrians have that. And it doesn’t work on ponies with cutie marks, right? That means you can get stuck as whatever some sick freak wants you to be. And the terrorists will be way ahead of us if transformation magic isn’t legalized.”

“I’m sure if someone released a worse version of ETS, the government would change their minds about transformation magic.” She tried to clutch onto some hope.

“Then why not change our minds now? Get a head start?” Ari suggested.

Now it was their turn to start getting down. The two of them ruminated on that for a while before…

“Maybe your right.”

Ari had to fight back her smile. She couldn’t give away the game now. So she took a deep drink of her smoothie.

She did it! She did the redirect the fear technique!

She’d even been expecting the conversation to go on two steps longer like it usually did when Ragnarök used these talking points. Ari felt as though she’d just discovered a magic sword! Normal people couldn’t stand up to the talking points she was equipped with now.

Back home.

Ari closed all the blinds and looked around her dark apartment just to be sure. She pulled up the folders filled with poster files on her computer and went to the most subversive category.

One of them was a picture of Sunset Shimmer, smiling wide in front of a large crowd of ponies, leading them into a bright future as the sun rose behind them. Sunset always leads to sunrise.

This sort of thing was not socially acceptable.

Ari looked over her shoulder before hitting print. The SSP wouldn’t mind her doing one or two posters for personal use.

Her heart was racing as she put it up on the wall, directly across the bed so she’d see it first thing upon waking up. She placed a hand over her heart, saluting the image of Sunset Shimmer.

“Praise Sunset Shimmer!”

Ari breathed heavy, winded.

Then she smiled and collapsed back onto the bed, laughing. Doing something so completely forbidden was such catharsis!

By the end of the week, Ari had four more posters of Sunset around her house, deciding that was enough.

Though then she ordered a Sunset Shimmer plushie that the SSP sold. It was basically a political donation so that was okay. And she ended up with three of them. Everypony she knew had a little bit of Sunset merch. Even Dresden had a big sticker of her cutie mark on the back of his laptop. So it felt normal enough despite her being a ‘terrorist’.

But that was it. Just the posters and the three plushies.

Though after that she also got some orange pajamas in Sunset Shimmer’s colors, one with her cutie mark on the back. And these Sunset Shimmer slippers. And a Sunset Shimmer sticker for the back of her own laptop. But that was it.

For now.

Mostly because Ari couldn’t afford to buy any more stuff. But damn if she didn’t want more.

3-6

Once again Ari found herself at the edge of Secaucus junction, sitting on the lonely bench. Today she was kicking her legs, phone excitedly pressed against her head.

She’d tried calling into Ragnarok’s show a few times but this was the first time she got in! At least, the pony who pre-screened the calls said he’d patch her through in just a minute.

She was through! Ari jumped to her feet, keeping the phone pressed hard against her head.

“Praise Sunset Shimmer!” Ari declared.

“PS. Who’s this?”

“I’m a stage one partial stuck out here in New York. Um. Can I use my pony name? It’s Cloud Weaver.”

“Go ahead, Cloud Weaver. Humans taking pony names is a beautiful thing.”

Ari bounced up and down on her toes, a little giddy Ragnarok used her pony name. She settled on Cloud Weaver as her official pony name recently, going as far as to change her profile name to that on Whisper 3.

Of course, you couldn’t change your name to a pony name in New York. Not that Ari was brave enough to do that either way.

“First off, I wanted to back you up on the brainwashing thing! I’m nowhere near a pony and I want to be one of you more than anything in the world! And that was before I became a partial, too. I wanted to be a pony during ETS, even. As soon as I heard about what full ponies were like. I even purposely infected myself.”

“I swear I have a million humans lined up behind Cloud here wishing they could have what we got,” said Ragnarok. “Plenty of humans go to crazy lengths like this just to get a taste of equinity. And guess what? What’s your main reason for wanting to be a pony? The one thing you’d take if that was all you got?”

She’d already answered that question to his assistant so Ragnarok may already know.

“Community! Ponies are the solution to capitalism!” Ari proudly declared. “Do you have any idea how much it sucks over here in a dead zone? There is not a single doubt in my mind my life would have been so much better if I had been transformed. Even if the magic I got sucked, it wouldn’t matter because that doesn’t matter in pony communities. You’re actually part of something.”

“Sure. Well I’ll ask you a common question from our little friends,” said Ragnarok. “Why can’t you ‘just have’ community as a human? You know, change without changing. Radically alter your life without disrupting the system.”

“I feel like if I tried that around here, I’d get shot. Or at least laughed into oblivion,” said Ari. “I tried communal living a couple of times and it didn’t work out. Everyone seemed to think humans were incapable of doing such things, just living happily together, and after seeing how easily all you ponies did it… I finally believe them. But they’re not happy about it.”

“Because that narrative no longer serves capital interests,” said Ragnarok.

Ari nodded along, then shook her head at the last moment.

“I still feel as though most ponies don’t appreciate it, though. One thing I wish ponies would realize is that it really isn’t as easy for us humans. I can’t just stand up without getting cut down. You were all handed this amazing gift from Sunset Shimmer. And I get that some ponies were ungrateful for it, but… it’s not like you all just had sudden epiphanies and decided to be better. Being ponies made you better. And that’s why I want it too. To be… better. To be able to live in a better world.”

“Exactly! Do you all see this? The reason the human is afraid of stepping up is because she’s alone and thus too weak to even try to change her life. Maybe changing your life is easy for an immortal princess with infinite power, but not here. Being ‘independent’ doesn’t make you cool. It makes you pathetic! Being alone is the greatest weakness there is. That’s why they want to make it so hard for you all to do anything but work, why they want to destroy unions and all other forms of collectivization.”

“That’s why I know,” said Ari. “That the Shimmerists are the only ones fighting for us! The Lunists, Equestrians, and the supposedly ‘pro-human’ government, all of them want us to remain divided and easy for the capitalists to exploit! The SSP are the people trying to help humans the most. That’s why the idea that you hate us is so ridiculous to me. I have tons of pony friends, Shimmerist friends and…”

That conversation went on for a long time. Ari was a little tired… but satisfied with how it went. It felt so good to say that kind of stuff out loud. She could never get enough of it.

Ari was on the train ride back when she got a message on Whisper 3 from a totally new pony.

DS<This is Ari Webber? Cloud Weaver?

Being referred to as either of those on Whisper 3 was a little unnerving. She’d confided her real and pony names to a few of her friends, but publicly she was ‘Nohands’ on there. She certainly didn’t link her real name to the account.

DS<I’m with the SSP, Nelson Residence more specifically. Would you be willing to come to Ragnarök’s show again? When we ask you?

DS… that was that unicorn in the background of Ragnarök’s videos. Nopony online seemed to know what DS stood for. Maybe Dual Screens, but probably not. He was kind of a mysterious pony.

And Ari couldn’t find any more information on him than just ‘DS’ and that his pony community was Nelson Residence, the same as Ragnarök. He had a blank Whisper 3 account, no picture, no info filled out, no cutie mark (those that had them made sure to keep them proudly displayed).

Only thing Ari knew about him was that the cops seemed to hate that pony. He famously got arrested for jaywalking twice, had racked up a huge list of minor crimes in just a couple of months, and seemed to get in trouble with the law every time he went outside. The theory in the fan base was that DS had a dangerous cutie mark and the government was desperately searching for an excuse to throw him into some dark dungeon forever.

But that was just wild speculation.

As for going on the show again. It had been an exhilarating experience.

A>Probably. What do you mean ‘when I call you’?

DS<The number you called in with. Somepony will text you when an opportune time for you to come on is.

DS<We want to promote more humans who strongly believe in our cause. Certain things will be easier for you to say out loud than a pony.

DS<Saying yes could lead to more opportunities.

Ari looked up at the train’s ceiling, thinking of her dwindling bank account.

“I could use some other opportunities,” Ari said under her breath. “The only place my job is leading to is a cardboard box.”

But that’s how it was with humans. Work hard, get screwed.

It was obvious what they were going for. Have Ari be more or less their puppet… Though, no. Ponies were generally better than that. She supposed they weren’t taking advantage of her or anything. Not if she’d just be speaking her honest opinions.

And she did want to make a difference, however small.

A>What things do you want me to say that would be hard for a pony?

DS<Do you think being a pony is better than being a human? That humans aren’t really equal to ponies? Nothing worse than that if you don’t want to.

DS<I won’t ask you to say anything you don’t believe. Just to say it at convenient times.

Ari bit her lip. Anypony who knew her Whisper 3 account would have seen Ari posting stuff like that all the time.

A>I might lose my job if I get caught.

DS< As I said, I can make opportunities available to you if you say yes. Ponies don’t operate like humans. We don’t see people as resources to be exploited and discarded. You help us, you’ll be taken care of.

DS<Don’t worry so much about money.

Maybe Ari was thinking too much like a human… too obsessed with money.

This really was starting to sound like her golden opportunity to get in good with the ponies. If there was even a 1% chance of becoming a member of a pony community, it’d be worth her reputation with the other humans. Hell, Ari didn’t even care what those people thought anymore. She was only in that game for the money.

So maybe this was the opposite of selling out?

A<Are you offering to let me into a pony community if I do what you ask?

Obviously, she’d agree to damn near anything for that.

One of the main barriers to humans joining pony communities was actually the government itself. It did not want you skipping work to go live with the ponies. It wanted you in the damn factory slaving away. So while pony communities did have some legal status, joining as a human was impossible right now. Even stage one partials had to go through immense paperwork to be legally recognized as a member. Enough that a normal person would need help.

DS<That depends on how you conduct yourself and how useful you’ll prove.

DS<If you want a guarantee now, I’ll offer you this. We’ll ship you to any country that legalizes ponification the moment it happens, paying all expenses. If you agree to be in a commercial afterward talking about how happy you are with the transformation.

DS<But I can promise you won’t have to worry about money so long as you’re helping us. Let me know if you get in any trouble and I’ll take care of it.

That certainly sounded like a 1% chance! Better, this would mean Ari didn’t have to wait an eternity for America to legalize it… any nation would be good enough. Nelson Residence had a huge legal presence, so they really could grease the wheels too.

This was the biggest step towards becoming a pony Ari could possibly take right now.

A>Alright. I’m in. PS! We can do this.

DS<Thank you. For your prior contribution to our advertisement campaigns as well. Somepony will contact you tomorrow.

And that was that only…

Wait.

How had he found her real name so quickly? Ari only introduced herself as ‘Cloud Weaver’.

Whelp. Hopefully, they were on the same side now.

What was the worst that could possibly happen?

It was only a few days later when Ari received her first summon, instructing her to listen and call in once Ragnarök’s guest was on. Nothing here was new, exactly. He was debating yet another Lunist, treading what was now familiar water to Ari.

She could do this in her sleep!

“Okay, we got Cloud Weaver, a human from New York who was on the show just a couple of days ago.

Ari always got a little kick when somepony called her that.

“Yeah! I just wanted to say Lunists are way out of touch,” said Ari. “They have no idea what it’s like. We don’t want their charity. We want to be their equals. And I know you can’t say it, but since I’m a human I’ll say it for you. We’re not equal to ponies.”

“Really? That’s a spicy one. You’re outright saying you’re not equal to a pony?”

“Are any of my fellow humans really dumb enough to think that? That we’re equal to ponies like, uh, like that forest-making one who just gets to be a billionaire because she got the good magic? Like the ones that can melt your brains by looking at you? Let alone somepony like Purple who can live a billion years, cast planet-altering spells, and do who knows what? And what? We have fucking hands? I feel like a total sucker here.”

“Well I’ll agree with you on this. Magic, if we don’t change the system, will only make our inequality worse. Do we really want to live in a society where the ponies with incredible magic are encouraged to trample and exploit the rest of us like the billionaires do? If we ‘reunite’ with the humans on their terms, that’s what’s going to happen people. The only thing magic will bring you is an even harder life if the human government has its way.”

“You’re totally right! Us humans, we’ve never done anything to prove Sunset Shimmer wrong have we? I take inspiration from ponies just like the Harmonists want, but that’s just not enough. Society has never ‘just changed’ or whatever. We do need to become ponies to move on. Everybody says humans can live in peaceful, collective societies? Well guess what? You’re fucking right! I believe you.”

“Yeah?! Well guess what, Lunist dog! I’m a human and I agree with Ragnarök! The Shimmerists treat us way better than you, the human government, or anyone else!”

“Well we have a human right here! What do you say Cloud?”

“I say fuck you! Ragnarök is right! I want to be a pony!”

That was how it was for the next few weeks. Ari, as Cloud Weaver, became the go-to ‘I’m a human and I agree with everything Ragnarök just said!’ girl. In fact, she was styled as a little more extreme than Ragnarök, able to outright say things like ‘humans and ponies aren’t equal’. Which was true. Ari never felt equal to them. They had it so much better than her.

She’d already lost track of how many times she’d been on the stream. But all in all, it was great! Ari felt like this was the next step up from her posters. She really was doing something. Probably not much, but something positive for the world.

Ari walked past that abandoned parking lot yet again on her way home from work. They put up a fence to defend the sanctity of the empty building. A fence Ari had vandalized to hell and back, covering half of it with pro-pony posters.

There really was no teaching humans, was there?

Back home, she sat down to find a less urgent message, this time from Spring Breeze.

SB<Friendo! How hard would it be for you to take a few days off of work?

Ari carefully scrutinized the message. Hopefully, they weren’t going to ask her to take time off to do more volunteer work for the SSP. Ari already dedicated all of her free time to them and…

On second thought she’d love to devote all of her time to working for them. It was just a matter of making enough money to survive. Something she wasn’t so good at these days.

A thought crept into the back of her mind. It hadn’t been long ago that DS mentioned ‘other opportunities. She hadn’t spoken to him again after that but… could this…?

She didn’t let the thought get her hopes up just yet. Getting to work for ponies for a living would be a dream come true.

CW>That depends on what this is about.

(Ari’s username on Whisper 3 was Cloud Weaver now. Her fears really had been for nothing. The ponies were all so supportive of her taking a pony name.)

SB<There’s a Social Shimmerist conference out in Idaho in two weeks. It’ll be from Thursday to Sunday, but it’d be best if you came in Wednesday.

SB<I’ll actually be there myself! And so will April and a bunch of my friends. Ragnarök too.

SB<In fact, he specifically wanted us to get you to come out.

Ari was getting invited to a Shimmerist conference? To Shimcon?!

Even more exciting was the idea Ragnarök had personally invited her over. He was pretty high up the SSP ladder. One or two more steps up and Ari would be talking to the head of Nelson Residence himself.

Yet she didn’t dare get her hopes up they’d offer her a job just yet…

CW>Will there be any other humans there?

SB<As far as I’m aware, you’re the only one to get an invite like this. I know there will be a couple of others on Saturday. But you might be the sole human until then.

SB<If you come early.

Ari? Alone with the ponies? Not one other human in sight?!

It was like Spring Breeze had just offered to ascend her to Pony Valhalla. Only an offer of actual ponification could have been better. She could finally get away from this stupid, toxic dead zone. Even if it was just for a weekend.

CW>I’ll do whatever it takes to get there!

Ari hadn’t felt this kind of determination since her failed mission to become a pony. But this time it’d be different. Ponies made it possible! She wouldn’t fail again, not with the help of ponies. It was just like Ragnarök said. Being alone was what had made her weak up until now.

She’d request time off at work first thing tomorrow! Even if her boss said ‘no’ she’d just suddenly get sick on that day and to hell with the consequences.

3-7

Ari got up early that Wednesday morning with a long trip ahead of her. She took the train to Philadelphia, then transferred to another one heading further west. Spring Breeze and some other ponies would pick her up at the station.

This was already the furthest west she’d ever been, never having gone past Pennsylvania. Growing up she’d been very much locked into her tiny microcosm of the world she’d been born into. As a young adult… she supposed she had some freedom to move around wherever but maybe it just never registered to her. She’d wanted her freedom so badly but never thought to use it…

Never once had she thought of traveling around, making a trip to any faraway land. Even just moving around New York and New Jersey on the train had seemed an adventure already. She imagined most people would scoff at somebody who said they’d never been outside these three states.

Even now, on the longest trip she’d ever made she was only going halfway to the west, to where the ponies had things under control to some extent. She was going to the border of the promised land but not in it just yet.

Some doubts lingered in her mind as she came within three stops of her destination. She would be the only human around for a few days…

It wasn’t that she was afraid of ‘racism’ or anything. That was just a stupid meme created by the government to hold Shimmerism down. The Shimmerists were the most accepting of Ari, the ones who wanted to help humans enough to actually do something other than just hope the system would randomly fix everything someday.

It was more… embarrassing? Maybe this was how a fat person felt wearing a bikini to a beach party. A beach party where she was the only overweight person among a hundred models.

There was no secret that Ari was ashamed of her humanity. She tried reminding herself that nopony would ever be more disgusted with her form than Ari herself was. Hopefully.

The train finally reached her station. She got out to look for Spring Breeze’s van. It had still been dark when she woke up this morning but now the midday sun made the world bright and warm.

Something that brightened the world even more passed her by. An actual pony got off the train just before she did. And more ponies were waiting outside.

There were actually ponies here! They weren’t the majority but they were noticeable.

Ari’s doubts vanished the second she saw them. They really were such angelic-looking creatures! Just being around them made her happy. Already it felt like a different world. Things were more ‘alive’ here.

But where was Spring? Ari could find plenty of ponies but none of them were the right color… only when a pegasus got off the train and immediately took to the sky did Ari remember. Flying was only banned in the overwhelmingly human ‘dead zones’ but not here.

She looked up to find Spring Breeze up in the air, a break in the clouds revealing the sunny skies right behind her. They made eye contact and Spring flew down, practically tackling Ari with her.

“Friendo!”

Ari regained her balance, turning around once with Spring Breeze in her grasp. Meeting your internet friends was supposed to be weird in real life, but if anything Spring was cuter in person! She was so dang soft too. Ari could just hug her forever and never get enough.

Tears in her eyes, she held Spring Breeze close, getting an affectionate nuzzle just under her chin. Ari could kind of understand why humans were always bothering ponies, asking if they could pet them.

It was so easy to hold her up too. Pegasi were really light! Or maybe all ponies were. Ari would have to see.

“It’s so good to finally see you in person, Ari!” Spring Breeze pulled her head back just enough to look Ari in the eyes. “Oh, or did you want me to call you Cloud Weaver?”

Ari agonized over that decision. It was like the final stage of coming ‘out’.

“Either one is fine,” she said.

“I got you a present!”

Spring Breeze gestured to her unicorn friend who levitated a surprisingly nice jacket. Orange, specifically Sunset Orange as it was now called, Ari’s new favorite color. It had huge pockets in it and long sleeves, just like Ari liked.

“We made it ourselves,” said Spring Breeze. “I know you like oversized shirts so we made it big. Check out the back”

Ari turned it over, finding a symbol embroidered on the back. It was Sunset Shimmer’s cutie mark and the words, written in white, ‘heroes never die’.

“I love it! But won’t this make all the ponies think I’m trying too hard to fit in?”

“Not at all. Getting a human to wear something like this is the best feeling in the world, trust me.”

“Well I won’t stop you from getting the best feeling in the world.” Ari put the jacket on. It fit her perfectly! Which was to say it was too big. She preferred oversized coats to more easily slide her hands into the sleeves.

Ari carefully looked around. Not everybody, or even everypony, here would be a Shimmerist or appreciate the jacket. But Ari could be brave. She wasn’t alone anymore.

None of them gave any sign of noticing, let alone objecting.

“You look great in that!” Spring gave her a nuzzle. “Of all the humans I’ve converted to Shimmerism, you’re my favorite.”

“Ha! Do you convert a lot of humans to Shimmerism?”

“I’m up to twenty-three... explicitly.” Spring giggled. “But probably a lot more indirectly.”

Spring Breeze really was a hero. Ari wished she could be that effective. All those posters had to have done something. Just probably not very much.

One of the vans, close to the only one left, honked at them.

“Oh, we should get back there. We got a little bit of driving to do still,” Spring warned. “A couple more ponies to pick up before we head over to the house.”

There was one and only one thing that became much cheaper. And that was cars.

Ponies didn’t want cars. They wanted vans and buses. And they strongly preferred electric vehicles over anything else due to their sensitive noses and ears. Towns taken over by ponies often banned non-EVs entirely.

That meant your standard ICE passenger car had simply lost 25% of its demand overnight. A hundred million cars suddenly appeared on the used car market as ponies tried to sell them for any price they could get. The SSP had a fleet of a hundred thousand of them just sitting around. You could easily get one for free these days if you knew the right pony to ask about it.

So the van wasn’t surprising. But it was a sight to see an endless stream of ponies quickly pouring out when Spring opened the door. There had to be fifteen stuffed in there! Ari could hardly keep up with all of Spring Breeze’s introductions.

“They’re packed in there, huh?” Ari looked them over. Even if she was squished, being packed in with so many ponies sounded like a dream come true. If Ari couldn’t be a pony she could at least be covered in them.

“Yo! You!” The unicorn driver called out to Ari. “Shotgun! You’re the only one!”

Ari quickly figure out she meant to sit in the front seat and got in. The unicorn started the van, then grabbed the wheel with her magic, driving off easily enough. The pony did need a booster seat to see over the dashboard. Ari couldn’t see them working the pedals.

“What do you mean?” Ari asked. “That I’m the only one.”

“Yeah, get this,” said the unicorn. “Unicorns are allowed to drive in Illinois but we’re not allowed to sit in the passenger seat. Figure that one out. Lots of really weird laws like that till things catch up.”

“Oh, I get it.” Ari leaned against the window. “I’m the only one who can sit up here.”

“Yep! The seat you’re in hardly ever sees action.”

Looking back, Ari did wish she could be squished up with all the adorable ponies in the back row. But if they were picking up even more ponies than this, they would need the room. Even this small amount of separation was a lot.

They were chatting away back there, and seemed to know each other really well. It was difficult for Ari to get a word in.

It wasn’t long until they were on the highway. Spring Breeze started fidgeting her wings about as soon as they started to go fast.

“You okay back there?” Ari asked her.

“You don’t know what it’s like being a pegasus in a car,” said Spring Breeze. “You know that feeling when you’re stuck behind someone going ten under the speed limit? It’s like that! You just want to fly.”

Only then did Ari notice the distinct lack of pegasi. Only two of the ponies back there had wings. Spring Breeze and one stallion who looked half asleep. Tiny for a stallion and an unusual green color. She supposed there really was no reason to not just fly places unless they were tired.

“What are the restrictions like in Illinois, anyway?” Ari asked. “I’ve seen a couple of pegasi flying over the highway.”

Those little guys were fast, too! Easily able to outpace seventy miles.

“Oh! You can fly over anything that isn’t private property. But no more than 200 yards upwards,” said Spring Breeze. “You know how humans are. Those other humans. Sometimes they’ll call the cops for ‘trespassing’ when you zip over their lawn for a hundredth of a second.”

The tired pegasus woke up however slightly. “That one’s always fun, huh? But yeah, you can fly over most highways in the nation… save a couple of asshole states. Don’t recommend it though. Busy highways stink. Only good if you’re worried about getting lost.”

“So you can fly alongside the car?” Ari asked.

“Oh yeah! In fact…” Spring Breeze climbed over the tired pegasus and rolled down the window. “I’m going to stretch my wings a second.”

Spring Breeze jumped right out the window. Ari stuck her head out the front window to get a better look!

Spring fell behind rapidly before unfurling her wings and stopping hard. It wasn’t long before came bounding up and forward again, never even touching the ground. Soon she was neck and neck with the van, right next to Ari. They were face-to-face.

“That’s incredible!” Ari had to shout over the rushing wind. She put an elbow on the cil and leaned out and over. “Are you allowed to jump out of cars like that?!”

“Huh?!” Spring Breeze had to shout to be heard over the wind. “Well, not really! But no cops no problems! Hey, watch this!”

Spring Breeze straightened herself out a little and began making prancing motions with her legs as she bobbed up and down. She never actually touched the ground, but the effect was the same. It looked like she skipping alongside the car at some seventy miles an hour.

Ari laughed. Next, Spring did a little flip before zipping far ahead of the van. They passed her a minute later, sitting on the side of the road, beckoning to them as in imitation of a hitchhike.

How Ari wished that was her! How badly she wished to be racing alongside the car by Spring Breeze’s side!

She could almost picture Purple’s response to that. She’d look Ari right in the eye with the smuggest grin in history and say ‘Ah! But you get to ride shotgun! That’s just as cool as flying, right? Oh! Or maybe you can just get a pilot’s license and your own personal jet! Haha!’

That bitch would totally say something like that! Most people in society still felt the same way. The whole ‘get a pilot’s license meme was so infuriating...

But not here, at least. The other Shimmerists could at least sympathize with Ari’s pains and desires.

“She’s really showing off, huh?” The second pegasus fidgeted as if watching her made him restless.

He chuckled and turned to Ari.

“I think she’s making the poor heathen ape feel bad! Hey! You want me to show her up? My talent is flying specifically. I can run circles around her.”

Maybe Ari made her shame a little too obvious!

Spring Breeze landed on the roof of the van a moment later. Leaning over the edge, she stuck her head back inside the passenger window.

“What were we talking about?”

“I asked her if she wanted me to dunk on you!” He called out to her.

“Ah! Nope!” Spring Breeze laughed and swung back into the car. “That’s enough showing off.”

“Thanks.” Ari turned back to face the unfamiliar pegasus. “But I’m not a heathen. I officially converted to Shimmerism a while ago.”

“Yeah!” Spring pressed her muzzle against him, defending Ari. “I don’t even know how to make her jacket more explicit! Does it have to say ‘Hi, I’m literally a Shimmerist’ for you to get it?”

“Gah!” He tumbled over. “Sorry! Sorry! It was just a slip!”

“That poor human has to do all of this without Shim Sham’s help and you’re off calling her a heathen,” one of the others chimed in.

“I said it was a mistake!”

“We need more humans to become like her if we’re going to fix this planet,” they continued their lecture. “So have a little respect. Praise Sunset Shimmer!”

“Praise Sunset Shimmer!” All of the echoes with enthusiasm, Ari loudest of all.

And that brought her smile back. She really was with her own kind!

The van pulled up to a palatial estate. The freaking mansion they rolled up to was crazy huge!

But seeing as it was owned by ponies, this massive property wasn’t being hoarded for the ego of one man. The place was crowded with ponies moving about the lawn and not just because of Shimcon. A whole host of ponies lived on these grounds. Structures dotted the sprawling lawn, many permanent but a few tents still lingered. Seven buses were parked out front.

It seemed they had a small plot of land on the way back for farming. Earth ponies could work wonders with even just that much. Ari knew using your own private property for farming (or anything really) was something the government was increasingly fighting against. This was likely the most they could get away with.

The ponies in the van listed off some of the local grievances they had on the way over. Just here, for example, they wanted to build more housing for themselves on their own land but the local humans wouldn’t let them. There was a much worse story not too far from here where the state was seizing their property to build a highway to nowhere (an increasingly common tactic the humans were using to destroy pony communities to the satisfaction of billionaires).

“We actually own all the nearby properties, too. Big manor up there is just the crown jewel.” The driver gestured to the smaller houses as they pass. As it turned out, she was part of the community hosting the event. “And then we own a deli and a couple more houses downtown.”

Owning things on any level broke Ari’s brain.

Trying to pool their resources together to get a few, large properties seemed to be the strategy for a lot of the smaller, more fragile communities. The government was only willing to work with ponies where they were a huge part of the population. So in a lot of places, it was buy up land or be forced back to the way things were.

But this was it, wasn’t it? Tiny, but an actual for real pony community that stretched the length of this street! Ari was actually inside one.

This was what ‘making it’ felt like.

The van stopped and everypony poured out. Ari put her backpack on and looked up at the huge house. How many could live there now? Apparently, they bought up enough property for everypony who transformed in this city.

“Do I get to stay in this mansion?” Ari asked the driver. That unicorn increasingly seemed like the one in charge.

She thought for a moment about where to put Ari. Ari really hoped they weren’t going to shove her into one of those tents.

“Ari needs to have one of the beds,” said their driver.

“Why does the partial get a bed?” That tired pegasus asked.

“Did you forget how fragile humans are?” She asked. “They can’t just sleep on the floor or outside like we can. She can stay in the same room as you, Spring Breeze.”

“Me and my friends already brought our stuff up there,” said Spring Breeze. “I’ll show it to you. April should be around here somewhere, too. You’ll probably meet her at some point.”

Spring Breeze rushed up to the door, waiting for Ari to follow before opening it.

She put her hoof into a little groove and pressed, causing something to unlatch. Turned out it was a sliding door that Spring effortlessly threw to the side before stepping in.

Ari followed. She turned back to find the sliding door slowly closing behind them. That was a neat feature! The worst part of sliding doors was shutting and locking them, but this did both automatically for you.

“That was neat. How do I get a door like that?” Ari asked.

“Part of this conference is showing off accessibility options,” said Spring Breeze. “We’re still figuring out the best way to do things as ponies. This house was set up as a sort of concept piece. You don’t need hands for anything in the whole building! TV, toilets, sink, doors, windows, lights, AC… some of those you got five options for hands-free use.”

“I love this place already!”

She took just one step in… and her love for it grew only more.

The interior was completely brazen. Zero attempts to hide that this was a Shimmerist community center existed.

Orange banners bearing crests with Sunset Shimmer’s cutie mark hung from the wall. Portraits of Sunset Shimmer filled the front room. Ari could tell there would be no need to hide who she really was here or keep her opinions in check.

For the first time, she felt she could relax in a sense.

Though she did quickly learn what being a giraffe felt like. She towered over everypony and stood out too much for them not to look.

“Hey, where’s Ragnarok?” Ari asked. He was the pony who invited her in the first place. She was excited to meet him in real life.

“Probably down in the basement,” said Spring Breeze. “It’s going to rain hard tonight and he wants to talk to you during the storm. Wooo.”

“How dramatic.”

“So we’re actually in the west wing.” Spring Breeze stopped and turned to another pony up on the balcony who was calling her over. “Oh! There’s April now. Just wait here a second.”

Spring Breeze flew up and over the banister.

Ari decided to sit on the couch for a moment. She felt was less huge like that. Humans were larger than ponies, but standing on your hind legs (only legs, Ari reminded herself) gave you the appearance of being enormous.

A pony and a human sitting on a couch were almost at eye level.

Heck, there was one at eye level right now. Another stallion, a big red earth pony guy was sizing her up. He even smelled the air around her a little, which put Ari off. She reminded herself that was more normal for ponies…

“I gotta admit you stink less than most humans,” he said with a sly smile. “Skipped the meat today?”

“Oh!” Ari felt relief in knowing exactly what he was talking about. “Yeah, I know how gross humans smell after they eat meat. Especially pork, right? So I became a vegetarian about a month ago. Eating animals is kind of gross if you think about it. It would have been nice if we could all have just… stopped being gross and smelly, huh?”

“Well.”

He paused, his smile not so cocky, unsure of how to react to that.

“You’re a social Shimmerist then?” He asked.

“Isn’t everypony here?”

“Nah! I’m a separatist Shimmerist from way out west.” His smile was back. “I don’t believe we can reconcile with humans. This nation has always been treating this group or that like garbage and now apparently it’s our turn. So I say the only way we can have a decent life is to get free of the humans entirely.”

“I admit I want ponies to take over the government because that’s what’s best for us.” Ari nodded. “Well… short of becoming ponies. But I totally understand you wanting independence

“You do?”

“Yeah! It makes sense. I mean, the government is completely hostile to your very existence and literally wishes they could irradicate you all. They shackle you with unreasonable demands and give you nothing in return. All their energy just goes toward just taking away what you want. It’s like of course you’d want to get away with that. What the hell does everyone even expect?”

He didn’t seem entirely sure what to say to that.

“Oh yeah, it’s like ‘hey, we decided to force you all out of your homes and chase you into the woods where you’ll be second-class citizens and you’re not allowed to control the weather, or sell food, or use your magic however you like or fly if you’re in New York and we’re going to harass you constantly with our rehumanizer guys… But you gotta have ‘harmony’ with us. You guys gotta help us despite all that.’ It’s pathetic, right?”

“Um.” The stallion pawed at the couch cushion.

“Do you not agree?” Ari asked. She expected a separatist Shimmerist to be on board with what she was saying.

“Of course I agree.” He shook his head. “I just think it’s a tragedy that ETS didn’t convert every last human in this nation. It would have been better had humans just ceased to exist, you know?”

“Yeah, you’re right. If Purple even waited until ponies were a clear majority, nobody would be suffering right now. We were so close, huh?”

“Well. Yeah!” He raised his eyebrows. “Because ponies are better than humans.”

Ari nodded firmly.

“In every way! Because humans suck! They’re sentient garbage.”

“Right!” Ari nodded with even more conviction.

He frowned. He made some kind of horse noises. Then he walked away.

“Well, that pony seemed nice. I love this place!”

Spring Breeze landed next to Ari and soon led her off to the west wing.

Their bedroom was filled with bags and the floor was covered in sleeping mats. There wouldn’t be much room on the bed for anypony but Ari.

The room overlooked the expansive lawn, where Ari got to see a huge group of foals playing something like tag.

She went to sit down on the bed, only to pull back a the last minute realizing a pony was already sleeping there. It was one of those night ponies! The grey stallion sprawled out wide across the bed instead of tucking his legs in.

The little guy looked pretty banged up, and was covered in nicks and scars. The left side of his face was particularly bad… like someone hit him in the face with a hammer. And he would have had to have gotten all those wounds after becoming a pony, too since ETS cured everything.

“That’s Shiv.” Spring didn’t give him much heed. “He’s impossible to wake up during the day. Don’t bother keeping your voice down.”

Ari frowned, not keen on following that advice. Then again a sunbeam was shining directly in Shiv’s eyes so if he could sleep through that…

Actually, did sunlight make it harder or easier for them to sleep? Ari had no idea.

“Come over here, I want to show you some of the stuff I’ll be presenting tomorrow.”

Ari had to sit on the floor to be in front of the computer with Spring Breeze. Everything here was hands-free… but pony-sized.

“See, they made it so you can type with your ears.” By which she meant, ponies could type with their ears. Spring Breeze swiveled her ears about, each position corresponding to a different symbol, allowing her to slowly type out a short message.

“That looks pretty slow, though,” said Ari.

“Yeah. It’s really more for activating certain commands. You combine it with eye tracking and…” Spring Breeze shifted her eyes, looking at the start menu. Flicking her left ear served as a click bringing it up. With a second flick, she opened MS Word next.

“That’s really impressive! Wish I had at least gotten pony ears so I could use that.”

“Well, I do have some other software that might be able to help you.”

They spent a few hours going through all these pony-accessible programs.

3-8

Ten PM.

To a pony, that was incredibly late.

Shim Sham gave them an overactive circadian rhythm, making it hard to stay up late. The number of waking ponies sharply fell from nine to ten, until there was hardly any left. Not long after that, Ari realized she might be the last one still up.

On the flip side, this made them all super-early risers. But for now, Ari had some slight advantage. If you could call it that.

It was lonely but Ari wasn’t tired enough to sleep just yet. Besides, everypony said Ragnarök would show up when it started raining. It’d been raining for hours now but only just now did the storm pick up enough for Ari to hear the raindrops.

The rain viciously slammed against the window as if trying to force its way inside. But Ari was far too safe for that. Though she did hope nopony was actually sleeping in those tents tonight.

She walked back down to the main living room finding it dead quiet other than the rain and nearly empty. But not completely empty. On the far edge of the couch were two ponies snuggled up and fast asleep.

She decided to sit down close to them and give Ragnarök maybe another fifteen minutes to show up before going to sleep. He’d still be around tomorrow even if Ari missed him.

But she stopped halfway to the couch.

Without so much of a lightning strike to announce his presence, a pony with glowing, slighted simply appeared behind the banister right above where the sleeping ponies lay. Another night pony. Not the one she saw before (Shiv?).

Ari and the night pony stopped where they stood and locked eyes.

It seems we are at an impasse.

These, she knew, were very protective of their fellow ponies. He was standing right next to his sleeping friends. If anything bad was going to happen, it would happen right now.

The night pony looked at her hair, then the symbol on her jacket. Then he relaxed and stalked off.

“Nice,” Ari whispered under her breath. “I’m in.”

Ari hesitated to get too close to the ponies. They were generally the most affectionate creatures on the planet with zero puncture when it came to cuddling with one another. But they were also a bit weary of strange humans. Allegedly tons of humans would get all ‘grabby’ with pony strangers they just bumped into on the streets. So they needed a minute to warm up to you.

Or rather, they needed to see another pony give you a nuzzle or sit on your lap to realize that you were okay. Just earlier today, a group of foals was giving Ari some nervous looks until Spring Breeze started nuzzling her hard. Then they just relaxed immediately and came over.

So if you were friends with one of them, you were friends with all of them.

Hesitantly, she sat two cushions away from them just in case.

“Cloud Weaver!”

Ari turned her head back, looking up at the banister from which the night pony had just vanished. But instead of him, she saw the familiar white-maned pony she’d come to idolize.

“Ragnarök!”

Ragnarök flew up over the banister and landed just in front of Ari with a yawn. Any tiredness Ari felt was long gone by now.

“I’m so excited to meet you!” Ari giggled, just a little giddy. “I’ve been listening to you since almost the start! Uh! Ah, geese I know it’s rude, but I want to hug you.”

“Stop acting so human,” he teased her. “The whole ‘no petting’ thing is for creepy strangers. You’re ‘in’ I think you just said a second ago.”

He heard her?! Ari blushed slightly as Ragnarök jumped up onto her lap and flicked her with his muzzle. Taking the prompt, Ari ran her broken hand down his neck and back.

Ragnarök typically had bags under his eyes, Ari watched his show enough to know that, but the darkness and discoloration seemed worse in person. Whether it was just him looking different in real life or he really was just worse off than normal.

“You’re not tired?” Ari asked.

“The only time I drink coffee,” said Ragnarök, “is when I’m staying up this late. But I stay up late all the time. Pony-late, I mean.”

Ragnarök had no such hesitation. He jumped right onto the couch and leaned against the sleeping pair comfortably enough that Ari feared he might fall asleep with them.

“Of all the people,” Ari corrected herself, “of all the powerful people in the world, Sunset Shimmer was the only one who tried to make my life better. All the others, when they change the world it's just to get more control over us, more money, more power. I really feel like Sunset was the only one who actually cared on some level.”

Sure, there was an official story saying she wanted to gather enough power to destroy some evil monster she saw in a prophecy… but wasn’t that exactly what Purple and the government were doing too? The important difference was Sunset shared a vision of a better world, while those in power merely wanted to chain them forever to the status quo.

“I really do wish she’d… at least turned most of the world into ponies. Or lived. Wouldn’t it be amazing to get to talk to a pony like that? If I could meet three people from history, I’d just choose to talk to Sunset three times. No one else can compete. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

He smiled wearily and shook his head, his white mane shaking along with it.

“No way. I’d rather pour battery acid into my eyes than talk to Sunset Shimmer for one minute.”

Ari pulled back hard enough that Ragnarök nearly fell off. He took the hint a second later and hopped onto the floor.

“What?!” Ari stood up. “You’ve said that Sunset Shimmer is the most important person in history. Several times!”

“I think you misunderstood. That’s true, yeah. But to me Sunset Shimmer is…”

Ragnarök turned to the nearest banner bearing Sunset’s cutie mark. He waved his hoof about, searching for the words.

“She’s the perfect icon.” He pointed straight at her cutie mark with certainty. “Think about it. She never left a manifesto. There’s no recording of her voice. She never explained herself to anypony on this planet. The best we have is the Equestrian telling us to trust them that she said all this stuff in a dark room while nopony was looking. And even that account tells us almost nothing.

“She’s transcended personhood. Sunset Shimmer can stand for anything. She can be Satan or God and anything in between: whatever you need. Even those who hate her most ardently have adopted her into their hearts as an icon. The most powerful and influential person in history… can be anything.”

Ragnarök spun around.

“Do you get how powerful that makes her? Atheists. Christians. Communists. Libertarians. All of them can pick up her mantel. Anypony can. The only pony who could have stopped Shimmerism was Sunset Shimmer. And they killed her.”

Ragnarök gave a little laugh and jumped backward, landing next to the pair of sleeping ponies.

“So if I sat in front of her and one, single, goddam word came out of her mouth, it would ruin everything.” He stroked one of them a little too hard. “If they hadn’t killed Sunset Shimmer, I wouldn’t have had one single move I could make. Nothing. ‘We had mercy on the person who humiliated us beyond belief’. What can I do to someone like that?”

He threw up in defeat the hoof he’d been petting the other pony with.

“Of course, we don’t live in a world where Sunset Shimmer would have lived.” Finally, he turned back to Ari, crawling towards her a step or two. “In a world like that, people like you and me wouldn’t even exist. Do you ever feel… like you wish you could live in a world where you would never have existed?”

Ari thought it’d been raining heavily up until now, but she’d been sorely mistaken. A newer, much stronger sheet of rain crashed into the house and its intensity became the new norm. The room was no longer so silent

And at last, some lightning came in, just a few minutes later, thunder following soon after. It was a good night to be inside.

“Yeah, of course I would.” Ari watched the rain and lightning come crashing down a moment before sitting down next to Ragnarök. “I guess… she’s a hero in my eyes because she gave us a choice. It felt like we were stuck on this one path leading to the destruction of our planet and everyone becoming further isolated and consumed by greed. But Sunset gave us the choice between humanity and ponies, between selfish capitalism and community.”

“That is true,” said Ragnarök. “But if we don’t do anything, those in power will make sure we take the former path. Break up everything we’ve worked towards. Grind up our friendships into dust and put ponies in factories for 80 hours a week. Most people still want that path on the surface.”

Ari nodded sadly.

“Why is it so hard for them to value anything but money?” Ari asked. “That they literally need to become ponies to care about other people. About friendship, community, anything?”

“Well think about it. Why don’t you put all of that aside to focus on building community?”

“I can’t be so big-hearted and bold. Treating strangers like they’re friends? This town’s too big and cold. If I went door to door talking about friendship or whatever, I’d get shot. It’s not possible.”

“And yet everypony here has done it.”

Ari shook her head and stood up in a sudden flash of anger. This was the sort of thing she hated from those ‘above’ her and she wouldn’t take it sitting down. Not even from a pony she admired.

“Don’t you get it?” Ari bent over to look Ragnarök in the eye. “Don’t you understand how much easier this is for you? What am I supposed to do?! I’m stuck as a normal human. I don’t have any magic. I don’t have any special powers. I didn’t get my mental problems cured. No one’s ever going to let me have any of that! No one’s going to let me out of my cage like Sunset did for you! I don’t even have a PhD! I didn’t even get this magical five-minute pep talk from the aliens that you all did! I’m so far beneath all these fucking gods that I might as well not even exist! I’m sure if Purple ever accidentally looked in my direction, she’d just sneer at me for even feeling this way.”

Ari turned around once, a hand in her pocket, the other sweeping across this community sheltering Ragnarök from far more than the rain.

“You have all of this! You’re part of a community that actually cares about you, that will actually protect you and pick you back up if something happens. Out there? In New York? There’s nothing! Everyone’s on their own; it’s the law of the jungle. Half of them pride themselves on how little they care. I can’t take any risks because if I make one slip it’s over for me. No one will care as I get ripped to shreds.”

Ari had to turn away a minute. She put a broken hand over her face, mentally adding that to the list of things she didn’t have, which was apparently the most important part of being human these days. But it was enough to rid herself of some lingering tears.

“And you know this. How can you ask me to be brave?”

Ragnarök laughed just a little and hit the couch once with a hoof. Indignant, Ari spun around to face him.

“I think you misunderstand where I was going with all this,” he said. “Of course I understand. You’re right that you’re weak. Without magic or a billion dollars… you’re just some lowly human who can’t do anything. But that only makes you worthless in their eyes. I’ll tell you this. It doesn’t matter if you’re weak. So what if you’re useless by yourself… if you aren’t by yourself?”

“But I am alone. Every human is alone. It’s what generates the most capital.”

“You don’t have to be. I brought you here to make you an offer, remember?”

Ragnarök patted the couch cushion next to him. Ari sat down; a bit closer than before.

“We do have a job for you,” said Ragnarök. “I’ll give you a chance to finally screw over Blackrock for once. But I won’t lie. Yeah, you’re a pawn. The only advantage you have is that you’re the right person in the right place and time. But you do know what happens to pawns, right?”

Ari froze, unsure how to respond to something like this. Was he asking her to…?

“Now, I’m not going to ask you to kill anypony or anything like that.” Ragnarök turned back to his sleeping friend to give them another pat. “But if you pull the stunt, we have lined up for you well… You won’t be welcome in human society for the most part. Have a real hard time getting a job after this one. And yet it won’t matter. Why?”

He looked back at Ari with a smile, beckoning her to lean forward to hear what the reward on offer was.

“I’m offering you the safety of a herd. Do this for us… make a serious attempt and even if you fail you can have your pick of some fifty pony communities to join. We’ll take care of everything. You won’t need to be part of the rat race anymore so none of that will matter.”

Ari’s body went numb. She felt as though her body was no longer tethered to the ground and might go floating off. It took a moment to straighten her thoughts, to focus enough to respond.

“Wait. You… I want to get this completely straight,” said Ari. “If I do some job for you… I can join a pony community? And… and live in a Shimmerist commune?”

Ragnarök nodded. Ari wasn’t sure if her heart was still beating or what.

“And more. Pawns are weak. Unless they’re in the exact right spot,” said Ragnarök. “This is also a chance to push our cause. And if you actually pull it off, you’ll earn a great deal of respect from us on top of that.”

Like Ari even cared about what those other humans thought. This was…

“I’m not going to lie,” Ari managed to say. “A pawn is a massive promotion from what I am to the other humans.”

Oh, to be a pawn! To think she could ever soar so high! Ari smiled.

“Better to be a pawn in heaven than a shadow in hell, right?” Ari asked.

It got even later.

The rain died down and things became quiet again, yet still it poured. Even Ragnarök was asleep now. Ari alone lingered, staring out into the storm.

Was she really safe now?

She knew the answer was yes, but…

Ari pushed open the door and stepped outside into the dark. She stood on the porch, in the middle of the downpour, getting absolutely drenched.

But it didn’t matter.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Ari said it and it was true!

She was… for the first time in her entire life she had actual safety. She wouldn’t have to worry about things like food or shelter ever again. To not be one bad day away from the streets. That kind of guarantee was the sort of thing an American her age could only dream of.

To be safe…

She was safe!

“Hehehe.” She hung over the edge of the balcony, water streaming down her hair. “I might as well be in a pool right now. Hahaha!”

No wonder they never wanted her to be safe. She could actually be brave now.

Ari pushed back from the railing, laughing even louder! She skipped down the stairs and ran once around the large building with her arms out. And it didn’t even matter how drenched she became!

End part 3

Part 4. The willing pawn

Ari learned that for every bat pony you saw there were two you didn’t.

She made three-quarters of a lap around the large building. Then, in an actual flash of lighting this time, that bat pony came back with two of his friends.

The three night ponies all but tackled Ari and dragged her back inside whereupon she was lectured extensively. The leader of the three scolded her about how much seeing somepony in their in-group do something dangerous and stupid like that triggered their instincts.

It wasn’t like Ari had a good explanation as to why she ran out into the storm, either. So she couldn’t complain about getting lectured. Either way, they forced her to dry off and change clothes. Then they made her sit down by the fire to warm up. And that was how Ari found herself in bat jail, laying on her side in her pajamas just before the fireplace.

Of the three, she knew only the name of one: Shiv, now awake. Shiv was the only one cut up as he was. Either he got into way more fights than a normal night pony or was just really bad at his job. Shiv never seemed to sit still, always darting his head and ears around, stalking about. He looked so much scrawnier and sketchier than the other stallion, whom Ari assumed was in charge of the three.

The third was a mare who sat on the couch watching a black and white movie about samurais, the volume turned down too low for Ari to hear. She didn’t look like she wanted to talk, keeping her gaze purposely transfixed on the large TV.

Shiv noticed Ari staring at the most severe injury on his face and came right over, opening his mouth wide so Ari could see half his teeth (mostly in the front and to the right) were missing.

“And da crazy part?” He snapped his mouth shut. “I won dat fight! By a lot. Behehehe!”

He jumped back to his larger friend, jabbing him a couple of times on the side. The older night pony looked stern and humorless, reacting little to the playful move.

“Your name is Shiv, right?” Ari wanted to make sure.

“Ah, hey! She hearda me.” Shiv walked carefully towards Ari. “Somepony introduce us in my sleep?”

Ari nodded.

“Less see. Ari Webba.” Shiv took slow steps as he strode past Ari. He licked his lips and looked absently toward the ceiling like he was remembering something. “Cloud Weaver. She went out to Pennsylvania and got infected by uh, Ribbon Swirl yeah? Ribbon, original last name Jace, brother lives up in Michigan, next door to uh… Leaf. You remember him. Green unicorn you just met yesterday?”

Shiv pointed to the mare, who only narrowed her eyes and kept watching.

“I like keeping everypony within a couple of degrees like dat.” He ran back over to Ari to say it. Already she got the impression he felt the need to be right next to whoever he was speaking to. “For you mosh is gonna go through Spring Breeze, yeah? Less see. Jaden, no pony name, is on Spring’s tech team and their college roommate works for directly Supercycle. Then um. She lives in the same house as Feather Quill whose cousin’s boss has a vendetta against a pony name Number Crunch who's one of Sunset Blessing’s bitches. Nah, that’s too many.”

Shiv muttered to himself trying to formulate a more direct path on that second one. That was kind of impressive he could do that off the top of his head. Especially since he was from Nelson Residence rather than Spring Breeze’s community.

But something about his first comment didn’t sit right with Ari.

“Wait. Ribbon Swirl?” Ari asked.

“The pink pegasus?” Shiv asked. “Coughed in your face? You ate one of her hairs.”

“But.” Ari sat up slowly and quietly. “I didn’t even know her name! I never told anypony specifics of that. So how did…?”

Shiv turned to her, confused at first as he came out of his deep thought. Then he smiled slyly.

“Behehehe!” Shiv grabbed onto Ari. “Everypony has a talent and dis is mine. Knowing everypony, I mean. I met everypony, you know?”

“Every last pony?”

“Important ones, anyway. Twilight, Starlight, princess fucktard, Rarity, Pinkie… Sunset Blessing, Sunrise Storm: I met everypony important already. But not all of them met me if you catch my drift, eh? Behehe.”

Ari could imagine. She tensed up all the same. This pony had just pierced one of her secrets without even trying to.

Shiv dropped his smile. “What? Gots you scared? Behehe. You don’t gotsta worry about nothing. You help us, you my friend. Simple as.”

He grabbed a pillow from near the fireplace and threw it hard at the mare. It bounced right off but for a moment Ari expected it to bowl her over.

“Webba helped make da phone strap you got on right now!” Shiv pointed at his own phone, strapped onto her foreleg with Velcro, similar to the device Ari wore.

Those had caught on with the ponies in Ari’s circles anyway. All the ponies here wore one. Though she wasn’t sure how much credit she could take for the idea. The ponies had already vastly improved on it and modified it for their own use.

“What’s her deal anyway?” Ari looked over to the mare.

Shiv pointed to her. “Dats Cloak.” Then he pointed outside to the rain. “And Dagger is stuck over at the deli, so Cloak is all lonely wid just Shiv and five hundred other ponies.”

Ari wondered how close you had to be to another pony to make your names combine like that.

“And him?” Ari looked at the biggest of the three.

“Call me Rogers,” he answered for himself.

“Rogers?” Ari repeated the name. She turned to face him, still sitting on her mat. “Isn’t that name a little strange?”

“It’s a common last name,” said Rogers.

“I meant it’s weird for here. Everypony else has a pony name. Even I have a pony name!”

Shiv’s smirk grew mischievous as he moved to an unamused Rogers’ side.

“Ooh! A mystery! Want da ansher?” Shive put a -hoof on either one of Rogers’ shoulders. “Dish? Dish is da guy… who shot Shim Sham!”

“What?!” Ari’s eyes shot right to Rogers, completely stone faced, then back to Shiv with a less credulous expression. “No way. You’re messing with me.”

“Behehe!” Shiv laughed and backed up a step.

“I didn’t kill Sunset Shimmer.” Rogers moved his stern eyes onto Sketch. “I was part of the operation that initially captured her the first time. And before you say anything, I had already been quarantined by the time she escaped. But any specifics are classified and I can’t talk about them.”

“Eh.” Shiv sat up, putting his hooves up in mock innocence. “I didn’t say nothing! But you know…”

Shiv stalked up next to Ari again.

“I do know the name of da sniper what did kill her?” He whispered, then licked his lips.

“Shiv.”

“Ut!” Shiv backed up, smiling again. “Not that I’d say! Looks like our Shim Sham got the better of old Rogers though. Eh, Webba?”

“So you really changed your mind about her?” Ari asked Rogers.

“No.”

“Huh?”

“Sunset Shimmer was a terrorist and a threat to America. She deserved to die, and I would have killed her in the first encounter were it up to me,” said Rogers.

“Um.” Ari straightened up. She looked at the banner with Sunset’s cutie mark, down at her orange pajamas bearing the same mark, then back to Rogers. “You know where you are, right?”

He simply stared into her eyes with his usual intensity.

“So why are you here?”

“Because your childish obsession with her doesn’t actually matter,” said Rogers. “Sunset Shimmer is dead and there are other threats to America now, threats that we aren’t taking seriously because the government is too focused on some fantasy about turning back the clocks. I don’t agree with all your hippy bullshit about banning cars or whatever. I don’t like your edgy little game where you pretend to worship some random bitch you know nothing about. But the SSP are the only party taking the existence of magic seriously right now, the only ones who won’t lead us to get left behind on the world stage.”

Ari more or less followed his logic. Typically, people worried about China or India using magic to surpass America on the world stage aligned with techno-Shimmerists, but she knew the arguments well enough.

“So I guess I’m with you. For now.”

He turned sharply to Shiv, who had been humming ‘America Fuck Yeah’ that whole time.

“Oh!” Shiv lit up again. “And we got one other problem you’re with us on. Yes, my fellow ideologically impure dissident.”

“We don’t talk about that.”

“Talk about what?” Ari asked.

“Most night ponies are spineless, pathetic cowards.” Shiv turned his nose up. “But that doesn’t concern you nothing. We gots our own problems. And uh…”

“Shiv,” said Rogers. “Bravo Delta.”

Shiv looked at him confused, miming the two words before coming to an understanding.

“Behehe!” Shiv jumped back to Rogers’ side and shook him again. “Dis guy’s my friend.”

Then Shiv ran off into the dark house.

“Go to sleep,” said Rogers, then left.

Ari looked at the mare, still watching her show, before deciding the two of them wouldn’t be talking any time soon. So she went back to her bedroom.

The very crowded bedroom with some fifteen ponies sleeping on the floor.

Ari got the bed as promised but not all to herself. She shared it with Spring Breeze and two other ponies. They really were way more into cuddling and Ari was eager to appropriate their culture.

Lying sandwiched between two ponies, Spring Breeze sleeping on her chest, while many more ponies cuddled up nearby on pads on the floor. Knowing that the house, the whole street, was filled with like-minded community of ponies, with her community. It was the most… together she’d ever felt!

She’d never felt less alone in her life. It was the closest she’d ever been to being a pony. And with her eyes closed, for that brief and wonderous time, there was barely any difference.

If only she could just never open her eyes again. If only her whole life could be like this.

Five and a half hours later, the sun came up and the ponies all popped their eyes open and sprang out of bed in near-perfect synchronization. They may have been out like a light before but now they had the upper edge.

Ari couldn’t do it. She tried to sleep another two hours amidst all the noise. It was a partial success at best. Crawling out of bed wasn’t easy after that.

Ari staggered downstairs almost two hours after the ponies activated. Needless to say, she missed breakfast. The ponies in the kitchen were already working on lunch for the huge crowd. They had some leftovers that just needed to be reheated for her. Spring Breeze had told them to wait.

Exactly one other pony had slept in with her, a plump, grey earth pony named Steel. Apparently, he was a wealthy donor who could just do whatever he wanted. So that much made her feel a little less bad.

Just the cup of coffee they gave her made Ari feel like she was getting a five-star treatment. Coffee was one of those things you simply had to cut out of your life these days. It was quickly becoming a luxury to be enjoyed exclusively by the rich, with ponies being the only possible relief in sight.

And they gave her a coffee straw without asking! Which was a bigger deal than a normal person might assume. Straws were damn near banned in New York, making life that much harder.

There were so many little things that just didn’t assume the existence of hands, many Ari hadn’t thought to implement herself. Like their draws for holding spoons weren’t little compartments you threw the spoon into and had to fish out. They were instead tossed into a slanted container with the handle pointing out.

That way, instead of clumsily getting it out, Ari could just slip her strap over a handle, tighten it and be ready to go! That was it! She was surprised she’d never thought of something so simple. But when you had millions of minds working towards something, you got better solutions than random people on their own.

With her spoon ready, Ari sat down to be passed a bowl. Her face lit up at what she saw.

Oatmeal!

Not even instant stuff! It looked like real, actual oatmeal!

Having not eaten this stuff in so long probably contributed to it, but this really was the best oatmeal she’d ever had! By a lot!

“I feel like I’m eating solid gold right now!”

“Is that a good thing?” Steel, the only other pony eating breakfast this ‘late’ asked her. “Because that comment could go either way.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get oatmeal out in New York?” Ari asked.

“Nope. Ponies don’t got any problem with food,” he said. “Is it really that bad with you?”

“You have no idea.”

Ari missed the first couple of talks that day, but she had an important mission. Operation Snowblind, they were calling it.

Ari found herself in the basement sometime later. They gave her a laptop containing the paperwork to register as part of a pony community. Not for Nelson Residence or even Spring Breeze’s community but for someplace in Nowhere, Montana nopony had ever heard of.

But that was all part of the plan. Ari would never speak with the ponies of that community, but she did have to legally be part of one. That was phase 0.

And oh what a phase it was. She signed document after document hour after hour. It became like a comedy routine after a while. Ari didn’t even bother to ask what she was signing anymore, had no choice but to trust that the ponies knew what they were doing. Becoming a legal member of one of these things really was impossible without a lawyer.

But she wasn’t alone for once. Ragnarök was there for most of it, as well as DS. Though DS wasn’t there in person. He was the one guiding her through the signing process and going over the plan with her for the most part, yet he was talking to Ari over a large monitor.

“I don’t travel,” he explained in a slightly monotone voice. He never looked at Ari for long, staying focused mostly on other, unseen monitors. “The government dislikes the fact that I exist and refuse to work for them or a corporation. They’ve been searching hard for reasons to lock me up.”

“Did you hear about the time DS got arrested for jaywalking?” Ragnarök asked

“Yeah.”

“Then you understand why I don’t like being anywhere in person,” said DS. “I don’t want to draw much attention to myself either, so I’d appreciate you not talking about me too widely.”

He really did have a cutie mark they described as ‘disturbing to some’. Ari didn’t get to know what it was but neither did anypony if it could be helped.

Ari did, at least, learn that the ‘DS’ stood for ‘Data Sphere’ and figured his talent had something to do with computers. If that wasn’t already obvious.

“You’ve already helped us a good bit,” said DS. “We certainly got out money’s worth out of that advertising campaign. Just a little over a thousand dollars bought us so much.”

“Did a lot of people respond?” Ari asked.

“More than you’d probably guess. More importantly, it was an information-gathering campaign. By judging the response relative to the visibility of the posters you put up, we’re able to gauge enthusiasm for our ideals in various locations. We can better decide where to target for further expansion.”

These ponies were thinking way further ahead than Ari was. She was glad she was on their side.

Ari supposed she was part of that expansion campaign now. Even if it was more about setting up a trap than bringing the light of Shimmerism to New York.

“I hope you understand your mission by now,” said DS. “The SSP, through the pony community you just joined, will purchase the building to become the new community center where you can live. Our bank will be giving you a credit card with an extremely high spending limit, which will be paid off, to cover any expenses you have. But you will be expected to quit your job to devote yourself full-time to this project.”

Ari already found herself drooling over the prospect. Technically, she’d be working for nothing but room and board. Yet it somehow sounded more tantalizing than the promise of pulling in millions.

“Don’t be tempted to spend more than you need,” Ragnarök warned. “The reason your limit is so high is… well I had to convince a few other ponies to trust you with this much. Get it?”

Ari nodded.

“Hey, I don’t want to sound like I’m flaking out already,” said Ari. “But how exactly am I supposed to set up a Shimmerist community center in my town without drawing too much attention to myself? There can’t be that many of us and my only hope of finding enough would be to run through the streets loudly announcing it to everyone.”

“Since you’ve agreed to work for us,” said DS, “certain resources will be made available to you. I’m making you an account on the SSP darknet server.”

“The darknet server?” Ari wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

“It just means it’s harder to access. Don’t say anything there you wouldn’t say in front of the FBI because they are watching us,” Data Sphere warned. “We won’t be discussing details of operation Snowblind through that channel. It will, however, allow you to connect with our specialists.”

“I see.” Ari went back to filling out forms for a second. “So you’re… sending a pony specialist to help me?”

“I’m routing Magic Card to your home location now,” said Data Sphere. “She should be there on Wednesday. Your outpost must be 100% human, but Magic Card will help you establish it.”

“Is one pony really all I’ll need to do this?” Ari asked.

She had a lot of confidence in ponies already and they sounded more incredible by the day.

“Magic Card will be all you need. We have perhaps the second or third largest database of cutie marks on the planet. Of all of them, Magic Card’s talent is the one I see as the most useful. If it were between her and the next ten on my list, I would always pick Magic Card to be on my side.”

“You’re really upselling her, huh?” Ragnarök teased. “Let me guess, you think she’s cute too?”

Data Sphere made some displeased noises and buried his muzzle closer to the keyboards.

“What talent does she have exactly?” Ari tried thinking of what abilities a pony name ‘Magic Card’ would have. “Like card tricks? Or… oh! Does she use tarot cards to see the future?”

“I would consider an ability like that to be less than useless.” Data Sphere recovered from his embarrassment and shook his head. “A pony like that would be a detriment to us all.”

“Future sight is a useless ability?” Ari looked up from her own secondary monitor. “I’d assume it was incredibly powerful.”

“From what I can tell, the power of prophecy cannot be used to your advantage,” Data Sphere warned. “Sunset Shimmer tried to rely on such power, reacting to a warning she got, and it led her to personal ruin. I have few data points, but it seems everypony who tries to stop some predicted disaster meets with a terrible end. I really don’t understand why we’re taking heed of a nearly identical prediction from the exact same pony who caused Sunset’s demise.”

DS looked up from his computer at some higher point.

“If it was useful,” said DS, “why did this alien not show us the timeline where we do destroy the devourer? That would be infinitely more valuable. I wonder…”

“That’s all very interesting,” said Ragnarök, “but you’re getting off-topic. Ari isn’t going to destroy any space robots. Sorry.”

“Well, you’ll meet Magic Card in a few days,” said Data Sphere. “You can also request the assistance of any of our other high-value cutie marks if you feel it necessary. Though you live in the middle of nowhere, so we won’t always be able to send them.”

4 - 2

The conference left Ari on a high that lasted for days and probably would for several more. Everything was up and up from there and seemed like it would only get better from then on.

She quit her job the next day, not even bothering with a two-week notice. She’d no longer be stuck in the wage cage, that was for the ‘misanthrobros’ from now on. And what a liberating feeling it was to know such a thing!

The day after that she met up with Dresden to tell him about her experience at Shimcon. Ari could hardly sit still going through all the things she learned and seen. The ponies were so on top of everything it seemed, in a way the corporate-enslaved human politicians never were.

She went over all kinds of accessibility devices to be excited about. About how the ponies intended to maximize their political influence so as not to become an oppressed minority. Black people, for example, had been twenty percent of society and America successfully stomped all over them. Ponies were a bit larger of a minority but would have to struggle to keep from ending up just as oppressed.

“See, the main advantage is that ponies vote in much higher numbers than humans. Pony turnout is 95% in an uncontentious election, whereas human turnout never goes over 60%, especially now that they’ve made it harder to vote than ever,” Ari explained across the table. “So even though ponies are 25% of the population, they can easily become almost half the voter base in years that are less contentious than 2020 was. Get it?”

“I guess I never thought of that one,” Dresden admitted. “That’d be good for us since ponies tend to be much more pro-transformation rights than humans.”

“Uh huh! And it gets better! Conservatives are reacting to this by putting up even stronger barriers to voting… but since ponies have stronger communities, they’ll be able to help each other through that so the human government is just shooting itself in the foot. And! Since ponies are more organized, they’re able to do this whole relocation program. Basically, the SSP is helping ponies strategically relocate to make their votes go further, allowing ponies to take over more states.”

It still wasn’t a done deal. The human majority would still do everything they could to stomp ponies into the dirt and make sure only billionaires benefited from the introduction of magic. But there was an actual plan to keep them from being crushed and oppressed!

It felt more than ever that something could actually change!

“I have never seen you half this happy before this,” said Dresden. “Was it really that great?”

“I almost feel like… like I got to have the vision myself!” Ari leaned back in her chair, spreading her arms to the sky. She couldn’t even imagine something being better than this feeling, how glorious the actual vision must be! “It really was a life-changing experience.”

“Damn. How expensive is going to one of these again?”

“You have to be invited. But I’ll put in a good word for you.” Ari stirred her coffee with her straw idly. She had to bring her own everywhere since the straw ban, but she was already used to it.

“So none of them were racist to you or anything?” Dresden asked.

“Well there was this one mare,” said Ari. “But I’m not sure if she was racist or just a bitch.”

Ari sipped her coffee.

“More important than any of that. For the first time in my life I feel like there’s something I can actually do. I finally have confidence that we can actually help all these poor heathen apes!”

“Heathen apes? That’s a new one you picked up. Am I a heathen now? I don’t really believe in God or anything…”

“No, no. I’m an atheist too. A heathen is specifically a non-Shimmerist human. No ponies are heathens and no Shimmerists are heathens, so you’re cool.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“What’s good is that we have a plan, Dresden!”

“’We’ do? As in you and the SSP or…?”

“That’s why I brought you here. The ponies came up with a mission for me.”

Ari paused with a sly smile; her eyes closed to let the mystery linger just long enough for Dresden to not have a chance to ask outright what it was.

Ari straightened out and spread her arms wide. “We’re opening an all-human Shimmerist community center! Right here on long island! And you’re member number one. Or two. Whatever.”

He reacted the same way Ari had upon first hearing the idea. Yes, such a thing sounded impossible. But when you thought about it for a second, it went from impossible to merely stupid.

“This would be a dangerous thing to do,” Dresden pleaded with her. “How would we even get members for that? We can’t run around asking everyone if they’re a Shimmerist. First of all, hardly any of them would admit it. Second, we’ll make too many enemies that way. And around here somebody’s bound to shoot us up if this thing is public.”

It was a valid concern. The number of mass shootings had skyrocketed to twice what it had been at its height. All of the shooters were humans but that was another issue.

“Ah! But ponies will help us, Dresden! And ponies…”

Ari leaned to her side, toward Dresden, waiting for him to fill in the blank.

“Make it possible?” He guessed.

“Bingo!” Ari pumped her hand in the air. “They’re bringing in a pony with a ‘high value’ cutie mark. Like, they have some OP magical ability lowly humans like you and I can only dream of. They’re going to help me start the community without any of these misanthrobros noticing.”

“And where are you going to get the money for the actual community center?” Dresden asked. “And the crazy security systems we’d need to not die?”

“Ponies. Obviously.”

“They’re really going to fund all that?” Dresden asked. “Doesn’t it sound suspicious that the SSP would spend so much for… what are they even getting in return?”

“It’s part of a political battle with Blackrock. Trust me. I know the plan and it’s a good one. But they need an all-human Shimmerist community center all the way out in the middle of nowhere for it to work.”

It was weird she thought of a country right next to New York City as the middle of nowhere but with so few ponies around…

“I dunno.”

“Please?” Ari put her hands together and leaned across the table to plead to him. “If I can get just one human to join the Shimmerist community center on my own, it’ll make me look good! You won’t even have to stay that long if you don’t feel safe.”

He still hesitated.

“Don’t you want to live to see a future where transformation is legal?” Ari asked. “This is the biggest move you’ll get to make in your life toward that end! You’ll be able to make an actual difference, to actually push toward your trans-pony future.”

“Well.” Dresden folded his arms. “Maybe.”

“Great! Then we’re picking up Magic Card from the train station in an hour! You’re fine with driving us around town for a while, right?” Ari asked. “Thanks.”

“Ah. Dang it. What did I sign up for?”

Ari moved back and forth from her heels to her toes, hands deep in her pockets, as she waited for the train with Dresden. A fairly large crowd had gathered to receive it. But it hardly mattered.

“So what magic power does this OP pony have anyway?” Dresden asked.

“They didn’t say. All I know is her name is ‘Magic Card’. She’ll be a pink earth pony and have one other pony with her.”

Not that anything beyond ‘pony’ was needed to tell who they were. When the train pulled up and opened, only one pair of ponies came marching out.

It was an uncommon enough sight that the other people on the station had to take a moment to gawk, either stealing glances or just blatantly staring at the sight.

Magic Card had to go up on her hind legs to look around for Ari but finding the one human with green hair wasn’t much harder for her. The two locked eyes moments after her arrival.

“Friendo!” Ari ran straight up to Magic Card.

“Friendo!” Magic Card repeated the greeting, pumping her hoof in the air before falling back to all fours. “I found you!”

Magic Card was the mare. Her fur was a dark pink and her mane a darker purple, kept shorter than most ponies did. She was rather slim but had a wild smile and her eyes darted about constantly, never lingering on anything for too long. Even when standing still, she’d press her weight back and forth between her front and rear hooves, never truly stopping. Ari kind of did the same thing. She could relate.

Her companion (a unicorn) was her opposite in many ways. His dusty brown hair could have been something a human had and the lighter shade of the same on his body wasn’t much more fantastical. He had long hair for a stallion, the bangs covering one side of his face. His motions were muted, always sitting down, always focusing on something off to the side. Didn’t look like he was paying attention now.

Imagine being a partial but your hair just turned brown.

Though Ari did have to admit he was a very handsome stallion despite the plain colors! When did she start thinking of stallions that way, anyway? This was well past the point of no return, wasn’t it?

Both of them had a cutie mark that Ari figured was a card. Magic Card’s was the back of one anyway. The backing was brown with a circle made of five gemstones decorating it. Dresden’s eyes lit up with recognition at the sight.

“Oh, I get it now! Your cutie mark is a magic card?” Dresden pointed to it. It must have been a card from some video game. “I take it you play Magic the Gathering?”

Yeah. Some video game.

“My name is Magic Card!” She beamed with pride.

“So… so yes?”

“No.”

“What? But you…”

“I only collect magic cards! I don’t actually play the game. You see my talent is, well you could say that I’m the ultimate collector!” Magic Card put a hoof over her brow and looked out from the platform as though scanning the horizon.

“Ultimate collector?” Dresden hesitated. “So are you a fan of Danganronpa, too?”

“What?! You too? Yes!” Magic Card bounded up close to Dresden, any distance between them gone in that one instant. “I love Danganronpa! And ponies are so much like the Danganronpa characters, aren’t we? I wanted to call them ‘ultimate talents’ instead of ‘cutie marks’ but I guess Danganronpa just isn’t popular enough because that never caught on.”

“This again?” Ari interrupted their little bonding session. “What the heck is Danganronpa?”

“All you need to know,” said Dresden, “is that the people in it have ultimate talents which are kind of like cutie marks.”

“Exactly.” Magic Card nodded approvingly. “And my ultimate talent is collecting things. I am the ultimate collector. My magic guides me toward the completion and expansion of my various collections. Take magic cards, for example. I can look at a pack and tell you if it contains a card I don’t have yet. I can drive past a garage sale or flea market and know instinctively if a missing part of my collections are there.”

Ari was already starting to see where this was going. It all made sense now.

“More importantly, my ultimate talent can be used to bring ponies, or in this case humans, together! To assemble the teams we need by finding all the right members. Right? One of my side projects is collecting ponies that correspond to the cast of Danganronpa and bringing them all into Shimmerism. I already got the ultimate detective, ultimate team manager, ultimate cosplayer, ultimate programmer, ultimate martial artist, ultimate detective again, ultimate imposter… er, spoiler alert by the way.”

Ari was surrounded by nerds.

“I really don’t get half of what you’re saying,” said Ari. “But I think I get it anyway. You’re going to ‘collect’ the human Shimmerists we need for our community center without drawing any attention to ourselves.”

“Exactly!” Magic Card licked her lips, her eyes widening in increasing excitement. “Once I start collecting something nothing can stop me! And you already did that hard part for me by getting it started.”

“See, Dresden?” Ari prodded him with her elbow. “You’re helping.”

“Thanks.” Dresden pointed down at her boyfriend or whatever. “And what’s this one’s ultimate talent?"

“Oh, that’s Wild Card.” Magic spared him a glance. “And before you ask, we’re not family. Yet.”

Magic Card began nuzzling him affectionately. Wild Card’s reaction to this was so muted that Ari had no idea what he made of such an advance.

“What does Wild Card do?” Ari asked.

“I’m the one who’s good at card games.” Wild Card brushed the hair from his eyes, smiling at last. Though he still made nothing of the nuzzles.

“I see,” said Ari. “How does that help us here, though?”

“It doesn’t,” Magic Card answered for him. “Wild’s just here so I don’t get bored. You’ll understand when you’re ponies, but we really don’t like being away from our own kind very much. I’d go bonkers without a friend along. Heh. You know, people always talk like greed is the one advantage humans have over ponies, but our only actual weakness is just that we can’t function on our own. I wonder why no one ever brings that up.”

“Because extolling greed as the one true virtue of humans plays into the hands of our capitalistic overlords?” Ari offered.

“Exactly! You really are one of us. Together we’ll spread the light of the vision to all these poor heathens.” Magic spun around on the spot, then swept her hoof across the dispersing crowd. “I’ll get you the people you need, and the rest will be easy!”

“Well this is great! At last, I have some kind of advantage in life.” Ari started toward the car, leading the rest with her.

“And now that you’ve been whitelisted into the SSP darknet,” Magic went on, “you have access to thousands of Danganronpa characters! Isn’t that amazing!”

Being able to call up a pony like Magic Card whenever she needed to felt like a superpower in itself. This power alone was amazing, but the SSP had access to so many other powers as well.

The only problem was that Ari was in the middle of nowhere, with a huge gap between her and her new community. Magic Card and whatever other ponies she needed couldn’t just swing by whenever. Ari would need to have a reason that justified a full day of travel to get one out to New York.

But even then, there were plenty of ponies like Ragnarök, Data Sphere, and Spring Breeze who could offer their talents over a long distance.

“It’s just like Ragnarök promised!” Ari smiled brightly. “Through the power of friendship, I’m no longer helpless! Praise Sunset Shimmer!”

“Right on! Praise Sunset!”

4-4

They found the next person at a playground, an older black man who had to be at least forty.

He had two young daughters with him, whom Magic and Wild Card were willing to humor. Ari had to imagine she’d also love playing with ponies at that age. Most girls had some fascination with horses… to the point Ari was surprised no one ever made a toy line or TV show about colorful horses. The idea seemed so obvious in hindsight.

Ari sat next to George, their father, on a bench near the park. The way he was dressed made Ari immediately think he had more money than the other three combined. That and he was old enough to be part of a less cursed generation than the other two recruits. A generation that could afford to have kids in the first place.

He said he’d absolutely want himself and his entire family to become ponies if it ever became an option. So he was all but certainly in.

“It’s an all-human Shimmerist community center.” Ari sat down next to George on the bench. “We want the Shimmerists out here to have a place to band together and support each other. We want to help create a sense of community and eventually start moving towards more communal living like the ponies do.”

“So you’re setting up a Shimmerist church?” He asked. “I’d certainly be more than a little interested in that. I left the one I used to be in after they made some changes following ETS. Thought I’d have to move even to find a proper Shimmerist church. And I would have.”

This guy certainly had conviction. That much was a good sign.

“Uh.” Ari brushed her hair to the side. “Not exactly a church. I’m an atheist. But we are planning on having a small chapel for religious Shimmerists to pray however they want. I take it you’re a Christian Shimmerist? You know, we’re still looking for someone to lead that if you’re interested.”

For all she knew, he could be a Muslim or something else. Ari never heard much about Islamic Shimmerism, though she was sure it existed. The middle east didn’t get many ponies, sadly. Maybe that was why.

“I just might be.” He nodded with a smile. “Though I’d need to see more of what you’re about before I agree to anything like that. What exactly will this community center be doing?”

“I’m still figuring that out, but we’re open to suggestions. I think you’d be the first one with a family. We only have two other members and we’re all pretty young. And uh… I guess I’m not so sure how diverse we’re gonna be outside of being Shimmerists.”

Having humans outside of Social Shimmerism wasn’t something Ari had immediately imagined. She could make this work, of course! They’d been planning on having a chapel for more religious types from the beginning.

But it was only now that Ari was beginning to realize Magic Card’s power likely worked in a certain way… was getting them one of each type. They had a social, techno, filthy centrist and now a Christian Shimmerist. Next would probably be a hippy.

Ari would need to take time to understand these other points of view if she had any plans to bring them together. Find common ground and all that.

“I never met a Christian Shimmerist before,” said Ari. She hadn’t in real life anyway. “It’s the one I’m least familiar with and there’s a lot about it I don’t understand.”

“It’s fine. I love talking about theology. Especially with people who think I’m wrong.”

“Well.” Now was as good a time as any. “I more or less understand Christianity. Didn’t Jesus already die for our sins or whatever? Why do we need to be redeemed a second time? Like you have to accept Jesus and become a pony? Is he just going to keep adding more requirements?”

“God’s relationship with us has gone through multiple paradigms already. Mainstream Christians already accept that. Before Christ, for example, we had the old testament laws to follow and guide us toward God. Christ died and absolved us of our original sin and thus a second paradigm began. Each time God gave us different options for coming to him. And I think we’re simply seeing another change.”

Ari nodded along. She’d heard stuff like this before.

“So like… do I go to Hell if I can’t become a pony?” Ari asked the main question everyone had about Christian Shimmerism. “Or is it just for not thinking God is real?”

“Shimmerists are closer to universalists if you know what that is. You don’t need either of those things to come to God. It’s more like…”

He shifted on the bench.

“Just like Jesus provided us with a new path, I believe God sent Sunset Shimmer to give us a new path towards glory and to better serve the lord. In Christian Shimmerism, we don’t think non-ponies all go to Hell. It is simply easier to fulfill the will of God as a pony and for those of us stuck behind, and even we still have them as a guiding light. It was His will that we are given the ability to choose ponification just as we were given the ability to accept Christ. Basically, every sect of Christianity sees free will as important… and it seems the world is becoming perfectly aligned to give us such a clear choice.”

“Free will? Everybody says Sunset Shimmer doesn’t much come down on that side of that.” Ari had her own response to that but wanted to hear his.

“None of God’s prophets were perfect. Many of them were horrible people by today’s standards even. But we do slowly move always toward God’s perfection. Even if Sunset Shimmer were pure evil, God would turn her misdeeds towards the work of good.”

“Well if God cares so much about free will why don’t I have a choice?” Ari leaned her head on the back of the bench. “If you want to convince me I’m a fallen being who needs to be purified through ponification or whatever, then I’m already there. But if I want to make the choice that God says is right, then why can’t I? Where is my free will?”

“I know it will come eventually.”

“Why not now? If he’s omnipotent and all that?”

“As far as I can tell, it’s the same reason he waited so long to give the Torah and to send Jesus and then Sunset Shimmer.”

“And why is that?”

He could only shake his head at that.

“I don’t know.”

They found themselves back in the car after another successful encounter. Only it was five of them as Pamela tagged along and was now in the front seat.

“No, no. It’s his whole family signing up,” Ari told Dresden. “That’s four so we’re up to seven.”

“Oh! How many are we going to get?” Pamela turned to the back seat.

“I don’t know.” Ari looked down at Magic Card. “How many can we get exactly? I noticed you’re getting us one of each flavor of Shimmerist.”

Magic bumped Ari’s side with a hoof. “Wah! Smart! I am, but that’s actually a good strategy if you think about it. Because they’ll know more of their own kind and bring them in as well. So expansion will be easier.”

“Hm. I wonder what the most common type of Shimmerist with humans is.” Ari mused to herself, already mentally preparing for every eventuality. “Would you say you’re religious, Pamela?”

“Oh, I suppose I’m a Christian too. Just not that Christian. But I was really hoping it was God turning us into ponies, you know?” Pamela looked back at them.

“Yeah, that would have been nice,” Ari recalled some of the Bible in her head. “But then again, no. That would have been horrible.”

“I get it.” Pamela nodded. “I think I would be interested in a Shimmerist church service. Ponies are so close to the Christian ideal that it must be what God wants, you know? The Catholic Church will make Sunset Shimmer a saint eventually, even if it takes five hundred years like with Joan of Arc.”

“Oh? Are you Catholic?” Ari asked.

“Well. No. But still. She should be a saint. I tried praying to Sunset Shimmer a little bit after she died and it felt right. A lot of people had a similar experience. On the internet.”

Even religious Shimmerism wasn’t a monolith. People often thought of those nuts down south as the only subfaction of that but you got all sorts.

For her own part, Ari never saw any one religion as different from the others. Her evidence for God, Zues, Celestia, Sunset Shimmer, or any canon saint actually hearing prayers were all equally zero. So what difference did it make who someone prayed to in the end?

“I actually converted to Shimmerism almost as soon as I heard the word,” said Pamela.

“I wish I had,” said Ari. “Would have saved me a headache.”

“Oh? Did you struggle?” Pamela’s smile grew. “You seem like you have so much conviction.”

‘Stugling’ was how more religious-leaning Shimmerists talked about the Shim-curious. Though not religious, Ari could relate to the feeling. It was nice seeing somebody coming to accept the light of Shimmerism.

“I kind of bought the meme that Shimmerism was only about being racist,” Ari admitted. “But once you get past that, you see that nobody actually has a single argument against it.”

Pamela nodded along eagerly.

“I was asking the size of the group more for like… well how big is this center going to be?” Dresden asked. “Like is the SSP really going to buy you a multi-million dollar property?”

Magic Card chuckled. “Oh, those Technoshimmerists give us tons of money. Like SuperPAC money is coming in from Supercycle and a couple of other billionaires. We got way more money than you realize. And low expenses since we all just share a couple of houses.”

“And let me guess,” said Dresden. “You ‘collected’ the donors? And that’s how you got so much money so fast.”

Magic Card chortled and stuck her head between the two front seats. “Hahaha! You’re smart for a human, you know? Yeah! I’m like the secret weapon nopony even knows about. Not even the FBI figured out I’m the one who got the ponies of Nelson Residence together. Know why? Because I’m never home! Hahaha! Stupid idiots!”

The next person Magic Card lead Ari to was dressed a bit more like the sort of person Ari would normally hand out with. That is to say, a bit of a street urchin like Ari, dressed in the same style of baggy clothes, hoodies, and scarves. He looked like the type who would vandalize an anti-homeless bench.

“You’re with the Social Shimmerist Party?” He straightened up upon hearing it. “I suppose I am too. I wish they’d take over New York.”

Finally, somebody more Ari’s speed! This was the first human she’d met who knew about the SSP beforehand.

“What do you mean you suppose?” Ari asked.

“I don’t really know if I’m a Shimmerist at all. I support all of their policies. The fact that we have an actual left-wing party with seats in the house, as opposed to the Democrats just pretending to be left-wing, has got to be the best news I ever heard.”

Ari beamed at this guy. Anyone who called the Democrats right wing had all of Ari’s love!

“I guess I just don’t care if anyone is a pony or not, though.” He shrugged. “Like… why does that have to be such a big part of your platform?”

“Do you disagree that we should have the right to CET?” Ari asked. “Or that there needs to be a morphological bill of rights?”

“I mean. Technically I agree with that.”

It was the typical lukewarm acceptance you got from everyone but the misanthrobros.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I’m just worried that focusing too much on CET will make us miss our chance to pass actual social reform. This might be the one chance we ever get in our entire lives to make the lives of working-class people better. If we don’t seize on this, the capitalist class and corporate landlords will just be pushing us ever-onward to the bug-eating, pod-living, wage cage future Americans have been determined to create since fucking Regan. And right or not, people hate the idea of even consensual ponification.”

“Okay, first of all, most Americans actually admit CET should be legal if you press them on it. They’re just scared to say it publicly,” Ari recited. “Second, ponies are literally the reason we have the chance in the first place! Do you really think it’s just a coincidence that a ton of ponies show up and suddenly an alternative to Reganomics appears?”

“Well.” He didn’t have an answer. Or rather he was uncomfortable with it. Ari could relate. She was in that spot not too long ago.

“CET isn’t just some weird side ideal we’re pushing,” said Ari. “Ponification is the key to creating a better world. People need to have the ability to leave their lives as corporate slaves behind if this is to have any chance of success. The more people become ponies, the less likely we’ll be living in pods in 2100. That includes me. And you.”

“Whoa, whoa! The SSP was always talking about having a choice. And I choose to not be a pony.”

“We like to compare it to smoking. You don’t have to stop smoking but you should and it’s a good thing to encourage. Likewise, I’m merely arguing that as a pony you’d be better able to create the world we both want, of communal living and a democratic, just economy.”

“I’d certainly pay the pony price if it was the only way,” he said. “And before you say it, I’m not sure if there is another way at this point. But I guess I still don’t want to be a pony.”

Definitely Shim-curious. Ari could convert someone like this. Eventually. Hopefully one day all left-leaning people would be Shimmerists. There was literally no other alternative.

“Well you support our politics,” said Ari. “But what about the Shimmerist ideals of community? Do you want to start living them?”

“I guess I do want something in my life outside the capitalist rat race,” he said. “Sign me up.”

“Great! Um! What was your name again?”

That was a successful day! They were already up to eight members. Ponies really did move fast. Though they didn’t find anyone else in the two hours following that last encounter.

Ari had agreed to host the ponies until their part in the mission was over, meaning they’d be sleeping at Ari’s place.

Magic Card had a huge binder of ‘Magic The Gathering’ cards, a game Ari learned a great deal about. But like she said, she hardly ever played the game. She freaked out a little at the mere suggestion that her precious cards be taken out of their sleeves and their condition degraded.

That said, she was extremely enthusiastic about showing off all of her rare cards and pontificating on the importance of each one.

Eventually, curiosity pushed Ari into playing the card game with Wild and Magic. And like someone out of an anime, Wild Card jumped off the couch, flicking his bangs to one side with a smirk.

And damn that pony really was good at card games. Even handicapping himself by playing with what Magic agreed was a ‘weak deck’ and giving Ari and Magic his pro-decks, the guy still won easily. And not just this one but poker, Uno, and even war somehow.

Eventually, it got late for ponies and Ari decided to go to bed early with them.

As Ari found out, ponies were perfectly willing to share a bed with a human as they did each other, but only once they decided you were ‘in’ so to speak. And Ari was ‘in’ at this point.

Once again, she got to cuddle up with ponies to sleep. In that moment she felt Pamela might be right that this was the best part.

4-6

Ari’s first and only real move in this kind of situation was to tell the SSP.

She was already a little shaky about it since they were busy. It wasn’t yet time for them to focus on Ari and the ponies had many, many battles in front of them already. The big thing among the ponies right now was the weaponization of eminent domain seizures.

One state decided to build a massive highway to nowhere straight through a pony commune that had formed. They effectively took the houses of thousands of ponies in an attempt to break up their communities and scatter them to the winds, hoping they’d ‘reintegrate’ to capitalist society afterward.

If the ponies didn’t manage to fight this one off, the nation would be covered in useless highways where their homes used to be within a few years.

So she wasn’t surprised when ultimately they said it’d be cheaper to just pay the fine. As for public opinion, they could use this to their advantage later. They wanted the local government to seem negligent for phase two. Ari had something to publicly rail against now.

Not that you’d need much framing for that.

It just bugged Ari how adamant the town seemed about keeping the town filthy. There had to be something going on at this point. She was musing about this in the secret darknet forum and got an answer.

R>Of course something’s going on. Your whole county is just a project being run by Blackrock. They’ll clean it up once they’ve run down the value and bought enough land.

And the mayor would have to be in on it.

“Well if the mayor’s getting bribed that will make phase two easy.”

Ari reclined in her chair and then thought better of that statement.

“Oh, who am I kidding? It won’t change a Shim-damned thing.”

A<Can we prove this?

R>Not yet. We don’t want to yet.

Ari wasn’t supposed to directly talk about

R>But what you did was good. This is ammo. I want you out there decrying this to everybody who will listen. Not right away, but transition into talking about Blackrock’s ‘Safe Housing’ initiative. And if you can think of any other way to make them shoot themselves in the foot go ahead and take it.

Ari got a big smile on her phase at praise from Ragnarök. Validation from any pony made life worth living but from him, it was the highest.

She rocked back and forth in her chair before standing up. That defeat suddenly felt like a victory.

When she walked out of her office smiling and humming, the others took notice. A ton of people were hanging around here today. She’d gotten the whole crew worked up about this, energized like a hundred other people, and then…

Crushed.

But now that she was thinking about it, even that was good. The other Shimmerists seemed to be coming here to feel better. Or at least be near somebody else wallowing in the same misery.

“Did the SSP say they were going to sue?” Dresden was the one who asked but everybody sat up to hear the answer.

“Um.” Ari licked her lips. Everybody wanted her to say ‘yes’ and she wasn’t sure how to square a no against her smile. “No.”

And then they went back to being depressed.

“I kind of liked cleaning up all the garbage,” Pamela muttered, looking down at her feet. “I don’t get why they stopped us.”

“Some Karen drove by in her Escalade and said ‘not in my back yard’ or something.” Ari shrugged

away the notion. “But that doesn’t matter. I’ve already come up with another plan.”

Nobody seemed too on board with plans at the moment. Even Pamela rested her cheek on a hand and frowned as she asked. “And what’s that?”

“I’m not sure if there’s a point in any other plans,” said Dresden, “if the government is just going to shut us down.”

Getting her gang on board with this would be good practice for doing it in front of a general audience, Ari decided. She put her hands in her pockets and got up on a coffee table.

“Now, I know we don’t all have the same political views, ponification aside,” said Ari. “But let me ask you all this: Is there even one person here who doesn’t think the local government is trying to screw this town over at this point?”

Not one person ventured an objection.

“It’s clear the local government doesn’t care about us. So the only question is who are they doing this for?”

“Capitalism!” Pamela answered right away.

“What?”

“You always say it’s capitalism…”

“Well. Yeah. But more specific.”

“Um.”

“Blackrock,” Dresden answered.

“Exactly! Everybody else is so caught up with ‘magic this, magic that’ that they forget about our actual enemies. The mass evictions that the governments and corporations aren’t just not doing anything about but openly encouraging.”

Ari turned to one of her followers, David.

“You’re a great example. Evicted from your home and forced into paying damn near everything you make to Blackrock in rent. And it’ll get much worse with Blackrock moving to take over security.”

“So you think that’s what this is all about?” Dresden asked. “They want to get everybody scared enough to let Blackrock fence them in?”

“That’s just the beginning. They’ll set up special administration zones to control those neighborhoods eventually. They’re already trying it in one town up in Main, something I’m sure all the experts will see as a huge success. They’ll try to do it down here before long.”

She could tell a lot of them were worried and many more increasingly incensed. Two great emotions for your followers to have.

“That’s great, but until they legalize ponification there isn’t much we can do about it, is there?” Dresden asked.

“Oh, there is! We can start getting political. But we need support.”

Ari returned to the battlefield later that day.

She hadn’t realized just how much popularity her stunt brought in despite failing.

“Hey, hey! It’s Ari!” Somebody shouted when she got near. “Nohands is back!”

She wished they’d chosen another nickname for her… even if that was her old Twitter handle before getting banned for her speech not being free enough or whatever.

“Hey!” Ari called out to the gathering crowd, keeping her hands in her pockets.

“Why the hell did they take away the dumpsters? What’s their problem?”

“What are we doing this time?” Another asked.

It already felt like she could get these people to cooperate… not nearly enough for the next phase but maybe to swing a local vote.

“My church is just handing out food today,” said Ari. “No crazy stunts yet.”

Everybody grew restless. Seems Ari typecast herself as the crazy stunt girl.

“We should protest!” one of them suggested.

“Sure. Why don’t you give the mayor a standup routine instead?” Ari asked. “I’m not sure which one will make him and his Blackrock buddies laugh harder.”

“Then what the fuck should we do?!”

“I’d do literally anything to not be standing here!”

“You think Blackrock has something to do with this?”

That was the right question.

“Hell yeah, they do!” Ari pointed to that guy. “Half of you were thrown out onto the streets by those bastards. And I’ll tell you this, they’re not done with their little power grab just yet. They’re not going to be happy just taking all the land away from us!”

They were listening. They wanted something to be angry at. Normally…

“No, this is all those damned horse’s fault!” Somebody had said what they’d been trained to. “It’s an alien invasion is what it is.”

A good number of them made grumbles in agreement. Ari tried to remember the more vocal of them.

“Oh, then I guess we should all be fine!” Ari spread the hoody open to gesture all around her. “I don’t see any ponies around here but I do see Blackrock putting up their fences and signs every three blocks. I’d say if you want to know why things suck look at who’s taking over because of it.”

It silenced them a little, for now. Ari had to redirect that hatred and resentment. It had to be directed all at Blackrock, not the ponies. But at the same time, she couldn’t just come out and say she was a Shimmerist directly.

She managed to keep most of them around to listen to her little speech about Blackrock’s plans, about the government bending over backward for them, and then she handed out food.

Ari managed to get the respect of some of the other humanitarian groups and churches as well. They hadn’t really been properly organized before so Ari stepped up to more properly coordinate between them all.

And she returned to these homeless camps nearly every day, delivering more speeches. She found that contrary to what the news and common sense would tell you these people weren’t totally lazy but desperate to do anything. So Ari mobilized the willing to do this and that around town, occasionally handing out pamphlets and putting up anti-Blackrock signs.

Nearly a month of that passed, until finally her persistent watching of local bond measures and votes presented an opportunity.

The mayor’s aide smiled happily. Another easy day. Another step towards real success. Once this proposal got approved it’d be straight to the top for everybody involved.

They needed the town’s approval to give Blackrock the authority to begin building micro-apartments and set up a special administration zone where they controlled the utilities, the security… everything. Once set up they would become incredible engines of profit!

All those poor, dejected people would work at Blackrock facilities and give all that money right back to Blackrock-owned stores and apartments. And those micro-apartments would be insanely profitable as well. What once housed ten people could now house a hundred, each paying just slightly less rent, once the proper deregulations were done.

Owning just a few of those, as she would…

And Blackrock had already done all the hard work for her. They rallied quite the support in the neighborhoods that mattered, the ones where they were already offering free security. Everyone here would vote yes. All she needed to do was make the rubber seal.

“Alright. We’re going to vote on proposal D next.”

The door opened. She stared in disbelief as a flood of people entered the room. They took up all the seats and there still wasn’t enough room for them. The hall had never been this full under any circumstance.

These had to be people Blackrock sent to vote for the measure, right? They specifically made sure to keep this under the radar except in wealthy gated communities where the idea was popular.

But these people looked so… so poor! The mayor’s aide couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of them.

“Um. All in favor say ‘yay’.”

The people who had already been there all echoed in chorus. The new people stayed quiet. She wished she didn’t have to say the next part.

“And those opposed.”

“Nay!”

The room erupted in nays. They drowned out the yays five to one easily.

But this couldn’t be happening. Blackrock already had millions invested in this fund. Hundreds of millions. The amount they would lose in interest from this alone… her career, no her life, would be over if this didn’t go through!

“We’ll do that one more time.” She smiled. “Remember that yay means we approve the deal that will give safe and cheap housing to um… the lower class. And bring in a lot of money. Please take this seriously. So. Those in favor.”

The same response.

“Opposed.”

She closed her eyes as the nays had it again, this time only louder.

The mayor’s aide looked left and right.

“That um… wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. But the vote was too close to…”

The crowd was growing restless.

“Um. I think we’re just going to approve the deal anyway.”

She banged her gavel in a panic.

“Excuse me?!”

“You bitch!”

And those fucking hobos were shouting and screaming at her.

“Keep this civil!” She threatened. “I don’t even know if you people are real!”

That only made them angrier!

“Security! Call the police! Get these people out of here!”

Ari strapped a spoon to her glove to take a bite out of her oatmeal as she eagerly awaited the news.

“There you are you son of a bitch.”

Mayor Hubert. A fat but well-dressed man. This was the closest Ari had come to seeing the guy in person. It was certainly her actions that flushed the rat out into broad daylight like this.

“I can assure you that I in no way approve of what happened on Tuesday,” the mayor said. “The proposal was officially rejected by standard procedure. My aid has been reprimanded and was fired immediately after I heard what happened. Yet I want to stress this before we all lose our heads and things get even more chaotic: one low-level secretary having a panic attack does not a dictatorship make as some in the mainstream media would have you believe. I remain committed to protecting democracy. But I also remain committed to protecting the security of…”

“Yep.” Ari pointed the spoon at the TV. “There it is.”

Ari chuckled to herself. Another victory for Sunset Shimmer.

Of course, they would just keep trying to do this again and again forever, so…

“Ari!” Dresden threw the door open. “Did you hear what was going on downtown?”

“What was going on downtown?” Ari glanced about, unsure of what to prepare for.

“It looks like the town has suddenly decided to clean up the garbage,” said Dresden. “They emptied all the trash cans and put up dumpsters like what we were doing.”

Ari put the spoon in her mouth again and thought about the implications of that for a good long while.

“I don’t get it,” said Dresden. “Why would they start doing this now?”

It took Ari herself some time to work out the answer to that. She swallowed her oatmeal and pointed her spoon at Dresden when it finally came to her.

“I think war was declared.”

4-7

Ari sat in the back seat of Dresden’s car alongside Pamela and some more of her crew. They were driving out to inspect what was going on, starting at that parking lot. It didn’t take long to confirm what Dresden reported. Those overflowing trash cans were gone now.

“Why would they be cleaning up the garbage now?” Pamela asked.

“Blocking their proposal scared somebody and not just an annoying Karen this time. They’re taking us seriously now,” said Ari. “The garbage thing was my main score against them so they’re taking that away.”

“I don’t want to be taken seriously.” Pamela looked out the window.

Too late for that.

Ari and co. hurried back to the homeless camp where she had made some headway. As she feared, blocking the vote resulted in the police coming out in full force. More than Ari had seen so far.

For the first time, they employed tear gas to disperse the crowd. A thick cloud hung over the parking lot, obscuring it while a small army in gas masks went through smashing anything they could with batons.

After a month or so of relative peace, things were back to the riot phase. Only this time the saner military guys weren’t around to control it. Desperate people were going as far as throwing bricks at the police. One could turn in any direction and see a fight. Cars, windows, and street signs were all smashed.

The group quickly agreed there was nothing they could do here and that they’d go back to the car. Come back later when things died down and assess the damage.

But, as if he had been waiting for Ari specifically, one officer motioned for her to come over almost as soon as she arrived.

“Yes.” Ari tepidly approached, steady slightly by the rest of her group behind her.

“Are you Ari Webber?” He asked.

So they were waiting for her!

“Yes?”

“Listen. This store is private property. We know you’ve been taking people here, going as far as to bring dumpsters onto someone else’s land without their permission. So I have to let you know that the owner isn’t going to tolerate this any further. From now on, anybody caught trespassing here will be arrested.”

Somehow Ari seriously doubted Target suddenly decided to call the cops with such perfect timing. The town was playing hardball now.

“I’ll be careful.”

“And I want to say that we know who you are.”

Never something you wanted to hear. She did her best to look as though she did not react to that.

“That I’m Ari?”

“That you’re a Shimmerist. That you’re on extremist watch lists.”

Ari hoped she didn’t go too pale at the mention. How had they found out so fast? Did somebody snitch?

No. Ari reminded herself that the FBI had lists of Shimmerists and suspected Shimmerists. All they needed was to do a background search on Ari and all the lists she was on would show up.

She had not wanted word to get out about this. Of course the police and government would let it slip wherever possible… then who knows what insane person might take up a gun to defend himself from what the media consistently portrayed as terrorists. Or what it could do to the reputation and goodwill she’d built up.

“Now listen,” said the cop. “This is America. You have the right to believe whatever you want. I don’t want you to think we’re persecuting you for your religion. I won’t stand for that. But you need to keep things civil, legal, and non-violent. Do you understand?”

“I won’t do anything my lawyer tells me not to.” Ari gave a slight bow of her head.

The officer frowned at that but like he said he couldn’t arrest her for believing the wrong thing. You did have some rights in America, at least.

They returned to the car and drove back home as quickly as they could to lick their wounds yet again.

Moral had shot back down to its lowest point yet. However it wasn’t depression overtaking the group but fear.

Dresden couldn’t sit still, pacing back and forth. Pamela sat on the couch trying to hide behind a pillow. Ari liked giving people activities to do when things got anxious like this but the only thing she could think to do was something she had to do herself.

Even though it wasn’t something she wanted to do, Ari made sure to call up everyone who joined the center to warn them that word about them being Shimmerists got out. To her credit, only one got spooked enough to quit immediately.

But that resolve might be stressed soon. Ari’s already dismal faith in humanity was about to be tested. Would they start getting death threats or worse after this leak? They might not know for some time.

“Are we going to get shot?” Pamela asked.

“We’re not getting shot,” said Ari.

“Yeah, but the cops are going to tell everyone about us,” Dresden said. “This is exactly what I was afraid of.”

“Alright people! I get we’re all worried,” said Ari. “But we’re also a community! As Shimmerists, we stick together. Anybody who doesn’t feel safe is welcome to stay here where we have our security system for as long as you want. There’s room enough for just about all of us.”

“But this is the first place a crazed gunman would shoot up,” one objected. “And mass shootings are up five, sixfold or something.”

“I’m not making anybody stay here if they don’t want to,” said Ari. “But it’s very unlikely a gunman will get in. Certainly not without us seeing it coming. We have our own guns if it comes down to it.”

“Should we really have started with all this political stuff?” Dresden asked.

The general sentiment seemed to echo him.

Ari breathed out and tried to recall the training Ragnarok gave her. They were afraid. And as he’d said:

‘People are afraid? Good. You control their fear.’

Never tell a scared person not to be afraid. Redirect their fear.

“What? Do you think the police didn’t already have you all on their lists? That’s the only way they could have found out who we were from the start.”

They quieted down, mulling on the implications of that.

“The fact that they’re out there making lists of us, that there are people out there willing to shoot us for what we believe, that the government is willing to weaponize that against us? That’s why we need this political stuff. And trust me, it’s that last part that should scare you. One or two maniacs with a gun we can easily deal with. That we have a police force and local government who are willing to act as terrorists is what scares me.”

“Sure,” said Dresden. “They suck. I get that. But we’re a target now.”

“You were already targets! They don’t even hide the fact they put Shimmerists on lists. The only difference is that now we can face them together instead of them coming at us one at a time.” Ari took her hand, which approximated a fist at any given time, from her pocket and raised it up. “Nopony is ever alone.”

They echoed it reflexively.

“Fine.” Dresden at last ceased his pacing and sat down. “But… can you at least tell me there’s some kind of hope? What do we even do after this?”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Ari. “I haven’t even played my highest ace yet. But soon.”

A good half of the members decided to stay the night. In some ways having so many people around was nice. Like a stressful Thanksgiving right after somebody died. Having lots of friends around was how ponies lived.

They didn’t exactly need volunteers to stay up and keep watch since sleep was hard enough. They get used to it but this first night would be rough.

So for both reasons, Ari was still awake at three in the morning, sitting on her computer talking to ponies in places where it was a more reasonable hour. In Alaska, it was still eleven at night.

She had even more to worry about than the others. Just having the local authorities against her was already this nerve-wracking. How was it going to be in a few weeks or a month when the entire nation had Ari in its sights?

Every fifteen minutes or so she’d glance over at the security camera to make sure nobody was there. Not that it was necessary. Anyone breaking past the first gate would trigger an alarm.

And that was why Ari froze in shock when she saw somebody walking down the driveway outside.

Had the alarm been turned off?! No! It was still on.

Maybe somebody decided to go outside? Or…? At least she wasn’t alone in this.

Ari ran downstairs and found the door that was supposed to be locked wide open.

She let out a sigh of relief seeing it was just Pamela. She had a key so that would explain things.

“You scared me for a

second,” said Ari.

“You said I could come over any time, right?” Pamela asked.

“That’s why I gave you the key.”

Truth be told, Ari was always happy to have the others stay over. She loved the idea of communal living, even if it was hard for humans to pull it off.

“Did you get nervous?” Ari asked. “You said you’d be with your family.”

“I was but…” Pamela twiddled her thumbs. “Well…. I got into a fight with my mom and I really don’t have anywhere else to go but here.”

“You get into a lot of fights with her.”

Ari wanted to sit down for this. She brought Pamela into their living room and sat down on a couch together. Another member, George, was asleep on the opposite couch but in one night Ari became convinced he was nearly impossible to wake.

“Have you considered moving out?” Ari asked.

“Of course. I want to so badly. But… well we went from nobody being able to afford to buy a house to nobody being able to afford rent. And I’m scared food is next. The days when a single person can just work 40 hours a week and afford to rent their own apartment are over.”

Even back in more innocent times, the 2010s everybody just meekly accepted things would end up this way. But nobody expected them to arrive at this point so soon. And what was coming next would be even worse. Not something Ari wanted to bring up just now, though.

“You know you can just stay here, right?” Ari asked. “That’s kind of the whole goal. Ponies offer an alternative to the cutthroat ‘I got mine’ attitude of humans.”

“Yeah.” Pamela patted the pillow on her lap, then grabbed it with a hug. “I just… wish we could have all been ponies.”

“We can relate.”

“But.”

Pamela looked away, needing the pillow in her hands.

“I suppose I never told you this but um. Maybe the main reason I wanted to be a pony…” Pamela looked back up at the ceiling. “I used to struggle with anorexia.”

Ari sat up at attention immediately. She tried to remember every time she’d seen the other girl eat but had no suspicious memories. And Pamela didn’t look underweight.

“Used to?”

“It stopped after ETS.” Pamela nodded. “I guess it’s like… my ideal body is a pony now so it’s not like starving myself will help get me there. There’s no point in trying. Weirdly… it kind of broke me out. I still can’t look at myself in the mirror but I’m not hurting myself. But I don’t think my mom likes my ‘solution’.”

Her first instinct was to tell Pamela that she wasn’t ugly at all. But she had to hear that constantly. That sort of reassurance never worked.

“Maybe this is wrong but… that’s why the idea of using transformation magic appeals to me so much! I… I just know that if I was a pony I could finally be comfortable with who I am. I know the Equestrians are always saying that becoming a pony can never solve any problem. But… I mean… maybe this one?”

She knew the common refrains. ‘You don’t have to change yourself’, ‘You’re already perfect the way you are’, ‘Just love yourself’. If it were the easy Pamela would have already done it. Those truisms would have worked the first time she surely heard them.

“I think you should have the right to try,” Ari said instead. “It helped a lot of people. Even if nobody wants to admit it. But… I’ll still be your friend whether you get over it or not. If your mother can’t be happy you’ve found some way to cope with your problems then she’s in the wrong here.”

“But what if um…” Pamela looked away again. “My one fear is if I do become a pony… but then my problems come back and…”

She could see what Pamela meant. Ari instinctively hated the idea of one of her friends remaining human. Rehumanization just seemed like the most horrible thing that could ever happen to someone. Spring Breeze and all the others gave her a constant feed of horror stories about it.

But, in good conscience, Ari could never bring herself to say it should be illegal.

“I’d never turn my back on you!” Ari vowed. “I hate that the government is pushing rehumanization on us but… well I think it’s fine for a few people like you. Potentially. I’m sure you’d be happier as a pony but if you weren’t. I’d still be your friend even then.”

Pamela smiled a little, then leaned over to rest her head on Ari’s shoulder.

“Thanks. You’re a good person. I admire so much about you. I really do love it here.”

Part of Ari wanted to stoke Pamela’s hair but… she was always too ashamed of her deformity to ever do something like that. They remained in her pockets.

“Can’t we just… not do anything political anymore?” Pamela asked. “I just want to watch movies and hang out and talk about ponies and maybe help people by handing out blankets. And...”

This again.

“People were going to find out we’re Shimmerists eventually,” Ari reminded her. “And that’s exactly why we need to do political stuff.”

“But we don’t have to… maybe we can all just move away somewhere safer?”

“That’s not how this works.” Ari shook her head and stood up. “When have they ever just allowed people to live in peace? Did the king of England just let everybody have the right to vote and give us freedom of speech and religion? We had to fight a war for that. Were black people just given civil rights? Were women just given suffrage? Did gay and trans people not have to fight for the rights they have? Everyone who has ever wanted to just live their life the way they want has had to struggle against the powers that be for it.”

Ari sat back down.

“We’re not different. We need to fight to live our lives the way we want to. We want to be allowed to become ponies. We want to live a life different from what humans have been doing. America, Blackrock, Equestria, and who knows what else will do everything they can to stop us because they decided it's more convenient for them to force us to be the way they want us to.”

“But it’s not fair! I shouldn’t have to risk getting shot and tear gassed and have the police threaten me and… and have the Equestrians and everyone else call us evil and racist just because I wanted to be a pony.”

“I know. But it’s never been fair. It’ll only be fair if we don’t give them any other choice. Purple stopped the peaceful world Sunset Shimmer wanted so we’re stuck with this.”

Pamela sat across from Ari, hands in her lap, tears in her eyes. Ari frowned, hesitated then did something she normally didn’t.

“Listen.” Ari took her broken hand out of its pocket and ran it across Pamela’s head. There was something she’d been meaning to say. “I might not always be around.”

“Ari!” Pamela leaned forward. “Nothing is going to happen to you!”

If only it were as easy as insisting, it was so.

“I don’t necessarily mean it like that. I don’t plan to die.” Ari patted her head and sat Pamela back down. “I mean more like… I might get promoted or something. In the SSP and…”

“I want things to stay the way they were!”

“They can’t.”

Ari closed her eyes and let the statement hang in the air before continuing.

“So I want you to take over as leader of this center. You’re the most passionate and committed member of this community. In the meantime, I’m promoting you to second in command. But I swear that no matter what you’ll never be alone. Nopony is ever alone.” With Ari, Pamela mimicked the now familiar phrase. “Will you keep fighting as long as that’s the case?”

Pammela swallowed then solemnly nodded to accept the responsibility.

“Thanks.”

“But…”

Pamela looked away one more time.

“Can we… I mean. If we had become ponies.” Pamela looked up at her. “One of the things I’m jealous of them over is that they can just cuddle with each other and it’s not weird. So…”

She lowered her head and looked up at Ari nervously. Ari saw where this was going.

“You… wanted to sleep in my room?” Ari asked.

Pamela turned red.

“Not! I mean it’s like the way ponies do. I don’t have those kinds of feelings for you but. Um! I…”

Ari remembered her time with the ponies. She’d had zero problems sleeping platonically with Spring Breeze and two other ponies she’d never even met. So why was the thought of letting Pamela sleep next to her weird?

Ari decided it was a stupid feeling. She wanted to be more like a pony. She wanted to be good.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“If you get that I’m not in lesbians with you then sure, you can sleep next to me tonight.” Ari smiled at the thought. “Man, almost nobody in the country would believe that thought, would they? People are kind of… perverted I guess?”

“Oh, thank you!”

4-8

Thankfully, nobody shot Ari when she made her rounds later. It seemed she’d manage to humanize herself among the other charities and the downtrodden enough that they were only somewhat scandalized by the revelation she was a Shimmerist.

Some people called her a nazi and vowed never to speak with her again. But most let her explain herself. She said time and time again that she had no intention of ever forcing everyone to become ponies. Just that she thought it was reasonable to give everyone the option.

And despite all the demonization from the news, a lot of them begrudgingly conceded that point.

More importantly, they all still wanted Ari’s help. She already had a reputation for being a loveable maverick and to some people, this only made them more interested in her next stunt. And Ari did repeatedly promise another stunt was coming.

Today was the day!

Technically yesterday was the day. That is, the day the Food Relief Act was passed. That was the pivotal bill Ari had been waiting for, listening to the news of day after day for months since she first got back from the Shimmerist Conference.

This was the law that would change everything.

The first truck showed up just after dawn. Ari stayed up just about all night waiting for it. The eighteen-wheeler pulled up, Ari signed and they began unloading a small mountain of boxes.

Around the time the others began waking up, two more trucks were unloading and a fourth would be arriving later.

Pamela and Dresden came out to look over the cargo being piled up on their lawn. The tower was higher than their heads and covered a good portion of the lawn.

“What’s all this?” Pamela rubbed her eyes and walked up to the stack. “This isn’t guns, is it?”

“Today is another good day!” Ari announced to her followers. “They passed the Food Relief Act! We won!”

“Won what?” Dresden, always the most skeptical read the label on the boxes.

As if the name of the act didn’t make it obvious, his eyes widened upon seeing that this was all food.

“I never thought I’d see this much food again!” Pamela opened a stray box, revealing bags of flour.

“Where did you get all of this?” Dresden asked. “Did the SSP really pay for this much?!”

“Food is practically free now, remember? Earth ponies and pegasi can just output it infinitely. They mostly only have to pay for the transportation costs.”

Ari tapped against the black label on all the packages that read ‘unnaturally generated’ in red letters and a symbol that looked similar to the radioactive one. Despite the warning, it was probably healthier than whatever you’d get at the grocery store.

But that label was new enough that nobody else here knew what exactly it meant. Food was quickly becoming unaffordable. Damn near every human was on food stamps. The government couldn’t win this battle nor did they want to continue subsidizing the poor when that money could go to a proper billionaire.

At the same time, they didn’t want to go all the way. This was their compromise.

“You see,” Ari announced. “They’ve finally legalized food grown with magic. Sort of. Don’t worry about those labels. That was just a compromise with the people worried about the ‘economic damage’ of food prices plummeting.”

“Sort of?” Dresden asked. “You said it was ‘sort of’ legal?”

“You see.” Ari slowly walked past them, hands deep in her pockets as she explained. “If you’re a member of a pony community, and I am, and you’re a pony or partial, which I am, and you’re on ground that was owned by said pony community before this act was passed, like we’re at now, then you can distribute magically-grown food to humans so long as it has been marked as ‘unnatural’ and you’re not shipping it more than five miles from your property.”

“So free food for all of us?!” Pamela took a bag of nuts the size of her torso out and hugged it dearly. “I’m spending so much money on food! This would change everything!”

“Yep.” Ari nodded to the delight of all present. “You can all take as much as you want.”

There was a short scramble for it all. But the few people present could hardly take even one percent of what was here. And that fourth truck was already rolling up.

“Of course, this is bigger than just us,” said Ari. “The government wasn’t thinking about pony communities in areas like this that they were hoping to ‘protect’. So we can give food to everybody.”

“Who’s everybody?” Dresden asked.

“Everyone willing to come within five miles of us,” said Ari. “The SSP is going to give us bonkers amount of food. There’s no end to this. Multiple trucks every day forever.”

“But we get first dibs, right?” asked Pamela.

Ari nodded. Dresden held his bag, still processing it.

“Hold on, this can’t.” He paused. “This can’t be that easy. When you say we can give it to people ‘within five miles’ do you mean they have to live within five miles? Or that they just have to come within five miles of us?”

“Oh, I have no idea.” Ari shrugged and laughed. That was the fun part. “The people who passed that weren’t expecting there to be any pony communities in human areas capable of pulling off a stunt like this. They thought it would only affect pony areas that were already a write-off. So it’s for some lawyer to decide if I’m breaking the law.”

“So you don’t know if this plan is… legal.”

“No, but that’s the point.” Ari put an arm around Dresden. “Think about it! They’ll have two options. Shut down the unlimited food glitch we’ve given to everybody or let most of the town become dependent on us for food propelling me into the defacto crime boss of Nassau County.”

The rest of them paused to process the implications of this move. The situation was unwinnable for the town.

“Oh, you can stop people from getting things like free food or social security or health care or affordable housing. People will be total cucks and accept that’s the way things are. But taking it away from them? Then you got a problem.”

“And… okay. If they do shut this down, which they probably will, what’s your plan then?” Dresden asked. “If you just want everybody to hate the government then. I mean that was already the case even before ETS.”

“No need to worry about that. We have plans for the next move no matter what happens. There’s no way out of this for the humans.” When she got looks she amended that statement. “Those other humans.”

Day one of the food drive went middling at best.

Ari sent her people out to come gather whoever they knew and inform them that this was for everyone, not just the poor or homeless. They could have handed out food to nearly a hundred people, all of them ecstatic at the thought of getting a free food ration from now on, but a hundred wasn’t nearly enough for this plan to work.

This wasn’t something that could ramp up slowly either. Despite her boast, there was no way to lose with this, there was. Had the cops shown up on day one things would go bust. Nobody would care about the prospect of free food until it became concrete and real right in front of them.

Sleep didn’t come easy that night. Or much at all.

With seemingly no need to sleep any longer, Ari found herself waking up much earlier than normal to pace around the still-dark center. Nobody else was awake yet and the house was dead silent.

Yet just as the first signs of sunrise were coming so too did a glimmer of hope. There were already people waiting outside the gates. A sight that would have inspired fear in her just a few days ago but no. They were camping out like this was Black Friday or something!

Ari woke her reluctant crew up a bit too early to start. They went to the gates and confirmed the rumors were true. They would hand out a week’s supply of food to anybody who came looking. No, you didn’t need to be homeless, poor or unemployed. Perhaps indefinitely.

And despite going as fast as they could possibly work the line only got bigger. And bigger. It stretched far down the road and out of sight, clogging everything to the point no cars could approach. Eventually, one could stand on the roof and still not see the end of things. Without the gate, the place would have been overwhelmed.

They’d gone viral sooner than she’d even hoped! Ari’s worry now was that she really would run out of food.

They had to reduce the amount of food they were giving out initially to two or three days' worth but assured everybody that larger shipments would be coming soon.

Any doubt that people would be too picky to try this ‘unnatural’ food was gone now. Ari supposed that in an age of mass food insecurity, people weren’t so picky.

In the end, it was a neighbor who couldn’t get out of their driveway that called the police on them. Ari couldn’t be angry at them, exactly. For one they were merely activating her trap. For another, the crowd was growing too restless for Ari and her five guys to control.

Even the cops had trouble getting there. Ari had to listen to the sirens blaring for a good while before one of them showed up.

The first police officer was relatively reasonable, though not at all happy to see that it was Ari Webber behind this. He asked what was happening and Ari explained. She could tell he hadn’t been updated on the law, which to be fair had only changed two days ago, insisting at first that handing this stuff out to humans was illegal as it had been for the past several months.

Eventually, a growing cluster of police officers were standing around, googling things on their phones and calling people to check. Only when it was beginning to look like Ari might have been right did they change tactics.

“Well even if it is legal now,” he said. “You still can’t just gather a crowd like this wherever you want. You’d need some kind of permit if you’re going to be having this many people coming to you.”

“Is there somewhere I can distribute it?” Ari asked.

“That’s not really up to me. You’ll have to call the town and ask about the proper way to go about that,” said the officer. “And because I’m still not sure if this is legal, I’ll have to confiscate all this food for now.”

There was enough animosity around that statement that he had to stay everyone within earshot. But somebody in the crowd heard. Word of that decision quickly moved along the line.

“You’re seriously going to take this away?!” Somebody shouted.

“When the hell is the town going to do something about the food crisis then?!”

“Look, that wasn’t my decision,” he added quickly. “You’re going to have to talk to the mayor about this sort of thing. You’ll get it back as soon as everything is cleared up.”

Ari had to pretend to be upset with this decision but perhaps one or two people caught her smiling.

People were shouting. A few of them just grabbed things from the pile and ran. Ari was worried that they’d storm the property. The next order of business was clearing out the increasingly riotous crowd. Even the police were starting to look nervous, formed a line by Ari’s gate, and started calling for backup.

“Everyone disperse!” The officer shouted out to them.

“I could talk to them,” Ari offered.

“I’d rather you not be rilling them up, thanks.”

“It might be better for it to be me,” said Ari. “If you all show up and tell them you’re taking away their free rations there might be a riot. If I’m the one to do it, they’ll be more understanding. I’ll tell them it’s not you’re fault. That it’s the mayor who’s going to decide.”

The officer reluctantly considered the offer. The prospect of passing the buck to somebody not immediately present was too tempting to pass up. Ari was right that the crowd might turn violently against the police if they made themselves a target.

They agreed on exactly what Ari would say before one of them gave her a loudspeaker and Ari got on top of a police car to address them all.

“Listen up!” Ari called out to them. “I’m the leader of the center handing out this food! Now, I want to stress this isn’t the decision of me or the police or anybody here. But the mayor hasn’t decided if I’m allowed to keep this up.”

Already things were growing uncomfortably loud.

“Quiet down!” Ari had to shout over them now. “We have a Facebook group where you can get updates on this. SCCLI. Again, go to the SCCLI group on Facebook. We’ll let you know when the mayor has made a decision. But unfortunately, for today, we can’t give out any more–”

Ari wasn’t able to get any more out to them. Somebody threw a rock at her and she quickly retreated behind police lines before anything worse could be aimed. She was glad she remembered to mention the Facebook group before this part. She’d done what she could to calm them all down. Now it was the police’s job to stop what could quickly turn into a riot.

How well they succeeded was hard to tell. There was quite a bit of fighting against the police but nothing more intense than the frequent breakups of homeless encampments and protests before. Everyone was used to this by now and realized the futility of it all to varying degrees.

More and more police showed up. The crowd cleared out. The food was taken. But the trap was set. Now Ari could just sit back while her soon-to-be nemesis made his agonizing decision.

As hoped the Facebook group exploded in terms of views. The numbers seemed unreal, dwarfed even her old Twitter handle, long since banned by Musk along with most other Shimmerists. This one story was all that anybody in town talked about anymore. Nothing else seemed to matter, not compared to food. This was a decision that would make or break their lives.

Even people far from the wolf of starvation started showing up to the scattered homeless camps and charity groups Ari frequented to try and get more information. The media did their best to suppress the story and it didn’t make the actual news but there wasn’t a single person within fifty miles who hadn’t heard of that stunt.

Nobody seemed to care Ari was a Shimmerist. She openly introduced herself as one to everyone now, even reasonably well-off humans, and the response now was ‘That’s cool. Can you really get us free food?’

Things were going perfectly! The moment the town announced they’d be banning Ari’s charity she could announce a protest to people eagerly awaiting news.

Pieces were falling into place. The SSP had somepony monitoring the situation for her so that Ari would beat the local news to the punch and deliver the news long before anyone else. They were getting ready for the trigger to be pulled, for things to swing around, and for Ari to at last become a national curiosity.

And that moment came.

After refreshing the SSP forum page until her mouse broke down from wear, the news finally came. Her phone got the notification meaning all that time watching was wasted to begin with. But it came.

The town released a statement explaining why they wouldn’t be allowing Ari to distribute free food.

They claimed to be worried about the health of the people. They pretended to care about the grocery store workers who would lose their jobs. And of course inflation. They said that Ari was stretching the law too much and there would be a lawsuit.

None of that mattered.

She posted the prewritten response to her group immediately, one that promised an important announcement from the Social Shimmerists of Long Island to fight back against this decision soon, knowing plenty of other people would be refreshing it just as fervently as Ari had.

It was a screed on how little the mayor cared about them and called for a protest outside city hall tomorrow. People were already signing up for it within minutes.

“Alright!” Ari emerged from the computer room, throwing open the door to the rest of the center, all on edge. “It happened. The protest is tomorrow.”

“I still don’t understand,” said Dresden. “You’re always saying protests are useless.”

“They are! But the point of this protest isn’t to change anything. It’s to make an announcement.”

Another riot broke out that night, obviously. But when did they, not these days?

More important was the crowd Ari managed to assemble in front of city hall. It was almost as big as the one who had gathered for free food a week earlier. People were standing out with all kinds of signs, reminding Ari of her college days.

But this time things would be different.

She looked back at town hall. The mayor was nowhere to be seen just yet, hiding away.

Ari took out her megaphone to address the crowd, eager to hear her response.

“The local government, no everyone in power, has proven time and time again that they simply don’t care about working people!” Ari announced into the crowd. “if they had done nothing to stem the tide of rising costs pushing people like you and me to the edge of poverty that’d be one thing. But they just went one step further and made it worse instead!”

They all cheered for that.

“I want to remind all of you that this isn’t a one-off action. I had my rent doubled when Blackrock moved in. How many of you had a similar experience? And what has the government done to help? Do you remember all the garbage piled up? He refused to clean up the town until I got involved and forced him to do it! The fact that it happened so fast shows he could have done it any time he wanted but refused. Why? Because he doesn’t care about any of us. The only thing he cares about is Blackrock.”

Many people held up their signs targeted at Blackrock specifically. They weren’t exactly popular around here either.

“And hear me now! The fact that they don’t care… is exactly why this protest is pointless.”

They didn’t like that. Boos and shouts overtook the crowd. Thankfully, Ari couldn’t make any words out.

“Calm down. The protest won’t work because he doesn’t care. No one cares. Not the local, state, or federal government cares about any of you because you’re not a corporation forking over lobby money. They’ll have a good laugh about this and carry on with the same bullshit they’ve always been doing. Letting you starve for the sake of corporations like Blackrock. There is only one thing we can do to change that. Only one thing that will work to even the slightest degree.”

She paused for a moment, both to let the idea settle in the crowd and in a final hesitation, knowing this was the point of no return.

“And that’s why… I’m announcing that I will be running for mayor.”

End of part 4

Part 5. Public Enemy

A news reporter smiled at the camera as they returned from commercials.

“Shocking news coming out of New York this evening as a young candidate, Ari Webber, has announced her bid for mayor. Doesn’t sound too shocking to you? Well, what if I told you that she’s an open Shimmerist in a 100% human area, that she’s the leader of an infamous local hate group… and that she’s ahead thirty points in early polls.

“You heard that right. Despite being sternly anti-human in an all-human area, Ari Webber is enjoying a commanding 59 to 29 lead over incumbent Mayor Hubert. This poll comes after an unhinged interview with Ari Webber shortly after announcing her mayoral bid in which she rants and raves about pony supremacy wearing an infamous ‘Heroes Never Die’ jacket. We’ll watch some of that now.”

The camera cut to Ari Webber standing in a park, a single newscaster interviewing her.

“Yes, I am a pony supremacist,” said Ari with no hesitation.

The interviewer brought the mike back to his mouth, then to Ari again, unsure of how to respond.

“And you realize that you’re running for mayor for a town filled with humans?” he asked. “Does that not seem at all contradictory to that stance?”

“I don’t see how. I’m running for mayor in a town full of corruption and hopelessness because Mayor Hubert sold us out to Blackrock. You look at the areas where ponies are in charge and the ones where humans are in charge. The difference is huge. We need to look to them for solutions. And we need to get rid of Blackrock.”

“Alright. But you can’t possibly think Sunset Shimmer was right, can you?”

“That depends on what you mean.”

Again, another moment of hesitation from the reporter.

“You’re wearing a shirt that explicitly calls her a hero. Do you consider Sunset Shimmer a hero? Or the release of ETS moral?”

“I think Sunset Shimmer was a hero,” said Ari, “because she was one of the few people this world had ever seen that had the guts to change it. And she did change it for the better. I think it’s a shame ETS was stopped and we’d all be better off it if hadn’t been. But if you want the answer you’re looking for, I do think the ideal would be for everyone to willingly choose ponification instead.”

“Yowch.” The news reporter gave a fake little laugh. “The question on everyone’s mind now is: how is this possible? What could be happening in this town that would make people consider voting for such an extremist? Again, Ari Webber remains immensely popular despite her vitriolic and hateful remarks. We sent our action-ready news crew out to investigate. Here’s what the people on the street are saying.”

“Ari is crazy, yeah,” one local admitted to the camera. “We’ve known that for months. But she’s kind of like our crazy? I don’t feel like anybody in charge is really ‘ours’ in the same way Ari is, you know?”

“She’s the only one who seems to care about your struggles?” the reporter asked.

“Well like, I can’t afford chocolate or coffee anymore and I’m seriously worried like, the next step is I can’t eat anything but instant ramen ever again. And before that, it was houses becoming affordable. My whole life it’s just this and then that becomes unaffordable. And Ari is the first person who seems to want to fight back against that. She can call Sunset a hero. I don’t care. I just want to know I’ll have food and shelter next year. Ari is the only one who will do that. She was literally giving us free food the other day before the town stopped her.”

The scene changed to a second man.

“It’s because she swore to hurt Blackrock,” he said. “I don’t want to hear about ETS. Blackrock destroyed this community. Blackrock is the one screwing us over. I lost my house because of them and the mayor is in their pocket. Everybody knows that.”

“But Ari is the leader of a local hate group,” the reporter reminded her. “She called herself a pony supremacist and Sunset Shimmer a hero.”

“Yeah, but she ain’t the one who threw me out on the streets now is she?” His next words got bleeped out. “- Blackrock.”

“So we’re seeing two things here,” said the newscaster back at his desk. “A lot of people blaming Blackrock for their financial woes and support for the fringe Shimmerist idea of ‘universal food security’. A handout of magically grown food. Ari Webber got in trouble for a political stunt where she illegally distrusted potentially deadly food before starting a riot. A stunt that got her under investigation by the FBI and local police. We have a local expert, Rob Glockensmith, on call. What do you make of this?”

A picture of a much older and fatter man appeared.

“Look,” he said. “This is just another symptom of how this generation wants handout after handout. Of course, these lazy kids are going to gravitate to another lazy kid offering them free things. This nation has forgotten how to work hard. And they’ve forgotten the real enemy. It isn’t investment firms or even ETS or Covid. It’s inflation. Inflation caused by handouts. Handouts during Covid. Handouts during ETS. And now handouts after ETS? We need to put our feet down against such entitled behavior somewhere!”

“To look at things from the other side of the aisle, we also have a renowned civil rights leader. We’ll ask him how Ari Webber’s rhetoric compares to that of the KKK after the break.”

Hard to believe all that happened over a few days. Even the ponies got blindsided by just how fast this had taken off. Realistically, they expected it to be a few weeks. But Ari got ‘lucky’. This was her ten minutes of fame. She was all over the news and the internet. Thankfully, she hadn’t the time to read any of the comments.

It meant the plan would work. But also the SSP wasn’t able to send any ponies over fast enough. The only help she got was from this fidgety earth pony who showed up right after the initial riot and helped coach Ari orchestrate that infamous interview.

The interview was designed to trigger those in charge and it did. People with power suddenly wanted to talk to Ari. Politicians, Shimmerists from the other side of the tracks, people with serious money. These she blew off invariably. But the representatives from Blackrock were much more aggressive, approaching her personally at every opportunity.

That was how she finally ended up sitting in a Starbucks from one Mr. Harker. He was the guy bribing the current mayor, Ari did not doubt that. Though he preferred to phrase it as ‘spearheading the real estate revitalization project’. The one that would give Blackrock the powers of a HoA across most of Long Island, allowing them to fine or foreclose on pretty much anyone they wanted and funnel everyone into profitable micro-apartments.

Harker was a little too well-dressed and sharp, every smile seemed completely intentional. With his hair sleeked back and his all-black outfit and sunglasses, he seemed like someone who could disappear you. Breaking the secret-agent look, however, were three rings and a Rolex which a normal person could have retired off of.

Ari had met Mayor Hubert and wasn’t impressed. She could already tell Harker was the guy she was actually up against, that he was far sharper than the man he was bribing.

Harker tried to make a joke that fell flat. When it did his smile dropped a strategic eighty percent and he instead put his briefcase on his lap.

“Ms. Webber,” said Mr. Harker. “I hope we both realize that this campaign is little more than a political stunt.”

“I’m up thirty points in the polls,” Ari reminded him.

“For now. The public will turn against you inevitably. You may win the election yes,” he conceded, drumming a ringed finger worth more than Ari had ever made against what was surely a thousand-dollar briefcase. “But what then? You won’t have the power to change anything substantial. Even in that scenario, the people will turn against you. We’ll get one of ours in and the revitalization project will go through. Even if that may be ten years from now. But perhaps there is a more amicable path forward for you.”

Harker opened his briefcase and placed a small stack of papers on the table between them. With two fingers, he spun it around and pressed it toward Ari, who refused to look down at them with more than a glance.

“We are willing to offer you a job if you drop out of this race. One that will pay, let’s say, four hundred thousand a year. To start.”

Ari tried her darndest to not react to that amount of money. One or two years of that is all it would take to be set for life. She had to remind herself that to a guy like this, offering someone 400 grand was like offering a bag of peanuts to a monkey.

So his first reaction was to try and bribe Ari too.

“A job doing what, exactly?” She asked more out of curiosity than lack of conviction.

“Oh, we can find something you’d be happy with. Something in politics perhaps.”

“I thought you wanted me to not be in politics. Hence the bribe.” Ari smacked the contract.

“It isn’t a bribe and I’m not even asking you to give up on any of your ideals, exactly,” he said. “I’m sure there’s lots of things you’d like to advocate for. Trans rights. Climate policies. But there are better ways of going about getting, say, laxer laws on transformation magic. Ways that don’t violently disrupt important systems our already fragile economy needs to function. Ways that don’t involve aligning yourself with hate groups and most importantly ways that work.”

Ari rested her head against her shoulder and listened carefully. He did have a way of making you listen. That was how he got to talk to her in the first place.

“You can probably get many issues passed later in life,” he said. “But change has to be incremental. So many people have this childish idea that if the right person with an unwillingness to compromise their ideals wins this or that office they can just rewrite all the laws that isn’t how it works. Real politics is about compromise. Reaching solutions that can get votes. Take that environmentalist bill that passed recently. It wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t willing to compromise with Joe Mansion. If no one was willing to compromise to make actual changes.”

Ari looked down at the contract, then back up at Harker. So she was like Biden and he was like Joe Mansion. Only if the latter were the president.

Unfortunately, Ari hated Joe Mansion and she had no delusions of getting any law passed herself, compromise or not.

“I’m sorry.” Ari slid the contract back across the table without looking at it. “You’re going to have to find somewhere to shove this.”

Harker quickly placed his finger on the contract to stop Ari from returning it.

“Let me make something perfectly clear,” he said, slightly sterner than before. “If you go through with this stunt, and let’s be honest that’s all this is, you will have no chance of affecting political change in the future. Democrat. Republican. It doesn’t matter. You’ll be excommunicated. The news will drag you through the mud. As for the internet, we’ll have Hasanabi calling you a genocidal racist and Ben Shapiro calling you a communist terrorist and everyone in between will hate you even more. Your reputation will be completely destroyed. It will be nearly impossible for you to have a job after this. You’ll just be some washed-up internet meme desperately looking for pennies to rub together.”

“I don’t really want a job.” Ari shrugged. “My generation is lazy and entitled and doesn’t want to work. Remember?”

“Do you think the SSP will take care of you?” he asked. “These people only even think they want to be ponies because they’re mentally compromised. They are diseased and suffering from severe brain damage. It isn’t a good idea to rely on such unstable invalids. They are just using you for their own political game. None of this is about stopping Blackrock’s development here. They only care about their own turf. You’re just a pawn. And you know what happens to pawns, don’t you?”

With a free hand, he flicked over the saltshaker, knocking it off the table with as little care as one would give a pawn.

“Yeah.” Ari nodded. “Ragnarök specifically told me I was a pawn at the start. But you know? That’s better than what you assholes were offering me. If you didn’t want me to do this, you shouldn’t have doubled my rent.”

And like a champ he maintained his composure but did let out a long, frustrated sigh, keeping just one finger on the paper.

“Is there anything we could offer you that would make you reconsider?” He asked. “Ms. Webber. We have substantial influence.”

“Maybe.” Ari smiled and leaned on the table. “I know you guys get to talk to that purple bitch. Convince her to let me be a pony and maybe we can talk.”

He took his hand off the paper, stood up, checked his watch, placed the paper neatly back into his briefcase, and straightened his jacket.

“For the record, we likely could arrange for that to happen,” he said. “But I’m not going to. I’ll make sure Princess Twilight hears that you’re a dangerous, hateful, violent radical and that you’re put on a list of people who should never be allowed to go to Equestria or gain access to magic. And she’ll believe me because I have her ear and you don’t.”

“Well, Purple was against me from the very beginning. So.” Ari leaned back into her chair as the coffee arrived.

“Be careful.” He threw a wad of cash enough to be a 5,000% tip onto the table before walking away.

“Please.” Ari carefully attached her, now free, drink to her Velcro straps. “What are you going to do? Throw me in jail?”

And then Ari was in jail.

Yet another riot broke out and they somehow decided that it was Ari’s fault since she gave a speech earlier that day and was standing a little too close to the action. Of the 500 riots that happened this year, Ari really felt the least responsible for this one. But whatever.

She sat in an overcrowded jail with a small collection of people ostensibly here for the same thing. Hopefully, the SSP would be here soon to help out. They were supposed to send a whole team out sometime today.

“Behehe! Looks like we got here a bit late, huh?”

Ari knew that voice! That was Shiv! The toothless bat pony she’d met way back when.

Sure enough, the bat pony came walking in. Shiv wore heavy sunglasses that shined a red light into his eyes. Behind him was the police officer who locked her up and next to him…

“Ragnarök!” Ari ran up to the bars and knelt down to be at eye level with him.

The ever-tired rust-colored pegasus smiled up at her. He had come for her!

“You’ve been a good girl, Ari,” said Ragnarök. He looked up at the warden. “Release this woman, officer.”

He grumbled something fierce but had little choice but to get out his key and open the jail door for Ari. She wasn’t expecting to get out of jail so easily but stepped out all the same.

“You guys can get people out of prison?” Ari asked.

“Nah,” said Ragnarök. “I got you out of jail. Big difference. Prison is where people who actually committed a crime get sent. Jail is where they send you when they just want to fuck with you. I can get you out of jail, not prison.”

“You’ll be in prison if you keep things up,” the officer warned Ari. “I know your sort, Webber. Not the good kind.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Ari.

He wasn’t amused at her little quip. But still, the police returned her Heroes Never Die jacket and the few other things she’d had on her.

The three of them walked out to a car with a human driver up front.

Shiv put on a blindfold as soon as they stepped outside and lay down in the backseat. Ari heard it wasn’t easy for those bat ponies to be awake during the day. He must have developed some technique.

“You did a good job, Cloud Weaver.” Ragnarök opened the door for Ari. “This might seem like the hard part, but you have my word it’s all smooth sailing from here. Just ignore what all these apes are gonna say about you.”

Ari sat down in the back, Ragnarök joining her shortly, hoping he was right. The ponies would more or less guide her through the rest of the process. She’d have serious support from here out.

“I have been talking to Nelson about you,” Ragnarök went on. “If this goes well, you’ll get to meet him after all this.”

That was an exciting proposition. Nelson was the man, or stallion rather, who started the SSP to begin with. The one who gathered Magic Card, Ragnarök, DS, and all those other ‘high-value cutie mark’ ponies to Nelson Residence. Yet Ari never actually met the pony behind it all. He never even posted on their forums. Perhaps smartly, he preferred to stay in the shadows.

Already Ari was torn by where she’d live if she lost the mayor campaign as was expected. She’d be allowed to join Nelson Residence for sure at this rate. But she could also go live with Spring Breeze and April Showers.

And if the SSP could push through the bill that would allow partials to finish transforming she’d have everything she’d ever wanted in life! Everything was looking up and up.

“We can’t drive in New York,” Shiv complained as he leaned back into the middle seat, covering his eyes with the blindfold. “Can’t fly in New York. They pass all these laws against us and say we’re the hatemongers, eh?”

“No flying is gonna drive me crazy,” said Ragnarök, absently looking out the window. “Thankfully, federal land is an exception. And hopefully, we won’t be here long.”

The no-flying rule was one of the more insane things the humans had come up with to punish ponies. But as much as Ari wanted to empathize, she hadn’t the strength to worry about any problem but her own.

“Oh.” Ragnarök tapped on the glass a few times.

Then he turned to Ari without too much concern on his face.

“I do have some more bad news.” Ragnarök swept his hoof across the glass of the window. “Bad in a way that doesn’t matter so much, mind you. Nothing irreplaceable was lost.”

“Lost in what?” Ari leaned over toward him.

“The FBI raided the community center shortly after you got arrested.” Ragnarök let his hoof off the window and turned back to her. “The house is beat up something awful.”

Damn it! It had gotten worse. Those bastards were just waiting to pull the trigger, weren’t they?

Ari’s mind went straight to the worst-case scenario.

“But.” Ari didn’t know how bad to expect it to be. He was right about the things inside. Everything except. “Did anybody but me…?”

“Don’t worry,” said Ragnarök. “We got here just before the FBI showed up. So nopony was arrested. One of them got shoved but that’s it for injuries.”

There was that much.

“Don’t look so worried!” Shiv hit her shoulder. How he knew what she looked like blindfolded she couldn’t tell. “We get raided by the FBI all the time. No big deal.”

Three vans sat parked in front of the center. Not FBI but SSP, Ari was informed. And there were way more ponies around now than Ari would have guessed would fit in those three vans. Five or six of them milled about outside and a few more were moving equipment into the building.

The first sign of destruction was the damaged gate. Then the front door had been knocked off its hinges. A mark on the front left it splintered and broken.

The front room was a mess, though a pony or two was already working to clean it up. Everything that could be knocked over was as roughly as possible too. Another group of ponies was setting up computers around the first floor, unpacking expensive equipment.

Through the crowd of ponies, Ari looked for any of her own followers. Thankfully, few of them had been present during the raid. Dresden was the only mainstay still around.

“I told them I would open the door for them,” said Dresden. “But they smashed it down anyway.”

And it wasn’t just the front door. The FBI seemed to have gone out of their way to make sure every door was kicked down.

Strangely, the most traumatized of all was a little green unicorn Ari had never seen, sitting mostly alone with a dumbfounded look like she was still processing what happened. She saw Ari and stood up right away like she had something to say, but didn’t quite have the nerves to interject immediately. Too many others were competing for Ari’s attention.

They walked through the center, taking stock of the destruction. That small unicorn followed distantly. They’d taken care to destroy anything they could have plausibly gotten away with. They cut through the mattresses and couch cushions to see if there were hidden documents there. Torn up parts of the carpet. ‘Accidentally’ knocked over their dishes and cups to leave broken shards all over the kitchen.

Then some things went missing. The TVs and computers were all gone, confiscated as evidence. And when Ari got to her room she found her dresser and all her clothes were missing.

It was a good thing she was wearing her favorite outfit when she’d gotten arrested. She would have really missed her Heroes Never Die hoodie. It was a present from Spring Breeze.

“Okay, breaking stuff I can see.” Ari sat down on her eviscerated mattress, about the only thing left in the room. It’d been cut along the middle, leaving springs and stuffing exposed. “But where did the TV and all my clothes go?”

“It’s called ‘civil forfeiture’. Cops can just legally steal anything they want from you.” Ragnarök was the one to explain it to her. “Can’t get it back. Sorry.”

“W-wait.”

That meek-looking pony from earlier raised a hoof, finally speaking, but hesitating again when the others actually looked at her.

“You’re saying the police stole from you?” She asked. With absolute innocence, she looked over the destruction once more. “Do the police really… do this kind of thing?”

Everyone stopped to stare at her ignorance while she looked back equally dumbfounded.

“Behehehe!” Shiv flew up next to the small unicorn and pressed a hoof against her cheeks making dimples. “Is da widdle baby Equestrian learning our government aren’t always the good guys?”

Equestrian?

“They thought I was one of you at first.” She pointed to the other ponies accusingly. Then her ears went flat. “The guy pointed his gun right at me and started shouting. It was really scary.”

“I don’t think they ever found out she’s an Equestrian,” another unfamiliar pony pointed out to Ragnarök, excited at the idea. “They were pretty rough with her. Do you think they’ll get in trouble for pointing a gun at her?”

“Nope!” Shiv answered without hesitation. “I met Princess Twilight Sparkle. Even if they blew the Equestrian’s brains out she’d be all ‘accidents happen, tee hee! As long as you’re sorry.’ And that’s it. Forgiveness.”

The… Equestrian apparently… growled however slightly at the implication her life was such an easy write-off.

“Wait. So this pony is really an Equestrian?” Ari asked. “Like she’s from the other planet?”

The Equestrians were hard for Ari to peg down, exactly. She supposed in her mind they were a bunch of naïve, gullible ponies eating out of the government’s hand, uncritically accepting any propaganda they were given. Would just go along with any demand.

This one’s reaction to the FBI did nothing to dislodge that image. Apparently, she’d been present during the raid. Maybe in Equestria, the police really did exist to protect and serve the average pony, and seeing officers act with such callousness unnerved her that much.

Part of Ari did feel sorry for the poor Equestrian.

“I’ve always wanted to meet one of you.” Ari leaned over her deceased bed to look the Equestrian in the eye. “But why are you here, exactly? Are you with the SSP? Or did the human government send you?

“No,” she said with enough annoyance that this had to have come up several times already. “I’m not with the humans or these transformed humans.”

“I’m a pony,” Shiv spoke up again. “Not a ‘transformed human’.”’

“I’m a pony,” said the Equestrian.

“Nah. We’re ponies. You’re the ones who aren’t ponies. You’re Equestrians. This is our planet.”

“We’re ponies. You’re humans who got transformed.”

“This is what you Equestrians always give me. You say we’re transformed humans who aren’t at all like you so we’re two different things. But then you turn around and try to pin stuff that your kind did thousands of years ago on us, saying we’re just like you. So which is it? You can’t have it both ways.”

The small little Equestrian wasn’t getting any sympathy here. She grumbled in frustration again but couldn’t come up with a counter to Shiv.

“Fine. You’re ponies,” she said. “Can I just do my job so I can leave?”

“What job was that again?” Ari asked.

“I’m here to make sure that you aren’t, you know.” She looked over at Shiv in particular. She came closer to whisper. “Brainwashed by the transformed humans. With their magic.”

“Oh,” said Ari. “So the human government did send you.”

“I don’t work for the government. I have nothing to do with those.” The green unicorn looked down at the bashed-in door while she searched for the answer. “Thugs. The Princess sent me.”

“That’s true,” said Ragnarök. “But isn’t a weird coincidence that you and the FBI both show up at the same time? Right after Ari rejects a bargain from them? It’s almost like…”

The Equestrian cast her eyes down briefly and frowned in a way that made it clear she didn’t want to think about that too much.

“Look, I don’t want to be here either. I was supposed to have been done hours ago. And I admit that was mostly because of those humans,” she added before it could stir up more objections. “Can I just do my job and leave?”

She trotted up to Ari.

“Alright. Do that scan.” Ari spread her arms out and closed her eyes.

The Equestrian cast some manner of spell. Ari had no understanding of such things, but the pony let out a defeated sigh at the end and announced Ari was free of any magical mental manipulation.

“Wouldn’t that have been a crazy plot twist,” said Ari as the Equestrian made a quick exit. “If you were all secretly brainwashing me this whole time.”

“I want to be more certain of the whole ‘no manipulation ‘ thing myself,” said Dresden.

“We can trust the SSP,” Ari assured him. “They’ve had our back this whole time, remember?”

“Not just them.” He looked at Ari. “Like what the hell was that interview you gave? You’re always saying to never say outright that ponies are better than humans or that we support what Sunset Shimmer did. And then you just suddenly go off the deep end like this.”

“That was phase one,” Ragnarök answered for her. “Phase two Cloud’s gotta be even more extreme than she actually is.”

“It’s all part of the plan, Dresden,” said Ari.

“What plan? All we’ve done so far is start riots and get the police to hate us. Like are you actually supposed to become mayor? What are you going to do then?” Dresden looked down at Ragnarök. “You’re the pony she’s obsessed with. You’re the one behind this. What are you after? And I don’t want to hear how this helps us. I want to hear how it helps you.”

“This is about fighting back,” said Ragnarök. “However Blackrock is screwing you over, it’s doing ten times worse to us ponies. They’re going to tear apart every pony community if left unchecked under the guise of ‘unity’. But we all know what ‘unity’ means don’t we? Back to the way things were but worse. Always worse.”

Ragnarök circled his hoof around a bit of fluff from a ripped-up pillow.

“Blackrock cast a circle around New York to develop their new way of life before exporting the system of total corporate control over real estate to the rest of us. And they think it will be easy. That no one will fight back. Well, I’m here to show that the ponies can fight back. We’re planting a dagger right here, on their doorstep.”

Ragnarök pointed to Ari.

“And Cloud Weaver here is that dagger.”

“Cloud Weaver?” Dresden asked. “You’re going by your pony name now?”

“Actually part of it is that I’m going to be changing my name to Cloud Weaver for real soon,” said Ari. “I can’t just be a normal Shimmerist knocking on their door. I have to be an extremist.”

“What? But you know that’s illegal, right?” Dresden asked. “New York doesn’t let anyone take on a ‘pony name’ now.”

“If the penalty for a crime is a fine then it only exists for the poor,” said Ragnarök. “A great philosopher said that. We can pay however many fines Cloud gets.”

“Yeah but. Do you want to change your name?”

“I do.” Ari nodded.

Dresden paused.

“I’m just… worried about you,” he admitted. “You’re going to be public enemy number one. And I don’t even know what we’re supposed to get out of this. A message?”

“It’ll be more than just that,” Ragnarök promised. “Those of you who stay on will be taken care of. We’ll strike a huge blow to Blackrock. But I can’t speak too loosely about specifics.”

Dresden frowned at Ari.

“But like you said,” Ragnarök went on. “I’ll be taking charge of this operation directly from now on. If you want to sit on the sidelines, I understand perfectly.”

Unsure of himself, Dresden left the room. Ari hated to see him go, but she knew this path was the right one.

4-3

Ari got to sit in the back seat this time, between the two ponies. Everything was great! Though Wild Card fell asleep right away. Dresden was the one stuck driving. Mostly because he had a car.

“Am I going anywhere in particular?” Dresden asked.

“I’ll let you know,” said Magic Card. “Just do some more aimless wandering for now.”

“What specifically do you see, anyway?” Dresden asked.

“It’s hard to explain to somepony without magic,” said Magic Card. “Just another sense… Hm.”

Every few miles, Magic Card would stick her head out the window and look around. So far, these had been false alarms. But this time.

“Slow down.”

Dresden did so, pulling up onto the shoulder. They were downtown right now. Of course, in America that still meant very few people outside their huge SUVs. It wasn’t hard for Ari to guess she was going for the one guy out walking.

“Hey, you!” Magic called out to him. “Over here!”

He stopped and pointed at himself. Magic Card squinted, appraising him for a solid minute before shaking her head.

“No. You’re not the one. Not yet.”

“Huh?” His finger never dropped. “What does that mean>”

“Let’s go!” Magic Card pointed forward. Ari started to drive.

“Wait!” He jogged after them. “You can’t just say something like that and leave!”

But by then, Magic Card had rolled up the window and the car was out of reach.

“What did you sense in him?” Ari asked.

“I’m pretty sure he’s Shim-curious,” said Magic Card. “If you remember his face, maybe talk to him again later. But certain things can break up the flow of my collections, so you don’t want him yet.”

Ari nodded.

“How long does it normally take for you to find what you’re looking for?” Ari asked.

“It’s like fishing. A lot of waiting till suddenly you got it,” said Magic. “But I’m one of the best seekers, you know. It doesn’t usually take long for a score. In just a few months I found all kinds of neat things. Found three undiscovered copies of Nintendo World Championship and a Stratovarius violin, among other things.”

“Damn,” said Dresden. “You gotta be rich by now.”

“Yep! My life used to suck like you poor monkeys,” said Magic. “But now it’s great! I get to run all over the country finding ponies for the SSP! I get to do what I love all the time, just collect to my heart’s content. That’s the real great thing about being a pony.”

It must be so nice!

“I wish one of your Ais could at least tell you what your cutie mark would be,” said Ari. “At least then, I’d know what I’m supposed to do.”

“It still wouldn’t be the same without magic enhancing your abilities,” Dresden pointed out.

“Yeah. I guess it’s harder for society to bar you from your dreams if you have a power that makes you accel at that,” said Ari.

“But they’re going to try,” Magic pointed out. “Which is why we need to fight! Fight! Fight!”

Ari nodded again, more determined.

“Oh!” Magic stuck her head out the window again, tail wagging this time. “Got a bite! There! The… the uh…”

Magic bit her lip as Dresden pulled into the strip mall area. Only then did Magic Card recognize the building they wanted.

“The bookstore!” She jumped back in the car.

“Do people still read physical books?” Dresden parked in front of a large Barnes and Noble. Ari had lived in this town half her life and never even knew such a thing existed.

“Not everyone wants to be a pony cyborg,” Ari reminded him.

“Well, it looks like it’s not a lot.” Dresden thumbed to the clearance poster over the door. Yet another business closing down.

Books were going the way of eggs it seemed.

The group of four walked into the store. There were plenty of people inside but a dwindling supply of books as the place wound down. Perhaps there was a point in history where 80% off would have been tempting. Instead, Ari wondered how these people even had money to spend.

The two ponies in the group drew a great deal of attention. Everybody was taking pictures of them. That made Ari nervous at first, seeing as this was supposed to be a stealth mission. But then again they wouldn’t be able to suspect anything from just this.

Magic trotted around the store making a low ‘nunununu’ under her breath. They were nearing the stares when a lady with a small child approached them.

“Hi. Can my daughter pet you?” She asked, bending down on her knees to look at Magic Card.

Ari couldn’t help but cringe at the question. She was connected to ponies enough on the internet to know how much they hated that question from strange humans.

“Bleck! No!” Magic Card stuck her tongue out in disgust at the idea.

Offended, the woman said some unkind words before she turned and stormed off.

“Freaking monkeys.” Magic Card muttered under her breath. “You’ll understand how annoying that is one day.”

At last, they found what had to be the target. She was maybe the same age as Ari with long, not-so-well-kept brown hair. Exactly the type of girl you’d expect to be in the bookstore, really. Both her pale skin and slim form could be described as ghostly. Perhaps her overly loose clothes could as well. Huge glasses. Not exactly a great fashion sense in Ari’s opinion and no makeup either.

The mystery person was sitting in the reading area, skimming through a huge pile of books. This place actually did look kind of nice. Too bad it was about to die… though Ari was determined to replace it with somewhere better!

Magic Card shushed them, signaling the rest to wait as she ran up to the target.

Magic Card sat down right next to her, staring up at the woman for a long time without being noticed. The human turned three pages before moving to another book. Only then did she notice the company.

Her reaction was shock that someone was there, a pause, then shock again that it was a pony coming to visit her.

“Omigosh! It’s a pony!”

“Yeah! I am a pony!”

“Oh, wow! Your kind rarely comes out here! Um... um… can I pet you?” She held the book up covering most of her face.

“Yes!”

“Oh no!” The woman covered her entire face and turned away, blushing. “I forgot that was a rude question to ask!”

“If you think it’s rude, why did you do it?”

“I’m sorry! I… I just got flustered for a second. Forgive me!”

“Do you want to pet me or not?”

She put down the book and turned back to Magic. Then she tapped her fingers together, shyly considering it.

“Is it okay?”

“Yes!”

She put her hand on Magic Card's head, slowly at first, cautious of any kind of reaction. But once her hand was on, she began stroking Magic’s mane with some confidence. Magic Card closed her eyes and smiled. So did the lady.

“But no grabbing!” Magic Card warned. “That’s the thing we actually hate. Feels weird, you know?”

“Okay…”

“My name is Magic Card. You are?”

“Um. Pamela. You know um…”

She relaxed for just a moment. Then Wild Card sat down on her right, Dresden and Ari both took the nearby one-seaters. Magic Card moved confidently onto Pamela’s lap, making escape impossible.

“This is the one!” Magic Card announced. “I’m sure of it.”

Pamela sat perfectly still, not daring to make a move after such a proclamation. Ari decided it would be best to just cut to the chase after that.

“I’m just going to ask you outright.” Ari looked her in the eye. “Are you a Shimmerist?”

The question froze Pamela in horror. Her already pale face turned positively ghostly as she shook her head. Then swallowed.

“I’m sorry! I really don’t hate anyone it’s just… just um…”

“Relax! We’re Shimmerists, too. We like the fact that you’re a Shimmerist.”

“You do?” Pamela looked to Magic Card, who confirmed it with a nod. At last, she relaxed again. But a confused kind of relief. Clearly, Pamela had never met such like-minded individuals. Perhaps not even online. “But how did you… know exactly?”

“Magic!” Magic Card proudly proclaimed.

“Oh. Right. It’s easy to forget magic is real out here.”

“We’re actually starting a group for Shimmerists,” said Ari. “We want to set up a community center and everything.”

“Really?” Pamela looked up from her pony with clear interest.

Ari nodded.

“Community and friendship are the greatest values of Shimmerism,” Ari proclaimed. “So we want to foster community.”

“Well. They are closing down the bookstore,” Pamela said. “This was where I came for… well to try and talk to other people.”

“Do you meet a lot of people here?” Ari asked.

“Well… no. But sometimes! It’s a lot for me.”

“Well the Shimmerist Center will be a way better spot for socializing,” Ari promised her. “Don’t you feel like society’s getting only ever more isolated?”

Pamela grabbed a book, considered it, then nodded.

“Well pony values are the only thing countering that right now! You’ll be able to have an actual community with like-minded people.”

“Do you um.” Pamela fidgeted with the book for some time, hesitant to admit her dirty secret. “Do you two want to be… to be ponies too?”

“Yes.” Ari nodded without hesitation.

“Absolutely,” Dresden added.

Maybe more than anything else, that brought comfort to Pamela. She put down her comfort book and smiled.

“Well. Maybe I’ll go then. I always kind of wanted to… Where um…?”

“We’re not sure yet. I’m just getting an email or anything for now. And scouting out people who might want to join,” said Ari. “So what kind of Shimmerist are you?”

“What… kind?” Pamela stared at Ari blankly.

“Like a social Shimmerist? Techno Shimmerist? Eco Shimmerist?”

“I thought there was just… Shimmerists. What kind are you?”

“I’m a social Shimmerist. With the Social Shimmerist Party.”

“What’s a ‘social’ Shimmerist?”

“We’re an alt-left, secular, Shimmerist, socialist, anarcho-communal-syndicalist–”

“I don’t know what any of that means!”

“You said you were a Shimmerist just a minute ago!”

“Okay, I understand that part.”

“Alright. So which type of Shimmerist are you, then?”

“I dunno. The normal type?”

“Who inspired you to become a Shimmerist?”

“No one, really. I just heard Shimmerists wanted more people to be ponies and um…”

“Hm.” Ari closed her eyes to think. “Okay, this question usually decides it. Order these from most to least important. Ponies are superior to us because A. They’re more social. B. They’re more moral. C. They’re more orderly and disciplined. D. They’re more powerful.”

“I’m not sure if I believe any of those things. Or at least, it isn’t that important if it’s true.”

“What?!” Ari gawked, unable to react to this. “Are you an eco-Shimmerist, then? And you only care about the fact that ponies are also better for the environment?”

“Not really.”

“Then why do you want to be a pony?”

“Oh, I think ponies are better than humans. But it’s because they’re so cute.” Pamela clasped her hands together.

Cute?

“Well.” Ari sat around unsure how to respond. “I mean, you’re not wrong.”

“And they cuddle like all the time! Like always! How amazing would it be to live in a world where it’s just 100% socially acceptable to cuddle whoever whenever and there’s nothing… implied about it!”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Honestly?” She looked both ways before coming closer to Ari. “I know this is kind of a more… hardcore belief but its kind of makes me sad to see humans influencing the ponies to be more… well to re-adopt our taboo about physical intimacy. I just hate how distant everyone is in modern society! I don’t want to see that idea spreading.”

That was not hardcore at all. At least, not considering the circles Ari usually hung out in.

“Hm!” Ari nodded firmly. “No, I understand. Pony culture should be influencing the human side of things, not the other way around. It’d suck if the government managed to just stomp out everything unique about them and make all the ponies into bland wage slaves like they want. That’s why the SSP has a strict goal of promoting the good aspects of pony communities.”

“They do? Like the whole cuddling thing?”

“Well that’s not… officially on the list,” Ari admitted. “But I guess it’d include that.”

“Then I want to sign up for the SSP! How do I join?”

“We’re anarchists. You don’t sign up for the SSP. You just are the SSP. So welcome aboard, friendo!”

That was one down.

4-5

The Shimmerist community center opened! The SSP’s first official outpost in New York.

It was a large house repurposed for this occasion, located in a sleepy, woodsy part of town where it’d be hard for the neighbors to hear anything. Adding to their privacy was the erection of a huge, metal fence around the perimeter, one that wouldn’t be too out of place surrounding a prison.

But that privacy had a time limit. This was America still. That meant every neighborhood had a certain number of busybodies on constant lookout for opportunities to snitch or make their neighbor’s lives worse.

At that stage, there was still some renovation being done here and there. Bulletproof glass for the windows, high-tech security systems, fancy doors that could quarantine a shooter. It at least made everybody feel safer. No unannounced guests would be showing up.

They had a small chapel downstairs for more religiously minded people, though Ari wouldn’t be leading any prayers. Most of the downstairs was converted to a communal area for activities. And she had her own bedroom upstairs. A place to live.

Ari still didn’t own a house. She still never would even if everything went according to plan. But somehow that didn’t feel like a horrible loss anymore.

In the short few weeks of its existence, Ari gathered a decent number of Shimmerists. Magic Card got the first leads, then they invited the other Shimmerists they knew and it all branched out like that.

If Ari wanted to sound big and impressive she could say there were 125 members. There were technically 125 members. It was just most of them had never actually been to the community center.

There were three circles of human Shimmerists surrounding Ari in her mind. The first were people like her, Pamela, and Dresden who were super active in the community and Ari saw more days than not. The second was less active members who tried to show up once a week but didn’t always make it, who used one or two of their services, and who were active but only when something interesting was going on. Those two groups brought their number up to 35 or so.

The final circle was this large, thin cloud that surrounded them. People who were only on their discord server and weren’t even very active on their. People who wanted someone to confess their feelings to, to have some indirect connection to the SSP, who wanted to be part of a Shimmerist community but were too scared to be seen doing it in real life.

Those guys were certainly better than nothing. Ari got a few hundred dollars in donations from them each week. All of that went back to the SSP.

When she addressed the whole thirty or so of her new community, it felt so empowering. Though the crowd may be small it was so much more than nothing. Ari had risen to being very slightly more than powerless.

“We may not agree on everything,” Ari said to her gathered crowd, “but one thing we all have in common is that we agree we’d all be better off as ponies! That everyone should have the right to decide for themselves!”

And having that comradery gave her a powerful connection to them all. Nobody here disagreed with that statement. All of them accepted and shared Ari’s desire. And that meant so much to her. Though preaching to the choir with these weekly speeches, it was still an intoxicating rush.

“Next week we’ll actually be hosting two ponies who will share their experience with the vision with us,” Ari announced. “You don’t want to miss that one.”

Most of them left a little while after their weekly planned activities ended. She looked over her more hardcore members, the ones who hung around the community center even when no activities were being held.

They had a small event board, slowly growing in frequency but still only a few events a week.

To Ari’s surprise, Pamela was her most active follower. Though coming off as meek at first, she was completely devoted to the cause and community, volunteering for everything on the board. She only worked part-time so she had plenty of time and donated almost all of it. A number of the Shimmerists had kids so the center offered babysitting, something Pamela largely took care of.

So it was a frequent sight to have her and a small mess of kids running around Ari’s new house. Ari wanted to help out with that too but was so busy with setting everything up. Even after almost a month, there was so much to do.

“Hey. Ari?” Pamela approached her.

“Yeah?”

“Is it okay if my mom comes to visit this place sometime?”

“Is she anti-pony?”

“Not exactly. She just thinks you’re like.” Pamela shied away a moment. “That you’re a cult leader.”

Ari smiled at the idea. She’d been wrapped up in that sort of thing before. But Shimmerism was completely different.

“She knows this is practically a mainstream religion at this point, right?”

“I keep telling her that but…”

“I get it. I’ll talk to her, I guess.”

Pamela smiled but Ari had no real hope of converting her mother to the light of Shimmerism. But maybe she could do some good.

“Are you doing anything today?” Ari asked, already knowing the answer.

“I’ll do anything to further the cause!” Pamela pledged.

“Good. Because we have a mission today. Our first mission.”

They soon gathered the lingering people Ari wanted to take with her. Ari looked at her team. The only other girl was Pamela as she mostly needed guys for what she was planning on doing. That made six of them in total.

They ran a gambit of excitement from Pamela who stood at attention, eager to do anything to help the cause, to Dresden who was always half reluctant but never actually said no to any of Ari’s ideas.

“And where are you taking us today?” Dresden asked.

“Now that we’re all Shimmerists we have to try living up to the ideals of the vision. ‘Ponies always help’ and it should be our goal to be as like the ponies as possible. So who needs our help the most in this town?”

Ari held her arms out wide, waiting for an answer.

“Is it.” Pamela timidly raised a hand. “All the homeless people wandering around?”

“Exactly! We’re going to head over there to help out with the crisis,” said Ari. “Just remember we can’t tell anybody we’re Shimmerists. That’s still too dangerous. If anybody asks we just say we’re with a church.”

It wasn’t completely inaccurate. Dresden wanted more specifics but Ari didn’t actually have any so she merely dragged them out without saying much more. They parked not far from where Ari used to live, a place she passed frequently on the way to work.

She wouldn’t dare have done this before. But having four guys following her gave her a rare sense of invulnerability. Ari wasn’t even tall for a woman and her disability made her even more vulnerable. She never once left home without her pepper spray and that included today.

The abandoned parking lot was back to being un-abandoned. Somebody finally tore down that gate Ari had vandalized and a sea of tents filled the concrete plains. If anything, the number had only grown.

Ari took a deep breath. No more running away from this place. Ponies always helped.

She stepped across the fuzzy, invisible barrier with her entourage in tow. That brief moment of fear was all she got. This place had no power over her anymore. Her alliance with the ponies meant homelessness was no longer a constant threat looming over her.

The people of the homeless city did the best they could. A pile of refuse lay on either side of the camp and there was some organization. Some of the tents even looked reasonably clean. They could only go so far in these conditions and trash and stench did come wafting out onto the streets.

Worse than any of that was the absolute hopelessness of those around them. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. So much human capital laid about like discarded rags with no possible change in sight, no promise from anyone in power but that doubling down on corporatism or hating the right people might solve the problem.

She’d never even noticed the huge building in the back had been a Target once. Sadly, no one could take shelter inside. The doors were covered in chains and metal bars that nobody had found a way around just yet. And the windows were covered over with freaking cement, just to make double sure the enormous structure helped nobody in these dark times.

It looked like somebody saved those ‘Ponies make it possible’ posters when the gate got torn down. They were worse than the wear from being removed and reposted, but still legible. They’d been put up all along the sides of the former Target.

At least somebody here was on their side.

“So what? Are we going to hand out blankets and food?” Dresden asked upon the completion of their tour.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Dresden was unimpressed by Ari’s lack of planning.

What he suggested was all well and good but there were already people doing that. There was a church group there at that exact moment with a makeshift food stand giving out bagels and coffee. Charity afforded these people plenty of blankets and jackets, and enough food to survive, but that was its limit.

Ari wanted to stand out from the others, needed to, was supposed to. The question was what else could be done? She could always ask the ponies to figure it out for her, but she wanted to prove herself as more than a mindless grunt.

“This place smells really horrible.” Pamela had kept her nose covered this whole time. “I don’t want to ask where they’ve been going to the bathroom.”

No one could deny the filth of this place. Then again all but the richest parts of town were filthy by now. Any public trash you could find was surrounded by a pile of rotting trash. There was either zero effort to clean it all up or just such a colossal heap that nobody could keep up with it.

That garbage was one of the main things souring people on the idea of helping the homeless. Humans were insolating rather than coming together like the ponies like Sunset wanted. The people with jobs were driving even larger SUVs, all the major car manufacturers recently announced a line of what amounted to armored vehicles to protect the haves from the have-nots in this post-apocalypse. More and more neighborhoods were building gates and walls around themselves to the point it was harder to get around on back roads.

Suspiciously, Blackrock was more than eager to ‘help’ with ‘securing the suburbs’ and was making all sorts of deals with the mayor. Anyone who thought accepting that off was a good idea was an idiot. They’d all be boxed into little micro-dictatorships run by Blackrock, forking all their money over in rent soon enough.

But Ari also saw an opportunity here…

“No!” Ari stopped and turned to face her group. “That’s a good question. Why is there garbage everywhere?”

None of her fellow Shimmerists wanted to state the obvious answer.

“Because where the fuck am I supposed to toss this shit?!”

Ari stumbled back, not realizing she’d been standing right next to somebody’s pile of junk. After a brief cough, she regained her composure.

“Exactly.” Ari pointed to him. “Because where are they supposed to toss their shit? Every public garbage can for fifty miles is overflowing and the county doesn’t look like they’re going to do anything about it. So I say we do it ourselves! We’ll clean up the town in the most literal sense!”

The SSP gave them a little money for humanitarian operations. Though they’d need a new word to replace ‘humanitarian’ eventually.

Ari used it to rent a few dumpsters and portable toilets that she parked inside the homeless camp. Then she could privately dispose of it all when they filled up. And they did fill up way faster than she thought. Just not enough to actually stress her budget.

With that half of the problem mitigated, they started on the more physically intensive side of things… picking up ten million pieces of litter.

Even if Ari’s entire community volunteered for this it wouldn’t be enough. But thankfully most of the homeless people weren’t actually drug-addled layabouts like politicians wanted you to believe. That said they also didn’t have anything better to do. So Ari would give them something.

On the day the dumpsters were planted, Ari decided to take advantage of the gratitude she could feel washing all around her. Restoring just this much dignity restored life to this pit of destitution.

With several of her guys behind her, Ari stood up on a small box to implore them to help. An eager crowd gathered around to listen.

“I’m glad you all have somewhere to put your garbage now. But this is only half the problem. The streets around here are still a massive dump!”

There was some impatience from the crowd, people saying it wasn’t their fault. She remembered a piece of advice from Ragnarok. Never directly blame humans or the people you were talking to for any problem. Always deflect it from them to the government or the corporations.

“I know it isn’t your fault. But the mayor isn’t interested in keeping this place clean so it’s up to all of us to take care of this town. Blackrock and the town are

using all this garbage to paint people like us as subhuman and justify all kinds of bullshit. I say we don’t give them the chance. This will be the cleanest place in town if you all help out.”

There was plenty of hate at Blackrock, being the reason why half of these people were homeless in the first place. And then Ari had a small army of volunteers going through the streets with her.

It took all day but they had all day. The streets surrounding the parking lot slowly returned to what they had been pre-ETS. The public trash bins were emptied out. But the smell still lingered.

Doing work, actual work with actual benefits felt surprisingly satisfying. Even if it was something most people would consider menial.

She awoke the next day feeling plenty triumphant. It felt like her first major victory. The first one where ponies hadn’t carried her over the finish line outright.

Then she looked through the mail.

A letter from the city…

She opened it with much trepidation to find she had a citation for illegally parking those dumpsters on ‘private property’. Who the fuck even owned that place she could only imagine. She could only imagine they’d already been removed.

“Dammit! Somebody already snitched?”