Solo Run

Chapters

That Was Easy
Here Comes Trouble
Straight to the Source
Interlude: Human-ish Resources
That Escalated Quickly

That Was Easy

Chapter Two

That Was Easy

Doctor Rhodes' Perspective:

I woke up with a jolt. For a brief moment I was struck by a wave of disorientation before I remembered where I was. I was in my office at the clinic. The same place I'd been for nearly a week and a half.

My neck and back cracked and protested as I stretched. I must have fallen asleep at my desk again. Not surprising. I hadn't been able to convince myself to have a proper lie down since this all started.

I looked down at the report I had been reading. Teddy's latest chromosomal test. By comparing it to the tests from before, during and after the transformation, we were able to determine with reasonable certainty which of these new genetic structures were likely the equivalents of X and Y chromosomes. The latest test confirmed what we had already suspected. There were no longer any traces of Y chromosomes. Heck, if Doctor Mills was correct, Teddy even possessed a fully functional, healthy uterus and ovaries. She could, hypothetically, get pregnant.

I yawned and rubbed my eyes. Over the last nine, no, I glanced at the date on my computer, ten days, I'd felt like I was in the middle of a crazy sci-fi movie. If we could figure out what was going on here it could revolutionize almost everything we knew about science. The field of gender reassignment alone would be advanced by decades. If not more.

I closed the file and looked down at my watch. A little after seven. Time to go check on our patient. Lots to do today.

~~~

Life giving coffee in hand, I approached the nurse's duty station outside Teddy's room. 'Morning, Frank. How's our patient?'

Nurse Redmond looked up and fidgeted. 'Um, Doc, you might want to check on her. Teddy's been… busy.'

'"Busy?"' I set my coffee down. I didn't like the sound of this.

'Oh, there's been no change in his… her condition, but…'

'But what?'

'Well she asked for all sorts of stuff over the course of the night. Note paper, records, test results, a phone, another two laptops. She's been in there working flat out. I'm pretty sure she hasn't slept.'

'Argh. Of course.' I took one last, long sip of my coffee and made for Teddy's room. 'It would seem a unicorn is officially less rare than a cooperative patient.'

I knocked on the door. 'Teddy, are you awake?'

'Hm?' I heard keys clacking from inside the room. 'Oh, yeah. Come on in.'

I opened the door to find Teddy sitting on the bed amidst a nest of open files and scribbled notes, typing away on one laptop while the other two were open and running. One was displaying a news site, the other was playing some sort of cartoon show on mute.

'Morning… Teddy. Nurse Redmond tells me you haven't slept.'

Teddy didn’t even glance up from what she was doing. 'Sure I did. I took a five year nap. Woke up feeling a little hoarse.'

I entered the room and closed the door behind me. 'I was under the impression yesterday that you wanted to rest.'

'This is how I rest. I find work very zen. Besides, I had stuff I needed to do.'

'Such as?'

A cell phone next to one of the laptops began to vibrate.

'Oh, one sec, Doc.' With her teeth, Teddy deftly removed a pen from one of her universal cuffs, replaced it with a stylus, and tapped the phone. 'Mrs Henson. Thank you for getting back so fast. Well, what have you got for me?'

What sounded like a middle-aged, female voice answered on speakerphone. 'Well, we gave the list you sent us to our in-house investigators. Other than some unpaid parking tickets and one instance of public indecency during a frat party in college, they all came back clean.'

Teddy frowned. 'Are you sure? No notable debts, ties to foreign governments, investments in pharmaceuticals, or tech start-ups, no cults?'

'No. Nothing of the like. Two are immigrants, but they're both from allied nations, and both acquired their citizenships through proper legal channels.'

'And the facility itself?'

'Perfectly legitimate. Been operating since 1912.'

'Huh.' Teddy looked at some of the notes on her bed, scratched a few lines out, then turned back to the phone. 'Thank you, Mrs Henson. That was a huge help. I'll have everything you requested sent over as soon as possible.'

'My pleasure, Teddy. We'll be in touch.'

'Thanks. Talk soon.' Teddy tapped the phone again then, finally, turned to look at me. 'Sorry about that, Doc.'

I sat down in the seat by the bed. 'What was all that about? And what's all this? When I suggested you do some catching up, I meant read the news, maybe catch a documentary or two on Netflix, not write a thesis.'

'That kind of thing can wait. I had some important business to get out of the way. You might want to check your emails.'

I frowned and pulled out my phone. Sure enough, at the top of my inbox was an email from "shenson@wollhensonandcox.com"

'What's this?'

'That is an email from my lawyer. Not that I didn't want to take you at your word, Doc, but I don't like taking chances. I called them last night, informed them I was awake, and gave them a rundown of my situation. You'll find an NDA attached to that. Mrs Henson will expect it to be signed and sent to her, along with copies of all test notes, documentation, and recordings you've taken by the end of the day.'

I felt my mouth go dry. 'What? This is ridiculous.'

Teddy cocked her head. 'No, it really isn't. I'm not going to risk being disappeared. Change or not, I'm still an American citizen with rights. Those are my medical records and I'd like my legal representatives to have copies of them. I checked. You have no legal right to withhold them.'

'We're not "withholding" anything, but Teddy…'

She held up a hoof. 'Mrs Henson is my emergency contact. She should have been informed the second my condition changed. But when I called, she hadn’t heard from here in months. Oh, and Mrs Henson would also like a list of everyone any of you contacted regarding me. They'll need NDA's too.'

‘Teddy, don’t you think this is a little excessive? We were in quarantine. We were scrambling to deal with a never before seen phenomenon. Yes, we should have notified your emergency contact. That was an oversight on our part. But there’s nothing sinister-‘

‘Doc.’ She frowned and gave me a hard stare. ‘I am happy to cooperate, within reason. But from now on, nothing happens without going through me or my legal representative first.’

‘Teddy…’

‘Look, Doc. I’m not stupid. I shapeshifted from one species to another. My muscles went from atrophied to perfectly healthy in a matter of days. My brain activity went from years of near zero to fully active just as quickly. I changed gender! Not just superficially, but at the genetic level. I could think of a dozen different ways to exploit this situation off the top of my head. Don’t tell me you haven’t.’

I felt my hackles rise at being called out, then deflated. ‘It occurred to me that understanding this condition could have beneficial applications.’

‘Like a Nobel prize?’

‘I…’ I slumped in my chair. The thought had occurred to me.

Teddy’s expression softened, and she gave me a small smile. ‘Hey. If you could actually figure out how this happened through medical means, you’d deserve one.’

‘So, what now?’

‘Until everyone’s signed their NDA’s and passed along all their research to Mrs Henson, nothing. As soon as everything’s in order, you can start testing again. Hey. Consider it a break. No offense, but you look like you really need one.’

I rubbed my temples and fought to dismiss the cotton wool in my head. ‘You’re not wrong.’ I picked up one of the notes on the bed and glanced at it. ‘So what’s all this? Legal notes?’

Teddy grinned. ‘Research!’

I cocked a brow. ‘On?’

‘Me! Obviously.’ She reached around, grabbed a stack of very familiar files in her teeth and dropped them in front of her. ‘Nurse Redmond was very helpful getting me everything I asked for.’

She opened up a few of the files and waved at them. ‘I’ve gone through all of your test results so far. While I am passingly familiar with bloodwork, most of this was over my head. But it was helpful in other ways.’

‘Such as?’

‘Eliminating possibilities. You know I was just starting out in the police before the accident, right? Investigation was kind of a specialty of mine.’

I examined another scribbled note. I would have said the handwriting was illegible, but considering no hands were involved, it was a decent effort. ‘And you think a police style investigation can uncover answers that medical and scientific research can’t?’

She shrugged. ‘Can’t hurt. And I actually think I’ve been making progress.’

That caught my attention. ‘Do tell.’

‘Well!’ She jumped up and started pacing back and forth on the bed, ignoring the fact she was trampling all over her own notes. ‘First of all. As of five minutes ago I can now confirm that this is a legitimate clinic, and nobody working here is shady. So this isn’t some sort of black ops or big pharma thing.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I’m so relieved.’

‘Second.’ She leafed through a pile of scrap paper. ‘I’ve gone through the list of all the medication I’ve been given since being admitted here. I had to do a lot of googling, but it all seems to track with my injuries. Even the stuff I’ve been given since my transformation started seems logical under the circumstances. So there’s no reason to assume they were the cause.’

She tapped a forehoof on the stack of test files. ‘Third. You guys have been thorough. Really thorough. I mean, gene therapists, biochemists.’ She snorted and chuckled. ‘Did you really get an expert in nanotech to take a look at me?’

I threw my arms in the air. ‘We’d been hitting nothing but dead ends and were grasping at straws. It was no more outlandish than any other theory.’

‘True. True.’ She nodded. ‘But the point is, you seem to have exhausted every scientific avenue of explanation. So, what’s left?’

‘Enlighten me.’

A, slightly unnerving, manic grin spread across her face. ‘Magic!’

I just stared. Maybe we ruled out brain damage a little prematurely. ‘Teddy… While I applaud your enthusiasm, I think you should really get some sleep.’

‘No, no. Hear me out.’ She pushed her files and papers to the side and sat facing me directly. ‘When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Right? Even if you take the Arthur C. Clarke approach and assume magic is just advanced science we don’t yet understand, can you honestly say we aren’t firmly in that territory right now?’

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. ‘We still have tests we can run-‘

‘On a previously assumed mythological creature with genetics unrecognisable by any existing scientific database?’

‘… A lot of tests.’

‘Face it, Doc. Science can’t solve this one. If you come up with a logical explanation, I’ll be all ears. Until then, I’m rolling with the magic theory.’

I stood up and paced to the far side of the room, trying to stretch the stiffness out of my arms. ‘Even if we abandoned logic and went with magic as an explanation. Where does that leave us? Do we call Hogwarts and ask for a wizard?’

She gave a very horsey snort, rolled her eyes, and chuckled. ‘I hope not. I don’t need people thinking my blood is the fountain of youth.’

‘So, you think someone used magic to turn you into a unicorn. If that’s the case, someone on staff’s been holding out on me.’

Her ears splayed and she frowned as she looked over her shoulder at the muted cartoon still playing. ‘Actually… I have a theory. I don’t particularly care for it, and I was hoping to be wrong. But Mrs Henson’s call confirming you were all clean kind of eliminated the last potential obstacle.’

I turned to face her. ‘What’s your theory?’

‘I… don’t think I was a man who got turned into a pony. I think I was a pony who got turned into a man, and whatever did it just wore off.’

‘You think you were a unicorn first? Teddy, we have your medical records, including your birth certificate. You were born human. Not to mention, unicorns aren’t real.’

‘He says to a unicorn.’

‘It’s quite a leap in logic. What led you to this conclusion?’

‘These.’ She pointed to her facial scar and broken horn. ‘And this.’ She pointed to the cartoon.

I cocked a brow and nodded for her to go on.

She closed her eyes and her brow knitted in concentration. ‘If I was human originally, and this was done to me by artificial means, then this is far too specific a form to be random. There had to be some sort of template the process was working from. But if this form was based on a template, why do I have a scar? Why is my horn broken? It isn’t just underdeveloped, It’s broken. The rest of me is pristine. So why deliberately pattern a defect? Answer? You wouldn’t.’

She turned the laptop playing the cartoon so I could see it more clearly. It appeared to be about… ponies. ‘This is “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic,” a show about colourful, talking ponies, including unicorns, living in a magical world. I am a colourful, talking unicorn, just like them.'

I nodded. 'I know it. I used to watch it sometimes with my granddaughter. I had actually theorized about that myself. I think after my third day without sleep.'

She nodded and waved a hoof for me to go on. 'Yes?'

I rubbed my eyes. 'About halfway through your transformation, you had enough recognisable features that the show came to mind. I stopped thinking about the "how" for a moment and considered the "why."'

'And?'

'Billionaires do crazy things. And this show was really popular a few years ago.'

Teddy frowned. 'A few days ago, for me. I bet the convention circuit's all dried up by now.'

'And.' I pressed on. 'I thought "what if some billionaire super fan of the old show with more money than sense and a few screws loose developed a way to turn people into ponies, and decided to test it on coma patients?"'

Her grin could have split her face open. 'Exactly my initial thoughts! But there's a problem with that idea.'

'Other than it being batshit insane?'

She rolled her eyes. 'Yes. Other than that.' She pointed at herself. 'I watched the show. I was a fan. And I've never seen a pony that looks like this. I even trawled through the mlp wiki, one character at a time. There isn't even one unnamed background character that even slightly looks like this. If this was done by a crazy fan…'

I nodded. 'Then they wouldn't waste so much time and, presumably, a fortune turning someone into a pony nobody would recognise. They'd have changed you into a main character.'

'Exactly!' Teddy jabbed a hoof at me and was practically vibrating with excitement. 'My next thought was about the whole gender thing. I thought, "maybe the process wasn’t so targeted as to turn people into specific ponies, but just ponies in general." Like, pony versions of themselves. The head injuries I received during the car crash might, at a stretch, explain the broken horn, but not the scar or the gender change.’

'It also doesn't explain the radical overhaul of your genes. If this was a man-made process, you'd expect, at least, some recognisable markers.' I added, frowning to myself.

Teddy hopped off the bed, showing a level of deftness she lacked yesterday, and trotted over to me. 'Conclusion? This pony isn’t some fictional character. She isn't an artificial pattern. She’s a real person. These scars are evidence of a real life lived.’

My mind buzzed as I tried to take it all in. As utterly outlandish as the theory was, I had heard worse trains of thought. After so many dead ends, I was, I think, ready to entertain a little absurdity. I rubbed my moustache and leaned forward. ‘That… is an impressively reasoned argument. But if that's the case, where did she come from? And why did you turn into her? Unicorns and magic aren’t real. We’d have known about them if they were.’

She sat down beside me and stared up at the ceiling with unfocused eyes for a good, long minute before answering. ‘I had a dream just before I woke up. It was so vivid. I was this pony. I was alone in a desert, when all these monsters, things that could have been straight out of Lovecraft, appeared out of nowhere and attacked me. I can still smell it. Sweat, copper, and ozone. But I fought them off. I heard a scream. I followed it, but when I got there, all I found was Discord. A kind of chimera thing. A monster with the ability to warp reality to his liking and spread chaos wherever he went. I tried to get away, but I couldn’t. He said something to me. A poem. "For five score divided by four. Your memories removed, your body confused. For your insolence you must pay. Cast off to a land far far away. To scatter the six, just the start of my tricks. Your mind shall be weak, your outlooks all bleak. Forget everything and live like a fool. You’ve lost, ponies. None can stop my rule."'

I exhaled. I hadn't realized I had been holding my breath. 'Then what?'

Her ears wilted and she hugged herself. A very human gesture. 'There was light and pain. More pain than I’d ever felt in my life. Then I woke up.’

‘That sounds like quite the nightmare. But I don’t see what it has to do with anything.’

‘It was too vivid to have been a nightmare. It felt real. I’m certain it was a memory.’ She jumped back up to her hooves and pointed at the laptop still playing the cartoon. ‘Discord is a character from this show. He was a villain the main characters thought they’d reformed, only to reveal in the last episode that he was faking the whole time. He had brought the monsters. The show ends with him making the protagonist disappear. I thought, maybe, I was remembering a scene from that last episode. But, like I said, no character who looks like me ever appears in the show. I rewatched the finale twenty minutes before you came in, to be sure.’

‘Maybe your imagination was blending that finale with your current circumstances?’

She cocked her head and pointed at herself. ‘But I hadn’t seen this face until I woke up. How could I have dreamt of being a pony that I’d never seen before?’

I was at a loss. ‘I… I don’t know… Some of us used dictaphones to record our findings. Maybe you heard one of us describe you and your subconscious integrated it into your dream?'

Teddy snorted and shook her head. 'Again, it was too vivid. I didn't bear a passing resemblance to this pony, I was this pony.'

She trotted over to the bed and, in one impressive, fluid leap, hopped up. She laid down, facing me, and crossed her forelegs. ‘Here’s my idea. Equestria, the magical land from the show, is real. Maybe it’s on a parallel Earth, or a different dimension or something. The characters from the show, the ponies, the monsters, Discord? They’re all real. I don’t know if the show itself is accurate in general, but what if the events of the finale happened? What if Discord didn’t make the protagonist disappear, but instead, banished her to another world? This world. If he did it to the protagonist, it isn’t too much of a stretch to assume he did it to others.’

‘So this… cartoon chaos monster, Discord, banished a pony and they, what, possessed a human?’

She shrugged. An impressive feat for a creature without proper shoulders. ‘Maybe.'

I flopped back down into the chair with a groan. I was too old for all this. 'But if that's the case, then the timelines don't line up. "My Little Pony" has existed for years. You only started changing days ago.'

She frowned and scratched her chin. 'Hmmm…I actually think I can account for that. I started changing on May first, right?'

I nodded. 'As far as we've been able to determine.'

'On my twenty-fifth birthday. Remember the first line of Discord’s poem?'

I frowned and tried to think back. '"For five score divided by four?"'

'Which equals?'

I took a second to remember what a "score" was, but then it clicked. 'Twenty-five.'

She nodded. 'According to the poem, this pony was cursed to banishment in a land far away with no memories for twenty-five years. Well. Twenty-five years have passed.'

'And…' I met her gaze as it finally clicked in my head how she reached her conclusion. 'Now that it has, the curse has broken.'

She gave a small half smile and pointed to me. 'Bingo. This isn't a possession scenario. It's reincarnation. If it worked this way with me, then it probably did with the protagonist too. Perhaps they were reborn, grew up with what they thought was just a vivid imagination, and turned it into a cartoon. Who knows how many ponies got the same treatment?’

I rubbed my head, trying to process. ‘That’s… a lot of straws you’re grasping at, Teddy.’

‘I agree. I could be wrong.’ She sat up, turned back to the laptop she had been working on when I came in, and resumed typing. ‘Go. Sign your NDA, Doc. Then we can get back to looking for a scientific answer to a magical problem.’

I opened my mouth, perhaps to try and reason that we couldn't afford the several hours delay reading, signing, and submitting dozens of NDA's would cause, when the door was thrown open and Nurse Redmond burst in. 'Doctor! We just got news from the Pediatric Clinic over on fifty-sixth and South. Sir. I think we have another one.'

Here Comes Trouble

Chapter Three

Here Comes Trouble

Teddy's Perspective:

Doctor Rhodes sprang to his feet and closed the distance with Nurse Redmond in a single stride. He was keeping his face in a well-schooled neutral expression, but his eyes radiated with the excitement of a kid on Christmas morning. 'What do you mean, "another one." Another case like Teddy?'

Nurse Redmond fidgeted under the scrutiny, but nodded. 'When all this started, I talked to a bunch of my nurse friends in the other hospitals in the city. I didn't tell them anything specific, but I asked them to keep an eye out for anything particularly unusual.'

'And?'

'Well.' Nurse Redmond pulled out a scrap of notepaper from his pocket. 'My friend, Lydia, that is, Nurse Copperfield. She works in the leukaemia ward in the Paediatric Clinic. She called me and said… Well they bring in entertainers and celebrities and stuff whenever they can. For the kids, you know? They got Chris Evans last month for a Make a Wish kid. It was really sweet. And-'

Doctor Rhodes placed a hand on each of Nurse Redmond's shoulders. 'Frank, breath. Maybe skip the preamble?'

'Right. Right. Sorry.' He shook his head. 'Anyway, they have this clown who comes in regularly. Nugget. He was scheduled to perform last week, but he cancelled at the last second. Then he cancelled his next two performances. Now he isn't answering his phone.'

I cocked my head. 'People cancel, dude. Maybe he's got the flu or something.'

'That's what Lydia thought. So she went to his house to check on him. He wouldn't answer the door. But she said it was weird.'

Doctor Rhodes frowned. 'How so?'

'Well, for one thing.' Nurse Redmond glanced between us and lowered his voice, conspiratorially. 'The curtains were drawn, but she saw a shadow moving inside. A big shadow.'

'So?'

'"So?" Nugget's a little person! He barely tops four feet. That was part of his appeal!'

Doctor Rhodes scratched his chin. 'Maybe he had company over?'

'Company that smelled like a barnyard and had hooves?' Nurse Redmond grinned. 'Lydia swore he must have had a donkey or something in there. She was about to call animal control, but she called me first.'

Doctor Rhodes' eyes widened. 'Call her back, tell her we'll handle it. I've got to arrange a hazard team and a van to pick him up. This is fantastic!'

He turned to me. 'Looks like you may be having some company soon, Teddy.'

I nodded and scribbled down the new development. 'Looks like I may not be an isolated case.'

~~~

Doctor Rhodes’ Perspective:

I sat in the ambulance at the head of our small convoy, pulling on my full body PPE as we drove to the residence of Isaac Grant. Aka Nugget the clown. It took all my willpower not to cackle like a maniac. Another one! I hope this one’s male. That would make comparative genome testing so much easier! Would it be a unicorn, like Teddy? Or would it be one of the other races? Oh, I hope it’s a Pegasus! How would a different race’s genetics compare? Were the ponies one race with trimorphic castes, or were they three distinct species that had developed a symbiotic relationship? So many questions!

The ambulance pulled up to a small bungalow in a quaint little leafy suburb near the edge of town. I picked up the receiver on the two way radio and cleared my throat. ‘Alright, listen up, ladies and gents. We need to approach this delicately. Assuming this is a “Teddy” we’ve got, Mister Grant is likely to be confused and frightened. We don’t want to spook him and I absolutely do not want us to have to resort to tranquilisers. I’m going to approach first. Alone. Hopefully I can talk him round to coming with us willingly. If he does, I’ll give a signal. Set up the screens and clean tunnel to the van, and we’ll get him aboard and cleared out as quickly as possible. If I can’t… well. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Understood?’

A round of affirmatives later, I hopped out of the ambulance, approached the house as fast as I dared, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door. For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Then, from inside, I caught muttered voices. ‘Hello? Mister Grant?’

A second later, a woman’s voice called back. ‘Who is it?’

I frowned. That wasn’t the voice I had been expecting. But, then again, considering Teddy’s situation… ‘Mis…ter Grant?’

‘Who’s asking?’

I cleared my throat. ‘Mister Grant, my name is Doctor Rhodes. I’m a resident over at Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy. A clinic for individuals with long term medical conditions. Sir, we’ve received a tip that you might have a very… unusual condition we’ve been studying for the last several days. May I come in? I promise, whatever you have, I’ve seen it before.’

There was shuffling from inside. I heard the distinctive sound of a chain sliding into place and a deadbolt unlocking. The door opened a crack. ‘Mister Grant, I assure you. I’ve seen a po-‘

A young woman in her mid-twenties poked her head into view. She eyed me up and down. ‘Look, Doctor Space Man, I don’t know what bunk you’ve been fed, but Isaac doesn’t have any “condition.” He’s just been out with the flu is all.’

‘And you are?’

‘Kelly. His sister.’

‘Well, may I see Isaac? I am a Doctor.’ I chuckled. ‘I won’t even charge my usual call out fee.’

She held fast to the door, but forced a smile. ‘No need, Doc. I got this. Goodbye.’

Thinking quickly, I wedged my foot in the door before she could slam it shut. 'Please. Hear me out. If I could just see Isaac, I know I can help.'

Kelly's forced smile evaporated, morphing into a glare. She reached behind the door, and re-emerged with a baseball bat. 'You people. You think just because Isaac's a little different, that gives you the right to gawk at him, like some kind of freak? You have three seconds to get your foot out of this door and off Isaac's property before I show you how good my swing is.'

I raised my hands in surrender and took several, deliberate steps back. Kelly wasted no time slamming the door. 'If you show up here again, I'm calling the cops!' She called from inside.

I beat a hasty retreat back to the ambulance where Doctor Herdman was waiting, arms crossed. 'That looked like it went well.'

I pulled my visor, mask, and hood off and rubbed my head. 'Mister Grant has a very protective sister. I couldn't even get a look inside.'

'So…' Doctor Herdman pulled a syringe from his pocket. 'Are we doing "Plan B" or…'

I stared at him. 'What? No! Put that away. Why do you even have that on hand? We're not talking about some feral animal here. He's a human being with a condition. He hasn't done anything wrong. And we have no right to storm into his home.'

Doctor Herdman pocketed the syringe and shrugged. 'An argument could be made for containing a carrier of an unknown, highly aggressive pathogen to prevent spreading.'

'Which we both know is almost certainly a lie. One that would never hold up if our own test results were examined. I didn't even get visual confirmation that this is a similar case.' I leaned against the ambulance and watched the curtained windows of the bungalow. 'We need to get them to open the door. To let us in, willing.'

'But they're not going to do that.' Doctor Herdman leaned against the ambulance beside me and, casually, lit up a cigarette. 'I can see their point of view. Something freaky and inexplicable happens to one of them, then a random doctor in a hazmat suit shows up asking to examine them? I wouldn't open the door either.'

'No.' I scratched my mustache. 'Neither would I. So how do we get them to open the door?'

Doctor Herdman took a long drag from his cigarette and flicked some ashes away. 'I don’t think we do. Not without breaking a bunch of laws. They have no reason to trust us, and we have nothing tangible to offer them. So the question becomes, if they won't open the door for us, who will they open the door for?'

~~~

Teddy's Perspective:

I glanced at the clock, anticipating Doc's return. If Nurse Redmond's tip proved good, then that'd go some ways to validating my theory. But I wasn't about to sit idle. I had other leads to chase.

I looked over some of the notes I'd made about current events. It was unnerving to see so much political tension building up all over the world. Like the planet was just one serious terrorist attack, or military action away from blowing its lid.

But, as serious as it was, I wasn't looking for the usual media fear mongering. I was growing more and more confident in my reincarnation theory. And if there were other ponies out there, no matter how careful they were, they would have left a trace. The tricky part would be figuring out what was genuine. The internet was bursting with hoaxes, trolls, and role players afterall.

There were a few articles and blog posts here and there about pony sightings, a few about mysteriously appearing cutie marks, one YouTube video about a pony allegedly walking into a McDonald's in North Dakota that had been taken down, even an impressive video of the CMC's introducing themselves. But it all reeked of fan made content. Even the CMC thing, based on the comments, was probably just a really well done animation. Since I had no idea how far animation technology had progressed in the last five years, I couldn't say one way or the other.

There were one or two articles I stumbled across that caught my eye though. A mysterious purple explosion in a residential area of Vancouver. A similar purple explosion in a bookstore in Seattle the next day. A piece about a man in Chicago stealing his own medical records while wearing red horse ears. None of these directly referenced ponies, but they were unusual enough to warrant investigation.

I looked up the number for the police precinct nearest to the Vancouver explosion and dialed. I was on hold for several minutes before someone finally answered. 'Hello, Vancouver Police Department. How can I help you?'

I put a little pep in my voice. 'Hi there! This is Caitlin Ryan with the Vancouver Sun. I'm writing a follow-up piece to the bombing incident that occurred on the second. I was wondering if there was someone there I could talk to?'

There was the clacking of keys. 'It looks like Inspector…Miller is the lead on that case. Hold on. I'll see if he's available.'

I drummed my hoof on the bed as I was put on hold again. I knew as well as anyone how busy a police department could be, so I tried to stay patient. The bombing must have had them in a tizzy.

After several minutes, the phone picked up. 'Miller here. Who's this?'

I smiled and tried to let it register in my voice. 'Inspector Miller, hello. My name's Caitlin Ryan, with the Sun. I was hoping to ask you a few questions about the bombing on the second? I just wanted to clarify a few details.'

He audibly groaned. 'Look. I'll tell you what I told the last twelve of you people. It was an airburst of as-yet unknown origin. Nobody was killed. No culprit has yet been identified. There have been no new developments since our last official statement. Investigations are ongoing. That is all!'

'Wai-'

The phone line went dead. I snorted. 'Ass.

'Moving on, I guess.' I looked up the number for the bookshop in Seattle. I was halfway through dialing the number when the door to my room slammed open.

'Bah!' My heart jumped and a gossamer thin bolt of electricity arched between the lightbulb overhead and the remains of my horn. The lightbulb sparked and went dark.

Nurse Redmond dashed in. 'Oh my goodness! Are you alright? There must have been a fault. Here.' He pulled out a pen light and tilted my head down. 'Let me see.'

I gently, but emphatically pushed him away. 'I'm fine.' I gave my stub a few experimental pokes. 'No harm done.'

He gave a deep sigh. 'Thank goodness. I'm so sorry about that. I'll have one of the maintenance guys have a look at the lights immediately.'

I looked up at him. 'Dude, you nearly gave me a heart attack. You never heard of knocking?'

He held up his hands. 'Right. Sorry. Sorry. But Doctor Rhodes called. He needs your help.'

I leveled a stare at him. 'Has he signed his NDA? I told him, no more tests until-'

'No no, it isn't about testing.' He assured me. 'It’s about the other potential case.'

I cocked my head and perked up an ear. 'What's-his-name, the clown?'

'Nugget, yeah.' He nodded. 'Doc can't get him to come to the door. He figured if you were with him… Well, seeing is believing, right?'

'I thought I was supposed to be in quarantine.'

'We've accounted for that, and have precautions in place. So, will you come?'

I glanced down at my pile of notes and scratched the back of my neck. 'I don't know. I'm really busy right now.'

Nurse Redmond clasped his hands together. 'Please. This is someone's life we're talking about. Who knows what kind of mental state Mister Grant is in?'

I groaned and rolled my eyes. 'Urgh. Fine. No need to go for the hard sell. I suppose I could use a breath of fresh air.'

~~~

'What the heck is this?' I stepped out of the ambulance half an hour later and, rather than the fresh air I had hoped for, I seemed to be in a giant, collapsable hamster tunnel covered in clear plastic.

Doctor Rhodes, wearing one of those medical hazmat suits, sans-mask, walked up to me, a look of relief on his face. 'Teddy. Thank you for coming.'

'Hey, Doc. What's with…' I waved around at the tunnel.

'Sterilised clean tunnel. We use it for transporting individuals with infectious diseases from their location to an ambulance safely.' He pointed behind himself, round the bend. 'We took the liberty of setting this one up right to the front door. We've also cordoned off the area. So we should have privacy.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Subtle. This looks like that government home invasion scene from E.T. I think the neighbors are going to notice.'

Doctor Rhodes chuckled. 'We've set up screens and are telling anyone who asks that we're investigating a potential Malaria outbreak. If we're quick, hopefully we can be gone before we draw a crowd.'

I nodded. A believable enough excuse. 'So why have you been having trouble? Does he not believe you're here to help?' I looked down at my hooves. 'Is he not able to open the door? Hooves would make doorknobs pretty tricky.'

He sighed and started walking down the tunnel towards the front door, with me close on his heels. 'No. But he isn't alone. His sister is in there, with him. She answered the door and refused to let me in. I didn't even get a glimpse of Mister Grant.'

I stopped. 'Wait. You didn't even see him? And you want me to talk to him. What if Nurse Redmond's tip was wrong?!'

'I don't believe it was. His sister was definitely hiding something. She said Isaac had the flu. But when I offered to take a look at him, free of charge, she got angry and chased me off with a baseball bat.'

I snorted. 'There's a joke in there somewhere about people's faith in the healthcare system.'

He rolled his eyes. 'I'm glad you find my near assault amusing.'

'Although.' I scratched my chin. 'Between the sister's reaction, and Nurse Copperfield's testimony about the smell and the hoofbeats… Yeah. Okay. Let's do this.'

We carried on to the door and Doctor Rhodes rang the bell. 'Mister Grant? Kelly? It's me again.'

My ears perked at the sound of stomping footsteps approaching the door from the other side. 'I told you to get lost! What are you people doing out there?! I'm calling the cops!'

'I am the cops.' I glanced up at Doctor Rhodes and he cocked a brow. 'I was the… Look, Miss. We all know you're not calling the cops. Can you come to the door?'

There was a moment's silence. 'You're trespassing. And I… I have a gun!'

'Kelly!' A deep, masculine voice rebuked from further inside the house.

'Mister Grant? Is that you? Can you open up, please? We just want-'

'I've got nothing to say to some shady scientists. Go away.'

I frowned and patted Doctor Rhodes on the hip. 'Doc, go wait back in the van. This might go easier if I can talk with them alone.'

'Are you sure?'

'You're spooking them. I got this.'

He scratched his chin. '...Alright. Ten minutes. We have to be gone before we draw real attention.'

I nodded, and he walked off, back the way we had come.

I sat down and gave the door a gentle rap. 'Okay. The Doc's gone. It's just us now.'

'And who the heck are you?' The woman, Kelly, called back.

'I'm Teddy. I'm one of the Doc's patients. He thought you might be more willing to talk to me.'

'You don't sound like a "Teddy."'

I chuckled and glanced down at one of my forelegs. 'Actually, you'd be surprised just how well that name fits now. I am very fluffy. And I'm thinking I'm not the only one. Right, Isaac?'

Heavy footfalls approached the door. I tilted my head and cocked an ear. They may have been hoofbeats, but there must have been a thick carpet laid down, because I couldn't be quite certain.

'I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'Have you figured out going to the bathroom yet? Kinda tricky without hands. If you've got any tips, I'd love to hear them, because right now I'm having to rely on a dude named Frank to wipe. Not fun for anyone involved.'

There was a whispered back and forth between the two siblings. 'Who says there's anything wrong with Isaac's hands?'

I bit the inside of my cheek and tapped a hoof. I couldn't just come out and say I was a cartoon pony. If there was even a slim chance we were wrong, that could go really bad really fast. I needed him to confirm he was like me. I needed something concrete. But what?

Tap tap, tap, tap tap tap tap tap.

What could I say?

Tap tap, tap, tap tap tap tap tap.

I blinked and looked down at my hoof. I had been tapping out a rhythm without even thinking about it. If my theory is right, then maybe…

'Hey, Isaac. How have you been sleeping lately?'

'Sleeping?' He sounded genuinely confused.

'Personally, I've been having these nightmares. Although, I guess it was more like one recurring dream. I was in an alien land, in a body I didn't recognise. There was this monster, Discord. Like Frankenstein's fursona. He attacked me. He said this rhyme. "For five score, divided by four."'

'"Your memories removed, your body confused."' Isaac muttered.

I grinned to myself. Theory confirmed. 'Have you figured out who you are yet?'

There was another whispered back and forth, followed by a heavy stomp. 'Just open the door, Kelly.'

'Urgh. Fine.' After a minute's shuffling and the sound of a sliding chain, the door swung open and a young woman with a baseball bat stepped into the frame. She opened her mouth to speak, but shut it and frowned when she didn't see me.

I rolled my eyes. 'Down here.' She looked down and gasped. 'Hi there. Honestly. You'd think, having a little person as a brother, looking down would be your first instinct.'

'Yeah. Kind of fell out of that habit recently.' She glanced over her shoulder in time for Isaac to finally show himself.

Now, I was tall. For a pony mare. At least, I assumed I was, judging by my princess-like build. I didn't know what I was expecting Isaac to look like, but I at least thought he'd be at my eye level. As I craned my neck up and up to finally meet his gaze, I had never felt so dwarfed by anyone. He was huge! This guy was supposed to be a pony?! 'You're…'

'Troubleshoes. Yeah.' He drooped his head so that he was only slightly taller than Kelly. 'We figured that out a few days ago. What about you?'

I shrugged. 'No idea. I didn't turn up on the wiki. But you can, at least, see I'm like you. Why don't we get in, out of this…' I waved around at the tunnel. 'Giant condom, and we can swap info?'

~~~

Kelly excused herself to go make us coffee while Isaac led me into the living room. The walls were covered in framed pictures of Isaac with, presumably, his family, Isaac in full clown makeup, performing for sick children, Isaac meeting various celebrities, Kelly and Isaac laughing at various tourist traps around the world. All evidence of a good life, well lived.

The room itself was surprisingly spartan. A sofa against one wall, a love seat against another, and a TV in the corner. That was it.

Isaac paused when he saw me looking and chuckled. 'Yeah, we had to move most of the furniture and bric-a-brac into the spare room when I became too big to walk around without breaking anything. Not a problem I've ever had, until recently. I'm still adjusting to the perspective change. Everything looks so strange from this angle.'

I hopped up onto the love seat. 'Tell me about it. I used to be six foot two, now everyone's butts are in my face.'

Isaac actually guffawed and plopped himself down on the carpet. I supposed a two thousand pound draft horse was a little much for the average sofa to take. 'Welcome to my world. Or, my former world, at least. You get used to it.'

'Isaac always said people learned fast not to give him grief when they realized he was at perfect headbutting height.' Kelly came in with three mugs of coffee, and set one in front of Isaac and I. She had even, thoughtfully, added silly straws.

I snickered. 'There is that.' I pointed at my jagged stub. 'Bet I could do some serious damage with this thing.'

'Wow.' Kelly sat down beside me. 'So you're, like, a legit unicorn. That is so cool! Can you do any spells?'

'With this thing?' I frowned up at my horn, just barely visible in my upper peripherals. 'Even assuming that kind of magic exists, I'd hesitate to try it. Without a proper horn, I'd be worried my head might explode or something.'

'Yeah. How did that…' Kelly reached out a hand to touch my horn, but hesitated. I inclined my head towards her to let her know it was okay.

My ear gave an involuntary flick at her touch. Despite being hard as bone, what was left of my horn was remarkably sensitive. The point of contact feeling like pins and needles and a static shock all at once. 'No idea. I got hit by a car five years ago. I was in a coma until the day before last, when I woke up in the clinic, like this. Scars and all.'

'Seriously?' Isaac frowned. 'How do you know they didn't…' He mimed a sawing motion.

'They're not like that.' I took a sip of my coffee. Instant. Darn. Aw well. Caffeine is caffeine. 'The Docs at the clinic are good people. They just want to help me. And, if you give them the chance, they'll try to help you too.'

Kelly gripped her own mug. 'You can't know that. What if they're just trying to lull you into a false sense of security? Or what if they're using you to lure other ponies back for dissection?'

'Well they are kind of using me to bring at least one pony in.' I chuckled and winked at Isaac. 'But I've seen all their test results, reviewed the footage they took, and had background checks run on them. They're clean.'

Kelly and Isaac shared a glance. I was wearing them down. 'But enough about me and the clinic, for now. Tell me about you. You have to tell me everything!'

Isaac blinked.'Wow. Um, okay. Let me think…'

~~~

May 5th:
Isaac's Perspective:

I stood on a borrowed chair in front of the men's room mirror of the Pediatric ward, applying my makeup. I had to confess, my smile was a little bit forced. I mean, I knew it was my birthday and all, but what wiseacre sneaks into a guy's house in the middle of the night and gives him a tattoo? Two, even. I was all for practical jokes, but that was a step too-

~~~

Present:
Teddy's Perspective:

'Wait wait wait! Stop.' I waved a hoof to silence Isaac before he could build any momentum. 'Later. You have to tell me everything later. We're kind of on a time crunch here.'

I carefully set aside my coffee cup and stood up. 'Look. Here's the bottom line, guys. You can't stay here. People are going to come looking for Isaac eventually. Isaac can't work like this, and even if Kelly did all the grocery runs, how long will your money last?' I looked over at the woman not meeting my gaze. 'Can you afford to feed a horse, long term, on your salary? Do you know how many calories a full grown horse needs per day? About fifteen thousand. Minimum. That's the equivalent of about six or seven grown men.'

Her face went red. 'We'd have thought of something!'

'Kelly, please.' Isaac rested a reassuring forehoof on her knee before turning to me. 'You make some good points, Teddy. But you're still asking us to take a lot on faith here. Even if we believe you about this clinic meaning well, can they actually help? Because it sounds like I'll be trading being trapped in my house for being trapped in a hospital, being watched twenty-four seven.'

Kelly slammed her mug on the ground and stood up to loom over me. I doubted she topped five foot four, but in my current state, it was a decent attempt at a power move. 'I've taken care of my brother my whole life! I can take care of him now, without a bunch of quacks treating him like a lab rat.'

I cocked a brow. 'And when your money runs out? Or your friends and neighbours wonder why they haven't seen Isaac in a while? What if someone finds out about him? Do you really think there won't be opportunists who would try to exploit a magical, talking horse?'

Kelly grabbed her bat and gripped it in both hands. 'They'd have to go through me.'

I smiled. 'You got guts, kid. But having guts isn't the same thing as having a plan. I don't know, one way or the other, if Doc and his crew can help. But they're trying. They won't treat you like a freak. They will feed you for as long as you're there. And the clinic is a lot more secure than a little bungalow in the suburbs.'

I patted Isaac on the shoulder and walked to the front door. 'No one's going to force you to come. But what better options do you have?'

Kelly skipped forward and opened the door for me.

I turned back. 'I'll wait in the van with the Doc. I'd guess we have about five minutes before we really need to clear out. Whether you're with us when we do? That's up to you. No pressure.'

I didn't look back as I made my way to the van through the weird condom tunnel. I did my part. And, while one or two more examples would have been preferable, I thought it was safe to say, my reincarnation theory was all but confirmed. I did hope Isaac made the right call, but mostly, I wanted to get back to my investigation. Now that I was fairly certain what was happening, it was time to move on to the how and why.

As the van came into view, Doctor Rhodes ran up to meet me. 'Well?!'

I smirked. 'Give them a minute.'

Two minutes later, Isaac and Kelly came around the corner, and, tentatively, approached the van. I nodded at Isaac, who gave me a small smile.

Doctor Rhodes approached the siblings just in time for Kelly to flick her bat up and rest it on her shoulders. 'I'm keeping the bat.'

Straight to the Source

Chapter Four

Strait to the Source

Isaac's Perspective:

I shuffled in place, trying to find a comfortable spot in the back of the cramped van that was taking us to the clinic. Teddy lay curled up in a corner, seemingly content to play on her phone with a stylus, while Kelly rode up front with Doctor Rhodes. I had to confess a small amount of envy for my new acquaintance. While spaces like the van and my living room were more than adequate for her to maneuver in, the world had shrunk around me. I'd lost track of the number of times, over the last few days, that I'd banged my head on a doorframe, or knocked something over with my huge, ponderous behind, or just crushed something that wasn't quite up to supporting my weight. I hope this clinic has reinforced beds.

I cleared my throat. 'Sooo… How about this weather we're having?'

Teddy didn't look up. 'Wouldn't know. I haven't been outside in five years.'

'Right right.' I scratched the back of my neck. 'What's it like being a unicorn?'

This got her to look up and cock her head at me. 'About the same as being an earth pony, I'd imagine.' She flicked her eyes up to her broken horn. 'Not exactly holding my breath for magic any time soon.'

She smirked. 'What's it like to suddenly be the size of a house?'

I chuckled and pointed to the roof, which I was having to stoop to avoid bashing my head on. 'Cramped.'

'I can imagine.'

'But you'd know all about that, right?' I cocked a brow and pointed at her. 'You said you were six foot two? That's pretty darn big for a girl. Must have been hard finding clothes that-'

I slapped a hoof over my mouth, realizing, too late, that it sounded like I was mocking her size. I was about to stammer out an apology when she chuckled. Scratching the back of her neck, she avoided eye contact and looked, if anything, slightly bashful.

'Actually, I used to be a guy. My change came complete with a full "rule sixty-three." I've been trying not to think about it.'

My cheeks burned crimson. Poor guy. Here I thought becoming too big to fit in the bathtub was the hardest challenge to come out of this change. What must a full, involuntary gender change do to a person's sense of identity? 'I'm sorry. How… How are ya holding up?'

She shrugged. 'I haven't been awake long enough, or given myself the downtime to really let it sink in. I imagine I'll be due an existential freak out at some point in the future, but that's Future Me's problem.'

'I can't tell if your composure over the situation right now is a sign of a healthy mindset, or if your actively putting off facing the truth of the situation is the sign of an unhealthy one. This clinic has a shrink, right?'

She rolled her eyes and went back to her phone. 'I don’t need a shrink, I need a solution. And that, I'm working on.'

I opened my mouth to ask more, when a sudden banging from up front made me jump and whack my head on the roof.

'Okay, we're here folks,' Doctor Rhodes called. 'We'll just set up the clean tunnel and you can get settled.'

Teddy snorted as I rubbed my head and examined the dent I had made in the roof. 'You okay there, big guy?'

I sighed. 'Surely.'

~~~

The clinic was a lot nicer than I had expected. The floors were polished, white marble, everything was colour coordinated in bright pastels and warm earth tones, there were well-tended potted plants everywhere. Calming forest sounds played over the p.a. system, and everything from the inset lighting, to the furniture in the waiting room, to the reception desk had a slick, ultra modern feel. All told, this place screamed of one thing. Money.

Kelly whistled. 'Wow. I feel poor just standing here.'

Doctor Rhodes chuckled. 'It’s true, we're not hurting for funds. Most of our patients either are, or are relatives of people earning six to seven figures per annum.' He swept his arm around at the reception area. 'So they expect the VIP treatment.'

Teddy, who, I was just realizing, had been a patient here for five years before the change and, as such, was probably loaded, looked up at the Doctor. 'Speaking of. Where did you move the other patients when you quarantined the place? They couldn’t have been happy.'

'Oh, they weren't.' He rubbed his head. 'But needs must. When we told them we were trying to protect them from a new, highly aggressive pathogen, most accepted it. We moved them to our new sister location across town. It was only recently built, so everything should be modern and fancy enough to satisfy even the pickiest tastes.'

'Speaking of "tastes."' Another doctor, smelling faintly of tobacco smoke, strode in from the ambulance bay. 'I'll need to get on the phone with my supplier. If we're going to have more guests of the horsey variety, then we'll need to stock up on food suitable for an equestrian diet. Not to mention, medicines and vaccines. Oh!' He held out his hand, which, being the only one of us who still could, Kelly shook. 'I'm Doctor Herdman, veterinarian. You must be Isaac and Kelly.'

Kelly withdrew her hand and rested it on her hip. 'Why does a private healthcare clinic have a vet?'

Teddy chuckled. 'Same reason it has a nano-tech expert. Rich people, am I right?'

Doctor Herdman smirked and rolled his eyes. 'Same reason, yes. Teddy. There I was, at the Kentucky Derby, tending sprung hooves and running doping screenings, when I got a call about the opportunity of a lifetime. How could I refuse?'

'Anyway.' Doctor Rhodes stepped between us and waved over a young man in nurse's scrubs. 'While Doctor Herdman gets the supplies in, why don't you let Nurse Redmond here take your bags to your rooms? The rest of us can go to the canteen, grab a cup of something, and get to know each other.'

'Can we grab some lunch?' Kelly chimed in. 'I've heard horror stories about hospital food, but a place like this? I'm betting you have a sushi chef.'

'Ha! We're not quite that decadent, but I'm sure we can whip up something.' Doctor Rhodes dabbed the corners of his eyes and let his chuckles die down. 'Ah. Well, shall we?'

Teddy, to my surprise, turned and made for one of the far doors. 'You'll have to give me the cliff notes later. After talking to Isaac-'

'Troubleshoes.'

'What?'

I sighed and gave a half shrug. 'It’s who I am, right? May as well start trying to get used to it.'

Teddy cocked a brow, but nodded. 'Okay. After talking to Troubleshoes, I have some new ideas I need to investigate while they're fresh in my head. Just answer me one thing. How old are you?'

I cocked a brow. 'Um, twenty-five.'

She nodded and scratched her chin. 'Thought so. Okay. You guys go. Get comfy. I'll talk to you later.'

And with that, she pushed through the swinging door and was gone.

Kelly crossed her arms and huffed. 'Rude.'

'That's just Teddy.' Doctor Rhodes assured us. 'She's very… driven. Give her time, and I'm sure she'll warm up.'

Before Kelly could build up a head of steam I could see coming a mile away, I grinned and stuck my colossal noggin between them. 'Speaking of warming up, how about that hot meal? I don’t know about you two, but I'm hungry as a horse!'

The two humans groaned in perfect synchronicity. My grin only widened.

~~~

There was no fancy chef in the canteen. Much to Kelly's disappointment, most of the non-essential staff had been moved to the other clinic when this one was put into quarantine. But we made the best of what we had. Kelly heated some tomato soup and Doctor Rhodes whipped up some grilled cheese sandwiches. I had three cans of soup and half a loaf's worth of sandwiches to myself.

We sat down, me on the floor, and, with much relish, I took my first bite of hot, cheesy goodness.

Kelly tapped her spoon on the table. 'So, what happens now, Doc? Are you going to try and make Is-' She paused and glanced at me. 'Are you going to try and make Troubleshoes human again?'

I slurped some soup with the straw Kelly had, thoughtfully, provided, then frowned at her. 'Kelly, we talked about this. This is me. There's no going back.'

She held up her hands. 'I know. I know. I just want to know what these guys can actually do for us that we couldn't do for ourselves. Our original plan was solid.'

'Our original plan was half baked. All it would have taken was one blabbermouth to slip up and I'd be on the dissection table. Do you really think Cinthea could have kept this,' I waved my hoof up and down, indicating all of me. 'To herself?'

'She would have if I put her in the water torture cell for a few minutes.'

'Wow wow wow!' Doctor Rhodes dropped his half eaten grilled cheese. '"Plan?" "Water torture cell?!" I would really appreciate some context. Preferably, context that doesn't make me want to suddenly call for help.'

I rolled my eyes at Kelly's smirk, scarfed down another grilled cheese, and sighed. 'Story time, I guess. I'll skip over some of the finer details, since you already know about the transformation.'

~~~

May Fifth:

I drove my flower patterned, custom Beetle as fast as I could without attracting the attention of a traffic cop. The tattoos were odd. The hair and eyes changing colour were bizarre. I even, to my shame, cancelled my performance at the children's hospital today to look up unusual medical conditions online. But, ten minutes ago, I noticed my ears had mutated into fuzzy horse ears, and I was really freaking out!

I needed help, and there was only one person I could think to trust with something this freaky. Kelly.

I pulled into her driveway, screwed a baseball cap onto my head, and jumped out of my car. I heard a commotion from the back courtyard and ran around to see what was happening. A crowd was gathered in a wide circle around something. I slipped my way through the forest of legs to the front so I could see.

There Kelly was, standing on a raised platform, her torso was tied to a stake by a thick, hemp rope, and her hands were tied behind her back. The platform was surrounded by wooden logs that, judging from the smell, were soaked in kerosene. There was a trail of kerosene on the ground leading to a lit, old timey wooden torch that was held at an angle by a rope tied to the far wall. A few inches under the rope was a lit candle. The rope was smoking. Once the candle burned through it, the torch would drop, the kerosene trail would ignite, and Kelly would go up like a bonfire.

~~~

'Wait, what?!' Doctor Rhodes' voice had risen several octaves and his eyes bugged as he looked between us. 'You can't be serious.'

Kelly chuckled and munched on her grilled cheese. 'Just listen.'

~~~

The onlookers and I stood and watched as Kelly strained and struggled against her bonds. Sweat poured down her forehead and her face was a grim mask of focus.

We all held our collective breath. You could have heard a pin drop. The only sound came from Kelly's efforts, the crackling torch, and the ominous ping, ping, ping of one rope fiber after another burning through.

Kelly grunted, twisted, and the ropes binding her hands fell to the platform.

Ping, ping, ping.

Kelly scrambled to find the knot of the ropes holding her torso down.

Ping, ping, ping.

Her questing fingers found the knot behind her back. She squared her jaw and kept her unblinking eyes on the burning rope. There were only a few thin fibers left.

I bit my nails.

Ping, ping, pi-

The rope snapped, the torch fell and the kerosene trail caught fire. Kelly struggled and threw herself to one side, then another, still bound.

There was a WOOMPH as the platform was consumed in a blinding conflagration of flames.

Women in the crowd screamed. Panicking onlookers milled around, frantically searching for something to douse the fire.

'And that one,' came a voice from behind the crowd. Everyone spun around and parted to make way for Kelly, unburned, rope slung over her shoulder, as she strutted forward back into view. 'I call "The Witch's Parole."'

~~~

Doctor Rhodes sighed in relief as he flopped back in his chair and ran a hand down his mustache. 'So it was a trick?'

'Oh no. It was very real.' Kelly lounged back in her chair, grinning like the cat who got the cream.

I chuckled. 'Kelly and I are from a circus family. We worked the big top almost our entire lives. I was the little clown and Kelly was a magician's assistant.'

Kelly snorted. 'Until I went rogue and started my own death-defying escapology act.' She stuck her tongue out from between her teeth and threw up the devil horns. 'It was so metal.'

I rolled my eyes. 'Anyway. After our dad passed, I decided I'd had enough of the road. I wanted to try putting down roots for a while. So I got a house here in Lincoln, got plenty of work playing corporate gigs and birthday parties. I made a life for myself. And Kelly…'

Kelly gave me a light swat on the foreleg. 'Wasn't about to go off without her brother. It was about time anyway. The big top could only contain my badassery for so long.'

'Maybe if you turned down the badassery a smidge you'd actually be able to get health insurance.' I chided, emphasizing my point with a poke to the shoulder.

Kelly just shrugged. 'You don't get discovered if you don't take risks. You think Netflix is going to give a special to someone who plays it safe?'

'Speaking of discovery.' Doctor Rhodes sipped his coffee and straightened up in his seat. 'Can we get back to the story? How did Kelly react when she discovered you were changing?'

'Well…'

~~~

Kelly strode up to a cameraman at the front of the crowd and grinned into the lens. 'That's all for today, my little chain links. Hope you enjoyed the show. And remember. Under no circumstances should you try anything you see here at home. I am a trained professional with all the proper safety precautions in place.'

She stepped aside and waved an arm behind her. On cue, four guys with fire extinguishers ran forward and doused the conflagration, while four others held the crowd of onlookers back at a safe distance. Her point made, Kelly turned the camera back to herself. 'I risk my dumb butt so you don't have to. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe if you enjoyed this video. For more daring escapes and death-defying madness, I will see you next time. Same Grant time, same Grant channel!'

'And cut.' The cameraman closed his viewfinder and straightened up. 'Perfect as usual, Kelly.'

Kelly threw the rope to the ground and ran her fingers through her hair. 'Was cutting it a bit close there. Maybe next time we don't use the Langford double when I'm sweating like a pig?'

'Oh, I don't know. I think you phoned that one in.' Now that the crowd was dispersing, I made my way over to my maniac sister and held my arms open. 'No gunpowder, no flare? Really, sister mine. A bright spark like you could have been a little more flame-buoyant!'

Upon seeing me, Kelly's face split into a wide grin. She ran over, closed the last three feet skidding on her knees, and pulled me into a tight bear hug. 'Isaac! So good to see you! What are you doing here? I thought we weren't having dinner until Saturday.'

I took a moment to return the hug. I really needed one. But priorities won out, and I stepped back to look in Kelly's eyes. Her smile flickered at my serious expression.'Kelly, can we go somewhere private? I have to show you something that may be a teensy bit disconcerting.'

~~~

Kelly leaned forward and sipped her coffee. '"Disconcerting" was putting it mildly. I freaked the heck out. I was mad at Isaac, at first. I thought he'd gotten surgery to make himself look weird. But once he'd explained he wasn't the one making it happen, I believed him. Over the next few days, I saw the changes happening with my own eyes and…'

I played with the half-eaten remains of my last sandwich. 'And that's when we started making plans.'

~~~

Teddy's Perspective:

I trotted into my room, hopped up onto the bed, and pulled over one of my laptops.

While I would have liked a bigger sample size than two to be certain, Troubleshoes all but confirmed my theory. We were ponies first. Then, twenty-five years ago, Discord cursed us to reincarnate on Earth, as humans. And now that twenty-five years had passed, the curse broke.

I knew the "when." I knew the "how." At least, in concept. The "why" was irrelevant. Although fairly obvious if I stopped to think about it. The "where" was another world. What was I supposed to do with that? So the important question became, "what now?"

I couldn't go back to my old life. Not unless humanity as a whole had gotten a lot more tolerant and open minded in the five years I'd been asleep. Fat chance.

I could hide away. I could afford to. Sell my house. Buy some ranch in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere. Have Mrs Henson handle my affairs. Just live out the rest of my life like a hermit.

I snorted at the thought. Like hell! That was no way to live. Why should I have to give up everything because of someone else's actions?

I needed to figure out how to become human again. It may not have been my original life, but it was the life I remembered. It was the life I knew. If I could go from pony to human once, I could do it again. But how?

I cued up an episode of MLP and, idly, set it to play in the background while I thought.

MLP. Where did it come into play? It did, didn't it? It had to. I may have been an unknown quantity, but Troubleshoes and Discord were both featured characters in the show. And in my dream, my memory, I remembered thinking how Dodge Junction was nearby. A featured location in the show. If Troubleshoes, Discord, and Dodge Junction were all real, if Equestria was real, but exiled Equestrians like me and Troubleshoes were only now reverting, how was a cartoon about us made in Canada ten years ago?

On the laptop, the episode playing, a season five one, a goofy "comedic misunderstanding" episode about Rainbow Dash, Soarin, and Spitfire all getting mixed signals and ending up on a triple date, ended. Credits rolled, and one credit caught my eye. "Developed for television by Lauren Faust."

Lauren Faust.

She created G4. She designed the characters, the locations, she outlined the whole thing! She said it was all based on stories she made up while playing with pony toys as a kid. But what if she was lying? It made sense. She couldn't just come out and slap a "based on true events" disclaimer on a cartoon about magical pastel ponies.

But how much did she know? Did she know everything? Did she know about the stranded Equestrians? Was she an accomplice of Discord?!

I took a deep breath and shook my head. No. That was blind speculation. There was only one way to find out what she knew, one way or the other. I slid a pair of styluses into my universal cuffs and pulled up Google. It took a while, but I eventually found Lauren's business contacts on her LinkedIn account. I grabbed my phone, I should probably return this to Frank at some point, took a deep breath to steady my heart, and dialed the number.

It rang several times. With each passing ring, I grew more and more anxious. I was a cop. This was an investigation. I had to stay professional. But it was Lauren freaking Faust! I was actually calling Lauren Faust! There may have been nefarious stuff going on, but I was still a brony. This was like a Marvel nut calling Stan Lee. It was crazy!

After about the tenth ring, she picked up. 'Hello?'

I took a deep, calming breath. Okay, Teddy, stay cool. You're a professional. 'Mrs Faust? Lauren Faust?'

'This is she. Are you calling from Netflix? I'm still going over the last contract proposal you sent me.'

I cleared my throat. 'No, ma'am. My name is… Gladden. I'm a detective. Mrs Faust, I'm involved in a case that, well, I'm not at liberty to divulge specifics, but it involves a dangerous, highly unstable individual we believe may be obsessed with your old show, "My Little Pony," and the characters in it. I realize this is an imposition, but I was hoping you'd be willing to answer a few questions? It would help us in building a psychological profile.'

'O-of course.' I could hear the concern in her voice. I really didn't want to lie to her of all people, but I needed to be careful. 'Whatever you need, detective. Nobody's been hurt, have they?'

'I'm sorry, Ma'am. I'm not at liberty to say. As this isn't an official statement you're making, we can keep this off the record. You ready?'

'Sure. Go right ahead.'

I took another deep breath. 'Well, first thing's first. You are widely credited with the creation of the two thousand and ten series "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic," but was there anyone else involved? Any silent partners that went uncredited?'

'No.' She sounded mildly offended. 'There were a lot of people involved in the creation of the show, sure. But the original show bible, the initial designs, the scripts for the first four episodes, that was all me. I even outlined the broad strokes for how the series as a whole was supposed to go from beginning to end.'

'Including the controversial series finale?'

She sighed. 'They ended up making it a lot more graphic than I had intended, but yes. The finale was how the show had to end.'

"Had to?" 'Alright, so you created the show. What about the ponies? They've been held up as sterling examples of both character design and characterization. There wasn't a fan who couldn't relate to one or more of them on a personal level. Seeing themselves in the ponies. How did you come up with them? Did you just dream them up, or…'

There was a pregnant pause.

'Mrs Faust?'

'This is important, isn't it?'

'It really is. I've read your press statements, seen your interviews. I know you claim you based the characters on games you made up as a child, but I was hoping there was more to it.' I rubbed one fetlock with another. 'Please, Lauren. If there's anything more you could add. Any tiny detail, no matter how insignificant that may have slipped your mind. Any source of inspiration you drew from. News articles, fairy tales, encounters with strangers. Anything.'

'Well, in that case.' There was the sound of creaking leather as Lauren, presumably, sat back in her chair. 'You should know that I made up the stuff about playing with pony toys as a kid. That whole fad passed me by at the time.'

Hello! Jackpot! 'So where did you get your ideas?'

'My old friends in Vancouver, David and Mary. They had these twin girls. One was a bit of a tomboy, but the other had the most incredible imagination. She was obsessed with her pony toys. She'd paint them up, do their voices, make up stories, put on little plays. All sorts of things. I loved them. David and Mary put on a lot of parties, but a lot of the time, I'd find an excuse to slip away for an hour or so and just play with Tess.'

"Tess." 'And when you were approached to make the new pony show…'

She sighed. 'I pitched the stories little Tess told me as best as I could remember them. I felt bad about it, and would have changed things later on, but I didn’t know anything about MLP at the time. The show was a big opportunity for me, and I knew those stories would go over well.'

'And they did.'

'And they did.' She agreed. 'The execs loved the pitch so much, they insisted I keep, at least, the broad strokes and story arcs exactly as I had pitched them.'

'And how old was Tess at the time you knew her?'

'Well, she and her sister were born in ninety-five, so about five or six at the time?' She chuckled. 'I know, right? How could someone so young have such a vivid imagination?'

Born in ninety-five. She'd be twenty-five by now. This "Tess" was one of us! She had to be! If she came up with MLP, maybe she still had her memories! Maybe she had answers!

'So a five year old, this "Tess," came up with everything? Equestria, Discord, the ponies. Everything?'

'The broad strokes, for the most part, yes.' A hint of suspicion crept into Lauren's voice. 'I'm sorry, how is Tess or her age going to help you make a psych profile of a dangerous criminal?'

Uh oh. 'I know it may seem trivial, Ma'am. But every little detail is important. This individual is obsessed with MLP. Its lore, its characters. All of it. Establishing when the show and these characters were created, why, and by whom is essential to figuring out how this individual thinks and how they see the world.'

'"Essential," hm?' I could practically see Lauren frowning. Did I blow it? 'Well, in that case, you may be barking up the wrong tree?'

That made me frown. 'How so? You said yourself-'

'That Tess's stories inspired my work. That she came up with the broad strokes for the most part. But "Friendship is Magic" is the fourth generation of a franchise that's been running since the eighties. Bonnie Zacherle created MLP's first generation. Including a lot of the characters Tess told me stories about. Twilight, Applejack, Spike, they're all G1. You want the truth about how and why MLP started, talk to Bonnie.

G1. Some of the characters were from G1. Twilight, Applejack, Spike. Talking ponies, rainbow magic. It all existed in the eighties. No. No no no! This throws the whole timeline off!

'Detective Gladden? Are you still there?'

I blinked and shook my head. 'Um, yes. Yes, I'm still here. I was just… making a note. Thank you for the tip, Mrs Faust. I think that'll be all for now. If I have any further questions, I'll call you. Thank you for your time.'

'No problem. I hope it helped.'

Helped? Shattered my entire theory? Time will tell. 'It did. Thank you. Oh! One more thing. At any point, did you design a tall, dark purple unicorn mare with a broken horn and a scarred face?'

She hummed in thought. 'Hmmm… No. I don't think so. The proverbial cutting room floor was littered with concept designs we never used. We did try to be as inclusive as possible. Characters with different body shapes, ages, even some with visible disabilities and the like. But we drew the line at anything that might cause the younger audience distress. A pony with a broken horn and a scarred up face would have been too upsetting to use.'

My ears wilted and I hung my head. For some reason, hearing that from her felt like a punch in the gut. I had no real investment in this pony I had become, this pony that I used to be. But hearing those words from Lauren Faust herself? It was like being told by your hero that the sight of you offended them.

'Thank you for your time, Mrs Faust.' I hung up the phone before she could reply and flopped back on the bed.

That had not gone the way I hoped it would. I had one potential lead, but I also had a massive hole in my working theory. And what's wrong with a scarred face?! It was pretty prominent, sure. But it wasn't like I was Two Face or anything. Gah! No. Focus!

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I was reborn on Earth twenty-five years ago. Troubleshoes was reborn on Earth twenty-five years ago. This "Tess" person, who gave Lauren her ideas. She was very likely one of us, and she was born twenty-five years ago. All current evidence pointed to the curse that brought us Equestrians to Earth happening twenty-five years ago! So if that was the case, how could MLP exist in the eighties?!

I growled in frustration, feeling my temper rise. I felt a pressure build behind my eyes, and a moment later, several thin bolts of electricity sprang from my horn like it was the electrode in the centre of a plasma ball. All three laptops, the phone, the new lightbulb overhead, and all the medical monitoring equipment in the room sparked and died.

For a moment, I just sat there, stunned. Eventually I looked up and gave the remains of my horn a tentative poke. 'That's… going to be expensive, if it keeps happening.'

At least my head didn’t explode.

Nurse Redmond burst into the room a second later with a fire extinguisher. 'I heard explosions! What…' His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he surveyed the busted light, ruined electronics, and walls covered in scorch marks.

I hopped down off the bed and slipped past him, making my way out to his reception area. 'Sorry I broke your stuff. I shoot lightning from my face now. Bill me. I need to use your computer.'

'Wha… B… "Lightning?!"'

I trotted over to the reception desk, hopped up into Nurse Redmond's seat and got to googling. Bonnie Zacherle.

I swear. If she turns out to be a time traveler or something, I'm going to start thinking my life is a bad fanfiction.

~~~

Doctor Rhodes' Perspective:

'And so I made it out of the alley, jumped onto Troubleshoes' back, and we were in the clear.' Kelly waved her arms as she talked. The more we talked, the more she seemed to warm up to me. Once we had broken the ice, she had become a lot more animated. 'After all, with a blanket covering his cutie mark, and blinkers over his eyes, who could tell Troubleshoes apart from a regular horse?'

Troubleshoes chuckled. 'And who'd suspect the jockey out for a midafternoon ride was the hoodie who broke into the police station? Which I still say was a dumb move.'

'What?' Kelly threw her arms wide. 'This is twenty-first century America. How was I to know the cops didn’t have cameras everywhere?'

Troubleshoes rolled his eyes. 'Yeah. This is America, not North Korea. As many problems as we have, we're not living in a police state just yet.'

Kelly shrugged and slurped down the remains of her third cup of coffee. 'So Plan C was a bust. But I had a good feeling about Plan D. See, we were going to-'

I never did find out what "Plan D" was going to be, as Nurse Redmond chose that moment to burst in and rush over to me. 'Doctor! It's Teddy. Or, Teddy's room. Or… Sir, you're going to want to see this.'

~~~

The four of us stood, crammed into Teddy's room, gaping at the ruined electronics and scorched walls. 'How…'

Nurse Redmond scratched the back of his neck. 'She said she shoots lightning out of her face now. I wouldn't have believed it, but earlier today, I saw a bolt of electricity blow up a lightbulb. I thought the electricity came from the bulb and grounded in her horn. But now I'm thinking it was the other way around.'

I rounded on him. 'And you didn't think to tell me this?!'

He held up his hands and backed up a step. 'I gave her a once over. She seemed fine. She said she felt fine. Like I said, I thought the shock came from the light, so I had Phil fix it. I was going to mention it, but,' he nodded to Troubleshoes. 'You were busy.'

I rubbed the bridge of my nose. 'Frank. A patient getting shocked in the head is not information you just put off. Even if it turned out not to be the case. If you thought it happened, tell someone!'

Nurse Redmond backed up until he bumped into Troubleshoes. 'Right. Right. Sorry, Sir. My mistake. It won't happen again.

The look on his face made me feel instantly guilty for snapping. But even I had my limits, and I hated playing catch up. I sighed. 'Where is Teddy now?'

Nurse Redmond pointed over his shoulder. 'Using the computer at the reception desk. I think.'

Troubleshoes leaned down to whisper to Kelly. 'I wonder if she can charge phones with her face too.'

~~~

Teddy's Perspective:

I dialed Bonnie Zacherle's number on the reception desk's landline phone and set it to speaker. This felt like a long shot. Barring a few superficial similarities, G1 and G4 had nothing to do with each other. I'd be better served looking up Tess and seeing what she knew. Sigh. But a lead is a lead. No matter how tenuous.

The phone picked up. 'Hello?'

Time for my peppy voice again. 'Hello, Ms Zacherle? My name is Cameron Scott. I'm a film student at Columbia University. I'm working on my end of year project. A documentary about the history of the "My Little Pony" franchise, and I was hoping you could spare a few minutes to answer some questions?'

'I don’t really do that many interviews these days, Miss Scott.'

'I know. I realise this is an imposition, and I apologise. But I'm having trouble finding some information about the franchise's early days, and I thought, "why not go right to the source?" It would really mean a lot if you could answer just one or two questions.'

'Oh, alright. Maybe one or two.'

You know, it never really occurred to me before. But I had a pretty decent talent for bullshitting my way through a conversation. If I hadn't become a cop, I could have been a conman. Or a lawyer.

I grinned. 'Great! Then, first question. Why did you design a toyline based around ponies in the first place?'

She chuckled. 'Oh that's an old one. I joined Hasbro in 1980. I was working as an Illustrator in the Research and Design department when I thought I'd try my hand at pitching an idea. I was always fond of horses. Some of my best childhood memories were about my time around them. So I thought, "I'm sure little girls would love a line of fun horse toys."'

I frowned. It couldn't be that simple. 'And that's it? That was how the franchise started?'

'Oh, heavens no. My first pitch went over like a lead balloon. Oh they liked the idea of a line of cute animal toys for girls, but they felt my original designs were too boring. "Why horses?" They said. "Why not puppies or kittens or teddy bears?"'

'Good question. Puppies and kittens would have been an easier sell. So why persist with horses?' How do I phrase this next part? 'The designs and characters you ended up successfully pitching were certainly anything but boring. You might say, they were unique even. Did something or someone inspire you to make the change?'

There was a pause I was beginning to become familiar with. There was someone.

'As a matter of fact, there was someone. I was living in Providence at the time. My initial pitch had just been rejected. I went to a bar for a drink and a bit of a fume. I was determined to stick with the horse idea, but I had to figure out what about my designs weren't appealing.'

~~~

Providence, Rhode Island- 1981

Bonnie's Perspective:

Well. That was a bust. I sat at the bar of a little off campus place near Brown University. I could have gone somewhere more adult, but the dollar beers were worth putting up with the revolving door of jabbering students. I wasn't really in the mood to relax right now anyway.

I sipped my beer and pored over my sketches, trying to figure out where I went wrong. These were good. I knew they were. I would have bought horse toys like these as a kid. They had the whole majestic, Black Beauty thing going for them. So why would puppies and kittens be so much better? Was I really so out of touch?

A young woman flopped down on the stool next to me and flagged down the bartender. 'Hey. Applejack. Neat.'

The bartender cocked a brow. 'I.D.?'

The young woman rolled her eyes and fished a Brown University student I.D. out of her bag.

The bartender nodded and poured her drink. The second it was in front of her, she downed the whole thing in a single gulp and immediately waved for another.

'Rough day, huh?'

'Urgh! Where do they get off treating me like that?' She grabbed her fresh drink and took a gulp. 'They think just because I'm a girl they can talk over me or treat me like I'm a simpleton!'

'The people at the university?' I swiveled on my stool to face her. She was a relatively pretty girl with coppery brown hair, tanned skin, and, if looks could kill, the glare she was giving her drink would have been a war crime.

'I came up with a schematic that would allow a thirty-two bit microprocessor to be manufactured almost as cheaply as a sixteen bit processor. Revolutionary stuff. You know what they said to me when I proposed it?' She spun to face me and gave me a wide eyed, vacant grin. 'Good job, kiddo. That sounds like a neat little idea. We'll see if we can't find time to give this a once over right after we're done looking at Brad's new colour-coded keyboard.'

'Ouch. Looks like it's a bad day all around for proposals.' I sat back and took a swig of beer.

'You too?'

'Yeah. I work at Hasbro. I tried to pitch a horse-themed toy line for girls.' I waved at some of my sketches. 'They said it was boring and I should do puppies and kittens instead.'

She took my proposal and leafed through a few pages. 'They were right. These are boring.'

I frowned, feeling a spike of anger at this kid's casual dismissiveness of my work. 'Excuse me?'

She shrugged and held up one of my pictures. 'I mean, they're just horses. Kids can get horse toys anywhere, right? Isn't the whole point of proposing a new toy line that it's new. What makes these stand out from any other horse toys?'

'They were going to have brushable manes and tails.' My cheeks flushed as she snickered. 'Oh, okay. And what would you suggest?'

She looked at the picture in her hand and frowned. 'Well, have you considered making them ponies, not horses? Horses can be intimidating, but everyone likes ponies.'

I chewed it over. It wasn't a bad idea. The change would be minimal, but it would definitely broaden the appeal.

'And colour. You need more colour. I'm practically falling asleep looking at all this beige and brown. Why not throw in a little blue or pink or yellow? Give the kids a rainbow!'

I cocked a brow. 'Because horses aren't blue or pink or yellow?'

She rolled her eyes. 'They're also not made of plastic. These aren't veterinary science models, they're toys. Little girls love colour. And what do you think is going to pop more on a store shelf? A rainbow,' she held up my picture and mimed gagging. 'Or brown?'

I finished my drink and mulled it over. 'Rainbow coloured ponies. I like it.'

'Yeah. They are…' She downed the rest of her drink. 'Likable.'

I held out my hand. 'Bonnie Zacherle.'

She gave me a small smile and shook my hand. 'Sunny. Sunny Williams.'

I grinned. 'Well, Sunny. Why don't I get the next round, and you can tell me more about how I can make my proposal less boring?'

~~~

We met at the bar several more times over the next few weeks. Sunny may have been a little brash and standoffish at first, but once she started coming up with ideas, she grew more animated by orders of magnitude. And she had a lot of ideas. Not just about how the ponies should look, although, she never did like the designs I came up with, or what their names should be. But when she suggested unique marks for every pony or incorporating lore into the proposal, I contented myself to just sit back and listen in awe.

She proposed adding unicorns and pegasus ponies to the line up. She talked about what the ponies could do with magical powers. She came up with myths and legends about exotic lands and magical artifacts. About villains and curses and monsters the ponies had to contend with. Honestly, I envied her imagination. She came up with her ideas and told her stories so effortlessly, it was almost like she was reciting facts and recounting real events, rather than just making it all up.

But, she wasn't always, well, sunny. The last time I saw her, we didn't exactly end on a high note.

~~~

'What about… community structures?' We were sitting in a booth on a bright Thursday afternoon, chatting over coffee. Thanks to Sunny's help, my new proposal was almost ready to be pitched. Now it was just a matter of finessing out a few last details. 'Should they be herds, like with real ponies, or should they have more of a human social structure?'

Sunny shrugged and sipped her coffee. 'They're not wild animals. Of course they'd have social structure. There are always nobles looking down their noses at everypony just because they have wealth and titles. Probably best to stick with a small town mayor or a sheriff if you're adding a leader character. If you go with a village set up, you could design a bunch of different themed playsets that fit together. Kids'll want to collect 'em all.'

I fished out a drawing I made the night before of a regal, white pony in a ballgown, wearing a tiara. 'I was thinking more along the lines of royalty. Little girls love princesses after all, right? What do you think?'

To my surprise, Sunny slammed her mug down, causing its contents to splash all over the table. She glared down at my princess drawing like it had personally insulted her.

'Princesses. Of course. Because it always comes back to princesses and how bucking special they are.'

She shot to her feet, grabbed her bag and stormed off.

'Sunny, what's-'

'Good luck with your toys, Bonnie. I have work to do.'

~~~

Present

Teddy's Perspective:

'And that was the last I ever saw of Sunny.' Bonnie sighed over the phone. 'I don't know what I did to upset her, but she never came back to the bar again. I pitched the new toy line the next day and, well, the rest is history.'

I sat, staring at the receiver, dumbfounded. The pony's colourful appearances, the different races, the cutie marks, the lore. It all came from one person in the eighties. 'Ms Zacherle, I noticed that sometimes when you were quoting Sunny, you used words like "everypony" and "bucking." Were you embellishing or…'

'No. No I wasn't. I know, it was odd. But when Sunny got going, she slipped into these odd little… I suppose you might call them "ponyisms." It was a cute little quirk of hers I rather enjoyed.'

Sunny Williams was an Equestrian. She was an Equestrian who had full memories of Equestria and lived on Earth before the curse! I needed to find her. She was the key!

'Ms Zacherle. I don’t suppose you kept any of Sunny's contact info?'

'No, I'm afraid not. We just met at the bar. Even if I did, we've been out of touch for forty odd years. No contact details I would have had back then would be any good now.'

I sighed and rubbed my temples. 'Well thanks anyway, Ms Zacherle. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.'

'Not at all. I hope your documentary goes well.'

I hung up and stared at the ceiling. 'Sunny Williams. Who on Earth are you?'

Author's Note

If you're curious about Sunny Williams, read more about her in Alsey's fantastic 5 Score fic:
Tri-State Area Girls – a Five Score story

Interlude: Human-ish Resources

Author's Note

NOT A DEAD FIC!

Hey guys. Sorry for the HUGE wait.
Between being insanely busy at work, a whole ton of health issues, and the worst case of writers block in years, I haven't been able to devote much time to fics.

But hopefully that's all on the turn now. I'm back!

Now before we return to our regularly scheduled "Purple Horse Thinks a Lot and Monologues" show, I hope you'll indulge me this short interlude.

Interlude: Human-ish Resources

Interlude
Human-ish Resources

Mrs Henson

Present

Mrs Henson took a deep gulp of scotch. As a founding member and senior partner of Woll, Henson, and Cox, Lincoln’s largest private law firm, she thought she had seen everything, but this recent surprise update from Teddy was a paradigm shift of world-shattering proportions. If she was honest, she had hardly thought about her godson in the last two years. She made sure his bills were paid and checked in, briefly, every three or four months to make sure he was comfortable but, otherwise, he was out of sight, out of mind. To get a call from him, out of the blue, in the middle of the night was incredible enough. But then to receive the files…

She downed the last of her drink and was opening her laptop just as the other partners at the firm filed into the boardroom and took their seats. She took a deep breath and stood. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for meeting on such short notice. I know we’re all very busy, but something has come up that, I assure you, takes priority.’

The assembled board straightened up. Between them they covered all manner of top priority cases from contesting high court rulings to billion-dollar property contracts. For something to take priority over everything else was unheard of.

‘Late last night, I received a call from Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy.’

Mister Woll, the firm’s other senior partner, cocked a brow. ‘Has something happened with young Teddy? Has his condition deteriorated?’

Mrs Henson frowned. ‘That… is a very difficult question to answer, David. The call was from Teddy. He’s awake.’

A susurration of happy surprise filled the room. ‘Awake after five years in a coma? And already speaking? Sarah, that amazing news! Miraculous even!’

‘”Miraculous” is certainly one word for it.’ Mrs Henson rubbed the bridge of her nose. ‘I’ve been running around like a headless chicken since last night verifying everything Teddy has shown me and making sure news doesn’t get out.’

‘Why? What happened?’

Mrs Henson braced herself and turned on the overhead projector. ‘For the last five years, Teddy’s condition remained unchanged. Then, early on the first of this month,’ She clicked to the first slide, projecting a photo of Teddy’s bare thigh. ‘An attending orderly noticed these. An identical picture on each thigh. According to the same orderly, the marks weren’t there the night before when he was conducting his final rounds.’

‘So, someone snuck into his room in the middle of the night and tattooed his legs?’ Ms Pertwee, one of the firm’s younger partners chimed in.

‘No. Security cameras in the hall confirmed the orderly was the last one out and first one into the room. Neither time was he in there long enough to do anything. Furthermore, tests conducted by the medical staff,’ Mrs Henson clicked to the next slide showing a toxicology and bacteriology report. ‘Revealed no trace of ink, or bacterial infection.’

‘So, what,’ Mister Chang, another junior partner frowned. ‘Are you saying they just appeared? By themselves?’

Mrs Henson looked him dead in the eye. ‘Yes. And trust me, it gets stranger from there. I’m going to preface this next part by saying, I’ve had our analysts on the third floor go over this footage frame by frame. As far as they can tell, it is not CGI, nor has the footage been doctored in any detectable way. Now, it’s footage taken over the course of three days. For the sake of this meeting, I’ve sped it up to just a minute. The full, unedited footage will be made available to all of you when we conclude here. Brace yourselves.’

With another click, a timelapse video of an unconscious Teddy in his hospital room began to play. Doctors, orderlies, and technicians flitted in and out of frame. Light chased dark across the room as the days passed by. And, right before the assembled partners’ eyes, the comatose young man expanded, twisted, and changed. By the time the video stopped, a purple, vaguely horse-like thing lay where Teddy had just one minute prior.

‘What in God’s name?’

‘Has to be fake.’

‘It’s a magic trick, surely.’

Mrs Henson sat down and steepled her fingers. ‘It is, as far as our best analysts can tell, very real. And it’s backed up by hundreds of pages of doctor’s reports, lab results, and recorded testimonials that we’re still combing through. They don’t yet know how, but over the course of three days, Theodore Cox transformed into what you see before you. Yesterday, Teddy woke up. With none of the usual signs of brain damage typical of patients waking from a long coma, I might add.’

The room was silent for several seconds.

Mister Woll leaned forward. ‘Before we get to the litany of questions, I’m sure we all have, you said you spoke to him, Sarah? How did he sound?’

Mrs Henson sat back and allowed herself to relax a little. With the big bombshell dropped, they could start to get into the nitty-gritty. Any good lawyer’s comfort zone. ‘Different, in a word. I actually received a few calls from Teddy over the course of the night. When I was sceptical during the first call, he video called the second time. That’s another reason I’m sure the video you just saw was genuine. I should actually correct myself. I’ve been using male pronouns this whole time. As you’ll see in the lab results, I’ll send you all after this meeting, this strange transformation came complete with a full biological gender change. Physically, at least, “he” is now a “she.”’

Murmurs.

Ms Pertwee raised her hand. ‘How can we be sure it’s even Mister Cox? Assuming we suspend all common sense and disbelief and say that footage is genuine, isn’t it just as reasonable to assume he was replaced, rather than transformed? Like a… fungus or invasive species that consumes and replaces the host? I mean,’ she glanced around the room. ‘We’ve all seen that John Carpenter movie, right?’

Mrs Henson shrugged. ‘We can’t rule out anything yet. But, for what it’s worth, the doctors did run tests for fungi. They even flew in a leading expert on just that. All tests came back negative for any known genus of fungus. And, while he- sorry. She sounded different. Her choice of words and general mannerisms were all very “Teddy.” She even did that thing where she forgets you’re there for a moment and stares off into a corner of the room, muttering to herself as she follows a train of thought.’

‘I couldn’t help but notice the caveat, “any known genus.”’ Said Mister Woll. ‘Were you implying an unknown kind?’

‘Thank you, David. I was getting to that.’ Mrs Henson clicked to another slide showing a report covered in several red “inconclusive” stamps. ‘The doctors at the hospital have been nothing if not thorough. They even enlisted several experts in various fields ranging from toxicology to genetic engineering. Their conclusions thus far?’ She reached behind her and tapped the projection covered in “inconclusive” stamps.

‘Not only have they been unable to determine how or why this has happened, but they can’t honestly tell what Teddy is now. She bears no genetic markers of any species known to modern science. All they can say for certain is that a young, comatose man with minimal brain activity, nerve damage, and severely atrophied muscles, who needed a ventilator just to breath, is now fully conscious, perfectly cognisant, and completely healthy. Just different. Which brings me to the point of this meeting.’ Mrs Henson turned off the projector and stood.

‘Whatever else they may currently be, Theodore Cox is still our client. So, ladies and gentlemen. What do we think, and what do we do going forward?’

E.R.I.S

Early May

In a sense, it was easy to think E.R.I.S Enterprises practically ran the world. The reason it was able to do this was because the world at large didn't know the true extent of E.R.I.S.’s reach. But E.R.I.S. was the parent company to parent companies, and the major shareholder in businesses with subsidiaries all over the world. It had its fingers in everything from software development and fossil fuels to GMO's and reality TV. There were, maybe, half a dozen organisations around the world as wealthy, but none had such a diverse portfolio or network of connections.

It was also one of the most prominent U.S. military contractors, having cornered the market on non-lethal capture devices. Both for living hostiles and enemy tech, like drones or missiles. The "official" reason for this being a dead enemy can't be interrogated. A destroyed drone can't be studied and reused. Why waste the resources? The unofficial reason, for those with clearance high enough to learn it, was that the company's founder, Mister Ezekiel Reid Irving Stone, was a conspiracy theorist, utterly convinced that an alien invasion was imminent. And when it happened, he intended to capitalise on the opportunity provided.

Most wrote this off as a quirk. What rich genius didn’t have eccentricities? Alien invasion conspiracies were far from the strangest obsession one of the uber-rich could come down with.

But then April first rolled around. Multiple E.R.I.S. compounds and facilities were discretely outfitted with secure animal cages, stocked up with a ridiculous array of proprietary capture tech, and extensive medical equipment. The executive security detail were given mandatory crash courses in animal capture and containment. The IT and communications heads were tasked with monitoring all E.R.I.S. software- enabled systems for random key words and unusual activity.

Mister Bennett, head of E.R.I.S security, knew they were gearing up for something. And, on May second, he finally found out what.

'Mister Bennett!' One of the IT guys ran into the security office, his pudgy face flushed with excitement. 'We got a hit, Sir. Someone in Illinois posted on social media using seven of the listed key words and phrases!'

He grinned and thrust a sheet of paper into Mister Bennett’s hands. The security head cocked a brow as he scanned the print-out.

Hey guys, Ava here with another update. I told you yesterday, I had to cut my TWENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY party short because something weird happened. Well, more weirdness happened today. And I think I need some second opinions. While I don't remember it happening, my friends told me I spaced out for a good two minutes, right out of nowhere. Right in the middle of a conversation. I mean, I've daydreamed before. Who hasn't? But I've never completely LOST TIME. It was unnerving enough that I had to go home to calm down.

When I was getting ready for bed, I realised my mini blackout might not have been so mini. I have friggin CUTIE MARKS! Like, right out of MY LITTLE PONY! They weren't there before I blacked out. They wouldn't wash off. I have no idea where they came from. Even now, a day later, they haven't faded in the slightest. I think they're real.

I think, insane as it sounds, something MAGICAL is going on because, five minutes before making this post, I noticed my hair and eyes have begun to change colour. Right in front of me!

What the HAY is going on?! Am I CURSED, or am I just going crazy? I could really use advice here, guys.

'I don’t know.' Mister Bennett scratched his chin and reread the paper a few more times. 'This could just be one of those RP things. They're all over the internet these days.'

'Could be.' The IT guy nodded. 'But the new protocol says any more than four listed keywords or terms requires investigation. And two of the terms used in that post are flagged as top priority.'

Mister Bennett sighed and levered himself up out of his chair. 'Alright. Forward this to Stone's PA and send me the address.'

Two hours later, Mister Bennett was on a private jet to Illinois. He was a consummate professional. A six-figure salary, plus benefits, earned a lot of loyalty with few questions asked. But, Mister Bennett mused, all this nonsense about talking ponies and cutie marks and curses had him just a little curious.

~~~

As midnight struck, Mister Bennett rendezvoused with the Illinois branch of the E.R.I.S. security team. After a quick debrief, they were geared up and closing in on the address the social media post had originated from like a well-oiled machine.

It was just a normal looking house in the suburbs. Utterly unremarkable. But they had been instructed to prepare for anything.

Mister Bennett adjusted the strap on his night vision goggles, ensuring they were secure on his forehead, and flicked the safety on his shotgun. 'Everyone in position?'

A round of affirmatives.

'Safeties off. Lead with electroshock rounds, then the sedatives. Subdue and bag anyone in the house. I want us in and out in ninety seconds. Caldwell, cut the power to the block in three, two, one.' As one, the E.R.I.S security team pulled their night vision goggles into place and closed in on the house.

Mister Bennett led the assault, booting down the front door and making a beeline for the living room while the rest of the team fanned out to cover everywhere else. The second he entered the room, a woman rose, and barely had time to turn when an electroshock slug was unloaded right into her centre of mass. She didn't even get a chance to make a sound.

Mister Bennett had stuck her with a medical grade tranquiliser, secured her hands and covered her head with a heavy canvas bag by the time the rest of the team returned, sixty seconds later, carrying a bound male.

'Clear?'

'Clear.'

Mister Bennett shouldered the woman and nodded. 'Move out. Caldwell, give us twenty seconds, then restore the power.'

The security team poured out of the house and closed the door. Twenty seconds later power returned to the lazy suburb, and all was quiet, as though nothing had happened at all.

Mister Bennett took a deep breath and braced himself. An off-the-books stealth op was child’s play. Now came the hard part. He had to call Mister Stone.

~~~

Mister Stone was a man made of edges. A sharp, hooked nose, an angular jaw, with slightly pointed ears gave him a bird-like, almost inhuman profile. His neatly pressed and expertly tailored suit accentuated his skeletal frame, and his long, bony hands always seemed to have more joints than they should. Those who saw him for the first time often mistook him for a frail old man. As if a stiff breeze could knock him off his feet, and he’d shatter like glass. But then they looked into his eyes. His gray and green, mismatched eyes burned with a manic energy that immediately quelled any doubt that this was a man to be respected and feared.

‘Are you sure, Mister Bennett? You’ve confirmed?’ Mister Stone reclined in his plush office chair as he listened to the voice on the phone, absentmindedly gazing out at the late-night New York skyline far below. The E.R.I.S Enterprises home office was eighty-nine floors of constant, buzzing activity. Hundreds of employees making thousands of billion-dollar decisions that affected millions of lives and livelihoods across the world. But the ninetieth floor? The ninetieth floor was all Mister Stone’s. His own little castle on the mountain. Only those with express permission were authorised to disturb the boss’s tranquility. And even then, only when unavoidably necessary.

‘Wonderful. Detain the specimen and dispose of the extra. I don’t care. If his silence can be bought, do so. If not, plant something in his home and call the authorities. I hear Guantanamo’s lovely this time of year. I’ll be there before dawn.’ Mister Stone hung up. He smirked. ‘And so, it begins.’

He spun in his chair and hit the intercom on his desk. ‘Ms Paloma, what are our holdings in Illinois?’

A curt female voice answered through the crackling speaker. ‘We currently own a steel mill, a chemical factory, and are majority stockholders in three companies that produce parts for various electronics. There’s also the mom-and-pop bakery you bought out six years ago on your birthday, sir.’

‘Ah yes, the one with those delectable fudge cookies.’ Mister Stone chuckled to himself. ‘Did we ever get the recipe for those?’

‘Yes sir. I had legal copyright the recipe as soon as the Goodwins turned it over to us.’

‘Excellent. Have the bakery liquidated and pass the recipe on to the factory in Boston. I want those cookies on store shelves by the end of the month. Oh, and Ms Paloma?’

‘Sir?’

‘I suddenly find myself with the desire to inspect our Illinois assets. Arrange a flight for me, would you? I leave immediately.’

‘Right away, Sir.’

Mister Stone sat back and sighed. They really were mouth watering cookies. But, if his security forces had made good, what was waiting for him in Illinois was going to be a treat far more worthy of savouring.

~~~

As the fog of unconsciousness lifted, the first thing Ava noticed was the throbbing in her head. Her entire body ached. She was laying on, what felt like, bare concrete. When she tried and failed to sit up, a jolt of panic shot through her chest. Her legs were bound, and her hands were zip tied behind her back. ‘Wh-what?!’

She snapped her eyes open, only to immediately screw them shut again as bright, artificial light assaulted her raw senses.

‘Sir, she’s awake.’

Ava froze as a deep, male voice cut through the quiet. At the sound of approaching footsteps, she tried opening her eyes again.

‘”It,” Mister Bennett, not “she.” The specimen ceased to be human the moment it began to turn.’

Ava’s bleary vision came into focus just in time to meet the burning, mismatched gaze of a skeletal man, flanked by a pair of large men in riot gear, grinning down at her. Something about the man’s eyes chilled her to the bone.

‘What’s going on?’ Straining her muscles, Ava struggled into a sitting position. Her gaze darted about, assessing her surroundings. She was in, what appeared to be, a large dog cage, securely bolted to the floor in a windowless, concrete room full of similar cages. The only source of light was the harsh LED lights overhead. ‘Who are you people?!’

The skeletal man crouched down and squinted at her like he was scrutinizing a painting. ‘Hmmm… Yes, the eyes have changed already. And the hair is just beginning to, as well.’

His knobbly knees crackled as he levered himself, with an ornate cane, back into a standing position. ‘Excellent work, Mister Bennett. You and your team are to be commended. No doubt we’ll have plenty more specimens in these coming weeks. Oh, have you dealt with the extra?’

‘Yes, Sir.’ The older of the two armoured men nodded. ‘He won’t be a problem. In anticipation of similar collaborators going forward, we’ve manufactured a terrorist organisation and sufficient paraphernalia to tie them to it. By your leave, we mean to bomb a few of our low-profit subsidiaries to sell the cover.’

The skeletal man clapped his hands together. ‘Wonderful! I know just the bakery you can start with.’

Ava’s heart sank as she listened to the two men. ‘Wait. “Extra?” Sam! What have you done to my brother, you psychos?! Stop ignoring me!’

She gulped as the grin vanished from the skeletal man’s face and he turned to her. His glare burned a hole straight through the righteous anger she had been building. ‘I’d be more concerned for yourself, creature. Your time with us can go any number of ways. And, trust me, some are far less pleasant than others.’

‘What do you want with me?’

His smirk returned. ‘Why, money, of course.’

‘You’re traffickers?! Oh god. Please. Please just let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I swear!’

‘”Traffickers?” Oh, don’t be so pretentious.’ The skeletal man rolled his eyes. ‘“Traffickers” implies humans. I run a respectable business, thank you very much.’

‘But you-‘

The skeletal man cut Ava off by snarling and striking the bars of her cage with his cane, causing her to yelp and fall over again. ‘Let me be perfectly clear, creature. You are no longer human. In a few days, you won’t even look like anything on this earth. You have no rights. You are mine to do with as I please. The value of your existence, from this day forward will be measured in how much profit I can squeeze out of you. How I choose to do that, depends, in no small part, on how you behave.’

He stepped back and sighed, a placid smile settling on his face. ‘So, get comfortable. You’re home now.’

With that, the skeletal man spun on his heel and strode for the exit, followed by the armoured men. ‘Mister Bennett, I want all of these cages filled within the week. I expect a high turnover.’

When the men had left the room and their footsteps had faded into the distance, Ava curled into a ball and sobbed.

That Escalated Quickly

Chapter One

That Escalated Quickly

What’s the weirdest thing to ever happen to you? Go ahead. Take a minute to think about it. Got something? Well whatever it is, I bet I can top it. My name is Theodore Cox. Yes, really. But, please, call me Teddy. So this has been my day. It was Saturday morning. I woke up early to see the series finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Yeah, I know. A twenty year old dude should have better things to do than watching a cartoon for little girls. But work was really stressful and I needed some light hearted escapism. Get off my back! I watched the finale, and, against all my expectations, it sucked! Where the heck did the Discord heel turn come from?! There was no foreshadowing or build up. Talk about tripping on the home stretch. Anyway, it left a bad taste in my mouth, so I decided to get some fresh air and take a run.

Now, you’d expect Saturday morning in Lincoln, Nebraska to be safe as houses, especially for a big guy in fighting shape. But, funny thing, cars didn’t care if you did MMA or not. I didn’t make it half a mile from my front door when some idiot, probably driving home after an all-night bender, jumped the curb and hit me at forty miles an hour! My head collided with his windshield and the lights went out.

Then things started to go downhill.

~~~

I didn’t like going into towns. Too crowded. I preferred my own company. Alone I, at least, didn’t have to endure the constant staring, the looks of pity, the judgement. I didn’t need anypony.

I was training in the Badlands when the skies went red. Creatures I couldn’t even begin to describe dropped down from the clouds and crawled up from the fissures in the parched earth. Swarms of them as far as the eye could see. If I strained my ears, I could just hear ponies screaming in Dodge Junction. Of course they were. Ponies panicked. They lost their minds and ran around like headless chickens when they were scared.

Some of the things saw me and turned my way. I didn’t run. I swore to myself, years ago, that I would never be weak. I would never be afraid. Never again. So I attacked.

As they descended on me, what was left of my horn erupted in a cascade of lightning. I spun, kicked, jumped, threw, bit. No matter how many I put down, they just kept coming. Explosions erupted from the volcano I was camping at the base of, but I didn’t care. I lost all sense of time as my world became a blur of claws, teeth, barbed tentacles, and the pain of a thousand glancing blows. I would not die here. Not today.

I finally got a reprieve when something, some inaudible signal, caught my foe’s collective attention and drew them away. Just like that. As though I were beneath their notice. I would have pursued and finished them off, but I was at my limit. The sun was halfway across the sky from where I remembered it being. My muscles ached, my lungs burned, my coat was matted in the blood of a thousand tiny cuts, and my skull felt like it was splitting open from overuse of my undirected magic. I collapsed. I was just going to lay down. Just for a minute. Just until I had caught my breath.

A mare’s ear splitting scream cut through the brief stillness.

I lifted my head. That was close. The top of the volcano. Damn it!

Ignoring my body’s protests, I hauled myself back to my hooves and limped towards the screaming. I could hear voices now. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. One was male. He was laughing. I picked up the pace. After an interminable hike up the rocky incline that felt like it grew steeper with each step, I finally reached the top. What greeted me made my blood run cold. Dozens of the things swarmed about, picking through dented and broken royal guard armour. Armour devoid of wearers. In the middle of it all, cackling over the volcano’s lip, was a bizarre hodgepodge of a creature the other monsters were giving a wide berth.

I stumbled as my legs almost gave way from under me. The creature froze. It keeled over backwards. It was… flat? Like a cardboard cut-out. I took one step forward when a flash of white light right in my face made me fall backwards onto my rump and temporarily blinded me.

‘Well, what do we have here?’

I snarled, rubbed my eyes, and tried to will away the spots dancing across my vision.

‘Of all ponies, I didn’t expect to run into you. Not here, at least. Sorry you won’t get to do the movie. Emily Blunt would have been a waste of budget anyway.’

‘What?’

A large, taloned claw gripped my muzzle and forced my head up.

'Open up your eyes.'

I did. The creature’s weird, asymmetrical face was inches from mine. I vaguely recognised him as Discord. Celestia’s pet monster. His eyes were manic. I recognised that look. It was the look of a predator who had just caught its prey. ‘Let's have some fu-'

I screwed my eyes shut. I felt nauseous as pain flooded my skull. I summoned up the last vestiges of my undirectable magic, and let loose one last cascade of lightning. Discord yelped and jumped back, letting go of my muzzle. I couldn’t fight. I wouldn’t run. But I wouldn’t make it easy for him. I fell backwards, and the world went black.

~~~

A steady beeping was the first thing that made me realise I was returning to consciousness. Or, wait, when did I lose consciousness? Was I in the Badlands or… No. That was a dream. Wasn’t it? More noise. Voices?

‘Brain activity’s rising. They’re awake!’

‘Theodore? Theodore, can you hear me?’

‘Mmm… Names… Teddy…’ My mouth felt weird. Like it was too big.

‘Teddy. Can you open your eyes?’

Good question. Everything felt… weird. Off. I couldn’t feel my hands. I couldn’t feel my feet. Was I hurt? Oh yeah. The car. Celestia, what a shitty day. First the shitty finale, then the shitty driver hitting me with his shitty car, then being attacked by shitty monsters… Wait.

After taking a good long moment to remember how, I cracked my eyes open, only to have a light shone in them one after the other. ‘Urgh… Stop.’

I was slowly, but surely regaining my senses. When the light stopped blinding me, I realised I was in some sort of plush hospital room. The person talking to me was a middle aged bald man, with an impressive handlebar moustache, wearing a white coat. A doctor. Actually, I glanced around, there were a lot of doctors crammed in here.

‘Pupils responsive. Teddy?’ The middle aged doctor called my attention back to him. ‘Can you tell me your full name?’

‘Mmm… Full name sucks.’

He held up three fingers. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’

‘Three.’

‘Are you in pain? Experiencing any dizziness, blurred vision, or nausea?’

I groaned and tried to shift my weight. ‘No pain. Feel strange. Can’t feel my hands.’

The doctors in the room all shared glances. Something was very wrong. The middle aged doctor turned to the others. ‘Could you give us the room for a moment? Thank you.’

The other doctors packed up their things and filed out, leaving me alone with the middle aged doctor. He pocketed his pen light and leaned forward. ‘Teddy, what’s the last thing you remember?’

‘Car hitting me. Does… does my voice sound funny?’

‘Teddy… My name is Doctor Rhodes. You’re in Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy, a private healthcare clinic for people with long term illnesses. There’s… no easy way to tell you this. Teddy, you’ve been in a coma.’

My ears perked up. ‘What?! For how long?’

‘A little over five years.’

I laid back and stared at the ceiling. Five. Years. Because of some reckless idiot, I missed five years of my life. I’d have lost my job. What happened to my house? Damn.

‘Once you were cleared to leave A&E, in lieu of next of kin, your family lawyers arranged for you to be moved here for long-term care. You’ve been here ever since.’

‘Am I paralyzed? I feel… weird.’

Doctor Rhodes leaned back and rubbed a hand down his face. I suddenly noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the creeping five o’clock shadow, the undone tie, and the crumpled shirt. This was a man running on fumes. ‘About that. Teddy, something happened. Something we can’t… You noticed all the doctors?’

I nodded. ‘Seemed a tad excessive for a coma patient.’

‘They weren’t here because you were in a coma. They were specialists we flew in from all over the country. We’ve been monitoring you around the clock for the last eight days.’

I was almost afraid to ask. ‘Why?’

Doctor Rhodes levered himself out of his chair, walked over to a counter at the far side of the room, and returned clutching a hand mirror. ‘There’s no easy way to tell you this, so… brace yourself.’

He held the mirror up to my face. Whatever I was anticipating, whatever sickness, or grizzly disfigurement… it wasn’t this. Staring back at me wasn’t my own face. It was a pony. Just like the ones from the cartoon, but real. I could count every hair in its unnatural, purple coat, I could see its face reflected back again in it’s too-large, blue eyes. When I moved my head from side to side, the pony moved theirs in kind. Trembling, I looked down at the hands I knew, in my gut, wouldn’t be there. ‘I’m… I’m still dreaming. Aren’t I?’

‘I wish I could say yes.’

‘How?’

‘I sincerely wish I knew.’ The doctor left the mirror on the bed and flopped back into his chair. He rubbed his eyes and sniffed. ‘Eight days ago, Nurse Redmond was giving you your usual sponge bath when he noticed strange markings had appeared on your legs. We thought they were tattoos. Maybe someone had snuck in overnight. But they weren’t. Tests showed the skin was perfectly healthy. No traces of ink or perforation. That would have been odd enough. But the next day your hair started to change colour and grow at an impossible rate. Then your eyes changed, then your ears… You only stabilised on Monday morning.’

‘”Stabilised.” Like this?’ I clopped my hooves together in morbid fascination.

‘We’ve been watching you constantly. Recording every second. We’ve run every test we could think of. We’ve had haematologists, geneticists, biochemists, bacteriologists, epidemiologists, gynaecologists, even a veterinarian come in to examine you. All we’ve been able to determine is that you appear to have become, more or less, equine in nature, you don’t seem to be contagious, and, as of now, your genes no longer match any known creature on Earth.’

I blinked. For a good minute or so I just stared off into space.

‘Teddy?’

I blinked. ‘…”gynaecologists?”’

‘Yes.’ He shuffled, suddenly awkward in his seat. ‘Amongst the… other changes, you appear to have undergone a complete sex change.’

I blinked. I blinked again.

‘Teddy?’

I did the only logical thing I could do following such an information dump. I fainted.

~~~

I opened my eyes. Wind whistled past my ears. I felt weightless. Clouds were falling away from me. Was I flying? I tried to turn to get a look at where I was going, only for my side to explode in pain as I hit something very solid.

I yelped as I felt my ribs crack and the air forced from my lungs.

I bounced and landed, hard, again on the incline of the volcano. I bounced, tumbled, and rolled as my momentum carried me down. Every time my wounded body made contact with the rocky earth, I was assailed by lances of white hot pain. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't breathe.

Eventually, mercifully, I slid to a stop, a limp heap. I mewled a pathetic whimper. All my battered lungs allowed.

'A shame. You would have made a wonderful minion.' I looked up and willed the world to stop spinning as Discord approached. 'All that delightfully twisted bitterness and anger bubbling inside. Delicious! But I can't have a minion who doesn't know her place. Sooo…'

He grabbed me by what was left of my horn and lifted me into the air. I bit back a cry of pain and tried to struggle free, but I was too weak, and his grip was like a vice.

'I think you need a timeout to ruminate. Let's put a pin in this and come back to it in, oh, a quarter century or so?'

I tried to spit in his face, but the second it left my mouth, the saliva turned into a butterfly and fluttered off.

A malevolent grin stretched across Discord's face.'You know, I think I'm getting the hang of this by now. I'd tell you to brace yourself, but let's face it, that won't help in the slightest.'

I tried to shock him again, but the few pitiful sparks I was able to produce just turned to confetti.

'For Five Score! Divided by Four!

Your memories removed, your body confused!

For your insolence you must pay,

Cast off to a land far far away!

To scatter the six, just the start of my tricks!

Your mind shall be weak, your outlooks all bleak!

Forget everything and live like a fool,

You’ve lost, ponies! None can stop my rule.'

The world went white. My bones twisted, my muscles seized, every nerve in my body felt like it was on fire. This time, I did scream.

~~~

After I had woken up from my second bout of involuntary unconsciousness, I got started on my, surprisingly, full schedule. First, a full physical from Doctor Rhodes and, to my slight chagrin, the vet, Doctor Herdman. Next was physical therapy. That was fun. As if learning to walk again after a five year coma wasn’t challenging enough. Learning how to walk again on all fours, in a new body was a whole other challenge.

A strange thing about this new body. After years in a coma, my muscles had, according to the doctor, atrophied terribly. But following my transformation, those same muscles, despite being differently shaped, were perfectly healthy. Strong even. That didn’t stop them aching from disuse.

'When you're done here, you have a small battery of tests with Doctors Fineman and Fitzsimmons. Then you have counseling with Doctor Ulv.'

I winced as a massive charley horse, heh, flared up in my right leg. Wait, I was nothing but legs at this point. My right hind leg. I fell back on my haunches to try and massage it out. The unfamiliar position felt surprisingly natural. 'Hey, Doc, think I could get some more pain meds? I'm kinda aching all over here.'

'Afraid not, Teddy.' Doctor Rhodes put away the clipboard he'd been scribbling on, and walked over to check my bandages. 'Your next meds aren't scheduled for another two hours. What you're feeling right now is perfectly normal.'

I moaned. He was right. I just needed to suck it up and work through the pain, like I always did. Didn’t mean I had to like it. 'You suck.'

'You'll thank me later.'

I stood back up and limped the ten thousand miles to the full length mirror on the other side of the room. I hissed and flopped back down on my rump.

I stared at my reflection. This was the first time I had gotten a proper look at all of me. I really was a dark purple pony mare. My pink mane and tail, because yes, I had a tail, were shorter than most mares in the show seemed to wear them. While I had no real world frame of reference to compare to, I seemed taller than average. I had a lean, almost willowy build, closer to Princess Cadence or Fleur De Lis than the infinitely recoloured basic base shape of most mares. But, I wasn't as soft as I appeared. Every inch of me was lean muscle, like bundled steel cables.

I was wearing a hospital gown, backwards so it draped over my back like a blanket. I was sorely tempted to hike it up to get a look at the cutie marks the doctors assured me were there, but that seemed a little inappropriate to do in company. Later though.

My new face fascinated me. I was still struggling with the cognitive dissonance of this being my face. It wasn't exactly what I would have called "pretty," but I, maybe, could have conceded to calling it handsome.

What caught my attention most, however, were the marred features. A nasty scar ran down over my right eye, and something that looked like it was supposed to have been a unicorn horn, but ended up as nothing more than a jagged stump, sprouted from my forehead. My stomach roiled at the thought of my horn shattering.

I gave it a tentative poke. 'Hey, Doc. Where's the rest of this?'

Doctor Rhodes frowned. 'What do you mean?'

I turned to him and pointed to my stump. 'This. My horn. It looks like it broke. Where's the rest of it? Couldn't it be reset?'

'I don't know what you mean, Teddy. That growth began appearing a little after midnight on the second day of your change, but once it reached the point you see it now, it stopped. There is no "rest" of it.'

I turned back to my reflection and poked my stump again. 'Curiouser and curiouser.'

Doctor Rhodes rested a hand on my back. 'We can talk more about that later. For now, come on. Doctor Fineman and Doctor Fitzsimmons are waiting. We have to get their tests out of the way before your counseling session.'

I groaned and stood up. 'More tests? Come on, Doc. I just woke up. Haven't you guys been running tests all week?'

'We're in entirely uncharted waters, Teddy. We're going to have to run as many tests as needed until we can figure this out.'

I was afraid of that. A creeping dread ran through me as I raised my gaze to the exit sign above the door. I tried to keep my voice even. 'Level with me, Doc. Just how much trouble am I in?'

He raised a brow. '"Trouble?"'

'I may have just woken up from a coma, Doc. But I'm not an idiot.' I closed my eyes and lowered my head. 'A guy spontaneously shapeshifts into a purple, talking, horse thing whose DNA matches no known life forms? We're in a private facility full to bursting with doctors and "specialists" who have been running test after test on me, nonstop, since this started. Is this like… an "Area 51" deal? Am… Am I going to get dissected?'

Doctor Rhodes' eyes bugged out in horror and he waved his hands. 'What?! No! Of course not!'

I looked up into his eyes, my gaze level. 'Then tell me. If I decided to walk out that door, right now. If I decided to leave. Would I be allowed to?'

'Teddy. That isn't a good-'

'Would I,' I snapped. 'Be allowed to leave if I chose to?'

'Let's… Let's get some coffee.'

He brought over my wheelchair. I snorted and rolled my eyes, but clambered up into the seat as he held it steady. He brought me to a small break room and poured us two cups of coffee. I stayed silent until he decided to speak. 'Teddy, the reason you've seen nothing but doctors here is because, as soon as we realized your condition was progressing, we moved all the other patients in this ward to different wards. We've been in full medical quarantine ever since. None of us have left since this started.'

I cocked a brow. 'None of you? Even the ones that flew in?'

'No. In fact, even within this quarantined area, we only stopped wearing full body PPE as of the day before you woke up.'

'Because I'm not contagious.'

Doctor Rhodes inclined his mug towards me. 'Because none of the tests we could think to conduct indicated you were contagious. Important distinction. Since your DNA matches nothing on Earth and this… metamorphosis is unlike anything ever seen in science, we just can't be sure. For all we know you are contagious and we just have no idea how to detect it.'

I tapped the table. 'But that makes no sense. How long did this change take? Start to finish.'

'Well we can only go from when Nurse Redmond noticed the marks on your legs. But our best estimate? A little over three days.'

'And how long since it started?'

'This would be day nine.'

'Ha!' I pointed a hoof at him. 'There, see? If I was contagious, don't you think you or the other doctors, or even Nurse Redmond would be showing signs by now?'

He scratched his mustache. 'Not necessarily. Not every disease or infection reacts the same. Some can lay dormant. HIV or rabies, for example, can lay dormant for years before the carrier shows any symptoms. For all we know, you could have contracted whatever this is before your accident, and it's only just now completed its incubation period.'

I felt my ears perk forward.'Come on, Doc. I've never done drugs in my life. I live in Lincoln, for pity's sake. Do you really think that's the case?'

Doctor Rhodes took a loud slurp of his coffee and leaned back. 'I don't know. We don't know. That's the point. We need to keep testing until we have answers. Until then, the quarantine stays in place. I hope you understand. This is for everyone's good. Including yours.'

It made sense. It did. But it didn't make me feel like less of a lab rat in a cage.

I reached for my coffee, only to knock it over with my sledgehammer of a hoof. 'Damn it!'

'It’s okay. It's okay.' Doctor Rhodes jumped up and grabbed a wad of paper towels from the dispenser on the wall. 'Accidents happen.'

'Doc. I'm… Could we skip all the rest of the stuff for today? I think I really need time to just… be alone and process.'

He gave me a sad, appraising look. 'Teddy, these tests are important.'

'Doc. I'm done for today.'

He sighed. 'Alright. I understand. I'll take you back to your room.'

Leaving the mugs and the mess where they were, we headed back to my room. Waiting for me on a tray was a glass of water with a straw, bowls of, what I thought were porridge and applesauce, and a laptop.

As Doctor Rhodes helped me up into the bed, he nodded at the laptop. 'We figured you'd want to catch up on what you've missed.'

I chuckled. 'People still use laptops? Here I was expecting brain implants.'

'It’s been five years, not fifty, smartass.'

I looked down at my hooves, then at the tiny keys on the laptop. 'Um, as nice a sentiment as this is, I see a problem.' I waved my hooves at him. 'You don't happen to have a keyboard with six inch keys, do you?'

It was his turn to chuckle. 'No, but I do have these.' He pulled a pair of small straps from his pocket and secured one around each of my forehooves. 'They're called universal cuffs. Some of our other patients have conditions that cost them the use of their hands, like severe osteoarthritis or progressive Parkinson's disease.'

He pulled a pair of pens out of his breast pocket and slipped them into little pockets in the straps. 'These allow them to use pens, cutlery, a stylus, you name it. There. You're good to go.'

'Huh.' I used the pens to give the laptop keys a few experimental clicks. 'That's handy.'

Doctor Rhodes patted me on the back. 'Relax, do a little web surfing, eat your dinner. Process. Someone will be by to check in on you later and I'll see you in the morning, okay?'

'Yeah. Thanks, Doc.'

With a last nod, Doctor Rhodes left the room and closed the door behind him.

I sighed. Alone at last. Finally, I could hear myself think. I booted up the web browser. I was sure the doctors were doing their best, but I was going to get to the bottom of this myself.