The Future Will Change

Everyone went inside Rainbow Dash’s family home to discuss what was going on. They all took a seat in the kitchen where Dash had made herself busy nibbling on more lettuce.

Aidon would begin, “So you said something about watching a kung-fu movie, correct? What happened afterwards?”

“Well after that,” Dash muttered as she tried to recall what happened, “...I think I ended up on some weird movie called Enchanted Torment. After that, I kinda fell asleep and woke up like this.” She rolled her eyes, “Why a rabbit anyway…?”

“A’right,” Aoife commented, “That means you were affected by the film’s curse as well. Okay, so that tells us a bit more about what’s happened. But not quite enough about who’s behind it.”

Luna would jump into the conversation with a bit of conjecture. “Hm…this is merely an educated guess, but I imagine there’s a reason it turned you into a lagomorph. You have an affinity for athleticism and agility, not unlike a rabbit after all.”

“...Huh. I guess so,” Dash’s nose twitched curiously.

Aidon would add onto that point. “...that’s right. Now I’m starting to remember. The Anima Curse often changes its victims into beasts that closely line up with their inner personas. It was eventually neutralized for good in Equestria since most beings there are already beasts.”

“But not here looks like,” Aoife pointed out the fact that humans are susceptible to this curse more than any other creature, “This is somethin’ that’d only work in this world.” She then turned to Rainbow Dash, “I recommend ya stay inside for a while, love. You don’t wanna attract any unwanted attention.”

“...yeah, fair enough I guess,” Dash sighed, “Kinda sucks since I was gonna go down to the beach and work on my surfing but I guess that’d cause way too much of a public nuisance.”

Given the current state of the nation, she’d be immediately found out and likely taken away by the police for merely sporting a mutation like that in public.

Aoife comforted her with a pat to her head. “Don’t worry, love. Big sis Aoife’s got this. We just need a lead on where this feckin’ curse is comin’ from…”

“Rainbow Dash,” Luna called out as her tail wagged, “Can you do us a favor and call your friends? Be sure to warn them not to watch this film.”

“Yeah I will. I just--please let me know when you catch whoever’s behind this,” she grumbled as she bit down on a carrot, “I’m craving vegetables and now I feel like I need to start jumping around and stuff. It’s crazy!”

“...best we give her some space for now,” Aidon suggested, “At the moment, our trail on this case has run cold, so we need to think about--”

Bzzz!

His phone started to vibrate in his pocket. Aidon took it out and answered it. “...hello?”

“Yo, teach? I’m not sure who to ask here but I got a bit of a problem,” Aria Blaze’s voice called out from the other end.

“...Ms. Blaze?” Aidon’s eyes shot open. He recalled that, long ago when he was still their teacher, he instructed them to call him in case of an emergency in school. Given that, he immediately began to worry about her reason for calling. “...is everything alright?”

“...yeah there’s a bit of…hang on, lemme turn on my phone’s camera.”

Aidon looked at his phone and there, Aria had the face of a shark. “...Oh no…” he gasped, “Looks like you’ve been affected by this as well.”

“Know anything about this?” Aria asked, then took a minute to glance harder at her former teacher. “...oh wait, guess you must know if you’re an animal-person too.”

Aidon then tilted his phone in the direction of Aoife. “She could probably explain it to you better than I could.”

One explanation from the oni later…

“...some kinda curse from that movie, then?” Aria sighed, “Here we go again…”

“Yeh, sorry about that mate,” Aoife responded with a sympathetic tone, “Like I said, I’m ‘ere to ‘elp in any way I can. What we need to do is find the source of that damned signal but I ain’t got no leads.”

That’s when Aria would speak up. “...signal? Oh wait, that’s right, a streaming service signal.”

“...do you happen to know something, Ms. Blaze?” Adion asked with a hopeful wag of his tails.

“Yeah I got a buddy who works at a TV station in the city where the movies are streamed from,” she went on, “I think we’ll be able to find something from there. Just need to make a quick call and we’ll be in business. Also nice to meetcha, ‘Ife. You look like you’d be fun to screw with.”

Aoife chuckled and gave a confident smirk as she folded her arms under her chest, “Nah mate. You don’t want nunna this. If anything, I might be the one protectin’ ya. You just leave all this to big-sis Aoife, savvy?”

“Ugh,” Aria rolled her eyes at such a suggestion. Dealing with Adagio’s protective nature was bad enough, now she had to deal with it from somebody she barely knew? “Don’t test me. I can take care of myself.”

“Spunky ain’t we?” Aoife replied, still smirking. "We'll see how long that lasts."

“...okay, let’s not start a fight over something rather petty,” Luna suggested, “Ms. Blaze, could you please take us to meet your friend so we could possibly locate the source of that signal?”

“Yeah yeah, sure. I’ll be up in Vanhoover in like an hour.”